Page 6 of The Quiet Rebuild

Taylor’s head began to spin. But for more than three hours, they were in her hotel room, making her feel increasingly insane. And when they finally left, they blocked all social media from her phone so that she didn’t interact with anything relating to herself and what she’d done.

“I don’t understand,” she muttered as they left. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“What happened doesn’t matter,” Maddie said with a shrug. “What matters is how the world sees it. What matters is how we spin it.”

When they left, Taylor lay on her white bed, still wearing her robe. Her hair was in a messy bun that was really more of a tangle on her head. She stared at her phone screen, daring someone to call her about the video. But nobody did.

It was then she realized she hadn’t heard from Jason all day. It was now nearly one in the afternoon in Tokyo, which meant that Jason was probably awake or nearly awake over in Paris. Had he seen the video yet? She shivered, then called his number. All she wanted in the world was to hear his voice in her ear again. All she wanted was for him to say, “Come on, baby. We’ve been through worse than this. And it’s really great, what you did, because it shows that you actually care about art. You actually care about the words on the page. That screenplay wasn’t good enough for you or for anyone! Do you know how rare that is in this business?”

She knew she was right! She had to be right!

But as one hour drifted to two and then three, Taylor’s mind began to play tricks on her. After calling Jason, after texting him, shouldn’t he have at least acknowledged her by now? Maybe his assistant had told him about the video, and maybe he and his assistant were talking about how Jason should handle it. But that didn’t mean that he could ignore his wife, his beloved, through that. Taylor felt panicked and bloated. She both needed to eat and couldn’t imagine it. Eventually, she called a nearby ramen place and had them deliver an enormous bowl of soup, which she let grow lukewarm on the counter. She couldn’t imagine putting any of it in her mouth.

That night, Taylor tried and failed to sleep. She was twisted up in anger and fear, and despite the air conditioner on full blast, she sweated through her sheets.

When she got up the following morning, she called Mandy to check on things. “What’s going on?” she demanded. “How’s the strategy going?”

“It’s slow going,” Mandy said. “But it’s all a part of it. We can’t hit people over the head with something they can’t yet believe in. It has to be organic! They have to ride the wave, and you have to ride it along with them. It sucks, but it’s good that you’re not online, right? Isn’t that freeing?”

Taylor squeezed her eyes shut and told herself not to panic. “I need to get out of town,” she said. “Or, I mean. I need to talk to the director?” Maybe she could fix this rather than run away from it.

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Mandy said. “I have to go. Ciao.”

Before Taylor could stop herself, she called her travel agent and arranged for a private plane to take her from Tokyo to Paris. She wanted to leave by that afternoon. She threw everything she’d brought with her into two suitcases, then put on a hooded sweatshirt so that nobody would recognize her on her way to the waiting taxi outside. Once inside, she pulled off the hood and felt tears trailing down her cheeks. She’d thought she would be in Tokyo till at least November, when Jason had planned to meet her here for a little vacation. She’d imagined them celebrating their accomplishments here. She’d failed herself—and him.

But thank goodness, a private plane waited for her at the airport.

The pilot on board was Japanese and introduced himself in a perfect American accent, explaining that he’d perfected his English by watching Taylor’s first sitcoms. Taylor wore a plastic smile and told him how nice that was to hear.

“Really, I had the biggest crush on you,” the pilot said, laughing. “We all did. My brothers and me.”

Taylor’s heart soured. She sat in the luxurious seat, not so far from the cockpit, and let her smile drop. The pilot seemed to get the hint. He launched into what she needed to know about the following flight from Tokyo to Paris, explaining that it would take fifteen hours. Because they were seven hours ahead of Paris and the flight was fifteen hours long, they would arrive in the evening of today and the morning of tomorrow. Taylor blinked at him. She wanted to ask him if he thought she was stupid. She understood how time zones worked.

Maybe, she thought, he did think she was stupid. Maybe he thought she was a washed-up actress from a couple of sitcoms he’d watched when he was younger and dumber, before he flew expensive private planes around the world. She put on her eye mask, then ripped it off as soon as the plane took off, heading for the minibar to pour herself a glass of wine.

Taylor remembered the first time she’d flown on a private plane. It had been the early 2000s, between two sitcoms, and she and Jason had decided to go to Mexico—alone, away from the prying eyes of fans and paparazzi. There had been a shift in paparazzi activity around that time, driven by rabid obsessions with Britney Spears and other pop stars. Although Taylor and Jason had never suffered as much as Britney, they’d had their fair share of attention.

When Taylor and Jason got on that first private plane, they kissed till they were giddy, then looked out the window, watching as Mexico came closer and closer. When they landed, they took a private car straight to the beach, where they drank margaritas and talked about the future babies they would have.

Now, more than twenty years after that first private plane, Taylor sat in the sky and drank wine by herself. She considered what would happen when she landed in Paris. She imagined that Jason had already tried to call her, that he was rabid with fear about what had befallen her. After all, she hadn’t told anyone about her plane, save for her travel agent. She wondered what her marketing think tank was up to—the Australian and the American and the Japanese man. Had they solved her make-believe problems yet? She laughed at them and at herself. None of it meant anything. And maybe it was better that she was off the movie, at this rate.

Maybe it was good that people saw her as a writing snob! Maybe a better indie director would reach out to her. It wasn’t that money was an issue for her. She’d made all her money in the late nineties and early to mid-’00s, and she’d invested wisely and would never have to struggle again. It wasn’t about money. It was about making something that mattered. It was about showing off and using her talent.

When the flight landed in Paris, it was raining. Taylor sat glumly, waiting for the pilot to tell her it was time to disembark. Apparently, they had a long time to wait. She turned on her phone, fully expecting numerous texts and calls from Jason, but there were none. A sour feeling overtook her stomach. She probably should have put more into it than white wine and crackers.

“Enjoy Paris!” the pilot said as she walked down the little staircase, drawing an umbrella over her head. The rain pattered gently on the fabric. The temperature was maybe sixty-two, nowhere near as hot as it had been in Tokyo, and a shiver went through her. She couldn’t wait to snuggle into Jason’s bed. She couldn’t wait to watch bad films with him, to laugh with him about all the things they couldn’t change. “We never had kids,” she’d say, trying to laugh, “but we’ve had so many good times. We’ve had the best and most loving marriage.”

With her suitcases in front of her outside the airport, Taylor waved down a taxi, then watched as the driver slid her things into the back. He didn’t seem to recognize her. That, or he didn’t care. She gave him the address of Jason’s hotel, which was a swanky one not far from the Louvre, and he gave her a look that meant, Oh, you’re one of those ritzy people. But she just smiled back. She was one of those ritzy people. She hadn’t been as a kid. But she’d become one. She’d worked hard. She’d given away her heart and mind and spirit.

At the hotel, the taxi driver removed her suitcases and took her cash, thanking her in both French and English. Taylor had had to learn French for a role, and she brought a smile to his face with a simple joke. The rain picked up, and she pulled her suitcases under the overhang and watched the driver pull out and turn the corner. For some reason, although she knew Jason was either upstairs or coming home after set, panic laced her heart.

A problem she had, of course, was that she didn’t know Jason’s hotel number and therefore couldn’t surprise him properly. She’d have to bribe someone at the front desk. Smiling like the movie star she was (okay, television star), she walked up to the concierge and said, “Good evening. My name is Taylor Charron, and I’m here to surprise my husband Jason Clapton. The only problem is, I don’t know his room number. Could you help me?” She reached into her wallet and pulled out a fifty-euro bill.

The concierge was a woman in her fifties wearing a form-fitting suit. She sniffed and looked at the fifty-euro bill as if it were beneath her.

“Married to Jason Clapton?” she asked.

“Yes, that’s right.” Taylor had the idiotic idea of showing numerous online photographs of herself and her husband together, including those from their wedding day. But that was beneath her.