Page 4 of Under the Stars

By now the ferry’s maneuvered out of the dock and churns steadily toward the mouth of the river, a mile or so away. To my left lie the docks and boat hangars of Groton— Submarine Capital of the World! beamed the sign on the interstate.

“Of the world ?” I said to Meredith, as we drove past. “Really?”

“Honeybee, didn’t they teach you anything at that school? That’s where the government built all their disgusting nuclear submarines. We used to watch them launch when I was a kid. They went right past us on the way to the ocean.” She blew a cloud of vape smoke out the window. “Fascist pigs.”

“At the risk of sounding fascist, Meredith, I’m pretty sure the Soviets were launching a few of their own. Plus, they had the gulag.”

She rolled the window back up. “Don’t believe everything you hear about the gulag,” she said.

Now I squint at the buildings gliding to port.

A giant white hangar dominates the shore, easily large enough to disguise a full-size nuclear submarine under construction, although (to be fair) equally capable of growing the world’s largest crop of weed.

Not a submarine in sight—but then, there wouldn’t be, would there?

Nearing the headlands now. Woods replace the buildings.

Some elderly cottages perch on the shore and on the archipelago of miniature islands hopscotching out to sea.

A small plane appears over the treetops, taking off from some unseen airport.

The river widens before me and the wind kicks up.

In the distance, a little to the left, the long, dark spine of an island comes into view, furred with trees.

A tiny lighthouse sticks up from the water off its western end, like the tip of a sea serpent’s tail.

Winthrop Island.

According to Meredith, I was conceived there in the summer of 1993, and the circumstantial evidence suggests she’s telling the truth.

While I haven’t seen my dad since I was three years old, he sends me checks on birthdays and Christmases—never misses one, to his credit—and the postmark is always the same: Winthrop Island, New York.

I looked on the map once and asked Meredith, Why New York? Winthrop’s tucked right up under the Connecticut shore like a whale calf, whereas Long Island lies some distance to the south.

No idea, she told me, but the kids in Connecticut did not object.

Back in the seventies and early eighties, before the highway act, they would pile into their boats from Mystic and Stonington and sail to Winthrop Island, where the drinking age was only eighteen and the bar at the Mohegan Inn stayed open until three in the morning.

I lean forward on the railing to gauge the distance from shore to Winthrop Island. On a map, it’s not so far—maybe three or four miles, depending on where you launch and where you land. An easy hop, I guess, in daylight and in good conditions.

If you picture a bunch of drunk kids navigating back home in their dinghies across this moat at three in the morning, though, it starts to look a little more sketchy.

Especially if a storm kicks up.

The wind’s blowing hard now, stinging my eyes with salt spray. I left my coat in the car. The New London lighthouse approaches to starboard. I straighten from the railing and turn to find the stairway back to the boat deck.

As I walk down the center aisle of the deckhouse, head high, I catch sight of Deck Man from the corner of my gaze. He’s laid his book in his lap and stares through the window to starboard, right where the New London light sticks up from the sea.

—

Don’t laugh, but when the call came four weeks ago, I was sitting in the vet’s office, thinking—I kid you not, literally repeating this exact thought at the exact moment the phone rang—that at least things couldn’t get any worse . Ha!

I remember staring at the screen, wondering if I should pick up.

I didn’t recognize the number, but my phone did—someone named Adrienne Drucker at Creative Artists Agency.

It rang a bell, but I couldn’t remember why.

I was a little frazzled at the time, what with my dog lying on some stainless steel table on the other side of the waiting room wall, receiving a blood transfusion that was going to prolong her life for maybe a couple of weeks and cost me the better part of ten thousand dollars that I didn’t actually have in my bank account, at the present time.

I swiped right. Who knew, maybe it was one of the lawyers—with good news, for a change.

The voice was that of a capable professional who had been to so many rodeos, she could rope her own steer. “Hello, is this Audrey? Audrey Fisher?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Adrienne Drucker at CAA. Your mother’s agent?”

“Um, this isn’t the greatest time right now. Can you have her call me tomorrow morning? Like, herself ?”

“Unfortunately,” she said, “there’s a situation.”

“Is it an emergency? Because, like I said? Not a good time.”

There was a loaded pause. “Well, I guess that depends on your definition of emergency, Audrey. Last night, or rather early this morning, your mother was involved in a car accident—”

“Oh, shit.”

“—she’s a bit banged up, nothing serious, although the car is totaled. Mulholland Drive, you know the drill. Luckily she was in her Tesla. And had her seatbelt on. She’s pretty lucky, in fact. Physically. Thank goodness, right? But here’s the situation .”

I could hear the quote marks around the word situation . I thought of Foster lying on the metal table in the other room, eyes glassy from the sedatives, and I thought, Fuck you, Meredith.

“The situation is that she was drunk. Way, way over the limit. Point three eight? Technically she should be dead, but her tolerance is high, to put it mildly. Plus, they found a liiiiiittle trace of ketamine in her system. You’ve heard of ketamine?”

“Yes, I’ve heard of ketamine,” I said.

“So. Right. She’s agreed to go to Betty Ford.

It’s not in the papers yet, or I should say the media, social media, nobody reads the papers anymore, which is why the world’s gone to shit, in my opinion, but that’s another rant, right?

We’ve pulled in a few favors to buy us a minute, but in the interest of keeping things quiet and, you know, making sure this one takes ”—she let the word hang for a second or two—“I thought maybe you knew of a place she could go for some supervised alone time.”

“Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

Again, a strained pause. “What I mean, ” she said, in a kindergarten voice, “is she needs some time away from the spotlight, right? Away from anyone with a fucking smartphone. But —and this is a very important but —in the company of some responsible adult to look after her and make sure she stays put. Do you get it?”

“And that person is me?”

“Ideally, yes.”

“Why ideally?”

By now Adrienne had caught on to me. Without a beat, she said, “Because you’re her daughter, like it or not, and you’re outside the business. Which means you’re the most trustworthy person in her life. Sad to say.”

“Including you?”

“Oh, absolutely including me. To be frank, honey, and strictly between the two of us—although Meredith is a smart cookie, as you know, and she’s probably picked up my energy here—I’ve kind of had it with her at this point?

The self-sabotage, oy. Cleaning up her messes, it’s just not a productive use of my time.

Until Meredith makes a commitment to getting better?

Frankly? Her career’s just going to keep swirling the bowl until it goes down, and while I will always bear her a huge amount of love, I want to be clear about that, huge love, she doesn’t currently pay me enough to be her fixer into the forever.

Now, do you care? I don’t know. You tell me.

I’m not here to judge. I haven’t seen my own mother in eight years. ”

I remember sitting there on the vinyl sofa with the phone in my hand, held flat along the same horizontal plane as my mouth so my words traveled directly into the microphone.

The fluorescent lights drained the joy from the inspirational animal posters on the wall.

Behind the desk, the receptionist made conspicuous movements of work to disguise the fact that she was eavesdropping.

“Audrey, honey? Are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here. Just taking it all in.”

“I know it’s a shock. Wish I could have been the bearer of better news.”

“It’s just that I’m literally hanging out in the vet’s office right now, right?

As we speak. And it turns out my dog has actual fucking cancer ”—I was blubbering now, that sudden and embarrassing dump of emotional diarrhea when you thought it was just a little wind—“and she’s in treatment right this second, they’re giving her a blood transfusion —”

“Oh, honey! Oh no . Oh my God. Oh, I’m so sorry. Poor sweet puppy,” said Adrienne, with considerably more warmth than when she had broken the news about my mother. “Is she going to be okay?”

I wiped my eyes with my sleeve. “Probably not.”

“Well,” she went on, “like I said, if you can think of a place we can stash her. Meredith, I mean. After the rehab. Somewhere low-key, somewhere people won’t recognize her. Or if they recognize her, won’t give a shit.”

“Sure I can. The inside of her own house.”

“Cute, Audrey. But I’m afraid that’s not going to be good enough.”

“Good enough for what?”

“So, bit of a wrinkle. The stakes, if you will. There’s this role she’s up for.

Fabulous, fabulous role. Made for her. I know it, she knows it, the director knows it, even the producer knows it.

The screenwriter wrote it with Meredith Fisher pinned to his little fucking mood board, I swear to God.

I had to suck a thicket of dicks to get it for her, though, because of this reputation she has.

Unreliable, Audrey. Not a good word, in this business.

Un-ree-liable. ” She drew out the syllables.

“But the director went to bat for her. I went to bat for her. Long story short, she’s got the part. ”

“That’s wonderful.”