“Shit yeah. Course I will.”
She liked the firmness of his response. In that unexpected, cool voice she began to sing I am beautiful no matter what they say trailing it off to nothingness/voidspace again.
Then:
Quiet inward ruminations on both ends.
Then:
“You know, maybe I’ll get that movie.”
“OMG, wouldn’t that be insane?” Her own voice startles her and she realizes how stoned she is again. But so happy! “How much do you think you’d get paid?”
“I don’t know. Shit. They gotta give me sumthin,” he said humbly, ever aware not to jinx.
“Probably like a hundred thousand? I am so proud of you for doing that, Rikki. I mean you fucking suited up & showed up, which is way more than I’ve been doing.”
“You’re doing a lot. You’re fuckin having a kid. That’s amazing. That’s serious, I couldn’t do that shit.”
“Did I tell you that? How proud I was of you? OMG I don’t even think I did, I’ve been a total fucking bitch. Ima crazy hormones. But listen to me Rikki are you listening I really want you to listen and hear this, it is so fucking amazing you even did that & that your audition was with Michael Douglas & Laurence Fishburne! OMG! How bitchen and magical is that? Did I ever tell you I really only started getting into CSI really late? Like when Laurence Fishburne came on the show? He is so totally the reason I wanted to become a crime scene investigator. He was totally in my vision.”
“Vision?”
She grabbed Rikki’s hand & held it to her belly for the babykick.
“Whoa,” said Rikki. “Boy’s gunna be a soccer superstar.”
“Unless it’s a girl.”
“Then girl’ll be a soccer superstar.”
Quiet. Just wind, light. Warm. Lovely. His arm around her.
“I had this total vision of our life. A few weeks ago. I mean, of the life we could have, will have. I didn’t tell you about it because I thought you’d laugh.”
“I wouldn’t laugh, Ree.”
He kissed her cheek & caressed her hair. Daubed an already flat tear on her cheekbone with one of his knuckles she liked that.
“We were in all the magazines———!”
“Is that right?” he said, happy to go along. Happy she was out of bitch mode, happy to be having kind of a chummy little bullshit romantic moment even if he wasn’t attracted to her, even if he thought he never would be again, even if just the thought of fucking her made him want to puke. But happy and glad tho, just now, to be talkin about when they’d be ballin…
“I was pushing one of these really expensive strollers, with our toddler. & you were holding Baby #2 in your arms. & there were already all these articles about how fast I shed my baby weight.”
“So we’re gunna have two?”
“Maybe more,” she smiled.
“Was I ripped? I mean, am I gunna be ripped? You can at least give me a six-pack.”
“You already have one. But yeah, in my vision you’re totally ripped, like Cameron Diaz!”
“Hey that ain’t right.”
“OK Jennifer Garner then. No seriously. In my vision, there was a toddler and a newborn. I can’t explain it but it was like way more than a daydream. I saw in my head this magazine, right? And I wasn’t even stoned. Well maybe a little. & in the magazine there was this shot of Tom, Katie & Suri next to a shot of Ben & Jennifer and Violet & Seraphina. And next to them was you & me, our family.”
“What did we name our kids?”
“It didn’t say. In the vision. But you were the famous one, it was really clear about that.”
“Famous for what?”
“Like, movies & television.”
“Aw-ite. Tha’s tight. I can live with that, without the Cameron Diaz part, I don’t wanna be lookin like no Cammy D!”
“In the vision, Laurence Fishburne took you under his wing but you became more famous. And he was a gentleman about it, he didn’t become envious or bare a grudge. In my vision, you’re like as famous as Will Smith, who by the way we are going to be very close with, their kids are much older but like, Jada’s gunna be our kids’ godmom.”
“Jada’s one of their kids?”
“No, Jada Pinkett, Will’s wife——”
“O yeah! The swingers & shit? The swinger shit’s dope.”
“——and I’ve already finished forensics school. I could have worked for the city like the city of Los Angeles, for the LAPD, the city really wanted me to but I decided to just, like, be a consultant on CSI. That way I can spend more time home with the kids. And even though he’s not on the show anymore, because Laurence is our friend, he helped get me the job. On CSI. Right?”
“That’s right, he’s family. I mean the mutherfucker made me. Always did me a solid, just like Denzel to Antwone. Hey, are we gunna have a sextape?”
“No. Well — we might have. No, I know! Someone hacked nude pics that I took on my cell & sent you in middleschool, I was totally underage but they’re these amazing—”
“I know the one’s you’re talking about.”
“No you don’t, not these ones, because I’m totally making it up! Anyway, I’m amazing looking & they’re totally tastefully done, like Scarlett’s, I totally look bitchen & our publicist — our publicist is going to say ‘Reeyonna’s not ashamed of those pictures’ & I’ll give interviews like Heather Morris and Kreayshawn did about theirs, saying very cool & calm that I knew they would eventually come to light. But in my vision, I probably have to change my name, there can’t be two famous Reeyonnas!”
“Say ma name same ma name——how about using Jerilynn?”
(playful) “Fuck you!”
“Hey, in your vision, do you like have us goin into rehab and shit?”
“NO. Well. . . . maybe. It’s not in my vision but maybe there’s some kinda drama everybody’s going to want to write about on the internet, you know, something that makes people feel closer to us, lets em see we’re human beings too, you know, like ‘stars are just like them’——& o! And we have like 6 million followers on Twitter!”
“Right on.”
“Maybe you go to rehab. . .”
“Hey now c’mon be fair.”
“And our publicist like says ‘Rikki realized he had a problem with the painkillers he was taking after recent surgery on his knee———’”