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It also meant showing up and showing out with the right people, so he had agreed with the plan Roland and Clara laid out for him. One pap stroll a week with Jill, which only made sense now that they had announced him as her leading man, and romance on every red carpet. What he did behind closed doors was his business, but what he presented to the public was very much the business he paid his team to direct.
He hit the circuit again, doing every late night and daytime talk show on either coast, smiling, charming, and avoiding talking about the naked paparazzi photos as much as possible. The frenzy over those pictures had died down as interest in new photos of him with Jill surfaced, but he was still being asked about the sexy redhead in every interview.
“You know,” he told Jimmy Fallon, “people like you and I have chosen this very public life, and I get why there is interest. My friend, and we are still very good friends, isn’t a public figure, so I feel very protective of her and responsible for how this all shakes out. Her only mistake was finding me irresistible,” he said, looking out over the audience with an impish grin. “And how many of you can blame her for that?”
No one could blame her for that, he thought, or for the fact that she’d asked him to put off meeting Jack just yet. She’d said she thought it was too fast, that maybe she should meet Nina first, and that Thad had told her to slow down. He’d said shacking up and shagging Kline rotten was one thing, but meeting the kid was something else entirely. He’d said the same to Kline.
“Take it from me, chief among sinners of bringing home a new mom before the ink’s dry on my divorce papers. Anyway, you don’t want Jack caught in a position of having to hide shit from Nina.”
Kline had agreed with a little relief. He really did like Rhiannon. Loved her company. Couldn’t get enough of the sex. But she kept bringing up his script pile and trying to convince him to take on different roles,betterroles as she called them, as though she hated what he was doing now. A little of that was good for keeping his ego in check, but more than a little and he started to itch.
“And does your new leading lady mind that you’re such good friends with, heh heh, such a good friend” Fallon asked, mugging to the camera.
“Jilly and I have known each other for so long, a few photos of good old-fashioned fun are the least she’s had to forgive me for! You know we’re working together in Devil’s Party next, which has a lot of nudity.” He acknowledged a wolf whistle with a wink. “We’re calling those photos research into my character.”
Fallon droned on until the segment was up and Kline shook his hand to leave the set. He wore his smile until he was behind the curtain, then let his face drop into the scowl he was feeling. He snatched off the mic he wore and thrust it aside to an aide, then strode back to where his PA was waiting. “Let’s get out of here,” he half-snarled. He was fucking tired of answering questions about those pictures. And fucking tired of being on.
He had to turn the smile back on to sign a few autographs, but once he was in his car, he was done. He’d had enough. He started the car, then sat there for a while, feeling trapped. He could go home, but he didn’t want to do that. He wanted to be out around people–that’s where his energy came from–but he didn’t want to be out as Kline Scott, Movie Star. He couldn’t think of a single place he could go and just be himself without having to worry that someone was going to take a picture of him looking less than delighted with his life. He didn’t want to become another “Sad Ben Affleck” meme.
After thinking about it for a while, he rang Thad, and got through the usual niceties before asking, “You doing anything right now?”
“Nah. Just looking over tomorrow’s shit. What’s up?”
“You mind if I come over? I just need to–not be a movie star for a little while.”
“Yeah, man, come on over. Come be Uncle Kline. You got Jack with you?”
“He’s with Nina. I just finished Fallon.”
“Oh.” All of Thad’s understanding was conveyed in one syllable. “Yeah, come on over. I’ll get some beers out and we can play darts.”
It was exactly what he needed, Kline thought. He could hang out with someone who knew him before the big fame, if not someone who knew him before he got his teeth fixed. He drove onto Thad’s Malibu beach house property and found his friend on the back patio with the promised beers and a couple of pizzas. “I know you’re on a diet,” Thad said, “but if you want to feel like yourself, there’s nothing better than carb loading to get you there.”
“You mean if you want me to hate myself,” Kline laughed, but he opened a box and groaned, taking a slice.
“Eat it like a hate-fuck. I give myself a cheat a month, and this is my cheat. Fucking large pizza and a six pack. Takes me a week to unbloat, but every time I look in the mirror, I think about how good it was. No regrets.”
“No regrets,” Kline echoed the sentiment though he stopped at one slice.
They made small talk and then played darts against the lattice Thad had put up for the game, then sat down to be an audience for Carra’s latest talent show before Kline made his excuses. He was feeling better, but at the same time Thad’s home and easy rapport with his children made him feel like he was never going to have what he wanted.
Before he left, what was really bothering him finally worked its way out. He turned to Thad and said, “I want to be bigger than Tom Cruise. I want to be bigger than Brad Pitt. And I want the wife and kids at home. I want to go out and be a star, and come home and be…”
“A different kind of star?”
“I want a wife who adores me and kids who adore me–like your kids do you. Jack just sees me as his idiot old man. He’s not proud of anything I do. Hell, he’s not even interested. He prefers the nanny to me, and he prefers Nina to the nanny, and I don’t know if that’s because of Nina, or me. He used to idolize me.”
Thad laughed. “Hang on. Vangie!” He called back into the house. It was a few moments of grousing with the teen until she appeared, clearly unhappy. “Kline here seems to think you kids adore me like a star. You want to tell him how you really feel?”
She just huffed and turned around, skulking away before Thad could even get out the first laugh. “It’s the age, man. He’s growing up. You could be Tom Cruise and he’ll eventually think you’re just his idiot old man. It’s all lighting and angles, Kline. You should know that better than anybody. And I clearly don’t have the wife thing worked out. Just relax. No one has what they want. You just have to learn to want what you have and work with that.”
Kline grimaced. “I’m not happy with the status quo. I want more.”
“Then call your therapist. I’m sure he’ll tell you that what you need is more therapy, and the question is always going to be when will you know you have enough? The answer is never because you don’t know what success looks like beyond some casting director or box office numbers telling you how amazing you are, and human beings aren’t always amazing, and having a bad day, or losing a part, or having a bad box office doesn’t make you a failure. I’m telling you that you need to take time to enjoy the shit you’ve got right in front of you, rather than worrying about the people who are ahead of you. Do that, and you’ll be fine.”
“But how do I do that?” Kline asked seriously, throwing up his hands.
“You have a good time tonight?”
