Tribute

I got hung up on that. Now I’m figuring out what and where.” He tucked his hands in his back pockets as he gave the sketches a critical study. “Small of the back, shoulder blade, biceps. I’m thinking small and symbolic, and somewhere people wouldn’t notice it on Cass. Or better, it’s not on Cass, but forms when she changes to Brid. That way, it’s not just a symbol but part of the power source.”
    He narrowed his eyes as he scanned the sketches. “I need to figure it out before I start on the panels. The story’s outlined, and I like it. It holds up, but . . .”
    Because Spock had begun to whine, Ford glanced over. And his trend of thought snapped into tiny pieces. Tears streamed down Cilla’s face.
    “Oh man. Crap. What? Why?”
    “Sorry. Sorry. I thought it was finished. I thought I was done.” Backing up, she swiped at her cheeks. “I have to go.”
    “No. Uh-uh.” There might have been a hole spreading in the pit of his stomach, but he took her arm, and his grip was firm. “What’s the matter? What did I do?”
    “Everything. Nothing.”
    “Which?”
    “Everything’s the matter. You did nothing. It’s not you. It’s me. It’s me, me, me. That’s not me.” She gestured wildly toward the sketches. The tone, the gesture had Spock slinking over to his bed. “I’m nothing like that. I can’t even gear myself up to have sex with you. Do you want to know why?”
    “I’m pretty interested.”
    “Because I’ll end up messing it up, ruining it, then I won’t have anyone to talk to. I don’t make things work. I screw up everything, fail at everything.”
    “Not from where I’m standing.” Baffled, he shook his head. “Where’s this coming from?”
    “From reality. From history . You don’t know anything about it.”
    “So tell me.”
    “For God’s sake, I was washed up at twelve . I had the tools, I had the platform, and I screwed it up. I failed.”
    “That’s bullshit.” His tone was matter-of-fact, and so much more comforting than soft sympathy. “You’re too smart to believe that.”
    “It doesn’t matter that I know it’s not true—exactly. But when you’re told you’re a failure over and over, you start believing it. That goddamn show was my family, then bam! Gone. I couldn’t get it back, not the family, not the work. Then it’s do concerts, live shows, and I can’t . Stage fright, panic attacks. I wasn’t going to take pills.”
    “What pills?”
    “God.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes, grateful the tears had stopped. Spock slunk back over, dropped a half-chewed stuffed bear at her feet. “My manager, my mother, people. You just need something to smooth the edges, to get you out there. So you can keep bringing in the money, keep your name in the public consciousness. But I wouldn’t, I didn’t, and that was that. So there’s bad movies, horrible press—then worse from some viewpoints, no press. And Steve.”
    Wound up, she tossed out her arms, paced the room. “I jumped into marriage two seconds after I turned eighteen because finally, finally, here was someone who loved me, who cared, who understood. But I couldn’t make that work.
    “I tried college, and I hated it. I was miserable and I felt stupid. I wasn’t prepared, and I didn’t expect so many people to actually want me to fail. So I did. I matched their low expectations of me. One semester and I was out. Then there were voice-overs and humiliating bit parts. I’d write a screenplay, no, couldn’t do that, either. Photography, maybe? No, I sucked. I had income, thanks to Katie—and the fact, which I found out years later, that my father went to the wall to make sure my income was legally protected until I was of age.
    “I was in therapy when I was fourteen. I thought about suicide at sixteen. Hot bath, pink candles, music, razor blade. Except after I got in the tub, I thought, this is just stupid . I don’t want to die. So I just took a bath. I tried things. Maybe I could manage someone else, or do choreography. Name it. Tried it. Bombed. I don’t get things done. I don’t stick.”
    “Take a breather,” Ford ordered, in such stern, authoritative tones she could only blink at him. “You were a cute kid, a cute, talented kid on TV.”
    “Oh hell.”
    “Just shut up a minute. I don’t know how these things work, exactly, but I’d have to guess the show had run its course.”
    “And then some.”
    “But nobody took into account there was a kid involved, one