𝐍𝐎. 𝟒 ❛ 𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐬 ❜ | RIVA DORATA, TARTOSA, MAY 1998
For a time, Renzo maintained a strict division between the life he shared with Leonor and the professional existence that adjoined it. This was the only thing he was strict about—at least, in theory, for a transient moment, until he devolved into a more comfortable, equivocal laxity about that, too.
[narrative continued, long as hell, below ↓]
𝟭𝟵𝟵𝟮 🅐🅤 ‣ start \ prev \ next (film fest) \ next (au story)
big thank you to the cameos in this one which apparently ended up being a glimpse everyone except siri's ?? sorry girl ! apologies there isn't more screen time or dialogue in this post, but stay tuned ♥️
@armoricaroyalty @theroyalsofcorrilea @earthmoonz @crvptydgaming @houseofrenaldi @simsishh @nilonne @crownsofesha
lastly: i am way too tired to do a proper Author's Note and will surely edit this when i am fully conscious and embarrassed by it BUT in the meantime, well, enjoy and let me know what you think! channeling the energy of jfk jr & carolyn public quarrel pics meets 90 day fiance meets every industry couple ever complaining about work travel … this is only a slice of the diversity of careful research that went into this nonsense … astonishing, amusing, bizarre findings. & i arbitrarily chose 1998 but feel like it should be earlier ...'96-97' perhaps … lastly 2x, hilarious to me that all of this drama is because Leonor Learned Creating Nepo Babies Is Hard Work, Actually—
CONTINUED:
Their departure from Uspana wasn’t a calculated decision so much as an abrupt flight with no thought spared as to what it meant for his career. It had, after all, panned out in the past. Dropping everything was a convenient reset button he could and did smash at will: Petunia to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Nakawe, Nakawe to New York. This was just another chapter—a third act. How and when it took shape didn’t matter. Money wasn’t an issue. Even if it were, the demands and specifications of Leonor’s lifestyle were so extravagant that the shape of this new life slipped into her hands, or her purse, as it were. They learned that the hard way, but it was for the best. Renzo could return calls from agents and producers and photographers and journalists and designers and everyone else eager for a piece of him when he felt like it. They wouldn’t stop calling, and he wouldn’t care if they ever did.
As a passenger on this journey, Leonor watched how he moved with bewilderment. His lackadaisical disposition wasn’t new to her. Everyone theorized about him for good reason. Was it a persona—the coolness that kept his celebrity star on the rise? Or, if he was like that, how to account for the many incidents where he patently was not? Was he the unruly partier, the defiant miscreant, the reflective artist, the bashful everyman he seemed to be? He was all of it, Leonor knew: apathetic, easygoing, impetuous, and temperamental; motivated by hardheaded opinions, reckless disregard, and a pernicious yet constantly frustrated need to go unnoticed. It was a compelling archetype for someone like him. Aloof actors with turbulent insides were a Hollywood favorite. So, her concern ebbed and flowed. She had chosen to follow him on the conviction that they needed nothing except the other’s attention and affection. It was a romantic fantasy, but it was also an effective guard against meddling. It wasn’t her business because she didn’t have business anymore, and that wouldn't be a bad thing. It was good, in fact. It was exactly what she wanted. More than a want, it had been a necessity.
Yet, as time passed, she itched to pounce on the crumbs of information he left scattered. She heard snippets of calls he took. She listened to him mull over opportunities, grumbling to himself about considerations she didn’t understand. His money was less orderly than hers—not tied up in property and investments, except for the house he maintained for his parents—but she could see how it came and went. What exactly he did once he agreed to a job and humbled himself to be bound by legalese, she wasn’t sure. Although he talked about it in opaque ways, and she asked fumbling if earnest questions, her technical understanding came from overheard conversations with his peers. She met them on occasion, the many colleagues with whom he shared projects or just a profession. They all passed whatever test he required to access his leisure time and all possessed eccentricities that, for her, put his own in perspective. They were strange people. Nonetheless, the full picture remained far from complete, refusing to cohere, just beyond her grasp.
Leonor did know more than she had at the beginning, when they made a hotel suite home for three weeks and insulated themselves from the realities waiting beyond its walls. They needed a house. They needed something to do. They needed more money, probably. They needed more drugs and definitely needed more of the greasy takeout noodles they gleefully devoured in the plush hotel bed when they remembered to eat. As details of their new life finally began to solidify, she ventured a question, wondering aloud, “I thought you were going to do that film?” Renzo had been lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling, scratching his fingertips against the thick rug fibers beneath his hands. As she sat down and lifted his head into her lap, he replied, “Pulled out.” They had snickered, and that was it.
Things changed fast. Their aspiration had been to rent a cool house for storing art and entertaining friends, not to build a nest for a family. At first, Leonor’s concern bubbled over. She envisioned another day-long flight back to Uspana, much of it to be spent in the tiny closet that passed for a restroom. That wasn’t what she wanted. Yet, her first reaction was a sudden, overwhelming desire for home. It didn’t take very long to sour that longing with hard truths. What she wanted didn’t exist anymore. There had been a world where she might have rushed home and into her mother’s waiting arms. Safya would know what to say as she stroked Leonor’s hair, and she would share memories of her own that Leonor had never heard before. She would insist it was natural to be terrified and, worse, distressed by a small seed of secret joy. Safya had a way of speaking with such sunny yet serious warmth that made the harshness of one’s troubles easier to face. ‘Just wrap your arms around it,’ she often murmured. ‘No worry is bigger than you.’ And that—that would provide an ideal break for Leonor to anguish over the inevitability of becoming even bigger. It wouldn’t be a joke, not really, but they would laugh together, and then Safya would hide her rueful understanding behind the comforting lie that everything would be okay.
Leonor never questioned how important their family was to him, but she did question even now whether he understood what it meant to have one. Neither of his parents had been the doting type. That seemed to motivate him as much as it hindered him. He took an enthusiastic yet solemn approach to the best and worst of parenting, and she delighted in those moments when something Gael or Liliana did left him wonderstruck. It was the small, unremarkable things: Gael’s insistent, matter-of-fact babbling while they played; Liliana’s drowsy, bemused blinking as she awoke from an unplanned nap in an unexpected location; the intoxicating scent they each had as newborns, one best inhaled while nuzzling their soft spots. Before Gael arrived, he spent many evenings chewing cigarillos with a pregnancy book in one hand while the other rubbed circles into her back. She would see his furrowed brow cast in lamplight when she invariably rolled over and back again, uncomfortable in her body but at least soothed by the sight.
While her mother’s hands-on parenting meant she had tender memories of her infant brothers, Renzo was an only child. ‘My experience with babies starts when you pop that out,’ was his frank summary. She had assured him then that they would figure it out together and, now, she had become increasingly aware of what figuring remained. Leonor wasn’t quite naive enough to believe everyone had a personal banker responsible for managing their sprawling, complex maze of bequeathed family wealth. Yet, having her own children alerted her to how unnatural that was. Even her own trustee offered what was perhaps his first unsatisfying response when she asked him to help. ‘My hands are tied, my princess. I was appointed by your mother, with the Crown’s permission, and your son, well …’ Leonor had cleared her throat to stop him from stumbling through the words. She knew well enough. Like an organ removed from its body, she was weakened, enfeebled, isolated and drained by the separation.
Renzo, of course, laughed at the situation. ‘You want a trust fund for him? Okay, sure. Fine. Paperwork for a baby. Don’t cry over it! Jesus. Some kids don’t have fucking food to eat, you know.’ She did know that, but she had wanted to shout at him, so she said something provocative. It wasn’t hard to devolve into personal attacks; how could she be blamed for not having a “real job” when he was a “failed musician” who “played pretend” for a living? Why was this “piddling princessy bullshit” his problem when she spent thousands monthly on “dumb shit” no one cared about? When one didn’t understand something said, they took a break to mock each other’s accents. Those were the light fights that ended in better-natured laughter.
On the worst occasion, they had stomped upstairs together, Leonor nearly knocking him down on the way, to begin an inventory of ‘useless junk no one cares about.’ Later, they both wept when she returned to the scene and started fretting over his broken records and the gaping holes in her canvases. They exchanged apologies and made promises, including the charming ‘pinky swears’ whose foreign absurdity easily cracked her scowl with laughter. If nothing else, their hard and fast reconciliations almost made it all worthwhile—or, that was the delirious conclusion Leonor’s mind would drift toward before she heard a familiar echo in her memory. Renzo had his own unpleasant cacophony of recollections. They locked their fingers, stifled any leftover giggles, and promised, among other things, to remember that their innocent, curious, impressionable child deserved better memories.
His hiatus didn’t drag on forever, and it was Leonor who called Sharon Greenwater—with Renzo’s blessing—to ensure it had an end in sight. She had never met Sharon, even though she had helped her land this job. The onslaught of attention that associating with a princess on her home turf heaped onto his already high profile necessitated it. He thought otherwise but, not for the first time, took a leap of faith. It had flattered her that he accepted her advice. On paper and in her immature mind, that was the only smart move. There were entire worlds he knew better than she ever would, and he had packed more experience into the near-decade he had on her than most people did in a lifetime. But this? ‘This is what I know,’ she had insisted. He listened better when they were eye to eye, skin to skin. He was less wise than she was, less of a professional, but more emotional. If she used the same tone and touched him the same way sometime later, saying, ‘Remember? You promised me,’ then he melted and caved.
This strategy worked well after another blockbuster argument and the marathon reconciliation that followed. Renzo had shot down her proposal to let the clan mothers back home rename their baby. Even as she pitched the idea, explaining in a prim and credible way that it could unlock a portfolio of “lucrative coffee estates” in a “scenic provincial sector” of Uspana for Gael to inherit “as a start,” she watched his expression slide from curiosity to revulsion to a look of amusement that riled her up faster than any words could. ‘Are you fucking crazy? Are you out of your goddamn mind?’ They talked over one another and lowered themselves, this time slinging mud in the form of class-based insults. Leonor called him something vile, a niche derogation about going barefoot whose heft back home she promptly prayed he wouldn’t understand. But, he did—enough to insist she had effectively “tarred her own kid” with the same stain, which was why her “family of leeches” thought inheriting “nothing but poverty” would suit him just fine. ‘He’s not even a Reyes. You made damn sure of that, didn’t you? You did that! Boo-fucking-hoo.’ What could she say to that? She picked up her cup from the coffee table and threw its contents at him, letting it hit the ground after the satisfying split-second splash. She left him soaked and, standing there with his bare feet, surrounded by thick chunks of broken crystal glassware.
He later found her upstairs in bed on the telephone with her brother. She was already speaking in a hushed tone but hurried to end the call as the wooden steps finished their tell-tale creaking. Renzo lingered, waiting until she returned the receiver to its cradle and beckoned him over. She murmured the regards Mateo sent him, patted the bed, and didn’t resist when he pulled her closer, over one outstretched leg, squarely into his lap. It worked for her. After all, she didn’t look at him until after he had begun to talk.
He offered an apology, an earnest explanation, and his own proposal. The answer was to return Sharon Greenwater’s calls, but his resistance to that wasn’t altogether dissimilar from his resistance to submitting, infant-first, to the harsh glare of Uspana’s spotlight and her family’s scrutiny. Unlike his colleagues and peers and unwanted fans, they wouldn’t be generous. The sensitive little boy inside of him was well-used to insults that attacked those flaws and deformities he couldn’t change. That little boy felt just as protective of the one they now shared, too—felt empathetic, having learned the bittersweet lesson that too much attention could hurt just as much as too little.
Leonor chose to look at him as he began to weave these concerns together for her. Did she know how often he still felt fright and panic living within himself like a parasite? He could numb it or run from what fed it, but he couldn’t kill it. Interviews and critiques, Hollywood or the House of Tecuani, fame or family, it was the same. ‘I don’t do this for my health,’ he’d chuckled, gesturing in the direction of his own bedside where bottles and bags and an overflowing ashtray sat. He kept tapes there: live shows of discordant, frenetic jazz and blues rock that she could hear through his headphones when he laid there, still and serene, at peace like the dead.
When he initially told her about his first major film premier, he’d only said he didn’t watch it. He left after one scene, he claimed, to go chain smoke on a stoop outside one of the service doors instead. Only, it sounded like sly proof of nonchalance back then. She had been too busy picturing what he looked like in those days, harboring a newfound desire to make him watch his cheesy romantic comedy with her, and taking note of the fact that she could have fit in seamlessly with those “teenybopper” crowds he had so disdained. Now, she understood. Her response sounded soft but solemn as she assured him, ‘You don’t have to worry about that. I want to be there with you. It’s the one thing in the world I know how to do. Just let me.’
So, Sharon Greenwater, a jack-of-all-trades agent with a wide network and a bullish demeanor, reentered his life. He liked her for some reasons he had liked Leonor: she was mean and honest, she never let herself be wrong, and she let him believe his choices were indeed his own. Though, there were exceptions. She found The Last Con for him around the same time that he finished reading Yuling Zhao’s latest script. Leonor, observing from the outside, wasn’t surprised that his agent begged him to sign onto a guaranteed money-maker helmed by a certified industry darling while he drifted toward an artsy period drama penned by a friend. Sharon wasn’t surprised either. She tried the “veggies-and-dessert” approach. If he gravitated toward soulful projects, she reminded him those “empty safes” required a big deposit. ‘Come on. You know the drill. Buck the fuck up, buttercup, right?’ He scrawled his name on contracts for high-concept advertisements and low-commitment television cameos when the bargaining was done. This time, what did surprise Leonor was his quick compromise. He was on the phone with Sharon for a follow-up to discuss the two options when he heaved a heavy sigh and exclaimed, ‘Fuck it, let’s do both.’ That gave Sharon pause, too, apparently. After a few beats, he told her he was sure. He said he missed feature lengths. He said the workload would be fine. ‘Baptism by fire,’ he said. ‘I’ll be fucking born again, baby. These dumbass dimwits love that.’
Having been eavesdropping, Leonor experienced a pang of trepidation on the heels of her initial excitement. She was relieved but suspected his success would not be so simple for herself and, even more, their family. That pang became recurrent, and her unease reached a crescendo when his looming absence cast a dark shadow over unexpected news of a second baby. That shock felt different this time—not wholly unpleasant, not wrapped far too tightly in fear and uncertainty—but still inspired mixed feelings in them both. For her part, Leonor didn’t harbor those original worries about his reaction and their relationship. It wasn’t hard to see how another child would fit into a life that was already molding around an infant. What was hard to envision was spending so much of that months-long wait alone. She had acquired her own local art scene connections, ingratiated herself with Renzo’s long-standing friends in the city, returned ignored voicemails from his mother, and never hesitated to rack up telephone bills for international calls.
None of it would be enough.
That was what she lamented on the eve of his departure to San Francisco, which sounded ridiculous even to her ears. Her plaintive tone did bother him. That she sounded so forlorn while she sat rubbing yet another coat of body butters and oils into her belly didn’t help. She lacked the energy to argue. Doing so might have given her a jolt of agitation that could dispel the distress for a few wasted minutes. Instead, they fell quiet. It was tension, not peace, that filled the room as he continued tossing random items into his suitcase. ‘Don’t bring that! You can buy more when you get there,’ she thought of complaining. ‘Do you need to smoke that right now?’ she could have asked or, better yet, accused. Worse, it occurred to her that she could have stabbed him directly: ‘You didn’t even ask me to come with you. I know why—a hundred reasons, probably, skinny little brunettes and blondes and those ugly red hairs—’ While she stewed, he crammed in clothes that were already wrinkled alongside dirty boots and dog-eared paperbacks. She gritted her teeth as he threw in a handful of her candy. His thoughts boiled down to a simple kind of refrain: ‘This is what you wanted, Leonor.’
Instead, once the bag was closed, he returned to her with a resolute look on his face. Sinking to his knees at the bedside, he took over the gentle massaging that made their hands slick and sweetly scented. She could tell he had something to say, and she had picked out several of her own opening lines. In theory, she would swallow her apprehension and offer him one like a blooming flower or a white flag. He saved her the trouble. ‘If it’s too hard, just come, okay? Bring Gael, whatever. If you can’t, I’ll come to you. It’s easy. If it’s not, I don’t give a shit. Doesn’t work for them? Maybe the stars are just aligned wrong, or whatever the fuck, this time, and we try again.’ Leonor couldn’t suppress her grin, and she didn’t try to suppress her excited follow-up, one whose harmless absurdity made him laugh. ‘No, no, no! You behave, and I’ll be brave,’ she replied. ‘Because I really, really, really want to go to Tartosa with you next year!’
TRANSCRIPT:
[Chatter, cameras shuttering]
[Photographers shouting]
TYLER | Here comes another big one! Renzo Ledford is no stranger to Tartosa’s biggest event, but he is doing double duty this year. It’s the first time for Leonor Reyes. How exciting!
TYLER | —and this is the first time we’ve seen you right here, isn’t it? RENZO | Here? Well, yeah, here.
TYLER | Right, on this landing, where the cameras are. You’ve attended the festival some over the years, but you sure do a great job of dodging us. I’d love to know how we missed you last time! RENZO | Fishing boats.
[Seagull calls, indistinct conversations, clattering, splashing water, miscellaneous overlapping market sounds]
TYLER | Oh! [Chuckles] Um, I see, you mean—? RENZO | She wanted the grand entry—Right? Come on, you did. Don’t be bashful—but me? What you do is hitch a ride on the fishing boats.
[Loud, snorting laughter]
RENZO | See? Great guys, to a man, honestly. Fascinating work. And I could sorta blend in, you know? Incognito. But this one? TYLER | [Laughs] Not as fit for a princess as the luxury speedboats?
LEONOR | I just thought he should have the full experience for once. TYLER | Film week in Tartosa is a special experience! Lots of traditions, lots of attractions, lots of locals and fans, lots of— RENZO | Lots of horsesh—Marketing. Not a natural-born salesman. I just say my lines, but they tell me that doesn’t cut it anymore.
TYLER | [Laughs] I’d say I’m sorry I made you share your secret, but RENZO | Yeah, uh uh, alright, it happens. Let’s go. Thanks.
RENZO | What? Are you upset? LEONOR | No. I feel like I should apologize. RENZO | For that? Hey, look, Sharon’ll handle it— LEONOR | Will she? Should she?
You’re not listening! Do you walk your ass in here to piss me off? Is that your goal, because I swear to—You! It’s you. You get off my ass! No, you! You aren’t even lazy, but you are screwed up in the head, and I—SHARON! RENZO! You. Have. Contractual. Obligations. Do you want me to spell it out for you? Say it slower? Smack some sense into you? Fuck them. And you. No, no, not on the table. We can’t even ask nicely. They’ll say no second date. Fuck ‘em! Tear them up. You’re on the hook. So what! Bill me! Jesus. Bill you? Why, I ought to—Cancel. Make something up. There are contracts. Contracts! So, get me out of ‘em. Are you deaf and stupid? We will be sued! Yeah, okay! What the everloving fuck do I pay you for? To bitch at me? I got a mother, alright? Here we go. Get rid of the goddamn contracts. What in the hell do I look like? A prostitute? I’m not wasting my time eye-fucking some camera on a foreign beach to sell, what, wristwatches or boat shoes or whatever overpriced yuppie shit—Cologne. What? Cologne and wine. Underwear, maybe, but—SHARON!
You keep your nose clean when you come in here. Oh, you think—? [Laughs] All me! Stone cold. Work on that, okay? You are a menace. Are you crazy? Pretty does not work on me. Or everyone, you know. Oh, I know. You think I don’t know? I’m serious as a heart attack.
She thinks I’m pretty. Ain’t that sweet of her? Your … whatever he is to you, Leonor, he’s a fucking asshole. You damn right. Go take a lap. Bring me a coffee, hold the spit. Or something stronger. They sent gift bottles for us. Fucking nasty European frou-frou bullshit—[Sharon laughs] See, that’s why they want him. He’s such a talented actor. It’s so believable. Go on, talk your shit to her, Sharon—[Snickering] ‘Eye-fucking the camera.’ He knows good and well, doesn’t he, Miss Reyes? He knows what God put him on this earth to do. He‘s just a little pissy about it, that’s all. I don’t blame him. Maybe you have to be a son-of-a-bitch in those boots.
LEONOR | I get it. Or, actually: I, of all people, should know better. RENZO | No … No, fuck, you’re right. You are. We talked about this—more than once. ‘Behave and be brave.’
“Renzo laughed at the situation. ‘You want a trust fund for him? Okay, sure. Fine. Paperwork for a baby. Don’t cry over it! Jesus. Some kids don’t have fucking food to eat, you know.’ She did know, but she had wanted to shout at him, so she provoked him. It wasn’t hard to devolve into personal attacks; how could she be blamed for not having a ‘real job’ when he was a ‘failed musician’ who ‘played pretend’ for a living? Why was this ‘piddling princessy bullshit’ his problem when she ‘set piles of cash on fire’ every single month for ‘no damn good reason’? When one didn’t understand something said, they took a break to mock each other’s accents. Those were the light fights that ended in better-natured laughter.”
“On the worst occasion, they had stomped upstairs together, Leonor nearly knocking him down on the way, to begin an inventory of ‘useless junk no one cares about.’ Later, they both wept when she returned to the scene and started fretting over his broken records and the gaping holes in her canvases. They exchanged apologies and made promises, including the charming ‘pinky swears’ whose foreign absurdity easily cracked her scowl with laughter. If nothing else, their hard and fast reconciliations almost made it all worthwhile—or, that was the delirious conclusion Leonor’s mind would drift toward before she heard a familiar echo in her memory. Renzo had his own unpleasant cacophony of recollections. They locked their fingers, stifled any leftover giggles, and promised, among other things, to remember that their innocent, curious, impressionable child deserved better memories.”
He has so much, Nora. I wish you could see that. I do. But, I want him to have everything.
You don't think I do? I think … You know better than that. Hilarious. It’d sure as shit be easier if that was true.
—So, maybe, I’m being unrealistic. What? Why? I can’t have it only my way. If not “only,” then—No, I understand. I should adapt. I have a perfect life with everything I could want, but it’s not what I thought my life would be like, so I find reasons to be unhappy. With me? It’s not. It’s … What you represent. [Whistles] Really? Wow. Brutal. Not like that! Just … We would be so good, if we were one person. Yeah? Yes. But I want so much. I shouldn’t. And, I won’t give anything up. Neither will I. But, you have, though. And so have you.
Money problems destroy people—marriages, families, and—Yes, I know, so I—Shh. Let me finish. We do not have money problems, Leonor. You know when I realized that was behind me? No… When I had time to sit around and worry about my problems. If you are really, truly fucked in life, you can’t afford to whine and wallow. Wallow? Yeah. Like… You know, a pig. Oh, what? No, no. How disgusting. I wouldn’t ever—No, I meant—never mind. You get me? Yes. We have to be one person, in a way. I didn’t let you do anything, but I kinda did, so all of these growing pains are my responsibility. That’s funny. No, that can’t be true. I’m not the baby here. You’re not overreacting, I swear to God. You had a whole world at your beck and call. And now? Helluva a downgrade. Just me. No: us. Us.
So, what, I don’t have to make a budget now? No cuts? [Scoffs] No, you need to do some math—get a platinum calculator or something, for fuck’s sake. [Laughs] Really, do you know how much money you blow? So do you. Not like you. Oh, my things are silly and yours are good, practical purchases? Is that it? Do you know how many shoes you’ve gotten, just this month? Shoes are practical. You can’t play a dozen guitars differently; it’s just toys. What? What? The hell … Do we gotta rethink this “us” thing already? [Leonor chuckles]
RENZO | It was those fuckers. Parasites, a whole hive waiting on us. LEONOR | They’re doing their jobs. We do ours. Symbiotic, actually. RENZO | Uh huh. What I was saying is, I messed up. Simple as that. LEONOR | You did mess up. RENZO | [Chuckles] Ah—That’s a freebie. I’m all out of mea culpas now. LEONOR | You love to apologize to me. RENZO | We skip the handshake line, we can go do that instead.
RENZO | Would you believe that back there was being nice? LEONOR | [Snorts] No, of course not. RENZO | Good, since I wasn’t. I’ll try next time—play ball, all that shit.
LEONOR | You promise? A pinky swear? On Gael and Lili? RENZO | Hell no! [Laughter]
