Follow the Dotted Line Read Free

still slipping. She lived in a spacious but dated townhouse in Valencia, California. It was perched just 1000 feet above the San Fernando Valley—and about fifteen miles north of Hollywood, where she had once worked but didn’t work very much anymore. She had spent most of her career writing treatments and, occasionally, scripts for mediocre TV movies-of-the-week. That business began imploding with the arrival of reality television; along with it had gone Andy’s center of gravity.
    Andy’s four children had noticed her fumbling around for meaning the last few years, but they didn’t really understand it. Even if they did, they were too busy to offer any solutions. Mostly, they kept suggesting she retire, as if that were a choice. People in Andy’s business didn’t retire, they were retired by the forces that eventually swept everyone in the entertainment business out to sea: an inability to keep up with the breathtaking speed of pop culture—and aging skin.
    At several points in her life, Andy had considered herself an unusually relevant person, both a rebel and a crusader for justice. As a 16-year-old feminist pioneer, she was the first girl to work the cash register at the new McDonald’s in Glendale, California. She had helped integrate the marching band at her small liberal arts college. And when she divorced 22 years ago, she had dropped the name Kornacky, as a sign she was no longer beholden to the patriarchy. Now Andy wondered about the value of those accomplishments. Especially the name change. She chose Bravos—telling her four children that it symbolized courage—and asked them to join her in making a political statement. Unfortunately, they were all under twelve at the time and had no idea what she was talking about. In the end, the kids split into their usual teams: girls on one side, boys on the other. Looking back, she thought her activism might have done more harm than good. After all, most of McDonald’s underpaid employees were now women, not men. Her liberal arts college had gone belly up. And her four adult children never missed an opportunity to rehash the name change episode every time they managed to gather for a holiday meal.
    So it was that Andy Bravos, aging activist and unemployed writer, stood watering the drooping daisies on her patio that June day—feeling slightly irrelevant—when the call came about the death of her ex-husband.
    “This is tragic! Just tragic,” Andy pronounced.
    “Don’t sound so indignant, Mom. Or surprised,” said Lil, trying to keep things on an even keel. “He drank enough to inebriate a rugby team. And he never exercised.”
    “But he wasn’t that old, for god’s sake! Sixty.”
    “Lots of people die at 60, Mom. And since you are fueled almost exclusively by bean burritos and hominy grits and you walk four miles a day, you will probably not be one of them. Whether you like it or not, you’ll live until you’re 90.”
    “This is not about me, Lil.”
    “Yes, it is. We all know you are in the middle of a mortality crisis—”
    “Midlife crisis—”
    “ Mortality crisis. As a consequence, Dad’s death comes at a bad time for you.”
    “You make me sound pathetic, Lil.”
    “That’s beside the point. The point is, given his lifestyle, this was bound to happen sooner rather than later.”
    Andy shut up and thought about that. “Okay,” she admitted. “I guess that’s true.”
    Lil had a rather painful knack for cutting to the chase in most things. Over the past few years, Andy had suckered her elder daughter into writing several spec movie scripts with her. Lil’s facility with words and instincts for a good story were remarkable. But with all those preschool boys around the house now, Lil didn’t have time anymore. Lately, it seemed her daughter was reduced to using her verbal karate skills on the phone with her mother.
    “Okay,” Andy repeated in a calmer voice. “So how did he die?”
    “I don’t know. Tilda didn’t