Between Me and You by Allison Winn Scotch

2018

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Author:	Allison Winn Scotch
Genre:	Contemporary Romance
File Name:	between-me-and-you-by-allison-winn-scotch.epub
Original Title:	Between Me and You
Creator:	Allison Winn Scotch
Language:	en
Identifier:	MOBI-ASIN:B01GFJZB7Q
Publisher:	Lake Union Publishing
Date:	1515427200
File Size:	581379.072

When their paths first cross, Ben Livingston is a fledgling screenwriter on the brink of success; Tatum Connelly is a struggling actress tending bar in a New York City dive. They fall in love, they marry, they become parents, and they think only of the future. But as the years go by, Tatum’s stardom rises while Ben’s fades. In a marriage that bears the fallout of ambition and fame, Ben and Tatum are at a crossroads. Now all they can do is think back…

A life of passion, joy, tragedy, and loss—once shared—becomes one as shifting and unpredictable as a memory. As the pieces of their past come together, as they explore the ways love can bend and break, Ben and Tatum come to see how it all went wrong—and wonder what they can do now to make it all right.

Table of Content

1. PRAISE FOR THE AUTHOR IN TWENTY YEARS “Scotch hits a grand slam with this novel . . . With wonderfully fleshed-out, relatable characters, this is an absolute must-read that lovers of women’s contemporary fiction will devour in one sitting.” —Library Journal, starred review “Told from five vastly different perspectives of characters who are deeply developed and relatable in their flawed ways, this novel captures the nostalgia many feel for the friendships and simple nature of youth . . . Heartfelt . . . Well written and memorable.” —RT Book Reviews “Allison Winn Scotch is the ultimate beach read. If you plan to sink your toes into the sand and need a fab book to kick back with . . . this is the one.” —Parade “The perfect beach read.” —PopSugar “Both heartbreaking and funny, this novel explores how we cope with the disappointments of adulthood and come to terms with our past.” —Real Simple “A story about youthful dreams and middle-age reality, this is a page turning book to talk about.”
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3. ALSO BY ALLISON WINN SCOTCH Time of My Life The Department of Lost & Found The One That I Want The Song Remains the Same The Theory of Opposites In Twenty Years
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5. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Text copyright © 2018 by Allison Winn Scotch All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher. Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle www.apub.com Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates. ISBN-13: 9781503941229 ISBN-10: 1503941221 Cover design by Ginger Design
6. For anyone brave enough to fall in love.
7. CONTENTS START READING 1 BEN NOVEMBER 2016 (NOW) 2 TATUM OCTOBER 1999 3 BEN JULY 2015 4 TATUM DECEMBER 2000 5 BEN AUGUST 2014 6 TATUM JULY 2001 7 BEN APRIL 2013 8 TATUM FEBRUARY 2002 9 BEN MAY 2012 10 TATUM MARCH 2003 11 BEN FEBRUARY 2011 12 TATUM JULY 2004 13 BEN MAY 2010 14 TATUM MARCH 2005 15 BEN JUNE 2009 16 TATUM OCTOBER 2006 17 BEN JUNE 2008 18 TATUM MAY 2007 19 BEN DECEMBER 2007 20 TATUM FEBRUARY 2008 21 BEN SEPTEMBER 2006 22 TATUM AUGUST 2009 23 BEN JULY 2005 24 TATUM OCTOBER 2010 25 BEN AUGUST 2004 26 TATUM MARCH 2011 27 BEN SEPTEMBER 2003 28 TATUM SEPTEMBER 2012 29 BEN JUNE 2002 30 TATUM JULY 2013 31 BEN SEPTEMBER 2001 32 TATUM NOVEMBER 2014 33 BEN DECEMBER 2000 34 TATUM DECEMBER 2015 35 BEN OCTOBER 1999 2016 (NOW) 36 TATUM NOVEMBER 37 BEN NOVEMBER 38 TATUM DECEMBER 39 BEN DECEMBER 40 TATUM DECEMBER 41 BEN DECEMBER 42 TATUM DECEMBER 43 BEN DECEMBER 44 TATUM DECEMBER 45 BEN DECEMBER 46 TATUM CHRISTMAS 47 BEN CHRISTMAS 48 TATUM NEW YEAR’S EVE DAY 49 BETWEEN ME AND YOU BY BEN LI
8. Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold. —Zelda Fitzgerald
9. 1 BEN NOVEMBER 2016 (NOW) I told myself that if she showed, that would be the sign I needed. If she showed, maybe we could find a way to rewind, rewrite, do it all over. Do it all better. Do it all again, only differently. It’s silly; it’s something out of a Hollywood ending, and I’d know that better than most. It’s not how I’d write it, but it’s how the studio would want it, what would appeal to the demographic they were courting: Men will want to go home and screw their wives, call their girlfriends; women will weep and know that love conquers all. I snort to myself, though it’s lost in the bluster of the wind, the squeal of a motorcycle racing too quickly down Ocean Avenue, empty on this overcast Sunday morning. Did I ever believe that? Did I ever pin my hopes that love could conquer all? It feels like so long ago: when we met each other, when we loved each other without conditions. A familiar tornado of grief spins inside me. Though it’s not just grief for her. It’s for both of us.
10. 2 TATUM OCTOBER 1999 I made a bet with Daisy that I could get at least three numbers by midnight. It’s not something I’d do normally, this bet, these numbers, but she is pushing me outside of my comfort zone, part of an acting exercise assigned to us by Professor Sherman—Move past your comfort zone into that sticky territory of inhabiting someone else—and so I agree. Besides, it’s better than deflecting the cheesy pickup lines that come with being a bartender, the lecherous looks of patrons who somehow think you’re up for grabs, the self-criticism that would otherwise clang around my easily infected brain. By playing the part, slipping into a role, it’s easier to step outside myself. That’s half the reason I want to be an actor in the first place. I can be anyone I want to be. So of course I said yes to the bet. “They can’t be trolls, guys you’d never go out with to begin with,” Daisy said, pouring a shot of whiskey down her throat, untying her black apron and passing it to me when we
11. 3 BEN JULY 2015 “Constance is sick,” Tatum says. “Or else I’d have sent her to get him.” It was part of our separation agreement: that Constance, our nanny, would do most of the handoffs, though we’d gotten more casual about it in the four months since I moved out. Tatum shrugs and stares at my pathetic doormat, which is gray and muddy and in need of a wash. But how do I wash a doormat? I don’t even know. We both let our eyes linger on it for a beat too long. “I’m throwing that out,” I say, and point downward. “I’m getting a new one later today.” I don’t know why I care about impressing her; I’m angry with her; I am untangling myself from her. These are the words I use with Eric when he takes me out after work to nurse my wounds. He tells me to consider a real therapist, not my best friend from college who is now my producing partner and is not really good at advice for shit, especially since he is still single at forty-one and trolling Tinder. “OK,” Tatum replies. “Though you could ju
12. 4 TATUM DECEMBER 2000 Ben sneaks a small bottle of vodka from the inner pocket of his down coat, which is too puffy and threatens to swallow his chin. “You saved my life; you know that, right?” He leans in close, shouting in my ear. “You barely know me,” I shout back. “And you’re already giving me credit for saving your life?” He grins and shakes his head. Around us, the crowds’ cheers rise in swells that envelop us and carry us up with them. “It’s a small miracle you got me here on New Year’s Eve,” he yells. “This is a native New Yorker’s worst nightmare.” “Well, you said you’d do anything I wanted in return for doing your film for free.” I gaze up toward the flashing billboards, the neon lights. “This is what I wanted.” Also: him, this is what I wanted to do with him. Times Square at midnight. With a boy I might want to kiss for the rest of the year by my side. I didn’t really think he’d come; I didn’t really think I’d ask. But when I’d called Piper, my little sister, who was still b
13. 5 BEN AUGUST 2014 Jesus, somehow I turned forty. Am turning forty. Tomorrow. I let the hot water from the shower pulse against my face and neck for too long, and by the time I flip the shower handle to off, my skin is pink and a little angry. I grab one of the white towels hanging on the pewter hooks and knot it around my waist, then stare at the full-length mirror in the bathroom that is half packed because we’re moving next week. Tatum needs a house with better security; Tatum needs a house that moves us one more step toward isolation. We’re stuck in this bubble that is entirely our creation, and it feels as if there’s no way out, no room to breathe. I blame her for this. I run my hand over my stubble, meet my eyes in the mirror. It’s an unkind thought, and I chastise myself for it. She loves this house, loves the family we built here, though now that family is tenuous at best, though we are doing an excellent job at pretending that we’re not falling apart—both to each other and to t
14. 6 TATUM JULY 2001 It is too hot for a funeral. That is what I keep thinking. It is too hot for a funeral, and how am I expected to be burying my mom when it is 103 degrees, and I can’t think straight because of the heat? I am sweating and clammy and red faced, and my hair is sticking to the back of my neck and my skirt is flush against the backs of my thighs, and the sun is so bright I wonder if I might go blind. She wanted to be cremated, scattered in our garden. She told Piper as much when it became clear that this time the cancer was too furious to be beaten back. “Just some of the gals from the hospital, you girls, and some cake afterward, OK?” They hadn’t told me it was as bad as it was until just a few days before she was gone. And June, with Ben, had been blissful: he had found the money to turn the Romanticah short into a feature, and we’d celebrated his Tisch graduation with a real—if low-budget—shoot, spending the days tromping through Central Park with his small crew, his sm
15. 7 BEN APRIL 2013 I’m dreaming again, as I do so often now, have for the past year since everything turned bleak. This time I know I am dreaming and yet I can’t pull myself out of it. This time, as it has been recently, it’s Leo. Always Leo, though it used to be my dad. Now it’s a distorted version of something out of real life: that night on April Fool’s Day when he ran away in seventh grade, when I was a senior in high school. He was pissed at my dad for something—in real life, it was that my dad threatened to pull him from the football team because his grades were so mediocre (for my dad, Cs and Bs), but in the dream, it’s because my father drowned in the Atlantic Ocean off East Hampton Beach, and Leo was there, watching, unable to save him. So Leo ran, and unlike how it really happened—where we thought it was a prank until one a.m. rolled around and my mom started crying and my dad started cursing, and I finally found him at his friend Nate’s apartment, smoking cigarettes and skimmi
16. 8 TATUM FEBRUARY 2002 The snow is piling up in Park City, but Ben and I are oblivious. I push him to the ground in the heap outside our hotel and fall on top of him. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” I say, before I press my lips to his. He laughs so hard he can’t keep kissing me, so I roll to his side, sinking into the eight inches of powder that fell overnight, and flap my arms and legs to create an angel. When he stops laughing, we each tilt our heads together and stare up at the gray sky, the flakes falling on top of our batting eyelashes. It’s been months since either of us has been able to entirely forget everything else: the horrors of New York on September 11; the grief we wear like our own shadows. I’m able to lose myself in my performances: since my mom died, my work has never been stronger. One professor pulled me aside just before Christmas and told me he’d be happy to recommend me personally to the best agency in the city if I pursue theater. “I don’t know what happened b
17. 9 BEN MAY 2012 I sink beneath the bubbles in the hot tub and wonder: If I stay under long enough, can I force myself to drown? Not that I want to drown, necessarily, but it’s not that I don’t either. I float my hands toward my face: my fingers and gold wedding band weave in front of me like an apparition. I count to twenty, holding my breath, swooshing my arms at my sides to keep me under the too-hot water, but as my lungs grow tighter I find that I don’t have it in me to sink, to not stretch for a gasp of air. The flats of my feet find the bottom of the Jacuzzi, and I shoot upward, toward the open sky, toward the California sunshine. Tatum appears on our back deck now, on the phone, pacing in a circle, her forehead knotted into something that signals a crisis. But what constitutes a crisis anyway? That the test screeners to Army Women: 2.0 aren’t positive? That her publicist has overbooked her interviews? Bad press for forgetting to thank me in speeches? I buckle my knees and head ben
18. 10 TATUM MARCH 2003 We marry in Santa Barbara in March. Neither of us wanted much of a to-do; I’d have been happy at City Hall, and Ben is so busy now that he is Hollywood’s It boy that, through no fault of his own, he couldn’t involve himself in more than showing up. “I will show up very enthusiastically,” he says, before throwing me atop the duvet and kissing my neck. “But the flowers, the cake? I don’t care. Only care about the woman waiting for me at the end of the aisle.” But after the wreckage of the previous year—his dad, my mom—it felt like we owed something more to our families, well, to his mom, Helen, and to Leo and to Piper, my sister, and if giving them a wedding also gave them something to be happy about, it was a small concession. Not a concession. It was a celebration. But the typical trappings of a formal wedding weren’t for me. Not without my mom here, anyway, and maybe even if she’d been here, not then either. I take a week off work: I’m the Tuesday–Saturday bartende
19. 11 BEN FEBRUARY 2011 My face hurts from smiling, and I hate that I’m aware of this. I’m happy for Tatum. But the press line on the red carpet is endless, and her publicity team keeps shuttling me to the side for each interview, escorting me to the back when the photographers call out for a “single.” Single meaning just her. Single meaning all the ways she outshines me. I’m not throwing a pity party; it’s simply true. Tatum has ascended above me in all the ways that matter to this town. “I’m sorry,” she’ll say each time as she’s swept off into that photographer sea. “It doesn’t mean anything other than they want a shot of my dress”—but it’s hard not to feel like she’s splintering off from me, leaving me behind. I wave to Eric, who is on the arm of a producer he’s been dating, as I wait for her to wrap another interview. Ryan Seacrest now, fawning, making her spin in a circle. The racket on the carpet is too loud to hear the two of them, but I see Tatum throw her head back into a complet
20. 12 TATUM JULY 2004 My “big” break comes fifteen months of slinging cosmos and sex on the beaches and chardonnays for tourists at P. F. Chang’s. I don’t mind the work so much. It keeps me busy, though the children are often ill-behaved and whiny, and the tourists are loud and don’t tip well. But Mariana, who logs most shifts with me, has become a good friend, and with Ben still working unending hours, this time prepping for One Day in Dallas, a Kennedy biopic set to shoot next spring, the stint gives me structure, fills my days with something other than scanning the trades for shitty auditions, staring at my cell phone in case my (relatively dodgy) agent calls, running on the beach to lose a few pounds which will take me from girl-next-door to girl-someone-wants-to-fuck. (In Hollywood terms.) I’m contemplating adopting a dog for the companionship, but Ben isn’t home often enough for me to get an affirmative. “I might just do it without you,” I said to him one night while he was nose-dee
21. 13 BEN MAY 2010 My mom has asked me to give a toast, which should be easy, which should be cake. I’m a writer, after all. Tatum leans over, kisses my cheek, adjusts my tie, and says, “Breathe.” I rise with a flute of champagne held aloft, though if anyone were to look closely enough, they’d see a tiny tremor, a small betrayal of my feelings. I want to be happy for her, for her new life, but I’m trapped in this bubble of melancholy, of what-ifs. What if he hadn’t been on the plane that day? What if he’d been around to see my success? What if he’d been around to see that success falter? How would I be changed? How would I be unchanged too? We’ve spent the month in New York for Tatum’s shoot, so I’ve gotten to know Ron a bit better, broken down some of my walls. We’ve gone to the movies, drunk wine, taken in a Yankees game; he even joined me for Joey’s music class, which was filled with mothers and nannies, and made a pretty funny wisecrack about our levels of estrogen rising just by cros
22. 14 TATUM MARCH 2005 Piper calls with the news while I’m in hair and makeup for Scrubs. It’s nothing glamorous, a guest star as a college student who comes down with shingles, but the exposure is good, and it’s another line for my résumé. Since The O.C., the work has been steady, though not swift, nothing so lucrative and assuring that I’ve wanted to quit P. F. Chang’s. Well, I always want to quit P. F. Chang’s, but I still take a shift now and then, and I still stop in on Thursdays to keep Mariana company or sometimes jump in for her hours if she has an audition of her own or a gig that’s come up. None of the customers recognize me, no one thinks I’m anything to double-take at. I’m not. Half the waiters have booked guest spots of their own or have made it all the way to testing for pilots. At Tisch, I was something special; in LA, I’m a slash—a bartender/actress. I have an audition next week—a period piece called On the Highlands that would shoot later in the year in Scotland—that woul
23. 15 BEN JUNE 2009 The doorbell rings early, too early. The sun has barely risen, and I can’t imagine who could possibly be at the front door before seven a.m. I roll to my left but Tatum’s side of the bed is empty. She must have gotten up for a crack-of-dawn run on the beach. She’s been doing that lately to lean down to ensure that she fits back into the corsets for As You Like It after gaining fifteen pounds (all muscle) for Army Women (a break from the awards-bait films in an attempt to go commercial and expand her fan base). The doorbell rings again. Shit. This had better be an emergency. And whoever it is had better not wake the baby. I push myself to my elbows, then flop my feet to the carpet. Then I remember the last real emergency from eight years ago, when my dad—when three thousand people—died, and chide myself for ever wishing for something so stupid. The best you can hope for is that there’s never an emergency again, you dumb fuck! I haven’t slept well, and the left side of m
24. 16 TATUM OCTOBER 2006 The fact is this: nothing is done for you in this life if you don’t do it for yourself. I don’t care how many people claim they are “on your team”; the only person who can helm your team is you. We talk a lot about “teams” in our family therapy sessions, which I now do every month with my dad. It’s part of the outplacement of Commitments. “We are committed to a life of recovery,” they say in their brochures and in their e-mails and in real life. Also, when we checked my father out after his thirty days, and every single time we have revisited since. Not that my father has needed to revisit for drinking. Rather, we drive down once a month for family therapy. Well, for father-daughter therapy. Or: Dad-and-me therapy. Piper is back in Ohio, back to her life of nursing and living in our childhood home and back to dating Scooter Smith, who, she has confided, might propose soon. We brought my dad home after his month at Commitments, and he hasn’t left, which was not my
25. 17 BEN JUNE 2008 It’s raining in Los Angeles, and no one knows what to do about it. People are scattering around, hovering in Whole Foods, tweeting with panicked abandon: It’s raining! It might be the apocalypse! I’m set to meet Spencer for lunch to discuss my next steps in my career: One Day in Dallas hadn’t blown up like we’d all thought, and for the first time I have to consider strategy; I have to “take a meeting” with my agent to ensure that I don’t, as my dad would say, slide into a wasteland of mediocrity. It’s happened to plenty of other golden boys. It can’t happen to me. Tatum is in majestic Hawaii while I am here on daddy duty for the next ten days. It’s longer than she wanted to be away from the baby, but she’d been back at work since he was four weeks old, the necessary requirements of capitalizing on Oscar-nomination heat, and thus when production on Shipwreck called for nearly two weeks in Hawaii, she packed her breast pump and was flown first class to the Big Island. Sh
26. 18 TATUM MAY 2007 I can put it off no longer: I have to go home to Ohio for Piper’s wedding. David Frears has given me loads of advice on “going home again.” All through the media push for Pride and Prejudice leading up to the June release, he’s assured me that you just put on a face like you’re putting on a role. “Darling, if a gay can survive a weekend visit to bumblefuck Nebraska, where, when I was in high school, a city councilman tried to tell my parents that I could get electroshock therapy to deal with my homo-ness, you can endure your little sister’s wedding.” David’s taken me under his wing, told me I’m the best Elizabeth Bennet in the history of Elizabeth Bennets, of which there have been many. He’s protected me through the slow but ever-present bleat of tabloid coverage (rumors of sleeping with Colin Farrell on the set), the mounting tide of whispers of an Academy Award, the connection with a stylist so I’m not caught looking like a general garbage dump when I’m out in publi
27. 19 BEN DECEMBER 2007 I am being polite to Ron; I can feel myself being polite, trying too hard. He is perfectly nice, perfectly innocuous. I realize that I’m thirty-three years old, and stewing over my mother’s new relationship puts me at the emotional maturity of about, say, a nine-year-old. Also, it has been six years since my dad died. She’s had her time to mourn. So have I. “He’s so nice,” Tatum said in the car last night after we met for dinner at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, where they were staying for the visit. “And your mom seems really smitten.” I cornered too sharply around a turn on Sunset. “Hey, Jesus, Ben!” Tatum’s hand flew to her belly, the way that a mother’s arm would fly toward the back seat if the car stopped too abruptly. “Sorry, sorry.” I slowed and put my own palm atop her stomach, which has the perfect curvature of a beach ball. The baby wasn’t exactly planned, and its inception wasn’t exactly the stuff of true romance, maybe a romantic comedy if I were to write
28. 20 TATUM FEBRUARY 2008 The baby has been kicking me all night, and when I do manage to sleep, my heartburn roars up my esophagus and shakes me awake. “I’m sorry, I’m a mess,” I say to Hailey, the makeup artist the studio sends. “I’m sorry, I’m a whale,” I say to the seamstress who lets out my gown (more of a tent) another half inch. “Don’t be silly,” they both say, because I’m now an Oscar-nominated actress who is due any day now, and they are effectively on my payroll and are told to say reassuring things like this to a hormonal tank several hours before she may lumber onstage to accept the award. It’s a relief to be done with it all tonight. To be done with the air kisses on the red carpet, with the cocktail hours and dinners and Q and As and interviews, even though some of those interviews have granted me covers like Variety. But my ankles are swollen, and my fatigue is drowning me, and I can’t possibly imagine how I could take one more week of the pomp and circumstance, of faking n
29. 21 BEN SEPTEMBER 2006 The sky is robin’s-egg blue, just as it was five years ago. I stare upward for a beat too long and am blinded for a moment, hazy yellow orbs obscuring my vision, despite my sunglasses. Leo stands ramrod straight next to me, his shoulders pinned as if literally stapled back, but his toes jigger up and down, his fingers twitch in nonstop motion. My mom is weeping silently to my other side, staring out at the vast wasteland of a construction pit at Ground Zero, staring farther to the two reflection pools she says will bring her a bit of solace, but I can’t see how. Tatum had planned to come, but then the roof to the new house in Holmby Hills cratered in, and I told her she should stay behind to deal with it. She assured me that her dad could manage on his own—he was living in the guesthouse and taking classes at UCLA for accounting—but I didn’t mind. Really. I wasn’t interested in delving too deeply back into my grief, and if Tatum had been along, she’d have poked an
30. 22 TATUM AUGUST 2009 The lobby of Commitments is hushed, with a waterfall fountain nearly the only noise, the receptionist and intake nurse working soundlessly behind the desk. Sunlight from the skylight on the ceiling illuminates the eggshell walls, photographs of the ocean and landscapes adorning them. Fresh flowers spill atop the side tables next to the cozy couches where only a solitary family sits, looking both gray and grave, clutching the arm of a young man who is obviously on his way in. Dr. Wallis greets us with a firm handshake that evolves into a bear hug. “One of my best success stories,” he says, grabbing my dad’s hand, wrapping him in his arms as well. “You guys saved my life,” my dad says, his eyes tearing as they always do now. Some people drink and get emotional. My dad got sober and now has never been more in touch with his softer side. “How’s he doing?” I ask. “Good, good.” Dr. Wallis nods, ushering us through the glass door, out of the lobby into the facility. “We a
31. 23 BEN JULY 2005 Our car sputters to a stop in the middle of nowhere Arizona. I’m right, of course, we should have stopped for gas, but Tatum insisted, No, no, that’s BS, they just say the tank is almost empty, but it’s not. The tank is empty. Tatum squeezes the wheel and grits her teeth and looks toward me, batting her lashes. “Don’t be mad.” “Tatum!” “OK, so I should have listened to you. But . . . you know . . .” “No, I don’t.” “Well, you’re just usually a little melodramatic about the tank running low, so I figured—” “That I couldn’t possibly be right when the orange light is flashing frantically to alert you that we’re about to run out of gas?” From the back seat, Monster yawns loudly, then rises—he’s tall enough to hit the ceiling on the SUV—and pokes his head between us. “Monster doesn’t like it when Mommy and Daddy fight,” Tatum says. “Tatum!” I pull out my cell phone and stick my hand out the window, desperate for a signal, which we haven’t gotten for miles since we dipped int
32. 24 TATUM OCTOBER 2010 I’m in New York only for the weekend and a day. A quick in and out to do a junket for As You Like It, which is on all the awards lists, though no one has actually seen anything other than rough-cut footage, some scenes here and there. But the industry is abuzz with a David Frears–Tatum Connelly reunion, after all the awards heat with Pride and Prejudice, and buzz in Hollywood is just about all you need to convince people that something is real. Daisy convinces me to meet her for a drink downtown at Harbor, the hottest, newest nightclub with a rotation of celebrity guest DJs. She’s back in the city for the month—New York Cops is shooting on location to attempt to capture the grit that they have lost over the years by filming on a soundstage in Burbank, and she texts me relentlessly until I agree to venture south of Bowery to meet her. I call Ben before I pull myself from the bedding at the Four Seasons. It sounds like I’ve woken him, though he’s three hours earlier
33. 25 BEN AUGUST 2004 I wake to Tatum on top of me. She leans close to my neck, then to my ear: “Happy birthday, baby.” “Holy shit,” I groan. “I’m fucking old.” “Shhh,” she whispers. “I’m about to make you feel very, very young.” “But Leo . . .” Leo is in the next room, crashing on the pullout in my office. “Leo didn’t come home until three a.m.; he’s not going to hear a thing.” “OK,” I say. “OK,” she says, easing her way lower. After a few minutes, I forget that I’m now thirty and that my brother is fifteen feet away, and that I have a deadline for a script that’s a mess but that I will somehow wrangle into greatness. I forget everything except my wife on top of me and her ability to make me feel like I could live forever. Leo is here for the week. It’s a terrible week with my schedule: One Day in Dallas is due to the studio on September 1, so we can shoot just at the start of the new year, but Leo insisted, and Tatum thought we should make a big to-do, have a party for my birthday, so o
34. 26 TATUM MARCH 2011 Leo dies four days after I win the Academy Award. We linger by his hospital bed, where he is unable to be revived, and then finally Helen agrees to remove the ventilator, and his chest rises almost undetectably until it rises no more. I’m supposed to be in Panama; I was scheduled to start principal photography on Army Women: 2.0 just after the awards season ended, but they rejigger the schedule and give me an extra week to allow me another handful of days off for the funeral. A handful of days feels unbearably unjust, though I understand the overtime and the budget and the payroll and the crew; this movie isn’t just about me, though I’m its star. A handful of days to grieve with my husband feels like a bomb that could explode between us—among everything else, I’d forgotten to thank him in my acceptance speech. It was a humiliating oversight. I literally blanked out; I was so stunned to be onstage that I forgot my speech nearly entirely. But it shouldn’t have been ha
35. 27 BEN SEPTEMBER 2003 I am greeted like Moses at the Red Sea at Toronto, the figurative waters parting in front of me. We are here to screen All the Men, my follow-up to Romanticah, and the studio has sent early clips and bits and pieces to all the important press: Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, all the papers whose reviews can launch a career into the stratosphere. The early buzz is hot—Spencer, my agent, calls it “so fucking hot it’s like an all-ten stripper joint,” and I’m swept up in the wave of accolades, despite knowing better. Despite the fact that what matters most to me is Tatum and our life back home, well, fuck, who wouldn’t want the praise and the heralding and the calls that I might be the once-in-a-lifetime voice of my generation? I never thought this mattered, the fawning attention, the over-the-top praise, but it turns out that I was wrong about parts of myself, that it’s more than a little bit gratifying to be told that you’re “the fucking shit, man.” The studio flie
36. 28 TATUM SEPTEMBER 2012 The road trip seemed like a good idea when I proposed it. Let’s drive to Texas like we did years ago! Bring Joey! It will be the perfect way to spend Labor Day weekend, the last gasp of vacation before I have to report to work. I was due in Austin the first week of September, not ideal timing because Joey was starting a new school for pre-K, and I’d have to fly to LA for the morning drop-off, then fly right back to Texas to make the day on set. But the Oscar win had given me all sorts of clout, and when the studio told me I could direct the little project I’d agreed to star in—nothing big, just a fifteen-million-dollar gimme about Roe v. Wade that won’t generate a huge box office but will generate some critical praise (if I direct it correctly, as I intend to, of course)—I wasn’t about to turn it down because I’d be jetting back and forth for day one of school. I’ve forgotten how hot it is, in these canyons through Arizona, how boring hours on end trapped in the
37. 29 BEN JUNE 2002 Leo is his best self at his college graduation. Sober, shining, electric. After my dad, Leo’s had his good days, and his less good days, but he was a senior and allowed to get wasted and wake up with a wicked, gut-churning hangover, so I didn’t hover, and my mom was busy with her new charity, dedicated to raising funds for the families of 9/11 victims, so neither of us judged his bad days. Or, maybe more accurately, neither of us was present enough to judge them. You could see them in bruises under his eyes, in his half smile when recounting a memory of some stupid story or antic that he wasn’t sure he was getting quite right because he couldn’t remember it fully, or the way that he sometimes really needed a shower. But Leo was Leo, born with an impish streak, and he showed up at Sunday family dinners—a tradition Tatum had suggested in January when it was clear we all needed a bit of glue—cogent, present, hilarious. He could make my mom drop her head back and cackle, a
38. 30 TATUM JULY 2013 From: Ben Livingston To: Amanda Paulson Re: things Date: April 10, 2013 A—listen, god, this is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever written. But, well, you know that I’ve been struggling lately, I just, ok, here goes: I think we should probably take a break. I’m typing that and it doesn’t seem right or maybe none of this seems real. I don’t know. I’m so fucked up now, and I want you. You know how much I want you. But there are all these stories in the press now, and if Tatum finds out . . . I don’t know what I want yet, and if this explodes before I’ve figured it out . . . Jesus, this is the most inarticulate thing I’ve ever written, and that’s saying a lot. I want you. I need you. I just don’t know what to do about it. What do you think? —B From: Amanda Paulson To: Ben Livingston Re: re: things Date: April 10, 2013 B—I understand. You know I do. But I do have to be honest and say that being with you again, well, it made me realize what an idiot I was back in New Yor
39. 31 BEN SEPTEMBER 2001 The only reason I’m awake is because Tatum had an early class and set off the fire alarm when she tried to fry bacon before leaving. “Shit, shit, sorry,” she said, scrambling around her tiny studio, flopping an oven mitt toward the smoke, batting down the alarm with a broom handle. The plastic cover popped off and crashed to the floor, where it promptly split in two. Tatum jumped like she hadn’t expected that, for gravity to work, and then her apartment was silent again, other than the sizzle of the torched bacon. “Shit,” she said again. “Go back to sleep. I didn’t mean to wake you.” I’d been up too late in the edit bay, splicing together the final cut of Romanticah before I sent it out into the festival world, praying someone will take notice and give me my shot. “It’s fine,” I said, rubbing my eyes, waving her closer. “I promised Tom I’d read two manuscripts today anyway.” “You’re seriously the best assistant agent he could hope for. Two books in a day?” She sho
40. 32 TATUM NOVEMBER 2014 Ben wants to spend the day at the beach, Leo’s favorite spot, a little north of the lifeguard stand that’s just below the drop-off of the cliff near our very first place together. That one-bedroom bungalow on Ocean Avenue. It’s a Thursday, so Joey is at school, and I’m due in the edit bay in the afternoon, tweaking and honing the footage we shot in September and October for Love Runs Through, my second directorial feature. Directing means endless hours of prep, of hand holding, of decision making, of administration, of imagination. It distracts me from Ben and Joe, and I know it makes me less of a partner, but the studio offered, and I couldn’t say no. Didn’t want to say no; I accepted as soon as they called, on the call, in fact. Only later that night, when I shared it with Ben—uncorking a bottle of Bordeaux that the agency sent over—did I realize I’d said yes before asking him. He paused, and his jaw flexed in a way that signaled his displeasure, but he raised
41. 33 BEN DECEMBER 2000 Amanda calls just before I slide on my coat to leave for New Year’s Eve. Caller ID alerts me to the 415 area code, and I check my watch because I don’t want to be late. I can spare three, maybe four minutes. Despite my better instincts, I press the Talk button. “Hey,” I say. “It’s me,” she replies. “I know.” The clock on the microwave in my parents’ kitchen tells me it’s 8:23. I told Tatum I’d pick her up by nine, so we could wedge our way into Times Square by midnight, which I still can’t believe I’ve agreed to. “This is practically highway robbery,” I’d said when she proposed it. I’d stopped at the bar to thank her for her work on Romanticah, and she’d said: “Well, as payback, you have to come to Times Square with me for New Year’s.” “Like a date?” I’d grinned. “I might let you kiss me if you’re lucky,” she said, then her eyes widened, and she laughed her machine-gun staccato and slapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh my God, sorry, I don’t even know where that cam
42. 34 TATUM DECEMBER 2015 How do you divide a lifetime? Where do you begin? With the items that don’t matter to each of you or the ones that matter most? If we can agree on the tangential things—the lamps in the bedroom, the treadmill in the gym, will we agree on the bigger stuff—the painting we bought from that artist in Austin on the road trip, the necklace you got me after Pride and Prejudice, the watch I bought you for your fortieth birthday, Joey’s schedule, our sanity? The moving trucks came on a dreary day in February. I was scheduled to be in the edit bay that day but canceled at the last minute. For Joey’s sake, though he was at school, and for the sake of not making us hate each other more than we already did, I stayed home, then shuffled around the house, trying to remain out of the way of the movers (and Ben), but there all the same. It felt like I had to show up for that, for Ben, for us. He was moving to an apartment only two miles away, but it might as well have been across
43. 35 BEN OCTOBER 1999 Daisy put me up to it. I’d run into her at Ray’s Pizza earlier in the night, and she told me she was working a shift that night at a bar off Fourth—Dive Inn—and told me to swing by for a beer. Amanda was at the hospital until eleven o’clock, so I figured what the hell. I buzzed Amanda, who said she’d stop over when she got off, then we could go crash at her place, which wasn’t too far, just a couple blocks over on Astor. Easier than me shooting uptown to my parents’ on the subway, which was unreliable at night, and besides, it was my parents’. Not exactly living the dream. But that had been part of the deal with my dad: he’d wanted me to be a banker or a lawyer or head to business school after Williams. Like the writing was on the wall with my liberal arts education, my major in English: that I wasn’t going to amount to much, at least by my father’s definition. My mom convinced him: pay for grad school, at least most of it, but don’t subsidize my lifestyle. I took o
44. 2016 (NOW)
45. 36 TATUM NOVEMBER I see Ben as he leans over the white fencing that separates the path from the cliff down to the beach. He tilts over and assesses, then rights himself and starts toward the steps to the ocean. I sink lower in the driver’s seat, though I’m a block away and the SUV has tinted windows, which usually guard against the prying eyes of fans who recognize me or paparazzi who need a slice of me whenever they manage to track me down. I’ve gotten better at evading them; figured out how to leave early before they plant themselves outside my gate, or how to barter for a good shot if they agree to give me freedom for the rest of the day. So for now, I’m alone, something I rarely am anymore, an irony that isn’t lost on me now that Ben doesn’t sleep on his side of the bed. I’d realized I’d forgiven him a few weeks ago. He’d shown up to get Joey for the weekend, and rather than abruptly stand by the door and make courteous small talk (or have Constance do it and skip it altogether), I
46. 37 BEN NOVEMBER Amanda stretches out in her sleep, rustling the duvet, shaking the mattress. I’d forgotten how she did this, even back in New York all those years ago—a lifetime, really—when we’d mostly stay at her place—a one-bedroom off Astor Place, because I was living with my parents. How she’d hog the bed as if she were the only one who should be in it. I watch her sleeping, then her toes scrape against my shin, and she sighs—eyes still shut, red hair spilling over my pillow—and drifts back to wherever her dreams have taken her. I ease out of bed and then peel off my shirt, then boxers, and step into the shower, trying to wash off the saltwater and the sand. Also to rinse off a film of something else: that I had been waiting for Tatum, yet I left with Amanda, as if they were interchangeable. We’d barely made it back to my apartment. She’d jogged to the beach, so we’d taken my car, driven back to my place in some sort of frenzy, like dogs in heat. She’d told me that she didn’t real
47. 38 TATUM DECEMBER Work keeps me busy, of course. Work, work, work, work, work. That’s what I tell myself, what I’ve done since I was barely old enough to be employed. I have been working for almost thirty years, and I will work through this too. Work can’t be everything, though. Luann thinks it’s important that I start dating again or at least that I give the appearance that I’ve started dating again, even though the divorce isn’t final, even though neither of us has been able to sign the papers. “He’s dating again,” she said a couple of months ago, even before I saw him on the beach with Amanda. “A friend saw him leave a bar the other night with someone who was way too young for him.” “It’s sex,” I said. “It’s fine.” Now, I wonder when he had time for casual sex if he is back with Amanda. If their relationship is something casual, or if theirs is now something that has morphed into more. I can’t bring myself to ask; I can’t even bring myself to say her name to him. “Well, you need to
48. 39 BEN DECEMBER “Jesus Christ!” Tatum screams when she finds me sitting at the kitchen island, nursing a glass of merlot from a bottle I’d found open in the wine fridge and flipping through the December issue of Elle, for which she’s the cover model. Her hand flies to her heart, and her heels click against the bare wood floor as she skitters in surprise. “Sorry, shit, sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” “What are you doing here? Is everything OK?” She exhales, regaining her breath, drops her purse on the island, and reaches for an empty wineglass of her own in the cabinet. “I brought over Joey’s gifts to put under the tree. Figured I’d stay. Sent Constance home.” Her brow furrows, then relaxes. “Oh, OK. I mean, sure, that’s fine.” I was doing this from time to time now: stopping by unannounced, with the honest intention of spending time with Joey—our custody agreement was fluid, and Tatum never minded—but then often loitering for longer, inviting myself to stay for dinner, sug
49. 40 TATUM DECEMBER I can’t sleep after Ben leaves. I debate texting Damon, thanking him for the lovely, unexpected evening, but I’m not sure if that’s too forward, too needy after just one evening together. I’m new at the dating thing, and besides, I don’t even know if I want to be forward or needy or see him again. Luann has texted me three times, desperate to know how it went, but I don’t have the energy to tap back: He kissed me and my knees went a little weak, and then Ben was waiting for me in our kitchen when I got home. And then I discovered that I was glad to see him there, that I didn’t really want him to leave. That part of me wanted to say, Stay forever. But part of me knew that was just a line someone wrote in a romantic comedy. Not real life. I fling off the sheets, slide my feet into the slippers some designer gifted me, and pad across my bedroom toward Joey’s room. He doesn’t like me to sleep in his bed anymore. Eight going on fifteen, I tell anyone who asks. I crouch nex
50. 41 BEN DECEMBER “Come back east with me,” Amanda says, forking her eggs. We’d slept late and walked to a late breakfast at a bistro with a garden a few blocks from my apartment. “I have that whole week off between Christmas and New Year’s.” I push around my own omelet, pick out the onions. Amanda had ordered for me while I took a call from Eric—our lead actress, Cassidy Rivers, was threatening not to return to the set after the holidays if we didn’t fire the lead actor, Paxton Fisher, with whom she’d been sleeping until last week—and Amanda had forgotten (or didn’t know) how much I loathed onions. “I don’t know if I can get away.” I use my knife to point to my phone. “Cassidy is threatening mutiny.” “Screw her. Call her bluff. Isn’t she contracted for the next decade? I think I read that in People.” “It doesn’t really work that way,” I say. “Besides, I’m not really sure that calling people’s bluffs is the best way to cultivate a relationship that indeed needs to last the better part of
51. 42 TATUM DECEMBER Monster collapses on the kitchen floor while I’m pouring myself coffee. I hear a loud thud, and it takes a moment to register because Joey is at school, and the house is otherwise quiet, just as I need it to be to go over the towering stack of scripts this afternoon. I’ve promised my team I’ll make a pick on my next three projects—line up my entire next year—by Christmas. Piper and Scooter and the kids are arriving in two days; I’ve left myself no time to consider the next twelve months of my life. I race around the kitchen island and see him, helpless, shaken, in a pool of his urine. “Monster! Oh baby boy, oh sweet boy, no, no, no, I’m here.” I sink to my knees and cradle his head. His lost eyes find mine, his nose nuzzling my lap. He is too big for me to carry myself. And I promised myself I wouldn’t call Ben. It’s a stupid thing: my pride, the welt that sits with me because he’s with Amanda, and I’m still alone. There’s Damon, but that isn’t much of anything yet, j
52. 43 BEN DECEMBER I’d answered on the first ring. I was rereading the script and second-guessing everything: if writing it for her had been a mistake, if she’d read it and say: Ben, we’re done with us, I thought that was obvious, if that would finally be our death knell. But then my phone rang, and caller ID said TATUM, and I answered it, and she was wailing. “Ben,” she said. “Please. Please come, it’s Monster. I didn’t have anyone else to call.” And I said: “You should have called me. I’m glad you did. I’m still your person.” And I raced to the vet, and we agreed that Monster deserved better than waiting around for his heart to explode, so we sat with him, each of us cradling his face, each of us spilling an unending waterfall of tears, until he went to sleep. Back home, in our old (new) home, she curls herself into a ball on the white sectional her designer picked out, despite its impracticality for a home with an enormous dog who jumps on all the furniture, and a nearly nine-year-old
53. 44 TATUM DECEMBER We order a pizza and watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Joey’s favorite, even if it’s not totally appropriate for an almost nine-year-old. He sobs when we tell him about Monster, and I realize this is the first real death he’ll remember. He was too little to recall the day we buried Leo, even though he was there, holding my hand. And my mom and Ben’s dad will always just be faces in photographs for him, stories we’ll tell. I promise him we’ll get another puppy soon. Go to the shelter after Hawaii and bring home whichever dog he chooses. I can already hear Luann in my ear, excited about the notion of a photo op, all the ways my unselfish act for Joey can be marketed. Joey falls asleep right when Ferris is serenading the city of Chicago. His head lolls into Ben’s lap, his arm splayed off the couch. Ben rests his palm over Joey’s chest, as if he can intuit the beats of his heart, and then laughs out loud at the screen. This was always his favorite part: the parade. The pure
54. 45 BEN DECEMBER Amanda leaves for Boston early. Changes her shifts at the hospital so she can fly on the twenty-second, a few days sooner than planned. She doesn’t have to tell me that this is a giant fuck-you mostly to me, not that she wants more family time with her extended clan; she just wants less time with me. She’d asked me to come one last time a few nights ago, implored me to be spontaneous, grab a ticket and join her, but I was resolute. “There’s Joey,” I said. “We’re going to get a new puppy too once they’re back from Hawaii.” She crossed her arms and left the room. We’d both understood that this wasn’t just about spending Christmas back east; it was about starting new traditions and a new chapter. And we also both knew that because I was unwilling to do either, even if simply disguised as a last-minute plane ticket, that we were all but done. She e-mails me from the plane to say that I shouldn’t call over the holiday, shouldn’t be in touch. I e-mail her back to say: I under
55. 46 TATUM CHRISTMAS I make Joey wait until Ben gets here to open his presents. He’s been up since five a.m., jumping on my bed, demanding that we start, but I insist. Instead, I make him pancakes (from a mix, but it’s the best I can do on my own), let him dump out his stocking, and log him in to Petfinder, where he keeps squealing that he wants to adopt all the dogs. All of them, Mom! All of them! Finally, at eight, Ben, holding a tray of gourmet coffees, lets himself in with his key, and Joey races through the house into the foyer to throw himself at Ben. “You’re finally here! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Mom was making me wait,” Joey shouts, then untangles his limbs and races into the living room. “Latte?” Ben asks, holding out a cup. “Necessary,” I reply. “He’s been up since five.” “Ouch.” Piper, Scooter, and Emily come down the steps, Piper with the new baby, Harry, on her hip. “I’ll call Dad,” I say. “Tell him we’re starting.” To Joey, I shout, “Hey, Joe,
56. 47 BEN CHRISTMAS I kiss all of them good night and wish them a safe flight. Tatum promises to call when they land. “And after I open this mysterious gift of yours,” she says. “Take your time with it,” I reply. “It’s OK. There’s no rush.” She wrinkles her brow. “OK.” “OK,” I say, and then kiss the top of her head. Dinner had been perfect, like we were a family again. Daisy had started it, broken the tension. Told the story of how Tatum and I first met, over a bet, and Joey’s eyes got wide and then he laughed until apple cider came out of his nose. “Mom, you bet Aunt Daisy that you could get three numbers?” He looked at her cockeyed. “No offense, Mom, but really?” “I know you think I am over-the-hill,” Tate said, laughing. “And embarrassing and horrifying, but let me tell you, I could put on an act and pour a beer with the best of them.” “She could,” I concurred. Tatum and I locked eyes, and we both remembered that this was the truth. “And then I got the chicken pox,” Daisy said. “And ma
57. 48 TATUM NEW YEAR’S EVE DAY The beach is deserted now. It’s nearly sunset, and the families with little kids have taken them inside to tend to sunburns or to stave off full meltdowns; the retirees have returned to their condos for early dinners or, in my dad’s case, a nap. There are a few stragglers, a young couple who keep chasing each other into the water, a father and his teenage son still tossing a football. But mostly I’m alone. Something I’d grown used to, even if I resented the isolation I’d brought on myself. I tug my Tisch baseball hat lower, hug my tunic closer as the wind kicks up. I reach for my straw bag and rest the script inside. I’d opened it on the flight over. Everyone had fallen asleep, so it was just me, in a darkened cabin, with the overhead light aglow. He’d written a note on top: For you, just for you, Tate. I should have done it years ago but maybe now was the only time I was ready. Take your time. Don’t rush. Be sure. But now you know how I feel, now you know,
58. 49 BETWEEN ME AND YOU BY BEN LIVINGSTON (FINAL DRAFT) INT. BEN’S BEDROOM—DUSK Ben, our hero, sits on his bed in his small apartment, stunned. Fading light ekes through his window. From his expression, it’s obvious that he just received news that he can’t get over. Then a joyful—the happiest—grin spreads across his face. In one quick instant, he grabs the phone off his bed, lets out a hoot, and runs to the front door, where his suitcase is already packed and ready. He races down the steps to the waiting taxi. BEN: How quickly can you get me to the airport? DRIVER: Traffic’s not bad. It’s New Year’s Eve. Everyone’s at home getting fancy, ready to party. So twenty minutes, no problem. Ben checks his watch. BEN: Twenty minutes is perfect. DRIVER: Gotta be somewhere by midnight? BEN: Gotta kiss a girl by midnight. The driver laughs, guns the gas. We pan out to see the taxi racing down the 405.
59. 50 TATUM NEW YEAR’S EVE The sky is bigger than I ever dreamed it could be. That’s what I keep thinking from my chaise, tucked under a blanket on the empty Hawaiian beach as midnight nears. That the world is so immense, and we are so small, and isn’t it a miracle that we find someone to love amidst its expanse? That Ben and I found each other? That we found our way back to each other again? I check the time on my phone. He’ll be here in time. I know it. “Hey, Tate, you coming in?” Piper shouts from the open patio door. From behind her, I can hear the pulse of music, the sound of heightened laughter from my family, as they dance and celebrate and wait to ring in the new year, the new chapter. “Mo-o-o-o-ommmm,” Joey yells beside Piper. “I’m addicted to sparkling apple cider! It’s. The. Best!” He toots a noisemaker in triumph. “I’ll be in soon, don’t worry,” I call back to them. “You OK?” Piper says. “I called him,” I say. “He’s coming.” “HOLY SHIT!!” Piper screams, running down to me, kis
60. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book could not have been written without the counsel of my agent and friend, Elisabeth Weed. After countless drafts filled with structural problems and obstacles that seemed insurmountable, and when it would have been easier to throw in the towel and write a more traditional novel, Elisabeth said, Keep going, you can do this, and so I did. I am enormously grateful for her words and support. Tiffany Yates Martin provided editorial insights that elevated the plot and characters beyond my initial musings and in ways that I could not have done on my own. Thank you, thank you. It was a joyous collaboration. Danielle Marshall, Kelli Martin, Dennelle Catlett, Devan Hanna, Gabriella Dumpit, Nicole Pomeroy, and the entire team at Lake Union have offered the best possible cushion for a writer: a bubble of support and enthusiasm and kindness, and I am appreciative of their hard work and expertise every step of the way. Kathleen Carter Zrelak is a dream publicist. Truly. Just
61. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Photo © 2015 Kat Tuohy Photography A New York Times bestselling author, Allison Winn Scotch has published The Department of Lost & Found, Time of My Life, The One That I Want, The Song Remains the Same, The Theory of Opposites, and In Twenty Years, a Library Journal Best Books of 2016 selection. Her novels have been translated into twelve different languages. A freelance writer for many years, Allison has contributed to Brides, Family Circle, Fitness, Glamour, InStyle, Men’s Health, Parents, Redbook, Self, Shape, and Women’s Health. A cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied history and marketing, Winn Scotch now lives in Los Angeles, where she enjoys hiking, reading, running, yoga, and the company of her two dogs, when she’s not “serving as an Uber service” for her kids. Follow her at www.allisonwinn.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/allisonwinnscotch, or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/aswinn.