by Marian Keyes
‘But I couldn’t. It’s a working lunch.’
‘So what? Would you like to come?’
Might as well, what else would I be doing? Sitting on the beach on my own, trying not to think about my failed marriage? ‘Yeah, OK. But will he let you bring me?’
‘Sure! This is the honeymoon period, when they can refuse me nothing. Might as well make the most of it. I was too clueless to capitalize on it the last time. We’ll pretend you’re my assistant.’
‘Won’t he think it’s weird that I know almost nothing about Hollywood?’
‘Well then, don’t ask any questions. Just laugh and nod a lot. Please come.’
‘OK, go on then.’
A quick phone call later and the deal was done.
The weather had changed. Instead of blue skies, the sun shone through thick cloud cover, glaring at the world with a dirty mustard light. My first five days in LA seemed like a charmed time, by contrast. Not only had the weather been benign, but so had my state of mind. At the time I’d thought I was unhappy, but I was far messier now. And to make matters worse, I could no longer get away with blaming any of my feelings of fear or alienation on jet lag. These were mine.
Emily and I drove along Santa Monica Boulevard towards Beverly Hills, and the filthy sky got worse the more we drove inland. Smog, I understood, with a sudden leap of near-excitement. So LA. As iconic as palm trees and plastic surgery.
‘Is he married?’ I asked. ‘David Crowe?’
Emily fell silent, then said, ‘Please stop doing this to yourself. Lots of people get divorced, you’re not so unusual.’
The Club House was noisy and full. Almost entirely with quartets of men who were, incongruously, eating salads and drinking Evian. Emily and I were ushered through the throngs of men to our table. David Crowe hadn’t arrived yet.
I suddenly, urgently wanted a glass of wine, but when I asked Emily if that was OK, she regretfully shook her head. ‘Sorry, Maggie, but you’re supposed to be my assistant. Though, God knows, I could do with several myself. And twenty untipped super-strengths.’ Nervously, she clacked her nails on the table until, in a frenzy of frayed nerves, I grabbed her hands. She looked at me in surprise.
‘It’ll be fine,’ I said, pretending that I was holding her hands in reassurance.
‘Thanks,’ she said, extricating herself and giving the tabletop another good hammering. ‘Oh, thank God, here’s David.’
Thank God indeed.
She pointed out a clean-cut young man, who looked affable and sure of himself. This meant he was probably a neurotic mess who’d never had a meaningful relationship and who spent five hours a week in therapy. Such, I am told, is the Hollywood way. He gave us a wave and a big, BIG smile. He was no distance from us, yet it took him ten minutes to cross the room, so busy was he stopping at tables, shaking hands, exclaiming with pleasure and generally bonhomieing.
Finally he arrived, held my hand between his two and stared into my eyes. ‘So happy to meet you, Maggie.’
He turned to Emily. ‘And how’s my main girl?!’
All smiles, down he sat, and displayed what a regular at the Club House he was by not even looking at the menu. ‘Cobb salad, hold the avocado, dressing on the side,’ he efficiently told the waiter. Then he launched into gossipy and entertaining conversation about our fellow lunchers. He was almost like a tour guide.
‘As you know, the hierarchy of power in this town shakes down every Monday morning,’ he told me.
‘Depending on the opening weekend grosses,’ Emily said.
‘Right! So see that guy over there, in the suspenders. Elmore Shinto. As of this morning, his career is over. Executive producer of Moonstone, a ninety-million-dollar project. Word on the street said it sucked. They reshot the ending four times. Opened this weekend and TANKED. Studio’s going to take a huge hit on it.’
I was keen to get a look at him, mostly because I was interested in getting a gawk at a man who showed up in public wearing suspenders. As if the Club House was the Rocky Horror Show. Then to my disappointment I remembered that ‘suspenders’ was American for ‘braces’. From the way Elmore was chatting and laughing, he didn’t look like a man whose career was over.
‘That’s the way they do things round here,’ Emily remarked. ‘Always dress it up with a brave face… Until you’re found rocking in a corner, crazed with cocaine psychosis, and you’re carted off to the farm,’ she added, with a laugh. ‘Then there’s no hiding anything.’
‘Er, yeah,’ David said, a little uncertainly, then launched into movie gossip. ‘… saved the studio from takeover… brought in the original producer… three-picture deal… script picked off the slush pile… ten years to get a green light…’
The commentary continued through our unbelievably speedy meal: no starter, and certainly no dessert. Since I’d arrived in LA, I hadn’t ever once been offered anything other than coffee after my meal. I suspected that if I got a longing for a slice of banoffi, they’d have to ring the dessert chef and get him out of bed.
Over the lunch, David and Emily had discussed pitch tactics a little, but as we left the restaurant the real work began: David stopped at several tables and introduced Emily to meaty-handed moguls.
‘Emily O’Keeffe. Hugely talented writer. Pitching her new movie, Plastic Money, to Hothouse on Wednesday. You wanna piece you gotta get in there fast!’
I hovered in the background, smiling nervously. The response to Emily varied. Some of the men were patently disgruntled at having their cobb salads and Evian water disturbed, but others seemed genuinely interested. But even with the ruder ones, David – and indeed Emily – smilingly stood their ground, as if they were the hottest stars in town. There was something very exciting about the buzz that David was whipping up before our very eyes. When we finally neared the door, David said quietly, ‘That last guy, Larry Savage, has already passed on the script, but betcha he calls.’
‘They hate the feeling they’re missing out.’ I tried to sound knowledgeable.
‘They also hate their asses getting fired when Hothouse makes the movie into a big hit and their studio finds out they passed on it.’
Then I heard myself exclaim, ‘Oh, holy Christ!’
‘What?’ Emily asked.
‘It’s Shay Delaney.’
‘Where?’
‘There.’ I indicated the man with the dark-blond hair, at a table with three other men.
‘That’s not Shay Delaney.’
‘Yes it is! Oh no, you’re right, it isn’t.’ The man had just turned to the room and for the first time I saw his profile. ‘But it looked really like him,’ I said defensively. ‘The back of his head was identical to Shay’s.’
14
That afternoon there were two further phone calls from the sweet, squeaky girl at Mort Russell’s office. First to know if Emily had any special requests for Wednesday’s pitch.
‘Like what?’ I asked curiously.
‘Audio-visual equipment. Herbal tea. A special chair.’
‘Well, I’m afraid Emily is in a meeting right now.’ She’d gone to her gyrotonic – whatever that was – trainer. Everyone in LA seemed to have a constant parade of appointments with accountants, nutritionists, hairdressers, trainers of strange disciplines and, top of the list, therapists. ‘I’ll have her call you back.’
Then the girl rang again to give very complicated instructions for parking on Wednesday afternoon. Among other things, she needed the reg. number and make of Emily’s car.
‘She made a right song and dance about it,’ I told Emily on her return.
‘That’s because in movie studios, parking places are like sincerity,’ she remarked.
‘Huh?’
‘Very, very rare. Anyone else call?’
‘Just my parents. They say they’re worried about me.’
‘They’re not the only ones.’
‘I’m OK,’ I sighed. At least my middle-of-the-night panic had abated. ‘And I rang Donna and Sinead.’ Once
I’d known for sure that neither of them were Garv’s girl, I’d felt OK about talking to them. Both of them sounded delighted to hear from me finally, and neither knew a thing about Garv’s affair. That was a relief – so at least all of Dublin wasn’t discussing it.
‘What are you going to wear tonight to Dan Gonzalez’s party?’ Emily asked.
‘Dunno.’ I was glad we were going out. Constant activity was what I wanted, to keep ahead of myself and my thoughts. But there was something I had to ask. ‘Will Shay Delaney be there?’
A pause. ‘He might be. If he’s in town.’ Another pause. ‘Would you mind if he was?’
‘Ah, no.’
‘OK.’
‘Have you ever met his wife?’
‘No, she doesn’t come with him, I don’t think. I suppose with the three children she wouldn’t be able.’
‘Does he… you know… play around? Or is he faithful to her?’
‘I don’t know,’ Emily said earnestly. ‘I don’t see him that often or know him that well. Which would you prefer? That he’s faithful or unfaithful?’
‘Don’t know. Neither.’
Emily nodded thoughtfully at this piece of illogical nonsense. ‘Look,’ she said slowly, ‘you’ve let him live rent-free in your head for a long time.’ Then she stopped. ‘I’m sorry, forget I opened my mouth. I don’t know… I suppose I can’t know what you went through. Sorry,’ she repeated.
‘It’s OK.’
Then she went to get ready and that was the end of that. Half an hour later she reappeared in pink and black leopard-skin jeans, dominatrix stilettos and some sort of jerkin top. But it wasn’t just the clothes: there were bracelets and hair slides and shiny make-up…
‘How do you do it?’ My brow furrowed as I studied her. ‘You’re like Wonderwoman, the way you transform yourself.’
‘You look great too.’
I’d done my best, but I hadn’t brought many glitzy clothes to LA (mostly because I didn’t have them), and in my black ‘party’ dress I felt like a mourner next to Emily’s exotic plumage.
‘Oh why,’ I berated myself, ‘do I have brick-shithouse tendencies, else I could borrow your clothes. Curl my eyelashes, would you, with your magic eyelash curler?’
Emily could do better than that: she did my make-up so that I was nearly as shiny as her, then gave me some spare hair slides and bracelets.
And then off we went.
The party, in a Spanish-style mansion in Bel Air, was one of those highly organized glamorous ones. Electronic gates with burly types checking your identity, ten Mexican men to park your car and fairy lights winking and twinkling through the trees. In the house, good-looking, talkative people circulated in the high-ceilinged, airy rooms, and enormous vases overflowed with abundant arrangements of lilies. The light glinted off trays of champagne and – rather disappointingly, I thought – trays of mineral water. As it was a Hollywood party I’d come expecting drugs, hookers and general high-jinks, and I wasn’t prepared to relinquish that vision. Surely that ebony princess looking for the ladies’ room was really off to snort a gram of cocaine? That alarmingly young-looking Hispanic girl had to be a prostitute.
Emily went to pay a fealty visit to Dan Gonzalez, the host, and I stood sipping champagne and watching, hawk-eyed, for signs of debauchery.
‘Hi!’ A burlyish, youngish man wearing a wing-tipped collar walked up to me. ‘Gary Fresher, executive producer.’
‘Maggie Gar – Walsh.’ They were certainly friendly here!
‘And what do you do, Maggie?’
‘I’m just taking some down time right now.’
Then, so quickly that I could hardly take it in, he said curtly, ‘Nice meeting you,’ turned his back and walked away.
Whaaat?
I should have had a job. He wasn’t interested in talking to me because I couldn’t help him. The realization shocked and depressed me. Party, my granny. More like a dreadful networking convention. Next, people would be exchanging business cards. Oh, hold on, they already were, and Emily O’Keeffe was one of them. There she was, in the thick of things, glossy, confident, talking the talk, walking the walk…
No sign anywhere of Shay Delaney. He mustn’t be in town.
‘Hi! I’m Leon Franchetti.’
A startlingly handsome man had materialized in front of me, his hand extended.
‘Maggie Walsh.’
‘And what do you do, Maggie?’
‘I’m a pet groomer.’ I just couldn’t run the risk of being snubbed again and that was the first job to come into my head. ‘How about you?’
‘I’m an actor.’
I admit it, I was quite impressed. Not as much as I once would have been when my feelings were normal, but… ‘Cool.’
‘Yeah, things have been going pretty good.’ I was spellbound by his matinée –idol smile. I was about to ask what he’d been in, but he beat me to it. ‘I’ve just finished a pilot for ABC, should be screening in the fall – I’ve got a totally great character, with lots of room for growth, I could really stretch myself with it–’
‘Excell–’
‘Before that I was in Kaleidoscope.’ Another hypnotizing smile.
‘Were you?’ I’d seen it, but I didn’t remember him from it.
‘Not a huge role, but it got me noticed. Oh yeah, it got me noticed.’ He flashed me another handsome-devil smile. Oddly, this one didn’t affect me like the others had. ‘I’ve also played Benjamin in the House of Pies commercial. “Where do I get my pie?” He stuck out his bottom lip, suddenly looked woebegone, then delivered, with a beam, ‘“In the House of Pies, stoopid!”‘It appeared to be the catchphrase from a very crap ad. ‘It didn’t screen in California, but it was totally HUGE in the midwest. Even politicians were saying it. “Where do you see yourself in ten years time?” “In the House of Pies, stoopid!”
It was around then that I realized how superfluous I was to the conversation. Emily rescued me, but within minutes I was boxed in by another walking résumé, who gave me chapter and verse on his entire acting career. He asked me one question and one question only: did I work in ‘the business’?
When he’d finished with me, I stood alone and watched the room. All the glitter had rubbed off and the people moving and smiling and talking looked like sharks in a shark pool. It was true what Emily had said: it would be impossible to find love in this town. They were all too into their work. Within me a space opened up; there was nothing to distract from my thoughts of Garv. Depression began to circle and settle…
Then my heart thrilled at the sight of an old friend across the room: Troy, with his long face and implacable mouth. OK, so I’d only known him since Friday, but compared to this awful crowd of humourless egomaniacs he was one of the closest friends I’d ever had. I hurtled through the throng.
‘Hey,’ he exclaimed, looking as happy to see me as I was to see him. ‘Having a good time?’
‘No.’
He turned my wrist to him. ‘Uh-oh. The emergency happen?’
I nodded. ‘I rang him, he wasn’t there. Thank you for the liquorice lace.’
‘Twizzler,’ he corrected. ‘It help?’
‘It sure did. I could have done with twenty more.’
‘Buddhists say that everything is impermanent – that’s a comfort. But not as much as refined sugar. So you’re not having a good time?’
‘No,’ I said hotly. ‘I’ve been monologued at by countless thesps. Such egomaniacs!’
‘Acting is a savage profession,’ Troy explained softly. ‘Every day you get told that your voice is wrong, that your look is over. You get so many blows to your ego that the only way to survive is to overdevelop it.’
‘I see.’ I was momentarily humbled, then I remembered another wound. ‘Wait till you hear what happened when I first arrived!’ I related the story of the man walking away when he heard I didn’t have a job. ‘Where I come from,’ I scorned, ‘people aren’t interested in you because of what you do.’
‘N
o, they’re interested because of what you look like,’ he said drily.
I paused. ‘Fair enough,’ I conceded. ‘And I haven’t seen one person snorting cocaine. Call this a Hollywood party. Although do you think she might be a hooker?’ I indicated the very young Hispanic girl.
‘That’s Dan Gonzalez’s daughter.’
I could feel the disappointment on my face and Troy laughed a low, gentle laugh. ‘You’re not going to find drugs and sketchy stuff at this kind of party. They’re here to work. But,’ he said, ‘if you want I’ll take you out some night and show you a different side to LA.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, coolly. Irritated by the flood-tide of heat that roared up my neck and exploded in bright colour in my face.
As Emily and I drove home, I was oddly mesmerized by the freeway traffic. Five lanes of cars streaming forward, everyone proceeding at the same speed, with the same distance between every car.
Sliproads fed newcomers into the main body. They settled into their place with balletic grace, without missing a beat. At the same time, cars were leaving, extricating themselves smoothly and zipping up sliproads until they disappeared from view. Constant motion, constant grace – I found it beautiful.
What was wrong with me? Finding traffic beautiful. Finding big-nosed, slab-of-granitey men beautiful.
I was covered in confusion. It was a long, long time since I’d found someone other than Garv attractive and I couldn’t help but worry about my unconventional choice.
15
A mild crisis had arisen. David Crowe wasn’t able to make Emily’s pitch.
‘Something’s come up,’ Emily said bitterly. ‘Someone, he means. More important than me.’
But Mort Russell’s ‘people’ still wanted the meeting to go ahead as arranged.
‘So David said I’m to bring my assistant with me.’
‘What assistant?’
‘You!’
