by Rowe, Brian
“Gavin! Keep an eye on Buster! If that dog runs away again, I’m not chasing after him, do you hear me? He’s your responsibility!”
“OK, Mom!”
“And be careful in the Jacuzzi!”
“OK!”
“I’m gonna start making waffles! Do you want to help me make the batter?”
“No! I’ll just eat the waffles when they’re done! Thanks!”
She wanted to smack him over the head with her spatula, but she didn’t. She felt a lot of love for her son that night. She didn’t know if it was because she genuinely cared for him on a matriarchal level, or because she was just excited about the prospect of him making loads of cash week after week on a popular television show. If Gavin snagged that role, there would be more checks in the mail than ads for restaurants.
I love you, my son.
---
Vivien was warming up the maple syrup when her husband charged in from the garage. Patrick didn’t even say hello when he picked up a slice of toast, smothered it with butter, and devoured it.
“Oh my God, I’m starving. I haven’t eaten anything all day.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Vivien said.
Patrick looked out the window. “Is that Gavin?”
“Yeah, he’s loving that Jacuzzi.”
“See… I told you.” Patrick stood up straight as if to look important. “You’ve been on my ass for the better part of a year about how that would be a waste of money.”
Vivien gave her husband a playful punch on the shoulder. “I guess you were right. I still have to try it out.”
She turned away from Patrick and walked over to the stove.
“How was work?” Patrick asked, biting into a second slice of toast.
“Busier than ever. I’m casting three movies right now, only one of which I find particularly interesting. But I have to pay my associate, and he only gets paid when I get paid, so…”
“Sucks for him.”
“You have no idea.”
---
“Mom, can I go over to Johnny’s?”
“It’s a little late, don’t you think?”
“Please don’t baby me. I’m a teenager now.”
Buster jumped up on his lap, and Gavin fed him some bacon from the table.
“It’s already dark outside,” Vivien said. “Don’t you have homework to do?”
“I finished it earlier.”
“OK, well, it’s up to your father.”
Patrick had his nose stuck inside one of his sleep-inducing magazines over on the leather couch. This page-turner looked to be called Finances Weekly.
“Honey?” Vivien tried to get his attention. That magazine article about eBay seller rates must have been fascinating.
He looked at Vivien, and then over at Gavin. “Yeah, I don’t care. It’s fine.”
“Yes!” Gavin jumped up so high his hands could almost touch the ceiling. “Thanks, Dad!”
“Grab a flashlight at least,” Vivien said.
Gavin complied. He also grabbed a jacket as he walked out the front door.
Vivien took one more bite of her gooey waffle and sat down next to Patrick on the couch. She pulled out her laptop and powered it up. “Anything new at work?”
Patrick didn’t take his eyes off of the magazine. “I had to fire Cassandra.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, she was spending more time on the phone with her boyfriend than with my patients.”
“She worked for you for a long time.”
“Six months maybe. Wasn’t that long.”
“How are you going to go about finding a replacement?"
He looked up from his magazine and grinned. “The position’s already been filled.”
“Oh. Guy or girl?”
“It’s another girl.”
“I see.”
“What?”
Vivien gave him a playful but jealous look. “Is she pretty?”
“I guess, yeah. Doesn’t have a lot of receptionist experience and I’m taking a chance on her, but so far she’s proving her worth. Why do you care if she’s pretty?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
Vivien could see Buster scratching at the front door. The dog loved Gavin, and only Gavin.
“Well, what about you?” Patrick asked. “You work with young boys day after day, and you don’t see me complaining.”
“What boys would you be referring to?”
“How about that associate of yours? How old is he?”
“Brandon?” Vivien let out a hearty laugh.
“Yes.”
Vivien put her feet up on the couch and sighed. “You don’t have to be jealous of Brandon, honey. He doesn’t exactly play for my team.”
“Oh,” he said. “So he sucks cock.”
Vivien didn’t say anything, stunned at her husband’s choice of words. “Uhh, yeah. As far as I know. I mean, I don’t know for sure. I don’t really ask about his personal life.”
“You should ask him sometime. Maybe you’ll learn something.”
Vivien studied her husband as he picked up another magazine and started reading the table of contents.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Vivien asked.
Patrick didn’t respond.
---
That night, she stayed up late to make sure her son came home safely. It was after eleven, and Gavin was talking to his lady friend over the phone. Patrick had been asleep for over an hour.
When she made sure Gavin was in bed with the light turned off, Vivien walked over to her bathroom. She analyzed her face. It was still vibrant for forty-four, but she had definitely lost something. She washed her face and neck and turned out the light.
She quietly made her way under the silk covers. She felt icky getting in bed with a man brave enough to put down her cock sucking abilities.
She looked at Patrick’s arms. They were thin and gangly, not at all like the beefy ones she had gone crazy for back in 1992. His face was worn down, and his hair had turned a depressing shade of gray.
She still loved him, of course. She always had.
But the cock sucking.
If her memory served her correctly, she had only gone down on her husband twice during their entire married life.
He had gone down on her even less.
-4-
Christopher Bells looked like the hippie version of Santa Claus. His hair was long and stringy, and his beard was as thick as his waist. Down underneath the bushes that surrounded his head was a man both attractive and confident, but he hadn’t let that person out in years.
The sunshine was still another forty minutes away when Christopher awoke, threw the covers off his bed, and darted for the bathroom, pulling his boxers down below his knees.
Christopher turned to his right. There was no new reading material. He tried to reach for his toothpaste to read all about the wonders of cellulose gum when his bowels started screaming.
Christopher was forty-one years old. He had been suffering from irritable bowel syndrome since the age of ten. By the time he was eighteen, he had endured two endoscopies, the first of which had been done without anesthesia. By the time he was twenty-five, he had put himself through three CAT scans, six anxiety medications, and even a trip to the colonoscopy clinic. Nothing had been able to fix his problem.
He had never married, and he rarely dated. The friends he had were seldom and far between. He tried to make conversation with people around his apartment complex, including two teenage boys who lived above him, but one night he got an accusatory look from the old woman next door, and he thought it best not to arouse suspicion.
The people he related to most were at work. Christopher was a storyboard artist, and a damn good one. Six months ago he had landed a permanent gig at Jiggawatts Studios, located in Chatsworth, as one of three main storyboard artists for the umpteenth new version of Alice in Wonderland, this one told through the eyes of the Red Queen. Jiggawatts was a large building with two fl
oors and various departments; some people worked for the company, and many others didn’t. The workers were all friendly, sometimes even—gasp—chatty. Christopher might have been the oldest person working there, aside from the company CEO, but after a few months, he started to feel like part of a family. He didn’t know if this twisted take on the children’s story would ever actually be made—there had been financial problems burdening the company even before he arrived—but he knew his time there would be worthwhile, if not for the development of his craft, but for the exercising of his people skills.
Despite his success in the animation arena, one of Christopher’s biggest regrets in life was not pursuing a career in acting. He acted in plays all through his younger years. In third grade he played Peter Pan, in seventh grade he played Peter Parker, and in twelfth grade he played Peter Sellers. He had a knack for impersonating other people, as well as getting under the skin of the most fantastical of characters.
Growing up in the UK, he had considered pursuing a theatre degree at The Oxford School of Drama, but he decided at a young age to come to America and march in the direction of his other interest—animation. His main reason? The IBS. It had become more and more difficult throughout high school to get through a performance without having to go to the bathroom. His nerves would cripple him, and sometimes he would spend the last hour of a show belting out a ballad while attempting not to unleash a large bowel movement all over the occupied stage. When he had to stop in the middle of a line reading of Romeo & Juliet to run for the nearest toilet, he knew another outlet of creativity, one that would keep him safe inside his own private office, would be the smartest move of his life.
But still, he always wondered…
Christopher stood in the shower for at least five minutes, completely still, before he even started wiping his body down with soap. He was deep in thought. It was six in the morning. He couldn’t see outside his bathroom, but he could sense the sun was there, promising a new day.
He hoped he would see her again today. Christopher worked in the back of the building on the first floor, near some other animators, and he tried whenever possible to keep his door open so that others could stop in to rattle off a few pleasantries, most especially others with whom he imagined he could fall madly in love.
He had discovered the new tenant at Jiggawatts Studios only recently. She was tall for a woman, strikingly beautiful, and looked close to his age. She had long black hair that he wanted to caress for a fortnight, as well as a smile that could melt the sun itself.
Through some Internet research, he figured out who she was. And he knew immediately after learning her profession that he had to meet her. Her job sounded fun.
She works with actors.
-5-
Wednesday tended to be Vivien’s busiest day of the week, but as she looked over the day’s schedule while shoving in some morning oatmeal, she found only a lunch and a general meeting penciled in her calendar.
She kicked off her slippers and started walking to her bathroom when Gavin appeared in the doorway. He wore a tight tank top and obnoxiously loose gym shorts, music blasting into his ears from his iPod Nano.
“Mother,” he said in a proper tone, as if he just aged a few decades. He pulled his earphones down.
“Yes, Son,” she said, playing along.
“I have a question.”
“OK.”
“You’re not gonna like it.”
“What questions do you ask that I like?”
“I was wondering what you were making for dinner tonight?”
Vivien analyzed her son’s belly area, surprised that it wasn’t extended another few inches.
“Eat your breakfast, ponder your lunch, and later we’ll talk about dinner.”
“No, really,” he said. “What are you making?”
He looked serious. She pushed Buster to the other side of her bed and sat down. “What is it?”
“So you know I’ve been seeing this girl Kendyll.”
“No, Gavin, I don’t give you permission to marry her.”
He didn’t laugh. “I was wondering if she could have dinner with us tonight.”
Vivien’s eyebrows rose an inch. She opened her mouth, and then closed it, before finally opening it again. “I’m not sure that would be appropriate.”
“Why not?”
“Well, how would she get here?”
“Her dad can drop her off.”
Vivien scooted back toward her pillows and tried to get comfortable. She avoided eye contact with her little boy as she decided on her answer.
“No.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
Gavin crossed his arms. “I don’t want to have sex with her, Mom.”
Did he just say what I think he said?
“I’m sorry, no,” she said. “My answer is no.”
Gavin bit his lip and started tapping his fingers against the wall. “Well, I already asked Dad, and he said yes!”
He ran out of the room and slammed the door before Vivien could respond.
Christ, she thought, why does he even bother?
Vivien tried to shake the conversation from her head as she walked into her bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror. Vivien was one of those beauties that needed extra work in the morning to look good. Moments out of bed, she could be confused with being the illegitimate child of Barbara Bush and Beetlejuice.
A few minutes later, she would be the Queen again.
---
After a trip to the cleaners, she called the office at 10:15.
When her associate first started working for her nearly two years ago, he had promised her nine to seven, ten hours a day, fifty hours a week. As the days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months, Brandon started to come in later and later. She was OK with 9:30, but anything after that seemed a bit late even for Tinseltown working standards. Somehow, after all this time, he had started coming in even later than ten, as if he needed extra time to sleep or eat or penetrate his boyfriend’s ass or whatever the hell he did. The excessive lateness was starting to grate on her.
Of course, the phone kept ringing. She let out a sigh but was surprised to hear Brandon pick up the phone before she could leave her message.
“Hello?” He sounded out of breath.
“Brandon?”
“Yes. Hey V. How are you?”
“Good. What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are there any messages I should know about?”
There was silence. She wondered if he had actually put her on hold. “No,” he said. “Just checked. No messages.”
“You just checked the messages while you were on the phone with me?”
“No, of course not. I checked them a while ago. There was nothing.”
“OK,” she said, recognizing his lies. “Do you have your list of things to do in front of you?”
She could tell in this second moment of silence that he didn’t. She could also tell through his breathing that he was mocking her.
“No, I still have to print it,” he said. “Sorry. I’ll print it right now.”
Vivien wanted to scream, but she held herself together. “Brandon, I can’t emphasize this enough. There is so much going on this office. I’ve got so much shit swirling around in my head, I’m surprised I haven’t had a brain aneurism. You are my right hand person. You are the one that I need to depend on. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I need you to get in at 9:30, OK? None of this 10:15 bullshit.”
“OK.” She could tell that he was pissed.
“I need you to be on top of things more. I sense you’re a little too comfortable. When you get in, I want messages checked right away, and I want you to get to work on your to-do list. I want you so fucking prepared, you’re excited to see my cell number flash across your screen, you understand me?”
“OK, Vivien.”
He hadn’t called her Vi
vien in a while.
“OK. I don’t mean to be hard on you, Brandon. I just can’t have this slacking off. The interns can slack off if they want. You need to be on it. You are my eyes and ears at all times.”
“I get it.”
She could sense he wanted to slam the phone down. She had said everything she needed to say.
“Speaking of interns, who’s in today?”
“Just me. We don’t have any interns on Wednesdays, remember?”
“Oh that’s right. We need to change that. Things are too busy without some extra help.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s why I scheduled you to meet with some interns tomorrow afternoon.”
“Oh, great. Perfect. See? It’s that kind of preparation I’m talking about!”
“It’s what I’m here for.”
A minute later she was off the phone. She didn’t like wailing on her associates, interns, and the Mexican family who collected her trash, but sometimes she just had to remind everyone who was the boss.
Nice girls finish last. Always have, always will.
--
Lila Perrington was nearing her fifty-third birthday, but she didn’t look a day over forty. Her hair was long and blonde, and her skin was miraculously soft and smooth. She was dressed all in black, with a fashionable belt and over-sized high heels thrown in for good measure. Her lipstick was a shiny pink.
Lila was a B-level actress who had some bit parts in movies and TV shows dating all the way back to 1976, but she thought of herself as the most powerful celebrity in Hollywood. She had acted in scenes with the likes of Warren Beatty, Gene Hackman, and Kris Kristofferson but lately found herself lucky to share the screen with the most maudlin of soap opera actors.
When she walked toward the back of Tapestry Café at Laurel Canyon and Burbank, however, she carried herself like a true movie star. She and Vivien hugged like the old friends they were and took their seats.
“I’ve never been here before,” Lila said.
“Oh?”
Lila didn’t bother looking up from her menu. “You could’ve warned me this was a new place. I damn well couldn’t find parking for miles.”
“They have valet in the front.”
