“It was on the Food Channel. That crazy English guy. He was doing a menu of nursery food, whatever that is. Anyway, I thought of you and your stories about the rice pudding at your grandmother’s club back in Philadelphia.”
“I told you about the Union League?”
“Several times,” he says. “Now, should I get spoons or do you want me to just put the bowl on the floor and the puppy can go nuts?”
“No, the puppy can share,” I say, flopping back on the sofa and cradling the pudding. Suddenly the day looks to have a much better finish than I thought possible even an hour ago.
Steven disappears into the kitchen and begins opening what sounds like all my cupboards looking for bowls. “I don’t think I’ve eaten rice pudding as an adult. At least not willingly,” he says, shouting a bit over the noise. “Are these Waterford?” He appears in the doorway a second later holding up two cut-crystal bowls.
“Wedding present.”
“Nice,” he says, holding one up to the light. “Should we use them?”
“Use them? They’ve never been used,” I say. “Just like everything else from my life. Still waiting for the starting gun to go off.”
“I thought we were over the my-marriage-failed-my-life-is-a-mess phase,” Steven says, heading toward the sofa armed with bowls and spoons. “I mean, there’s Charles now.”
“Maybe,” I say, more sulkily than I intend. “Can you have a relationship that’s just on the phone?”
“Honey, there’s an entire toll-call industry devoted to just that,” he says, sitting down beside me and patting my hand. “Look, you guys are just getting started. He’s called you what, every day since he left? You’re golden.”
“Well, it feels like vermeil. Looks good, but who really knows?” I flop back on the sofa again and watch Steven spoon out the rice pudding. One scoop for him. Four for me. Four should do it. Plus a little left over for the morning.
He hands me my bowl and then takes a bite from his own. “Okay, that was fun,” he says, putting the bowl down.
“Don’t worry, it won’t go to waste,” I say, licking the back of my spoon.
Steven watches me eat for a second and then gazes around the living room again.
“So other than your patio furniture, this all looks pretty cool. Is this antique?” he says, nodding at the Oriental rug.
“Yeah,” I murmur between bites. “Grandma’s. As was that and that and that,” I say, nodding at the burled walnut coffee table, the Spanish leather folding screen in the corner, and the sideboard against the wall holding my stereo system and TV.
“Is that a Frank Lloyd Wright?” he says, getting up to examine the sideboard.
“I think so,” I say. “Grandmère was a tad eccentric in her tastes. I have two red leather chairs downstairs in the bedroom that she had made from the seats in their old Mercedes. They sit about five inches off the floor, but they are striking. Are we surprised that Amy took the family silver and the Limoges and left me the dregs?”
Steven turns and looks at me. “The dregs? You have all this fabulous stuff and you’re so busy feeling sorry for yourself that you can’t get it together to buy a fucking dining room table?”
I stop in midbite. “Hey, I never said I felt sorry for myself because of my furniture. I love this stuff. It makes me feel more at home than anything Josh and I ever bought together. I feel sorry for myself because the rest of my life is a mess.”
Steven shakes his head. “I’m beginning to think it’s not so much of a mess as you want to believe it’s a mess. You bitch about your clients not taking responsibility for their lives, but I don’t know if it isn’t exactly what you’re doing as well.”
I drop my spoon into the bowl with a clatter, gather up the rest of the pudding, and stalk into the kitchen.”Hey, don’t be mad,” Steven calls out.
“Too late for that,” I holler back. I bang the tea kettle around for a few minutes until my anger passes. Or I start to feel ridiculous. “Do you want some tea?” I say finally.
“No.”
“It’s as much of a white flag as I’m going to wave.”
“Okay, then yes.”
I find some ancient Lapsang in the freezer and make two cups. I take a sip. Like drinking liquid smoke. Oh well, it’s a gesture. “Here,” I say, heading back into the living room with the tea. “Although this probably would have been better if we smoked it.”
We sit next to each other on the sofa sipping the awful tea. “I feel like I should read some Emily Dickinson. Aloud,” Steven says.
I elbow him in the ribs. Our fight is officially over.
“Does that work?” he says, nodding at the fireplace.
“Yeah. It’s gas.”
“Shall we have a fire, dear?”
I put down my cup, reach for the matches on the coffee table. I crouch down, fiddle with the gas lever and the matches for a minute. Finally, a blue flame leaps across the empty, soot-stained bricks.
“That looks real,” he says, squinting at the flame. “Sort of.”
“I was thinking of getting some fake logs to go with it.”
“And ruin the Bunsen burner effect? Don’t you think there’s something about the purity of a naked flame?”
“If you’re a chemist. Or cook PCP in your basement.”
“If only we had some crack. Or marshmallows.”
“Okay, and this is scary—we do,” I say, leaping up and heading into the kitchen. Once you’re into the sugar, you might as well go all the way. Besides, we need a chaser for that tea. I root around the cupboard and find the half-empty bag of marshmallows. A girl doesn’t need much. Just wine, crackers, good coffee, Scharfenberger cocoa, and marshmallows. That combination has gotten me through many a night. And the next morning. I open a drawer and pull out two metal skewers—did I know I had these?—and head back into the living room.
“Burnt sugar coming up,” I say, handing him a skewer. We load them up and go at it for a while. “Smells like Girl Scouts in here,” I say, wiping the corners of my mouth with my fingers.
“Wouldn’t know,” he says, reaching for more marshmallows. “If only we had more wine, we could be like Sunny von Bulow and lapse into a coma. So what are you doing for Christmas?”
“Haven’t gotten that far. I have to get through Thanksgiving first. My parents are coming, remember?”
“I thought they were coming for Christmas?”
“The anticipation was killing me. I convinced them to come for Thanksgiving instead. Get it out of the way. I already got them a room at the Chateau.”
“You got Jack and Helen a room at the Chateau?”
“Jack and Helen and Amy and Barkley.”
“The dog’s coming?”
“Amy’s husband. Such as he is.”
“I’ll say it again, the Chateau? Nobody’s parents stay at the Chateau. Not unless they’re English.”
“They said they wanted to be near my house. They said they wanted something with ‘atmosphere.’ I was thinking of sticking them in the Standard, but I thought that was pushing it.”
“I think the Chateau’s pushing it.”
“I booked them a bungalow suite.”
“The John Belushi memorial?”
“Look, it’ll be fine,” I say. “Mom’ll love the lobby. Dad can read the paper in the courtyard and pretend he’s at the club or wherever he likes to pretend he is. And Amy can lie around the pool and think she’s at the apogee of Hollywood cool.”
“It is the apogee of Hollywood cool.”
“Well, I know that, but I’m not going to tell her.”
We roast a few more skewers. I’m starting to feel slightly jumpy from all the sugar, when the phone rings.
“Don’t answer it,” Steven says, licking his fingers. “We don’t have enough even for us and I’m not comatose yet.”
“It’s my phone, not the front door.”
“Oh, then answer it if you want.”
I check my watch—going on ten—and decide
to let the machine pick up.
“Hey, you, I thought I’d check and see if you were home before I tried your cell—” is as much as Charles gets out before I grab it.
“Hey,” I say, vaulting across Steven to grab the portable off the coffee table. “How’s it going? It’s pretty late there.” I look back over at Steven. He is mouthing “He calls you you?” and gives me a thumbs-up.
Later, much later into our conversation, after Steven has gone and the fire is out, I feel the ground slip. Just slightly. But enough. Enough to change things. To change everything.
“Look, the point is that you and I appear to be the only DWP agents not in Doug’s crosshairs,” Charles says. We’ve been at this for over an hour. G. Suzanne. The Phoenix. He knows as much—no, more—than I do. Like the fact that G has already had a few meetings with ad agencies in New York. “It’s just wrong, Alex. Doug came to us, convinced the DWP partners to get into bed with him, and now he’s trying to screw them, particularly Suzanne, out of what is rightfully theirs.”
I do what I’ve been doing for the past hour: lying on the sofa, murmuring my assent. It’s comforting listening to Charles’s voice. Plus the fact that he seems to have a plan and that he’s confiding in me. “Well, I think you’ve got it all figured out,” I say.
“Look, I don’t have it all figured out. I don’t know, given the intricacies of Suzanne’s contract, that it’s possible to even stop him at this point. We’re talking to her lawyer now, but it’s crucial to maintain all of Suzanne’s remaining clients.”
“Oh, I thought you knew how. How to stop him.”
There’s a pause. “Look, I’m not getting reams of anger coming off you,” he says suddenly. “Where are you on all this?”
I sit up on the sofa. “Reams? Well, of course I’m upset. I don’t like Doug any more than you do and I really don’t like being dragged into the middle of this feud—”
“Feud? This is more than a feud. This is the future of DWP here.”
“You mean the DWP where you’re already a senior partner?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Now it’s my turn to pause. What did I mean? “Look, I’m just saying yes, it’s wrong that Suzanne looks like she’s going to get screwed out of what is rightfully hers. But she signed that deal. She chose to merge with BIG. I feel bad that she might lose everything, but it’s not my fault that she and the agency are in this situation.”
“I didn’t say it’s your fault, but you are in a position to do something. To help us try and stop him.”
“Am I? Am I really?” I stand up and start to pace. Maybe it’s the late hour. Or the sugar that I can feel fleeing my bloodstream like scaffolding collapsing. Or maybe I’m just tired of the whole thing. Ever since G showed up, it’s just been one thing after another and it was pretty damn sucky before. “Look, I know Suzanne thinks I can do something to help and apparently you do too, but I really doubt that. I mean, if the two of you and your lawyers can’t stop Doug, you think I can? That’s almost funny.”
“What’s he offered you?” Charles asks coldly. “This doesn’t sound like you. Or what I thought was you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I say, knowing perfectly well what he means. “Yes, Doug’s approached me. You’re the one who just said you and I are about the only two DWP agents not in his sights. Now you’re blaming me because Doug has talked to me about my future at the agency? Look, you said it yourself. People are going to get laid off no matter what. People should get laid off. We don’t have the client base to support everyone. But I’m supposed to fall on my sword for the good of old DWP?”
“Well, I think you’ve answered my question,” he says stiffly. “It sounds like you’ve made up your mind. Thanks for letting me know where you stand.”
“I haven’t made up my mind,” I say, angry now. “But it’s very easy for you to be righteous about this. You’re a partner. I’m not. We’re in totally different positions and from where I sit, I don’t have a dog in this fight. Not really. Not the way things stand now.”
“Well, apparently that’s about to change.”
“Look, I just told you, I haven’t decided anything. I’m not with Doug. I’m not against him. But, frankly, he’s given me more reasons to side with him than you and Suzanne have.”
“Oh,” Charles says very, very quietly. “And I thought I had. And I thought you were happy about that. But apparently I was wrong.”
“Look,” I say, scrambling now for something, anything that will put this conversation back on track. Put us back on track. “Look, I didn’t mean what—”
“Look. Let’s forget it. Let’s forget all of it. I’ll just talk to you later.”
He hangs up. Oh, fuck. Two fights in one night and this one isn’t going to be fixed with a cup of tea. I throw the phone onto the sofa. Now what? I check my watch. Nearly midnight. I’m exhausted but there’s no chance I’ll get to sleep anytime soon. Not after that conversation. God, how did I manage in the space of a single phone call to blow both my relationship, such as it was, and my job? Unless I totally throw my lot in with G now, I’m screwed. Alone and screwed.
I check my watch again. Still midnight. Fuck it. I head into the kitchen, grab my bag, fish out my keys, and slam out the front door. If I can’t sleep, I might as well drive. Besides, it’s a cold, clear night. A good wind off the desert. If I take Mulholland, I should be able to see the city spread out below me, the lights spiraling out like lit circuitry.
I pull the Audi out of the garage. I’ve heard you can take it all the way, Mulholland. All the way to the ocean. If you know how to go. I slide open the sunroof. The icy night pours in. I speed across Laurel Canyon, drop the car in third, and head out. I have a long drive ahead of me.
15 We Gather Together
“Honey, this rain. I mean, we could’ve just stayed at home.”
It’s pouring and I’m in the lobby of the Chateau with my parents staring at the rain-soaked courtyard, reassessing this whole family-in-L.A.-for-Thanksgiving idea. Actually, Helen and I are staring at the rain. Jack is deep in an armchair with The Wall Street Journal.
“Well, I thought the point was to actually visit me,” I say, trying to keep my voice out of the whiner’s circle.
“It’s El Niño,” says Jack distractedly, as he flips through the paper. “Although it’s pretty early for that. Usually it doesn’t get going until late January. Even February.”
I look over at him. “How do you know more about L.A.’s weather than I do?”
“Honey, you know your father,” Helen says, staring at the rain sluicing off the hotel roof. From the look on her face, I can tell she’s taking this as personally as she possibly can, that someone, probably me, has already ruined her trip to California.
“Look,” I say, jumping into my salvage campaign. “There’s usually a heat wave in L.A. in November. I thought it would be a good time to be here. Amy could enjoy the pool and you and I could have lunch outside at the Ivy. So I’m sorry we have to change our plans. But at least it’s green,” I say, nodding at the palm trees blowing in the stiff breeze.
“Oh honey, there’s no need to go on about it,” Helen says, turning back to the lobby. “We’ll be fine. We’ll just go to lunch somewhere else.”
I’d forgotten how quickly my mother can turn on a dime, leaving you in the lurch, the ditch you had frantically dug on her behalf just a second earlier. It’s why I’m not breathing a word to her, or frankly anyone in my family, about my job and Charles and whatever our relationship is. Was. Is. If I can’t figure out the reasons and wherefores of my being a Hollywood publicist three years after I made the decision to move here, I certainly know enough not to drag Helen into the discussion. She and Jack are on a need-to-know basis only. And they don’t need to know much. Two years ago, on their first—and only—trip to L.A., they saw my old DWP office. This time, they get my new business card—Alex Davidson, Senior Publicist BIG-DWP—and an endless stream of “It’s gre
at!” when questions about my job—hell, my life—come up.
“So, Dad, you’re interested in lunch, right?” I say, changing strategies. If my mother is a fucking quarter horse with her moods and tactics, Jack is a Budweiser Clydesdale. This won’t be the first time I’ve taken refuge in his plodding obliviousness.
“Sure,” he says, not looking up. “Wherever you gals want to go is fine with me.”
“All right, let me think a second,” I say, running through my options. It’s Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. My parents arrived last night, the same night I had planned for us to go to dinner on Orso’s patio, where I envisioned balmy breezes and a few celebs my parents might actually recognize. Like Suzanne Pleshette or Steve Martin. Of course their delayed flight torpedoed that plan. By the time they got to the Chateau, after nine, they were so wiped they just collapsed with room service.
Now, after getting an earful from Helen about their Spartan suite—“Honey, there’s not even a rug on that wood floor”—I’m now being called to account for the weather. I’d planned that Mom and I would eat lunch at the Ivy (it’s the ideal Mom place, with chintz pillows, overpriced salads, and ancient celebs), followed by a little shopping along Robertson while Amy and Barkley hung out at the pool and went off on their own; typically they had rented their own car, a massive SUV. But this storm, which does not look to be adjourning any time soon, is now forcing me to reschedule Day II and God knows it has been hard enough to come up with an original set of Hollywood activities suitable for the Bucks County crowd. Like trying to program the Food Channel for anorexics.
At least Friday looks foolproof—a day at the spa with Amy and me and Helen, if she feels up to being touched by strangers. And there’s no changing Thursday’s plan for Thanksgiving dinner at the Getty. I had to reserve more than a month in advance and frankly, even if it’s pouring, the place will still be impressive in that over-the-top L.A. way. “A modern Acropolis,” as I described it to Helen, who, of course, thought I meant they served only Greek food—a misunderstanding that required several minutes of further discussion before she agreed to let me book our Thanksgiving there.
So 5 Minutes Ago Page 20
