by Bruce Wagner
A caterer put the final touches on a buffet. The arrival of Dr. Janowicz, an affable, fiftyish man in horn-rims, made for cohesion. In rumpled tweeds, he was a parody of the congenial, humanist professor, with a touch of New Yorker cartoon psychotherapist thrown in. In short order, everyone gathered fruit, bagels, and coffee, finding seats at a round table in the room’s center.
Desultory chatter was broken by the unexpected, somewhat jarring words of the ringleader. “I want to die in my sleep, in peace, like my father,” Dr. Janowicz said somberly, initiating a hush from the group. With the timing of a pro, he added, “Not like the other people who were in the car!”
When the punch line sunk in, they all busted a gut. Decorum restored, Dr. J, as they called him, said he wanted “to just throw a theme out there” and see how people reacted. He interlaced his fingers and hung his head a moment, as if summoning a word from the depths. He looked up, grinning, and said, “Envy.”
Group groan.
“Oh God,” said a thin-faced woman in ivory bangles. “Do we have to go there?”
The roundelay began, unruly and hilarious, anecdotes in which the covetousness of friends and strangers was given subtle shade or boldly drawn. Avarice segued neatly to rage; rage to impotence; and finally, to envious feelings of their own—envy toward those with simpler lives and the imagined serenity that went along. Eating disorders, insomnia, and depression were blithely noted (and their Rx handmaidens too), along with yo-yoing self-worth, psychosomatic illness, free-floating anxiety, and general feelings of impoverishment amidst plenty. Toward the end, Dr. J asked each person what nice thing they were planning to do for themselves in the coming week. When he got to Lisanne, she surprised herself by saying she was going to buy a mandala that she’d seen in the glass case of a bookstore but had thought too expensive. The group thought it a glorious idea. The puzzling session ended with everyone standing and holding hands in silent prayer.
• • •
“LONELYHEARTS,” said Phil as they drove her home.
“I thought some of them were really nice,” said Lisanne.
“Kibbitzers,” said Phil. “Whiners. How many meetings do we have left to go to, Matt?”
“I think maybe four?” his sister said. “It is by far the single most perverse thing Dad ever engineered.”
“And that’s saying a lot.”
“I don’t understand,” said Lisanne.
“We have to go to the meetings,” said Phil.
“Or we’re disinherited,” chimed in Mattie.
“Attendance being mandated by a closely monitored stipulation of our eccentric father’s last will and testament.”
“But what is it—exactly? I mean, who are—”
“A support group for rich people,” said Phil. “No one in that room has less than fifty million.”
“The meetings were hatched during the dot-com boom and kept on. For what they call sudden wealth syndrome. Funny thing is, I don’t think anyone in the industry has that kind of money anymore.”
“Oh bullshit,” said Phil. “Tell it to Larry Ellison’s grandkids. Them that got, still got.”
“Not for much longer,” said Mattie, ominously. “Don’t you read The Guardian? America isn’t long to be. The great experiment is nearly done! As the Romans’, our population shall be leveled and its cities rendered unto farmland. Hopefully, Bechtel will do the rebuild—we still have shares.”
“That joke he told about his father dying,” said Phil, “may have been the funniest joke I have ever heard in my life.”
• • •
LISANNE LEFT FOR the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on Larchmont. She had just scooped up her blue-wrapped Sunday New York Times and was walking to the car when a man came toward her with a package.
“Are you Lisanne McCadden?” he said.
“Yes.”
“I have a delivery.”
She signed and went back in the house, thinking What kind of messenger delivers things on a Sunday? She opened the rich wooden box, gingerly removing the gold-flecked tissue that surrounded the dark, dense core. She gasped. The object in repose was an exquisite lotus bud, its metallic petals sensuously opened to expose what a typed enclosure identified as the tantric deity at its center: Paramasukha-Chakrasamvara—otherwise known as Supreme Bliss-Wheel Integration Buddha.
“ . . . to save you the trip to the Bodhi Tree,” read the handwritten note. “Anyhow, my mandala can beat up your mandala. Ha ha ha. Ever yours, Phil.”
Top of the World
HE SAID THEY were there for the Spike Jonze table-read, but the valet in the Chateau garage told Rusty that he had to park in a lot down the street.
Becca, in full Drew mode, turned heads when they entered the penthouse. She wasn’t an official invite and was paranoid that someone was going to eighty-six her, but the crowd (and crowd of look-alikes) was large and the mood, casual and festive. She blended in.
Rusty went straight over to Spike and introduced Becca as “my girlfriend Drew.” The diffident director grinned and said he was glad they could make it. He was quite the gentleman. The whole “Sharon controversy” about her canceling or not canceling never even came up, and suddenly she was grateful to Rusty for his thoughtful insistence that she join him. She liked the “my girlfriend” part too, though she was a little disappointed when Spike said the true Drew wasn’t able to make it. Becca started tripping, wondering if that meant maybe she’d be reading Drew’s lines, but then she snapped to the fact that she was clueless—Rusty hadn’t told her a thing about Charlie Kaufman’s screenplay, so she had no way of knowing what kind of lines the true Drew had or if she had any at all. (Maybe the Drew look-alike had some, or maybe the part was silent.) She decided the best thing was to just keep her mouth shut and have no expectations. Don’t worry, be happy—happy to be there at all and superhappy to have been chatting with Spike Jonze, the amazing auteur.
They got some diet Cokes and wandered to the terrace.
The city view was awesome. A cluster of look-alikes huddled in a group: the Cameron that she already knew, a Kit Lightfoot, a Benicio, a Billy Bob, and a guy named Joe Sperandeo, who had been featured in Los Angeles magazine because of his resemblance to Brad Pitt. Some girl who got fixated on the true Brad and broke into his house to take a nap ended up getting fixated on Joe too. Becca heard the laugh of the true Cameron, who came clopping onto the terrace with Sofia in tow. She laid eyes on Becca and yelped with pleasure, throwing her arms around her like a long-lost friend. Becca almost peed her pants.
“Isn’t she amazing?” said Cameron to Sofia. “She was at Drew’s birthday—you were in Japan. Drew was so freaked out. I mean, it was really disturbing for her, but in a good way.”
Becca did her “flip your goddamn hair” shtick and Cameron tittered. Then Sofia, who seemed even nicer than her husband if that could be possible, told Becca how incredible she looked and Becca was bashfully glad. She somehow mustered the poise to say how much she loved The Virgin Suicides before Rusty reclaimed her, rakishly introducing himself while the other look-alikes excitedly hovered close by. Cameron giggled over Rusty’s resemblance to his temperamental counterpart (there had been a buzz that the true Russell, already cast, was expected for the reading) and howled when she saw her own doppelganger eavesdropping at the edge of the impromptu clique. The Cameron look-alike’s teeth looked like giant, lipstick-stained Chiclets.
As Becca and Rusty wandered back to the living room, John Cusack arrived. He was much taller than she had pictured. Benicio Del Toro came in close behind him, and his eyes were so hooded that she thought she would die; he was the only man in the room who could compete with her Rusty. Someone pointed out Charlie Kaufman, who was there with a girl named Kelly Lynch, not the actress but the personal assistant to the songwriter Leonard Cohen. Along with working actors and Sofia’s friend Zoë, other Silverlake denizens arrived—Donovan Leitch and his sister Ione Skye, Moon Zappa, Amy Fleetwood, and a daughter of Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood (Becca didn
’t catch the name). They grabbed scripts from a box and took seats.
Annie was always telling Becca about hip industry table-reads, and now she was finally participating in one herself. (She wasn’t actually at the table; she was on a folding chair just behind Rusty, and that suited her fine.) She was so proud to be with her peers, and her dashing man. Her looks had got her in the door, and of that she wasn’t going to be ashamed. She was determined to be assessed by her merits as an actress alone. The others—the cheap Cameron and the Kit, the sleazo Billy Bob and off-the-rack Benicio—were lame and starstruck. They looked sad and out of place, like the losers left standing in musical chairs. She hoped the people who mattered would see through her Drewness to the Becca Mondrain within. If anyone in the world had the genius and sheer aplomb to look and really see, to make the most of who she was underneath it all, well then surely that person was Spike Jonze.
Coup de Grâce
KIT PLAYFULLY POSED with a family of German tourists outside Fred Joaillier, on Rodeo. A small crowd began to gather. More tourists with cameras ran over from the other side of the street.
It didn’t take long to pick out the engagement ring—a pear-shaped sixteen carats. He flirted with the older saleswoman throughout the transaction. A guard had the valet bring the car to the alley. Kit ducked out, to avoid the mob.
• • •
THAT NIGHT HE and Alf had a late supper at Bar Marmont.
“Where’s Viv?”
“Letterman—I already told you that.”
“Well excuuuse me.”
“Goin senile?”
“Nope. Goin retard,” said Alf.
“Retread.”
“Tardo. Tardatious.”
“So what’s happening with you and Cameron?”
“Why?”
“You still having a thing?”
“Uh . . . it’s not really going on.”
“What the dillio?”
“I think she was playin me.”
“Oh. I see. You got your heart broken.”
“No—”
“Oh man, you did.”
“No—” said Alf, suppressing a smile.
“Oh shit! Oh no! She blew you off!”
“Don’t bust my balls.”
“Threw you away like a fuckin tampon! Took your heart-cherry and stawmped on it!”
“You are outta control.”
“These boots are made for walkin’! And that’s just what they’ll do!”
A square in a sport jacket walked over.
“You’re Kit Lightfoot.” He looked at Alf and said, “I know you too.”
“You won the lotto,” said Alf, in freeze-out mode.
“You guys are really great actors. Can I bring my girlfriend over? She said it was you, but I didn’t believe her. She’s a big fan. Maybe you could sign her hand—or her tit!—or something.”
“You know what?” said Kit. “We’re off tonight.”
The square didn’t understand.
“We’re not workin. We’re just hangin,” said Alf, grinning professionally.
“That’s cool,” said the square. He was embarrassed but sucked it up. “How bout if you don’t sign anything. Just come and say hi when you leave. That’d mean a whole lot to her.”
“I don’t think so,” said Alf. Can you believe this?
“Sorry,” said Kit.
“We’re not doing the Universal Tour thing tonight,” said Alf. “We’re off the tram.”
“Some other time,” said Kit.
“OK—right on. Catch you later.”
After he left, Alf said, “Are they letting anyone into this fuckin place now?”
A security guy came and apologized. When Kit was in the club, they liked to keep a closer watch.
“We’re off the tram,” said Kit, with a laugh. “What the fuck does that mean?”
• • •
THE VALET HAD the G-wagen in front. Alf got in while Kit bolted to the liquor store for cigs. He was at the counter paying and didn’t see the square, who swiftly approached and brained him with a bottle. The girlfriend screamed. Kit collapsed. They ran out. The clerk gave chase. The actor’s foamy rictus looked like a sardonic smile.
“And fuck you too, superstar!” yelled the square from the street.
Late Bloomers
HE SHIFTED IN her belly as she tried to sleep. (She’d finally gone to the OB-GYN and learned it was a boy.) The movement stopped. She drifted off.
Yesterday, Robbie had called to inquire listlessly about the baby. She didn’t feel at all connected to her high school lover. It didn’t even seem like he could be the father, but no other possibility existed. She had a fleeting born-of-the-ether thought.
Midnight. She stirred awake and padded to the living room. The petals of the mandala were closed. (She liked closing them at night and opening them in the morning, but now that she had awakened, Lisanne wanted to commune. She wanted the deity to share her bumblebee breaths—she’d become official celebrant and caretaker of the numinous, night-blooming mandala.) Leaning over to delicately midwife the Buddha’s coppery dilation, Lisanne had a wicked thought: I could sleep with Phil then tell him the baby is his.
She lay on the couch and drew the blanket up. A cold lunar light shone down upon the spirit-machine. She remembered the handsome guru talking of the moon-in-the-water meditation and wondered why she hadn’t gone back for the weekly dharma talks. She wanted—needed—to know more about the nectar that dripped from the crown of the head, saturating one with bliss. She wanted—needed—to be in the world, not of it.
And more than anything, she wished to learn the prayer called “The Power of Regret.”
Absent Without Leave
“YOU CAN GO ahead and see him now,” said the nurse.
Alf was in a special waiting area, away from the civilian hordes. Two cops were finishing paperwork in the corridor. The tallest approached with pad and pen; Alf instinctively knew what he was after.
“Mind if I get your John Hancock? My wife would never forgive me.”
“I’ll give you my Herbie Hancock too,” he said, taking the pen.
“Her name’s Roxanne.”
He signed: “To Roxanne (put on the red light!), All my love, Alf Lanier.”
• • •
THEY LED HIM to a curtained ER stall. Kit was sitting up. An unused, blood-speckled emesis basin rested in his lap. His hair was matted at the wound. His face looked pale and drained. The right eye was puffy, but he smiled reassuringly.
“How ya doin, Dog?” asked Alf, in the grimly serious tones of an intimate.
“I’m OK,” said Kit.
“Man, you scared the shit out of me.” Alf was relieved and excited at once. “The liquor store guy ran out screaming your name— I was like, What? I went and saw you lying there . . . it was very Bobby-Kennedy-at-the-Ambassador! I was, like, Where’s Sirhan Sirhan?”
“What time is it?”
“Almost three.”
“This bullshit’s gonna be in the papers,” said Kit. “I better give Viv a shout or she’ll freak. Can I have your cell?”
“That mother fucker—it was the asshole who wanted us to sign his girlfriend’s tits.”
“They catch him?”
“I don’t know. The cops had me signing fuckin autographs, I was too busy to ask. They will. The liquor guy supposedly totally got his plates. He’s my hero, Dog.”
Alf handed him his phone. Kit swung a bare leg out from under the blanket. “It’s six o’clock in New York. Fuck it, I’ll call from home. Let’s go.”
“Whoa whoa whoa! What?”
“I’m outta here. I don’t like hospitals.”
“Did they say it was cool?”
“Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a shit.”
“Whoa. Dog, you have to seriously chill. I mean, you start shooting in, like, a week, right? You should stay over so they can observe you.”
“Observe this.”
“Just overnight, Dog—”
“Did you tell them you were splitting?”
“Yeah, because I have a splitting fucking headache.”
“Hey man, I’m serious. That guy didn’t just give you a little tap. Did they give you something for pain?”
“They don’t do that with a head injury.”
“They should give me something.”
“Viv’s got all kinds of shit. Beaucoup Vicodin from her root canal.” A pause, then: “So, you gonna stay over? Cause if you can’t, that’s cool too. I’ll be fine by myself.”
“Of course I’m gonna stay over. I just don’t think it’s one of the brightest ideas you’ve ever had. But whatever.”
“Thanks, Dog. Just don’t make a move on me while I’m sleeping.”
A Letter Home
BECCA WROTE a long letter to her mom.
She told how she met Spike Jonze because Sharon, a wonderful casting agent, had given him her audition tape and he’d been duly impressed. She enclosed a printout of his bio and credits from the Internet, in case Dixie didn’t know who he was (highlighting the part that said he was married to Sofia Coppola). She had planned to be on the conservative side and not reveal much more, but couldn’t help herself and wrote that Spike was in preparation for a film and that the writer Charles Kaufman, Mr. Jonze’s frequent collaborator (who of course had written Being John Malkovich, starring John Cusack and Cameron Diaz and Adaptation, starring Nicolas Cage and the venerable Meryl Streep), was quite possibly, if everything turned out right, going to create a small role tailored for yours truly. She was careful not to say anything about the new project actually being about look-alikes or bearing a look-alike “theme” because Dixie already knew about her daughter’s occasional private party and convention gigs where she was employed to be a Drew, and Becca didn’t want to give her the wrong idea or confuse her. She didn’t want her erroneously thinking that she was being considered for a part in any capacity less than that of a legit, featured player.
