Still Holding

by Bruce Wagner

  “No!” said Annie.

  “When?” asked Larry, eyes agleam.

  “You guys so totally have to swear you won’t tell anyone.”

  “I didn’t even know she was pregnant,” said Becca.

  “No one did,” said Gingher. “I mean, probably not even Kit.”

  “Wouldn’t it have been weird,” said Larry, “if they had a kid and it turned out to be retarded?”

  “That’s so sad,” said Becca. “I mean, she probably lost the baby because of what happened. The stress.”

  “Ohmygod, that is so sad,” echoed Annie.

  “But you guys have to swear you won’t talk about it until, like, after it’s in the tabloids. I signed a confidentiality agreement and could really get in trouble. Will you so totally swear?”

  Transmigration of Souls

  LISANNE’S WATER BROKE in the Century Plaza ballroom, at Tiff’s Heart Giver Courage tribute.

  When she stood from her seat, she felt a pang and told Phil she was having a “bladder problem.” By the time they got to the dance floor, everything was soaked. She collapsed in a chair at a table of old people who went on picking at their veal. She was shaking and crying. When the Loewensteins rushed over, Lisanne said she was pregnant and that her water must have broken. Tiff kind of took over. There were five top OB-GYN guys in the house, and all of them kept wanting her to agree that maybe she’d only peed her pants. Just when Lisanne thought it had ebbed, she got flooded anew. They plunked her in a wheelchair and laid her out in the stretch limo. Phil was white as a sheet. One of the OB-GYNs went ahead to Saint John’s.

  The nurse told her she was having contractions every five minutes, but she couldn’t feel them. They gave her something to stop the labor, though the discharge was continuous. Phil was so shell-shocked that Tiff, who had already received his crystal figurine and was exhausted as well, announced he would escort the scion home. Roslynn stayed on. She was a great comfort, kind and discreet. She left around midnight without ever broaching the issue of paternity.

  • • •

  LISANNE LAY THERE and assessed. She thought of calling Robbie—but why? Her boss would be shocked when he learned, though in a way, she was relieved. Her secret was out, or nearly so. Earlier in the day she had taken the deepest, most restful nap of her life, awakening at peace. Her concern for Kit was still there, but the agonized worries over his health and well-being had evaporated. She knew he would be OK. The water had broken and a rainbow now shone.

  At 3:30 A.M. the nurse said the tests showed the baby’s lungs to be “mature.” The doctor wanted to deliver right away. The C-section took forever, and at delivery, the bloody boy screamed with elemental force—healthy, at thirty weeks.

  They fed him through his nose because the suckle reflex hadn’t yet developed. Lisanne used a breast pump for milk, but it was hard to be productive. She was still able to make small quantities of what the RNs called “liquid gold,” which they added to the feeding tube. The hotel sent a basket of fruit and cookies. No one ever had her water break in the ballroom before.

  • • •

  THE SOUND WAS off while she watched Larry King.

  “Do you know she here?” said a Mexican nurse who came in for the dinner tray.

  “Who?”

  “Viv Wembley. The girl from the show who go with Kit Lightfoot. The show Together.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She miscarry.”

  “She—”

  “She miscarry. Ectopic—very dangerous. She right here! Same floor.”

  “In the hospital?” The woman was confusing her.

  “Right now! But I no tell you—is secret. Is terrible what happened to her fiancé. Handsome! Now no big fat Greek wedding. No baby. Is terrible. Is terrible.”

  • • •

  THAT EVENING, Lisanne saw her.

  She went for a walk and saw Cameron Diaz and a woman with a turban on her head leave one of the rooms. Against their tender protests, Viv shakily emerged to escort them to the elevator. That was when the weakened actress looked at Lisanne and smiled. (She remembered the time Kit made eye contact after yoga.) She thought how pretty Viv was without makeup, how vulnerable looking. Lisanne looped back toward her own room so they wouldn’t have the same trajectory.

  The moment they exchanged glances, she knew.

  She felt the same peace she’d experienced after her amazing nap. They looked into each other’s eyes and Lisanne knew, was certain.

  The Bardo of Becoming

  BUT HOW IS HE?

  He farts, grunts, giggles, howls.

  Words remain in throat, stillborn. Incipient thoughts—autochthonous ideation—aborted.

  He is in love with his body, its pain, pleasure, and rapturous stink. Becomes fixated on arbitrary landscapes of skin—hair, follicle, pigment. Flake and fingernail.

  A stage actor warming up, he spends hours fogging a hand mirror, watching himself gesticulate, crease, pucker, twitch, startle, suspirate, belch, yawn, coo, whisper. Therapists stretch muscle and rub ointment; he submits like a dog, belly up, with unannounced pleasure. He takes businesslike joy in their grooming and bodywork, as if thespian instinct has informed that the vessel is preeminent and must be maintained at all costs.

  Sometimes his head is stabby and migrainous. He presses, imploring the scarified points of incision, feeling the heat beneath sutures, vents to a still-active furnace, mistakenly—catastrophically—soldered shut.

  Boosters and cheerleaders are certain he’s more “present” than he appears to be, the gray matter busily rerouting and reknitting “as we speak.” But he has trouble standing, and, once standing, has trouble standing still. Trouble walking too, the gait ticcy and belabored.

  Sometimes he awakens bellowing. High-priced nurses, privately hired, burly, stalwart, do their best to soothe without injections. Sometimes he surfaces from REM sleep cackling, knee-slapping, with attendant nefarious dysphonic outbursts. Sometimes he weeps, soft and plaintive like a child—or ragged, seizured, ugly.

  Always heartbreaking.

  He seems to know Alf but doesn’t recognize his bride to be—or at least won’t let on. Boosters and cheerleaders (led by Kiki) fantasize his indifference to be a shuck, a heroic way of letting the actress off the hook, nobly allowing her to break the engagement. No fault, no contest, nolo contendere, gentleman to the end, even in debilitation. Dad agrees, up to a point. The dad says Kit knows damn well who she is but “just doesn’t want to go there.”

  Viv fears his eventual acknowledgment of her, no matter how gradual, will cause great suffering. Stops visiting. Wants her man to focus his energies on recovery. She martyrs herself, shamefully hating her secret involuntary mantra: “I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this.”

  Alf disappears. He’s doing a film that, mercifully, is on location, out of the country. He was going to stop coming, anyway. In a fit of tiredness that he regretted, he told Burke it was just too depressing. Mr. Lightfoot said, as a lawyer would to a prospective juror whom he was about to dismiss, “Thank you for your candor.” Go recharge, Burke added expansively. Stop guilt-tripping. You’ll reconnect down the line. (You piece of Hollywood shit.)

  Kiki still comes. A tough broad, said Burke. He tells the Buddhists she’s one hell of an agent.

  • • •

  HE WISELY LIMITS access for those who would see his son. But the Buddhists are allowed to come and go as they please—all Kit’s friends and practitioners from the sangha. Burke calls them the sanghanistas and knows they want nothing from Kit. They’re not morbidly curious. Their religion demands they act in the most ethical, dignified, compassionate, “mindful” of ways. They are patient and generous with their time. Burke respects them and is comforted by their inconspicuous, warmly obeisant spirituality.

  He feels his son to be comforted too.

  • • •

  OLD FRIENDS ARE pleased the father kept open this vital aspect of his son’s life. They’re happy not to
be banished and glad he didn’t trash Kit’s beliefs because they know it is the foundation that will heal him. They had heard stories of the tyranny of this man—some from Kit himself—but in this terrible time Burke Lightfoot had, for whatever reason, opened the door, and for that, they are profoundly grateful. So they honor him. They see the Buddha in his gesture and honor Burke Lightfoot’s heart.

  The sangha visit at all hours, even meditating at bedside while Kit sleeps. They serve him while he is awake. They bring cooked food and read scriptures and sutras out loud. They massage him with emollients and encourage him to stretch. They do baby yoga. They even teach the nurses—child’s pose, downward dog, easy twisting warrior, spinal twist, neck release. They are courteous and helpful to staff, dependable, soon indispensable. Many have worked in hospices, and the nurses let them do funky, menial things. Bedpan and hygiene. Stripping the sheets and making the bed.

  Burke watches the Meditators come and go, fingering their beads, reading texts aloud, intoning lengthy prayers, sometimes in English, sometimes in Japanese or Tibetan or Whatever. They wear civilian clothes and close-cropped hair, but now and then smiling monks, bald men or women in saffron robes, come to sit. They do not speak.

  Tara Guber even brought Penor Rinpoche, the lama from Mysore.

  • • •

  NOW IT IS TIME for him to leave.

  The hospital is happy to see him go—he is just too big a celebrity, and difficult to accommodate. An unruly tabloidal pall had wrapped the complex in gauze. So much to contend with: the twenty-four-hour media presence, the police and additional security, the concrete barriers and parking disruptions, the predatory paparazzi eyes invading other patients’ and their families’ privacy. Donors and in-house benefactors were becoming restive.

  At four in the morning, he emerges from the elevator and is rolled into the garage by wheelchair, flanked by doctors, nurses, and a half dozen private guards. (One has the sense the doctors are there so they can eventually boast that yes, they were present for that strange and historic release.) Burke engaged Gavin de Becker, the man who oversaw the details of George Harrison’s last days, to facilitate his son’s relocation. An armored van with blacked-out windows awaits, plus two dark Buick sedans with three men apiece.

  Suddenly Kit becomes agitated.

  His father, already inside the van, emerges to calm him. It takes but a few minutes. The dad gives a thumbs-up to the others and says, “Good to go.” Whatever feelings anyone has about Burke Lightfoot and his questionable motives, it is clear the man has worked hard to establish an effective, easy kinship with his volatile, traumatized son. Things would have gone a lot rougher without him.

  With media none the wiser, the convoy makes the forty-minute trip to Valencia.

  The facility awaits. An entire wing has been cleared.

  • • •

  MR. DE BECKER HAS PROVIDED round-the-clock guards on-site. Rehab employees have been screened and Tyrone Lamott, among others, duly briefed. Those immediately under him were seriously cautioned—warned—by Mr. Lamott himself that any breach of the celebrity client’s confidentiality would be harshly dealt with.

  (Tabloid stories and their sources will be tracked. Photographs taken and sold will be tracked.)

  Tyrone’s heart sinks when he sees Kit lifted from the truck and set in the wheelchair. He puts on that pixillated smile.

  “Well hello, Mr. Lightfoot. We meet again!”

  Kit says nothing. A promising laugh—then sudden Stygian hollowness of features.

  “Hello, Tyrone,” says Burke, generating a kilowatt smile and a firm handshake, even in the chill of near-dawn. They’ve already met. The search for the right rehab was undertaken with the secrecy and precision of an Olympics hunt; once selected, there were many details to personally attend to.

  “Hey, Mr. B—well, you made it.”

  “We made it. We sure did. He made it. He’s the hero.”

  “He sure is. And we’re sure happy to have you with us, Kit. There gonna be lots of people around you, twenty-four/seven, making sure you git better. Your daddy’s got hisself a room right next door to y’all so y’all won’t have time to be lonesome! We gonna have ourselves a party. Gonna have ourselves a get-well party.”

  Burke nods, and one of the men pushes the wheelchair toward the building. The interior lights blaze.

  “Well, well,” says Tyrone to Kit, clucking. “I thought you might at least bring Mr. Aronofsky with you.”

  He’s a faggot negro that gets on Burke’s nerves—a pain-in-the-ass queen whom he nevertheless cuts some slack, knowing Tyrone is ultimately a very important player, and that their dramatic arrival has made him overwrought.

  “That’s OK,” continues their sardonic host, as he rushes to keep ahead of the men. “Mr. Aronofsky isn’t here and we jus’ gonna have to deal with it. We gonna deal with everything. And we gonna have us a good time doin it, too.”

  They reach the front door and Tyrone winks at Burke as they all go in.

  An Actor Prepares

  BECCA GOT A SMALL part in what Daily Variety called Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman Untitled A.K.A. Look-Alikes. Rusty got a big part, which had been kind of expected, and that was OK too, because Becca didn’t even want to think about the amount of shit she would have taken if given a commensurate role. Rusty seemed nicer now all around.

  The look-alikes were scheduled for two weeks of rehearsal with Jorgia Wilding. (Rusty got privates.) The old woman was dismissive, demanding, and formidably gruff, but it was an incredible privilege to work with the legendary coach of so many greats—Al Pacino and Jessica Lange, Dustin Hoffman and Sally Field, Shelley Winters and Robert Duvall. Annie said that she’d even worked with Sofia on Godfather III.

  For reasons of secrecy, scripts were mostly withheld; everyone got “sides” instead. (The pages were printed with invisible ink so they couldn’t be Xeroxed.) Decoy scripts had been circulated because the producers knew that sooner or later someone would type scenes straight onto the Internet. The look-alikes had to sign waivers stating they wouldn’t talk about the movie to friends, family, and especially the press. They’d be fired and fined if they did.

  From what she had gleaned, Look-Alikes was one of those movies about the making of a movie. Becca played Drew’s camera double (which she actually would be, during the shoot. Spike came up with that idea, and Becca thought it was great because, aside from helping her get into character, she’d be paid extra too.) Her role was kind of mysterious—Charles hadn’t written her that many lines—but there was a dream sequence where she and Drew were supposed to kiss. Larry Levine said it sounded like “a postmodern Cruel Intentions thingie,” but Becca just couldn’t believe it. Her first film role and she was making out with Drew Barrymore!

  She already knew some of her on-screen cohorts but got particularly friendly with the Barbra Streisand, who had a little cameo. When Becca asked if she had ever met the true Barbra, she said she’d only met Barbra’s mother, Diana Kind, on the celebrity mom segment of a defunct TV show called Photoplay. Diana had invited her home for lunch.

  “So here I am in Barbra Streisand’s mother’s house. Now you can’t imagine what that was like because all my life people are telling me that I look exactly like her. And I’m gazing at the memorabilia, the framed photos and all, and it’s like I’m surrounded by my life because every image has a history—for me—you know: everyone said I looked like this one when I was twelve . . . and this one when I was eighteen . . . and this one when I was thirty. And it’s very, very strange. And I can never forget what Diana said. We were having our tea and chatting and whatnot and after a while she said that her daughter was so busy, ‘I’ll have to cart you around with me.’ Can you believe? I saw her a lot after that—we went shopping at Robinsons-May for Barbra’s brother’s wedding present. We talked on the phone. She’d tell me how to make chicken, how you have to clean it and be careful of the germs, how you have to let it soak, then wash your hands. And the fact she was Barbra’s
mom gradually kind of disappeared—she was just a person. You know, I had a feeling that she liked the idea that people thought I was her daughter. To a point, I guess. I was a missing link. It was pretty strange. People occasionally said things . . . like once I was waiting in the car for her and some girls walked by and said, ‘It’s Barbra Streisand!’ And Diana could hear them and I know that part of her liked that but part of her didn’t. Maybe she was thinking, But this isn’t my daughter. Where is my daughter? This is an impersonator! Then one day I got a call from her saying she’d won an award from the Jewish National Fund. She asked me to go along, and I took my fiancé. I thought Barbra might be there, but she was in Europe at the time. It was a luncheon. There weren’t a million people. I got stared at in the elevator. I wasn’t really introduced; she never said who I was. My fiancé and I didn’t sit at the family table, but people were looking, I think, and wondering, Who is she? Barbra’s sister was there, and we took a picture—me, Barbra’s sister, and Barbra’s mom! I called to thank her and she said, ‘People didn’t know if you were Barbra, if you were a relative . . .’ My feeling is that it got to the point where it was uncomfortable for her—though not for me. And when I heard she died, I just broke down. Because I always thought of getting in touch to see how she was but I never did.”

  • • •

  TALKING WITH THE Barbra made her want to call her own mother in the worst way. She had a sudden, overwhelming need for Dixie to come to L.A.—it was primal, and Becca felt that if she didn’t make contact, now, she would surely die.

  She had actually thought of phoning all week because she was short on rent. She hadn’t gotten a paycheck yet, even though SAG rules said that everyone was supposed to be compensated for rehearsal time. She wasn’t complaining. But here she was with a Spike Jonze gig and not only was she broke but she still couldn’t get theatrical representation. (Her so-called hip-pocketed commercial agent had done diddly-squat.) She told Elaine she was available for bookings, but ironically, the real look-alike work had pretty much dried up. She thought she should probably call Sharon but didn’t feel like submitting herself to the seduction thing either.