True Hollywood Lies

by Josie Brown

  Like most realities, we don’t really believe in them until they prove themselves to us over time. I’d need to come back each night in the coming weeks to verify these findings.

  * * *

  For the first time in weeks, I slept through the night, without a visit from Leo.

  I also slept in. When I woke up, Louis—and, subsequently, Jeremy—had already left for Lionsgate, where a read-through of the new Brownstein project, currently untitled (“in homage to Woody Allen,” Jeremy informed me seriously), was taking place.

  When my new aquamarine cell phone rang, I leaped at it. I fully expected it to be Louis calling, to tell me how much he’d missed me last night. He’d already gone to bed by the time I’d come home from the observatory.

  “Damn, girl! Have you gone underground? And who’s the nerd you’ve got asking twenty questions of your minions?”

  It was Freddy, apparently upset. For the past two days, he’d been calling the number of the gray cell phone in order to reach me. Only in the past few minutes had Jeremy deemed his call important enough to return, and deemed Freddy friend not foe or press, and therefore worthy of my new private number.

  “That’s Jeremy. Louis’s new PA.”

  “Lucky Louis. Or should I say lucky Jeremy?”

  “Down, boy. Besides, you already have a gig.”

  “Not as of forty-one hours ago, babycakes. Simone passed away.” He was trying to be flip, but I could tell he was heartbroken.

  “You’re kidding! Was it—expected?”

  “Hell, no! But then again, when you’ve told the world that you’re only sixty-three when you’re really eighty-one.”

  “You’re kidding! Eighty-one? Who can get away with something like that?”

  “A helluva great actress, that’s who!” He started sobbing. I could hear Bette whining pitifully in the background. “Hush, baby girl! Papa’s just—just in a tizzy, that’s all.”

  “Gee, I’m so sorry, Freddy. Really, I am. Look, is there anything I can do? Are you homeless?”

  “No, believe it or not. At least not yet. Her estate’s attorney told me to sit tight. I’m supposed to stay here, with Bette, until the will is read.”

  “He doesn’t want you to do anything? What about an inventory, or packing up her things?”

  “Nah, that was done years ago. Ha! That diva had me doing that in my spare time.” He gave a soggy giggle. “Hey, well, finally I’ll get to lay out by that old cracked pool of hers and pretend the place is mine, for a few days, anyway. Speaking of which, gotta run, sweetums, and look for the garden hose. She lied about her age, so maybe she was kidding when she said the pool leaked, too.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past her.” I faked a laugh, for Freddy’s sake. “Hey, speaking of Bette, what’s going to happen to her?”

  “I asked the attorney if I could keep her. As the song says, I guess I’ve grown accustomed to her very ugly mug. Simone had no relatives, and Bette wouldn’t last a day in the pound. My baby has too delicate of a disposition.” He made some purring sounds, obviously directed at her and not me. “I’ll call you back as soon as I figure out what’s going to happen to Bette, okay? Glad the Gestapo deemed me worthy to get your new private number. Hey, now that you’ve found him a PA, I suppose this means that you and Louis can have a normal relationship, right?”

  A normal relationship? Is there such a thing in Hollywood?

  * * *

  I spent the next ten nights confirming what I’d suspected: That Mic’s shadow was in fact a three-dimensional companion, a planet it could call its own.

  It was time to celebrate. Although Louis and his shadow, Jeremy, had been working late each night, they still managed to beat me home. Well, for one night at least, I was bound and determined to make it home before Louis. I wanted to be waiting for him, with open arms and an open bottle of Château Lynch-Bages 2000 Pauillac.

  No problem, I made it home before him.

  Then again, no matter what time I’d come in before 7:30 in the morning, I would have won that booby prize.

  Or maybe I was the boob for not walking out on him before he finally walked in.

  * * *

  I let him have it: about all I’d done for him and about his lack of respect for me.

  About how abused I felt, and how I wasn’t going to take any more crap from him.

  “I don’t know what you’re so upset about,” growled a very drunk, very disheveled Louis. “If anything, I’m the one who should be ranting and raving. Instead, I chose to celebrate—without you.”

  “Celebrate? Celebrate what, pray tell?”

  “Ah, yes, I forget. You’re not really in tune with my life anymore, are you? Too busy playing the diva, or divining the cosmos, or some other bullshit.” His eyes flashed as he spoke. “Well, my sweet, here on Planet Earth, we put on a little event they call the Oscars—”

  The Oscars.

  They announced the nominees yesterday morning.

  I’d slept in because I’d been at the observatory all night.

  Louis had gotten the word that morning. He had been nominated.

  Naturally, he had assumed I would have heard about it, too, at least sometime during the day, and that I’d have stopped by the set to be with him, to share his joy and excitement.

  I’d blown it.

  “—So, when you didn’t show up, I did some celebrating of my own.”

  “I would have been there had I known. Besides, you could have called me.”

  “I did call. Check your voice mail. Bollocks, Hannah, for once you’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”

  I took the turquoise cell phone out of my purse. No outstanding call was indicated.

  “Where is your other phone?” he asked. “Don’t you carry the red phone anymore?”

  “No. Jeremy carries that one now.” So that was why I’d missed him. Of course, actually knowing my phone number was too minor a detail for Louis. Still, I wasn’t going to let him off that easy.

  “So, where did you go, and with whom?”

  “Out. With friends.” He waited to see if I’d push further.

  Did I really want to know?

  Before I could admit to myself that I didn’t, he added, “I doubt that your evening was a total loss without me.”

  “No, it wasn’t. In fact, it was quite an evening for me, too—”

  I wanted him to share my excitement about Mic, but he interrupted me.

  “I’ll just bet. I’m sure Mick just couldn’t wait to see you.” He watched my reaction like a hawk.

  Mic? He already knew about Mic?

  Then it dawned on me: “What are you talking about? Mick Bradshaw… see me?”

  Louis smirked. “To tell you in person. About his nomination.”

  Louis pointed to the bottle of wine opened on the table. “You don’t have to play coy, Hannah. Do you think that I believe you’ve been out for the past ten nights doing that ‘stargazing’ bullshit?”

  He started stripping down as he headed for the shower. “You act so prim and proper, making a fuss about me ‘sharing’ women with my buddies. But you don’t mind my sharing you with Mick—just not at the same time. Well, okay, if Mick wants my leftovers, he’s welcome to them.”

  What nerve!

  “I am not your leftovers. I left Mick for you, remember? Because, according to you, he was being disloyal to me.” I was so close to him that we were standing nose to nose.

  Good. I wanted him to look me in the eye for once.

  “And now that we’re on the subject, tell me the truth: How did you know he and Samantha were at the Bel-Air? Just who was Samantha there to see, you or Mick?”

  Did Louis blink?

  No.

  Did he feel any compulsion whatsoever to assure me that I had nothing to suspect?

  Hardly.

  So much for his primal urge to protect me, even from myself.

  Instead he smiled, looked me straight in the eye, and gave me what I asked for:

 
; The truth.

  “You saw her and Mick with your own eyes, so that’s one piece of the puzzle. Did she see me too? Yes, Hannah, I admit it, she and I made love that day. But you already knew that, didn’t you, love? And you’ve chosen to stay with me, anyway.”

  As Louis took his shower, I poured the Château Lynch-Bages 2000 Pauillac down the kitchen sink. I have no doubt that I could have easily downed the whole bottle by myself, but I no longer felt as if I had anything to celebrate.

  Chapter 18: Meteor

  Also known as a “shooting star” or “falling star”, is a bright streak of light in the sky caused by a bit of space debris as it burns up in the Earth’s atmosphere.

  “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind...” —Neal Armstrong, during the first lunar landing, July 21, 1969

  The news of my research traveled quickly.

  Not only was I the toast of the astronomy department at UCLA, but, because my statistics confirmed that of the planet’s discoverer, Paul Kalas of the University of California at Berkeley, and his colleagues at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, they could now announce their findings to the world.

  I was invited to the banquet honoring the naming of the planet, to be called “Azkaban,” which would take place in Berkeley very soon.

  Too soon.

  In fact, the ceremony was scheduled to take place a mere 72 hours before another little shindig: that one thrown by the National Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and fondly nicknamed “The Oscars” by its world of fans.

  It was then that I realized that timing was everything. At least, it was to Louis, whose reaction was less enthusiastic than I’d hoped when I asked if he’d attend with me.

  “What, are you crazy? Don’t you know how busy we’ll be? Hannah, don’t be a dolt! Besides, some egghead awards dinner is not my cuppa tea. Count me out.”

  He took a breath, but only to grab a second wind in which to bolster his case.

  “And frankly, love, I don’t know why you feel you can just prance off to this nonsensical event, either. In fact, I insist that you stay.”

  “You’re kidding me, right? You ‘insist’ that I stay? Just what is that all about?”

  “That is all about our priorities. And Priority Number One is me. Remember?”

  Always. Without fail.

  “Louis, when will something I do ever matter to you?” I whispered.

  The question seemed to puzzle him.

  But only for a moment.

  “Why, darling, everything you do for me matters immensely. That’s why I keep you on.”

  “You ‘keep me on’? Oh. I get it. And when I stop doing the things that matter to you—”

  “That’s right, love. You do get it, after all.” There was no warmth to his grin, just a fake frosty sheen. “Which reminds me, I’d like you to put in a call to Jon, over at Lionsgate. That Brownstein kid is too wet behind the ears for this project. They’d be better off with Mann, or better yet, Tarantino, at the helm. Make that clear to him.”

  “I don’t think—Louis, there is no way they’re going to can Brownstein now! That would blow the budget to smithereens, since preproduction is already underway. Besides, they’d have to pay through the nose to get one of those guys, and they’d have to pay Brownstein, too, since he owns the rights to the story in the first place—”

  “Of course they will make the change. If I insist.”

  “It would help if I knew whether or not Randy put a director approval clause in your contract. Knowing Randy, though, if the deal was made anywhere within sniffing distance of a pole dancer in a G-string, I wouldn’t be too surprised if that tiny detail got overlooked—”

  “Why don’t you know? It’s your job to make sure he doesn’t fuck up the details, isn’t it?”

  “Is it? I thought my first priority is to be your girlfriend, remember?”

  His eyes narrowed as the smile vanished.

  “How can I forget? If you don’t remind me, some godforsaken magazine cover does.”

  * * *

  In the weeks leading up to the Azkaban banquet, neither of us would give in on our respective stances about attending. Still, we were civil to each other. In fact, for our performance as lovebirds while on the pre-Oscar party circuit, the Academy Awards should have awarded us a special statuette.

  Alas, these very public displays of affection were inevitably offset by Louis’s less than discreet flirting.

  Many times, sometimes even at the same event.

  Like the time we were at a rooftop pool party at the Standard downtown, celebrating T’s latest release. Using the thickening crowd as cover, Louis disappeared into one of those lipstick red, cocoonlike waterbed cabanas with the most recent acquisition of T’s label. She was sultry-voiced, underage, and agile enough for her MTV video to be banned after one showing.

  I took the elevator back to the lobby and called a cab.

  Louis never came home that night.

  On that memorable evening, I couldn’t fall asleep. I just cried uncontrollably until dawn. When he finally walked through the door claiming that he’d fallen asleep in his studio bungalow but smelling of a fragrance more pungent than my own signature scent, I called him a liar, threw something expensive and irreplaceable, and locked him out of the bedroom.

  That was all the excuse he needed to stay away a second night. Before a third rolled around, our negotiator, Jeremy, secured from me a solemn promise that I would, as he so delicately put it, “act somewhat humane in Louis’s presence.”

  Act somewhat humane?

  How could I do that if Louis never let me feel human in his presence in the first place?

  With my sullen permission, Louis moved back into the bedroom, but we were still as emotionally distant to each other as two wooden horses on the same merry-go-round: We might be moving in the same direction, but we always kept our distance, and we certainly never touched.

  Unless it was for sex.

  A dispassionate if-not-for-this-than-why-is-this-relationship-worth-the-hassle kind of sex.

  Ironically, we weren’t the only ones who were questioning whether it was. Later that week, the Page Six column in the New York Post predicted “Trouble in the Tropic of Trollope.”

  * * *

  When the call came in from Freddy asking me to join him and the rest of the Gang over at Simone’s Beverly Hills mansion for cocktails, believe me, I was out the door as fast as my legs could carry me. By now I welcomed any excuse to get away from the sense of dread that hung over Louis’s estate. The way we politely ignored each other when occupying the same room, we might as well have been two ghosts whose only connection was that we were sharing the same haunt.

  Not that Simone’s place wasn’t any less otherworldly, thanks to its décor: retro Eames, intermixed with some original French Provincial sideboards and settees, the total effect of which created an ambiance worthy of Peyton Place. And Freddy, decked out in a smoking jacket and ascot and shaking up martinis, looked right at home.

  “Here, have an hors d’oeuvre,” said Sandy, motioning to a butler who held a platter laden with such delicacies as steamed pot stickers, Dungeness crab cakes, Polynesian chicken skewered with pineapple, and shitake mushroom puffs.

  “Butlers? Hors d’oeuvres? Ascots? Wow! What’s the occasion?”

  “Got me beat. For once in his life, Freddy is actually being discreet.” She gulped down her martini and grabbed another off the butler’s tray before popping a crab cake into her mouth. When a crumb escaped her, it was immediately sucked up by the ever-watchful Bette, who hovered at our feet for just such an occasion.

  Just then Christy walked through the door, breathless and excited. “So sorry I’m late, but hey, gang, it was worth it!” Her eyes glowed brightly. “My acting teacher kept me after class. He says that I’ve got real potential! In fact, he’s offered to coach me in private sessions!”

  Freddy sighed heavily. “Girl, we need to keep you on a ver
y short leash. Haven’t you learned anything by now?”

  It had been a long time since we’d heard Christy’s sweet giggle, but there it was, fully restored in the echo of her most recent conquest. “That’s just the point, Freddy. I am learning. And just think what I’ll know when I get through with him. For free!”

  No, Christy, I thought, there is always a price to pay for the most important lessons we learn in life.

  By the looks on both Sandy’s and Freddy’s faces, they were thinking similar thoughts, but they said nothing—which was unusual for Freddy. Had he suddenly realized that discretion was indeed the better part of valor? Hardly. He was just antsy to get the ball rolling, which he did by waving the butler away, and closing the door behind him.

  “Well, my graceful girlfriends, I’m sure we’ll hear more of that saga as it plays itself out. In the meantime, I have good news, too. And I’m glad you all were able to take a few minutes out of your very busy days in order to celebrate it with me.”

  “Enough already, Freddy!” sighed Sandy, her mouth filled with a mushroom puff. “If you don’t get to the bottom of all of this, I’m going to burst!”

  “Now, now, we can’t have you regurgitating those fine vittles all over this antique Persian carpet”—he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then continued—“because, as the executive director of the Bette Cavanaugh Humane Foundation, I’d have to get the butler in here to clean it up before Bette decided to make it her dessert.”

  “A foundation? For—for the dog?” Like the rest of us, Sandy was flabbergasted.

  “You got it. According to what I heard this morning at the reading of Miss Simone’s will, li’l Ms. Mutt there is as rich as Croesus.”

  “Rich? But I don’t get it.” I had to sit down. Gingerly, I found my way onto one of the many gilded Louis XVI chairs scattered about the room. “I never heard of anyone who was tighter with a dollar than Simone.”

  “You can say that again!” Christy echoed.

  Freddy nodded. “No argument there. Apparently that old diva saved practically every dollar she ever made since the Second World War—and then put it in little things like telecommunications, banking and Microsoft stocks. Who knew, right?”