by Rick Copp
Susie and I had always had a strained relationship, but we did share a love of gossip and scandal, and she did know me enough to assume I wasn’t the vicious monster the papers seemed to be making me out to be.
“I knew it was all a bunch of crap the minute they tried to make you out to be bisexual and sleeping with Claire,” Susie said. “I mean, come on, we all know you’ve got everything but a rainbow flag tattooed to your ass.”
I asked if Susie had heard from Charlie, and she said no. She dropped by the house to check on him a few weeks ago, but that was the last time they had spoken. She quickly jumped back onto the topic that interested her more. Claire’s murder.
“What do the police think?”
“They think I did it.”
“No, really.”
“I’m serious.”
Susie laughed. She had seen me use a newspaper to usher a spider out the front door as opposed to just squashing it with the heel of my shoe.
“That’s preposterous,” she said.
“Susie, I’m really worried.”
“Oh, don’t be. They’ll wisen up soon enough. Tell you what. I had this fling with a studly British doctor at a medical convention in Paris last year. He’s well connected in London. Let me call him up and see if he’ll e-mail me a copy of Claire’s medical report. If there’s anything they’re missing, I’ll be sure to spot it,” she said.
“Thank you, Susie, but I meant I’m worried about Charlie.”
“Oh, just give him some time. He’s probably off sulking somewhere. He’ll be back.”
I hadn’t told her he’d been gone for two days and that Isis saw him on a beach somewhere. I just thanked her and hung up. These calls weren’t helping one bit. They were just making me even more distressed. But Susie had given me an idea. I hadn’t checked my e-mail in days.
I fired up the laptop that I had brought with me and waited for it to boot up. After quickly typing in my screen name and password, which was Snickers in a fitting tribute to my adoring pet (plus it was easy to remember), I logged on and downloaded my mail.
I scanned the long list and was disheartened to see it was mostly spam mail promising nude photos of Britney Spears and life-changing penis enlargements. I began deleting them and had almost cleaned out the entire box when my finger stopped just short of erasing an e-mail from a Hotmail account called Bollywood Bad Boy. Under the subject line was typed “From Charlie.” What was this? I took a deep breath and then opened up the file and read it.
Jarrod, this is very hard for me to say because I care about you and I don’t want to see you hurt, but I’ve fallen in love with Akshay. There’s no other way to say it except to come right out with it. I know this must be a shock to you. I certainly know it is to me. I don’t know how this happened but it did, and though I care for you, I can’t deny myself this chance at happiness. I hope you understand and I’m sorry if this causes you some pain. Love, Charlie.
I sat there in a state of shock, nauseous, my entire body shaking. I just kept replaying the imagined scene of Charlie lying next to Akshay on a beach somewhere, feeling guilty about ditching me without explanation, and Akshay graciously offering to let him send me a Dear John letter from his e-mail account. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be.
The phone jarred me out of my trance and I picked it up, hoping to hear Charlie’s deep, comforting voice chuckle and say “April Fool’s” even though it was June.
“Jarrod, I’m so sorry I haven’t returned your call until now, but Larry and I chartered a boat and went scuba diving for a couple of days and I left my cell phone behind at the hotel. Can you believe I got certified to go deep-sea diving? I get nervous when the water in my bathtub gets too close to those tiny chrome drainage holes.”
Laurette. Thank God. It was Laurette. I had waited so long for her to call me back, and I was frozen, not saying a word, too consumed by trauma and despair to even speak. She immediately picked up on it.
“Honey, what’s wrong? What happened?”
And I let loose with everything, blabbering on and on, filling her in on the most minute details. And as a dutiful best friend, she listened to every word, patiently interjecting only once at the point where I told her Charlie had sent me a breakup letter from Akshay’s e-mail address. “Bastard!”
When I was finished, she said the words I had been waiting to hear.
“Just hold on, sweetie. I’ll be there tomorrow.”
She was half a world away spending time with a man she cared deeply for but was willing to drop everything and rush to my side. I loved her so much. When we hung up, I knew she was already on the Orbitz travel Web site checking fares from Hawaii to the United Kingdom.
I hated ruining her long-overdue vacation. But my life had suddenly veered off into a surreal and unfathomable direction, and I needed moral support from the strongest, most loyal person I knew. Because deep down in my gut, I knew things were only going to get worse.
Chapter 17
Less than twenty-four hours later, Laurette was on the ground and calling me from a taxicab on her way into the city from Heathrow Airport. She instructed me to leave the hotel immediately and walk to Kettner’s in the West End, an upscale eatery in the heart of the theater district where the creative crowd swarms after a show to unwind and deconstruct that evening’s performance. Laurette and I had much bigger topics to analyze and discuss, and she knew that feeding our stress was the key to dealing with all of these incomprehensible events. I did as I was told.
While at a small corner table waiting for her to arrive, I ordered a Vanilla Absolut and Diet Coke, my new cocktail of choice because of its low caloric content. It tastes like a flavored soda and has the remarkable ability to sneak up on you and knock you on your ass. If ever I needed to dull my senses, today was the perfect day to do it.
It was still early and the restaurant was fairly empty except for a few stragglers who had been wandering about buying up last-minute tickets for tonight’s shows. The main dining room was spacious and bright, and the immaculate waiters stood off to the side, waiting to jump in and serve your every need. I kept my own waiter hopping by slamming down the drinks he brought me at an alarming rate. We had developed an unspoken agreement that once the glass was empty, he would return with another. I wasn’t a big drinker, but I suspected all that was about to change. I was starting to take my cue from my beloved Claire and her rival, Dame Sylvia. As I plucked the cherry from my fourth cocktail and popped it into my mouth, I heard a commotion at the front door. I turned to see Laurette, wearing a stylish black coat and matching floppy hat, lipstick and make-up perfect, plowing her way past the host and scanning the room for me. Once her eyes settled on my broken, slumped-over self, she almost broke into a run to reach me.
I stood up and she threw her arms around me, squeezing me tightly to her ample bosom, and held me there. The Kettner’s wait staff watched with rapt attention, though they were used to such drama since their establishment played host to a batch of overly dramatic actors every night of the week. We must have stood there hugging for a full five minutes before she gripped my shoulders, pushed me back for inspection, and stared at me, her eyes brimming with tears.
“Oh God,” she said. “You look like hell!”
“It’s been one of those weeks,” I said.
“Sit down. We have so much to talk about,” Laurette said before dropping her butt down on one of the plush, cushioned chairs and flipping open a menu. As important as my life was to her, she needed the appropriate entrée to accompany the discussion. And with the big bombshell of Charlie leaving me heading our list of topics, this was no time to even consider a low-carb, low-fat, or sugar-free option.
She motioned for the waiter, who scampered over with an expectant smile on his face. “We’ll both have the Prince Edward casserole,” she said, closing the menu and handing it to him. A perfect choice. The Prince Edward was a rich, delectable comfort-food dish loaded with potatoes, cheese, and meat. Just what the doctor ord
ered. Maybe not Dr. Atkins. But he’d never know. He died a long time ago.
“Very good, ma’am. Anything to drink?” he said.
“I’ll have whatever he’s having, but double it. I could only get a coach seat, and I wound up next to a screaming baby for eleven hours,” she said. Despite Laurette’s desire to be a mother someday, she really despised being anywhere near children. She just assumed that her child would not pick up any nasty habits such as crying and pooping in its pants that plague other babies.
“All right, I’m just going to come out and say this, put it right out on the table,” Laurette said, clutching my hand.
“Okay,” I said, a little hesitant.
“I refuse to believe Charlie has left you,” she said. “Something else is going on here.”
I handed her a printout of the Dear John letter, and she read it quickly. “This doesn’t sound like him at all. Charlie’s a hell of a lot more direct than this. Maybe this Akshay guy sent this just to screw with you.”
“Maybe,” I said, fighting back the urge to cry again. “But the evidence isn’t exactly reassuring. We fought, people saw him leave the hotel with Akshay, and whether he sent this e-mail or not, it did confirm what I was already thinking.”
Laurette saw a lone tear glide down my cheek and her face morphed into a mask of pity. She knew I hated when she felt sorry for me. I had always had a problem with people pitying me. It dated back to when my sitcom Go to Your Room was cancelled. I couldn’t escape the dozens of sympathetic looks from all the adults around me, who assumed this marked the end for me and that I would never work again and wind up a drug-addled, emotionally crippled has-been. In spite of her attempts to hide it, Laurette couldn’t help herself.
“Laurette . . .” I said.
“I know, I know, I’m not supposed to feel bad for you, and I don’t. I swear—”
“No,” I said, lifting her hand to my mouth and kissing it softly. “I just want to say I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Me too,” she said, her eyes disappearing behind a fountain of tears.
We then commenced with our night of gluttony, gobbling up heaping spoonfuls of the hot, steaming Prince Edward casserole and gulping down cocktails numbering in the double digits until we were sufficiently stuffed and plastered.
And though we never reached any formal conclusions or solutions to the Charlie problem, I took solace knowing I was no longer going to have to deal with this on my own. Laurette would stick by my side for however long it took.
After paying the bill and struggling to put her chic black coat back on, Laurette stumbled as she focused on a young, thin blond man with an electric smile and a tiny waist slipping on a coat to leave.
“That’s not . . . It can’t be,” Laurette slurred.
It was. It was the noted English actor Jude Law, who made a splash as the snooty, manipulative gay lover in the Oscar Wilde biopic with Stephen Fry. Then he went on to earn Oscar nods for his memorable roles as a rich playboy in The Talented Mr. Ripley and as a romantic Civil War hero in Cold Mountain. He was barely thirty and already on a par with some of the true greats such as Anthony Hopkins and Peter O’Toole. Of course, that was before Alfie.
Jude was alone and trying to maintain a low profile. But now that he was on Laurette’s radar, that would ultimately prove to be an impossibility. Laurette was loud and pushy enough sober, but when she was flying high from overindulgent liquor consumption, she was a walking storm warning.
I reached out to grab Laurette’s arm, but she was already halfway across the restaurant.
“Jude! Jude!” she screamed, waving her floppy hat in the air to get his attention. She didn’t need the hat.
Laurette knocked aside chairs and fellow patrons to get to him. Jude looked up, startled to see this large woman with glassy eyes bearing down on him. He nodded to her and made a dash out the door.
Laurette swiveled back and gestured for me to follow her. “I heard he’s looking for new management. I want to make a pitch to get him into my stable,” she said, brushing aside a pair of horrified waiters and following Jude Law out the door. I suspected that Jude would not leap at the chance to join Laurette’s firm. After all, her last client of note had been one of the kids from Full House, and it wasn’t those teenage billionaires the Olsen twins. But you never know. Laurette was a master at working miracles, and I never doubted her uncanny ability to focus and achieve her goals. Jude Law had no idea what he was up against.
I slapped some money on the table to cover our bill and hustled out the door after Laurette. Outside, it was complete pandemonium. Laurette was struggling in a crush of photographers and reporters. Jude Law was long gone. At first I was confused. Were the paparazzi this intense that they would chase Jude Law all over his hometown just to get a shot of him leaving Kettner’s?
No. I was suddenly hit with the startling realization that they were not interested in Jude Law at all. They were after me. Laurette was trying to grab my hand as the mob of twenty reporters and photographers blinded me with their flashbulbs and deafened me with their endless stream of shouting. Did I steal Claire Richards’s Oscar? Was I sleeping with both Claire and Liam? Did I really frame Minx for Claire’s murder? The British tabloids were never going to stop hounding me until their questions about Claire’s death were answered. This was the juiciest scandal to hit London since young Prince Harry wore a Nazi armband to a Halloween party.
Laurette finally managed to get a hold of me and yanked me out of the flock of press. We bolted down the street, clutching hands, still swerving a bit from all of our alcohol consumption. Passing an unmarked car parked on the curb down the block, I caught a glimpse of two men inside. One was Detective Samms’s chubby-faced underling. He ducked down in the front seat to avoid being seen, but it was too late. I knew they had put a tail on me. I was under a microscope. The press, the police, they were all keeping an eye on me. The whole world had a front-row seat to watch me slowly self-destruct.
Chapter 18
Laurette and I beat a hasty retreat back to the safety of the Savoy. She had tipped her taxi driver an extra twenty-five pounds to deliver her luggage to the hotel ahead of her after dropping her off at Kettner’s to meet me. When we arrived, the lobby was unusually quiet. Arthur the doorman was nowhere to be seen, and Ian, my favorite desk clerk, was off duty. I sat down on a classic print ornate couch to regroup as Laurette checked in. I closed my eyes and attempted a little meditation to get centered and said to myself over and over, “All will be fine. All will be fine.” I tried very hard to believe it.
“Jarrod?” a man said as I popped my eyes back open.
Wallace Goodwin stood before me. His suit was rumpled, his hair mussed up, his eyes bloodshot with worry and fatigue. I barely recognized him. When he spoke, his voice was scratched and weary.
“I’ve been ringing your room trying to reach you. How are you feeling?” he said in a rare moment of compassion.
“It hasn’t been easy. Not only have I had no time to grieve for Claire, my boyfriend is AWOL and the entire city is calling for my beheading!”
“I’ve been reading about you in the papers. They’re even talking about you on TV. Maybe you should just get the hell out of Dodge,” he said, trying to be helpful.
“The police are tailing me, Wallace, they’re not going to let me go anywhere. This is an absolute nightmare.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said, reaching down and resting a hand on my shoulder. “I feel as if this is somehow my fault. If I hadn’t talked you into doing this play, you never would have come here and gotten mixed up in all of this.”
“I wanted to do the play, Wallace,” I said. “I needed to do the play.”
“Well, if there’s anything I can do . . .” he said absently, his voice trailing off.
“Actually, there is,” I said.
He jolted upright, surprised. He hadn’t really counted on me taking him up on his offer.
“What?” he said, clasping his hands together a
nd clearing his throat.
“You can come clean about your affair with Claire Richards.”
His face went pale.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Laurette pick up her room key and turn around from the front desk. Her eyes settled on Wallace Goodwin and she frowned. Laurette wasn’t one of Wallace’s biggest fans. In fact, she despised him. She always said he was one of those writers with no spine. Never standing up for someone else’s joke. Always the last to compliment somebody on their script because he had to make sure everyone higher up than him liked it too. She was right. He was a wuss. But I had enthusiastically brushed all those qualities I hated about him aside when he offered me the chance for a comeback. In some ways, I was no better than he was.
Laurette marched over to us, but stopped short just out of Wallace’s eye line to eavesdrop on our conversation.
“I don’t know what you mean, Jarrod.” Wallace said in a sad attempt at denial.
“Come on, Wallace, I ran into Katrina in the lobby when she was leaving. She told me everything.”
“She got it all wrong. There has been a big misunderstanding.”
“You offered to help me. If you tell the police the truth, maybe they’ll ease up on me,” I said.
“And start accusing me!”
“Well?” I said, staring dead center into Wallace’s scared, beady eyes.
“I didn’t kill her! I swear it!”
“But you did sleep with her. Come on, Wallace, you can admit it. On some level you must be very proud of yourself.”
Laurette’s jaw dropped almost to the floor. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
Wallace began to fidget. He always did this when he was about to cough up something he had been trying to keep down. “Okay, yes. Yes. We hooked up a couple of times. It was very short-lived. And it was a huge mistake. We never should have done it,” he said. “I love my wife, and I can’t believe I jeopardized everything for a brief fling.”
