Hello Hollywood

by Suzanne Corso

  “One more question,” said Camilla. “Will we have makeup and costume trailers or what?”

  “We’ve reserved two penthouses. One of them will be for meals, makeup, costumes, everything. Then you’ll travel to the locations by private bus.” King glanced around the room. “Anything else?”

  No one said anything.

  “All right, then, let’s get moving,” King said.

  The group broke up shortly afterward, and John and I went our separate ways. I wondered what Brooklyn would be like for both of us, what it would it be like to be there together again, even if back then we had known each other only long enough for a New Year’s Eve mistletoe kiss.

  As we reached the car, I turned my phone on—the first time I’d done so since the shoot had begun that morning—and found a text message from Priti, announcing that she had arrived in L.A. two days ago.

  Can we meet tomorrow for lunch? Am so excited to see u!

  Blu Jam. Noon. It’ll be great to see u!

  She texted back that the time and place were perfect and she would be there. As I slipped behind the steering wheel, another text came through, this one from John.

  You are my stunner!

  I smiled with satisfaction.

  “Mom, Brent invited me to a party at his place on Sunday,” Isabella said, sounding breathless. “Can I go?”

  “What kind of party?”

  “It’s his birthday. His dad and grandparents will be there.”

  “So will I,” Liza said. “Brian asked me to join the family.”

  “It sounds like fun. Sure, you can go.”

  “And Lauren’s having a sleepover Saturday night. Can I go to that, too?”

  “You’re turning into a social butterfly, hon,” Liza said.

  “The sleepover’s fine, too.”

  And it would give me a night with John.

  After we dropped Liza off, Isabella and I picked up some Thai takeout and headed home. We just loved the pad Thai noodles. It reminded us so much of New York City. She was chatty, my daughter was, and was also doing her Facebook thing, posting photos of herself with the cast and as an extra. Her generation practically lived on Facebook. If you had a boyfriend, it wasn’t really official until you announced it on Facebook.

  But from the start, I’d insisted that she use an abbreviated version of her name to make it more difficult for celebrity stalkers to find her—or me. Most of the parents I knew in the entertainment business insisted that their kids do the same thing. So on Facebook, Isabella was Bella D and I was Sam D, listed as her mom. Safer.

  When we approached the house, I was pleased to see that the security lights at the gate had come on. I also spotted the security patrol and blinked the headlights, as I had been instructed to do. The patrol car blinked its headlights in response and pulled alongside me in the driveway. A middle-aged man stuck his head out the window.

  “Evening, Ms. DeMarco. It’s been quiet here.”

  “Quiet is good. Thanks so much. Mr. Castelli should be here shortly.”

  Isabella pressed the remote-control button, the gate slid open, and I drove uphill toward the house. The security lights around the property and outside the guesthouse and the main house were also on. Bright but not too bright, and they could be dimmed from the main panel inside the house.

  “Maybe we kinda overdid it with the security stuff, Mom,” Isabella remarked as we got out of the car.

  “Maybe. But I don’t want a repeat of what happened the other night. I’m starving, how about you?

  “Famished.”

  We hurried into the house with our takeout, and while Isabella set out plates, I downloaded the video feed from the security cameras to my iPad. As we ate, I went through the feed, slowly, looking for anything unusual. About an hour ago, the security camera aimed at the road just outside our gate revealed a car moving slowly in front of our property, slowly but not slowly enough to attract the attention of the security patrol. I froze the image, zoomed in on it.

  Paul’s car.

  You armed, Paul? Going to shoot up the house? Shoot me as I sleep?

  I moved quickly through the house, checking doors to make sure that they were locked, that the security system was engaged. I was pissed that I had reached this place yet again, where I had allowed a man, any man, to instill such fear in me.

  • • •

  The next morning, I dropped Isabella off at school and walked into the office minutes before nine. Clara was meeting Marvin at Gallery, so I had the place to myself. There were twenty-two messages on the answering machine, nearly a hundred emails in my in-box, and a stack of mail that had been delivered on Saturday. I settled behind the front desk with a mug of strong coffee and a pastry from the bakery down the street, and dived in.

  When Isabella and I had first moved out here and I’d opened my production office, I had set up the office email address on my phone as well. But within three months, I was receiving so much email that it seemed I was constantly on my phone, answering mail. I decided to pick up work stuff only on the computer. Now I regretted it. Last night, some emails had been sent to the company address from ladyofguadalupe@gmail.com.

  Lady of Guadalupe was a church in Brooklyn where I had found solace and peace from time to time, and where we would be shooting location shots. Father Rinaldi, the priest at the church, had welcomed my infrequent visits and my numerous questions, drew parallels between biblical parables and my troubles, and always listened and offered counsel without any strings attached.

  The wonderful thing about the priest was that he hadn’t cared what my religious beliefs were. He didn’t try to convert me. He was simply there for me, supportive, caring. So whoever had sent these vile emails had taken one of my best memories and tried to corrupt it.

  Email #1:Pretty soon, the world will know just what a bitch you are.

  Email #2:You can’t hide from me. I watch you constantly.

  The inside of my mouth flashed bone dry. Paul? Vito? Or did this go even further back, maybe to Tony Kroon or one of the Brooklyn Boys? I started to delete all of them, then picked up the phone and called Lieutenant Gotti’s cell phone. He answered on the second ring. “Gotti here.”

  “Lieutenant Gotti, it’s Samantha DeMarco. I just received a couple of threatening emails through my company’s email account from what I suspect is a bogus Gmail account. Is there any way you can find out who owns the account?”

  “From Google? Ha. Not likely, unless I go through the Department of Justice or the NSA, and that might take years. Would you forward them to me?”

  “I’m doing it right now.”

  “Good, stay on the line while I look at these.” Seconds ticked by that amounted to less than a minute. Gotti muttered, “Pretty lame stuff. Don’t worry about them, Ms. DeMarco. But if you get anything else, let me know.”

  I squeezed the bridge of my nose and wished I were at the swimming hole with John. “What do you suggest I do?”

  “Don’t delete them. If that email address isn’t already connected to your phone, please synch them up now so you can pick up your email as soon as it comes in. If you get any more of these, forward them to me immediately.”

  “Okay.”

  “Does your daughter have a cell phone?”

  “She’s sixteen. Of course she’s got a cell phone.”

  “But is it with her at school?”

  “Yes, but she can’t use it except at lunch hour.”

  “Does she get email through her phone?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know how often she checks it. She’s more the texting and Facebook type. Why?”

  “Look, whoever broke into your house probably lifted a lot of info off your computer before whacking it into the next world. It’s likely the perp has your and your daughter’s electronic info. I hope you changed your passwords.”

 
“I did, but . . . there was a lot of info on the computer that didn’t need passwords.”

  “Like phone numbers, you mean. And Facebook tags. And twitter tags. And . . .” He paused. “You know, people talk about how the Internet has facilitated our lives, but I just don’t see it. Mostly, it’s just complicated my work and my life. Text your daughter, Ms. DeMarco, and definitely forward any other emails to me immediately.”

  “I will. Thanks, Lieutenant Gotti.”

  “One more thing. Is your security system installed?”

  “Yes. And a patrol twenty-four/seven.”

  “Has anything unusual shown up on your video feed since you had the equipment installed?”

  I thought of Paul’s car, clearly visible in the zoom, and planned on mentioning it. The image didn’t prove anything other than the fact that he’d driven by my place. On the other hand, if Paul was behind this—and after losing his job, he might be, I had to keep that in mind—then I needed to be honest. So I told Gotti what I’d seen, and he asked if I could send him the feed. I said I would. I could access the feed from any computer.

  “By the way. I spoke to that nurse who drove Vito Bonti to the airport. She says she dropped him off at the curb. She assumed he got on the plane.”

  Shit. Assumed. “Thanks for checking.”

  “I also spoke to Paul Jannis and his attorney. Both men are sticking to their story. Conference, then La Playa. I’m not backing off from the investigation.”

  “Just curious, Lieutenant Gotti. Do people kid you about your last name?”

  He laughed. “I never hear the end of it. I actually met John Gotti before he died. There was a case I was working on out here that seemed to be connected to him, so I flew east to talk to him. His cancer was pretty advanced then, but he loved having an audience, and I was all ears. We actually tried to figure out how we might be related. Gotti isn’t a very common name. I think we finally pegged that we might be cousins eight times removed. Something like that. He was a very strange man, and Brooklyn is a very strange place.”

  Amen to that.

  “I read Brooklyn Story, Ms. DeMarco. And last night I got about halfway through The Suite Life. I have to ask. Between us, how much of it’s true?”

  I hesitated but not for long. “Between us? You’ll swear to that? I won’t suddenly find an interview with you on some entertainment blog? Or in a magazine?”

  “My word.”

  “It’s all true,” I said. “Every last word of it.”

  I texted Isabella, forwarded the emails to Liza and John and to the new personal email address I set up. Isabella must have left class for the restroom or something, because she texted back almost immediately.

  Got weird text message earlier today. Didn’t open attachment. Am forwarding & then deleting from my phone.

  The text came from an area code I didn’t recognize. When I clicked on the attachment, it was a very fuzzy photo of John and me, rolling through the grass at the swimming hole.

  No way was I going to forward this to Lieutenant Gotti. I clicked the sucker into the trash and then sat there, fuming. Threatening emails and the photo: Didn’t they add up to Paul? I was certain the emails were from Paul, but it was possible the photo had been taken by one of the extras or even a member of the crew. I let that thought sit for a moment, but didn’t feel anything one way or the other.

  I finally understood that the biggest impediment in my relationship with John was our violent pasts. Both of us having healthy appetizers into the mafia world as kids, then entrees into the Wall Street world as adults. Now the sweet part, the dessert; Hollywood. It was all starting to taste better than I ever imagined. This was recipe enough for a meal of a lifetime.

  When I finally calmed down, I went into the restroom and splashed cold water on my face. That helped. I stood at the sink for the longest time, just staring down at the porcelain, waiting for an idea, a plan, a strategy, something. Nothing occurred to me. My phone buzzed and rang and sang. I didn’t slip it from my back pocket.

  After a few minutes, though, I peeled my hands away from the edge of the sink, pulled out my phone, and sent the image to John with a note.

  While we died and went to heaven, the nasty gnomes were out & about.

  By the time I arrived at Blu Jam, that photo had started appearing on the Internet. I knew it because I had spoken to John and Liza, King and Prince, Jenean, Susan, and Camilla. The consensus was that I should ignore it. No comment.

  I suddenly wondered how celebrities—real celebrities like George Clooney and Julia Roberts, stars of that ilk—could stand all the scrutiny they received.

  THIRTEEN

  Priti Sarma looked just as I remembered her, a pretty woman with finely chiseled features and gorgeous black hair. We hugged hello, and as always she gushed with compliments about how good I looked, how wonderful it was to see me, how I hadn’t changed one bit since we’d last seen each other. She ignored the bags under my eyes, the new lines at their corners, the threads of gray in my hair. Priti saw only the best in people.

  We sat outside, just Priti and me—no studio execs, no Liza, no one in the industry, no men—and caught up on each other’s lives. “My husband wants to expand our textile business to this country, and he thinks L.A. and New York are the best places to do that.”

  “Have you found a location yet?”

  “I’m working with a Realtor. We think somewhere along Melrose would be good. Tap into the entertainment industry.”

  “I can help you out with that once you get settled. Is your husband joining you here at some point?”

  “As soon as he finds a manager for the business at home.”

  Once our meals arrived, Priti leaned forward, her glowing eyes twinkling. “So, any special guy in your life, Sam?”

  I didn’t want to just sit there and talk about myself, so I gave her the abbreviated version of events, the high points—Vito, Paul, John. VPJ: it sounded like a Fortune 500 company or something. But she was so intrigued by it all that I ended up telling her about the break-in, the threatening emails, even about the fuzzy photo of John and me that had hit the Internet.

  Samantha Bonti DeMarco, drama queen: that was how it sounded to me, but that wasn’t who I was. Priti’s expression turned sympathetic. “Sam, Sam,” she said softly, “you need a man whose capacity for love is as great as yours. And you’re going to find him. Maybe this John is the one. But regardless of who your true love turns out to be, when you get married, I’m making your wedding dress. And you are coming to India for your wedding.”

  A song went through my head about finding true love: John Legend’s “You & I.” That man sure knew how to say I love you in a song—that was for sure. A wedding in India sounded divine; the romantic in me could already envision it. But at the moment it seemed that I was just as far from a wedding anywhere on Earth as I was from a wedding on Pluto. “It just seems so easy for other people to find their soul mates, Priti. I don’t understand why it’s been such a challenge for me.”

  “Everyone has challenges, Sam. If you’re destined to meet your soul mate in this life, then it will happen. I believe that in between lives, soul mates agree to come in at a particular time and place, to meet, to partner. Sometimes we recognize the person immediately. Other times it has to build. That’s how it was for my husband and me. That’s how it was for my parents.”

  Maybe, all these years, I’d been trying too hard, eager to see something in the man of the moment that simply wasn’t there. I still believed that it all went back to my being abandoned by Vito, to his hatred of me before I’d even been born. But wasn’t forty-five years kind of long for the unconscious to hold on to a particular pattern?

  “Have you read Eckart Tolle’s The Power of Now, Sam?”

  I shook my head. “My reading the last several months has consisted of scripts and script notes.”

  “
You should read it. In a nutshell, see, Tolle says that now is the only thing we have. Now. This instant. This breath. We can’t change the past, and the future isn’t here yet. We should try to live more in the moment. I know it sounds facile, but I’ve been putting his principles to work in my own life, and I have to tell you, I’m much happier because of it.”

  “But you’re a naturally happy, optimistic person, Priti.”

  “So are you, if you’d give yourself half a chance. I used to have bouts of anxiety. Like when I’d fly. In the past, the night before a plane trip, I would be up half the night worrying about whether the plane was going to crash. Or get hijacked. Fear, my pending trips were always dominated by fear, what if this happened, what if that happened. . . . Every time there was something in the news about a plane crash, I would cancel any upcoming flight, forgo my trip, and lose what I’d paid for my ticket. But when I heard about a recent crash before making this trip to the States, it didn’t affect me at all. That’s the difference Tolle’s book has made for me.” She slipped her iPad out of her bag. “You have your iPad with you?”

  “Always. Why?”

  “I’m gifting you this book.”

  “Thanks, Priti, but I can buy it.”

  “You have great intentions, Sam, you always do; but life gets in the way sometimes. I’m sending it.”

  As she tapped away on her iPad, I brought mine out and thought about what she’d just said. It was true. I always had the best intentions—with my attitude, my daughter, my work, men I met, my life. But somehow, those intentions were all too often disrupted by drama, and my energy was spent trying to make right what had gone wrong. Then my best intentions went south.

  Another pattern, I thought.

  I picked up the book, and as it downloaded onto my Kindle app, I glanced up—and saw Paul and Luke headed along the sidewalk, toward us. They weren’t speaking. They walked fast, and neither of them looked happy to be in the other’s company.