Hello Hollywood

by Suzanne Corso

Luke, in particular, was ragged; his good looks were worn down, like the surface of a stone long exposed to the elements. He might have been a homeless person who hadn’t had a good meal or a shower or a night’s sleep in a real bed in days. His jaw was unshaven; his jeans and shirt were soiled. And Paul was pissed—I could see it in his fisted hands, in the way he moved.

  The irony struck me. Seeing them now, just after the comment Priti had made about my best intentions, prompted me to wonder if the universe was tossing me a challenge. Can you hold on to your intentions? How are you going to react? With fear? Are you going to worry about what might happen if he sees you?

  Luke saw me first, said something to Paul, and gestured at a shop behind them. Paul, obviously irritated by Luke’s request, abruptly turned around and hurried off toward the shop. I realized Paul hadn’t seen me, and Luke had created a distraction so that Paul wouldn’t see me. Now Luke made a beeline toward our table.

  “Ms. DeMarco.” He glanced at Priti, then back at me. “Listen. He’s making me return to rehab.”

  “How can he make you?” I asked. “You’re over twenty-one.”

  “He threatened to have me arrested for who the hell knows what. But I want you to know that dad is in total meltdown. All he talks about is revenge against you. He blames you for his getting fired from the movie.”

  “He needs to look within himself,” Priti remarked.

  It was delivered with such seriousness, with such benevolent intention, that I nearly laughed—not at her, but at the thought of Paul even grasping what it meant to look within. Luke seemed taken aback by her comment.

  “Uh, no offense, ma’am, but that’s not going to happen. My dad has zero capacity for self-reflection.”

  “I appreciate the warning, Luke. But if he’s that hotheaded, you really shouldn’t let him see you talking to me.”

  “Listen to us.” He threw out his hands. “Even when he’s not around, he’s dictating what we do and don’t do.”

  It was true. “You’re right. So pull up a chair, join us.”

  He immediately looked frightened. “I . . . I can’t do that. It would jeopardize you. Both of us. You need to go inside. I . . . don’t know what he’ll do if he sees you out here.”

  “He’s not going to do anything with those cops around.” Priti motioned toward a couple of cops on bikes, headed up the sidewalk toward us. “Not unless he’s blind or crazy.”

  “You don’t know how nuts he is,” Luke murmured, glancing back nervously.

  “Did he break into my house, Luke? Did he say anything about that?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me even if he had. He doesn’t just blame you for getting him fired. He blames you for everything that’s happened to him in the last six months. He thinks you’re, like . . . a curse, an ancient curse, that was the phrase he used.”

  “An ancient curse.”

  As the words rolled off my tongue, I imagined where Paul had gotten that phrase—maybe from Romancing the Stone or from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade or from The Mummy. Sure, I was an ancient curse. Granted, there were days when I felt plenty ancient, when my joints creaked and complained and I felt like some mummified skeleton. But that was all in my head, not in my body, not for another forty or so years.

  “And . . . he’s still got that gun,” Luke finished.

  “He carries it on him?” Priti exclaimed.

  Her horrified expression made it utterly clear what her culture’s take was on concealed weapons and on guns generally.

  Paul suddenly appeared, a blur of speed, and rushed up behind his son, grabbed him by the shoulder, and yanked him back so hard that Luke stumbled over a chair behind him and crashed into a table. Glasses, plates, and silverware clattered to the ground. Paul leaned into our table, his cheeks flushed with anger, and got right in my face.

  “You don’t talk to my son, Sam, got it?”

  I drew back, stumbled to my feet.

  Priti leaped up and waved her arms in Paul’s face. “Hey, hey, hold on a minute. Your son came over here.”

  “Lady, I don’t know who you are, and this isn’t your business. Luke is my son, Luke is—”

  “Back off, Paul,” I snapped, pushing away from the table and hurrying over to help Luke up.

  “You okay, Luke?”

  “Yeah.” He lifted his arm, revealing a cut on his elbow from which blood flowed freely. “I’ve had worse.”

  Paul grabbed my shoulder and spun me around, and I wrenched back and threw up my arms to break his hold on me. “Get away from me,” I shouted.

  Other customers now stared at us, pedestrians moved out of the way, waiters hurried toward us. The cops rode up, leaped off their bikes, and the taller one insinuated himself between Paul and me.

  “Move back, sir,” he barked.

  Paul didn’t even look at the cop. He simply glared at me, his eyes so hateful and crazy that I was terrified that, if I made an abrupt move, he would pull out his gun and shoot me.

  “I said, move back,” the cop repeated.

  “Yeah, fine, fine, I heard you. I’m moving back.” Paul raised his hands, patting at the air as if the cop were a wild animal he hoped to placate. “She’s the one who started this.” He stabbed a finger at me, marched over to Luke. “C’mon, Luke. We’re outta here.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” Luke yelled, and held up his bleeding elbow. “You just shoved me into that table, you . . . you’re a lunatic, a . . . crazy, fucking lunatic. . . .”

  “You little prick.” Paul lunged at his son, swinging his fists, and punched Luke in the stomach; he kept pummeling him, shouting that he was an ungrateful shit.

  The officers sprang toward Paul and wrestled him to the ground. “You can’t do this, what do you think you’re doing, hey, hey, you can’t . . . ,” Paul shouted. He kicked and fought and struggled like some beast from hell that was allergic to the light. “Do you know who I am? You can’t . . .”

  I hurried over to Luke, his face the white of Wonder Bread, and helped him over to our table. “Shit, he’s a maniac,” Luke whispered, watching as his father continued to struggle against the cops. “He’ll kill me if I go with him, I know he will, he isn’t thinking straight. . . .”

  Tears rolled down his cheeks, and his eyes filled with such pain that I wanted only to gather him in my arms and comfort him. Priti grabbed a handful of napkins, soaked them with water, handed the wad to him. “Hold this against your elbow, Luke. That’s right.”

  By giving him a task, she had distracted him from what was going on yards away from us. A waiter hurried over with some towels and a first-aid kit. Sirens shrieked through the air, and moments later, two police cruisers screeched to a stop at the curb.

  Three cops leaped out and ran over to the other two officers, who were still trying to subdue Paul, a wild man fueled by rage and adrenaline. It took all five cops to hold him down, his cheek squashed against the sidewalk, and cuff him. Two cops jerked him to his feet and pushed him forward, toward the cruiser. Paul continued shouting, trying to wrench free. His face had turned strawberry red; his eyes bulged in their sockets. His head snapped around, and he screamed, “Luke, call my attorney, call—”

  He was shoved into the back of the cruiser, and I couldn’t hear the rest of what he shouted. The tall cop returned to the table. His name tag read SERGEANT ROLLINS. “Do you need medical attention?” Rollins asked Luke.

  “I . . . I don’t think so.”

  Priti and I went to work on Luke’s elbow, using items from the first-aid kit. Rollins pulled out a chair and sat down with us. “I’ll need your names and some information.”

  “I’m . . . Luke Jannis. That lunatic you took away is my father, Paul. Paul Jannis. He was threatening Ms. DeMarco. He . . . he uses her photos for target practice . . . he’s nuts, he’s . . .”

  “Okay, Luke,” the cop said, nodd
ing, jotting rapidly in a notebook. “I understand. And your age?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  “Ms. DeMarco, what’s your relationship with Paul Jannis?”

  “We dated for a while, but it ended weeks ago.”

  “I see.”

  I knew that he did. He’d probably heard this story hundreds of times before. It was undoubtedly such a common story in Hollywood that he had several choice words that he jotted down for it. Something like ex-lover’s revenge. Or: Relationship meltdown.

  “And your relationship with Mr. Jannis?” he asked Priti.

  “None. I’m just having lunch with my friend.”

  “And your employer, ma’am?” He glanced at me again.

  “I’m self-employed.”

  “DeMarco Productions,” Priti added.

  Luke said, “My father optioned her novel and screenplay. He was the producer on the movie until he got fired.”

  Rollins nodded, jotted more notes. “Ah, okay.” The picture apparently was becoming much clearer for him. “Is the movie in production?”

  “Yes.” I nodded. “With Gallery Studios.”

  He asked for our cell numbers, addresses, and our driver’s licenses. “I need to radio this in. I’ll be right back.”

  As he hurried over to one of the cruisers, I saw Paul craning his neck in the backseat of the second cruiser, trying to see what was going on. I suddenly felt that the next time we ran into each other, he would kill me.

  “Do you have a place to stay, Luke?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Same place. With my girlfriend. He . . . he stormed in there this afternoon because he . . . got another credit card bill for . . . Mystery Manor purchases . . . but that bill . . . it was old, from before my rehab. I . . . I got a job, I’m making money. . . .”

  “I’ll get you to your girlfriend’s place,” I said. “But if I were you, I’d find another place to stay for a few days, someplace your dad doesn’t know about.”

  “Yeah, I can do that. Jake’s got his own place now. It’s small, but I can sleep on the sofa.”

  The cop returned, handed our licenses back to us. “Ms. DeMarco, when I ran your license, I found that Lieutenant Gotti had flagged your name. I phoned him, and he told me about the break-in to your home over the weekend. I explained what had happened here, that Mr. Jannis is in custody and will be charged for resisting arrest and for assault and battery of his son. He suggested that you get a restraining order against Mr. Jannis. If you give Lieutenant Gotti a call, he’ll get the process started. He’s going to be speaking to Mr. Jannis in person, too, and will set him straight on a few things.”

  “I’ll call him. Thanks, Sergeant Rollins.”

  One of the employees was now sweeping up the shards of dishes and glasses that had crashed to the floor when Paul had shoved Luke. Rollins stabbed his thumb toward the mess.

  “They may charge you for the broken dishes, Mr. Jannis. If you’d like, I’ll speak to the manager and make it clear that they should recoup the damage from your father.”

  “Thanks. Thanks very much.” Luke sounded surprised that a cop—that anyone—would offer to do that for him.

  Rollins went inside. “You hungry, Luke?” I asked.

  “Famished.”

  “Well, let’s get you something to eat,” I said, and Priti flagged down the waitress.

  • • •

  Priti and I drove Luke to his girlfriend’s place first so he could pick up his belongings, then we headed into downtown Malibu, where Jake lived. I felt sorry for Luke, sorry that Paul was his father, that Paul had struck him, that Paul was so damaged.

  Paul always sought to place blame on someone else for whatever happened to him. He refused to take responsibility for his own actions, his own choices. But neither Luke nor I were the cause of his meltdown; we were just catalysts, triggers for his rage, for that dark shadow in him. Paul had no one to blame but himself for what had just happened. I suspected Gotti would tell him as much, unless Paul’s attorney bailed him out before Gotti even arrived at the station.

  No telling what would happen once Paul was bailed out. That thought troubled and scared me.

  When we pulled up in front of Luke’s friend’s apartment, a nice place near the beach, Luke leaned forward from the backseat and slung an arm around my shoulders, then Priti’s. “Thank you so much for everything. If it hadn’t been for you two, I don’t know . . . what he might’ve done.”

  “Stay safe,” Priti said.

  “And keep in touch,” I told him.

  “I will.” He held up his iPhone. “He can’t cut off service on this one. I just bought it, had some money saved from my job. Here, I’ll text you the new number.” He did it quickly. “And, Ms. DeMarco, please stay out of his way. Unless they Baker Act him, his attorney will spring him outta jail by this evening.”

  “I understand, Luke. And thank you for the warnings. Let me know if he tries to find you or contact you, and I’ll let Lieutenant Gotti know.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  He got out and walked up to the building, his shoulders sagging like those of an old man. The bone-white bandage on his elbow was only today’s scar. The other scars, from earlier, didn’t show.

  I rubbed my hands over my face, suddenly wishing that I was anywhere but here. A beach in the south of France. The mysterious island of Chiloé in southern Chile. In Paris. In Africa. In Costa Rica. Anywhere but here, just like the movie of the same name.

  “Sam?”

  My hands fell away from my face, and I glanced over at Priti. “Yeah?”

  “I think it would be really smart if you could get out of town for a few days. The, uh, dynamics in all this are disturbing.”

  Ya think? And then, to my utter horror, I started to cry, to sob. I hated to cry in situations like this, when I undoubtedly looked like some helpless female—that silly woman in the old Snidely Whiplash cartoons, tied to a railroad track as a train barreled toward her, hoping some guy would gallop in to her rescue.

  Gag.

  “I came out here . . . to find a dream, Priti. But it seems it’s . . . it’s just been one nightmare scenario after another. There’s . . . something in me that attracts this bullshit, the violence, these men who are so . . . so eaten up with the need for power. And it’s not just that they want to control me, they want to control everything. Look at Paul’s relationship with his son . . .”

  “What relationship? Luke is like his abused puppy.” Priti slipped her arm around my shoulders. “You’re too hard on yourself, Sam.”

  “Am I?”

  “Of course you are. We’ve all made bad choices at one time or another. We all have these messed-up patterns in ourselves. The trick is to break the pattern, somehow. I mean, c’mon, you wrote yourself out of Brooklyn. You’ve said it yourself. You wrote yourself into Manhattan and then out of Manhattan and into Hollywood. You’ve lived the contrasts. You know what you want, what you deserve. You can write yourself into anything. Just do it.”

  Priti, my cheerleader.

  Priti, always in my court.

  She even handed me a wad of Kleenex so I could dry my eyes, blow my nose. Then I turned the key in the ignition and slammed my car into gear and tore away from the curb in front of the apartment building. I sped toward Melrose, where Priti had left her car, popped a Whitesnake CD into the player, cranked up the volume. “Here I go again on my own . . . down the only road I’ve ever known,” blasted through the car.

  Priti lowered the windows and the wind whipped through, sweeping away the detritus of the past, sweeping away the issues and the men and the bullshit, until there was only this moment, this second, this breath. Priti and me, laughing our asses off.

  • • •

  Late afternoon. I was sitting by the pool with a glass of rosé. The dusky sky was cloudless, the air was cooler, birds sang as thou
gh their hearts were swollen with joy. The afternoon light struck the towering canyon wall, turning it a burnished copper. And way above me, gulls shrieked, winging their way elsewhere for the night.

  Beyond me, the property seemed fluid, vivid colors spreading out in every direction, waves of green rolling all the way to the gate and the fence at the bottom of the driveway. I drank it all in, my slice of paradise.

  I’d been reading Tolle’s book and was beginning to understood now what Priti had been talking about. I wondered if I’d ever lived fully in the moment. As a young girl in Brooklyn, I was always trying to write my way out, one eye perpetually glued to the future. During my marriage to Alec, there had been some living-in-the-moment times, but mostly it seemed I had worried and fretted about what ifs. What if Alec didn’t slow down, what if he didn’t take better care of himself, what if he took up with another woman, what if, what if, what if . . .

  In other words, I had spent so much time anticipating the future, worrying about it, planning for it, that I had probably missed thousands of nows, tens of thousands of moments I could never recapture. It was time to live in the now, I craved it so.

  So I set aside my iPad and padded over to the sliding-glass door that opened into Isabella’s room. She and Lauren were sitting on her bed, doing homework, their intense concentration so deep they didn’t even glance up. I drank in the sight of them, then turned and drank in the sight of this gorgeous property.

  Gratitude.

  Lights burned in the guesthouse, where Marvin and Flannigan were, the security people patrolled the property outside the gate, the security lights by the gate shone brightly. Right this second, barefoot and relaxed, I was free—free of drama, free of bullshit, free to be whoever I was at this point in time.

  Priti was right. I needed to get out of Malibu, and not just because of Paul. I was beginning to feel corralled, controlled, like some carefully calibrated machine. During my years with Alec, I had felt like this many times and had found that a change of scenery always helped. It didn’t solve the fundamental problem, but it shifted my focus.

  I finally turned on my phone again, and it pinged and pinged as text messages and emails came in. I really wasn’t in the mood to scroll through endless messages of any kind, but when I glanced down, I saw messages from Liza, John, Priti, Jenean, and from Prince and King.