Hello Hollywood

by Suzanne Corso

  “Perfect.”

  “What was it like returning to Our Lady of Guadalupe?” King asked.

  “Like time traveling,” I said. “I almost expected to see Father Rinaldi and me sitting in one of those pews. It’s a weird feeling.”

  “I suppose John gave away our surprise, huh?”

  “He sure did,” I said.

  “It’s hard keeping something like that under wraps for too long.”

  “I did my best,” John said.

  “You definitely did, John,” Liza remarked. “I remember way back in April someone had mentioned the possibility of De Niro as the priest, but no one ever said anything else about it, and I forgot about it. And I wasn’t paying attention to the full cast list.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered,” King said, then whipped out a folded copy of the cast list and held it up. “Father Rinaldi.” He pointed at the name. “TBA. To be announced.”

  My back was to the door, so when King suddenly gestured at someone behind me, I glanced around—and gaped. Father Rinaldi came through the door, waved at the bartender, said hello to a couple of the waitresses, and made his way toward our table.

  De Niro. It was De Niro. And he looked so much like Father Rinaldi, he could pass for his twin. Dark clothes, a clerical collar, graying hair. Rinaldi’s hair had been coal black, but I liked him with that touch of gray. The enigmatic smile and sphinxlike expression, though, were pure De Niro. When John introduced us, I was speechless.

  “I enjoyed your book, Samantha. And your script. It’s a pleasure to play Father Rinaldi.” He paused. “So. Do I pass the look-alike test?”

  “Absolu-lutely,” I stammered. “I . . . you fooled me. I thought he’d risen from the dead.”

  De Niro laughed and slapped his thigh. “Risen from the dead. Love it.” He pressed his palms together in an attitude of prayer and gave a small, mock bow. “And now, child, for your confession . . .”

  We all laughed, and King asked, “Can you join us?”

  “Love to.”

  He pulled out a chair and sat down at our table, and I felt overwhelmed by—what? That he was De Niro? But at the heart of it I was deeply grateful to all of these people—from the studio executives to the actors and crew members who were bringing my story to the screen, breathing life into events and individuals who had helped mold and shape me. How many people have that kind of opportunity?

  “So tell me,” De Niro said, “about Rinaldi’s hand gestures, his expressions. Did he talk slow or fast, or just like an Italian guy from Brooklyn? Did he have any habitual facial expressions? A tic? A quick smile?”

  We spent the next fifteen or twenty minutes talking about the priest, and I was surprised at how vivid my memories were of him, even all these years later. Just as Jenean had sat and talked with me, observing my hands movements and the way I spoke, so was De Niro using this conversation to work himself into the physical person Rinaldi had been.

  Before De Niro left, John snapped a couple of photos of all of us at the table, then a photo of me with De Niro. Isabella probably would never forgive me for not calling her to come downstairs to meet him. But she would get her chance tomorrow at the church, if not before.

  “So, what about this, Sam?” De Niro ran his fingers through his hair. “Should I dye it black or do you think the gray works okay?”

  “The gray looks great. I like the idea of Rinaldi as prematurely gray.”

  “Gray it is, then.”

  When De Niro finally got ready to leave, he asked if we were all comfortable in our rooms and if the staff could help us out in any way. John and King walked with him across the room to the door, and Liza leaned toward me and whispered, “Do I look okay?”

  “What? You always look more than okay, Liza. Why? What’s going on? What’re you talking about?”

  “Fuck, I think I’m having a mini panic attack. Brian asked me back to his room for a nightcap. I . . . well, I feel kinda weird about, you know, sleeping with him. I mean, I’m in my fifties, I—”

  “Liza. Enough already. You’re the fittest woman I know. You go for it, girl.”

  “Sam, I think that he’s just in his late forties, that he—”

  I laughed. “Honestly? Does it matter if you’re—what? Four or five years older than he is? Men never worry about that. Why should women? Look at Susan Sarandon, dating a guy thirty years younger.”

  “Wow, I’d forgotten about that. Good point.” She sat back, worry bleeding from her expression. “I went through so much shit in my marriage, Sam, that I guess I’m kinda gun-shy now.”

  “I get that completely.”

  “You and John . . . have you . . . ?”

  “No. Just rolling around in the grass by the swimming hole.”

  “Who do you think took that photo?”

  “I’d like to point the finger at Paul. Maybe he was hiding in the bushes nearby or something. But I’m pretty sure he was escorted off the studio property.”

  “Yeah, he was.”

  “Maybe it was one of the extras. It doesn’t matter. It’s not like we’re fodder for the paparazzi.”

  “And about John and you . . .” She spun a perfectly manicured finger in the air and winked.

  “I’m, uh, looking forward to it.”

  Liza laughed.

  As John and King made their way back to the table, my phone buzzed. I glanced at it, saw a text message from Paul’s son.

  Dad is out, headed to NY.

  “Oh, no.” Waves of apprehension tore through me.

  “What?” Liza asked.

  I handed her the phone.

  “Maniac,” she muttered. “Let Brian and John see that. Maybe we need some security guards around the shoot tomorrow.”

  “Good idea.” I was beyond giving Paul the benefit of the doubt. I’d already done that once too often.

  When the men returned to the table, I handed King my phone. “Take a look, Brian.”

  He glanced at the text message and passed the phone to John without saying a word. John read it, gave me the phone, and the two men exchanged a glance. “Well?” John asked.

  “Paul doesn’t have a copy of the shooting schedule for Brooklyn,” King said. “Just the same, I’ll take care of it.”

  “He knows where our shooting locations are in Brooklyn, though, Brian. He has seen the script notes; he made suggestions about the locations,” John said.

  “As long as he doesn’t know when we’re shooting where, it shouldn’t be a problem. But let’s not leave anything to luck.”

  King pushed away from the table and walked out of the room, John striding alongside him.

  I texted Luke a thank-you and asked when his father had left L.A. He replied that Paul’s flight would leave at midnight Eastern time, which meant he would be here sometime tomorrow morning.

  Does he know where you’re staying? Luke asked.

  I had no idea. “Liza, when you made the arrangements for our staying here, did Paul know about them?

  “Nope. But he may figure it out. He knows Brian’s tastes. He knows Brian has stayed here before. But unless he has reserved a room here, he won’t get past the front desk.”

  “Maybe we should warn the front desk?”

  “Brian’s probably doing that already.”

  I texted Luke again.

  Did yr dad tell u where he’ll be staying?

  No. He never does. Only reason I know he’s leaving is because he got my # from Jake’s mom & called & asked me 2 give him a lift to the airport. Can u believe that shit? I didn’t take the call.

  U ok?

  As long as I stay away from him, I’m fine. Take care—& if u see him, take cover. Seriously.

  Take cover.

  I fully intended to.

  I knew Paul was nuts, but at that moment, I didn’t really grasp just
how psychotic he’d become.

  • • •

  Later, alone in the elevator, John slipped his arm around my shoulders and gently pulled me closer to him. “Not to worry, Sam. Even Paul, as relentless as he is, won’t be able to get through the barricades tomorrow. Even to film at and around the church, we had to get permission from the local bishop and from the city council. The block will be closed during filming, and Brian just hired some private security guards. The Brooklyn cops will also be there.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  He touched my chin and raised my face ever so gently and kissed me. I melted into him. His hands traveled slowly down my back, and a current of desire swept up my spine. “You and I need some time alone,” he whispered. “Serious time alone.”

  There was nothing pushy in what he said, nothing controlling or manipulative as there had been with Paul, with Alec. John’s words were about desire.

  “How about tomorrow night?”

  The elevator doors opened, and an elderly couple stood there, both of them looking as if they were decked out for a state dinner. “Evening,” the man said with a twinkle in his eyes, as if he remembered a scene like this from his own life.

  “Evening,” John murmured.

  We swept past them, snorting and snickering, and as soon as the elevator doors shut, sealing the elderly couple inside, we burst out laughing. “You know how you make me feel, Sam?”

  “How?”

  “Like you’re the only woman in the world to me. Even if it took thirty years to find you again.”

  He kissed me good night at the door and I floated into the suite, the taste of him lingering on my mouth. His words between kisses were what mattered most to me. Three decades was certainly worth the wait.

  FIFTEEN

  Breakfast the next morning was in the penthouse. Isabella and I arrived a few minutes late because I was on the phone with Alec’s mother, rescheduling Isabella’s pickup time so she could meet De Niro. She’d seen the photos of De Niro that John had taken and hadn’t quite forgiven me for not calling her to come downstairs to meet the man. I figured the photo of De Niro and me would be up on her Facebook page shortly, if it wasn’t there already.

  King and Prince had set out a virtual feast for the cast and crew. Isabella and I went through the line, helping ourselves to breakfast goodies from half a dozen cultures. We sat next to the huge picture window with John, Prince, and Renée. The view was spectacular.

  Tribeca spread out before us, light spilling across the busy streets below, transforming the neighborhood into some sort of magical dimension where anything was possible. The sky was a magnificent shade of blue, utterly clear, and seemed to fit over the Manhattan skyline as perfectly as a dome. Sitting up here—at this particular table, at this particular moment in time, with these particular people—filled me with enormous gratitude.

  I had read in many self-help books that the most important emotion we could experience, next to love, was gratitude. The more gratitude we felt, the more readily we attracted other experiences, situations, and people for whom we could be grateful.

  And after reading Tolle’s book, I’d decided that part of my new “program” for myself would be practicing gratitude consistently, daily, in every way, and not just when I lit candles to the Blessed Virgin, the Archangel Michael, and Buddha. It meant that when I felt this surge of gratitude, as I did now, I should focus on it, appreciate it, turn it inside out and explore the texture and reality of the feeling. I should memorize its contours and shapes, its nooks and crannies. I should explore this emotion so completely that I could conjure it even in the moments when I didn’t feel it, when it seemed impossible to be grateful for anything.

  So as I gazed out at this fantastic view, I appreciated it with my entire being. What woman wouldn’t want to be in my shoes?

  “Everyone rested up?” Prince asked.

  “I feel great,” John said. “I slept the entire night through. And that rarely happens.”

  “Same here,” Renée and I said simultaneously, then looked at each other and laughed.

  “Maybe jet lag adjusts sleep patterns rather than disrupting them,” Renée remarked.

  Considering the text from Luke, I actually hadn’t expected to sleep as well as I had. But since I’d spent the last few weeks in a state of almost constant anxiety about this situation with Paul, I was probably suffering from adrenal exhaustion or something.

  Prince, as if reading my mind, said, “Brian told me about the text from Luke’s son, Sam. I can assure you there won’t be a problem.”

  “I understand he called the hotel last night to make a reservation,” John said. “The front desk told him the Greenwich is fully booked.”

  Interesting, I thought. “Is that true—is it fully booked?”

  “Nope,” John said.

  “I hope he doesn’t find it suspicious.”

  “Look, if he comes into the hotel and makes a scene, he’ll be arrested,” Prince said. “Simple.”

  Except that, with Paul, nothing was ever simple.

  Before we finished eating, King stood on one of the steps leading up to the second floor of the penthouse and waved a copy of the script. “If you all could get out your copies, I’ll quickly go through which scenes we’re going to film today and their locations. When we’re finished here, a bus will be waiting downstairs to take us into Brooklyn.”

  Most of us had iPads. I turned mine so that both Isabella and I could see it. As King spoke, I jotted notes on a pad of paper about the locations: Our Lady of Guadalupe and Sally’s, a coffee shop where my friend Janice and I used to hang out. I wondered if the place still had the best chicken sandwiches for miles around. Probably.

  Before Isabella and I had moved to California, we had gone to Sally’s one afternoon, the first time I’d been there in a decade. When we had walked into the coffee shop, I’d experienced that time-traveling feeling. The worn black-and-white ceramic tiles were still there, and so were the stainless steel stools with the red leather cushions. Even the booths beyond the counter, where Janice and I used to sit, were still there. It was as if Sally’s had gotten stuck in a time warp.

  “Sally’s, that’s where we went, Mom,” whispered Isabella. “How cool.”

  The neighborhood where I’d actually met Tony Kroon had been changed for shooting purposes. Those scenes would be shot tomorrow morning, in a public park lined with food stalls, where two hundred extras would be strolling and laughing and enjoying the perfect weather. The shoot in the park had required several permits from the city bureaucrats and we had only three hours to do it.

  “Questions, anyone?” King asked.

  “Just a detail,” Liza said, waving her arm. “Lunch will be at one p.m., at Sally’s. We were going to cater it to save time, but Sally insisted they can have everything cleared in ten minutes once we’ve eaten. The menu is Greek, and according to those in the know, the food is fabulous. Our shooting there should wrap up between five and six. You’re free for the evening, but you should all be downstairs at nine tomorrow morning to take the bus into Brooklyn. Shooting will start at ten. All of you in the crew who are setting up the stalls in the park for the shoot tomorrow morning should be ready to roll at the unforgivable hour of six-thirty.”

  A collective groan went up from the crowd.

  “The good news is that the weather is forecast to remain perfect, with temps in the sixties.”

  Around lunchtime, Alec’s mother and sister would meet us at Sally’s, and they would pick up Isabella and head out for the day and night to enjoy her dad’s family. It was all going to work out beautifully.

  “Anything else from anyone?” King asked.

  Silence.

  “Then let’s head downstairs and out to the bus.”

  • • •

  On the bus, John and I sat together in the back. We talked about the
script, the locations, about some of our recollections of Brooklyn from the years we’d lived here.

  As we talked and the bus rolled toward Brooklyn, I kept thinking how all of my life I had wanted to wear a wedding ring that truly symbolized a union between two people. I had thought that was what my ring had meant when Alec and I were married. But after our finances went south, he took it off my finger and sold it, a testament to what the marriage had become.

  “You’re a million miles away, Sam,” John remarked.

  “The past is still alive here in Brooklyn.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean.” He took my hand and planted small, delicate kisses on each knuckle. “But the future is alive here, too.”

  His eyes met mine, held them. In that moment there on the bus that was taking us into our pasts, my fear that John would turn out to be no different from the other men I’d known collapsed in on itself. I could feel it, feel the gigantic inner shift. John had never tried to control me, had never presumed or taken me for granted, had never told me what to do or not do. In fact, he had bent over backward to accommodate me, and the repercussions of my bad choices in men. Right then, I knew I was falling in love with this man and that, in his eyes, I was glimpsing the beauty of his soul.

  “If we were alone,” I whispered, “I’d do a striptease for you.”

  He looked surprised, delighted, and as swept up in the moment as I was. “If we were alone,” he whispered back, “we would spend several days in bed. We would take our meals in bed. We would write ourselves into a story so grand there would be no end to it.”

  “If we were alone,” I continued softly, tracing his knuckles with the tip of my index finger, “I would devour you from head to toe.”

  His eyes widened. “If we were alone, I would swallow you whole.”

  “If we were alone, I would tell you my deepest dreams and desires.”

  “If we were alone, I would reveal my soul to you.”

  Our eyes held a moment longer, then we both cracked up, doubling over with laughter.

  The bus turned, John motioned toward the window, and I glanced outside. We were on the road that ran in front of the church, outside a barricade of cops and orange traffic cones, and were waved through it. Throngs of curious bystanders lined the road. Paul could be hiding among them, I thought, and felt unnerved at the prospect.