by Julia Dumont
“Be sane. Please,” she said, turning to Jack, just walking in. “Jack! You found the place!”
“I got turned around a bit, but it’s such a great neighborhood to be lost in. How the heck have you been since last we met?” He was only slightly more dressed-up than he’d been at his house. When movie stars go to big meetings with famous film directors they dress like regular people do on vacation.
“I’m fine, just fine,” she said. She realized she was much more nervous here, in her house, than she had been at his. That was a dream and this was real. Reality was a lot more nerve-wracking. She realized that she hadn’t introduced Max yet. “Oh! How stupid of me. Max, this is Jack. Jack, Max. He’s my . . .”
“Brother,” said Max, reaching out and shaking Jack Stone’s hand.
“Oh, wow,” said Jack. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Do you live here in L.A.?”
“Nope, no he doesn’t,” said Cynthia. “He’s visiting. Visiting from . . .”
“Fiji,” said Max.
“Wow,” said Jack, “Fiji. How the heck did you end up in Fiji?”
Max smiled at him dully, making Cynthia very nervous. He was such a wild card. One couldn’t possibly predict how he’d run with a situation like this. He might actually behave himself and he might go nuts.
“Fiji,” he said, “Yes. How did I get there? I flew there. You know, in an airplane. Whoosh!”
Jack and Cynthia stared at him, then at each other.
Jack cracked up. “Ha, ha! Cynthia, I see he has your sense of humor. Funny genes, I guess.”
“Yeah,” said Max, “well our dad was very funny. Very funny. Wasn’t he, Sin?”
“Oh, sure,” she said. “Hilarious.”
“Listen,” said Max, “I should probably go, but I just want to say that I love your movies. Well, not all of them, I mean, I bet you didn’t even sit through The Long Way Down. Your acting was fine, but you should have sued the writer and director on that turkey.”
“Really?” asked Jack. “I’m sorry you didn’t like it. I wrote and directed that one.”
“Well I really liked it,” said Cynthia, feeling slightly nauseous.
“That’s funny,” said Max. “We saw it together and you hated it more than I did. You were the one who wanted to walk out. I mean, I did too, but you were adamant about it.”
“As usual, you’re remembering it all wrong,” she said. “I was enjoying it. I just had the flu. I had to leave. Speaking of leaving, Max.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m outa here. How I do go on. I’m afraid I really put my foot in it. Well, Jack, sorry about The Long Way Down. At least you didn’t finance it, right?”
“No, actually, I did finance it.”
“Okay, Max,” said Cynthia ushering him out. “It was great to see you and have a great flight back to Fiji.”
“You’re leaving right now?” asked Jack, looking dubious. “Too bad. You could come with us to Steven Sternberg’s house tonight.”
“No,” said Cynthia. “That’s impossible, right, Max. You’ve gotta get going. Gotta catch that plane.”
“Yup,” said Max. “Too bad. I’m off. You know me: whoosh!”
“Goodbye, Max,” said Cynthia in a voice that was positively subzero. Plus wind chill.
“So long, brother Max,” said Jack.
“Bye, Sis,” chirped Max heading down the stairs.
“Okay,” said Cynthia, “I really need to get dressed.”
“Your brother is an odd fish.”
“Mentally ill is more like it.”
“As I told you before, people sometimes start behaving strangely when then get around so-called celebrities. It’s kind of unavoidable.”
“Yeah, well he’s got other problems that I don’t want to go into now.”
“At first I thought he was your boyfriend.”
“No, no, god, no.”
“Does he really live in Fiji?”
“No. He just came from there. He lives somewhere around here. At least in California. I think. He travels a lot. Not sure if he really lives anywhere.”
“Wow. Okay, so, who’s the boyfriend? The guy you turned me down for.”
“Oh, yeah, him. Well, that whole thing ended today. He hates my guts. And he left town.”
“Great,” said Jack with a smile. “I’m kidding. That’s just terrible. How could anyone hate your guts? I love your guts. Anyway, why don’t you get dressed and I’ll go get a bottle of wine from the car. It’s a Shiraz. I don’t know anything about wine really, but I have a feeling it’s very good. Clint gave me a case and he does everything well. I think he might own the vineyard.”
“Why do rich people always get free stuff? They’re the people who can afford to buy it.”
“I know. It’s totally unfair. I’ll bring up the whole case if you promise to share it when I come over.”
Holy shit. Jack Stone is planning on coming over here on a regular basis all of a sudden?
“I’ll get it from the car. You get dressed. Or not. I don’t mind you like that.”
She looked over at the mirror on the far wall. She looked like she’d been through a category five hurricane. Her hair was a snake’s nest of tangles. It had dried into an unmitigated mess.
“I’ll be right back,” she said.
“I was an Eagle Scout,” he said. “I’m an expert at tying and untying knots.”
Cynthia smiled and rolled her eyes. “I bet you’re talented at a lot of things. A Jack of all trades.”
“So to speak,” he said, smiling back.
Day 2, Chapter 15
Upon leaving Cynthia’s, Max walked down Beachwood to Franklin. He had taken a cab to Cynthia’s place directly from the airport. He had absolutely nothing with him and, because he hadn’t lived in Los Angeles for years, he wasn’t even sure where he wanted to go or what he wanted to do next. He hadn’t eaten anything other than a few peanuts and chips on the plane and he was starving. He came to a place called Hole in the Wall, a dingy bar that served dingier food. Perfect.
He sat at the bar and ordered a scotch, a beer, and a burger and contemplated life. He was aware that he was a handful for any woman. When Cynthia had abandoned him on that lonely cliff in Malibu——naked, cold, and horribly frustrated, it had really gotten to him. It was a wake-up call. He’d immediately gone on a ‘round the world trip. He spent more than a month in Asia——China, Japan, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Burma, Sri Lanka——met a lot of women and shared a laugh and a tumble with quite a few. But he missed Cynthia. He’d thought of her constantly. This wasn’t new. The same thing had happened when he was married. In the throes of passion with his wife, he had called out Cynthia’s name more than once and then, the last straw was when she realized he’d been carrying around a garment of Cynthia’s in his suitcase for years, like a magical fetish, a funky piece of voodoo mojo or gris gris or something. Understandably, the wife freaked out, because, well, it was pretty freaky, and a deep insult to someone who was supposedly the love of his life. Until those clues started surfacing, his wife hadn’t even heard of Cynthia, so she hadn’t realized just how much more insulted she should have been when he’d named their cat Cynthia and for months had been calling out: “Cynthia! Here, pussy, pussy! Oh, Cynthia! Where’s my sweet little pussy?” His wife put that particular two plus two together moments after she’d busted him on the suitcase-talisman thing, so in the middle of kicking him out, she chased him down the front walkway to re-kick him out, slamming him hard on the back of the head with a very potent kitty litter tray and depositing the cat itself at his feet as well, since——hello——she was allergic anyway, and screaming for all of Santa Barbara to hear, “And take your goddamn pussy with you!”
He’d gone straight back to Cynthia, meeting her at Shutter’s in Santa Monica, and everything was right in his world, until it all went to hell again. He knew he was to blame, at least somewhat, but he also felt that he was a victim of the whims of his goddamn penis. He chuckled to himself: Damn you, penis! Damn you all
to hell!
While traveling, he had done a lot of thinking——on beaches, mountaintops, and other gorgeous, yet clichéd, locations——where travelers seek answers. Along the way he often laughed at himself because suddenly he felt he was living in some kind of chick flick or piece of pop-philosophy, like Eat, Pray, Love, a book and movie he’d never seen, but still had mocked incessantly. But there he was——a womanizer of the first degree going soft, actually feeling something for someone in a way he never had——halfway around the world from that very object of affection.
He had finished the scotch and beer by the time the food came, so he ordered another round. There was a guy at the other end of the bar who looked like he’d been drinking since the place opened. Good god, he looked bad. But then Max caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and he didn’t look too much better. Less likely to end up in the Hollywood drunk tank tonight, perhaps, but in a way, just as desperate.
He wanted Cynthia. He needed Cynthia. She was his salvation. He knew that now. He was looking for the bartender, wanting one more drink, when someone tapped his shoulder.
“Excuse me,” said a lovely woman dressed completely in red, carrying a noticeably dented motorcycle helmet, “are you Max by any chance?”
She looked vaguely familiar to him, but he had no idea why. The experience of traveling is disorienting. His mind was a swirl of past and distant past. He had no idea if he’d met this person twenty years ago or yesterday, in Fiji or Timbuktu.
“Don’t tell me,” he said. “It’ll come to me.”
“We went to a costume party together once,” she said. “Last Halloween. The beach.”
“Wait. Cynthia’s friend! The dog person!”
“I don’t normally answer to ‘dog person’. If you want me to come when you call, try Lolita.”
“Lolita! Of course! How could I forget? Lo. Lee. Tah. So scandalous, so Nabokovian, so . . .” He looked straight into her cleavage in a way that only a bold man made bolder by drink would even try. “I’m having a flashback involving olives? No, grapes . . . and those beautiful tits. Am I right? Malibu? You know, it’s funny. I was just thinking about that night.”
“Thinking of me or that horrible Cynthia?”
“Hold on, wait. Cynthia is horrible now? But she’s your friend, right?”
“Was. Well, I’m pretty pissed at her, but I suppose I’ll get over it eventually.”
“Oh, good, because, let me tell you a secret. I’m in love with her.”
“Get out,” she said, pushing against his shoulder.
“Nope . True love. But she doesn’t really know yet. She’s running around with that stupid movie star. You know, the stupid one from that stupid movie. We walked out. Sin hated it. But now she says she liked it, but she’s just kissing up to the stupid movie star. Probably a lot more than kissing up, I bet.”
“Really. Listen, Max. I think you’ve got to get her back.”
“Yeah,” he said. “And, funny thing. I happen to know where they’re going tonight. Steven Sternberg’s bash. Wanna go?”
“Wow,” said Lolita. “I am so up for that, it hurts. Okay, okay, Max. Why don’t we just head over there?” She put her arm around him and spun him slowly on the barstool.
“Sounds wonderful, Lo . . . lee . . . tah,” he replied, sliding to a standing position and steadying himself by holding her hands and facing her. “Hey, I wonder if they have any grapes here.”
“No, Max, bars don’t sell grapes unless they’re fermented,” she said, walking arm-in-arm with him out onto Franklin Avenue. “I thought you were in love with Cynthia anyway.”
“Oh, I am, I am. I’m completely in love with her. But,” he said, pausing to kiss both of her breasts, “I’m partially in love with you.”
This could have insulted Lolita, but she just laughed and took it in stride. “I’m sure there are some parts of you that I would like too, Max.” She kissed him on the lips, slapped his butt, and loaded him onto her hot pink Vespa.
“I’ve been known to speed,” she said, “so hang on!” But he hardly needed to. For one thing, when you load two fairly large people onto a Vespa, especially this Vespa, you’re not about to speed anywhere. That was why it was pretty obvious that the fervor with which Max wrapped his arms around Lolita’s chest was much more inspired by lust and liquor than safety.
Day 2, Chapter 16
After polishing off that bottle of Shiraz, an entire box of crackers, and a large block of Vermont cheddar cheese——Jack was enthralled that she had it, having spent summers as a kid in the Green Mountain State and being firm in the resolve that cheese should be sharp and yellow, not bland and orange, like some Wisconsin cheese-heads would have you believe——they were ready to roll. They had eaten the equivalent of a fairly large dinner, so the wine had little effect on either of them.
They walked down to his extremely dingy sports car. It needed a paint job and was absolutely filthy. But it had a familiar shape.
“What is this car and did you drive it through a category five shit storm on the way over?”
“Ha. It’s an Astin Martin db5.”
“A Bond car, right?”
“The Bond car. For the first few films, anyway.”
“His were cleaner.”
“Yeah, well, Bond didn’t have to evade paparazzi. I go anywhere I want. Some of my friends never leave their compounds. I decided a long time ago I wasn’t going to live like that. I go places and do things. As long as I keep moving, don’t linger in any one spot too long. At the movies? Get in fast and get out faster. Pinkberry? Go, go, go, and eat it on the road. I’m like a one-man commando unit. You’ll see. I don’t whine about it, because it’s actually kind of fun. And I don’t ever wash or paint my cars. From the outside it’s a beater, but it drives like one of the world’s great automobiles, because it is.”
“You are smarter than you look,” she said, buckling her seatbelt.
He turned to her and made a goofy dumb-guy face, before pulling away from the curb and gently accelerating, then coasting down to Franklin. He turned right at the bottom of the hill and headed west, picking up speed, hitting all the lights just right, then up Cahuenga Boulevard, winding through Cahuenga Pass, home of the Hollywood Bowl and Whitley Heights, the “Beverly Hills” of the silent era——“Valentino lived right up there!” she called out, pointing, and Stone replied, “I know! And W.C. Fields. And Harlow!” She loved that he was a true movie fan. She had met plenty of movie people who weren’t, which she could barely believe. He sped up, traveling parallel to the 101 freeway, over the bridge to Woodrow Wilson Drive, then Mulholland, the greatest road in the world, well, one of the greatest, where he really opened up, snaking along the spine of the Santa Mountain Range. She loved that he loved this, because she did too. It was wonderful and wild. Even more so in this car.
“The sunset’s going to be an award winner,” he said. “And I want to get to my favorite lookout in time.”
“Ahh,” she said, fingernails digging into the armrest.
He wasn’t kidding. They turned a corner and came to a break in the trees, revealing a sky that had considerably reddened since they left her house.
She couldn’t see the speedometer, but she didn’t want to know anyway. He crossed over Laurel Canyon, again hitting the light perfectly. How did he do that? Then, around past the dog park——the best dog park in L.A., and then, the Mulholland Lookout up on the left, the Hollywood side.
He pulled in quickly, sending up a cloud of dust, then hit the brakes and skidded with some drama but more precision into the only parking spot partially sheltered by trees.
They sat there as the dust settled. “The view from my house is good . . . from yours too, but this one’s incredible. I stop here all the time. Sometimes if the traffic is congested, I’ll pull over and just wait.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “I love this road. When I was a teenager, this was a very popular necking spot.”
“Still is,” he said with a smile. �
�Oh, my god. Look at that.”
The sunset was kicking into high gear. Red and orange were breaking over the contours of the most westerly canyons. Coldwater, Benedict, and beyond. Blinding orange and red reflected off the glass edifices of Westwood and Century City, leaving long shadows in their wake.
“The ocean looks like it’s made of silver,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder.
Uh-oh, she thought. Here it comes. Her defenses were seriously weakened now. Pete hated her and she hated Max. She wondered how she had been so infatuated with him for so long. His selling points were really very badly trounced by Jack’s. And Jack was so much less arrogant about his talents and about everything, really. It was incredibly hard not to like Jack. He hadn’t overtly come on to her since back at his house——not counting this little shoulder touch——he had been wooing her in a million different more subtle ways. It was like he wasn’t doing anything at all, yet he was, and she was aware of it. She also appreciated it. She liked that he had the patience to let it unfold.
She touched his hand and he touched her knee. The sunset’s glow filled the car with yellow-orange light, somehow making him look even better, nature’s Photoshop.
“Look,” he said. The sky was peaking. The spectrum of colors had reached an almost unbelievable degree of brilliance and variation. It was beyond postcard perfect. It was the kind of sappy movie moment that she would undoubtedly ridicule as saccharine hogwash if she were watching it in the local multiplex, but here, there was nothing phony about it. It was breathtaking and profound.
“I know what I told you before,” she said. “But it would be a crime to be with a person in a situation like this, and not kiss that person.”
He laughed softly, the light on his face moving from red to purple and blue, as the sun dipped into the sea. He turned and moved in closer and kissed her softly, then deeply.
Somehow he had done it. He had gotten her to want and ask for this without doing much at all. She felt manipulated, but not terribly unhappy about it. She tasted the wine on his lips and felt it a little in her head.
