Malibu Rising

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

  He was not handsome. He was portly and had a slightly cartoonish nose. He had always known if he was going to make it in Hollywood, it was going to be behind the scenes. That was fine with him. He’d been studying films since he was old enough to watch them, holed up in his parents’ finished basement outside of Buffalo.

  And now he was the guy writing some of the biggest hits of the decade so far. Gorgeous, Baby. Summer Break. My Mia. Bobby Housman was thirty-two and considered Hollywood’s new “It” screenwriter. He’d always imagined that if the day ever came when he was the hottest screenwriter in town, he’d shed his crippling inhibitions and have the time of his life. But in reality, success had not done enough to change him.

  Three blockbuster comedies under his belt and he still felt like the weird wallflower at the movie premiere, the guy not making eye contact with anyone at the Golden Globes.

  But he always liked the Riva party. He’d been invited to tag along with a producer the summer Gorgeous, Baby came out. That night back in ’80, he’d smoked a joint with Tuesday Hendricks and made her laugh. Every year he came since then, he felt a little bit more like he belonged.

  That night, when Bobby set foot on the landing of Nina Riva’s front steps, he saw that the party was packed. He was, in fact, the first person to comment out loud that things were getting a bit crazier than in years past. His exact word was “Whoa.”

  He looked through to the kitchen to see Nina Riva and that tennis guy. She was sipping a glass of wine and talking to a woman next to her.

  Bobby couldn’t help but smile just looking at her. He’d loved her T-shirt ad, with her hair hanging long and her arm up against the doorframe. That see-through shirt and red underwear. Soft to the touch. That was gold. He’d come to Hollywood, in part, to meet a girl like that, so tall and lean and tan. California Girls, man. Heartbreakers, all of them.

  Bobby watched Nina touch her husband’s arm and then leave the kitchen, out of his sight. He remembered his mission and got to work. He had spent the day procuring an obscene amount of coke and he was going to give it out to everybody. Wallflower no more.

  As Bobby stood in the foyer, he saw a cocktail waitress—Caroline—walking by with a tray of shrimp.

  “Coconut shrimp?” she asked when Bobby caught her eye. She moved the tray toward him, grabbing him a napkin.

  The very fact of her beauty made Bobby nervous. He tried not to think of it. “Can I … Can I have your tray?” he asked.

  “My tray?” she said.

  “Yes, please. If you don’t mind.”

  “I can’t just give you my tray.”

  “Because it has shrimp on it?” he said.

  “Uh …” she said. “Yeah.”

  Bobby, in a moment of inspiration, took each one of the three remaining shrimp and ate them. And then he said, “Now it doesn’t have shrimp on it.”

  “I guess so,” Caroline said. She handed it to him and smiled and then started to walk away.

  “Wait,” Bobby said. “I have a gift. For you. If you want. Just hang on.” He looked at her for only a split second, but in that split second he felt the spark of something strong enough to give him hope in himself.

  He wiped the tray down with a napkin. And then took half a brick of cocaine from the inside of his jacket. There was another full brick in his car.

  “Oh my God,” Caroline said.

  “I know.” Bobby poured a little out and started cutting it into as many lines as he could using his Amex Gold. And then he rolled up a hundred. He was embarrassed it was the smallest bill he had.

  Then, he held the tray up like a cater waiter would, and he looked at her. She probably went for the smooth guys with the nice hair. Probably didn’t give a second glance to the awkward, chubby ones like him. But somehow, in this moment, he didn’t feel foolish for at least trying. And he briefly considered that maybe that had been the problem all along: that he spent so much time feeling foolish instead of just letting go and risking looking like a fool. “Care for a line?” Bobby said.

  Caroline was enchanted by the reversal. It was more effective than Bobby ever could have imagined. She would so much rather be the one being served than the one doing the serving.

  She smiled at him and took the rolled-up hundred he’d extended. She leaned in. It felt cold in her nose, burned her sinuses. She lifted her head back up and said, “Thank you.”

  Bobby smiled at her. “Sure, anytime.” Then he added, “Just to be clear, for you, I would do absolutely anything at absolutely any time.”

  She blushed.

  What was it about him? He wasn’t cute. He didn’t seem cool. But he did make her feel admired. It was as if he understood that she was the true star of this party. And she had come out to Los Angeles all the way from Maryland in search of that very thing: to feel like a star.

  “You’re a nice guy,” Caroline said. “Aren’t you?”

  Bobby gave her a lopsided smile. “Cripplingly so.”

  “Can I get in on that?” asked Kyle Manheim, who appeared out of nowhere. Caroline had seen him come in with that woman Wendy and the rest of the Riva’s Seafood staff right at seven. He seemed to be intent on having the greatest night of his life.

  Bobby held the tray out to him, magnanimously. “I brought enough for everybody!” he yelled. Caroline tried to slink away, but Bobby mustered up all of his courage and grabbed her hand. “Stay,” he said. “If you want to.”

  “I’m working,” she said.

  “But there’s no more shrimp.” Something about the way he said it, the way he was pleading with her to stay by his side, the simplicity of his desire for her company … it was one of the most romantic things Caroline had ever heard. But there’s no more shrimp.

  Caroline will think of that moment later on tonight, when she and Bobby have sex in the coat closet by the front door. No one will know they are there. And Bobby will cradle her hair in his hands to make sure her head doesn’t hit the wall behind them. And it will be tender and sweet. And when they are in the throes of passion, cramped up together in that tiny space, barely air between them, Bobby will say, very quietly, “I never thought I’d have a chance with a girl like you,” and Caroline’s heart will flutter.

  They will not know what the future holds or if their paths will ever cross again. But they will feel that—for one night at least—someone has seen them as they have always wanted to be seen. And that will be enough.

  One tray of coke being passed around the party quickly became two trays of coke being passed around the party. And, just as swiftly, it was six trays of coke, waitresses offering blow like it was hors d’oeuvres.

  To Kit, it felt like one moment she was at a fancy kegger and then she blinked and suddenly everyone around her was high as fuck and believing their own myths about themselves. I am the greatest. I am the funniest. I have it going on.

  Kit was offered a line of coke by no fewer than three waitresses before she finally said, “I’m good. Stop offering me cocaine, thanks.”

  She walked to the patio by the firepit because she wanted some fresh air and because Ricky was there. She figured she should give him an opportunity, if that was what you could call it. If he was even interested. Which now she was thinking maybe he wasn’t.

  “Uh, hi,” Ricky said as she stood next to him. He had a small dab of feta dip on the very corner of his lip and Kit wondered if she should tell him.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Ricky said. He looked down at his sneakers. Then realized what he was doing and looked back up. “I mean, yeah. Totally hi.”

  Kit smiled. Maybe he was interested.

  “You have a tiny bit of feta,” she said, pointing. “On your lip.”

  He took a napkin from the table behind them and wiped it off. “That makes sense,” he said. “Because now is the moment that I’m finally talking to my dream girl, so yeah, cheese on my face sounds about right.”

  Kit blushed. Ricky smiled.

  And Kit started to think
this was all a lot easier than she’d made it out to be.

  Nina was standing next to Brandon in the living room. He was holding tightly on to her hand and whispering into her ear.

  “Thank you,” he said. “For making me the happiest man in the world.”

  It didn’t sit right with her, the finality in his tone. “I think we still have a lot we have to talk about,” she said.

  “Of course,” Brandon said, pulling her closer to him. “I know I have a lot of making up to do. I’m just thankful to be given the chance. I’m grateful you’re allowing me to right my wrongs.”

  Nina smiled, uncertain what else to say. She wasn’t quite sure how he ever possibly could right his wrongs. But she supposed she had told him she would let him try.

  “So, Bran, tell us,” said a lanky guy in a striped rugby shirt and salmon-colored chinos. He was standing next to a guy in Bermuda shorts and buckskin shoes. Every year more and more preppies were showing up at her parties and if she was honest with herself, she knew it was Brandon’s influence. “Think you’ll grab another Slam title next month?”

  The front door opened and Nina looked up to find that the person coming across the threshold was a great excuse to leave Brandon’s side. Her closest friend, fashion model Tarine Montefiore.

  Eyes turned to look at the singularly gorgeous woman that had just walked in. Most people recognized her from her multiple covers of Vogue and Elle, her contract with Revlon. But even those who could not place her knew she had to be one of the most beautiful women in the world. With dark hair, warm brown eyes, and cheekbones that looked like they could cut you, Tarine seemed carved of marble, with too many casual perfections to be human.

  Her hair hung long and straight, her eyes were shadowed in silver and black, her lips were covered in a high clear gloss. She was wearing a white microdress and a black leather motorcycle jacket. She had on black pumps that would have broken anyone else’s ankles if they took a single step but she glided into the room effortlessly.

  And then there was the accent. Tarine had been born in Israel to Spanish Jewish parents and then moved to Paris when she was eleven, Stockholm at sixteen, and to New York City when she turned eighteen. She had an accent entirely her own.

  She and Nina had met on a Sports Illustrated swimsuit shoot in Panama City a couple years ago. They posed together in yellow bikinis sitting on opposite sides of a dinghy. The photo became so well known, two guys had parodied it on SNL.

  Nina had liked Tarine instantly. Tarine would tell Nina which photographers were handsy and which agents tried to screw their clients. She would also tell Nina not to smile too wide or she’d show her lower, crooked teeth. Tarine was kind, even when being kind meant not being very nice.

  Nina was very happy to see Tarine standing in front of her. And she was surprised when the door opened again and behind Tarine came Greg Robinson.

  She had never met Greg personally. But she knew who he was. He’d worked with her father. He was the producer behind the biggest hits of the past two decades. Sam Samantha. Mimi Red. The Grand Band. Greg was the one creating these people, creating their music. He’d even had a few hits of his own back in the late sixties.

  Greg put his hand on Tarine’s shoulder comfortably—and that is when Nina realized her twenty-seven-year-old friend was dating a man who was at least fifty.

  Nina made her way over and Tarine smiled at her. Nina leaned in and gave her friend a tight hug. “I’m so glad you made it,” she said.

  “Yes, well, I know it is the party of the century,” Tarine said.

  “Greg, hi,” Nina said, shaking his hand. “Welcome.”

  “It’s a pleasure,” Greg said. “I’m fond of your father. Some of my first big jobs were on his records. Great guy.”

  Nina flashed her perfected smile. Brandon spotted them all and came to join the conversation.

  “Hi, Tarine,” he said, raising his glass to her.

  “Brandon,” Tarine said, her face blank. “A surprise.”

  Brandon smiled and introduced himself to Greg. Greg shook Brandon’s hand and then looked around the living room, clocked the DJ.

  “Any chance I can get behind that deck?” Greg asked.

  Nina turned in the direction Greg was looking, at first not sure what he meant.

  “Greg cannot stand it when another soul is in charge of what he is listening to,” Tarine said, holding Greg’s hand.

  Brandon looked at their hands, intertwined together, for a moment too long, and something about the way he did it gave Nina the impression that he was less surprised about their age difference, and more surprised that Tarine was dating a black man.

  “Are you kidding?” Brandon said, recovering quickly. “We would love to have you in charge of the ones and twos.”

  Nina wasn’t sure what she cringed at more. Brandon trying to sound like Greg Robinson or Brandon saying “we” so casually.

  “I’ll take you over,” Brandon said.

  “I don’t want to upset your guy. I’m sure he’s great,” Greg said.

  “No,” Brandon said, waving Greg off. “He gets paid either way. He’ll understand the Greg Robinson is here.”

  Greg laughed and then the two of them walked in the direction of the DJ, with the intention of breaking his heart.

  “I need your best red wine, my love,” Tarine said, the moment they were out of earshot. “Not the low-shelf stuff you give to everyone. The stuff you reserve for people like me, please. It has been that kind of day.”

  Nina laughed. Tarine could be completely and utterly obnoxious. But Nina simply didn’t mind. She admired the way Tarine never pretended to be anything she wasn’t, the way she was so confident in exactly who she had chosen to be, as if there were never any other option.

  “I do not mean to be rude,” Tarine said. “Obviously. But there are men smoking cigarettes in saggy pants outside. I cannot drink the same wine as them.”

  Nina laughed. “They’re drinking Coors from a keg.”

  Tarine frowned and it was clear to Nina that she had never heard of Coors, did not have a context for it other than to know it was beneath her. “I suspect you are proving my point,” Tarine said.

  Nina took her friend by the hand and brought her around the foyer to a small hidden door under the stairs. She hit four digits on the keypad and showed Tarine the wine cellar.

  “Choose whatever you want,” Nina said and then she slipped her hand out of Tarine’s. “Just close it up after you take your bottle.”

  “Do not think you are leaving me here,” Tarine said.

  The music changed abruptly, from New Wave to Top 40. Nina watched as a rush of young women came running through the kitchen on their way to the living room. Tarine and Nina overheard one of them say, “No way is Greg Robinson here! No way!” The whole party got louder, everything elevated: the melody, the beat, the screams of excitement.

  “I was going to see how things were faring outside,” Nina said as she pointed toward the lawn.

  Tarine shook her head, raising her voice above the din herself. “No, you are not. You are going to stand here with me while I choose my bottle and then we are going to go somewhere and you are going to tell me why Brandon is here. I thought we were done with that snake.”

  Nina felt a bit nauseated at the thought of having to explain. She wanted to make a joke. But Tarine was not someone you could brush off. Nina wondered, for a moment, how one became like that. What did it take? To say exactly what you meant? To feel comfortable in the middle of causing discomfort? To not feel—so intrinsically as to be as vital to yourself as your blood—that it was your responsibility to make things smooth and pleasant for everyone?

  Tarine looked at Nina more pointedly, waiting for Nina to explain herself. Nina shrugged and said, “I love him.”

  Tarine turned and looked at her, furrowing her eyebrows, not buying it.

  Nina rolled her eyes and tried a different answer, one closer to the truth. “It’s just easier this way,” she
said.

  “Easier?” Tarine asked.

  “Yeah, just, like, not as complicated and … just easier.”

  Tarine frowned and then pulled a bottle of Opus One. “I am taking this,” Tarine said. “All right?”

  Nina nodded. Tarine shut the door and pulled Nina through the crowd of people to the kitchen counter. She ruffled through Nina’s knife drawer and cooking utensils until Nina found a wine opener.

  A cocktail waitress came by offering wine on one tray and lines of coke on the other and Tarine waved her off. “I have what I need, thank you.”

  Nina stared at the tray of coke as the cocktail waitress snaked her way farther through the kitchen. She wondered when, exactly, that had happened. People couldn’t just do coke off the coffee tables anymore?

  Tarine turned the corkscrew and then pulled the cork out.

  The people around them turned at the sound. Some of them watched for a moment too long, these two beautiful women standing next to each other. Both tall and tan and lean and sparkling. Then they all went on with the rest of their conversations.

  Nina saw the girl in the purple dress again, standing alone near the chips. She’d noticed her earlier, coming in the door. Now, the girl met her eye, somewhat timidly. Nina got the distinct impression the girl wanted her attention, would have loved the opportunity to talk to her.

  Increasingly, Nina was feeling like the party attracted people who wanted her to provide them a good story to tell. They wanted to be able to say they met “the girl from the poster” or “the girl from the T-shirt ad” or “Mick Riva’s daughter” or “Jay Riva’s sister” or “Brandon Randall’s wife” or whatever other way they wanted to define her.

  “Do you ever wish you could be invisible for five minutes?” Nina asked Tarine.

  Tarine looked at her, considered her. “No,” she said. “That sounds like a nightmare.” Tarine poured herself a glass and suddenly, Kyle Manheim pulled up between the two of them.

  “Hey, Nina,” he yelled over the music. “Great party.”

  “Thanks,” Nina said.

  “Can I get in on that?” Kyle called to Tarine as he held out his empty cup.