Hollywood Is Like High School with Money

by Zoey Dean

  A waitress walked over with a tray of hot towels and, using a pair of tongs, handed us each

  one.

  "Do you know this is the closest I've been to the beach since I moved here?" I asked. It struck

  me as incredible even as I admitted it.

  "I figure why move to L.A. if you're not going to live near the beach?" Luke said, placing his

  towel on the dish left by the waitress. "Do you surf?"

  "Uh, no," I answered. "I mean, I can barely stay up on a skate-board, and sidewalks don't

  move the way waves do."

  "I could teach you that too," he said, eyeing the menu.

  "Are you kidding? Sidewalks don't have sharks, either."

  He grinned at me, and I felt myself beginning to blush. I didn't want to get all nervous again,

  but every time I got near him, my brain and my body seemed to stop communicating with each

  other.

  Luke ordered plates of seared albacore, hamachi rolls, seaweed salads, heaps of extra ginger

  "for the lady" (and here he winked at me) when I mentioned I liked it, and big cups of green

  tea. "I'm not much of a drinker," he confided. "Too many years of training. I know, I'm a little

  boring."

  I shook my head vehemently. "Are you kidding? Sitting in traffic is boring. The commercials

  they show before movies are boring. Sunday-night TV is boring. You, Luke Hansen, are not

  boring."

  He reached out across the table and touched my hand, and the little jig my heart did earlier

  turned into a full-scale tango. "You're not boring either," he said. "You're a hell of a lot of fun."

  A little trace of a Virginia accent came out when he said that, and any doubts I might have had

  about how much I liked him flew out the window like a flock of seagulls.

  Later, we walked up Abbot Kinney Boulevard, past the lit storefronts of groovy home

  furnishings stores and clothing shops. I could hear the waves just a few blocks away. There

  was a stiff ocean breeze, and I rubbed my arms for warmth.

  "It's cold down here in your part of town," I said, smiling up at him.

  "Here." He took off his jacket and put it tenderly around my shoulders. It was still warm from

  his body, and I shivered in pleasure. "That better?" he asked, bending down to peer into my

  face.

  "Thanks. It's great."

  We passed a man asleep in a doorway wearing what looked to be a pair of antlers on his head.

  His nose was a bright red ball.

  "You got to love L.A. in December," Luke said, but by the slightly sorrowful tone of his voice,

  I could tell he didn't mean it.

  I dropped a dollar into the cup the man had set out on the sidewalk before falling asleep. It was

  the season for giving. "Are you going home for the holidays?"

  "Not this year," he said, shaking his head. "Everyone'll have to have their fruitcake without

  me."

  "You like fruitcake?"

  He shook his head again. "Nah, it was just a figure of speech. But I do miss home around now.

  It snows there sometimes--not often, but we get white Christmases sometimes."

  "We have only white Christmases in Cleveland," I said. "It's like a commandment or

  something: Thou shalt have a blizzard three days before the holiday so that no one can get

  their shopping done. Or maybe you get your shopping done but you run out of wrapping

  paper, so you have to wrap everything in Kroger bags." I paused. I was on the verge of talking

  too much, I knew it, but I went on anyway. "Or maybe that was just me. Anyway, growing up

  my parents would unwrap their presents from the Kroger bags and I'd unwrap mine, and then

  we'd all go to the park and feed the Canada geese who don't migrate anymore, which we've

  done every year since I was ten. Then we'd go back home and drink hot chocolate with Baileys

  in it. Well, that tradition didn't start until I was a little older than ten." I had a sudden longing for

  my parents, my house, my childhood bedroom, with its shelves of My Little Ponies

  (elementary school), its splatter-painted walls (junior high), and its half-ripped Cure posters

  (high school).

  I finally stopped myself. The truth was, I wanted to know more about him, but it was hard to

  keep my mouth shut. I tried to think of a question to ask him--about Virginia or his favorite

  holiday memory or something, but instead I turned to him and said, "So, do you want to teach

  tennis the rest of your life?"

  Luke laughed. "That's kind of a non sequitur, isn't it?" He pointed us up a cobblestone side

  street. "But to answer your question, yes, I think I do. But not in Beverly Hills. It pays the bills

  and that's great, but I'd rather teach kids."

  "Really?"

  Above us the moon appeared, low and round and almost orange. The sound of the waves

  grew, and I breathed in the salty air. I didn't feel like I was in L.A. at all--or at least not the L.A.

  I knew.

  "Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong--it can be really fun teaching adults. Most people graduate

  high school or college and never take risks or learn anything new, so it's cool to be part of that.

  But a lot of my clients seem to want to learn to play for... professional reasons," he said

  carefully. "I guess tennis comes in handy for networking, that kind of stuff. That's why I'd love

  to teach kids instead of adults. It'd be cool to run my own tennis academy someday, I think.

  Kids don't really think about anything else when they play sports. They just do."

  "True," I agreed. I'd sought out tennis lessons from Luke for career reasons too. Even though

  I'd brought my Prince racquet across the country with me, it had sat in my closet for months,

  untouched.

  He steered me up a walkway to a two-story cottage painted mint green and decorated with

  white Christmas lights. From the bottom floor, I could hear music and voices.

  "So my downstairs neighbors are having kind of a holiday thing," he said, kicking nervously at

  a shrub near the sidewalk. "Want to stop in and say hi? They're really cool. I promise."

  I shrugged. Why not? And if he wanted to introduce me to his friends, wasn't that a good sign?

  "Sure," I said.

  The room we stepped into was cozy, lit with flickering votives. Dishes of candy sat on top of

  piled coffee-table books about surfing and art, and striking black-and-white framed

  photographs of waves hung on the walls. Galaxie 500 played softly on the stereo. It was a

  lovely little room, but no one was in it.

  "They're probably in the back," Luke said, seeing my questioning look.

  He led me down the hall toward a tiny kitchen, which was indeed full of about a dozen people.

  At the sight of Luke, everyone yelled, "Hey!"

  Luke steered me over to a willowy, barefooted brunette in a flower-printed dress and a blond

  guy with a goatee wearing a Neil Young T-shirt. "Guys, this is Taylor," Luke said. "Taylor,

  meet Julia and Tom. This is their place."

  "Great to meet you!" Julia exclaimed, thrusting a glass into my hand. "Try some. Homemade

  eggnog. Seriously spiked." She winked. "And if you don't like it, we have plenty of wine."

  Tom just grinned at all of us and sipped his beer. "Not an eggnog man," he whispered, but he

  clinked his bottle against my glass.

  I felt surprisingly welcome, considering I was in the center of a room full of strangers. There

  were jars of home-canned fruit and preserves on shelves and a basket of dried flowers on the

  counter. It was shabby
chic meets Martha Stewart, and it made me feel right at home.

  "Julia and Tom make sure I get fed," Luke offered. "She's an amazing cook. And a great

  photographer."

  "And a seriously bad tennis player," Julia added, dumping a bunch of macaroons onto a plate.

  "Cookie?" She held out a plate to me and I took not one but two. Macaroons were my favorite.

  A lanky brown-haired guy in a cowboy-ish button-down sidled up to Luke and clapped him on

  the shoulder. "Good to see you," he cried. "Is this the lady we've been hearing about?"

  Luke went bright red and stared down into his eggnog. "This is Hank," he said softly.

  Hank looked chagrined. "Sorry, man, was I not supposed to say that?"

  I giggled and took a sip of the eggnog. It was delicious.

  Julia jumped in, hoping to ease Luke's embarrassment. "Luke says you're a dog groomer," Julia

  said.

  "Oh no," I said, "I'm--" But I remembered my lie just in time. "I'm a dog walker and a personal

  groomer. A groomer for humans, that is." I smiled brightly, as if these were the most normal

  jobs in the world. "I work at a little place in West Hollywood called Joylie."

  And I realized that this just proved what a nice person Luke was--there I'd been, asking him if

  he wanted to teach tennis for the rest of his life, and he could have turned right around and

  asked me if I wanted to wax men's testicles for the rest of mine. But he hadn't. He was a

  gentleman.

  "And she's a very good tennis player," Luke offered.

  "He flatters me," I said, giving him a playful little shove.

  "You two are really cute together," Tom whispered into my ear.

  I bit my lip and looked down at the floor. As an eggnog-induced warmth crept over me, I felt a

  strange combination of excitement and sorrow. I was excited because, well, this seemed like it

  could really be something. But I had lied to him, and I was still lying. So exactly how much of

  a "something" could this turn out to be?

  After another half hour of chatting, Luke pointed upstairs, and I nodded. I wanted to have him

  to myself.

  Luke's apartment was more sparsely furnished, but it was still cozy. The walls were painted a

  warm gray, lined with bookshelves holding a sloppy array of novels and sheet music. There

  was a faded, aging sofa beneath a large Basquiat print, and a rug that looked handmade. I

  counted four different guitars, three acoustic and one electric.

  "You must play," I said, like the genius that I was.

  He laughed as he lit a couple of candles on the windowsill. "That I do. Want some tea?"

  "Sure." I followed him into the roomy kitchen. "This place is great. And your friends are really

  sweet."

  "I know," he said, flipping on his electric kettle. "I'm lucky. It's a pretty good group down

  there. Tom actually runs Big Brothers here in Venice--you know, they pair up inner-city kids

  with older mentors?"

  I nodded, thankful he was talking about the charity organization and not the tacky reality TV

  show.

  The kettle began to bubble, and he poured boiling hot water into two mugs. "Actually I guess

  I'll get my wish soon, teaching kids--Tom's sending some of the kids in his program my way

  for some lessons." He handed me a mug with a picture of the Santa Monica pier on it.

  "That's really sweet of you," I said, meaning it.

  He shrugged modestly. "It's all Tom. But I'm happy to do it."

  I looked down into my tea thoughtfully. "I guess sometimes you just forget that there's more to

  this city than entertainment," I mused.

  "Of course there is," he said, grinning, and led me back into the living room.

  A whole lot more, I thought, staring at him through the steam rising from my cup. Suddenly I

  felt warm all over. Metronome and Kylie and even my trip to see Michael Deming seemed like

  part of another world, a world completely foreign to this cozy one here by the ocean. Here

  people ate sushi in flip-flops and talked about sports instead of movies, and girls drank eggnog

  and hung out in living rooms instead of at Hyde. As I drew a scratchy wool blanket over my

  legs beside him on the couch, I realized I didn't want to leave.

  "Hey." He put his feet on the coffee table and looked at me intently. "This is going to sound a

  little weird, but this is one of the most fun nights I've had in a long, long time. So thank you,

  Taylor."

  I put my feet up next to his and leaned against him. "You're welcome." I put down my tea. "I

  was just going to say the same thing."

  He leaned over, and I stopped breathing. Softly, his lips brushed mine, and as I ran my hands

  up his arms, I actually shivered.

  In the window, the candles flickered, and I could hear the faint sounds of the party down

  below. Someone had put "White Christmas" on the stereo, and it sounded like Hank was

  singing right along.

  "We can stop," he whispered a few minutes later as he slid a warm hand over my thigh and

  under the hem of my Calypso dress. "Just tell me. It's okay."

  I had a flight to catch in a few hours. I needed to sleep. I barely knew this guy. I knew all these

  things, and yet nothing in the world could make me get up off this couch.

  "I know," I said, smiling, and tipped my face back up to his.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Almost twelve hours later, I peered out of the back window of my bright green taxi and into

  another world. I was only a few miles off the coast of Washington, but I might as well have

  just landed in Middle Earth. Puget Sound was flat and cold-looking, the color of slate, and

  above it, huge, fir-covered mountains disappeared into the mist. The winding road my bearded,

  gnomish driver took us down was deserted.

  "Are we getting close?" I asked, yawning.

  "Almost there," he said, smiling at me in the rearview mirror. "I'd put on the radio, but I hardly

  get any stations around here."

  Almost there. I'd been telling myself that since four-thirty, when the cab arrived at my

  apartment to take me to the airport. Then I'd boarded a 6 a.m. flight to Seattle, after which I'd

  boarded a two-seater seaplane for the forty-five-minute, white-knuckled flight to Orcas Island.

  (Needless to say, they didn't serve vodka on the prop plane, but if they had, I would have

  seriously considered breaking my no-drinks-before-three rule.) I had to hand it to Michael

  Deming--he did a great job of discouraging visitors.

  But in a way I didn't mind all the traveling--it had given me hours to think about last night. I

  drew my parka tighter around me, closed my eyes, and ran through it all once again. It had

  been, in a word, perfect. Luke was attentive and affectionate--a complete and utter Southern

  gentleman. At three in the morning, he had walked me to my car and kissed me tenderly,

  rubbing my arms so I wouldn't get cold.

  "I'll call you," he said, and I could tell that he meant it. "I had a great night, Taylor."

  "Me too."

  I wondered what he was doing right now. I liked to imagine him curled up in his big soft bed,

  maybe waking up only long enough to wish I were still there. I hadn't mentioned a word about

  my trip, for obvious reasons.

  And that was the sticking point, wasn't it? He thought he was getting to know me, but half of

  what I'd told him was a lie. I shrugged down deeper in my jacket, shaking my head. I wouldn't

  think about that just yet. I would just keep r
eplaying our date, and I'd find a way to tell him

  when I got back.

  "Here we are." The driver turned down a narrow, unpaved road. Snow-covered firs blocked

  out the sun, and banks of snow rose on either side of us. After a bumpy mile or so, we turned

  into a gravel drive and pulled up behind a Ford pickup truck. The only building in sight was a

  squat, primitive cabin that looked more like a Hobbit hovel than a house.

  "Are you sure this is 4576 Deerhead Road?" I asked, squinting at the ramshackle cabin. It

  seemed to lean to one side, and the porch appeared to be wider on the left half than it did on the

  right; the whole place looked like it had been built by people with no grasp of basic geometry.

  "Hey, nobody said this was Beverly Hills," the driver cracked as he threw the car into park.

  "Here," I said, handing him a fifty. "Just wait."

  I stepped out into the damp cold. Michael Deming lived here? This was where all my postcards

  had been sent? There had to be some kind of mistake. Hollywood geniuses didn't live in dumps

  like this, no matter how eccentric they were.

  After searching in vain for a doorbell, I rapped on the plywood door. I stamped my feet on the

  porch as I waited, and a little pile of snow that had been balanced on the crooked railing landed

  on my boot with a soft plop.

  After another moment, the door opened, and a small, wiry man with darting brown eyes, a full

  beard, and a look of suspicion on his face stood before me. It was hard to reconcile this man

  with the pictures of him on the sets of his films, some of them made less than a decade ago. I

  mean, this guy looked like he didn't know the meaning of the word "razor." But it was

  definitely him. "Mr. Deming?" I asked. "I'm Taylor. From Metronome. Your agent told you I

  was coming?"

  Deming nodded. "Yes, welcome," he said softly as he gestured for me to come inside. "Taylor.

  I like that name. And I'm sure you're hungry. Do you like tuna?" he asked, peering at me with

  his yellow brown eyes.

  "Um, yeah, that's great," I said, wiping the mud off my boots. I lingered near the door for a

  minute. I guess there was a part of me that thought maybe he'd gone completely off the deep

  end and was planning on chopping me up into a hundred little pieces and adding me to the tuna

  salad.

  The main room of Deming's house was a combination of kitchen, dining area, and living