After dinner, which mostly involved my parents asking shallow questions about her and her movies, I suggested B and I go for a walk. She gladly agreed, probably looking forward to speak in private.
We passed my old playground (the same old rusty swing still there), while B told me the story on how she fell on dark days as soon as both A and I left her to her own devices. She cried, drank and painted a lot. She said I was right all along about Matteo and his intentions and that he “imposed” himself on her and that she, in her need for company and any kind of love, fell for it.
Matteo turned out to be more into her fame and lifestyle than her person so she kicked him out of the apartment after a few weeks and then got even more depressed about the lack of love and human interaction in her life. She thought of calling A and begging him to take her back, but by then the magazines had already told the story about his new girlfriend and she didn't stomach it. Instead she drank even more and spent the days “trying to capture herself on canvas”, like any true and depressed artist. This often ended up with her stamping the foot through what she was working on or just laying on the couch in her apartment, trying to cure monster hangovers.
B looked at me with tears in her eyes as we walked past three young boys shooting hoops in the schoolyard, “I was slowly killing myself,” she said. “At first I was so excited to be in New York, to experience the city full out and be the truly independent girl I always wanted to be, but it's not easy to do that when you're...well, me.”
“So what made you come here?”
“I don't know. I guess one day I just felt it was either death or getting out, getting away from my own demons, the strange pressure I've been putting on myself my entire life. I thought I could fix it on my own, but that turned out to be far from true. Actually the only one who can relieve this pressure without expecting anything in return, is you. I know I treated you like shit and I feel awful for doing that. You're the only person who has never judged me and I need that. For me, that has become the most important feeling in the world.”
I didn't know how to react. It warmed my heart to hear how she valued me and my support, but then she didn’t know that I had wanted something back from her, I had wanted love. But we had gotten passed that so I said nothing and just held out my arms and hugged her for a long time while I let her tears dry against my shirt.
***
That night I had a vivid nightmare. I dreamt I entered B’s New York apartment and found her dead, in the bathtub, her wrists cut and her body lying in a pool of blood. I jumped up from my sleep and felt my heart beat heavy inside my chest. I tried to fall asleep again, but couldn’t. I was afraid of falling back into that horrible dream. I turned on the light and after a few minutes of just lying there, looking up at the ceiling and trying not to think, I heard a faint sound. Tock-tock. My heart jumped again. Was it raining or were there just some old floorboards creaking? I heard the sound again and rose from my puny bed and walked over to my bedroom window to look for drops of rain. Then I heard a whisper, “Darryl...Darryl.”
I opened the door to find B standing there in a short, red silk robe. “You're awake?” she said.
“Yeah, well, obviously,” I replied.
“I couldn't sleep either, can I come in?” And without waiting for my reply, she entered my bedroom.
She sat down on my bed, “Your bed is so cute. I can really see you sleeping here as a kid.”
“If you mean cute like in small, yes, I guess it's cute. I don’t know if it’s cute that I sleep here now though.” I said and smiled nervously. Making jokes out of my own misfortune was my trusted defense mechanism.
“It's not that small. Would you mind if we just lay down a bit and talk or try to sleep? You know I'm no good with sleeping alone.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I did know that B wasn’t very good with being alone, that’s why it made sense that her whole adventure of going it alone in New York didn’t work out.
“Well, yeah, sure - unless you want to grab a tea or warm milk or something? My parents are in the other end of the corridor and they won't hear us if we go downstairs for a bit.” I said and felt 15 years old.
“I'd rather just lay down for a bit if that's okay.”
“Okay.”
We laid down next to each other in my small bed, which was impossible to fit two people in without them touching. I felt her naked leg against mine and suddenly my blood started rushing. Rushing downhill.
“Darryl, do you mind holding me for a bit? I'm freezing.”
I like to sleep in cold rooms and often have the air condition turned down low, but my room had no air condition and it wasn’t particularly cold. I thought of offering her the whole bed, not to poke her and embarrass myself again, but before I could say anything, she positioned herself close and brushed the pointiest part of my body.
“But Darryl,” she said in a light and humorous voice, “Are you that happy to see me?” Then she giggled and I felt her hand reach down.
Oh, I thought.
***
The next day I woke with an aching back and B next to me, wheezing toxic air from her mouth, but her face more peaceful and beautiful than ever. I was wedged between her and the wall, but using all the strength in my arms, I managed to get out of bed without waking her.
I walked across the hall to the bathroom and took a long shower, relieving some of the strain in my back with the hot water. I was still really tired, but in a good, post-intercourse, way. I didn't know what to think of the night before, I was just happy it happened. Whether or not it would happen again, was up for B to decide.
I knew I would gladly oblige.
After the shower I went back to my room and got dressed, while B slept soundly and then I headed downstairs for a cup of coffee. It was Saturday, so I wasn’t surprised to find my parents around the kitchen table, reading different parts of the newspaper with their reading glasses on. It was a friendly and familiar image.
“Morning,” they said when they saw me approach the table, “She's still asleep?” My mother smiled like it was my child we were talking about.
“Think so,” I said, not wanting to divulge the information that B slept next to me (and on top of me) and not in the guest room.
“She's such a nice girl, why can’t you find yourself someone like her,” my mother suddenly burst out, almost like she knew.
“Yeah, she is,” I said, “complicated, but nice.”
“Show me a woman who isn't,” my father shot back, chuckled and touched my mother on her shoulder like she would be the first one to agree. It was a gesture of love I was thankful to see; a reminder that true love could actually last. My folks had been going strong for more than thirty years, something that was becoming increasingly rare.
“True,” I said and poured myself a cup of coffee, “Any good news today?” I looked towards the newspaper spread around the kitchen table.
“If you want good news I don't think you should read the paper, son.” My father said, without looking up.
I popped two slices of white bread in the toaster and looked out of the kitchen window and on my parents’ lawn. I used to play all kinds of sports out there when I was kid, it had truly been my playground then, but gone back to being just a lawn. A lawn in need of a trim.
I sipped the strong and acidic coffee, which was how my father had taken it for 35 years. He was built like a bull and not exactly what you would call a latte person. But the bull looked softer than a puppy when B entered the kitchen in her red silk robe and Four Seasons slippers. She sure knew how to melt the heart of men (and the brains of husbands and employees).
“Good morning,” she said, stretched and yawned like a cat. It was like it was the most natural thing for her to be walking around in my parent's house wearing practically nothing. And it looked like my father could get used to it.
“Good morning,” my mother said, either not witnessing my father's stare, or just choosing to ignore it. I knew they really liked
her, so I wasn’t worried about her presence here, in fact it felt oddly comfortable, like it was how it was meant to be. If you scrap the living-with-the-parents thing.
B sat down by the kitchen table and I put a freshly-poured cup of ulcer coffee in front of her without saying anything. My tongue was suddenly stuck to my throat. In many ways we knew each other like a married couple, but things usually changed as soon as you started sleeping together.
“Thanks,” she said and gave me a flirtatious little smile. Something stirred inside of me.
“Slept well?” My father asked, trying to sound his casual self, despite having a celebrity at the breakfast table.
“Yes, like a baby,” B said, sounding chipper, “I can't begin to tell you how much this means to me, how good it feels to be around a loving family for a change.”
I remember telling my parents about B’s own family situation, so they knew what she was talking about. “We’re really happy to have you here as well and you should feel like you’re always welcome in our home. I just wish I’d been able to clean up first,” my mother said looking around the room, seeing dust and mess where nobody else could. This is a mother’s superhuman ability, among others.
“But you have a lovely home, I absolutely adore this house, it's so cute.” Everything small but not too small, was “cute” to B. I had a hard time seeing my parents’ house objectively though, it was too ingrained in my system - the smells, the carpets, I think even the old sofa had become a part of me.
“I'm glad you like it,” my father said, “we've lived here for 30 years now and hopefully we can live here the rest of our lives.” He looked over at my mother who nodded her head. They were proud to call it home.
“I envy you, Darryl, you must have had that childhood everybody wants.” B’s voice tailed off a bit on the end and I could feel the honesty in her pain - this was the kind of family life she’d been missing all along. The one who shared breakfast around the kitchen table.
“I know,” I said and sat down, “I'm one lucky guy,” and I looked at my parents who smiled back. And I did feel that way, I was lucky.
“Would you mind,” B said, in her modest I’m-asking-you-a-favor voice, “if I stayed here a few more days? Would that be okay with you guys?”
I was relieved to hear this, because in my head I had feared she would be taking the first flight back.
“Of course - stay as long as you like,” my mother said, probably hearing wedding bells somewhere in the back of her head. They hadn’t seen me with a girl in a long time, a void my mother was desperate to fill - it had been far too obvious in the way she talked to me.
“Great, I really love it here. It’s so nice and down-to-earth and normal in the best possible way.”
And I was of course happy to have her there too, although to me, when I saw her sitting at our old kitchen table in that short, red silk robe, looking like a million bucks - “normal” was out the door.
***
My head was a mess over the coming days as I was trying to block myself from falling head over heels back in love with a re-energized and relaxed B. I tried desperately not to get too high, because I knew how much harder the fall back to reality would be. I simply didn’t want to get hurt, but it wasn’t easy not to be endeared by the happy, humorous girl who acted in all those romantic comedies for a reason - when she was in this mood, it was almost impossible not to fall for her.
So what do you do when a Hollywood superstar decides to move in with you and your parents? How do you relax and pretend like everything’s normal? That it’s not some lucky spell, bound to end with the flick of the same wand which brought her there? You can’t. One minute you’re floating on clouds and the next you’re walking on eggshells, afraid the illusion you’re so blissfully in will go poff! - up in smoke. I obviously didn’t know what to do, so I focused on helping her relax and making sure she wouldn’t go back into the destructive mood that created the situation in the first place. We took long walks, watched movies, talked a lot and every night she came into my room to sleep with me and later also by my side. We didn't kiss or anything like that during the daytime, but she didn't hesitate to take my hand or ask me to hold her when we were alone. Although I loved this state of being, I realized we couldn’t stay this way forever, so I needed to pop the question, where were we going with this?
“Where are we going with what?” B of course knew what I meant, she was just buying herself more time for an answer.
“With us? What's next? Or do you want to move into my boyhood room permanently?” I said, trying to make the conversation as light as it could be, but of course my nerves were dangling like telephone wires in a storm.
“I don't know. It’s too early, too confusing. Right now I only know I want you near me. I'm sorry, but that's all I can say right now.”
“But like a relationship or as your assistant or what?” I kept pressing.
“Like I said, I don't know. I understand you don't want to work for me anymore so that's out, especially now that something has already happened between us, but why don't we both go back to New York to figure it out? Stay with me for a while, see what happens.” B looked at me with her big blue eyes, knowing I would fold like a deck chair.
My biggest worry at that time was that B just wanted me close, not as in a relationship, but as a friend and support, and if I couldn’t work for her she would find another way to make it happen. Was she sleeping with me just for me to get back to her? The thought crossed my mind.
Still I said yes.
***
My folks were sad to see us leave, but clever enough to understand there are limits to how long you can live with your parents, especially when you’re staying there with your “girlfriend”. And by that, I’m not saying B was my girlfriend, just that we definitely had something going on outside the friendship zone and I’m pretty sure even my parents picked up on it, no matter how much we tried to stay under the radar.
“You have a funny little smile on your face,” B told me in the car. She looked happy to be back in the Big Apple.
“Do I? I guess, I’m feeling pretty good right now, I’m getting more and more into the New York style of things.”
B smiled, but didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to.
Her rented apartment was bigger than I remembered it and it felt amazing how time and memory could change space. We could probably have invited the Lakers for basketball practice in the living room if we wanted to. In front of the wall-to-ceiling windows she had placed her easel and on the floor, leaning on the wall with their backs to it, were the paintings she had worked on. I was instantly curious about what was on them, but if she had been keen on showing me, they wouldn’t have faced the wall.
She put down her bag, walked over to the tall windows and said, “I really love your parents, Darryl. I know I repeat myself, but you have such a beautiful and relaxed family vibe. But still I couldn’t help but miss New York. In fact, I don’t know how I could stay in LA for so long.” I walked over to her and in a completely spontaneous gesture, I put my arms around her. I felt her tense up at first, but then she relaxed, after all, we were sleeping together almost every night, so it was a natural thing to do. At least to me.
After a while she untangled herself and walked over to the easel. This prompted me to ask, “So what’s up with the paintings on the floor? I’m sure they’re nice, but I can’t see them.”
“That's awfully generous of you, because I think they’re all shit. Before I left I thought of burning everything. I'm just not cut out to be painting anything, except for possibly a wall.”
I walked over there to have a look at her work, but B shouted No! before I had the chance to. I stopped in the middle of my bent motion and said, “Okay, okay. I won’t look. But they're probably ten times better than you think.”
“I'm just not ready to let anyone else see them, that's all. They’re very personal. And bad.” A sad smile surfaced on B’s face, she was dead serious about this
and she wasn’t going to show them to me.
I picked up my luggage in the hallway and asked her where I should put it.
“You can take the bedroom to the left over there,” she pointed to the corridor.
I stopped in my tracks, because I had of course hoped to share a bed more permanently by then. Was I already expecting too much? I couldn’t shake the thought that maybe the adventure that started so surprisingly in my boyhood room, was ending as abruptly in New York.
But like she was reading my mind, B said: “Don't look like a wounded puppy, you'll still get to see me naked - I just don't want to give up any closet space.”
Somewhat relieved, I put my bags into the other, smaller, untouched and impeccably furnished bedroom and sat down on the bed. It was far more comfortable than the one back in Clarendon, but I still felt a bit strange, like I wasn’t really supposed to be there. And I had nothing to fall back on either if things didn’t work out - I was unemployed and pretty much homeless. All I had was B. Which was exactly what she wanted.
B shouted to me from the main room, “I told you I fired Julianne, right? I’m sure you must like that piece of news. I'm actually starting to think it’s time to get back into the game again, get a new agent who could hopefully land me something different than another predictable love story.”
But I kind of like predictable love stories, I thought to myself.
Hollywood Ass. Page 16