The Last Birthday Party

by Gary Goldstein

  “They already think you know what you’re doing. They bought your script, didn’t they?”

  Jeremy shook his head, which was threatening to explode. “So should I not turn it in?”

  “Are you kidding? They’re desperate for your draft!”

  Sometimes talking to Juliana was the verbal equivalent of a hall of mirrors.

  “Okay, then,” was all Jeremy could say as he stared out his kitchen window at the stump of his grapefruit tree. “What now?”

  “You’ll get more notes, you’ll do your polish, and the rest will be up to the movie gods.” Juliana was back to her usual keyboard clacking. “Meanwhile, I’m setting up meet-and-greets with a bunch of development execs I love who want to get to know you.”

  “They do?”

  “They will. Once I get off the phone with you and on with them. How many new pitches do you have?” Clackety-clack.

  “Three or four,” Jeremy lied. He didn’t want someone else telling him he was a bad boy.

  Jeremy went to his office, attached Offense to an upbeat email to Ian and Laz, and pressed Send. He felt buoyant, accomplished, and a little like he’d jumped off a cliff.

  Then he got the text from Cassie.

  CHAPTER

  32

  “We should talk. Meet me Sunday?”

  Just six simple words, but they felt awfully loaded to Jeremy, especially given how uncommunicative Cassie had been since the night of his fatal birthday bash. Then there was the teensy fact that they were enmeshed in pivotal legal wranglings, so maybe not the ideal time for a little coffee catch-up?

  Jeremy’s first impulse was to text back “What time and where?” because, well, morbid curiosity. And, look, he didn’t exactly love having fuck-all to do with someone he’d known forever and who would always be part of his life, if only because of Matty. To nutshell it (yes, he used that phrase now), Jeremy wanted them to cut the crap and act like a pair of adults with a long and mostly decent history.

  Yet, if he was stepping into some kind of trap by agreeing to see her, figured the guy who just spent six years writing a crime thriller about paranoia, he would only have himself to blame.

  Jeremy waffled a few more minutes before texting back a terse “OK” before he could change his mind. At least he gave it slightly more thought than when he asked Annabelle to live with him—or rather, him with her. Also known as: the day of the lead balloon.

  Cassie instantly responded: “Joan’s on Third at 2?” It was one of those popular bakery-marketplace hybrids near the Beverly Center that was too busy and visible a spot to make a scene, so that was promising.

  Jeremy: “See you then.”

  She texted back a thumbs-up, which Jeremy considered overkill and only further made him question her motives. It wasn’t too late to back out.

  It was something he thought about all that night and again the next day as he went residence shopping, which turned out to be as dispiriting an experience as he expected. That is, until about a quarter way in when Matty, who volunteered to accompany his unnerved father, laid it out for him.

  “Dad, I know this is a downer for you and all, but at least you can afford someplace decent and safe to live, which is a shit ton more than a lot of people in this city can say. It’s not like, ‘Hello—can I interest you in a nice tent?’”

  Matty was right, of course. Jeremy didn’t mean to be an asshat about the whole moving thing. He really thought he’d adjusted to the concept until he started looking. The first few apartments he’d found listed online were dreary and confining and overpriced, and they bummed him out. Maybe that was because he realized his monthly mortgage, locked in more than two decades ago, was less than the rent he’d have to pay for one of these generic, one-bedroom squares. In truth, they weren’t that different from Matty’s apartment, which Jeremy had always found to be a cute little place—for a twenty-three-year-old on his own in the city for the first time. Just like how Jeremy and Cassie’s dinky Silver Lake apartment had seemed right for them back then. What would he think of it now?

  On the other hand, Jeremy’s glumness may have had less to do with aesthetics than with the perfect storm of anxiety he was feeling that morning over Annabelle’s absence, Cassie’s mysterious text, and the screenplay he’d shot off the day before. Did he ignore too many of Ian and Laz’s notes? Should he have done one more pass? For once in his life had he been too confident?

  Fortunately, Matty’s frank words snapped Jeremy out of his naval-gazing headspace, and he started to see the apartments—and the one guest house—as new adventures, a throwback to his youth and, perhaps, a simpler, more optimistic time. They looked at units on either end of Laurel Canyon: on the Valley side in Studio City, Valley Village, and Toluca Lake, and on the city side from Hollywood to West Hollywood and south to Carthay Circle. It was merely a start; L.A. went on forever. Still, Jeremy kept the search in the general vicinity of his current home and various stomping grounds. If it hasn’t been made ridiculously clear, he was not exactly the king of change.

  Though Jeremy’s attitude had improved, his selectiveness had not, and he found reasons—some fair, some pushing it—to reject each apartment they visited. It ran the gamut from “too small” and “too dark” to “too old” and “sorta scary” (that one a result of a strange building manager who had a Freddie Krueger vibe going on; Matty didn’t disagree). Some faced alleys and weedy vacant lots, others were right over the garage or smack next to the elevator.

  “Egads!” Matty exclaimed in mock horror when Jeremy brought up that last infraction.

  “Have you ever stayed in a hotel room that’s next to the elevator? You can hear the damn thing going up and down all night!” Jeremy said defensively as they left the building just off Studio City’s pleasant Moorpark Avenue.

  “Okay, but don’t let perfect be the enemy of good,” said Matty with surprisingly brainy authority.

  When they stopped for a quick lunch at a West Hollywood pizza joint called Vito’s, Jeremy asked Matty how he was feeling about Gabe. Just a father making sure all was still copacetic with his capricious son.

  “Dad, can I tell you something kind of personal?” Matty asked as he came up for air from a delectably sloppy slice of margarita pizza. “And please don’t get judgy or anything, okay?”

  “Whatever it is, it’s fine. You know you can tell me anything.” Jeremy’s heart started hammering.

  “Alright, so there’s this guy, Roberto, who Gabe and I know from the gym. He’s always hanging around when we work out, making small talk, acting flirty, that kinda thing. No biggie, right? Until one day Gabe tells me that Roberto asked him if we ever hooked up with other dudes. So I thought, ‘Duh, no wonder this guy’s so friendly to us.’” He stopped, eyeballed Jeremy. “Are you okay with this? Because if not I can stop.”

  “It’s fine. Keep going,” said Jeremy, even if he sensed this was edging into TMI territory.

  “So the other night, without telling me, Gabe invites Roberto to his apartment to ‘hang out with us and watch a movie.’” Matty’s exaggerated finger quotes and dubious expression were classic.

  “What movie?” asked the former film critic.

  “A gay porn movie—starring the three of us!”

  “Wait, he filmed you … having sex?” Jeremy noticed a couple a few patio tables over straining to hear Matty’s lurid account.

  “What? No, that was just …” Matty also spotted the guys listening in and lowered his voice. “Anyhow, we did what we did, and even though Roberto’s quite the snack, I wasn’t really into it. And y’know why?”

  Jeremy formulated a reasonable guess but it was a rhetorical question.

  “Because I didn’t want to share Gabe with anyone. I know it sounds stupid but … I didn’t want him to like anyone more than me.”

  “Then why did he invite this guy over to begin with? Or is this like …
something you and Gabe do?” He didn’t mean to sound judgy, but there it was.

  “No—it was a total one-off. Gabe thought maybe I’d be into it. He said he did it for me: to surprise me, to make me happy.” Before Jeremy could respond: “And look, don’t go thinking all gay guys are sex monsters or whatever because I know plenty of straight people who—”

  Jeremy put up a hand to stop him. “I don’t think anything. It’s cool, really. Though I assume you told me this story for an actual reason?”

  Matty put up a “one minute” finger as he finished his Diet Coke. “Okay, so remember how you said I shouldn’t try so hard with Gabe? Well, this three-way thing made me realize we were both trying too hard, we were maybe both afraid of disappointing each other—it wasn’t just me being insecure.”

  “Honey, you’re both finding your way. Relationships take time. They’re a living, breathing thing.” And so fragile, he thought. “But I think you’re doing great, Matty,” Jeremy said, because he truly did.

  Matty smiled. “I guess sometimes you have to go through something really weird or unexpected to learn just how much you care about someone.” He paused. “Not to get too bumper-stickery.”

  Jeremy admired his son’s wisdom, for so many reasons. “Did you tell Gabe that?”

  “Oh, he knows,” Matty smiled as they rose to resume the apartment hunt.

  It wasn’t until their last stop of the day that Jeremy found a place he liked enough to consider renting: a spacious, well-kept unit on a quiet, tree-lined street near Beverly and La Cienega Boulevards. Or as Matty put it, someplace he “couldn’t find enough wrong with to justify completely canceling its ass.” The only issue: Jeremy was worried it was too close to Cassie’s apartment.

  “It’s like eight blocks away,” noted Matty. “There are people who live eight feet from me I never see. What are you worried about?”

  It wasn’t like Jeremy was never going to see Cassie. And who knew how long either of them would end up staying in these apartments? But he purposely hadn’t been looking anywhere too far west in West Hollywood—Cassie lived on the westernmost edge—just so as not to complicate matters. He didn’t want to run into her on his daily walks (okay, he’d been a bit lax about those lately, but he was busy!) or at the closest market or coffee house. She marked her territory; he’d have to mark his. If that seemed childish or neurotic or overreactive, maybe it was. But for right now, so be it. Matty sighed.

  “I want to go on record as saying I think you’re making a big mistake,” said Matty.

  “It wouldn’t be the first,” Jeremy answered, wondering if he was, in fact, making a big mistake.

  CHAPTER

  33

  Jeremy and Annabelle had an ambitious list of movies they were planning to watch together. But they had only gotten through a handful of titles, perhaps figuring they’d have all the time in the world together to see each one. What does God do when people plan?

  Most of the films were old favorites they’d already seen; some not in a while, others they could watch over and over again (Jeremy: Taxi Driver, The Breakfast Club, Chungking Express; Annabelle: Moonstruck, The Big Chill, Roman Holiday). The rest were movies only one of them had seen and couldn’t believe the other had missed (like the Casablanca-James Bond double bill they were supposed to watch the weekend after Cambria but somehow never got to). The point was to share the joy and experience the films through each other’s eyes, as people who care about each other so often do.

  Emotionally sapped from the day of apartment hunting and anxious about facing Cassie the next afternoon, Jeremy decided to skip dinner, make himself a vat of popcorn and chill out with one of the films on his and Annabelle’s list. (He’d texted her when he returned home, but no response.) He chose one of her favorites, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, an early Scorsese film about a New Mexico widow who takes to the road with her bratty son to rekindle her singing career. Jeremy hadn’t seen it in ages and forgot how terrific it was in every way and how different it was from the great director’s often violent, crime-centric, f-bomb-studded output.

  The star, Ellen Burstyn, had long been one of Jeremy’s favorite actresses.

  But when the movie was over, he felt worse than when it started. Not because it was sad or depressing—it was incredibly funny and charming—but because of how much Jeremy wanted to cuddle up on the couch with Annabelle and talk about it. She always had such endearingly cockeyed takes on things, so in contrast with Jeremy’s more pragmatic, straightforward reactions. And was it any coincidence that Jeremy’s movie pick was about a plucky woman who finds love again soon after her husband dies only for the new guy to unexpectedly screw it up? Art, meet life.

  At the end of the film, Alice’s boyfriend, a sexy rancher played by Kris Kristofferson, shows up at the diner where she works and wins her back with a grand gesture, inviting her and her son to come live with him on his sprawling ranch. It’s a wonderfully romantic scene that made Jeremy cry a little river, though it didn’t occur to him until after that it was sort of the opposite of what he’d asked Annabelle. If only he owned a ranch.

  He grabbed the phone to call her, even though she’d never answered his earlier text. Jeremy figured he must have a grand gesture up his sleeve somewhere that could make her come rushing back to him, but he came up blank and put down the phone. Life proved itself to be nothing like the movies at the most inconvenient times.

  Joan’s on Third was its usual packed self when Jeremy arrived to meet the not-technically-former Mrs. Lerner. He scanned the front patio of privileged late lunchers for an empty table and was disappointed to see they were all occupied. He really wanted to sit outside; he thought he might need all the air he could get for whatever Cassie had in store. So it came as a relief when Cassie waved at him from a two-top at the far end of the seating area. He gave a small wave back and tentatively approached the table.

  “You cut your hair.” It was the first thing Jeremy noticed. For all the years he’d known her, there was never a time it couldn’t have been pulled back in a ponytail of one length or another. She looked older, more serious somehow. It wasn’t unflattering but it made Jeremy wistful. So much time had passed in their lives.

  “Time to look like an adult, I suppose,” Cassie answered with a noncommittal shrug. She studied Jeremy and gestured at the empty chair opposite her. “Have you had lunch?”

  “Are you buying?”

  “I invited you, so sure.” Cassie shifted in her chair.

  “Why did you invite me? If you don’t mind me asking.” Jeremy kept his eyes fixed on the still quite beautiful mother of his son, his cool defiance clearly catching her off guard.

  “Why did you show up? If you don’t mind me asking?” Cassie could always give as good as she got.

  A smiling, impossibly beautiful couple passed on the adjacent sidewalk, walking a dog the size of a small pony as if they were all in some fancy magazine ad. No one looked twice; it was L.A.

  “Given that you’ve barely spoken to me in four months, I thought we might have a few things to chat about,” Jeremy said with a dry smile.

  Cassie let that wash over her and shifted gears. “I’m going to get a salad. Can I order you one? Or a sandwich? I love their grilled cheese.”

  Jeremy’s appetite was nil. He had too many questions. “Maybe in a bit. Talk to me, okay?”

  Silence, then: “Matty seems to be doing great, don’t you think?” Cassie said brightly. “That Gabe’s a pretty special guy. They seem really good together.”

  “You do know how they met, don’t you?” Jeremy asked, purposely stirring the pot, though he wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t sure of anything right now.

  Cassie leveled a look at him. “How are things with you and … Annabella, is it?” She watched as a waitperson delivered a pair of eye-pleasing salads to a nearby table.

  “Annabelle. No a.”

  “Oh,
I must’ve been confusing it with that actress. The one from The Sopranos?”

  “Annabella Sciorra,” Jeremy answered impatiently. Cassie pointed a finger pistol at him. This was like the worst first—or last—date ever. Jeremy thought it best to skip past any talk of Annabelle and cut to the chase. “Cassie, you didn’t call me here to talk about Matty or Gabe or Annabelle or … grilled cheese, did you?”

  Cassie said nothing. This was not the Cassie Jeremy knew. She composed herself as the couple next to them vacated their table, metal chairs scraping against the patio’s cement floor. “I think I made a mistake,” she finally said, staring down at her hands folded in front of her.

  “What kind of mistake?” Jeremy truly had no idea.

  “Leaving you,” she said to her hands. Her voice was small, pained.

  You could’ve knocked Jeremy over with a Q-tip. He said nothing, didn’t know what to say.

  Cassie looked up and met his bemused stare. “I was just so angry.”

  “Over a stupid party?”

  Two new customers grabbed the empty table next to them. Jeremy needed some space. His stomach was in knots. Was she fucking serious?

  “I told you, that was just the icing on a badly baked cake. We weren’t happy anymore.” She glanced at the couple who’d sat adjacent, both engrossed in their phones. Cassie returned her gaze to Jeremy, awaiting a response he didn’t yet have.

  “I don’t believe this,” he eventually said, keeping his voice down. “You fucking left without so much as a goodbye.”

  “I was in a bad place. We were in a bad place.”

  “So why didn’t you talk to me about it first?”

  Cassie formulated her answer. “You may not have realized it, but for years you’d been checked out. You were tucked away in your own little world, in whatever interested you, not me. It was like once Matty wasn’t around anymore, our marriage had no purpose. We didn’t exist.”

  “Okay, I think that’s an exaggeration,” he said calmly. “And why are we talking about me? I thought you said you were the one who made a mistake.” Jeremy eyed the pair next to them to see if they were listening in. They weren’t.