by Davis Bunn
“But he carried shadows.”
“You can’t imagine. Every conversation with Spock that wasn’t about food became a walk on the wild side. Here I was, this little skateboarding kid and in-house mascot. All Leonard needed to do was look my way and my blood froze solid. I heard him tell my dad once, his second year inside he found a book in the prison library about cooking. That book was the only reason he made it out alive.”
Sylvie’s response was to take his hand. They continued on in silence, content to share the morning’s immense solitude
Connor found himself calmed by Sylvie’s closeness. The worries and fears waiting for him back up the hill, the call to LA, the questions for which he had no answers, all of this vanished in the drifting fog. All disappeared because of this woman who walked beside him.
The light held a cathedral quality, spilling through the ocean mist like heaven’s own stained glass. Connor felt as though everything he glimpsed was made diamond-brilliant by Sylvie’s presence. It felt as though she filled a space inside him, opening his senses to a level he had never before known.
They left the path and took a winding staircase down to the beach. The ocean’s roar was so powerful he felt it in his chest. The sand was blanketed by clouds of sea froth. He could feel the ocean’s chill on his exposed skin. Gulls swept past, eyeing them with a calm loftiness. Otherwise, they had the shore to themselves. At the next set of stairs, Sylvie led him across the hard-packed sand. As they climbed back up to the coastal path, Connor was halted by a sudden desire to kiss her.
Connor might have stood there all day, held by that crystal-gray gaze, as brilliant as the sunrise through the Pacific mist. It was there in her open expression, her need to hear the truth from him. If only he knew what that was.
* * *
On his way back up the hill, Connor stopped by the general store and bought a cheap phone that contained no GPS chip and five hundred minutes. He returned to his room and put on another pot of coffee while he set up the phone.
Connor poured himself a fresh cup and dialed Kali’s number. Then he stopped in the act of making the connection. The bedside clock read half past ten. His soon-to-be ex-fiancée never got up before noon, unless she had an engagement of seismic proportions.
He cleared the screen; then he punched in the number for Kali’s assistant. Kali ran through PAs at a ridiculous pace. She referred to the males as “Eric” and the females as “Erica.” When the voice mail picked up, Connor identified himself and asked for an appointment to speak with Kali at three that afternoon.
Connor walked outside and sat in the narrow doorway, waiting for his heart to slow down. Estelle chose that moment to walk over and ask, “Can a girl buy you breakfast?”
“Not today. I’ve got . . . things.”
“Terrible thing, things,” Estelle said, turning away. “Good luck.”
“Estelle.” He could say it now, because he was facing his own dreaded truth that very moment. “You need to speak with Sylvie.”
She did not look back at him. Instead, Estelle lifted her gaze to the blanket of gray. “The worst part of running away is facing the consequences. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Connor did not reply or look up as her footsteps receded into the mist. When he was ready, he went back inside and placed the second call.
CHAPTER 17
Ami Chen was a senior talent agent with CPP. The agency’s name was formed from the three original partners, now retired, which meant no one even remembered who they were. New actors who yearned to be added to the CPP roster said the name stood for “Careers Pulverized and Plundered.” CPP occupied the top six floors of a premier building on Wilshire Boulevard. The six-lane road separated Beverly Flats from Beverly Hills; or as Ami Chen liked to tell Connor, it split the A-list from the hired help.
Ami managed five A-list stars and around sixteen actors of Connor’s status. Plus six directors, three producers, and a half-dozen writers, whom Ami referred to as her in-house menagerie. The exact number of character actors depended upon whom Ami had recently dropped. Ami went through her B-list actors like other women went through cupcakes.
There was actually no such thing as a B-list. There was only the A-list and everybody else. Actors like Connor lived on a knife’s edge. This fostered a justifiable paranoia, for most character actors were a single slip away from the long bus ride back to Indiana. Ami Chen was only too happy to show them the exit. She called these dismissals her release valve. Every agent in LA ingested a ton of refuse for every successful deal. Ami had once confessed that these firings granted her a momentary sense of power. Connor hoped Ami had shared this secret motivation as a means of telling Connor that he was somehow special. He, however, had never built up the courage to ask her.
Because his number was not identifiable, Connor’s call was schlepped instantly to voice mail. This was standard practice in Hollywood, where there simply was no extra second available for the hordes of desperate outsiders. He identified himself, gave his new number, and then went back out to the parking lot. He could not find enough air in his room. Estelle was seated now in the little park behind the guesthouse, a large coffee set on the bench beside her. She glanced over, then away.
Five minutes of pacing, and then the phone rang. Gerald, Ami’s assistant, said, “Is it really you?”
“Yes.”
“Which of my four hundred messages and counting did you decide to respond to? I’m only wondering, since I’ve stubbed three fingers reaching out.”
“I bolted. I panicked. I had to get out of LA before it was too late.”
“Well, that’s hardly the most original excuse I’ve ever heard.”
“But it’s the truth.”
Gerald gave that a beat, then said, “When I couldn’t find you, she shouted at me. I hate shouting.”
“I’m sorry. Really.”
“You sound like you mean it.”
“I do.”
“Then again, you’re an actor. You’re paid to sound genuine.” There was a strident voice in the background; then Gerald said the words that formed the foundation to Connor’s acting career. “Hold for Ami.”
Ami Chen was a five-foot-three bundle of fierce intelligence and angry determination. She rammed her way through every blockade Hollywood’s film world tried to put in her path. She was considered one of the top agents at making careers. Ami greeted Connor with “Explain why Gerald couldn’t track you down.”
Not a great one for casual conversation, his agent.
“I ran away,” Connor repeated. “I didn’t take my computer or my phone. I was too afraid they’d track me. Or that I’d contact Kali in a weak moment.”
“Hold one.” The line clicked off.
There were any number of reasons for this silence. The first time he had been in Ami’s office, Connor had been overwhelmed by the sheer volume of her phone traffic. Ami’s granite desk was the size of a small independent island-state and held five computer screens. Two of them were reserved for handling her phones. Gerald fielded all of Ami’s calls, then passed those he deemed worthy to the monitor where she could point and click and connect. The neighboring screen held any intel or alert that Gerald might have received in the initial dialogue. Anyone who worked regularly with Ami Chen treated Gerald as a principal ally. Gerald earned more than any junior agent at CPP. It was why he remained in Ami’s front office, despite the fact that his boss defined the term “difficult.”
The calls Gerald decided to pass through were color-coded. The ones he thought Ami should take instantly were yellow, and those dealing with actual payment were white. Red calls were problems, always with notes attached on screen two. Blues were the ones she took if or when she had the time or felt bored. When Connor had asked what was used for personal calls, Gerald said there weren’t enough of those to deserve a color.
The line clicked back on, and Ami demanded, “Are you marrying Kali Lyndon?”
“No.”
“This is not some yo-yo exercise,
a bit of last-minute jitters that struck in the lead-up to your wedding.”
“No yo-yos, and surprisingly few jitters,” Connor replied. “At least since I arrived here.”
“And where exactly is this ‘here’ located?”
“A million miles from LA. Farther.”
“Strange how you sound like you’re in the next room.”
“Believe me. I’m not.”
Ami did not probe further. She was pure LA. She did not care about such minor issues as love or commitment. Her laser focus was aimed at just one thing.
The bottom line.
Ami was so quiet that Connor thought she had dropped his call. Then she said, “Thinking.”
Connor took his phone back outside. Thankfully, Estelle had disappeared. He paced the length of the parking lot. Again.
Finally Ami said, “I have something to tell you.”
Connor’s heart dropped out of his chest, straight onto the pavement. Splat. He had actually heard Ami use those very words when dumping other actors. Twice. The first time, Connor had been seated in the narrow confines of Gerald’s outer office. The second time was in a bar, the night she had confessed the acid pleasure found in such dismissals.
Connor said, “Go on, then.”
Ami said, “You are being considered for the primary bad guy in the new James Bond film.”
The strength drained from his legs so fast he landed on the pavement. The hand not holding his phone kept him from sprawling backward. “What?”
“It’s not a done deal, but they’re serious. You’ll die, of course, but only after being on-screen for eighteen minutes. Possibly twenty-three, if they go with the script’s current draft. They want the film to mark your big century of on-air demises. They think this can be used in the film’s advance online promo.”
“I thought . . . Never mind.”
“You absolutely deserve what you thought I was going to tell you,” Ami assured him. “You’ve been such a bad boy. Have you told Kali?”
“I’ve asked Erica to set up a call with her at three.”
“Let me handle that.”
“No . . . I . . . What?”
“I’ll prep her PR first, convince them they can use this.” Her voice tightened. “You just remember we haven’t signed the deal yet.”
“Ami, I don’t understand a word of what you just said.”
“What you’re asking for is the kind of service reserved for my A-list. The clients who pay for my place in Bel Air.”
“Ami, I haven’t asked you for anything.“
“Which doesn’t change the fact that you need to be handled. Now you apologize to Gerald.”
“I already did.”
“Do it again, this time with champagne, because Gerald is my handler. Which now makes him yours. So, darling, when Gerald calls, what will you do?”
“Answer the phone.”
“Night or day, darling. Whatever he tells you to do, darling, treat it like it’s a command straight from God.”
It was only after Connor had spoken again with Gerald and sat there on the pavement beneath the steel-gray sky that he realized what Ami had called him.
His agent only had five darlings. Three of them had won Oscars.
CHAPTER 18
Connor left for the restaurant an hour and a half early. His room could no longer hold him. His mind was an electric jumble of conflicting thoughts and emotions. The only word to describe how he felt just then was, disjointed.
Here he was, running away from his life in LA. Only now he was also running from Estelle Rainier, a woman whose most threatening move was to ask questions about a woman Connor hardly knew.
For seven years, he had tried hard not to miss his music. It had been almost that long since Connor had even listened to his favorite artists, for fear of being dragged down into a hopeless reflection of his many wrong moves. Then he had played for much of the previous night, and the clearest impression Connor carried was the smile of thanks from his one-woman audience.
When he had climbed on that midnight bus, Connor thought he had walked away from acting, as well as his soon-to-be ex-fiancée.
But this morning, he had been terrified by the prospect of his agent dropping him. And now he was as excited about the possible Bond gig as anything in his recent life.
He was fleeing a public relations mockery of a wedding. But all he could think of was sharing another dawn with Sylvie.
He repeatedly told himself that the last thing he should be doing was involving himself with another woman. All the while, though, he was held by the memory of those beautiful crystal-gray eyes.
He hurried to a job that had nothing to do with the world he had come to call real. He had slept only a few hours. His eyes felt grainy and his feet hurt.
Still, he was genuinely eager to start his gig, waiting tables at Castaways.
Connor checked his watch. In precisely two hours, his agent would be on the phone handling the situation with his soon-to-be ex-fiancée.
Yet, all he could think about was seeing Sylvie again.
But how was that even possible? What was he going to tell her? Everything she thought about him was wrong, and the prospect of telling her who he really was filled his gut with leaden dismay.
That brought him to the greatest dilemma of all.
Connor had spent enough time in the woman’s company to know the question that Sylvie most wanted to ask him.
Who was he really?
Connor had no idea how to respond.
* * *
Sylvie felt as though her day remained sheltered by Connor’s quiet strength. The dawn walk had meant more than she could possibly have imagined. It had been a very long time since she had enjoyed that sense of companionship, where words were unnecessary, and the closeness of a man as natural as breath.
During her childhood, sunrise walks had framed Sylvie’s happiest times with her mother. Her father often worked late into the night, sometimes falling into bed with the sunrise. Mother and daughter had shared countless mornings, chasing gulls and sharing dreams.
Then toward the end, they had spent those hours arguing. Estelle had revealed her plans to leave on one such walk, a bitterly cold May morning with the Canadian foothills lost to a fog as thick as today’s.
Sylvie checked her reflection, but saw most clearly the heartbroken girl in the months following her mother’s departure, standing outside their ratty camper, knowing she was not strong enough to reknit the fabric of her family. She recalled the shocking sense of loss she had known, hearing Estelle speak about her need to leave them. That was the way her mother had described her state—as a need. Sylvie had not thought of that in years. Now it was as clear as the cry of gulls through her bedroom window. She remembered how frigid her tears felt on her cheeks. She remembered how it had started to snow, as though the world wept with her.
* * *
Sylvie could not say exactly when Fridays had become cleaning day. There was a certain logic to the timing, however. The weekends were always so rushed; neither the restaurant nor the kitchen was ever fully scrubbed. Monday was their one evening off. The normally slower Tuesdays and Wednesdays often felt as though they would never end. Sylvie spent most Thursdays at the local markets and taking their weekend deliveries. Friday afternoons, everyone showed up early. Carl prepared something special for the Castaways staff and filled the restaurant with the prospect of a fine meal. Today it would be a veal pot-au-feu with baby potatoes coated with olive oil and rosemary and sea salt, then oven roasted. The resulting exteriors were hard and crunchy, while the interiors were cottony and soft, and the flavor exploded with each bite. This was followed up with one of Sandy’s trademark desserts, crème brûlée with chocolate-cinnamon biscotti.
Because the scouring took place every week, there was a settled, comfortable routine to it all. Even the brass railings to the outer doors and the bar and the hostess station, the least appealing of all the many jobs, were simply done and left behind. The new b
usboy’s name was Gustavo, and he more or less took every task in his stride. Throughout the initial half hour, as Sylvie helped him remove grease from behind the main stove, she found herself humming snatches from Connor’s melodies. He took some of her father’s favorite melodies and formed a composite of the modern world. He sang from today’s perspective. She could not say it any better than that. The years of not practicing showed in repeated off-key notes, but it had also embedded a rough burr, a sorrow that deepened the emotions. Made it . . .
When she paused to take a new reservation, Rick joined her at the hostess station and asked, “Is Connor coming?”
Sylvie answered, “I forgot to mention it.”
Rick shrugged. “I think I met the real guy last night.”
“‘Real,’” she agreed, thinking that was the word she had been searching for. “You liked his music?”
Rick shrugged. “Not really.”
She swiped his arm. “Liar.”
“Bruno said it sounded like Whisky a Go Go, only at one-third speed.”
“Maybe I was too hasty letting Bruno off the hook for those bad fish.” They were both smiling as she said that.
“Are you going to keep Connor on waiting tables?”
The question surprised her. “Of course.”
“I just wondered, you know.”
“We can’t begin to afford live entertainment. Phil would have a seizure.”
“Old Phil,” Rick said, mimicking Marcela.
“It would be great, you know . . .”
“If Connor could bring that heart to his work.” Rick nodded. “I’ll have a word with the guy.”
* * *
Connor liked how his early arrival was greeted with the simple friendliness of being accepted. Sylvie explained that this was their day to give the entire restaurant a thorough going-over, then assigned him to scour the kitchen’s four steel tables. The industrial-strength rubber gloves protected his hands, and the double aprons—one plastic over the white cotton—kept the cleanser from staining his clothes. He hated the acrid stench, but the work was soothing. He had worked all his life. Sometimes it felt as though the need for constant labor was embedded in his DNA. Nowadays when he returned home to Charlotte, his family always chided him for not working hard enough. As though hours of daily labor were the defining trait of a life well lived. His parents had been divorced for over fifteen years, and the restaurant was long gone, but they both still held to this core principle, as did Connor’s brother and sister. None of them believed that his acting gigs were true work. They listened to his descriptions of the predawn calls and the weeks of living on four or five hours’ sleep, the blistering lights and the acting classes and the rehearsals without pay, the heartbreak and misery that was the fate of most people striving to break in, the bitter jealousy that was the fodder for almost every actor on earth. They heard him out, but they did not believe him. Not really. He could see it in their gazes.