by Joe Keenan
Eighteen
I WOKE THE NEXT MORNING AT NINE. For perhaps ten blessedly confused seconds I peered, groggy yet untroubled, at my unfamiliar surroundings. I even wondered, having just dreamed of him, if the mound of bedclothes snoring gently beside me might be Stephen. Then Gilbert rolled over and sleepily deposited a bit of drool on my pillowcase and I remembered all. With memory came a galloping herd of emotions, Regret leading the pack by a comfortable margin. I regretted acquiescing to plagiarism; I regretted luring Stephen into Moira’s clutches; I regretted stealing a car in front of seventy witnesses; and, having seen the film of me and Stephen, I regretted not having worked harder on my abs.
I sort of regretted having sex with Gilbert, though reproached myself less for this, such an outcome being all but inevitable when two former boyfriends check into a hotel together, order up wine, and watch three hours of celebrity porn.
Gilbert stirred. He did not seem at all disoriented to be waking in a strange bed, the experience having long been drained of novelty for him.
“Mornin’,” he yawned.
“Morning.”
He peered under the sheet and, finding us naked, smirked like a naughty choirboy.
“Well, weren’t we silly?”
“Very.”
“Still, it’s nice now and then for old times’ sake.” He raised himself up on one elbow and regarded me with a look of amused wonder.
“What?” I asked.
“Do you have any idea how famous you’d be if that film of you and Stevie ever got out?”
“Well, it’s not going to,” I said emphatically.
“I’m just saying. I mean, Gawd — you would rule West Hollywood.”
“Gilbert—”
“Parades.”
I reminded him that we’d promised Stephen we’d surrender everything we’d taken to him so that he could destroy it.
“You’re such a Boy Scout. If it were me shtupping Stephen Donato I’d want the whole world to see.”
“Well it’s not you. And I don’t want anyone to see it.”
He considered this a moment.
“I see what you mean. The tummy and all.”
“It’s not my stomach! I’m thinking of Stephen. If this got out he’d be completely humiliated.”
“Don’t run yourself down, hon, it’s just a little pouche. A few more crunches and—”
“I’m not talking about me! I mean Oscar!”
“Oh, right.” He giggled at the memory and agreed that it would be a dark day indeed for Stephen if the public at large ever got a good gander at him thanking the Academy.
The day ahead certainly looked like a dark one for us; there was poor, disastrously compromised Stephen to deal with, not to mention Claire, plus God only knew what fresh machinations from Moira, with whom we were now officially on a war footing. Gilbert, true to form, suggested we hole up at the Chateau for a few days so as to give all concerned time to calm down. I replied that our disappearance would do little to calm Stephen. An action star who has giddily flown the flag of surrender to not one but three butt pirates does not breathe easily till all evidence of this has been seized and deposited with care in the nearest furnace.
We breakfasted in the room, then checked out and drove warily home. When we got there I remained in the car, motor running, while Gilbert courageously checked the house for lurking assailants. When he returned and pronounced it ninja free, I retrieved the laptop and disks from the trunk and scurried inside with them. I entered the living room, and the first thing I noticed was our answering machine. Before leaving I’d cleared it of old messages but now the number “thirteen” was blinking unpropitiously up at us.
“I don’t know about you,” frowned Gilbert, “but I’ll definitely need a Bloody before I hear those.”
I seconded the motion and moments later, after we’d each taken a fortifying gulp, I hit the play button. The first call was from Moira, who informed us that if we did not return everything we’d taken immediately, she would swear out a warrant for our arrest on charges of grand theft auto.
“Oh, please!” snorted Gilbert. “Like she wants the police dragged into this!” I saw his logic but was still uneasy, feeling it was never wise to underestimate Moira’s chutzpah.
Stephen had called next, urgently demanding I phone him. Ditto Claire. The fourth call, logged at one a.m., was from one Brandon, a recent acquaintance of Gilbert’s offering to drop by if Gilbert were in the mood for company. “Damn! Why’d I have to miss that?” lamented Gilbert, then, remembering he’d been sleeping with me at the time, took an embarrassed sip of his Bloody. The next call, which came in just after two, was from Sonia Powers. She excoriated us at length for the irreparable damage we’d done to her trusting client, demanded that we immediately hand over any and all items we’d taken from Les Étoiles, and vowed that vengeance against us would be, from this moment to that of our demise, her highest priority. Of the eight remaining calls one was from Claire again and the rest were increasingly rabid follow-ups from Sonia.
If the messages offered little to cheer us, they did provide a window into Stephen’s thoughts and actions in the hours since we’d spoken. If he’d departed the spa not long after us, he’d have gotten home by nine, giving him three or four hours to sit and contemplate the dilemma in which he now found himself.
It is, as he already knew, bad.
But it is only now, as the marijuana haze that so disastrously clouded his judgment lifts, that he begins to grasp the full, catastrophic dimensions of what awaits him should his most recent film achieve wide distribution. His downfall, he now sees, will make all previous scandals, no matter how explosive in their day, seem mere faux pas — bloopers!— when measured against his towering shame. His mind clear (unaffected as yet by the scotch he sips to still his trembling hands), he sees it all: the worldwide ignominy; the ceaseless screaming headlines as the jackals of the press feast on the carrion of his career; the public’s quenchless appetite for new, more shocking revelations, true or otherwise; the emergence from the woodwork of every man he’s ever touched, eager to vend his heavily embroidered recollections; the articles bursting with sympathy for Gina, mining every last nugget of her pain and betrayal; the jeremiads from the right proclaiming him the new poster boy for Hollywood depravity.
Mostly though he sees the jokes, the unbridled public hilarity, the giddy national mirthquake that will ensue as the late-night wags milk his plight for every chuckle it’s worth.
“Stephen Donato vowed today that he’ll win the Oscar, no ifs, ands, or buts. He later amended the statement, ruling out only ifs and ands.”
“Stephen Donato can’t wait for Oscar night. He heard that if his wife goes to the ladies’ room they’ll replace her with a good-looking seat-filler.”
It is a bleak vision, made bleaker still by his grim certainty that his fevered mind is not exaggerating a whit, that he is, if anything, overlooking humiliations beyond his present ability to imagine. As the hours tick by he stares deeper into the abyss. Who, he asks, will save him? To whom can he turn to smite the villainess who holds his future captive? The answer, he knows, has always known, is Sonia. It is only his fear of her wrath (for we all have our Claires) that forestalls his cry for help till past midnight.
Imagining that call, I felt a bizarre flicker of sympathy for Sonia. When one thinks of the things that make publicists lie awake at night nibbling antacids, one pictures the usual potholes on fame’s highway: the drunk-driving arrests, the colorful relapses into addiction, the hookers stubbornly unresponsive to resuscitation efforts. Publicists brace themselves for these things. They make contingency plans and fortify their Rolodexes with the numbers of those who Know a Guy. But not even the most battle-hardened flack is ever quite prepared to hear that her most famous client, on the eve of his all but certain nomination for Best Actor in a Motion Picture, has taken one up the keister from a life-size Oscar and yes, there were cameras.
Let us not speculate on their discussio
n; we have seen Stephen suffer enough. It’s clear though that when he informed her we’d made off with the evidence, her policy had been to take possession immediately. Hence her two a.m. shot across our bow and many strident follow-ups. Hence too the call she made now as Gilbert and I drained the dregs of our Bloodies.
“It’s Sonia,” growled the voice on the machine. “Pick up the damn phone!”
“I wouldn’t,” counseled Gilbert.
“I know you’re there, assholes! I’ve got a guy across the street and he saw you come home. SO ANSWER THE GODDAMN FUCKING PHONE!”
Gilbert assured me he’d get the next one, so I took a deep breath and raised the receiver to my face.
“Hey, Sonia!” I said, perhaps a shade too cheerfully.
“Don’t ‘Hey, Sonia’ me, you miserable ass-wipe! You plagiarist! You low-life pimp!”
“Well, good morning to you too.”
“Where the fuck have you been?”
“At a hotel. Moira knows where we live so we didn’t want to come home, the theory being—”
“Yeah, whatever. You still have the stuff? The computer, the disks?”
“Right here, safe and sound.”
“I’ll be there to collect in forty minutes.”
“Oh?”
“And don’t even think of going anywhere. My guy’s watching you and he’s got orders to do what he needs to to make sure you stay put.”
“Now really, Sonia,” I chided, “I know you’re upset but I’d think we could resolve matters without recourse to hired goons.”
Her response was brief and devoid of warmth. I hung up and told Gilbert that Sonia was en route and expected us to hand over the purloined materials in toto. Gilbert frowned thoughtfully.
“I wouldn’t,” he advised.
“What?”
“Hand it over. Not all of it anyway. I’d hang on to the Stephen Oscar stuff.”
“Are you serious?”
“We have to think of ourselves, Philip. Things have gotten pretty nasty—threats, thugs on our doorstep! What if they get worse? Who knows what they may try to do to us? If we have the film we can say, ‘Back off, or else.’ Without it we’re totally at their mercy!”
I conceded there was some validity to this but felt it would be unforgivably disloyal to Stephen to hang on to evidence he wished dearly to see obliterated.
“You have to understand, he trusts me completely and I’d hate to—”
“Oh, Stephen, Stephen, Stephen!” brayed Gilbert. “Get over it, hon! This fantasy of yours that you two are some sort of couple is the most pathetic delusion you’ve had since you thought the mustache worked. Wake up!”
He grabbed my ears, pulled my face to his, and bellowed into it.
“He’s a MOVIE STAR! He’s not like you or me! Stephen loves Stephen and good luck breaking up that little romance! You’re not his boyfriend. You’re not even his friend. You’re someone who was useful to him. He knew you’d do anything he asked if he just let you moon over him and flirted back once in a while.”
“Flirted!” I bristled. “You saw the movie, you jealous boob! Is that what you call flirting?”
“Oh, please! You were hardly his first choice for costar, were you? Or his second. They both fell out, then you got called in like some sexual understudy. Trust me, that was the first and last time you’re ever getting yourself some Stephen and I can’t believe you’re even thinking of giving away your only souvenir! Gawd, if I had film of me doing the nasty with Stevie do you think I’d hand it over to some pushy dyke battle-ax? Hell, no! I’d make myself a nice digital copy, keep it for the rest of my life, and watch it more often than All About Eve! ”
I mulled this option for roughly half the time it has taken you to read this sentence, then asked, “How do you make a copy?”
As it turned out, rather easily.
I’d told Stephen we’d taken the laptop and some DVDs, three of which bore his name. Since I hadn’t specified the number of non-Stephen disks there was no way Sonia could know if one was missing. I inserted one such disk into the drive, erased its contents, then copied the files with me and Stephen onto it. It pricked my conscience that by doing so I was also creating copies of the more explosive Oscar footage, but Sonia was due in half an hour, hardly enough time to master the laptop’s complex editing software and copy only such portions of the files as were indispensable to the Cavanaugh Archive.
“There you go,” said Gilbert as I ejected the disk. “Now hide it.”
I did so and smiled, knowing Sonia would never find it on the bookshelf, tucked imperceptibly into our landlord’s apparently unread copy of Uta Hagen’s Respect for Acting.
It occurred to me that with Sonia even now exceeding the speed limit for broomsticks in her haste to reach us, it might be wise to ask Claire over. Angry as she was at us, I knew that Sonia’s vulgar belligerence would push all her buttons, making her rise instinctively to our defense. I phoned her and she arrived twenty minutes later, bearing the suitcases Gilbert and I had left at the spa. On entering she delivered her most scathing philippic to date, the details of which I’ll spare you as they did not differ in substance from her previous tributes to our intelligence and integrity. She then demanded a full précis of what had transpired in the massage room, and I obliged with a terse, PG-13 summary, i.e., Pot, Ricky sex, Oscar sex, Family Hour, Me sex.
“So,” she said when I’d finished, “is that Moira’s laptop?”
I nodded.
“And the copy you made? Well hidden, I hope?”
“What copy?” I asked, thrown, not for the first time, by her perspicacity.
She heaved an annoyed sigh. “You have a laptop containing footage of you making whoopee with Stephen. You also have a stack of rewritable DVDs. Do you expect me to believe you didn’t make a copy?”
“It never even occurred to me!”
“Is it well hidden?”
“Yes, very.”
“Good. We may need it if the going gets rough.”
“Just what I said!” crowed Gilbert, pleasantly astonished to be vindicated by Claire of all people.
Claire advised us not to mention the copy to Sonia, prompting hoots of derision from Gilbert and me.
“Well, duh!”
“What are we, idiots? ” I asked, realizing at once that I’d rather lobbed it up there for Claire, who responded with a solid triple.
A car pulled up outside. Peering through the blinds, I saw a large black sedan in our driveway. I was suddenly grateful that Claire had rallied to our defense and told her so.
“I’m not here to defend you, you half-wit. I’m just here to keep that vindictive harpy from demolishing our careers.”
“How do you plan to do that?” asked Gilbert.
“Wouldn’t it be lovely if I knew?”
I opened the door and was much taken aback to find Sonia accompanied not only by Stephen but Diana as well. Sonia’s expression would have had to brighten considerably to achieve mere malevolence. Diana looked only slightly less murderous while Stephen resembled a morose somnambulist.
Stress has a way of bringing out my perky side and I chirped, “Come in!” as though they were my book group and we were reading Patrick Dennis. “Can I offer you something to drink?”
Stephen and Sonia declined but Diana growled a request for a vodka rocks as Sonia steered her into the living room.
“You told your mom?!” I whispered to Stephen.
“Sonia thought we might need her help,” he said, his glazed, “Do not resuscitate” stare suggesting just how merry that mother-son chat had been.
We entered the living room, where Gilbert had mixed himself a second Bloody, which, from its watermelon hue, looked to be 90 percent Stoli. I fixed Diana’s drink and was rewarded with a glare of unbridled abhorrence; she couldn’t have hated me more if I’d been a fluorescent light.
“I’m guessing you’re Claire,” sneered Sonia.
“Yes. Nice to meet you.”
“Oh,
yeah, it’s a real pleasure! Makes my whole fucking morning.” She jabbed a finger at the table where we’d gathered our plunder. “Is this all of it?”
“That’s everything,” I said.
She squinted mistrustfully.
“You sure about that, Daisy?”
“Oh, quite.”
“Because if you assholes are holding out on me —”
Claire said, “They obtained this material at considerable personal risk for the sole purpose of protecting your client. You might show a little less rudeness and a little more gratitude.”
“ GRATITUDE! ” roared Sonia. “Oh forgive me, Missy! Thank you for luring my client into a gay sex ring! Thank you for telling him to trust a woman you knew was a blackmailing bitch! Thank you for possibly making the most successful actor of his generation a washed-up fucking punchline! Scumbags! You make me puke!”
She seized the computer and disks, marched out to her car, hurled them into her trunk, and rejoined us. She appeared to feel that, with the evidence now secured, she could safely abandon the bonhomie she’d displayed thus far.
“You miserable little shits! I told you what would happen if you messed with my clients, but you didn’t believe me, did you? Well, you’re going to find out how wrong you were! For starters, don’t think you can tell anyone about this and be believed because you will have zero credibility in this town. The minute I leave here I’m sending Bobby Spellman a DVD of Casablanca. Then I’ll make sure there are stories in Variety, the LA Times, and the AP about how you sleazebags conned your way into a job with my clients—which you can consider terminated as of now. Then you will drag your sorry asses back to whatever fucking hole you crawled out of and never come near this town or my clients again!!”
Harsh stuff, you’ll agree, and Gilbert and I regarded each other with suitably bug-eyed distress. But Claire rose and faced the ogress with an assured, commanding look such as Joan of Arc might have worn after a fortifying breakfast.
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh, you don’t, huh?”