She pulled open the double doors of one of our huge bedroom closets, wallpapered—at the insistence of Deena Divac, coveted decorator—in the same tasteful jungle-floral print Deena had chosen for the other walls. And the bedspread. And the armchair and the love seat and the curtains. I felt like I was sleeping on the set of South Fucking Pacific.
“Ow! Shit!” Ellen yelled from inside the closet.
“You okay?”
“Fine,” she snapped, clearly not.
I stood just outside the door, not knowing what to do. I wanted to know how she wanted me to be. Then I would be that way and this would stop. My job was convincing people to do what I wanted, but now … now I couldn’t think of a single word to close the zero-gravity galaxy that had just opened between us. It was infinite and unreal and I hadn’t seen it out there on the horizon. Not even a little.
She picked up the biggest suitcase, pushed me out of the way, and threw the bag onto the bed.
“Pack.”
“What?”
“Pack. Pack some clothes and leave. You can come back for the rest later.”
“But … Ellen … It’s almost midnight.”
“Oh come on, Grey, you’re an important guy. I’m sure the concierge at the Beverly Hills Hotel can make room for you at the inn.”
When I left my own house that night, I was the one who was crying. “I know this is hard but it’s better this way,” Ellen whispered. Then she kissed me on the cheek and shut the door.
I sat in my car at the bottom of the driveway of the Beverly Hills Hotel. I had driven there like a robot. Not thinking, not feeling, just following the same route I always took, the same shortcuts and side streets until, in less than twelve minutes, I found I’d arrived at the last place I wanted to be. And I didn’t know what to do. In the past I’d zipped right up to the valet, exchanged my keys for a bright orange stub, which I slipped into my breast pocket as I strode briskly into my breakfast/lunch/drinks meeting.
But there was no meeting. It was a Tuesday night and my wife had thrown me out. Pull one thread and the sweater unravels. I couldn’t breathe. My hands were sweating. I saw myself pulling up to the valet, taking my orange ticket, checking into one of the beautifully appointed Beverly Hills Hotel suites and using my necktie to hang myself.
“Good evening. Checking in, sir?” I was so startled I leaned on the horn. “Sorry sir, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you. I just noticed you’ve been here a while and I thought I’d see if you—”
But I didn’t let him finish. I put my foot on the gas and flew past the red-carpeted entrance to the hotel and out the other side, swerving left onto Sunset, my heart racing even faster than my car.
By the time I got to Victor’s I was ascending the peak of a full-blown panic attack while at the same time trying to rationalize my appearance well past midnight at the home of my favorite client—a client with whom I had a friendship of sorts. The kind of friendship that would allow him to show up on my doorstep in the middle of the night, no questions asked. But not the reverse. Sure, our families socialized and we had a history—insofar as anyone in Hollywood has history—but I was the confidant, the caretaker, the troubleshooter. I had kept his marriage together, made his son’s DUI disappear, got rid of the bogus paternity suit. That’s the way it was supposed to work. Not the reverse.
And so I stopped for a moment as I walked up the stone path toward his giant Beverly Hills Tudor mansion, took out my handkerchief and wiped my eyes. Then I stuffed it back in my pocket and straightened my tie. I’d left my suitcase in the trunk of my car but I carried my briefcase. I hoped I looked like I was on my way to a meeting. That it happened to be 1:00 A.M.—well, there wasn’t much I could do about that.
I rang the doorbell. It wasn’t like ours, the normal ding-dong kind that chimed twice and was done. Victor’s went on and on like a goddamn church organ. Eventually the tiny eye-level door within the giant door opened. Then, seeing it was me, Victor’s maid opened it. She was wearing a robe and had one curler in the middle of her forehead.
“Good evening, Mr. Todd.”
“Hello, Zelda. Sorry to wake you.”
“No trouble. Please come in.”
Zelda closed the door behind me and reset the alarm.
Victor came creeping down the stairs, hair standing on end, holding a baseball bat.
“Greyson?”
He put the bat down. “Zelda, you can go back to bed. Thank you for … just—”
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you, Zelda.”
“It was no bother. Good night.”
Victor watched until she was out of sight. Then he turned to me. “What the hell’s going on? Why are you—?”
“Well,” I said, popping open my briefcase, “there are a few things in your contract I wanted to go over before I meet with—”
“Greyson, what are you doing at my house at …,” he said and looked at the clock on the mantel, “one twenty in the morning?”
“Ellen … uh …” I felt pressure behind my eyes, tears building. I cleared my throat, trying to force them back.
“What? Ellen what?”
“Threw me out,” I whispered.
Victor and Kate insisted I sleep in their guest room for as long as I wanted. For the first few days I was able to play the part of the merely despondent, recently separated spouse. But then I stopped being able to sleep. At all. And I couldn’t control the crying. Every day the feeling of profound loss and overwhelming panic, feelings which existed concurrently, ate me alive. And the only person I could tell—the only person I’d ever been able to tell—wouldn’t talk to me.
And so, late at night, when Victor and Kate and the kids and Zelda and the live-in nanny were sleeping, I would walk the grounds and halls of Victor’s mansion wearing a borrowed bathrobe and sobbing, begging Ellen to take me back. And in the morning I would shower and shave and make sure no one knew. Until I got caught.
I was huddled in a corner of Victor’s kitchen. As if I were talking to Ellen. Crying and talking. And rocking back and forth, because the motion—I don’t know why—created a tiny buffer against the panic. It was a particularly bad night.
That’s bullshit. If I’m honest, it was a night like any other during that time.
“Jesus, Grey.” When Victor turned on the bright overhead light, I turned my face to the wall. I was humiliated. He walked over and pulled me up and I leaned on him, shaking. I wanted to give in; to let myself fall apart and be held by him, by this man I knew wanted to be my friend. I wished more than almost anything that was an option. Instead, I did my best impression of someone who was pulling himself together.
“I’m fine,” I said, quickly turning to stone. “You can’t tell anyone about this.”
Victor put his hand on my shoulder. “Grey, it’s perfectly understandable, you just—”
“No!” I shook my finger at him and left it suspended in the air pointing at him. There was a fine but noticeable tremor in my hand. We both saw it and I lowered my arm to my side. “Nobody! Do you understand?” I stood inches from his face. He didn’t move and his eyes didn’t leave mine.
“I think I do,” he said, nodding. “Nobody. I promise.”
I nodded back. And then I let him hug me. Because I knew he needed to.
Beverly Hills, 1961. On the ride out to Sears, Ellen actually got me to tell her a little bit about Pop. Not a lot, but more than I’d told anyone else except Alan Rothman.
At one point when we were stuck in traffic, she turned to me and put her hand on my knee. “You know, Grey,” she said, “I haven’t met your father, but you’ve never met my mother, and trust me when I tell you she is a ball-busting bitch on wheels. On a good day.”
I was so stunned I almost rear-ended the guy in front of us. And that’s when I knew I was in love.
By the time we got back, the pool party was over. I took her to see Touch of Evil starring Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh instead. Then I drove her home in Van Gilder’s truck. We sat on the
hood down the block from her house and I kissed her good-night. Not such a bad day after all.
I felt pretty great all night and even woke up smiling, until I heard the sound of a loud, persistent car honking. I tried to block it out and replay the date. Ellen. And for a moment the noise went away. But it wouldn’t stop. I went to the window and leaned out. There was my father sitting outside our house in a light-blue Eldorado, leaning on the horn. Neighbors be damned. My mother came rushing outside in her bathrobe.
“Well, whaddaya think?” he asked, with a manic grin on his face.
My first impulse was to get as far away as I could. But I knew I would never do that. There was my mother and Hannah and Jake and Ben. And now there was Ellen. I wondered if there was any way I could keep her from ever meeting him.
Beverly Hills, June 1982. I’d made a reservation at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel. They had an enormous Swedish apple pancake that Willa loved and an enormous Bloody Mary that would get me through Father’s Day brunch with Ray. My first Father’s Day without Ellen. Without Ellen to act as a buffer between my father and me. To hold my hand and reassure me for the millionth time. And I needed it this year more than ever. Because six months earlier I had accepted Sydney Freeman’s offer to come work for him at the studio. He’d been bumped upstairs and needed a new President of Production. I couldn’t pass it up. And I was terrified of running the place into the ground.
No one but Ellen knew how frightened I was of getting close enough to catch what my father had. As if failure were contagious. I’d thought about asking Ellen to come today but I knew she wouldn’t. Despite the fact that I had met all of her demands—medication, therapy, all of it—she still wouldn’t let me move back in. Those were the requirements for seeing Willa, she said, not her. I wasn’t going to go looking for more rejection. So I didn’t even bother to ask.
Willa and I climbed the stairs to the outdoor balcony that led past apartments 2A through F and down to the corner unit where Ray lived. Some of the doors were closed but most were wide open, the screen doors providing a sort of Emperor’s New Clothes nod to privacy. I should have told Willa not to stare in, but I couldn’t help looking myself. Old people sat in front of their TVs eating alone, being fed by an aid or feeding their own rapidly degenerating spouses. We stopped in front of Ray’s door.
I rang the bell.
I was feeling guilty and defensive. Which was absurd. Hannah, Ben, Jake, and I had looked for weeks before I signed the lease on this place.
I knocked.
So, it wasn’t Club Med. But it did have a central courtyard with a pool. And there was a senior center across the street that did mixers, outings, and Trivial Pursuit parties for single seniors. It wasn’t my fault if he didn’t go. Was I supposed to drag him there myself?
I knocked again.
Not to mention it was in Beverly Fucking Hills. This was no goddamned nursing home. I refused to feel guilty.
We waited.
“Maybe he’s asleep,” Willa said, setting down the Saks bag that held the expensive overcompensation gift I’d bought my father.
I looked at my watch. “No, sweetie. Grandpa knows we have a reservation. And he can’t wait to see you.”
I took out my keys and sifted through them, looking for Ray’s. It was shiny and bright and unused. “Okay, we’re goin’ in,” I said, trying to make the familiar dread, anxiety, and disappointment I felt sound like an adventure.
The apartment was dark and silent. The sharp slivers of sunlight that managed to sneak through the closed blinds did nothing but illuminate the layers of dust and lint that had settled on every surface. The place smelled of dirty laundry, bad breath, and sour milk. Shit. Either the cleaning lady I’d hired was falling down on the job or she and my father had had a falling out. Some time ago.
“Daddy, it smells in here,” Willa said, burying her nose in my cashmere sports jacket.
“I know, baby, but I’m going to clean it up, okay? I just have to say hello to Grandpa first.”
“Can I come with you?”
Let’s see, how much trouble would I be in with Ellen if—worst-case scenario—Willa saw Grandpa lying in a pool of his own blood? “Why don’t you wait here? Grandpa might not be dressed yet.”
“Mmkay.”
I left her sitting on the living room couch with the TV remote in her hand and her nose stuck down inside the collar of her pink-and-white dress.
I turned hesitantly toward my father’s bedroom. I pushed the door open and the putrid smell got stronger. I walked into the room and stood at the end of the bed. It was really dark but I could make out a form, a lump lying on the bed buried under the covers.
“Pop?” If he were dead, it would probably smell even worse in here, I thought.
“Pop, come on, it’s Grey.” Something moved. I went around to the side and pulled a fistful of covers back.
I had to fight the impulse to run. I so wanted this—him—not to be my problem. Undershirt stained with food and sweat, pajama bottoms stained with urine, red-rimmed eyes, greasy hair, yellow teeth, dirty fingernails. I desperately wished Ellen were here to help. She was always so good with him. And then I stopped and looked at him again. Had I ever been this bad? Was I ever this much of a burden to her? Bad, yes, but this bad?
And suddenly I was very glad she was not here. “All right, Pop, up an’ at ’em,” I said, looking into vacant eyes.
“Nnooo.”
His voice was ragged. Lack of use. Crying. Probably a combination.
“Yes. I’m gonna help you. We had a date today, remember?”
I took off my sports jacket and rolled up the sleeves of my dress shirt. I kept talking to him from the bathroom while I turned on the shower.
“A date?” he mumbled.
He was using words. Progress. I pulled him into a sitting position.
“Sure, it’s Father’s Day. We’re going to the Polo Lounge. You and Willa and me.”
“Willa?”
“She’s right here in your living room, waiting for you.” I hoped knowing that his only grandchild was sitting in the next room would provide incentive. Instead, Pop started to cry.
“I can’t, I can’t,” he sobbed.
This was not the particular kind of shitty I was expecting today. I sat down on the bed next to him and put my arm around him. He leaned his greasy head against my shoulder.
“Yes, you can, Pop. I’m going to help you. I’m going to help you feel better, okay?”
He looked at me with the scared, watery eyes of a child lost in a department store. I hadn’t done this in a long time. It’s nothing like riding a bike, but it does come back to you just the same.
I spent the next twenty minutes helping my sixty-year-old father take a shower—making sure he washed his genitals and shampooed his hair and cleaned his nails. Then he sat on the toilet seat while I shaved him.
Some people learn to bake by watching their mothers. I learned this.
When I went to check on Willa, she was sitting in virtually the same position I’d left her in.
“Sweetie, you could have turned on the TV.”
“I have to pee.”
There was a bathroom right off the living room. “Well go ahead. You don’t have to ask.”
Willa shook her head.
“Why not? What’s …” I flipped the light on in the bathroom and found myself staring into a toilet bowl full of festering excrement. Apparently, even flushing had been too much of an effort for Pop.
We had long since missed our reservation by the time Pop got around to putting on the new clothes I’d bought him. Willa was starving. I poked around in Pop’s cabinets hoping for an unopened box of crackers but came up empty.
Willa opened the refrigerator door before I could stop her. The smell nearly knocked us both over. I slammed the door shut and rolled my sleeves up for the second time in an hour. I took a deep breath and opened the door again. Christ, the contents of the vegetable drawer had liquefied. It was
impossible to tell what had once been what. I pulled out the whole thing and poured the rotten mess into the trash. On the top shelf, a distended plastic bottle of milk struggled to hold its shape against the gases building inside.
And then I realized it was pointless. Even if I cleaned out his refrigerator and threw out the piles of moldy takeout containers and detoxed his bathrooms, my father still couldn’t stay here alone tonight. I was going to have to take him home with me.
A surge of acid shot up from my gut into my esophagus. Thick metallic-tasting saliva filled my mouth. My esophageal sphincter began to spasm. I dropped the sponge I’d been using and clawed at my sternum.
Willa looked up from the TV. “Daddy, you don’t look so good.”
“Fine … sweetie … jacket … please?”
There were four Rolaids left in the package I carried in the breast pocket of my sports coat. I ate them all. By the time I finished chewing the chalky white tablets, I looked like a rabid dog. They barely took the edge off. I was going to have to get something stronger.
My father shuffled slowly into the room just then, looking remarkably normal. Except for the fact that he was effectively doing fifteen in a sixty-five-mile-an-hour speed zone. And the fact that he’d neglected to take any of the tags off the new clothes he was wearing. And that he was wearing slippers. Other than that, he was good to go.
I put his toothbrush and some clean underwear and pajamas in the Saks bag. Anything else he could borrow from me. As soon as we got home I would be on the phone with all three of my siblings, reaming them out for not living close enough to deal with this shit. One of them would be on a plane first thing in the morning to take over. There would be no negotiation. Tomorrow I’d have my secretary get a professional cleaning crew in here. Or maybe I’d just torch the place. In the meantime I had to find us someplace to go for Father’s Day lunch. Someplace we didn’t need reservations. Someplace that served enormous goddamned Bloody Marys.
We went to the Hamburger Hamlet. Nothing fancy. And Willa was happy because, as far as she was concerned, they made the best root beer float in town. But little by little, I could see that Pop was starting to scare her.
Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See Page 19