Madeline Carter - 01 - Mad Money

by Linda L. Richards

  I could feel that grace when the maitre d’ led me across the restaurant to our table. Emily was seated and nibbling corn chips and salsa and sipping a fresh-looking glass of red wine. The maitre d’ brought me to the table and announced me to her as though to a visiting princess: “Your companion has arrived senorita,” he said seating me. “And have you found everything to your satisfaction thus far?”

  “Perfect, Carlo,” Emily said with a smile. “Thank you. Everything is perfect. As always.”

  That’s the other thing Emily does that I can never believe: she remembers everyone’s name and seemingly every bit of information about them that’s been let loose around her. If she’d ever heard the name of Carlo the maitre d’s cat, she’d remember that, too.

  The restaurant we’d chosen is about old world decorum more than nachos. I imagine it to be the kind of Mexican restaurant Spencer Tracey would have taken Katherine Hepburn back in the olden, olden, olden days. In fact, he probably did: I think it’s been here that long. But it’s big and dark and grand and opulent in an old Hollywood sort of way, which is to say quite opulent, indeed. The kind of place where the tablecloths are crisp and linen and the serving staff all talk quietly and wear very soft shoes. I let Carlo seat me and returned Emily’s smile. “You were right,” I said, looking around. “This is an incredible place.”

  “What’s up?” She replied, reminding me of something that I’d noted about her almost from the first: in addition to being upbeat and fun to be around, she’s also sometimes eerily attuned to the moods of others. Another part of the aforementioned grace and perhaps the budding director’s intuition. Only right this second I wasn’t in the mood for attunement or even unburdening.

  “I wouldn’t even know where to start. It’s been a pretty odd day.”

  She nodded, “I can see that on your face.” A waiter appeared and she ordered a glass of wine for me without any consultation. “Now tell me,” she said when he’d gone away. And, much to my surprise, I did.

  I told her all of it, and every time a waiter would stop by to take our order, she’d shoo him away with a polite and graceful hand movement, not wanting to interrupt my narrative. I began the story at the beginning with bumping into Ernie and showers and sandwiches, to my conversation with Sal, the debacle with my mom, through to the pull that had brought me to Langton, my run in with the receptionist, my chat with Steve Rundle and rechristening myself as Madison, right up to my flight from the area, sure for a while that I would be hunted down and apprehended.

  After I’d finished, Emily didn’t say anything for a minute. Just sat quietly as though thinking it all through and contemplating an appropriate response. Finally she said softly, “You’ve had a busy day.”

  I grinned at that, maybe somewhat gratefully. Because, with a single line, she’d broken it all down into something digestible. She commiserated with me about my mother (since she has one too, she understood), got me to give her more details about Ernie, asked for a description of Steve and said she’d love to have been there for my run-in with the receptionist. And all of her questions seemed at least partly designed to make me feel less freaked out by the silliness I’d been getting up to this day, more comfortable with all of it as part of the past: recent, but still behind me. All of it, I’d discovered quickly, warmly and typically Emily. She followed this, though, with something that surprised me.

  “So what about this Hyatt thing?”

  At first I didn’t even understand what she was talking about. Hyatt. Thing. Hyatt thing. The words together didn’t hold meaning. By the time I’d forced them to, she’d gone to another level. I could see it on her face. I don’t know why I was so surprised. Already knowing her proclivity for crashing, I guess I should have seen it coming.

  “Oh, Em. No. No, no, no.”

  “What do you mean, ‘No’? It’s too perfect, don’t you see?”

  “But weren’t you listening? Didn’t you hear? I told you: the killer-receptionist-from-hell saw me, Em. She wanted to see my driver’s license…” Even as I said it, it sounded lame.

  “And how stupid is that? Anyway, she’s not going to be there.”

  “She’s not? You consulted the oracle?”

  Emily didn’t even bother looking miffed. “No oracle needed. You’re just being theatrical and you know it,” she made an airy motion with her hand. And she was calling me theatrical.

  “I know it?”

  “Of course you do. I know you’ve been doing this stock thing forever. And you know that I don’t know the first thing about it,” I nodded, she had me there. “OK then,” she went on, “since when do receptionists go to Hyatt-dos? They don’t. Even I know that.”

  That was true. It was possible she might go, but not very likely. Nonetheless, I still didn’t think showing up uninvited for a corporate bash was such a great idea. After all, I’d just spent most of a venti latté persuading myself that I’d been silly in pursuing any of this in the first place. I’d told Emily that. I told her again. That’s when it got me: never mind what I wanted, she wanted to go. From her perspective, I’d had a fun afternoon playing Nancy Drew and she wanted in. She is, after all, a Hollywood animal. And nothing makes her rise to a challenge like not being invited to a party that holds even the slightest promise. And, all right then: viewed in that light, and with Emily in heavy persuasion mode, it actually might be fun.

  “And, anyway, just in case, I have a friend in Santa Monica who’s a make-up artist. He’ll completely disguise your appearance.” That’s the other thing about Em: again, consider the business she’s in. From the little I’ve discovered about Hollywood types, it doesn’t matter if they’re the “talent” or they work behind the camera or make sandwiches for the set: there’s a reason they’ve aligned themselves with show business and not some other. That theater thing again. All of them love to pretend. They love the opportunity to be more or less or just somehow other than what they usually, normally, are.

  Our new plan was put in place very quickly. I know we had an elegant if hurried dinner, though I couldn’t tell you what it was. Mine was sumptuous and beef-based and unlike anything I’ve ever heard described as Mexican food before. The few bites I had were delicious and so I felt a little ashamed at just pushing everything around on my plate quite purposefully, but I was just too nervous to eat. Emily’s food was similar, but sans beef — she’s a vegetarian — and we dispensed with desserts or coffees and certainly after dinner drinks. “There’ll be time for all of that at the Hyatt,” she told me wisely, as though we’d been planning it this way all along.

  Then we roared off in Emily’s SUV — a big, black, shiny beast of a thing whose only way of going forward is at a roar — to Santa Monica where her friend Brian lives.

  Brian, Emily told me as we roared, works on a lot of the same not-quite-schlock movies on which Emily makes her living. She’d called him on her cel before we left the restaurant, told him an abridged version of our plan — which included my appearance change, but not why — and he’d said to come on over: it all sounded too fun.

  And really, it was. While we were on our way to his house, Brian had made his living room into a makeshift studio. I gathered from the conversation he and Emily quickly launched into that this was something that happened fairly often: playing dressup at Brian’s house. In addition to movie work, he also dresses a few minor — but, he hastened to add, not insignificant — stars for awards presentations and so on. I also surmised from the look of his nearly shaved pate, flawlessly trimmed eyebrows and long, pearlesent-tinted nails that our man Brian was a crossdresser, or something rather like it.

  Just as we settled in, the doorbell rang and two of Brian’s friends appeared bearing a bottle of wine. Robert was slender and dark and sharply effeminate and I could barely see a trace of Carmen’s masculinity at all. Though it was apparent if you looked closely, he — she? — was Asian, over six feet tall and completely willowy. Carmen had a complexion like a peach and an incredible mane of platinum hair. L
ike our host, these two looked as if they knew a lot more about women’s evening wear than either me or Emily, or even both of us combined. Brian explained our mission to his friends as the wine was opened and poured all around and the trio fairly crackled with excitement at the project before them. We were their willing canvases and it was apparent they liked the challenge.

  Good, I thought, if you’re going to have a makeover — and that’s rapidly what this was turning into — who better to do it than guys who regularly transformed themselves in women? After all, if they could make themselves look like girls, what could they do for bona fide members of the female persuasion? I put myself into my team’s hands and they went to work.

  Brian unearthed a long, straight black wig for me — like Veronica Lake in a dark period — and a creamy, beaded sheath that he assured me was one of his more conservative dresses. It was beautiful: full length but with a slit almost to the crotch. It looked expensive, and not slutty, but definitely more suited to the Oscars than whatever do was doing at the Hyatt.

  “It’s an evening affair,” Brian sniffed when I questioned him about the appropriateness of the dress. “It will be evening wear.” Robert and Carmen nodded agreement and lent assurances and it had all been said in tones that brooked no argument and so, even though with the wig in place and the dress on my back I thought I looked more like a promiscuous Cleopatra than a corporate keener, I kept my mouth shut.

  Emily was transformed, as well. Because she didn’t need disguising, Brian had opted not to cover her hair, instead he somehow miraculously pulled her unruly mop into a sleek and sophisticated chignon. He’d done her makeup expertly and lovingly and Emily’s look was entirely well-bred evening elegance. “I’m beautiful,” she breathed when she looked at herself in the mirror. Brian looked gratified. “You are, darling Emily,” he said to her quietly. “Never doubt it, mon cher. You always are.”

  He’d dressed her in a straight black skirt and a white blouse unbuttoned to a point daringly low, but with a high collar that framed her face. And he provided both of us with evening shawls that complimented our respective outfits and black evening shoes with mercifully moderate heels. From somewhere in his seemingly endless store of supplies, he even produced little evening bags. And everything was perfect. Everything fit perfectly and looked perfect. I could have shopped for a month and not found an ensemble that fit me so well. I imagined a room somewhere at the back of this house dedicated entirely to gorgeous evening clothes just like this in various sizes: from petite five footers to professional basketball players who were also closet queens. It was an image to smile at and I did.

  “I’m too beautiful to operate a motor vehicle,” Emily proclaimed and so we called a cab, which meant first determining which Hyatt we were aiming at. A single phone call confirmed Emily’s accurate guess: the event was being held at the Hyatt Marina Del Rey and, she was assured by the hotel, it was currently in full swing, being held in the Bette Davis Ballroom and, she was discreetly reminded, it was by invitation only.

  “Of course it’s at the Marina,” Emily told me when I asked how she’d been able to guess. “It’s the closest posh hotel to their office, and it would probably be cheaper to hold an event there than somewhere downtown or strictly west side.” An easy deduction to someone wise in the ways of LA party planning or crashing, neither of which, obviously, are my fortes.

  Brian, Robert and Carmen saw us cheerfully to the door, with cries of, “Break their hearts, you lovely flowers” and “are you sure you don’t want us to come?” Which, on another day, to another function, would have actually been pretty fun. I imagined some of the corporate events I’d been to in New York: the tightly buttoned executives and their carefully coifed wives. We would have made a stir arriving with Robert, Carmen and Brian at an event like that. The thought tickled me and I resolved to make it happen some time if I could.

  Once the cab had deposited us at the hotel, Emily knew the way to the Bette Davis Ballroom. “Just trust me,” she said conversationally as we moved through the hotel. “And do what I do.”

  Though there was no uniformed guard posted in front of the ballroom doors, there was someone sitting there waiting to check invitations: A bell hop-dressed young man who looked properly bored at this assignment.

  Emily held us back for a couple of minutes while the door was empty, then as a flurry of people came out, she manipulated us into their midst. “Excuse me,” she said to the bored attendant. “Can you direct us to the ladies room?”

  Once she had the requested directions, we were underway again, following them. I marveled at how effortlessly she’d pulled it all off. And, no: we weren’t in yet. But we may as well have been. She’d angled her cleavage in such a way and struck such a bold pose, there was no way the kid wouldn’t remember that we’d come out of there a second ago, even though we actually hadn’t. Brilliantly simple. There seemed to be no end to Emily’s talents.

  And I was right: when we got back to the “official checkpoint” the kid returned Emily’s smile and pretty much waved us through. And me: I’d been so nervous about the actual getting in part, I hadn’t bothered to waste any nervosity on what we were going to do once we were there. Now that we were, it all washed over me in a big, unpleasant rush.

  As far as ballrooms go, this wasn’t a huge one. But it was LA, not New York, I reminded myself. Not that I needed much reminding: one whole side of the room was open to the night and, beyond the room’s bright lights, I got a sense of the Pacific Ocean whispering at a balustrade. Beautiful and spectacular. It’s so amazing when you can hear the view.

  Perhaps three hundred people were involved in various levels of corporate-type schmoozing. There were round tables with the signs of dinner recently completed still upon them while wait staff moved silently removing plates and debris. Most of the partygoers were either still at their tables, talking in their head office-assigned clusters. Some were beginning to get up and mingle a bit or hook drinks from the servers who were circulating with trays intended for that purpose. And a few were heading out onto the aforementioned terrace. I was relieved to see that Brian and Robert and Carmen had been right: our attire was perfect. Everyone was dressed in what was clearly evening wear and all of the women wore get-ups not that different from mine and Emily’s. We didn’t stand out.

  “So what now?” I asked Emily, conceding to her superior knowledge of how crashers are supposed to act in order to not be detected as such.

  “Do you see him?”

  “Which him?”

  “Your Ernie.”

  “Don’t call him that,” I said, while I scanned the room again, hopeful and apprehensive at once. “Nope. Not a sign.”

  What would Ernie have said if he saw me here? I couldn’t even imagine. And, of course, the other thing I’d noticed in my fast inspection was that there was no sign of sharp-eyed receptionists. I exhaled.

  “Well,” she considered, duplicating my scan. “First we grab a drink, over there,” indicating a waiter circulating with a large tray. “Then, out to smokeland. You had success with that tactic earlier and I like the way that sounds. We can eavesdrop or bond with the locals while we inhale.”

  “I don’t smoke,” I reminded her.

  She grinned. “Neither do I.” And off we went to execute her short term plan. She secured a glass of champagne — or at least, a glass of some champagne-like substance. I opted to be more conservative and held out for the white wine. If they’re not in water I can get somewhat suspicious of bubbles. Then we headed for the terrace, which proved to be every bit as beautiful as those open doors had suggested. You could smell the big, burly city that surrounded us on three sides. You could catch the odor of the ocean and all of its fishy promise. Inevitably and — for me inexplicably — the scent of flowers wafted to us from some unseen place, as they always seem to do in Los Angeles at night.

  Dinner wasn’t long past, so a number of people had made their way outdoors for their after-food smoke or just because being out
can sometimes be better than being in. I was guessing that, for a lot of the players — especially the more senior ones — it was a turning into a pretty tense party. It would be difficult to keep up a celebratory mood when the reason you’re celebrating has vanished into thin air. And if, as I suspected, some of these people knew more than they were saying, that would make things more difficult, not less.

  The terrace was a relief and it wasn’t surprising to see a lot of youthful and less tense faces out there. Where inside there was a sort of smoglike cloud of not-quite-rightness over the proceedings, out here there were the happy sounds of people having fun: laughter, glasses tinkling and unstrained conversation. By unspoken consent, Emily and I maneuvered ourselves over to an open portion of balustrade and settled in to sip our drinks and see and hear what could be seen and heard.

  I hadn’t actually expected to recognize anyone, much less be recognized, so it surprised me, after about one and a half sips of wine and a single glance over the assembled revelers, to see a familiar face. It was even more surprising to see him looking back at me with probably the same look of mild surprise and pleasant recognition on his face. I shouldn’t have been surprised: he belonged here. I didn’t. But he was in evening dress — all black tie and crisp white shirt and… well he looked amazing.

  “You look amazing,” he said as he approached, echoing my thoughts about him so neatly, for a second I thought I’d spoken them aloud. “The Cleo getup threw me for a minute, but it suits you. You’re beautiful.”