by Liana Maeby
“Do you?” Mel asked. “I’m not sure I’m sold on it.”
“How come?”
“I dunno. I’m from a small town, and I miss it. I was in LA for a little bit, and then I was gonna move to Peru. My girlfriend’s there. She’s a photojournalist, doing a book on the indigenous tribes of South America. But I landed the role of Gracie, so I guess I have to call this place home.”
“You don’t have a home. This is just a place that wants to know you, and a place it makes sense for you to say you know.”
“I’m too high to tell if that’s the most profound thing I’ve ever heard or the stupidest.”
“Absolutely the latter.”
“Yeah.” Melanie made circles with her dangling feet. Her right shoe flew off and went tumbling downward, where it landed in a puddle. “Oops.”
A cab rolled over the shoe and flattened it. We both winced at the same time, like the car had smashed our bodies instead.
“Okay, so you dig New York,” Mel said. “How do you feel about LA?”
“Hard to say. It’s the only place I know. I mean, at this point, I don’t think I could even leave it. And try something else. Is that sad?”
Melanie kicked off her other shoe, and we both breathed a sigh of relief when it landed softly on a bag of trash. “The world is big.”
“Too big.”
“Enormous.” She shut her eyes and curled her bare feet beneath her. “I think I prefer it small.”
Suddenly dizzy again, I put my head on Mel’s shoulder. I could feel her heartbeat pounding against me, so brave and so sweet. I brushed up against the soft skin of her neck. I let my eyelashes flutter out a Morse code message my brain and mouth were too destroyed to convey, and it made perfect sense. She kissed me gently. We let the horn music wash over us as our lips found some sort of rhythm outside of place and time and ingested substance.
We floated in from the fire escape and landed on the bed, where we strung ourselves out like a tangled-up set of Christmas lights. Melanie’s hands were inside my shirt, and my thigh was up against the small of her back. Skin fused with skin, and hair tangled with hair. Mel moved down the bed and pulled off my leather pants—that safety blanket I had been fearful of shedding all day—but it all suddenly felt okay. There was white powder in the air, and I had no bones, so I couldn’t be scared. Melanie put her head between my legs, and I reached my hand out to touch a scar along the side of her torso. But before I got there, my head clouded, my body was vibrating, and I was just plain gone.
The next morning was hell. Melanie and I both woke up late, hung-over, to a barrage of angry voice mails. I felt like death, but Mel was much sicker than I was. We hailed a cab and stopped on the way to the set so she could buy a cheap pair of flats. All day, Mel kept taking breaks to vomit in her trailer while I held back her hair and the fringe of her suede jacket. I was at the craft services table, alternating sips of coffee with sips of water, when I felt a tap on my shoulder.
“Leila?”
I turned but couldn’t quite place the young face I was looking into.
“It’s Jordan.”
“Oh my God.” It was, in fact, Jordan, my formerly twelve-year-old Adderall dealer who was now fully into the early stages of puberty. Makeup covered a few splotches on his face, and his hair was tousled through with at least three kinds of product. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m in the episode. I play Prince Henry Saint Xavier. I saw your name on the script and wanted to text, but I lost all my old numbers.”
“Well, you look exactly like I pictured Prince Henry. But now I feel bad that I gave your character a pot scene.”
“I think I can handle it.” Jordan smiled. His white teeth and arched eyebrows telegraphed pure confidence. “We’re shooting that later, actually. I love your weed slang. Even though it’s totally fake.”
“Shhh.” I winked. “Don’t tell.”
“All your secrets are safe with me.” He winked back, and I was suddenly blindsided by a deep and choking fear—but for which of us, I wasn’t sure. I took a sip of coffee and a sip of water.
“You look tired,” Jordan said.
“Jet lag.”
“I wish I could help. But you know, I’m not really doing that anymore.”
“No, that’s okay. That’s good.” I nodded aggressively. “I should really go lie down. But hey, it was great to see you, kiddo.”
“Wait.” Jordan reached out and touched my arm with unexpected shyness. “I brought you something.”
He held out a book. It was Mark Twain’s A Double Barrelled Detective Story.
I took the book and looked it over.
“It’s empty,” Jordan said. “Just, you know, pages and stuff.”
“I love it.”
“I don’t know if you’ve read it, but it’s a lesser-known one. I figured, since you’re the one who got me into Twain and all.”
“Thanks, Jordan.” I took the book, and a second later, my eyes were wet. “I’ll read it on the plane home.”
I smiled at the little prince and walked back toward Mel’s trailer. I put the book down on the counter and quickly forgot all about it. Back in Los Angeles, I realized what I’d done and promised myself I’d buy another copy—for my own sake, not his. Jordan was going to be just fine. And I was oddly relieved when I realized it had been me I’d felt scared for.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
After I turned in my next project, a modern retelling of The Emperor’s New Clothes featuring the emperor as a hot teen girl, Harlan goaded me into joining him on a trip to Vegas, along with some of his agency buddies and their clients. It seems he’d become concerned by my behavior. I was showing up to all my meetings late—but still turning all my projects in on time, I always made sure to note—and he decided all would be fixed if I just took a few days off. We flew out to Nevada on some producer’s private jet. I ordered a Bloody Mary and kept my sunglasses on because everything felt too bright.
One of the clients along for the ride was a handsome writer from New York named Ellington, a scowly guy who appeared generally miserable in a fun sort of way. He kept an unlit Marlboro Red in his mouth and had chocolate-brown eyes that seemed distantly amused. After fifteen minutes of flirty glances, I killed my Ray-Bans, hopped out of my seat, and slithered up beside him.
“So,” I said, crunching the ice in my Bloody Mary. “How does a white fella like yourself come to be named Ellington? Parents musicians or just fans?”
“My old man’s a critic. Jazz guy for the Village Voice. He thought Miles was too prosaic.”
“And Thelonious was too poetic.”
Ellington chewed his cigarette. “Leila Massey. I know about you, right? You’re, like, twelve years old, but you already have more credits than half the town.”
“Thirteen, and I’ve hardly even gotten anything made.”
Ellington cackled. “Yeah, well, if getting stuff made was the marker of success in Hollywood, everyone in here would be on a public bus instead of a private jet.”
“What about you? Ever have anything up on the screen to show old Jazz Pop?”
“Couple things. Indie feature that did pretty well at Sundance. A parable-type story that used vampires as a metaphor for zombies.”
“Sounds zeitgeisty,” I said, and Ellington snarled.
The plane was landing in Vegas, so I returned to my seat for the descent and ordered another Bloody Mary. Harlan, sitting in the row in front of me, turned around and looked directly into my eyes. Sans sunglasses, they were the color of my beverage. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, and handed me a bottle of Visine.
As the only woman on the trip, I got my own private suite at the hotel. I took a shower and blow-dried my hair. I jumped into a slinky emerald dress, boosted my system with amphetamines, and left to meet the guys down at the hotel bar. Ellington had spruced up a bit himself. He wore a gray blazer over his plaid shirt, dark corduroy pants, and blue Jack Purcells. The Marlboro in his mouth was lit this time, and
he was playing he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not with shots of bourbon and a glass of IPA.
“Hey, Leila,” Harlan said, interrupting the penetrating once-over I was giving Ellington. “What are you drinking?”
“Bulleit, please.”
One of the other agents, a dimpled dipshit named Brandt, turned his chair so it was facing me. “So we’ve been talking, and we’ve decided you need to take acting lessons.”
I looked at Harlan. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. We think you should be writing stuff for yourself to star in. That’s how you’re going to build a real empire. We want to put a pretty face to all those pretty words.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, guys. I’m not sure I have it in me to be one of those people.”
Ellington turned from his spot at the bar and addressed the row of agents. “Jesus, you’re seriously encouraging someone to become an actress? Here’s the one woman in Hollywood who actually doesn’t want to be on camera, and you’re trying to change her mind? You should be showering Leila with prizes, not pleading for her to take up the profession.”
Brandt looked at me. “Ellington can’t stand LA. He thinks it pales in comparison to his precious New York City. He despises all of us vapid assholes and dearly misses the company of real intellectuals and avant-garde assholes.”
“Fuck you, Brandt.” And with that, Ellington was up and out the door. I downed my drink and followed him. Harlan yelled after me, but I didn’t turn around. I could feel my agent fighting the urge to run over and plead with me to have another drink and maybe book a massage and a facial instead of following the surly writer with the Marlboro Reds down whatever path it might take me.
I found Ellington in front of the elevators, pacing back and forth. He lit another cigarette. “That guy’s a prick,” I said.
“Everyone’s a prick,” Ellington replied. “I fucking hate Vegas.”
“Amen to that. You ever been to Joshua Tree?”
We rented a car and got halfway to our destination before we pulled over and made out furiously in the backseat. Once in town, we checked in to the cheapest, shittiest motel in the area—the furthest thing from our first-rate Vegas digs. And so Ellington and I found ourselves housed inside the yellow-and-brown walls of the San Bernardino County Inn and Out—lying naked on a bed with a busted spring, idly watching a spider work its way across the ceiling, and wondering what in the hell we should do next. For Ellington, that ended up being heroin.
“Look, I’m not a drug addict or anything,” Ellington explained, placing a baggie of yellowish powder on the rickety bedside table. “But when I do partake, heroin is my narcotic of choice.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”
“It’s just that, seeing as this is a vacation and all, I’m going to be ingesting some of this.”
“Yes, I got that.”
“You’re welcome to join me.”
I watched him carefully tap out a bit of powder and cut slender lines—these servings were much more svelte than the mounds of cocaine I was used to inhaling. It was the first time I’d ever seen heroin live and up close, and the hue was what I’d describe first and foremost as “sickly.” Still, I was tempted. And more than that, I was curious.
Since Ellington was only a casual junkie, he sent the drugs racing through his nose without hitching them a ride on the back of a needle. He inhaled a single line, and I witnessed the exact moment the opiates hit his bloodstream. He appeared to be in pain—his eyes clamped shut, and his jaw dropped open. But of course, he wasn’t in pain at all; he was in ecstasy.
“What does it feel like?” I asked.
“Fucking . . . good.”
“Use your damn words.”
“Um . . . it’s warm. Warmer than warm. Like tiny individual blankets have been knit for each one of my cells. Like . . . you know . . .”
Ellington drifted off before he could finish his explanation. But it didn’t matter, because I knew I wanted what he was offering. I craved tiny cell-blankets, warming up my neurons and soothing my blood. I would kill to drift off in ecstasy, to lose my mind for an hour or two. I looked at the remaining lines of heroin sitting right there on the table and thought about how easy it would be to lean over and snort one up. How nice it would be to give my brain a break.
But I didn’t do it. I wasn’t quite there yet. The time would come when the sickly pale yellow of powdered heroin would be as familiar to me as the sickly pale yellow of the back of my hand, but it wasn’t going to be here inside this hotel room. Not just yet.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I soon dropped unceremoniously out of USC, leaving for winter break and just never going back. I was writing instead of attending class anyway, and I figured I’d gotten about as much out of the place by then as I ever would. Harlan had consistently landed me jobs doing adaptations and rewrites for teen-focused projects, and he figured it was time for me to start taking on bigger, more name-making scripts.
He called me up one day. “I’m sending you an article. It’s about a cult leader, man named Marshall Viner. Guy herded all these teenage runaways out to his ranch in Central California in the seventies, and half of them were never heard from again.”
“Sounds up my alley.”
“Tell me what you’d think about doing an adaptation. The studio just attached an actor, and they’re looking for fresh blood to hammer out a script. I think I can get this for you.”
“Who’s the actor?”
“Guy named Johnny Isherwood. You know who that is?”
My heart skipped a beat. I knew who he was, all right—in fact, I knew more about Johnny Isherwood than I could admit to without suffering grave embarrassment. Dark-haired, green-eyed, and slightly snaggletoothed, Johnny had started his career as a teenage model in NYC. He was soon bitten by the acting bug and starred as Prior Walter in a revival production of Angels in America. Rumor had it, he was bitten by the heroin bug not long after that. Nevertheless, Johnny was quickly snapped up for an HBO ensemble drama about the world of professional ballet, and he simultaneously booked half a dozen leading roles in indie features. He was right on the precipice of superstardom, and the cult movie could be a breakthrough gig for both of us.
Harlan worked his magic, and I landed the job. However, the producers constantly reiterated what a risk they were taking by entrusting the project to my delicate little lady hands, and Harlan was forced to vow fervently on my behalf that I wouldn’t let them down—which meant I’d actually have to do some research. But first, I was going to meet with Johnny.
“You’re good to do this, right?” Harlan asked me one evening over breakfast. “I mean, you have your shit together these days, yes?”
“Of course,” I said, and halfway meant it. “Everything is totally under control.”
Johnny wanted to convene on the Universal lot. He passed along his cell number and told me to text him when I arrived. He didn’t respond to any of my inquiries as to where, exactly, on the Universal lot he felt like meeting, so I parked my car somewhere central and typed out a missive. Where to? Commissary? Office bldg? Men’s rm glory hole?
Johnny sent back a building address and told me to wait outside. I walked to the spot and fussed with my hair. I checked my eye makeup and smoothed my tank top over and over until I could see the silk starting to fade. After ten minutes, a golf cart came zooming around the corner, pushing every bit of its half-a-horse-power. Johnny was smoking a cigarette in the driver’s seat. He wore a plain black shirt and his hair, shaved on the sides, was slicked into a pompadour. If Ellington had been a four or a five on the scale of junkie mystique, Johnny was a full-on ten.
“You the writer?” Johnny asked, his head slowly rolling around to look at me.
I nodded.
“Well? Hop in,” he said, barely giving me time to scramble into the passenger seat before revving up that pathetic little engine and zooming off.
“I’m Leila,” I said, and Johnny just nodded.
We drov
e in silence for a minute. “Where are we going?” I asked.
“You ever done the Universal tour?”
“As a kid I think, yeah. Whoopi Goldberg narrates it or something?”
“Fuck if I know,” Johnny said as the cart zoomed onto the backlot. The front part of the Universal lot was all office buildings and soundstages while the back section contained old sets—some of which were still being used for production. Johnny drove us through a Western ghost town that radiated emptiness, and brown paint peeling under the flat North Hollywood sun.
“Are you shooting something here on the lot?” I asked.
Johnny ignored my question and began to narrate like a tour guide. “This here is Old Western Town. Which was used in that great movie The Sheriff of Old Western Town.”
He zipped the cart past a saloon and a county jail, and around to an enormous water pit. “If you look to your left, you’ll see the pool that was used in that famous diving sequence in The Graduate. Which is a completely overrated movie.”
“Blasphemy!” I cleared my throat and lowered my voice. “Although it looks far too large to be a regular swimming pool, such a set was necessary to keep Dustin Hoffman’s nose in perspective.”
Johnny cracked the barest trace of a smile and kept driving. Eventually, we rounded the corner toward the Bates Motel, the legendary building from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Here, Johnny idled the golf cart. He lit another cigarette and glanced up the hill.
“Should we get out,” I started, “or . . . ?”
Johnny blew a smoke ring. A minute later, one of the big blue tourist trams began driving up the hill. As it crept up to the set, the door of the Bates Motel suddenly swung open and a man—Norman Bates himself—walked out wielding a giant knife. He stalked toward the tram, and a couple of tourists shrieked. But just in time, the tram started up again and continued driving up the hill. Norman put down his knife and walked casually back into the motel.