Well, I’ll just get some tomorrow.
After he picked up most of the cocaine from the floor, he then brushed the rest of it away and blew it under the sink. He exited the bathroom and walked down to Mr. Simpson’s studio, feeling the full effects of the drug, looking as if the hallway was moving to his sight.
Darell entered the studio, hearing Tom say in a sarcastic way, “Well, it’s about time.”
Mr. O’Conner sat down next to the white blankets and lighting of a candle’s flame, and spoke with highness to his voice, “Alright, Peter, let’s do this.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Julienne watched Jose’s sleeping image, staring at him by the morning sunlight’s brightness, waiting to see Jose’s eyes, and smile. She lay in her bed, seeing how close she could get to his face, before he woke up; it was a challenge. She moved up to his image, feeling, hearing and smelling Jose’s breath as it exhaled in her room, and wondering what he was dreaming at that moment. She then put her lips up to his, without touching them, and waited for his eyes to open; but they didn’t. So, she placed her lips on his, and his eyes opened, awakening to the beautiful sight of Julienne. “Alright, Jose, guess what today is, baby?”
He smiled, stretching his arms to the back of the bed, feeling the warm California sun baking against his flesh, waking up his whole body with its natural warmth. He looked at her, smiling still, and responded with sarcasm, “Let me guess, um, oh, isn’t today Saturday?”
“Yes it is, and guess where we’re going today?”
He gave her another kiss, holding her tightly, and answered with even stronger sarcasm than before, “Um, I don’t know, Disneyland?”
“No, today’s your screen test, silly,” she laughed out.
“Oh, that’s right,” he said with a bit of laughter mixed in with his words. Getting out of bed, he walked over to the bathroom that was connected to her bedroom, adding, “What time do I have to go at?”
“Well, I called Dennis yesterday, and he said it’s at 12:00 p.m. So, you better get in the shower and get ready, you only have a few hours left.
Ring, ring, ring, ring.
The cordless phone started to ring. Julienne picked it up while Jose was putting shaving cream on his face, saying, “Hello, this is Julienne Wells speaking.” She looked at Jose through the half-closed door and began to walk away from it, adding into the phone again, “hello?”
“Hello, Julienne, it’s Mike Sullivan calling.”
Jose walked toward the bathroom door, and looked at Julienne standing in the middle of the room, talking on the phone in a secretive way. “Who is it?” Jose asked as the shaving cream dripped off his face like melted ice cream.
“It’s my agent.” She put the phone up to her ear again, watching Jose as he entered completely into the bathroom, beginning his shaving ritual.
Mike said, “Listen, Julienne, I have to discuss something with you today.”
Julienne saw Jose’s reflection in the vanity, briefly, and saw that he was making funny faces toward her, sticking his tongue out, and crossing his eyes. So, she started laughing, giggling over the phone, “Sure, but what time?”
“Let’s get together at 12:30 today.”
“I can’t, I have to be somewhere else at 12:00 o’clock noon today. How about we get together after 4:00 p.m.?” she questioned with laughter, still seeing Jose making funny faces at her from the bathroom.
“No, we have to get together at 12:30, it’s very important.”
Her laughter came to a halt, stopped at a moment’s notice, and turned away from Jose’s face, sitting down on the bed in a leisurely way. She didn’t respond yet, still holding the phone to her ear, noticing that her agent, Mike, said those words with magnitude. “What do you mean, Mike, why do you have to talk to me so urgently?”
“I’ll explain it to you when you come here. Goodbye.” Mike hung up the phone on her, leaving nothing but silence to the phone’s receiver.
“Hello, hello?” She heard a dial tone coming from the phone, and a blanket of fright came over her eyes, wondering why he needed to talk to her so badly, and what the outcome was going to be when he finished his discussion with her.
She looked down at her Chinese rug and began to feel sick to her stomach, butterflies were soaring through her intestines, fluttering against her lining. She got up from the bed and hung up the phone while thinking in her mind, He got me an audition.
She sat back on her bed with a smile upon her face, knowing for sure that it was that, and the nervousness caused her fright to make the butterflies swarm even faster, bouncing up and down inside of her body.
Jose finished shaving and splashed some green aftershave onto his face. He glanced into the mirror to the sight of Julienne, sitting on the bed, staring at the floor, so he questioned, “What happened with your agent? What did he want?”
“Um, listen, Jose, I can’t make the screen test, you’re going to have to go alone. I’ll have my chauffeur drive you there and pick you up later.” Julienne sat there with a nervous but happy look on her face, but still didn’t look at him; she just lurked at the floor.
“What happened? Why can’t you make it?” Jose exited the bathroom and sat next to her, adding, “I mean, I don’t know anything about this, and I don’t even know anything about the contract I’m hopefully gonna sign today.”
“Listen to me, just sign anything you get offered, but only sign it if Mr. Schultz offers it to you, no one else.” She then got up from the bed and entered the bathroom.
“Alright, but I don’t--”
She cut off Jose’s voice, saying, “Listen, I’ll discuss it all to you later, I don’t even know myself what he wants.”
Julienne closed the bathroom door, and left Jose with a feeling that this matter was very important to her; the way she avoided this important day so casually, he knew that it had something to do with her career.
“Alright, I’ll get ready in the downstairs bathroom.” Jose tried to stay out of Julienne’s way, adding to the closed door, “I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”
Julienne ogled at her beauty in the bathroom mirror’s reflection. She opened the drawer to her vanity and took out a rolled up fifty-dollar bill, still gazing at her beautiful image, smiling at herself. She picked up a miniature bottle filled with cocaine and began to drop the white powder in the palm of her shaky hand. “This is it, Julienne, you know Mike got you a big part, maybe it’s an Oscar role. Oh, please let Mike tell me something good,” she spoke to her reflection right before she took a sniff of the white substance with the rolled-up fifty. Staring at a picture of Jose sitting on top of the bathroom sink, she whispered to it, “Some director probably saw me at the premiere with Jose, and they probably heard he was going to be in a Dennis Schultz movie.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Damen woke up in a deep sweat, flashing open his eyes because of a nightmare he had while he was sleeping, and turned to look at Vivian; but she wasn’t there. He took a deep breath and got up from the bed. He ran to his dresser and opened it in a speedy fashion. Damen began looking for a particular object as he threw all of his clothes and Vivian’s onto the ground, reaching deep into the drawer, suddenly feeling a flat object. A smile came over his face as he pulled out the object that he was searching for; it was a picture of him, Jose, Darell, and the Valley. He sat down on the bed and kept on staring at it, that’s when he said out loud, “It was only a nightmare.” The flashbacks came to his thoughts about the dream, seeing Jose and Darell walking by him and not saying “hi” to him. In his dream, they didn’t know him, and that was what made it a nightmare. He kept on staring at the photo, gawking at it, trying to take this dream that manifested his mind into believing it was reality for a moment, and then came back into reality; it was only a dream. As he gazed at it, Vivian entered the bedroom with her apron and waitress uniform on.
She looked at Damen’s sweaty face, seeing his eyes only staring at a photo, and questioned, “What’s wrong with you, D
amen?”
He still dazed at the photo, whispering, “Nothing, I was just thinking about something.” He placed the photo in his wallet and still looked at it, like he wanted that moment to be real again.
That’s when he looked closer to the photo, seeing these three figures, the trees and the Valley in the background, colored with green pastures and foliage that seemed like a painting, and suddenly saw that moment again. The trees in the photo started to sway with the wind, and the figures started moving about, laughing; a flashback began.
“Come on, Maria, just take the photo,” Jose’s young self laughed out, standing on the side of Damen.
She flashed the camera once, and put it down, saying, “Alright, I took it, now let’s just get this over with.”
They stood around in a circle, feeling the wind winding around their images, blowing against it in a peaceful force, and all held one needle in their hands.
Damen pricked his finger with the needle first, saying, “Alright, guys, prick your fingers.”
Darell and Jose pricked theirs, but Maria didn’t, stating, “Listen, you boys do your little testosterone thing, I’ll just watch.”
“Alright,” Damen said, putting his bloody finger toward the middle of the circle. “This will mean we’ll be blood brothers, and nothing could, and will never take that away from us,” he added. They all touched bloody fingers against one another’s, feeling the wind, this moment, flushing against their flesh.
That’s when Damen was taken out from his flashback, by the sound of Vivian asking, “Hello, Damen, are you listening to me? I asked what you were thinking about?” Vivian took off her apron and put it in her brown quilted purse, seeing Damen’s eyes leaving the photo, and placing their full attention on her face. “You know, if you tell someone what’s bothering you, it’s a lot better than keeping it inside your mind. Trust me, I should know,” Vivian added, looking at her scars on her wrist for only a glance. “Come on, what’s bothering you?”
“It’s just everything in general.”
Vivian grabbed the photo ever so gently from his grasp and began to look it over. “What’s this?”
“That’s me, Jose, and Darell at the age of twelve, and that’s Sugar Valley in the background.” He got up and paced the bedroom, still thinking about that dream he had.
Vivian looked at the photo more, mentioning, “So this is that famous Valley you talk about?”
“Yep, that’s her.”
“You’re right, it is very beautiful,” Vivian said, looking at the colorful hills, the blue lake, and the trees that made up the Valley.
“Yeah, that it is, and I left it for this,” he agreed in a frustrated tone, grabbing the photo from Vivian and beginning to put it in the drawer again.
She looked at him with widened eyes, saying with sarcasm, “Oh gee, thanks.”
“No, I don’t mean it like that. It’s just, I left something so beautiful to come here. I mean, I work in a café, for crying out loud. I wanted to become an actor, not a busboy in a cheap café.”
Vivian watched Damen pace up and down the room, seeing the frustration in his eyes and the confusion in his motion. “Damen, what’s wrong? What, do you miss Sugar Valley?”
“You know, Jose got in a movie, Darell is already beginning to be known in Hollywood. You, you got an agent already, and you have an audition for a TV show that you will most definitely get. Now, tell me what’s wrong with this picture?” His pacing came to a halt, waiting for Vivian to answer his question, hoping that she’d say words of encouragement.
“What do you mean? Listen, Damen, you already have an appointment with an agent,” Vivian replied as she understood Damen’s question.
“No, that’s not good enough. Everyone is changing, can’t you see that?” Damen asked as he walked into the other room and lit up a cigarette.
“Listen, Damen, you’ll get there. You’ll be higher than Darell and Jose put together,” Vivian announced in a forceful tone as she followed Damen.
“No, I don’t want that, I want to be the same as them, that was the plan in the first place. We all made an agreement that we would help out each other here, so that way we all would have a piece of this place they call Hollywood,” Damen said as his voice grew louder. “I mean, did you see the way Jose was acting when he was over here? It was like he was hiding something from me,” Damen said after he took a drag from his cigarette.
Vivian grabbed his hand, trying to calm him down, and responded, “Yeah, I did notice that, but that’s what you have to accept.”
“No, I don’t have to accept anything. You see, that’s what’s bothering me so much. Jose isn’t the best actor in the world, and it showed. I just wish we could all be close again.”
Damen followed Vivian’s hand, guiding him out of the room and into the front-room. They both sat down on the couch, with her saying “Listen.” She looked down at her watch suddenly, adding with panic, “Oh no, we got to go now or else we’re gonna be late for work.”
She let go of his hand, and ran toward the door, noticing that Damen wasn’t running with her. She turned around, and saw him putting out his cigarette in a soda can, telling her, “I’m not going.”
Vivian opened up the apartment door, and asked, “What are you going to do then?”
“I’m gonna call up that agent today and see if he could schedule me an appointment this morning. I’m also gonna call this Dennis Schultz guy. He said something about contacting him this February, but the sooner, the better,” Damen responded, staring at the business card that Dennis gave to him.
“Damen, your appointment is tomorrow for that agent. Why don’t you just wait till then?”
“Because, I’m depressed, confused, and to top it off, I don’t want to wait till tomorrow. I’m gonna get everything over with today,” Damen answered in a serious manner.
She stepped out into the hallway, smelling the heat-filled scum that it held, and saying before closing the door, “Alright, it’s your life. But give me a call and tell me what’s going on. I’ll tell Chuck you were sick or something.”
As Damen sat there on the couch and watched the phone, he began to think of words to say. He started to fight over which one he should call first; it was between the business card and the letter from the agent. Damen then ran across the room and grabbed another pack of cigarettes. Sitting down once again, Mr. Schultz dialed the number that was on the letter. He hung up before he could finish dialing the final digit and began dialing the number that was on the business card. Before he could hang up, a woman answered and asked in a pleasant tone, “Hello, Dennis Schultz’s office, can I help you?”
Damen paused for only a few seconds and tried to remember what his own name was. He swallowed his saliva mixed with tar from his cigarette smoke and replied, “Hi, um, my name is Damen Schultz. Could I speak to Dennis Schultz?”
“Do you have an appointment with Mr. Schultz?”
“Um, um, yeah, he just told me to call up him, and on the same day he would fit me in for an interview,” Damen responded, showing a phony voice because of his lying; he began his acting.
“Well, Mr. Schultz is in a meeting right now, do you want me to take a message?”
Damen tried his hardest to think up of something else to say, answering, “Um, is there any way you could set me up for an appointment today? It’s very urgent that I see Mr. Schultz. Can you?”
The secretary looked through Dennis Schultz’s schedule book, speaking, “Here, he’s free at 4:00 p.m., but I’m just going to double check with him. I’ll be right back, sir.”
She put the phone on hold, and walked up to a big brown door that had Dennis’ name engraved on it in gold. She knocked on it three times and paused. “Who is it?” Mr. Schultz questioned, staring at his client who was seated in front of his desk.
“Excuse me, sir, but I have a client on line one, he says it’s urgent,” the secretary said.
Mr. Schultz got up from his chair and opened the door. “Well, find a spot
that’s free on my schedule and place him there, I’ve got a client right now,” Dennis said in a nervous way, smiling back to his client and then frowning to his secretary.
“Yes, sir, sorry about interrupting you.” The secretary walked back to her desk, lifted the phone up to her ear again, asking, “Hello, are you still there?”
“Yeah.”
“Alright, you could come in at 4:00 p.m. today. Bring your portfolio and resume,” she said. Damen put out his fifth cigarette and lit up another one.
“I didn’t know I had to bring a portfolio and resume in. Mr. Schultz said that he had, or still has, a job for me. It’s some role in a movie that he wants me to try out for,” Damen explained with nervousness, holding onto his cigarette tight, squeezing the tobacco with his grasp.
“Um, um, alright, tell me your name again and I’ll see if it’s on file. Mr. Schultz usually has his future clients on file. But normally, people are required to bring a photo and resume.”
“Oh, well, I have a photo, but no resume.”
The secretary blew a gasp of frustrated air for her mouth, questioning, “Just tell me your name?”
“Damen Schultz.”
She typed in his name, letter after letter, and watched as Damen’s name appeared. The thing is, his name appeared in the old file, the file that should have been erased. She read his file and said to him, “Here we go: it says here that Dennis is interested in you for the co-star role in a movie he’s shooting with his brother in February.” She paused to read a little bit more of his file. “So, that means you don’t have to bring anything, just yourself,” she added.
Damen started jumping up and down on his couch, giving silent screams of joy. But then, he paused from jumping, asking, “Does it really say all that?”
Sugar Valley (Hollywood's Darkest Secret) Page 44