Hello Hollywood

by Suzanne Corso

  “Well, gentlemen, to what do we attribute this pleasant surprise?” she asked when she reached us.

  “Yoga,” King said.

  “Destiny,” John said, glancing at me.

  I felt those eyes peering inside me, moving through me with the power and force of a living, sacred thing. I didn’t know if King or Liza noticed it. They were chatting away and ordering from the waiter. I finally wrenched my eyes away from John’s and looked down at the menu, my heart hammering so loudly I was sure that the others could hear it.

  I ordered a grilled chicken wrap and iced tea and allowed myself to tune in on their chatter. Liza, King, and John were deep in conversation about the shooting schedule, which had been delayed by several days, another detail Paul had neglected to tell me.

  Actually, I hadn’t spoken to Paul since that scene at his place, so of course he hadn’t told me squat.

  “Why the delay?” I asked.

  “Paul’s son has to be in court, and he wants to be there,” King replied. “We don’t really need him on the set opening day, but we don’t want to rob him of being there. Our principals said it’s fine with them. It gives them another few days to prepare.”

  Would they feel that way if I’d told them what had happened at Paul’s house? Or would they just think of me as some drama queen diva?

  “When it comes to the courts, our kids need all the support they can get,” John remarked.

  “Do you have kids, John?” asked Liza.

  “A twenty-five-year-old son. He’s in grad school at NYU’s film school. And if he were in trouble, I’d drop everything to be with him.”

  “Honey, you don’t look old enough to have a twenty-five-year-old son,” Liza remarked.

  He laughed and ran his fingers through his beard. “If I shaved this thing off, Liza, you’d see the wear and tear.” He looked over at me. “So how’s the response been to the People piece?”

  “Overwhelming.” I tilted my head toward Liza. “I’m hiring her as my publicist so I don’t do anything stupid.”

  King nodded, and his glance at Liza, I noticed, indicated interest in her that went beyond her abilities as a publicist. “No one in this town is smarter than Liza when it comes to publicity. No one.”

  “You are,” Liza shot back, pointing one of her manicured nails at him.

  “Ha,” King laughed.

  “Has Oprah called?” John asked.

  “Now, that would be something,” I replied.

  “Well, maybe we can make that happen,” he said. “I’ll invite her to Frank’s Pizzeria for some of the best pizza on the planet.”

  Did he really just say that? Frank’s Pizzeria was a place in the old Brooklyn neighborhood where my friends and I used to hang out after school. There were no scenes about Frank’s in Brooklyn Story or even in The Suite Life, so he couldn’t have read it in the books. He had lived in Manhattan, of course, and he might know of it that way. Still, the remark struck me as odd. John was a Hollywood power broker, not exactly the kind of clientele you’d find at Frank’s.

  “You know Oprah?” Liza asked.

  John’s smile hinted at undiscovered universes. “Not yet.”

  “John may have as many VIPs on speed dial as you do, Liza,” said King.

  “Well, hon,” Liza said with a quick wink, “we should combine lists.”

  “How do you and John know each other?” I asked King.

  He laughed. “Back when he sold real estate in Manhattan, he saved my ass by advising me not to buy a certain penthouse. Then, long story short, our financing for an indie movie a dozen years ago fell apart, and John stepped in and saved the day. He was living in L.A. by then.”

  “Heroic,” Liza drolled. “The hero’s journey, à la Joseph Campbell.”

  Joseph Campbell again, I thought. It was something that Priti, with all her wisdom, would term a synchronicity­—

  a meaningful coincidence. And according to Priti, synchronicities could be signposts, guides, warnings, confirmations. They apparently happened more frequently when your life was in transition, in the midst of some major shift. This one seemed to be saying: Pay attention, Sam. This John Steeling is different from all the others. You may not know it yet, but you will.

  “Business,” John said. “It was strictly business, not a hero’s journey. Brian offered me a percentage I couldn’t refuse.”

  “I hear that Brian does that when he wants something or someone badly enough,” Liza remarked.

  “What?” King said. “Who’d you hear that from, Liza?” King asked.

  “Honey, I’ve got my sources.”

  Once again, I sensed something moving swiftly between the two of them, a current that went beyond work.

  “It sounds like she has sources you don’t know about, Brian,” remarked John. “Maybe Gallery should hire her.”

  And King leaned toward Liza and touched her arm. “We should talk about that, Liza.”

  Liza played it coy and cool. “Aw, I don’t know, Brian. Your offer would have to be exceptional for me to relinquish what I have.”

  “Exceptional,” said John, “is Gallery’s business model.”

  I wondered if John was getting a percentage on Brooklyn Story, but didn’t have the nerve to ask. Besides, what difference did it make? I would supposedly get the money stipulated in my contract with Paul, and everyone would go home happy.

  Unless Paul withheld my money.

  Unless Paul had spent the money. Flannigan had said Paul was having financial problems, so what if . . .

  Unless, what if . . . I cut that thought off. It was part of the old loop. Best not to go there at all. I stole another look at John. His eyes, I thought. His eyes were the part of him I recognized.

  Had I dreamed about this man? I remember reading a story about a woman who had dreamed of the man she’d married five years before she’d actually met him. In the dream, it was his eyes that had captivated her and his eyes she remembered when he sat down next to her one afternoon on a city bus. This sort of thing happened to other people but had never happened to me.

  Or, if it had, I hadn’t been paying attention.

  Just then, my phone barked—yes, barked. An Isabella text message.

  John looked under the table, around at the other customers. “I heard a dog.”

  “That’s, uh, my daughter’s text tone. Excuse me.” I got up and walked away from the table to read her text.

  Mom, am in head-mistresses office. Guy here claiming to be my grandfather Vito. Who is this person?

  “Shit.” I tapped frantically.

  Do not go w/him. Stay right there. Am on the way.

  Screw Vito. He’d never gotten on that flight to New York. He’d used that money I’d given him to hang out in L.A., doing whatever someone like him did in this city. And now he was at my daughter’s school and was claiming to be her grandfather so that he could—what? Drive her home?

  Yeah, right. Drive her in what? A cab?

  Kidnap her? Hold her for ransom? Get outta here. Fast.

  I hurried back to the table. “I hate to eat and run—”

  “Your order hasn’t even arrived,” Liza exclaimed.

  “Box it up for me, will you? There’s a problem at my daughter’s school. I need to get over there.”

  “Is she okay?” King asked.

  “Is the school in lockdown or something?” Liza asked.

  And from John: “Anything we can do to help?”

  I answered all three of them: “Yes, no, and no, but thanks.”

  Nope, not unless you know how to deal with Sicilians from Brooklyn who beat their wives and abandon their families and then show up more than forty years after the fact to claim a cut of the pie. John’s eyes held mine for a brief moment.

  “Call me,” Liza said.

  I hurried off toward m
y car.

  • • •

  You hear about this kind of thing, read about it on the Internet, on the front page of your daily newspaper, if you still get one.

  Enraged father shoots son in schoolyard and turns gun on self.

  Enraged boyfriend . . .

  Mother drives car into lake with kids inside . . .

  Crazy grandfather . . .

  Okay, you don’t see too many headlines about nutty grandfathers shooting their grandchildren. Or kidnapping them. Or harming them in some way. But maybe Vito’s intention wasn’t to kill. Maybe he intended only to intimidate, to threaten me through Isabella until I agreed to pay him off. How much money would keep him away from us forever? How much would it take?

  I couldn’t place a value on my daughter’s life, but I was pretty sure he had a figure in mind. Ah, Vito, you schmuck, you bastard. How much? How much do you want?

  Liza had asked if Vito was part of my living bio. He wasn’t. But here he was at Isabella’s school, doing who the hell knew what, a part of my living bio in spite of my best efforts to get him out of L.A.

  I screeched to a halt at the curb in front of the school and saw three police vehicles parked in front, too. I grabbed my purse and leaped out of the car.

  I ran toward the front door, anxious to see Isabella, throw my arms around her, hold her. My shoes slapped the old ceramic floors, and, yes, those slaps were loud. They echoed. They sounded hollow, despairing. The big, ugly black-and-white clock on the wall told me nearly thirty minutes had passed since Isabella had texted me.

  I sped through the hallway, and there, outside the principal’s office, stood my daughter, my beautiful daughter, pacing like some caged animal while the principal, Sister Anne, stood nearby, talking frantically on her phone. Then Sister Anne turned and saw me, probably looking as crazed as Tippi Hedren in some scene from The Birds, and she ended her call and hurried toward us.

  “Ms. DeMarco . . . ,” she called.

  Isabella ran over to me, threw her arms around me. I hugged her tightly, hugged her so close I was pretty sure one of us would be deprived of oxygen before anything else happened.

  Sister Anne was a plump, stern woman wearing a simple but dull dress and no head covering. She glared at us, at Isabella and me, as though public demonstrations of love were forbidden in the corridors of this school. Her predecessors had carried out corporal punishment with all the relish of the executioners at Salem. I could see this woman with one of those horrid rulers that had whacked down against knuckles, bare asses; and bile surged in my throat.

  “What the hell’s going on here, Sister Anne?”

  “Please, keep your voice down.”

  “Keep my voice down? My daughter texted me in a panic. What has happened?”

  “That maniac”—she stabbed her finger toward her office—“in there, claims to be your father, Isabella’s grandfather. He burst in here, and when the security guards tried to escort him off the campus, he became unruly. I . . . was forced to call the police.”

  “My father is dead,” I snapped, then looked at Isabella. “Stay here.”

  I stepped away from her and opened the door to Sister Anne’s office, where the circle of cops around Vito parted like the Red Sea. Vito was handcuffed to a chair and looked like shit warmed over.

  “Samantha,” he burst out, trying to leap up, but the cuffs held him back. “Tell them who I am!”

  Oh, sure, Vito. I’m going to do that now, here, so you can harass us some more and create profound misery in our lives. Nope. Sorry. That isn’t going to happen, pal.

  “Ma’am, do you know this man?” asked one of the cops in the circle.

  Did I? Even though he was my father and I had his DNA, even though I thought of Judas, I shook my head. “No.”

  “Sam!” he wailed.

  “Please,” I said to the cops. “Get him out of here.”

  The taller cop nodded. “With pleasure, ma’am.” Then he looked at Sister Anne, who stood in the doorway. “Are you pressing charges for trespassing?”

  “Definitely,” Sister Anne replied. “For trespassing and every other law he broke.”

  “This is bullshit!” Vito yelled. “She’s my daughter! Tell them, Sam. Tell them the truth!”

  “You’re demented,” I said, and hurried out of the office, Vito’s shouts pursuing me.

  Isabella and I moved down the hall and slipped into one of the empty classrooms. “It seemed like he knew you, Mom,” Isabella said.

  “He’s a crazy old man, love. He probably read about me in the People article that came out today.”

  I hated lying to her, but I refused to open this door now. Or ever. I was determined that her life would be free of Vito and the other toxic elements of my childhood. I didn’t want her subjected to what I had gone through.

  I turned toward the window, walked closer to it, and watched the police haul Vito away. He struggled and fought them, his skinny body jerking this way and that, his hair flying around.

  “I bet he’s a celebrity stalker or something,” Isabella remarked. She stood next to me, watching. “Will they Baker Act him?”

  “Maybe.” Three days in a padded cell might convince Vito that there was nothing in L.A. for him, that he should return to New York and forget about his get-rich-quick scheme. “I hope so. He needs help.”

  The classroom door opened, and Sister Anne waddled in, her expression of disapproval set in stone. “We simply can’t have this kind of disruption at our school, Ms. DeMarco.”

  Oh, really now. She wasn’t going to get away with that comment. “Frankly, I’m rather appalled by your lack of security. How did that crazy old man get on the school grounds? How’d he get into the school?”

  “I’m, uh, not sure.” Flustered now, she smoothed her hands over her dress. “But you can be sure we’ll conduct a full investigation.”

  “I certainly hope so. With school shootings happening all over this country, you should have instituted safety precautions long ago.” I slipped my arm around Isabella’s shoulders and steered her out of the room and up the hall toward Sister Anne’s office so she could retrieve her backpack.

  “I feel sorry for that guy,” Isabella said softly.

  My daughter’s capacity for compassion far surpassed mine. I felt sorry for him, too, but not sorry enough to acknowledge him as my father.

  • • •

  During the drive home, Isabella asked me to stop at the grocery store so she could pick up a copy of People. While I waited in the parking lot for her, I thought of those two Brooklyn numbers Kelly had given me for the calls Vito had made from the Malibu Motel. I slipped the piece of paper from my wallet, stared at them, uncertain, hesitant, and, yes, at some level, terrified. Then I popped open the glove compartment.

  I removed a disposable cell phone that I’d bought when I’d first moved out here. Liza had advised it. For those calls you don’t want registered anywhere. I’d never used it before. I tapped in the first Brooklyn number. It rang twice, then a woman answered, her voice tired and husky from the twenty thousand cigarettes she’d smoked over the years. “Providence House, Rachel speaking. How may I direct your call?”

  “Hi, I’m trying to get in touch with Vito Bonti.”

  “And you are . . . ?”

  “A friend.”

  “Yeah? Well, Vito’s friend, I haven’t seen him since he lit outta here with cash he stole. My cash, from my purse. You can tell him I filed a report with the cops and he can go straight to hell.”

  She disconnected.

  I punched in the second number and let it ring a dozen times. But there wasn’t any answer—not from a machine or a human.

  I turned the phone off and buried it under some papers in the glove compartment. I went online with my phone and located Providence House—2518 Church Avenue. I knew that neighborhood. I remembered
the delis and focaccerias. Church Avenue bordered Jewish territory in a primarily Italian area in Brooklyn, so it was, as I liked to call it, a healthy mix of culture.

  Things had to be pretty bad for Vito if he’d stolen money from someone who worked in a homeless shelter. Maybe that was how he’d gotten out here—probably not on a plane, but on a train or bus. I started to feel sorry for him again, briefly considered bailing him out and telling Isabella everything. But I slammed that door shut.

  My phone belted out “Made to Love” by John Legend. The text message was from him: I loved that song and ironically the text was from him, only fitting for him to have this ringtone.

  Everything ok w/your daughter?

  I hadn’t given him my number, so he must have asked Liza for it.

  Yes. Thanx. On our way home.

  R u free for dinner Fri. nite?

  Friday, Friday, holy shit. I suddenly felt like a teenager who had been asked out on her first date. Sweat sprang from the pores of my hands; my heart did an odd little jig. Yes, yes, I’m free on Friday. Except that I wasn’t. Isabella was having a sleepover, six buddies from school. I texted him as much and his response was quick:

  Saturday? Sunday? Monday? Tuesday? Name the day.

  Saturday. Better.

  On Saturday, she was going to be at a sleepover at Lauren’s house.

  Fantastic. See u on set Thursday. Talk then.

  “Awesome,” I whispered.

  The passenger door opened, and Isabella slipped inside. “You’re grinning. What’s going on?”

  “I have a date Saturday night!”

  “Really? With who?”

  “This guy connected with the film.”

  “That’s so cool, Mom. I’m happy for you. But what about Paul?”

  “We’re not dating anymore, love. I broke things off.”

  She gave my hand a quick squeeze, then set the magazine flat on her lap. “Now, let’s see what People has to say about you and Brooklyn Story.” She flipped the magazine open to the cover story.