by Kim Izzo
“That’s not what I mean. What you said earlier, about me being a treacly mess.”
She stopped at my door and waited for me to fumble about for the key. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”
“But you’re right. My whole life comes down to my inability to fight for anything or anyone. I just let the world have their go at me and lie down at the end of it. I’m a coward, Sylvia. And the key to happiness is fearlessness. No wonder Dean left me.”
“You really are a writer, aren’t you? Save some of that dialogue for your next script.”
Inside the apartment I tossed the keys and made for the vodka. “If only there was a next script!” I sat down on the sofa exactly as I’d done hours before and took a giant gulp of the stuff. “I haven’t written a line of dialogue in years.”
“Well, now that you’re single you have time,” Sylvia said, then seeing the hurt expression on my face, quickly added, “I was teasing. But maybe you should write about Dean.”
I shook my head. “Not until I know how it ends. And trust me, I’m going to make sure it’s an old-fashioned rom-com with a happy ending.”
“Considering your family’s past maybe you should stick to film noir.”
It was true; I came from a family with close connections to the shadowy world of noir. More of a visual style than an actual genre, the stark black and white lighting, fog, shadows, the snappy dialogue and the costumes were spellbinding. The stories were dark, paranoid almost, always containing a crime or a double-cross or both, and the leading men were detectives mostly but sometimes a cop or more routine things like an insurance agent. They always had a bad girl in them too: the femme fatale. She was tough-talking and morally ambiguous, but you always got the feeling that she was hiding or running from past hurt. Amazingly, even the smartest guy fell for her and would do anything to keep her: rob banks, steal jewels, even murder. She was irresistible.
My mother and I were addicted to these films and spent hours watching and rewatching the classics and the obscure. But of particular fascination for us was the 1950 film noir He Gave No Answer. It was special because it was the only movie that my grandmother, Alice Dawson, stage name Alicia Steele, was in. She played the other female film noir archetype: the good woman role, the nice girl that the brooding hero knows would make him happy only he can’t tear himself away from the femme fatale and ends up paying for it big time. It was supposed to be Alice’s/Alicia’s star-making turn, but it was her last because she got pregnant with my mother and ended up working full-time as a seamstress in the wardrobe department and never walked in front of a film camera again. She died when my mother was five years old. I think because of that my mother was obsessed with Alice. I think it was the sole reason she tried to become an actress, at least in the beginning.
Yet despite wanting to surpass Alice’s one-film-wonder legacy, my mother’s acting career was even less successful. She had to make due with walk-on parts and extra work before she met my dad and then decided she would raise a great actress rather than become one. Such is the fate of a single child like me.
As a little girl, I felt all her hopes and dreams of becoming a star foisted on me. She tried in vain to get me into ladylike dresses and curl my hair, but it was no use. An inner bombshell wasn’t struggling to come out. When I emerged from my adolescent cocoon, I was the same tomboy with dull hair and square features, only taller and with firmer opinions. But the lack of interest in my appearance wasn’t the main reason I was a disappointment to my mother. I never wanted to be an actress. I skipped the acting classes she signed me up for as a teenager. I didn’t like being in front of a camera. I didn’t wear makeup. This was a bone of contention between us. My saving grace was that I chose to become a screenwriter. At least I was in the “family business.” She still asks me how my writing is going. I refuse to answer because it isn’t going anywhere.
“Like I said, I’m no hell cat. I doubt I can write a noir script any more than I could write a rom-com. I should stick to what I’m good at: penning detailed accounts of what Justin Bieber had for breakfast.”
She grunted. “So you’re not a hell cat. What woman is these days? Is this Amber girl one?”
“Don’t give her that much credit!” I snapped.
“Just asking. Who is she, then?”
I shrugged and drank more vodka. Sylvia got busy on her iPad and it didn’t take long for her to find what she was looking for. She held the tablet up for me to see. It was a Facebook page belonging to a girl who was young and blonde and gorgeous.
“Clara Bishop meet Amber Ward,” Sylvia said darkly.
I cringed. “Why did you have to show me that?”
“You need to know who the enemy is,” she said and scanned Amber’s photo album. “Even if she’s not a hell cat. Christ, she’s only twenty-one!”
“Are you serious?” I asked. It made my mood sink further.
“Typical twenty-one-year-old too, loads of drunken and practically naked shots of herself. Looks like she’s in Vegas.”
“Vegas?” I asked. “Dean was in Vegas last week. He said he went with Jerome.”
“Yup, he did,” Sylvia said, trying not to sound alarmist. “There’s a shot of Jerome here with Dean … and Amber.”
“What?” I howled and grabbed the iPad. Sure enough, there was my husband with his arms around a scantily clad Amber, his friend and our best man, Jerome, on the other side. Then I couldn’t stop. I kept looking at photo after photo of this blonde girl, smiling, cavorting and partying, with my husband and a slew of others. Mostly there were images of her doing shots with her friends, other nubile girls with bare midriffs and big hair. And yet there was something about her …
“She looks familiar,” I said.
“Do you know her?” Sylvia asked incredulously.
“No, but I’ve definitely seen her,” I said, scowling in concentration, trying to remember. I continued to flip through her Facebook photos and stopped at one of Amber in a tight little black dress with a tray of drinks in her hands. Then it hit me.
“Oh my God,” I drew out the words slowly. “I have seen her.”
“Where?”
“She was there last night.”
“What? How?” Sylvia asked, horrified.
Like in a time machine, I was back at the wrap party, walking through the crowd, when that nasty little appetizer came from nowhere and hit me. “She was a waitress from the catering company.”
“Holy shit!” Sylvia gasped.
“She was the one who dumped that beet thing on me. No wonder she looked so smug.” I placed my fingers on the iPad and expanded the photo of Amber so that her face filled the screen. There was no doubt. “She didn’t even apologize.”
“I can’t believe it. Did Dean know she was there?” Sylvia asked. “He must have,” I admitted. “No wonder he didn’t want me to come to the party.”
“That motherfucker!” she snapped.
I was reeling from the thought of Dean’s mistress being there, watching me and throwing food at me, all the while I didn’t know who she was. He had given her the advantage. Then I remembered Kiki.
“Kiki knows something,” I said.
“Kiki? The girl who won the show?” Sylvia asked.
“Yes. I’m going to send her a text.” I relayed to Sylvia what Kiki had told me at the party. Within minutes my iPhone bleeped. It was Kiki willing to spill it to me over a cocktail.
“Where you meeting her?” Sylvia asked as I scrambled to my feet.
“Where dreams come true,” I said flatly. “Hollywood.”
CHAPTER FIVE
It was November and the temperature in Los Angeles skipped around like schoolgirls playing double-dutch. I grabbed a navy cardigan in case I needed it. The drive from Santa Monica, where I lived, to Hollywood, where I was meeting Kiki, was thirty to forty minutes if traffic wasn’t bad. Traffic was always bad.
Dean disliked Hollywood. I loved it. All he saw was a city with grimy streets and storefro
nts where the scruffy hipster residents mixed it up with tourists, lower-income families and the homeless. I saw the neighbourhood I grew up in, which had all those things he hated but more; it had a hint of magic. Hipsters were artists waiting for a break. The lower-income families had kids I went to school with and hung out with at the mall or at their houses. The homeless weren’t to be ignored or pitied; my mother still volunteered at the food bank, as I once did.
When I graduated from USC, I rented an apartment on North Sycamore Drive, just east of La Brea, south of Fountain. It was a dive. But Dean moved me to Santa Monica on the west side as soon as we were married. The west side was more spacious, the roads wider, the streets cleaner, even the air was fresher. For a guy from Michigan who was accustomed to lakes and forests, it was more palatable. I went along. I always did.
So it was a comfort to me to be back in my old stomping grounds. I was meeting Kiki at the Formosa Café, a ten-minute drive from Hollywood Boulevard. It was a major hangout back when movie stars wore fedoras and even the starlets chain-smoked. I liked the shumai dumplings and half-price cocktails during happy hour, but mostly I liked the old-school Hollywood atmosphere and its walls hung with photos of real stars.
Kiki was there when I arrived. I slid into the red vinyl booth beside her. Her reality television looks were in stark contrast to the dimly lit room. It was like she glowed, all bright hair and teeth, her body was spray tanned and glossy with oil and cinched into a deep purple T-shirt dress. There I was in my faded blue jeans and navy sweater and bright red Converse high-tops. I was still amazed she wanted to write. Maybe if I looked like her Dean would have stayed.
“Thanks soooo much for meeting me and soooo soon,” she cooed.
“You want to know everything I know about being a journalist,” I said, not wanting to waste time. “I want to know everything you know about Amber Ward.”
Despite the spray tan her face went white, turning her complexion a soft shade of beige.
“Don’t worry, you didn’t let the cat out of the bag, at least not entirely. Dean confessed as much this morning when he walked out on me.”
“Oh my God. I’m soooo sorry,” she said and looked visibly shaken. “I didn’t think that would happen.”
I snorted a little. “What did you think would happen?”
“I’d seen them around set. I knew they flirted, and people talked.”
“Set? Why was she on set?” I asked.
“She was a craft service girl on the show. Worked for the catering company.”
“That explains why she was at the party,” I said. Craft service is a department on a production usually staffed with pretty girls who serve food to the cast and crew. It was one of the lowliest positions on a film set, but at the same time a beacon for the tired and hungry crew. A good craft service girl was part mother hen, part psychologist and part vixen. I had my doubts that Dean’s attraction to Amber was her culinary skills.
“Did they seem like they were in love?” I asked tentatively.
“I don’t know. I didn’t talk to Amber much. She wasn’t very nice to us. Claims she’s a serious actress and takes classes and all that.”
That did it for me. My mother was going to have a field day with this one. “Fancies herself a starlet, does she?”
“Well, I don’t think she’s ever had a role in anything.”
“Except husband thief,” I said tartly.
“Like I told you, none of us knew he was married. Maybe she didn’t either? But she really worked on Dean. Treated him like he was Steven Spielberg. She brought him an audition script and he helped her with it. But I don’t think she got the part because she was still doing craft service.”
Dean would have loved that. Being admired and feted by a pretty young thing who thought he was the next Scorsese. I was just the wife who picked up his socks. My compliments were routine.
“Can I get you ladies something to drink?” The waiter stood smiling at us like we were two friends out for a night of fun.
“A sidecar, please.”
“Ooooh, what’s that?” Kiki shrieked with joy like a kid discovering a new type of candy.
“Our family cocktail. Brandy, Cointreau and lemon juice with a sugar rim,” I explained. According to Marjorie, her father, my grandfather, Lyle, had sampled one at the Playboy Club in Chicago in the 1950s and had brought the recipe home. Frank Sinatra had been a fan. Sidecars weren’t easy to get, but the Formosa made a decent one.
“Make that two,” Kiki said and batted her lashes at the unsuspecting waiter. She could turn it on like a switch.
“You do that well. That flirting thing,” I said admiringly. “Never been much good at that.”
Kiki tore at a napkin with her red lacquered nails for a bit, and when she spoke she cast her eyes down. “You have to be in this business.”
Our sidecars came in a hurry. “You’re on that show,” the waiter gushed at Kiki. “I thought I recognized you.”
Kiki blushed on cue. “I am. Did you like it?”
“I watched every episode and you were my favourite,” he squealed. “Your drink is on me.”
My eyes widened. Kiki flashed her eyes at me and the waiter gulped as if realizing for the first time that I was sitting there.
I decided to give the Kiki move a try and batted my lashes at him as I tilted my head and pointed my chin to the floor.
“Did you lose a contact lens?” the waiter asked and dove down on all fours.
“Oh dear! I did that once!” Kiki said as she too hit the rug. “Careful you don’t crush it!”
Not daring to admit that I didn’t wear contact lenses, I faked finding it myself.
“Got it!” I called out and the two of them popped back up.
“Where is it?” Kiki asked.
“I already put it back in. I’m quick. All good now. Let’s have that drink!”
The waiter and Kiki exchanged looks before he dashed off.
After the third sidecar, two of which I paid for, I had told Kiki more than she ever wanted to know about Dean Lapointe and Clara Bishop. I told more than I heard, and felt my mood shift down a few notches at the thought of going home alone.
“I can’t sleep without him,” I said.
Kiki rummaged in her handbag and pulled out a prescription bottle. She unscrewed the cap and took out a few tiny oblong white pills and placed them in my hand.
“Take one of these tonight. It will help you sleep, calm your nerves,” she said.
“What are they?”
“Lorazepam.”
Half of LA took lorazepam. I’d always avoided drugs. Hated being out of control. Alcohol had always been enough feel-good buzz for me. But tonight I wanted to obliterate every ounce of heartbreak.
“Can I take all of them?”
“No!” she shrieked in mock concern. “Just one. They’ve gotten me through tons of messes.”
Part of me wanted to know what sort of messes a girl like Kiki got into. But not a large enough part to ask, and after paying the bill I went home to the big empty marital bed, took two of the tiny white pills and passed out.
Police Station—Cirencester
Sergeant Hooper was sipping tea. He had taken one bathroom break since I began telling him the whole truth. I imagined he was bored by now, but he didn’t show it.
“So you corrupt youths in your spare time? That is, when you’re not taking prescription drugs?”
“You make me sound depraved,” I said gravely. “I wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea.”
Hooper shifted in his chair and smiled at me reassuringly. “To be honest, from what you’ve told me, I think you would make a very good mother at that.”
“I’d like to think so.”
“Too many parents are overprotective. Kids like to be imaginative. They like to be scared. I watched all those movies too when I was a little boy. Worse, my brother and I were into slasher films.”
My eyes widened in mock horror. “No!” I cringed. “I ca
n’t watch those.”
He laughed. “Maybe that’s why I ended up a policeman. Wanted to capture all the maniacs with chainsaws and daggers.”
“You get a lot of that in this part of England?” I asked.
He laughed again. “Sadly, it’s mostly break-ins and car theft. Miss Bishop, without a doubt, you are the most exciting thing to walk through this station since I’ve been here.”
I smiled and batted my lashes a few times for effect. Apparently some of my newly discovered techniques were here to stay.
“So I take it you want to hear more?” I asked softly. He nodded.
CHAPTER SIX
I didn’t understand what the woman was saying. Something about a car and junk. A junk car? A junkie’s car? But she wouldn’t stop talking to me. I tried to tell her to shut up but it was no use.
“Clara!” the woman shouted angrily. How did she know my name? Finally, she stopped talking. Then came a loud bang from somewhere. Normally I’d be frightened by a sudden sound like that, but instead I got mad. Especially when it kept going. Louder and louder, harder and harder, until the woman’s voice was back, only she sounded different. Closer.
“Clara! What the fuck did you take?”
Hands grabbed my shoulder and shook me. Now I was really mad. “Leave me alone,” I barked. “Who are you?”
“It’s Sylvia! For Christ’s sake, what is wrong with you? Open your eyes!”
I struggled to do as I was told and a small slit opened; it was enough to know that the woman’s voice did in fact belong to Sylvia. I groaned.
“I’ve been calling you for the last twenty minutes. I’ve been downstairs waiting for you in my car,” she said. “You answered the phone but spoke gibberish. Good thing I know where you hide that spare key.”
“What do you want?”
“That’s a fine thing to say,” she said. “We have a press junket in fifteen minutes that we’re going to be late for. You’re not even dressed!”
Oh shit. Oh crap. I struggled to sit up. “The one with You-Know-Who in it!”