He sits at their feet and lets out a low howl.
“What’s wrong with him?” Julian asks.
“He needs to go potty. Dammit…we’re usually sleeping right now and he holds it tilmorning. I have to take him for a walk.”
“Now?”
“Yeah. Or else he’ll shit in the house. Do you want to come?”
He blinks his eyes open, thinking about the last time he went for a walk, and shrugs.“Sure.”
They move up the steep road above Chinatown, led by the snorting, little mutt as he sniffs bushes and hedges for the perfect spot. She tugs her pea coat tighter around herself, he turns up his collar. He glances back over the skyline, the blurring colors of the hardline buildings disappearing into clouds that are settling over them in a tender mist. The movie star and his assistant, walking the dog in the middle of the night, he thinks, smiling into his collar.
“Did you get my place decorated?” he asks.
“No! Jesus! It’s only been two days. The decorator came yesterday to make a floor plan. Her and CeCewere best friends instantly.”
“Aw…did you feel left out?”
“Thank god. I didn’t understand half the shit they were talking about. An ottoman to me is where the feet go or the dog sleeps, you know? She said she canhave it done in a month.”
“Before Christmas, right?”
“Yes…way before Christmas. I made sure. Did you talk to your moms?”
“No…I talked to my brother. I’m going to call her tomorrow. What are you doing for Christmas?”
“Going home, naturally. Remember?”
“No…I don’t.”
“Seriously? I told you about it last week. I’m going home for a few weeks for Christmas. My mom insisted.”
He nods. “That’s fine. It’s better.”
“What do you mean? Why?”
“I don’t want to force my family on anyone.”
She glances sidelong at him and smiles. “If you want me to stay and be your buffer, I will.”
“What? No. I’m fine. That’s not what I meant.”
“Yes, it is. I’ll do it.”
“No…I just-Christmas is a hard time for my family. We’re pretty awkward as it is but force us together and…it just sort of freezes up everything.”
“Then why are you doing it?”
“Because…I’m going to be on that shootfor at least 4 months.”
“Yeah, but most of it is being done here. You can see them still.”
“No…you-I haveto focus completely on what I’m doing when I’m working, especially on this project. I can’t risk it again, it almost took me out last time.”
“What happened last time? When?”
They stop at the top of the hill and study the skyline. The clouds have swallowed the top of the U.S. Bank Tower now, a halo of lights running down the length and glowing through the mist like a spine. He blows into his leather glove and squints out, trying to detach himself from the words that have been building in him, the dread he had since he woke the morning with the realization that it could happen again, very easily.
“Remember‘Heights?’”
“Duh.”
He chuckles and kicks at the crumbling asphalt with his wingtip. “Okay, well. Right before I signed on for that, I started dating Lindsay.”
Alice pulls her hood up and stares up at the clouds moving swiftly over head. “Lindsay Taylor.”
“Yeah.”
“I kindaremember that,” she lies.
She fully remembered, having Googled every detail about Julian when he hired her. She knew more about his life than any other non-relative or stalker. But even before that, when he was still a mythical distraction for the masses, she had seen the tabloids in shopping markets when they broke off. She remembered thinking how goofy he looked and how dumb the whole thing was. She remembered thinking how lame celeb drama was, how lame he looked, like a pouty child who had his toy taken away. It wasn’t until she asked CeCe about it that she realized just how serious it had actually been. It was a strange moment for Alice, as she realized there was a real person in the pictures, reduced to a cheesy looking hunk next to gum and candy, and how she had disregarded one of the worst moments of his life like an ad on TV or a billboard.
“Yeah…it didn’t go well. It went pretty badly, actually. It was a struggle to get through takes. I started…” he drifts off, remembering how much he hated working on that movie, how it was and always would be some of his best work, yet he could not bring himself to watch it even for a moment.
“What happened?”
He shoves his hands in his pocket and starts walking along the edge of the breaking asphalt, back towards home, her trailing after him in slow, steady steps.
“Have you ever had anyone cheat on you?” he asks.
“Sure.”
“Really? Someone you…thought you were going to marry?”
“Yeah….Anthony.”
“Anthony? Anthony cheated on you?”
“Yeah…I walked in on him. I stopped by like, for a surprise. I was going to take him to breakfast. His mom let me in,she didn’t know he wasn’t alone. I walked in and they were curled up against one another, sleeping…”
“What’d you do?”
“I beat the living hell out of him. His mom came running in, saw what was happening and pulled me away, it was the only way I would stop. There was blood everywhere, I broke his nose.”
“Oh!....That’s what he meant! The left nostril!” He laughs.
“Yeah, well…I’m not really proud of it. I never thought I had that kind of violence in me. But it was so humiliating. I just stood there, like, feeling like I wasn’t me, I was in some bad dream. And I kept telling myself to just walk out the door and it’d be like it never happened. But the second I pictured myself doing that, I knew it was a lie. And then I just snapped.”
“You really loved him.”
“No, no it was over a long time before this,” she says quickly, blushing as she recalls her earlier interaction with Anthony. “Which made it worse because I let it happen, I let myself be humiliated like that for nothing.”
She sniffs and tugs on the dog’s leash gently. “What’d you do?”
He doesn’t respond immediately, replaying the image of Alice losing control. He sees her beating the massive man he met and feels a twinge of rage, heartache at the suffering she endured. “That must of hurt.”
“Yeah…you know it did. What did you do, Julian?”
He smiles and catches himself from sliding off crumbling asphalt. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“No. Not a fucking thing. There was nothing to do. We were in love, crazy love. We spent every second we could together. It was unbelievable, we had so much in common. Never fought, never a moment of doubt, you know? I was all about her. Mike hounded me constantly to get ready for the shoot. He begged me, never let up, not once. But I didn’t give a fuck. I never felt that way for anyone. Not like that. And then…she just…stopped calling.”
“Just like that?”
“Yeah. I was in New York, doing a series of photo shoots and rapping everything up so I could stay out in L.A. for awhile, you know? ‘Heights’ was supposed to be the beginning. The script was perfect, the director brilliant, it was made to be a real film, my first real film. Not some dumb love story or action bullshit. It was gonnabe everything I always dreamed of, and the beginning of my life, really. So I went to New York to put everything in order. I was gone a week and I couldn’t get a hold of her, at all. I was going ape shit, just, fucking ballistic, trying to reach anyone who talked to her or saw her, anything. They just kept reassuring me she was fine and that I would see her when I got back. Even Mike, fucking Mike, gave me a line. He met me out in New York to fly back with me, telling me I needed to chill, telling me everything was fine and that he would explain once we got back to L.A.. So we got on the plane home and he sits next to me, all somber. He doesn’t say anything, and I know it’s ba
d because Mike never shuts the fuck up. And then he hands me a tabloid. Only it’s not just another tabloid, it’s fucking People. She’s on the cover with Jeff Warn, big headline‘Engaged!’ and underneath, a bad picture of me scowling, and the words‘Bad Boy Just Too Hard To Handle.’ Nothing else.”
She remembers the rise of his tough guy image after that. He went from being a dorky, soft white boy to a total hard ass over night. “You never heard from her?”
“No.”
“You didn’t try and find her?”
“…No, not really. I didn’t believe it, you know? I thought it was just some publicity stunt and that maybe she was hiding out somewhere to make it seem more real. It made no sense. I mean,she dropped me off at the fucking airport. She smiled and told me she loved me and would miss me, even said she’d try and get out there for a few days towards the end of the week. Maybe we could go shopping or go to some bullshit foodie restaurant she saw on Food Network. There was absolutely no indication she felt otherwise. So…I didn’t do anything because I thought it was just a stunt. And then they were getting married. I…” he stops and bites his upper lip, realizing it was the first time he had ever spoken of this. Julian was instantly overwhelmed with embarrassment, feeling exposed. In that second, he detached himself from his own reality and began to speak of the events as if they happened to a character he had been playing. He smiled and began again. “The wedding was undeniablelynot a stunt. She wasn’t coming back. I began to think she was never real, none of it was. I felt beyond stupid. Like a joke everyone but me got. I really was a tabloid and nothing more. And nothing I felt about her seemed real, only I knew it was because it broke me. It threw everything out of control for me, I couldn’t trust my instincts and that’s really all you have. If you can’t trust the one thing you believed in, undoubtedly, the one thing that was anchoring you to reality, if that’s not real, then you’re fucked.”
“You snapped.”
“Well…” he sighs, studying the wisps moving quickly towards the hills. “ ‘Snapped’ is a strong word. I think I retreated. Sort of disappeared for awhile.”
He would not tell her about the panic attacks, the bouts of agoraphobia that prevented him from leaving his apartment for weeks immediately after. He would not tell her about the six weeks he spent living in a cabin in Oregon his family owned by himself, fighting his depression, his suicidal thoughts. His whole life was one big, vapid lie, he was worthless, pointless and the most daunting of all realities, he would never be anything real. There would be no such thing as‘real’ for him. Everything would be a succession of lies that would convince him they were true. And he would die, never really having been anything tangible.
How he could bring himself to trust himself again?
He would not tell her about his eventual return to New York, finally, as a character rather than himself, partying like he never had, working on several crap movies at once, never stopping again to acknowledge his failure or question his identity. Instinct was not something you contemplated, he had to learn to trust it again by immersing himself in situations that required him to‘do or die’, hesitationwas not an option. But none of it would have surprised her. She glances sidelong at his face, contorted to an expression he had once told her was the“Michael Corleone” he used to betray nothing of his true self. It was an expression he wore often enough that most people believed it was his own. But she had come to recognize it as his“Hard Times” face, an expression he wore when there was much more pain involved than what he could even talk about.
They reach the cottage and she moves in first, him standing at the door staring at her nightshirt peeking from the coat. “I guess, what really kind of bothers me about-about even considering dating someone like Sharleenis how do I know it won’t happen again? How do I know that I’ll know the difference?”
“You’re too hard on yourself,” she sighs. “Lots of people get suckered. Lots of people let themselves get suckered. And, sure, it’s scary as hell and potentially painful. But that’s what makes it so exciting. The element of danger, the risk. So you make good choices and you find someone you trust, who’s worth your trust. You find someone you can open your heart to, and who’s got your back. And hope for the best, I guess.”
“What if I can’t?”
“You can. You’re a good guy, you can do it.”
“I really like her.”
“Dors.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah…well, follow your gut. And if she fucks with you, it’s different this time.”
“…Is it? You think so?”
“Yeah, it is! You got me, holmes! I’ll make those pretty green eyes black and blue if I have to.”
He laughs and scratches his head. “Yeah, you would, wouldn’t you?”
“Fuck yeah, I would. Nobody messes with my boy,” she yawns, stretching and shrinking out of her coat like a tiny cat.
“Can I crash here? I don’t want to make you drive.”
“Sure. You can take the couch with ol’ Dirty. We can carpool to work tomorrow.”
“Are you really gonnamake me sleep on the couch?” he whines, stifling his yawn.
She rolls her eyes and turns, taking his limp hand in hers and leading him in. “Of course not, dummy.”
They spoon one another, him still fully dressed in his suit, wrapped around her, his arms heavy logs squeezing in a firm, relentless grip, snoring softly into her hair, burning with the heat of a sun, her in her pajamas, her hands gently, absently stroking his arms, wide awake staring at the slivers of sun poking through the blinds.
4.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is this Scott?”
“Yep. Who’s this?”
“This is Alice, Julian’s assistant.”
“Oh, yeah! He told me about you! What’s going on, Alice?”
“Nothing, really. I’m just calling to confirm you’ll be in town for his Christmas party. He said to make sure you were here,” she says, tapping the button to the elevator and checking her watch.
“Oh, definitely! I’m set to go. I got your ticket confirmation last week. Hey, am I staying at his place or a hotel?”
“His place. I mean, you can stay at a hotel, if you want, but he said to make sure a room was ready for you,” she says.
The gold doors of the luxury apartments spread quietly for her. She steps in and hits the‘P101’ button, followed by a swipe of Julian’s keycard. The light flashes green, the doors slide shut and the elevator bolts upwards.
“Cool, no! I’m down to stay at his place. I can’t wait.”
“Great! Then we’ll see you there.”
“Look forward to meeting you. You sound hot,” he smiles into the phone.
She smirks. “What does‘hot’ sound like?”
“You tell me. What do I sound like?”
“I’d say cheesy but it’s more of a smell than a sound, I think.”
“Ouch! I definitely can’t wait to meet you. You’re gonnabe a handful, aren’t you?”
“Depends on the hands. See you later, Scott.” She hits‘end’ before he can respond.
The elevator moves quickly, barreling towards the penthouse as the soft sounds of jazz filter through its speakers. Alice licks her lips and drops her eyes to her own reflection. Smart, black, 80’s preppie Ralph Lauren blazer with the sleeves rolled up, exposing her tattoos, slacks, gold necklace over a New Order tank top and designer jeans that hug her curves down to a black pair ofMadden boot wedge heels. She tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, runs a finger across the corners of her mouth and checks her teeth. She’s as professional as she gets, Alice thinks as the elevator stops and the doors slide open.
The apartment is completely minimal. Everything is white, from the hard, cold tile to the sprinkling of knickknacks on the white shelves. She steps down into the sunken living room. To her right, a sprawl of plush, white carpet beneath an enormous, cream leather couch that curves around a fireplace carved out of the wall. To her le
ft, a full-length bar, stocked with expensive alcohol in crystal canters, lit from a row of track lighting beneath the glass shelves. In front of her, a floor to ceiling window displays the city stretching into oblivion. There are no paintings, no pictures, nothing that would suggest organic life forms. She frowns.
“God, how pretentious,” she mutters.
“Alice? I’m in here. I’ll be out in a sec. Have a seat.”
Alice does not answer. She does not sit. She clutches the manila envelope and shifts her weight back and forth, waiting, as usual, for the princess.
Sharleen comes from behind a door that is blended into the wall. Her dress is simple, airy, flowing around her in a creamsicle swirl that accentuates her breasts and hips as she moves. The clicking of her heels reminds Alice of CeCe but this woman could not be more different. Her head tilts as she checks Alice, flashing momentarily on the band shirt before her thick mouth spreads into a condescending smile she learned from Mike.
“You look cute! What’s‘New Order?’ Is that a designer?”
“No, it’s a band. From the 80’s.”
“The 80’s?You’re thatold? You don’t look that old. Jesus, I wasn’t even born yet,” Sharleen laughs.
“Yep. That old. Here you go,” Alice says, through gritted teeth, not bothering to remind her, again, she is only five years older.
“Oh my god, thank you soooomuch! I can’t believe I left this at his place. What a dummy. My rep was so pissed. Do you want something to drink?”
She takes the folder and tosses it on the bar, pulling a club soda from beneath the counter.
“No thanks. I gottaget going. I have a million things to do.”
“Are you sure? It’s no trouble.”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Okay…well, thanks again.”
“Anytime.” She turns and starts to head out.
“Hey, Alice?”
Alice stops and closes her eyes. I knew it was too easy. “Yeah?”
“CeCetold me about the party. The Christmas/Good Luck party?”
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