Hollywood Savage

  She curls up around me, her head fitted into the space between my ribs and my hip bone.

  That character in your book, Savage—is that his first name, or his last? she murmurs, lips against my hip. I want you to tell me his story.

  It’s not possible right now, Lucy, you know that.

  Please, just a synopsis, she asks, sitting up. Not the whole thing, just the basic plot line, okay? Please, Miles. Please.

  Taking me off guard, this unexpected vehemence, this sudden need to know—of course, I’m too flattered to refuse.

  His last.

  What’s his first?

  Doesn’t matter. Nobody calls him anything but Savage.

  How does the story begin?

  In 1972, when our erstwhile hero’s just twenty years old and living in Thailand, evading the draft.

  Vietnam, you mean.

  You’re a quick study, anybody ever tell you that?

  She elbows me, hard, says, Just tell the goddamn story.

  Okay. So he’s been hiding in a monastery for the last six months, studying Buddhism, when two American intelligence men show up.

  CIA.

  … Right. (Another elbow.) Ow, Lucy …!

  So if he was hiding, how’d they find him?

  Well, this is one of the book’s central problems. They claim it was his father who sent them.

  Why?

  Because his dad, see, was an undercover agent for them all through Savage’s childhood, when they lived all over Southeast Asia, and even though his dad told Savage he’d retired, these guys tell him that he thought what his son was doing—dodging the draft, that is—was a crime. But there’s no way for Savage to find out if it’s true, because his father died just after Savage split, which of course is part of the reason he decided to stay on at the monastery—anyway, they’re there to recruit him, because he speaks Thai and Vietnamese, so basically they give him an ultimatum: either he works for them—

  You mean, against his will?

  You’re extremely clever.

  Go on.

  —Or they send him to San Quentin and throw away the keys.

  Wow. So what’s he do?

  What would you do? He agrees to work for them, of course.

  He does not.

  Yes, he does … but then, three months into the setup, he becomes a double agent.

  Lucy stares at me, waiting for more.

  He moves into the hills, acquires an opium habit, and confides in absolutely no one except this young Thai dude who was studying at the monastery, too—it’s like military service is in Israel over there; every young man spends at least a year meditating. You find out later he and this guy were friends in high school, too.

  Lucy’s chin rests on my flank, her eyes gone liquid, hypnotized. I cannot describe the pleasure it gives me, this, her rapture; it’s almost better than sex.

  How does it end?

  I guess you’ll never know unless you read the book, will you? Unless of course, I add, you wait for the movie.

  No, she says, I won’t.

  So how much, she asks me then, is autobiographical, if I may ask?

  You may not.

  She blows her breath out at this, exasperated. Then, with a rare wicked grin, she curls up around me again, puts that mouth on my skin. It isn’t till I’m hard again that she sits up.

  Okay, she says. Now you can go home.

  ***

  Driving back, the sun low and blinding in my rear window, remember my first impression of her as if it were of someone else—the stranger she had been then, the woman in the park with her child. The wedding ring. That single-minded compulsion to seduce—it’s the first time I truly allow myself the starkness of this admission—another man’s wife.

  Except she isn’t anybody’s wife to me anymore. Now she’s just Lucy, my dark star, born on New Year’s Eve, my bluest girl, my mistress, my lover. My infidel.

  It’s almost dark when I get back; Maggie’s waiting in the living room, magazine abandoned in her lap. The look she gives me.

  How was it, she asks, her voice cracking with anger, and worse—it’s that fury again, absolute, ignited from nothing, I can hardly believe it—

  My heart pounding, me casual, knocking the dirt from my shoes, leaning over as if to make sure, avoiding her eyes.

  How was what?

  You son of a bitch. I can smell it on you. She brushes past me roughly and goes up, her feet coming down hard on the stairs. I stand where I am, paralyzed.

  And then it comes to me, all at once: it was the smoke. It was the smoke she smelled.

  Dressing for dinner, she doesn’t say another word about it, and neither do I. She stands in front of the mirror to put on her makeup in nothing but a pair of sheer stockings, high heels, a black lace bra. I find myself averting my eyes from this image, my sense of infidelity confused, overwhelming.

  It isn’t until we’re in the car, under cover of darkness, borne by the mundane relief of motion, that we find some form of dialogue again. I ask about the piece she’s working on, what remains to be done. Always there has been this refuge between us, the sanctuary of our work. I am stricken with a sudden gratitude toward her, what a great friend she has been, and still is; the freedom she’s given me, no questions asked.

  At the restaurant, both of us on our second glasses of wine, she seems uncommonly gracious, leaning against my shoulder to read the menu, saying, Tell me what you want, all breath and innuendo.

  The sweet scent of her perfume, unique, familiar only, I start to think, and then the twinge—to me. I look toward the bar where two men are sitting alone, my glance reflexive (who’s looking at her? Who’s looking at my wife?).

  Neither one of the men is turned this way, but there is a woman. Her hair is swept up & I can see the small glitter of some precious stone on her earlobe, her shoulders rising creamy from a black dress, the plunge it takes down—

  She turns toward me and our eyes meet, the briefest of moments.

  … The salmon sounds good, doesn’t it? Maybe we should get the crab cakes as an appetizer…

  I look down at the menu; I cannot speak.

  Miles? Maggie looks at me, she laughs a little. Aren’t you hungry?

  I feel my face stretching to approximate an expression, but Lucy is all I am aware of—Lucy, a stranger, dressed like I’ve never seen her, alone, elegant. She’s riveting, I can’t stop looking over (but now she won’t look at me; she is a woman with other concerns, it seems obvious, and then I think it’s a crazy coincidence, all of this, and in a second I’m going to see her husband, too)—

  I definitely want a salad, Maggie is saying, her mood still playful, But “baby lettuce,” it seems so cruel—couldn’t they let them at least live a full life first?

  I look down at the menu again, it’s become a blur of words, and remember Lucy asking then, where. Where are you going for dinner.

  The wine’s good. Maggie takes a sip, she’s speaking to me—California grapes, she’s saying, and French, but none of it penetrates to the level of comprehension—at the bar, Lucy is standing, she is putting money down.

  God, I mutter, I have to piss.

  The unexpected drag and scrape of my chair; people at the table next to us, turning to see. Maggie keeps her gaze averted, embarrassed as always when I make a social gaffe, no matter how small. Lucy aware of this move, too, I’m sure, but she’s heading straight to the back, she doesn’t turn to look.

  Excuse me, I say to Maggie, and follow, nonchalant as possible.

  She’s in the bathroom, door locked. I stand there for a minute, I seem to have no breath. Lucy, I say, I can’t wait, I know you’re in there …!

  An interminable moment, and then I hear something, I don’t know what, covered by the sound of the flush. I hit the door, hiss her name again. Suddenly it opens, and she tries to fly past me, I can’t believe it—

  Wait! I grab her arms just as a man comes out of the other restroom. We separate, I lower my gaze. Excuse me, he mutters
, and brushes past us.

  It is only when I look at her again that I see her face, contorted, tears streaking her makeup.

  She’s beautiful, Lucy says, she can’t stop crying. Your wife is perfect …!

  Lucy, I say, an unbearable agony—I want to pull her close, but there are more people coming through now, as if the scene we’re making is rippling out into the room, the scent of human drama—

  You’re the one, I tell her, the truth. You’re the one I couldn’t take my eyes off— Lucy, look at me …!

  But she takes the opportunity, moving so the other person has to step between us, and then she’s gone—I go after her but she’s too fast, and I’m forced up short just before I reach the dining room, I have to step back.

  I walk into the men’s room instead, stand in front of a urinal. Nothing comes out.

  It’s not until someone else comes in that I can move again, zip myself up. In the mirror, my expression stunned, stiff. Have to literally push at my face with my hands to make it change.

  I come back to the table, Maggie is talking to the waiter.

  You missed it, she says when I sit down.

  What?

  Some woman, Maggie says, the waiter grins. She just ran out in tears.

  The evening gone sour, I drink too much, we both do, two bottles of wine. She talks about people, acquaintances, their children. I hardly speak at all. Finally her attempts become shorter and shorter, and then she falls silent, too. Minutes bloated between us, the agony of waiting for the check, to take up the card, to return with it again.

  On the way home, she pulls a cigar from her purse. I stare. She behaves as if this is an old routine, something she’s been doing for years, but she’s almost trembling with self-consciousness; her mouth can’t decide on its own shape.

  What’d you do, interview Fidel Castro for that?

  I just tried it for the first time this week … I kind of like it.

  But if I smoke—

  It’s not a habit, okay, Miles? Let’s just drop it.

  Don’t fucking smoke it in my car, all right? Is that too much to ask?

  She snatches up her purse, throws the cigar into it, then turns her head from me and doesn’t say another word.

  Back at the house, she goes out on the deck, I go upstairs to brush my teeth. Had been apprehensive about the next part, the specter of sex, but I’m certain now, there won’t be any.

  When I go back downstairs, I can smell the cigar. I’m shocked, how much it offends me, this heavy, male smell wafting into my house, my wife puffing on it, blowing thick nasty streams of blue smoke.

  I lean in the doorway. So who taught you how to do that? Con?

  Why do you say that? she asks, her expression illegible in the dark.

  It’s the latest fad, right? Hey, you’re young, life’s not over yet, right?

  She makes a sound, her tongue against her teeth, anger, but something else, too—the involuntary admission of being hurt; of the target being hit.

  It smells like a seventy-year-old man.

  I like the way it smells. I think it’s sexy.

  It’s my turn then to make a sound, I’m sure it falls in the same category. I leave abruptly, without saying goodnight.

  Some noise wakes me, hours later, the book on the floor, the light still on. Maggie’s not there; her side of the bed yet untouched. It’s three-thirty in the morning.

  I find her downstairs, in the kitchen. She’s sitting on the floor, spoon in hand, chipping at a box of brown sugar gone hard as cement.

  Trying for lighthearted, I ask if she’s getting any. Sugar, that is.

  She doesn’t look up.

  Never want to sleep again?

  She shrugs. Her head bent so blond, her bare legs crossed, one of my T-shirts tentlike on her tiny body, she’s my little girl, the daughter she would give me, sulky, lonely, defiant.

  I reach my hand out to her, the gesture reflexive; she is still mine, after all, to take care of. To care for.

  She puts the spoon on the floor, she won’t look up.

  I think I’m allergic to LA, she says.

  You haven’t slept at all, have you.

  She shakes her head, still won’t look up. She’s crying, I know, her very-late-night tears, soundless, exhausted.

  Pull her to her feet, hold her up against me.

  It’s this place, she repeats. I don’t know why—it just makes me so unhappy…

  You’re just tired, I say, speaking softly. Everything will look different in the morning.

  She nods wordlessly against my shoulder and for a minute I’m paralyzed, think I’m going to cry, too—

  It’s bedtime, baby, I say, I keep saying it, like a mantra, until I can move again, and bring her upstairs…

  It’s bedtime.

  —16 march, hollywood

  Sitting across from each other at breakfast, high clouds moving past, the paper spread out, drinking another cup of coffee, it is the most familiar of conjugal scenes, making my thoughts, by contrast, even more shocking: Lucy’s mouth on me, her hair falling silky against my ribs. The Do Not Disturb sign hung from the motel room door.

  Maggie picks an apple from a bowl of fruit, is leafing absently through a sheaf of receipts piled up next to it, when all of a sudden she stops chewing, she puts the apple down—

  I know what it is even before I see it, a piece of paper torn from a notebook, its frayed margin. Concealing a panic that is absolute, I stand, coffee cup in hand, but Maggie reads it out after me.

  “Never slander great Nature; if she has bestowed upon you a mistress without a bosom, say: ‘I have a love—with such hips!’ and go to the temple to render thanks to the Gods.”

  Baudelaire, I say, my tone does not betray me. Great quote.

  Yes, she says. Who wrote it?

  Now, I think: this is it. I can’t quite believe it’s happening, and so casually—her cool gaze, assessing every flicker across my face. She’s my wife, I think, helpless; she knows me. She knows everything.

  Someone who obviously, I say, an allusion to her own narrow frame, those boyish hips, doesn’t know you.

  She gives me just the fraction of a smile, as if to say, Good one.

  Lucci gave it to me, I say then, & move out of her range of vision. Italian men love flesh.

  In the kitchen, I make common noise, the sound of silverware against china, running water. All the while I am gripped with dread, waiting for her to point out the obvious—that the penmanship is distinctly female, the purple ink a woman’s choice—but there isn’t a sound from the other room; she doesn’t say anything.

  More coffee? I call out, but she doesn’t answer that, either.

  Finally I can’t take the tension, I walk back in.

  She’s staring out the window, her chin in her hand. She doesn’t turn to look at me. For a moment, we are both still. She’s somewhere else, it seems perfectly clear; she’s not here.

  No, she says then, turning slow, as if she’s only just heard the last thing I said. I’ve had enough.

  She goes upstairs, her eyes never meet mine. A minute later, I hear the shower, and that’s when I think yes, it’s true: she is—she must be—having an affair, too. I cannot imagine how else it is at all, how else it is the least bit possible, for Maggie to have let me off so wordlessly. To have let me off scot-free.

  We can never know the treachery of someone else’s thoughts. Can never control our own. Marriage occurs only in the most fleeting of instants—how ironic it seems to call it an “institution” … as if by our naming it thus, it will attain that unquestionable weight, some absolute gravity.

  When I imagine telling Maggie it’s always the same: I’m leaving you.

  Those are the only words, there seem to be no other terms for it … I’m in love, I could say, with somebody else. Congratulations, I imagine her answering, the extraordinary cool she can put on. Shall I save you a trip to Tiffany’s and give her my ring?

  I keep having this conversation in
my head, an unwilling rehearsal, but every time it only seems deadlier, and the thought of enacting it more intolerable.

  Those love scenes, Peter used to say when I was writing. They’re so tricky.

  It’s Sunday, Maggie’s last night. Lear’s invited us out, just himself and a woman, who turns out to be, amazingly enough, his ex-wife.

  I pull him aside first chance, say you don’t even look thirty and you’re already divorced? He shrugs, as if this were the most casual of facts, easily forgotten.

  She’s blond, petite, wears false eyelashes and lace-up boots like she just happened across them in her closet. Her name is Joan. She smiles at me when we’re introduced, her grip is weak. She has the kind of flawlessness that women out here cultivate, a flawlessness that seems to demand examination, & I find myself looking her over with the dispassionate interest of a physician—looking for something to stand out, anything that might catch the eye, hold the fickle gaze.

  She’s older than it seemed at first, I see it as the evening wears on, all of us drinking, her makeup fading—her body still has the arduously maintained architecture of youth, but there are lines around her eyes, around her mouth.

  Definitely older than Lear, I think, she could be as old as thirty-three, maybe even thirty-five, I could not have said. She has entered that period in a woman’s life when, given the right light & a good night’s sleep, she can pass for five, for ten years younger.

  I try to picture her with Lear, him twenty-two, twenty-three—imagine him gaunt, impatient, following her everywhere. Spending all his money.

  She and Maggie go to the bathroom together, but it isn’t till the second time that I realize they’re high, they’re higher than we are, Maggie’s eyes gone unnaturally bright. Whatever they’ve shared, they come back laughing, the unlikely camaraderie that springs up between two very different women when they’re intoxicated, and I have the uneasy feeling Maggie will know more about Lear by the end of the night than I have learned yet.

  My reconnaissance, she used to whisper to me at parties, my reconnaissance is so much better.

  Lear suggests another place, a nightclub on Sunset Strip, but Maggie says no, she flatly refuses.