Hollywood Savage

  That’s the place where those spoiled little television starlets get into fistfights with other women, she says. I know, I’ve read about it in the tabloids.

  Impeccable source, Lear says. Come on, Miles, talk some sense into your wife!

  No, Maggie says it again, she is unequivocal, I will not stand next to those airbrushed twenty-two-year-olds. Forget it.

  She and Joan in absolute solidarity. Lear and I exchange glances, it is beyond us—how women look at each other, the most ruthless scrutiny. As if they all share some ancient memory of the harem, the horror of being deposed by the next, the younger, the firmer of flesh. How they cinch their waists, push their tits high, let their hair stream like a banner behind them—I am made of silk, they seem to announce, I am nothing but finery. It makes me think of something Lucy once said, about how difficult it would be to deliver a daughter to this world; what sacrificial offering.

  Lear takes us to a bar in a hotel off Sunset instead, a place with velvet ropes outside, inside drinks that cost ten dollars each; a place where everybody is, as usual, eyeing each other, the occasional sharp glance—are you someone … I might recognize …?

  In fact, we recognize several people. Maggie orders a margarita, clearly intent on getting fucked up. She has that edge—it’s in her voice, the things she says—she tries to laugh it off, but I know, she wants to eradicate it—she wants it gone.

  Apparently intent on keeping up with her, Lear tells the waitress to run a tab, keeps ordering rounds even when there are drinks still full on the table, tells a series of off-color jokes (“What passes for courtship in Australia?” His accent surprisingly accurate. “At closing time a guy leans over, calls to a woman—hey Sheila, fancy a fuck? She answers, I didn’t before, but I do now, ya smooth-talkin bastid”).

  As more drinks arrive, the conversation veers into drunken personal territory, anecdotes told like testimony, vehement, repeated. At one point Lear turns toward me and starts talking about Joan in lowered tones, the way it was, telling me things I don’t want to hear—

  When we first got married it was just like before, you know, we were fucking each other’s lights out every night, but then it got to be more like every three, every four nights, and of course by the time a year’d gone by we were lucky if it happened once a week. I’d lie there next to her and all I could think was how it used to be—I don’t mean just with her, either, I mean how everybody used to run around with everybody else, you know? And nobody knew who they were gonna end up with, and nobody gave a shit, because that wasn’t what mattered …!

  He’s too wound up to remember to keep his voice down, and I can feel Maggie looking over, picking up on this impassioned discourse; I smile abstractedly, glance around, hoping Lear will quit, but he has no idea he’s being listened to by the Other Camp, he’s on a roll—

  We’d been married a year something, almost two, and I just couldn’t believe it, you know? I just couldn’t believe that that wasn’t ever gonna happen again!

  Well, I guess you didn’t have to, I say. I keep my tone of voice mild, hoping Maggie will lose interest, but Lear laughs too hard, as if what I’ve just said is extraordinarily funny.

  Yeah, he says, but I’m not the only one—another friend of mine, he’s been married three years and he’s jumping out of his skin—says to me I’m thirty years old, is this it? Is this all there is?

  Maggie is sitting forward now, making no pretense not to listen, but Lear’s too drunk to notice. Next to her, Joan’s attention span is fractured, her eyes rove the room with an unnerving constancy, as if she’s really looking for something—someone?—specific.

  Yeah, well, I mutter, I just want this conversation to end, what’s he gonna do—jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.

  Yes, Maggie says, she hasn’t missed a beat, but who has the guts to jump, with no guarantee.

  Lear looks at her, his mouth opens; he is caught, foolish.

  Then again he’s a man, she says. How could I forget, that’s its own guarantee.

  She’s looking at Lear but I know, she’s speaking to me—I can hear it in her voice, a subterranean threat, a kind of warning.

  The jump’s always higher for women, she says. Unless, of course, they’re young.

  Or, she says, almost like an afterthought, someone else is already in those flames, waiting.

  She finishes her drink in one swallow, and before I’ve managed to catch her eye a man is bending next to her.

  Ms. Moore …? He’s one of the faces we recognized earlier, Joan had pointed him out—a British rock star with radically short hair, a rare and legendary IQ, and an equally mythic knowledge of certain yogic practices.

  Hello! She smiles brilliantly, allows herself to be kissed on both cheeks. This is the first inkling any of us have had that she might have known him, that she had ever spoken to him before. Next to her, Joan is staring, jaw seemingly unhinged, totally unaware of herself.

  Forgive my interrupting, he says, he glances at us briefly, all modesty and charm, then zeros back in on her, and the thought occurs, he doesn’t even know she’s married. Certainly he seems to have no idea that I might be her husband, sitting right here, across from her.

  I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed our chat in New York, he says, he walks a perfect line between distance and intimacy, the words formal, everything implied.

  So did I, she says, she is all candor. Believe me, it was a pleasure.

  No, he says. The pleasure was all mine.

  He stands, he smiles at all of us again, the three faceless people that happened to be with her, and I am supremely conscious of the radius of awareness behind us, all around us—of everybody looking at this man, at Maggie—the lull in the conversation.

  Nice to see you again, he says, and when she extends her hand, he holds it in both of his. Do look me up should you ever find yourself in London.

  I will, she promises. Absolutely.

  Wow, Joan says, he’s not even out of earshot. You know him?

  Not exactly, Maggie says, like nothing. I just interviewed him.

  When? I try for merely curious but even I can hear it, the snap of viciousness.

  Last week.

  Funny, you never mentioned it.

  Funny, you never asked.

  There’s a moment, nobody speaks. I can still feel the stares of the people behind us, how they’ve suddenly found us worthy of eavesdropping on.

  Lear coughs, he sits back like he can’t take the proximity to this, Maggie and me, and she leans back, too, she looks at him.

  Do you think there’s any chance we can get another drink before they close this place down?

  We all get another one, Maggie orders tequila straight up. I leave the table, go pay the exorbitant hotel rate for a pack of cigarettes. When I come back and light up, she doesn’t mention it, & then I know for sure she’s high; it’s the only time she doesn’t (she won’t) say anything about me smoking. Hypocrisy, this is something else she says, is the one thing she refuses to countenance.

  Last call! the bartender yells, rudely, as if only now is he free to indicate it, what a lot of yapping barbarians we are.

  Maggie swallows her shot, stands. Let’s get the fuck out of here.

  Of course it’s me who has to drive, there is no question. I take the unpoliced back roads home, through winding, deserted streets, driving with the peculiar deliberation only alcohol can induce.

  Seems like you and Joan hit it off, I comment, but she pretends not to know what I’m referring to.

  She was nice, she says, the blandest of words. She’s biting her nails, a habit she broke herself of years ago that recurs now only when she’s very tense.

  What’re you so nervous about?

  Immediately, she puts her hands in her lap. I’m not nervous, she says.

  But when I sneak a quick sideways at her, I think I see her chin, her jaw, trembling … she’s not, I think, my own heart beginning a harder pound, thick and slow inside my chest, but
I look again, at her eyes this time, and they’re blurred, I am sure of it—

  Maggie.

  Hm? She has turned her face all the way toward the window, and then I’m sure; she’s trying not to cry.

  What’s wrong.

  She shakes her head and I see her hand go up, fast and furtive, wiping at her face. A single sentiment, one simple syllable rises up in my throat, into my mouth, but I don’t—can’t—say it, swallow it instead (NO).

  I don’t know, she says then, which is how she always begins to tell me something I don’t want to hear—she does know, she always knows, and now she’s going to tell me something I don’t think I can bear.

  It’s okay, I say hastily (thinking, Coward you fucking coward …!).

  That’s just it, though, she says, she turns toward me, her face under control, but very pale on these darkened side streets, her hair—her words, I pretend—whipped back, whipped away… I accelerate, I do not face her, pretending to be concerned with anything—the road, this curve, perhaps I am even lost—anything so I don’t have to face her.

  It’s not okay, she says, so softly in fact, I may have very well not heard, and I cling to this very real possibility, my frown deepening, the frown of concentration, of drunkenness—

  Something’s happened to us, Miles, she says (God Almighty, not my name, say anything just not my name…).

  Don’t tell me you don’t feel it … I know you feel it, Miles, I know you…

  I take the turn too close to the curb, lean into it as if this were a race car, and she slides into the door, she grips the handle—I wait for her to say it: knock it off, slow down, but she does know me & it hits me with a force I’m not prepared for—God, how this woman knows me! She is simply not going to let me off that easily…

  I know you think it’s me, she says, all clairvoyance and restraint, I know you think I’m just jealous—that I resent your success, and all the attention … and maybe there’s something to that, I won’t say there isn’t, but Miles—

  (Jesus God please let her stop saying my name …!)

  That’s not, she goes on, but everything she can’t say seems to rise up in her throat, too much to swallow, so that she ends up aborting one sentence after the next. It’s not just … I mean, you wouldn’t—you’d give me more credit than that, wouldn’t you …?

  We’re zooming uphill and I’m letting the clutch out, I’m shifting down and accelerating at the same time so that the car groans, I will do anything for noise, anything—

  Miles, please!

  Huh? I half-glance at her, I am completely preoccupied, I am acting as well as I ever have in my life, shifting again, pressing down down down on the gas—

  For Christ’s sakes, you can’t outrace this! I know you’re listening to me, that you heard—

  What? I slow down, I glance at her again. I’m sorry, what did you say?

  She sighs hard, leans back against her seat. A tear, two, escape down her face, get whipped away by the wind I am creating, and this, too, I pretend not to see.

  We’ve never—we’ve had hard times before, she says, she is not looking at me, but her voice is raised, she is speaking to me, and my heart is pounding fast now, fast and loud as she continues. But never—we’ve never been so distant—and I think … there are things I haven’t … I want to talk to you, I want to tell you…

  Don’t worry about it, Maggie, I hear myself saying. I can hardly believe how inane I sound, even in my own ears, and still, I’m going on: I’m just going to write this script, and then…

  And then what, everything will go back to normal? She half-laughs, it is the most painful sound I’ve heard in a long time. Because what I think—

  She stops herself at this, and me, I’ve got one foot hard down against the sloping front of the car, I am pressing so hard I can feel my back against the seat, slammed back against the seat, and my tongue tight up against my teeth. Don’t say it, I’m thinking, a mindless litany, a prayer—don’t don’t please Christ don’t say it…

  … Is that maybe we’re not—I mean both of us, you know… maybe we’re both just not— Oh God, this is so fucking hard!

  Still not looking at me, she inhales deeply, as if she’s pulling all of her emotions, this devastation she’s been trying to describe to me, back up into herself—back into her own head, her own mind, and I think, Yes, keep it there, Maggie, because I’m not ready—I’m stunned, really, at how really not ready I am to hear anything further, anything else at all—

  In love, she says then, she almost whispers it (no one could blame me for not hearing that, or the last word, either), anymore.

  Whoa, I say. I slam the brakes, and she turns, wide-eyed, to face me, I can see her knuckles white on the door handle, the deep shadows that hide her eyes—

  Almost missed my turn, I say then, and wrench the wheel around.

  She looks at me again, disbelieving. She can’t say it again, of this I am sure. It was too hard. I can afford to look at her now, and I do.

  ’Scuse me? I ask, all thickheaded concern. What was that again?

  But she just shakes her head. Now she knows, we both know: she isn’t going to tell me anything; I’m not going to let her.

  We don’t speak after that; we can’t spare it. Not another word, not a single gesture.

  At home, we separate wordlessly, me in the kitchen drinking glass after glass of water in a vain attempt to avoid tomorrow’s hangover, her upstairs in the bathroom. I feed the cat, then stand out on the deck and smoke another cigarette.

  When I finally go upstairs I hear her voice, a low murmur coming from the other room, from my office, and instantly, from nothing, I’m filled with a wild rage—I don’t care what she said before, or didn’t say— This, I think. This is intolerable.

  She’s leaning into the phone, saying something I can’t hear. Her face is bright, flushed, her eyes shining—she is not the same—she is a completely different woman than the one sitting in the car next to me … and the rage flares again, rising like bile, like poison, coming up into my throat, so thick I could almost gag.

  She twists into herself, laughing hard, soundless. I stand there and in the next second, suddenly aware of me, she looks up, eyes wide, the phone against her mouth. Okay, she says. I have to go.

  I know. Bye. She turns around, she’s moving too fast, the receiver knocks into the base when she hangs up, the bang of it loud in the quiet room.

  God, she says, she presses her hands against her eyes so I can’t see them. I’m fucked up.

  Who were you talking to?

  New York, she says airily—all of a sudden she’s Noël Coward & Oscar Wilde, as if this lighthearted mockery has been our tone all evening, and she is only now continuing it—

  All of New York, I ask acidly. Or anyone in particular?

  No, everyone, she says, seizing her only choice even as I realize I gave it to her, then adds, and just think, they called me.

  Well, I say, I guess they’ve got your number.

  No, she says, her voice grows increasingly brittle, apparently they’ve got yours.

  What was so funny?

  What are you talking about. She tries to slide past me but she’s jerky, like she’s been jarred, and can’t regain her balance.

  Guess you had to be there, I say, following her into the bathroom. It’s five o’clock in the morning in New York—who was up for you to talk to?

  Leave me alone, she says (I hear it cracking then, the worst thing)—

  I haven’t seen you in how—in almost three months—and you want to be left alone?

  Yes! She grabs the door to slam it but I’m there, it hits me instead and the force of it knocks me back, her hands fly up to her throat—I hit the wall & then we’re both standing there, breathing hard.

  You’re such an asshole, she says, and bursts into tears. She sits on the edge of the bathtub, puts her head in her hands.

  What, Maggie, I say, I spit her name out. What the fuck do you expect?

  Bu
t she only cries harder, a wild edge to it—she’s losing something essential, the last hold on self-control. She slides into the tub and hunches into herself, crying and crying.

  Nothing, she says, she screams it, I don’t expect anything from you!

  She hates to cry in front of me, I know that, she hates to cry in front of anyone, but the hysteria, crazed, building, scares me—it has to stop, I think, she has to stop now, before it gets worse—I reach for her but she yanks herself away, pushing against me so hard I’m thrown off-balance again, and stagger back.

  Don’t touch me!

  Jesus, Maggie … I hear the jagged edge in my own voice, my hands are shaking, my legs—she’s shattered me, in the space of five, of ten minutes—I’m fucking shattered!

  I leave you alone, don’t I? she cries. I always leave you alone …!

  She pulls the shower curtains closed so I can’t see her, and then I do leave. I go to the bedroom, shut the door as quietly as I can, trying to be calm, though I know it’s useless. It feels as if any peace I ever had in this house, any moment of privacy, was only ever an illusion—and now it’s gone.

  I lie in the dark without moving, not sure if I really can hear her crying or if I am just hallucinating it, I know it so well, the sound of her voice. The pitch of her tears.

  —18 march, hollywood

  The thickness of the air between us the next morning. I’m just anticipating her departure, the relief. But then, the sight of her disappearing into the back of a taxi, the car rumbling down the hill, out of sight … something black in the pit of my stomach, a yawning hole. Jesus, I think. There is no winning.

  Have the dogged sense, like persecution, that nothing will be right in my life until it’s right with Maggie. The recurring thought of her while with Lucy, a stubborn, archaic loyalty. She’s my wife, for better or for worse.

  (For fatter or thinner, Maggie used to say, pressing her belly against me. Can hardly remember her that way, so close; I must not have known, it seems to me now, how things really were.)

  Lucy and I are older, with more behind us when we met—higher stakes, broken hearts; we started with gentler ways. If I met Maggie, now…