Hidden Bodies

“I fucking ended that.”

  “Before it began.”

  “Before it existed.”

  “Before it was in the womb.”

  “Before it was in my dick,” says the alpha, also in his sunglasses. He nods at the women. “Ladies.”

  They explode into giggles. The one who spoke to me looks at him. “Are you an agent too?”

  “Not right now, honey,” he says. He looks her up and down, then looks me up and down. He returns his gaze to her. “If this guy is telling you he can make you famous, believe me when I tell you he’s lying. His shoes can’t make anybody famous.”

  The elevator doors swing open and we are at another roadblock. There is a meager-eyed man at the desk. He recognizes the two fuckers from the elevator and greets them, deferential. The main one whistles with his fingers.

  “Hey, Paco. My shades ever show up?”

  The obsequious servant hangs up the phone and apologizes for failing to find the shades, for failing to find the people capable of finding the shades. He apologizes for being on the phone and he apologizes for the stairs being slippery and he apologizes for holding the man back from his meeting and he apologizes again for not having the shades. The sluts in front of me watch the assholes disappear up the marble stairs.

  The desk slave sighs and looks at the girls. “Do any of you have a membership?”

  “No,” the lead one answers as she shakes her head. “But we have the password for the audition. For the movie.”

  He groans. “What is the password?”

  “Aniston,” she says.

  He waves them on and asks them to take the elevator instead of the stairs. He looks at me. “You’re a guest?”

  “I’m a victim,” I say. “My girlfriend is sick with aspirations of becoming an actress, meaning that she left me this morning to come here and audition, which makes me evil for not following her along to support her.”

  He laughs. “They’re upstairs in the main hall.”

  “Okay if I stop by the bar for a drink first?” I ask.

  He nods. “Just say that Ricardo okayed it. I have to admit that I’m sick with aspirations, too,” he whispers, and fakes a cough. “Alto. Dancer. Epic stud.”

  I laugh and it feels good to be that guy laughing with the servant as the doors open again and more guests arrive. I leave the blue walls and the art and begin my ascent on the marble stairs.

  On the second floor there are lanky beautiful people lounging self-consciously, stomachs sucked in. I go onto the terrace and see all of Los Angeles and it looks good from up here. There are small, clean love seats and small, clean people sitting in them. There are beautiful old novels on small shelves.

  This is the path to Amy, I know it, but she isn’t seated at the bar, sipping a mojito, and she isn’t mulling over dessert, and she isn’t marveling at the flowers. I go back inside, where there is a line of doors off a long hallway. I try the first one. It opens, and the lights are out but a woman is sitting in an overstuffed chair facing a monitor. She is barely visible beneath a cashmere blanket and her Beats headphones.

  “Hello,” I say, but she doesn’t hear me.

  She is bigger than Beck but smaller than Amy and I hate the way my mind puts all girls between those two. I try again. Louder. Hello. Nothing. I step toward the girl and I’m close enough to see the monitor she’s watching so intensely. A girl is auditioning for something on the screen. Ah, so this is the girl in charge of the auditions.

  “Hello.”

  Still nothing. I step closer and now I see her tanned feet, bare, naked, crossed at the ankles. I see her cotton candy hair and my heart beats faster. I know her. It’s the La Poubelle candy girl who took my water.

  Running into the candy girl when I was looking for Amy. This is fate. I touch her shoulder and she sees me. She gasps. There was a study that said all relationship dynamics are determined by the first interaction. Ours is this: me scaring her.

  But she is laughing. She gestures for me to sit and I do.

  Her toenails and fingernails are painted iPhone white—Amy’s were painted nothing—and her hair is gathered at the top of her head, falling, a ballerina. She shifts and the blanket slips and her legs are honey brown, more buttery soft than Beck’s, tauter, more defined than Amy’s. The girl onscreen finishes reading and the candy girl pulls a yellow legal pad out of her notebook.

  She writes: ?

  She holds out the pen and I wheel my chair closer and it’s that time before you’ve fucked someone and every single movement is penetrative. My body is all dick. I take the pen. Our fingers don’t touch. Not yet.

  I write: I’m looking for someone.

  I hand her back the pen. Our fingers still don’t touch.

  Who?

  She has fat diamonds on her earlobes. I take the pen and this time our fingers touch, barely.

  That wouldn’t be fair. She’s auditioning.

  A security guard barges in. She waves him away. It was that easy. She saved me. She is the boss. She motions for me to stay.

  I owe you a water. ☺

  So she remembers me too. I write: La Poubelle.

  She writes: Yes.

  I write: Yes.

  She picks up an extra set of headphones and I move my chair even closer and there is sex, so much sex, inside everything she does. Amy and I bantered. This is hotter. This is purer. She scratches her elbow and I want to slap my fifty dicks against her elbow. She sneezes. I write: God bless you.

  Thank you.

  My turn: I’m Joe. You?

  She licks her lips. Hi Joe. I’m Love.

  There is heat generated by our legs, parallel, our forearms, close. I write: Love?

  She covers her mouth with her hand. My parents are crazy. It’s a fun name though. Like any name after a while. You grow into it and your name is just your name. But then yes. It’s weird, being love. Hello, narcissistic asshole, right?

  Love is funny. Hello, narcissistic asshole.

  She smiles and it’s on, a spontaneous nonverbal blind date. I crack jokes. Love takes pictures of my jokes about the actresses and texts them to someone. A waiter comes. I write down my order: cheeseburger medium well fries grey goose soda. Love bites her lip and looks at the waiter and makes a peace sign. Two. She is an easy, breezy, beautiful CoverGirl. I actively promise myself that I will not think of her as healthier than Beck and more fun than Amy. I won’t let old, broken down, dead, bad, thieving love be in the same room with new, sweet, honey-legged Love. I am here, now.

  She snaps her fingers and points at the monitor. I continue to make Love laugh and when the waiter comes back with our burgers. I reach into my wallet and Love reaches over and grabs my arm. She shakes her head no. She signs for the burgers and I crack up when it occurs to me that everyone knows that sex is better when you’re in Love. She sees me laughing and she writes one word: Pervert.

  She doesn’t look away when I stare into her eyes. Amy would have hit me or squirmed or made it all into a cynical joke. Beck would have pouted and brought up something boring like the etymology of the word pervert. But Love’s eyes remain fixed on me and I know. She’s a pervert too.

  16

  I don’t believe in love at first sight. But I do believe in electricity, the way it can recharge you. I am healing. When Delilah texts, I write back: Went away for a couple nights, visiting my uncle.

  Love picks up a container of Ice Breakers Ice Cubes gum. She pops the lid and offers the box. I open my palm, expecting her to tip it so that a cube rolls into my hand, but she writes: U can put ur hand in my box.

  Everything would be perfect if she had used you instead of u.

  I reach into her box and I pull out a piece of the gum. I have learned from our notebook exchanges that Love is a producer on this movie. She is working with some guy, the guy she keeps sending my jokes to. I tell her that I came by to look for my neighbor who is nervous about her audition.

  Love does that thing girls do when they like you, where they find out you’re si
ngle and they can’t smile and look at you at the same time so they stare at the floor and their cheeks turn red and their eyes crinkle and yes.

  I write that my neighbor is really tall. Blond. Did you see anybody like that?

  Confident Love shakes her head no. We’re looking for someone more petite. I don’t remember any tall blondes, no remarkable ones anyway. Do you have a picture of this girl?

  I shake my head. But it’s fine. It doesn’t matter anymore. Her grin widens.

  All first dates come to a brutal, nasty end and ours does when a voice blasts into our headphones. It’s a man. He is loud and fast: “Forty to Love, Forty to Love. Checkity checkity breakity breakity.”

  I write: Is that your boyfriend?

  She laughs. She shakes her head no.

  That was it, my answer, my prompt, my cue, my yes. I yank off my headphones and Love does the same. I kiss her. She kisses me back. It is the warmest kiss of my life. Love’s mouth is Soho House, velvet and marble, members only. I don’t try for anything more than this and I pull away first. She says hello to me, and her voice is at once pornographically suggestive and judiciously blunt, like she has been on trial, been recorded, part of that generation that was instructed to use your words.

  She shakes her head and laughs. “It’s so weird to hear your voice when you haven’t heard it for a while.”

  She’s right and I’m laughing and she smells so damn good.

  “Come meet my brother,” she says. “He’s the one who wrote the ridiculous fucking casting call, but you know, he has a vision.”

  She explains that their parents used to be obsessed with tennis, watching it more than playing it. Love doesn’t play much (yes!) and Forty isn’t much of a jock (who cares?). It’s funny what girls think you want to know. We walk through the main room and she waves hello to random people. Love is a passport; she’s Ray Liotta in Goodfellas and Julianne Moore in Boogie Nights, a hostess, a leader. With her, I can go anywhere. She looks at me before she opens the door marked screening room.

  “Bear with me,” she says. “Forty can be a lot.”

  She’s not kidding. The room reeks of cigars and lobster. Forty’s on the phone and he motions for us to be quiet while he humors his agent. Contrary to popular belief, Philip Seymour Hoffman is not dead; he’s alive and well, camping out in Forty Quinn. Forty is bowlegged and blond, in madras shorts, a Steve Miller Band T-shirt, with a giant boy smile. Love tells me they’re twins but Forty looks a hundred years older. His skin is leathery from sun, cocaine, and court-ordered community service. His hair is the opposite of his skin, shiny to the point of silken, possibly transplanted from a doll, yellow and conditioned and parted in the middle.

  “He’s intense,” she whispers.

  “Are you guys close?” I ask.

  “We’re twins,” she says. She didn’t answer the question and she tucks her hair behind her ears and begins organizing his mess. We only ordered two cheeseburgers and Forty ordered everything on the menu. I try not to react to this mess of wasted food. I will not fuck this up.

  Forty has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and he pops the cork off a bottle of Dom. “I did not feel the Groundlings girls,” he says into the phone. “I need more heart in a woman, you know? Nancy is going to hear from me because I specifically told her do not bring me funny unless you bring me honey.”

  He hangs up, growling, and Love reels him in. “Forty,” she says in a kindergarten teacher tone. “Calm down. It’s gonna be fine.”

  “It’s not fine,” he says. “We didn’t find her.”

  “We will,” she says. “But right now, Forty, this is Joe. Funny Joe.”

  Forty puts down his bottle, stubs out his cigarette, and claps. “Old Sport. You fucking cracked me up.”

  I extend a hand and I like this guy not because he is complimenting me, because he is right. I am funny. I am talented. I am Old Sport.

  The three of us settle into club chairs and talk about the actresses and it’s oddly easy. All my life I’ve struggled to fit in. I can’t stomach Calvin’s wannabe posse and I can’t sit with Harvey and listen to him work out his bits and I could never go through life as Delilah’s plus one. But this feels easy.

  Love leaves to pee and Forty throws a crumpled napkin at me. “Just be good to her.”

  “Hell, yes,” I say. “So, you guys are from here?”

  He looks at me like I’m insane. “Are you serious right now?”

  I look at him like he is sane. “Yes.”

  He cackles. He claps. “Dude,” he says. “I love you for not knowing where you are right now. That is fucking epic.” His eyes darken. “Unless you’re full of shit.”

  “God, no,” I say. “I came here looking for someone and I bumped into your sister. That’s it.”

  Love returns and asks what she missed. Forty throws another crumpled napkin at her. “You missed the part where my heart was made whole again,” he says. “The part where I learned that your new friend Joe has no idea who we are.”

  Love crosses her arms. “Forty,” she says. “Come on.”

  “It’s fine,” I say. “I’m not with the government.”

  Forty laughs too hard and Love picks up the napkin and throws it away even though she doesn’t need to do that. “You have to forgive my brother,” she says. “He’s deluded sometimes and he thinks we’re famous. But we’re not.”

  “But we are,” he says. “Joe, you ever hear of the Pantry?”

  “Best grocery store ever,” I say. “There’s one right by my house.”

  “In Brentwood?” he asks.

  “No,” I say.

  “Santa Monica?” he asks.

  “No,” I say.

  “Dude, you full time it in the ’Bu?” he asks.

  “I live in Hollywood,” I say. “In an apartment building.”

  Forty steps back and it’s like at school when they find out you get free breakfast and lunch. “Cool,” he says. “Holly would if she could, right, bro?”

  “Our parents own the Pantry,” Love says, and my mind is blown and I don’t try to hide it. “Which does not make us famous.”

  Everything is hazy as Love and Forty squabble over whether or not they’re famous. I can’t believe Love owns the Pantry, my special place, my haven. Ray and Dottie have been trying to send me their love since the day I got here.

  “So, will you be joining us and the moms and the pops at the big C?” he asks.

  I look at Love and she smiles at me. “We’re going to Chateau,” she says. “Will you come?”

  “Sure,” I say, and it was on my list of places to go but I don’t want to act like a fucking tourist.

  Forty strokes his chin and stares at me and Love asks what his problem is and he sighs. “I’m gonna guess that our new friend doesn’t have a jacket and I’m gonna suggest a pit stop along the way to amend this unbearable injustice. Yes?”

  I look at Love. I say yes.

  17

  I’M at home in Love’s Tesla and I was born for this. We pull out of Soho House and I show her my Pantry playlists in my phone, my Shazam search history too. She wants to see my most played songs and she is perplexed. “This is a lot of stuff from Pitch Perfect,” she says. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  I tell her she’s funny and I make up some shit about watching it on Netflix in the middle of the night and liking the swimming pool mash-up. Then I bring it back to us, to the Pantry playlists. “I just can’t get over it,” I say. “I love those playlists. I go in there just for the music.”

  She gets all excited and her knees bump and she drums her elbows on the wheel. “You don’t understand how I am about to blow your mind,” she says. “I make those playlists.”

  And she’s not kidding. My mind is blown. Love is the music designer and she is the person letting “Valerie” by the Zutons melt into Gregory Abbott.

  “Nobody ever notices,” she says. “And I mean I think about this music, I obsess over this music. I think it’s because of my name,
but I have like, ten thousand pictures of me posing in love songs, like ‘Stop! In the Name of Love,’ you know, me in front of a stop sign.”

  I think it’s okay to touch her and I pat her knee. “Don’t worry. Your dorky little secret is safe with me and I’m not gonna jump out of the car.”

  She has so many different smiles. This one is impish. “You can’t,” she says. “You’re locked in.”

  “Good,” I say. She put me in a cage already. I tell her I love the funny names the Pantry has for each section.

  “I named those when we rebranded,” she says. “I came up with Procrastination Nation when I was in college freaking out about my thesis.”

  “I can’t believe this,” I say.

  I ask if she studied drama in college and she tells me she’s not an actress. “I mean, I don’t think you grow up here without thinking about it, but I have a charity called Swim for Love, where we give lessons to at-risk kids. That’s my main focus. These movies Forty and I try to make never come together, which is fine. But I’d rather do that than audition. Wasn’t it so sad?”

  I tell her my zombie-aspirations theory, that fame is the antidote, the issue of supply and demand. She says I sound like a writer and I say I’m a bookseller. But enough about me. “Tell me about the Pantry. Everything.”

  She says her great-grandparents helped build California—one Pantry to start an empire—and now they own dozens of markets in California. They own acres of land and malls and holy shit, the girl is loaded.

  “I’m not telling you to tell you,” she says. “I mean, I’m not bragging.”

  “I know,” I say. “And I mean it when I say I would be excited if you only had the one store. I love it there.”

  She laughs. “I’m starting to get the picture. And we have to thank your friend, the one who auditioned.” She taps my shoulder. “The reason we met.” Love is bold; Love is horny. “We should send her flowers. Or candy. What was her name again?”

  “Nice try,” I say. “I’m not telling.”

  She slaps the wheel. I laugh. “I still can’t believe the way your parents have been telling me about you and I had no idea.”