What did you do over the holidays?” Rip Millar asks me when a number I don’t recognize shows up on my phone and I answer it impulsively, thinking it might be Rain. After I mention a few family appearances and that basically I just hung around and worked, Rip offers, “My wife wanted to go to Cabo. She’s still there.” A long silence plays itself out. I’m forced to fill the silence with, “What have you been doing?” Rip describes a couple of parties he seemed to have fun at and then the minor hassles of opening a club in Hollywood and a futile meeting with a city councilman. Rip tells me he’s lying in bed watching CNN on his laptop, images of a mosque in flames, ravens flying against the scarlet sky.
“I want to see you,” he says. “Have a drink, grab some lunch.”
“Can’t we just talk over the phone?”
“No,” he says. “We need to see each other in person.”
“Need?” I ask. “There’s something you need to see me about?”
“Yeah,” he says. “There’s something we need to talk about.”
“I’m going back to New York soon,” I say.
“When are you going back?”
“I don’t know.” I pause. “I have some things I need to finish up here first and … ”
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “I guess you have your reasons to stay.” Rip lets it hang there before adding, “But I think you’ll be pretty interested in what I have to tell you.”
“I’ll check my schedule and let you know.”
“Schedule?” he asks. “That’s funny.”
“Why is that funny?” I ask back. “I’m really busy.”
“You’re a writer. What do you mean, busy?” His voice had been slack but now it isn’t. “Who have you been hanging out with?”
“I’m … at the casting sessions pretty much all day.”
A pause before “Really.” It’s not a question.
“Look, Rip, I’ll be in touch.”
Rip follows this with, “Well, how is The Listeners coming along?”
“It’s coming along.” I’m straining. “It’s very … busy.”
“Yeah, you’re very busy. You already said that.”
Move it out of this realm, make it impersonal, concentrate on gossip, anything to elicit sympathy so we can get off the phone. I try another tactic: “And I’m really stressed about what happened to Kelly. It really stressed me out.”
Rip pauses. “Yeah? I heard about that.” He pauses again. “I didn’t know you two were close.”
“Yeah. We were pretty close.”
The sound Rip makes after I say this is like a muffled giggle, a private riddle whose answer amused him.
“I guess he found himself in a slightly improbable situation. Who knows what kind of people he got involved with?” He gives both sentences a syncopated rhythm.
I pull the phone away from my ear and stare at it until I’m calm enough to bring it back. There’s nothing to say.
“That’s what happens when you get involved with the wrong element” is all Rip offers, his voice crawling toward me.
“What’s the wrong element?”
A pause and then Rip’s voice becomes, for the first time I can remember, vaguely annoyed. “Do you really have to ask me that, Clay?”
“Look, Rip, I’ll get in touch.”
“Yeah, do that. I think the sooner you hear this, the better.”
“Why don’t you just tell me now?”
“Because it’s … intimate,” Rip says. “Yeah. It’s a very intimate thing.”
Later that week I’m roaming the fifth floor of the Barneys on Wilshire, stoned, constantly checking my iPhone for messages from Rain that never appear, glancing at the price tags on the sleeves of shiny shirts, things to show off in, unable to concentrate on anything but Rain’s absence, and in the men’s department I can’t even keep up the most rudimentary conversation with a salesman over a Prada suit and I end up at the bar in Barney Greengrass ordering a Bloody Mary and drinking it with my sunglasses on. Rip is having lunch with Griffin Dyer and Eric Thomas, a city councilman who resembles a lifeguard, and whom Rip had been complaining about but now seems friendly with, and Rip’s wearing a skull T-shirt he’s too old for and baggy Japanese pants and he shakes my hand and when he sees the Bloody Mary and that I’m alone he murmurs, “So, you’re really busy, huh?”
Behind him I can feel the burning wind coming in from the patio. Rip’s shocked-open eyes are bloodshot and I notice how muscular his arms are.
“Yeah.”
“Sitting here? Brooding at Barneys?”
“Yeah.” I shift on the bar stool and grip the icy glass.
“Getting a little scruffy there.”
I touch my cheek, surprised at how thick the stubble is and by how long it’s been since I shaved and I quickly do the math: the day after Rain left.
“Yeah.”
The orange face contemplates something and as it leans into me it says, “You’re so much further out there than I thought, dude.”
A trainer at Equinox introduces himself after I noticed him gazing at me while I work out with my trainer and asks me if I’d like to have coffee with him at Caffe Primo next door to the gym. Cade is wearing a black T-shirt with the word TRAINER on it in small block letters and he has full lips and a white smile and wide blue eyes and carefully groomed stubble and he smells clean, almost antiseptic, and his voice manages to sound both cheerful and hostile at the same time and he’s sucking on a water bottle filled with a reddish liquid and sitting in a way that makes you realize he’s waiting for someone to notice him and beneath the shade of an umbrella strewn with Christmas lights I’m staring at the traffic on Sunset as we sit at an outdoor table and I’m thinking about the beautiful boy on the treadmill wearing the I STILL HAVE A DREAM T-shirt and realize that it might not have been ironic.
“I read The Listeners,” Cade says, glancing away from his cell phone, a text that had been bothering him.
“Really?” I sip my coffee and offer a tight smile, unsure of why I’m here.
“Yeah, a buddy of mine auditioned for the role of Tim.”
“Cool,” I say. “Are you auditioning?”
“I’d like to,” Cade says. “Do you think you can get me in?”
“Oh,” I say, now getting it. “Yeah. Sure.”
Softly and with a rehearsed shyness he says, “Maybe we can hang out sometime.”
“Like … when?” I’m momentarily confused.
“Like, I don’t know, just hang,” he says. “Maybe go to a concert, see a band … ”
“Yeah, that sounds cool.”
Young girls walk by in a trance holding yoga mats, the scent of patchouli and rosemary breezing over us, the glimpse of a butterfly tattoo on a shoulder, and I’m so keyed up about not talking to Rain in almost five days that I keep expecting a car to crash on Sunset because everything seems imminent with disaster and Cade keeps posing constantly as if he’d been photographed his entire life and in front of the H&M store across the plaza men are rolling out a short red carpet.
“Why did you come to me?” I ask Cade.
“Someone pointed you out,” he says.
“No, I mean, why me? Why not someone else connected with the movie?”
“Well … ” Cade tries to figure out why I’m playing it like this. “I heard you help people.”
“Yeah?” I ask. “Who told you that?” The question sounds like a dare. The way it sounds forces Cade to be more open with me than he might have been.
“I think you know him.”
“Who?”
“Julian. You know Julian Wells, right?”
I tense up even though he said the name innocently. But suddenly Cade is someone different because of his connection to Julian.
“Right,” I say. “How do you know Julian?”
“I worked for him briefly.”
“Doing what?”
Cade shrugs. “Personal stuff.”
“Like an assistant?”
Cade smiles an
d turns away and then looks back at me, trying not to seem too concerned by the question. “Yeah, I guess.”
Blair calls to invite me to a dinner party she’s hosting in Bel Air next week and I’m suspicious at first but when she says it’s for Alana’s birthday I understand why I’m being invited and the conversation is mellow and tinged with forgiveness and after talking about simple things it feels easy enough to ask, “Can I bring someone?” even though a brief pause on Blair’s part forces me back to the past.
“Yeah, sure,” she says casually. “Who?”
“Just a friend. Someone I’m working with.”
“Who is it?” she asks. “Do I know them?”
“She’s an actress,” I say. “Her name’s Rain Turner.”
Blair is silent. Whatever we had recovered earlier in the phone call is now gone.
“She’s an actress,” I repeat. “Hello?”
Blair doesn’t say anything.
“Blair?”
“Look, I thought maybe you’d come solo, but I don’t want her here,” she says quickly. “I would never have allowed her to come here.”
“Why not?” I ask in a warning voice. “Do you know her?”
“Look, Clay—”
“Oh, fuck this,” I say. “Why would you invite me anyway, Blair? What are you doing? Are you trying to fuck with me? Are you still pissed? It’s been over two years, Blair.”
After a pause, she says, “I think we should talk.”
“About what?”
She pauses again. “Meet me somewhere.”
“Why can’t we talk now?”
“We can’t talk over the phone.”
“Why not, Blair?”
“Because none of these lines are secure.”
Turning off Sunset onto Stone Canyon I drive into the darkness of the canyons and valet park the BMW at the Hotel Bel-Air. I walk across the bridge past the swans floating in the pond and make my way to the dining room but Blair’s not there and when I ask the hostess I find out she didn’t make a reservation and outside I look around the patio but she’s not there either and I’m about to call her when I realize I don’t have her number. As I walk to the front desk I’m suddenly aware of how much effort I made to look nice even though nothing was going to happen. The receptionist tells me what room Mrs. Burroughs is in.
I pace around the grounds debating something and then I give up and walk to the room and knock. When Blair opens the door I walk in past her.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not going to happen.”
“What’s not going to happen?”
“This.” I make a tired gesture with my arm across the suite.
“That’s not why we’re … ” She looks away.
Blair’s wearing loose cotton pants and she has no makeup on and her hair’s pulled back and whatever work she has had done you can’t tell and she’s sitting on the edge of the bed next to a Michael Kors bag and she’s not wearing her wedding ring.
“It’s just a suite that Trent keeps,” she says.
“Yeah?” I say, pacing. “Where’s Trent?”
“He’s still upset about Kelly Montrose,” Blair says. “They were close. Trent represented him for a while.” She pauses. “Trent’s helping plan the memorial.”
“What did you think was going to happen?” I ask. “Why am I here?”
“I don’t know why you keep—”
“It’s not going to happen, Blair.”
“You can stop saying that, Clay,” she says, an edge in her voice. “I know.”
I open the minibar. I don’t even look at what bottle I take out. Annoyed, shaky, I pour myself a drink.
“But why wouldn’t it happen?” Blair asks. “Is it because of her? The girl you wanted to bring to my house?” She pauses. “The actress?” She pauses again. “You don’t think I’d be upset about that?”
“What do you want to talk about?” I ask impatiently.
“I guess in a way it’s about Julian.”
“Yeah? What about him?” I down the drink. “You were having an affair with him? You guys hooked up? What?”
When Blair bites her lower lip she’s eighteen again.
“Julian told you?” she asks. “Is that how you know?”
“I’m just guessing, Blair,” I say. “You told me to stay away from him, remember?” And then: “What does it matter? It’s been over for a year, right?”
“Did you know that he broke it off?” she asks haltingly.
“Blair, I don’t know anything, okay?”
“He broke it off because of that girl.”
“What girl?”
“Clay, please don’t make this any weirder—”
“I don’t know what girl you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about the girl you wanted to bring to the dinner party,” she says. “That’s who he left me for.” She pauses again for emphasis. “That’s who he’s with now.”
I break the silence by saying, “You’re lying.”
“Clay—”
“You’re lying because you want me here and—”
“Stop it,” she shouts.
“But I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Rain. Her name’s Rain Turner. That’s the girl you wanted to bring, right? When Julian broke it off with me she was the reason. They’ve been together ever since.” Again she pauses for effect. “He’s still with her.”
“How … do you know this?” I ask. “I thought you didn’t talk to him.”
“I don’t talk to Julian,” she says, “but I know they’re together.”
I throw the glass against the wall.
Blair looks away, embarrassed.
“You’re that upset over her? I mean how long have you even been with her?” Blair asks, her voice cracking. “A couple of weeks?”
Concentrating on the flower arrangement in the middle of the suite is my only hope of focusing while Blair continues.
“I made Trent take her on as a client because Julian asked me to, without telling me he was seeing her. It was a favor I did for him. I thought she was just a friend. Another actress who needed help … I did it because … ” She stops. “Because I liked Julian.”
I’m murmuring to myself. “That’s why she was at your house.”
Blair realizes something after I say this. “You never asked her why she was there, did you?” Another silence. “Jesus, it’s still all about you, isn’t it? Didn’t you ever wonder what the hell she was doing there?” Blair’s voice keeps climbing. “Do you know anything about her except how she makes you feel?”
“I don’t believe any of this.”
“Why not?”
“Because … she’s with me.”
Finally, I stagger toward the door.
“Wait,” Blair says quietly. “I better leave first.”
“What does it matter?” I ask, wiping my face.
“Because I think I’m being followed.”
I text Rain: If I don’t hear from you I’m going to make them give the part to someone else. In a matter of minutes I get a text from her. Hey Crazy, I’m back! Let’s hang. Xo.
In my office, sitting at my desk pretending to work on a script, I’m really watching Rain, who has just shown up, and she’s tan and pacing the floor, holding a glass of ice with some tequila in it, chatting casually about how crazy her mother is and her younger stepbrother who’s in the military and when she falls onto the lounge chair in the corner of the office it takes all the strength I have to get up and walk over to her and not say anything about Julian. She looks up at me and keeps talking, only lightly distracted, but when I don’t answer a question she touches her knee against mine and then I reach for her arm and pull her off the chair and when she reminds me about the reservation at Dan Tana’s I tell her, “I want to fuck you first,” and start pulling her toward the bedroom.
“Come on,” she says. “I’m hungry. Let’s go to Dan Tana
’s.”
“I thought you didn’t want to go to Dan Tana’s,” I say, pressing into her. “I thought you wanted to go someplace else.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Why? Who didn’t you want to see there?”
“Can’t we just hang?”
“No,” I say.
“Look,” she says. “Maybe after dinner? I just want to chill.” She strokes my face and then kisses me lightly on the lips and then she pulls her arm away and walks out of the office. I follow her through the living room and into the kitchen, where she heads for the tequila bottle and does another shot.
“Who was in San Diego?” I ask.
“What?”
“Who was in San Diego?” I ask again.
“My mother. I told you that about a hundred times.”
“Who else?”
“Stop it, Crazy,” she says. “Hey, did you talk to Jon and Mark?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?” She makes a face. “What does that mean?”
I shrug. “It means maybe.”
“Don’t do that,” she says quickly, whirling toward me. “Do not do that.”
“Do what?”
“Threaten me,” she says, before her face relaxes into a smile.
At Dan Tana’s we’re seated in the front room next to a booth of young actors and Rain tries to engage me, her foot rubbing against my ankle, and after a few drinks I mellow into acceptance even though a guy at the bar keeps glancing at Rain and for some reason I keep thinking he’s the guy I saw her with in the parking lot at Bristol Farms, his arm in a sling, and then I realize I passed him on the bridge at the Hotel Bel-Air when I went to see Blair, and Rain’s talking about the best way to approach the producer and director of The Listeners in terms of hiring her and how we need to do this carefully and that it’s “superimportant” she gets the part because so much is riding on this for her and I’m zoning out on other things but I keep glancing back at the guy leaning against the bar and he’s with a friend and they both look like they stepped out of a soap opera and then I suddenly have to interrupt her.