An Accidental Affair (29 page)

I looked at her. “You dress plain when you’re at work, not this…dynamic.”

“I dress dull and girly. There is a dress code. Miss Baptiste has a dress code for her employees. Skirts or slacks and low heels. If we wear jeans they can’t be ripped or faded and heels are a must with jeans. I wear long sleeves all the time so my tats don’t show. Wear an acceptable shade of mascara and lipstick. I have to look a certain way at work. Basically, I have to look professional. Which to me is just plain boring. But she’s nice and pays well.”

“So I’ve met you before. But you didn’t look like this. Am I correct?”

She nodded. “You met me the night she spent the night at your home. When she was still living with Bobby Holland. I brought her things to wear. I brought her her laundry. And other things. A woman needs things when she’s away from home. While she was with you,
while she was so happy with you, I covered for her by texting Bobby Holland and pretending that I was her. My job is to assist, and that was what I did. While she swam in your pool, I went by Bobby Holland’s and walked his dogs. I called and rescheduled all of her meetings. She put the world on hold. I picked up what needed to be picked up. That week I was in and out of your home. Still am. But mostly I work out of her production company. I’m at your estate a lot. The guards, the gardeners, the maids, the mailman, the pool boy, the FedEx man, the ants, the bougainvillea, the fir, the palm trees, they all know me. They all see me. Especially the bougainvillea. You’re always out in that remote part of the property where you write. I could hear you out there. That typewriter that you use clicks and clacks like you’re back in the sixties. You’re a serious typist.”

The woman facing me probably knew Regina’s social security number and the password to all of her accounts. She might’ve known mine as well. Not much surprised me, not even the gray car that had followed me here from The Apartments in Downey, but this did. I let a moment pass, a moment of guilt, a moment of preoccupied and busy rich-man’s guilt, before I faced the woman who knew all about me and my life, the woman who had been a fly on my wall as well, and then I took a slow, anxious breath and asked, “So, Steve, what do you have for me?”

She took out her iPhone and slid it across the table to me.

She said, “My name is Alice Ayres.”

“Alice Ayres.”

“Alice Ayres from Toledo. Before that Detroit. But mainly from Toledo.”

“You’re lying. You’re Turkish.”

She smiled. “I was born in Gaziantep. My name is Asiye Fahrunissa Karaca, but after 9/11, I started using the name Alice Ayres. I’m a screenwriter too, but not nearly on your level. Screenwriter, playwright, and poet. I plan to write a novel one day soon too. I’m
going to write about the horrors of Hollywood. Or maybe it will be a play. Not sure at this point.”

I said, “Alice Ayres. I don’t mean to rush, but I have another urgent meeting.”

She nodded. “What I have on this phone is worth millions to keep the world from seeing.”

When she said that, I swallowed. I looked at her and said, “Millions.”

“I’m not a good judge of these things. But you can decide.”

She slid me earphones and started up the video. As soon as she did, what I saw was Regina Baptiste. She had on ripped jeans and a wrinkled T-shirt, red with black lettering.
DON’T JUDGE ME.
She was with Bobby Holland. She was with her old lover. The man she had lived with for three years. He had on jeans and a collared shirt, black sports coat, sunglasses, his hair long and blond, his eyes startling blue. And they were alone inside a trailer. The trailer was from Luxury Fifth Wheel, one that was famous for comfort and size, and was like a two-bedroom apartment of soft leather and shining wood. Wooden cabinets. Dinettes. Side-by-side refrigerator. Satellite television. Living room with two sofas. Bedrooms with king-size beds.

There was a familiarity between them. An uncomfortable familiarity. I saw the familiarity that had been between old lovers, people who knew each other beyond the intimacy of sex. They knew each other’s likes and dislikes, foods, favorite songs. She remembered how he felt inside of her and he remembered what it was like to be inside her. The longing in his eyes was unmatched by the longing of any man for any woman on this planet. It had power. It wasn’t blatant, but I was a man who walked among men and I recognized the truths that men tried to conceal. I knew our ways, our techniques for masking sadness, madness, outrage, and pain.

“Relax, Regina. You’re stiff.”

“Won’t argue that point.”

“Regina, you need to do what you used to do.”

“Which is what exactly, Bobby?”

Watching them, I was living on tenterhooks, bent nails inside my skin, stretching.

Behind me, as I was pulled into the video, as I stayed beyond my hour on the meter and received a forty dollar ticket from an ambitious meter maid, a man in jeans and a black jacket, black baseball cap, and Ray-Bans came inside Abbot’s Habit, entered through the door at California Avenue, moved by the deli, looked around, turned left at the end of the deli, saw me seated with Alice Ayres, my back to him as I watched the video, then he took steps backward and left the place that made the best sandwiches in town, unseen by my distracted and angered eyes.

“Johnny Bergs is fine, but who wants to sleep with a man that can’t beat Greg Brady’s ass? Could you see that in a prison scene?”

The audience roared with laughter.

“And once again, if Johnny bitch…I mean Johnny Bergs…has an issue with the shit I’m saying, he can bring his bitch ass to the comedy club. Every show I do I am leaving a ticket for his bitch ass at will-call. Now let’s move on to other shit…like these pilots at Southwest…did you hear that rant? I thought that I said some foul shit. Talk about some hard-core gay bashing. I guess if this comedy thing doesn’t work out for Tracy Morgan, he can change careers and apply to be a pilot there. Does Johnny Bergs fly Southwest? Has anybody even seen that motherfucker since he got his ass kicked? That motherfucker James Thicke needs his own fan page for doing that shit. That motherfucker went cowboy on Bergs. Shit, I bet Regina Baptiste got fucked that night. Bergs got fucked up and Baptiste got fucked by a damn caveman.”

She acted out a caveman sexing a beauty queen. When she imitated the troglodyte having a barbaric orgasm, once again the audience applauded and roared with laughter.

“Then that Neanderthal James Thicke looked at Bergs. You’re next, bitch. Put that Vaseline down and take it like a man. Oh, stop crying. Take it from me the way Regina Baptiste took it from you. Fair is fair, bitch; fair is fair.”

Outrageous laughter.

For the second time I played the video on the iPhone that I’d procured from Alice Ayres. The trailer from Luxury Fifth Wheel came on the screen. Regina Baptiste. Johnny Bergs. Satellite television on in the background. Regina on one plush sofa. Holland on the other, legs crossed, hands on knees. Johnny Handsome’s trailer. Regina’s trailer would be the same. Equal billing, equal trailers, names in alphabetical order over the credits, Baptiste before Bergs.

Alice Ayres was in a cushy chair that was facing the wall, her phone facing the room, facing dead-on two sofas that were at angles, almost in the shape of a V, her position perfect.

Regina and Bobby still looked like a couple. That familiarity burned my eyes.

“Relax, Regina. You’re stiff.”

“Won’t argue that point.”

He looked concerned. Truly concerned. He wanted to fix what was wrong. But he also looked like an owner who had found his favorite rebellious bitch that had run away.

“Regina, you need to do what you used to do.”

“Which is what exactly, Bobby?”

There was a pause. A knowing look washed across her face.

“What you used to do, Regina.”

“Which is what, Bobby Holland? What is that?”

“Improvisational tricks. Trust exercises.”

With that answer, she took a deep breath. “I’m doing fine.”

“You’re horrible. And you know you’re horrible. Talking to you as a director.”

Regina Baptiste smiled. He had hit her Achilles’ heel and she smiled.

I smiled too. Like I was a cheerleader, I smiled at that small victory. The girl from Montana was a Los Angeles girl now, a transplant that had been hardened by the business. We all were in some way. We were in a racist, bigoted, sexist business where racism, bigotry, and sexism seldom created a lawsuit. Every time someone offended you, each time a director or an actor or newspaper tried to cut you down, you couldn’t tuck your tail and run away. You met all of the bullies head-on. You took the challenge, each meeting, each audition your personal
High Noon
. She was in a showdown with Bobby Holland.

She looked across the trailer at him then asked, “Suggestions? As a director?”

“Stop being married in your mind. Johnny touches you and you become frigid. You’re not connecting to the character. Tickle his prostate and suck him until he comes.”

“Cute.”

Bobby Holland moved to her sofa. “Sense memory always helps.”

She smiled. “I have sense memory of wearing a strap-on to please a Norwegian man.”

Bobby Holland shifted. Her blow had stung. Her jab had been quick and swift.

He said, “I’m just saying to loosen up and let go and touch him like he’s your lover.”

“Well, this scene is not in the script. That’s the problem.”

“Use sense memory. Remember how we used to be. Imagine us.”

“Imagining you and being with Johnny, I’d laugh until I puked.”

She did laugh. In his face, amused by her own insult, she laughed.

Bobby Holland smiled the smile of deep hate. He put his hand
inside his pocket for a moment, just a moment, as if checking to make sure something valuable was still there.

It was. He nodded to himself, then once again looked toward Regina.

“Improvise, Regina. Go off book and let the camera capture honesty.”

“Alan Smithee and his script changes. What James wrote was perfect.”

“If it was perfect, there would be no need for changes.”

“It’s perfect, Bobby. End of story.”

“He’s too arrogant to see his own faults. And you’re equally as blind.”

“Why must every director have to put in his two cents and rewrite what is written?”

“The same reason every actor or actress shows up and wants to change what is written to fit his ego. You’ve never once changed a character’s lines? You’ve never gone against a director and thought that you had a better vision? You’ve never once modified a character written by someone else and said that your character wouldn’t say or do something that was written? You never once felt superior to the creators? You’ve never wanted to change one single action, an action that you thought, even though great for the character, was not good for you, personally, as an actress? You’ve never run across a single word that your ego refused to say?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“I know I know the answer. For years, I entertained all of your complaints.”

“Your point?”

“Actors want to show up and tell the writer what the character he created would do, as if the writer now is incompetent and they can see inside the mind of a character that someone else created. That’s as ludicrous as explaining man to the god that created him. That’s
the director’s job. To step in and raise the mediocre scripts up and make them worth watching on film.”

“Why are you here, Bobby?”

The look in his eyes, it was a mixture of anger and sadness, longing and need. For a moment he opened and closed his mouth, no words coming out, but what he wanted very obvious. He wanted Regina Baptiste. He wanted to ask her to make love to him again. He wanted her to open her legs for him and give him bragging rights, if not closure.

Bobby Holland looked confident, confidence a mask that we all wore. Winners wore confidence. So did the ones who waited tables. Here the homeless were confident.

He swallowed and said, “Relax, Regina. You’re amongst friends.”

“No.”

“Really.”

Regina smirked, her eyes taunting. “I heard they went with someone else on the Bruce Willis film. You were attached, but they have cut you lose for some reason. You were in the running for directing
Last Stand
and
The Tomb
, and I guess something didn’t work out there either.”

“I was going to direct Schwarzenegger in his comeback film.”

“What happened?”

“There was a conflict.”

“You were fired.”

“There was a conflict.”

“Why are you here on the set? Applying for a position as best boy?”

“So now, as I try to help you, after all I have been to you and done for you, you insult me.”

“Why are you on set? You have absolutely nothing to do with this project.”

“Business with Alan Smithee. And I needed to talk to Johnny
Bergs. I need to talk him into coming on board a project. I’m not here stalking you, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“You want Johnny Bergs to work with you again. Good luck with that one.”

“Maybe you can put in a good word for me. For old times.”

“Look, that’s between you and Johnny. I have my own issues and I’m trying to remain focused. Right now I am frustrated. Shit. I don’t know what to do to make this scene work.”

Then her cellular rang. She answered with a smile. She was talking to me. She had lowered her voice and smiled and told me that everything was fine. Blew me a kiss. Hung up.

She said nothing for a moment. She looked troubled. She had lied.

She was afraid. Her mask of confidence shifted on her face; then it fell.

Bobby Holland was angered.

She exploded, “What will it take to knock out this fucking scene?”

When her scream died he said, “Guts.”

She looked at him as if he had just appeared. “What about guts.”

“Where are your guts, Regina?”

“I have guts.”

“Not any more. Not any more. You used to have guts. Now you’re resting on the laurels of work gone by. You haven’t done anything brilliant in a very long time. No guts, Regina.”