Famous (12 page)

“No, my voicemail’s been fucked up.”

I’m taller than Richard Haneline and much
better-looking. I focus on these little things to keep from
fainting.

“Look, I’m having a party next Tuesday after
the premiere. Feel up to coming?”

“Absolutely.”

A woman calls out “Rich!” from the dance
floor.

He waves to this perfect brunette.

“Jim, if I don’t see you again tonight, I’ll
call you.” He starts to walk back onto the dance floor.

I grab his arm. “My phone’s going to be out
of commission for a few days. Here.” I take a cash receipt, tear
off a section, and scribble my new cell number down. “Use this
number. Just call me tomorrow or Monday with details.”

“Sounds good. Hey, guy, I’m so happy to
finally see you out. I think it’s terrific.”

He seems to want to say more, but instead he
slaps my shoulder and backpedals into the tangle of dancers.

When I turn around, I see that the five
ladies of bachelorette party fame have not moved. To tell you the
truth, I think they’re fairly star-struck. And between seeing me
and Haneline, that’s understandable.

I go ahead and take a seat across from them.
The blonde and I lock eyes.

“You dance?” I ask her. She shrugs—very cute.
I think she’s adorable. Perhaps it’s mean of me not to ask the
bride-to-be to dance, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I don’t
want to dance with anyone except this little blond.

“I’m a terrible dancer,” I say.

“Me, too.”

“Then shall we?”

Kara polishes off her fruity drink and rises
from her chair. I’m praying for a slow song, but something tells me
they don’t ever play slow songs in this place.

I take her by the hand and lead her out onto
the dance floor. Her hand is very small and warm. Would it kill DJ
SuperCasanova to play a slow song?

Kara only comes up to my shoulder. When we
find a spot in the crowd, I lean down and put my lips to her left
ear. The beat pulses on relentlessly. Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom.

“Would you mind if we slow-danced to this?” I
ask.

I hope I haven’t hurt her eardrum, but I have
to scream to be heard.

She looks up at me, smiles, shakes her
head.

I cup the small of her back and pull her body
into mine. She’s wearing a sleeveless black dress and she smells
like someone I could love. I know that sounds strange. But right
now, I don’t give the first shit about anything except standing
here with her, moving together at our own pace. Even though we
haven’t said three words to each other, I know her more than anyone
I’ve met since leaving North Carolina, and underneath all this
noise, I’ll bet we hear the same song.

Chapter 14

leaves La Casa * takes Kara home * prepares
his specialty for the Dunkquists * talks with Bo about marriage and
Hannah * plays with Sam in the swimming pool

We slow dance through two more fast songs,
and it feels so good being pressed up against her. Finally she
pulls my ear down to her mouth and tells me that the music is
hurting her ears. It’s hurting mine, too. I ask her if she wants to
leave, because it kind of seems that way. She does. I’m ready to
go, too. Even though I haven’t been here very long, I’ve seen all I
care to see of LA club life. And of course, I secured an invite to
my good pal, Richard Haneline’s, movie premiere and party.

On a side note, his most recent movie was
called
The Soldier
. It’s about a solider who has to sneak
behind enemy lines in World War I to kill some general or colonel.
And the movie is actually pretty decent, but do you think they
could’ve put a tad more thought into the title? I just hate stuff
like that.

I hold Kara’s hand again and lead her out of
the crowd. We return to the table of her four dance-shy friends and
she tells them she isn’t feeling well, and that I’ve offered to
take her home. Of course, her friends are very concerned about her,
but I also catch a whiff of envy.

You think you’d enter and exit through the
same doors, but actually you exit out the side of the building. I
guess those three fuckheads at the door wouldn’t want any of the La
Casa hopefuls to know that anyone ever leaves the place.

Kara and I stand in the warm evening while
the long-haired valet goes searching for my car. You can still feel
the throbbing music, but it’s muffled enough to hear the traffic
cruising up and down Hollywood and the murmur of the crowd standing
in line just around the corner of the building.

“Thank you,” Kara says as I hear my Hummer
crank somewhere out in the parking lot darkness. “I just had to get
out of there.”

The Hummer pulls up to the curb, and I usher
Kara to the passenger side, open the door for her, and help her in.
I know it sounds mean, but I don’t tip the valet. I mean the guy’s
made $200 off me already tonight. I think that’s sufficient. Even
still, he sighs and rolls his eyes when I get in without tipping
him.

So I head back out onto Hollywood and we just
drive for awhile in the direction of UCLA.

Kara’s quiet. I can’t tell if something’s
wrong since I don’t really know her, but I can’t believe she isn’t
more excited to be riding in James Jansen’s Hummer.

“Everything all right?” I ask.

“I’m a little nervous,” she says.

“Why?” I know why, but I’d love to hear her
say it.

“I’m just a little in awe. I don’t really
know how to act. My friends would be talking your ear off, but
I’m…I don’t know.”

“I don’t want you to be uncomfortable,” I
say, and it’s true. I really don’t. I want her to be comfortably in
awe.

“Turn here,” she says.

“How about this?” I say. “Pretend I’m just
some guy you met in the club.”

“I wouldn’t have met any guys in that club.
They certainly wouldn’t be driving me home. I don’t know if you
noticed, but everyone in that place is swimming in the kiddie
pool.”

“Huh?”

“Sorry, bad analogy. They’re shallow.”

“Oh. Yes, I agree.”

“Look, Jim?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know how this normally works for
you. I’m sure you get women like crazy, but I’m not one of those.
Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I really…I’m incapable of bullshit. That’s
who I am. So I’m going to just say it. The reason you’re taking me
home, the reason I wanted you to, beyond the fact that I despise
clubs, is we made a connection. It has nothing to do with who you
are, your fame I mean. I honestly felt something that has nothing
to do with any of that. And I know that I’m not supposed to be
telling you this. Maybe you’d rather we…turn here…maybe you’d
rather we played a little game where neither of us admits how
incredible that was on the dance floor, but that’s not me. I’m
sorry if I’m ruining this for you.”

“It was,” I say.

“What?”

“It was incredible dancing with you,
Kara.”

She smiles and brushes her hair behind her
ears.

“That’s my building up ahead.”

I turn into the parking lot of a four-story
apartment building on the outskirts of the UCLA campus. I kind of
wonder if she’s going to invite me up. This sounds strange, but
part of me hopes she doesn’t.

“I’ll kill the suspense for you. I’m not
going to ask you up,” she says as I pull up to the main entrance.
“I’m sorry.” She unbuckles her seatbelt but doesn’t open the door
yet.

“This is it?” For some reason, the
possibility of her getting out of this car and me not ever seeing
her again turns me desperate. “Could I call you?”

“What are you doing tomorrow?” she says,
opening the door and stepping out.

“No plans.”

“Pick me up at eleven if you want to. Right
here. I’ll spend the day with you.”

“I don’t even know your—”

“You will. For now, just enjoy what happened
tonight. Relish it. It was pure.”

She slams the door and I wait until she’s
inside the building before driving away. I’m tempted to hit another
club or bar, or just cruise through the mansions in the hills.

But instead, I decide to head on home and
relish it.

I rise at 6:30 before anyone else and creep
into the kitchen and start assembling the ingredients for the only
dish I know how to make—a Mexican omelet.

Since there’s four of us, I break a dozen
eggs into a glass mixing bowl. Then I shred half a block of sharp
cheddar and what’s left of a block of monetary jack. Then I cut up
some tomatoes, add a third of a cup of hot chipotle salsa, sauté
some onion, green pepper, and a heap of diced jalapeno peppers. I
add everything to the eggs, throw in salt and pepper and red pepper
and a tablespoon of Tabasco sauce. Then I whisk it all together and
dump the whole runny mixture into a buttered frying pan.

The Dunkquists start drifting into the
kitchen as the smell of my Mexican omelet fills the house. I’ve
gone ahead and brewed a pot of coffee so strong it could run a car
engine, and I’m sitting on the kitchen counter, staring out the
window at those hills catching early morning sun.

“You didn’t have to do this, Lance,” Hannah
says as she opens a cabinet and retrieves her Lakers coffee mug.
She pours herself a cup, sips it, winces. Without saying a word,
she dumps it into the sink, and takes a teabag from a glass jar. As
she fills a saucepan with water and fires up the gas on the stove,
Bo enters in underwear and a tee-shirt.

“That looks interesting,” she says, staring
down into the congealing eggs.

“Surprised to see you up so early,” Bo says
to me. “Smells great.”

He takes a mug from the cabinet bearing the
logo of his software company (the talons of a hawk in swift
descent) and fills it with my unwanted coffee. He sips it, looks at
me, and smiles.

“Now that’s what coffee’s supposed to taste
like.”

“You tasted this yet, Hannah?”

“Little strong for me,” she says flatly,
coldly. I am unfortunately coming to the realization that my
brother married a real fucking bitch.

“Where’d you go last night?” Bo asks, leaning
against the counter beside me. I’m wearing a red and blue Ralph
Lauren robe, incidentally. Very classy.

“This dance club.”

“Oh? I didn’t think you liked that sort of
thing.”

“I don’t, but I was curious to see some LA
nightlife.”

“Meet anybody?”

“I did actually. I’m going to spend the day
with her.”

I notice that Hannah is staring at me like
she wants to ask me something. She might loath me.

“Could you stir the eggs, Hannah?” I ask as
nicely as I possibly can.

She takes the wooden spatula, turns her back
to us, and stirs the eggs.

“So are you going to look for a job next
week, Lance?” she asks.

“I sure am.”

“And you were a legal assistant up until a
week ago?”

“Yes.” I sip my coffee. I hate being asked
questions by people who dislike me.

“What kind of work do you have in mind?”

“Whatever’s available. Doesn’t really matter,
long as it pays decent.”

Little feet come slapping down the hall, and
Sam runs into the kitchen. He stops suddenly when he sees me. You
can tell that he forgot I was here. He just sort of looks at me for
a moment, not unlike the way his mother does. But then he smiles
and runs over to Bo and hangs on his leg.

“I wanna swim,” he says, looking up into his
daddy’s eyes.

“Gotta eat first, pal.”

“Swim!”

“Aren’t you hungry?”

Sam considers this, then nods.

“As soon as you eat, you can go swim. I’ll
bet Lance would love to swim with you. You remember Uncle
Lance?”

“No, just you.”

“Okay, okay.” Bo winks at me. “Let’s get in
your highchair. Uncle Lance made breakfast for everyone.”

After breakfast, I offer to wash the dishes,
but Hannah won’t let me. She didn’t touch the omelet I made, even
though it was very tasty.

Since it’s just past nine, the brutal heat
has not set in. Bo and I put on swimming trunks, and Sam leads us
out into the backyard. The water in the swimming pool is tepid and
grass clippings float on the surface. We turn the pool upside down.
This is unbearable to Sam, who starts sobbing and screaming because
I guess he thinks that was the only water around. He settles down
once Bo unwinds the garden hose and starts refilling the pool.

Sam loves water. He climbs into the pool
while it’s filling and just sits there on the plastic, watching the
stream of water flowing out of the nozzle.

Bo and I sit on the picnic table. It feels
exceptionally pleasant out here at this hour of the morning. I take
off my shirt.

Once the pool is filled, Bo takes the hose
away from Sam and cuts off the water. Apparently, Sam enjoys
squirting adults who don’t care to get wet.

“So tell me about being married,” I say,
since neither of us have yet said a word and I’m a bit curious
anyway.

Bo smiles and removes his shirt. I’m in
exceedingly better physical condition than my brother.

“It’s good,” he says. “It really is.”

I don’t believe him of course.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Would you tell me if it wasn’t?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hannah’s great.”

“Yep.”

“Why doesn’t she like me?”

He looks at me.

“What are you talking about?”

“I know when someone doesn’t like me. She
doesn’t.”

He sighs.

“I think the whole just showing up
unannounced thing kind of got to her, you know?”

I don’t know. If I were married and my
spouse’s brother showed up without calling, I’d be thrilled to take
them in and give them a bed and food, because that’s what you do
for family.

“I’ll apologize,” I say, and Bo doesn’t say
anything, and this really upsets me, because he should tell me I
don’t have to apologize for anything to his wife, since I’m his
brother after all.
You just fuckin’ show up. This is your house,
too.
Didn’t he say that to me the night I came here?