Famous (14 page)

She sighs. You can tell that deep down she
really wants to go. I mean, who wouldn’t?

“You better hold my hand through the whole
thing. I mean it, Jim.”

“What happened to Lance?”

She doesn’t ask to see my house again. I drop
Kara at her apartment and promise to call her tomorrow with details
of the premiere. It’s devastating watching her walk away toward the
lobby of her building.

The best day of my life has ended.

Chapter 16

back in time for dinner * takes a stroll with
Bo and cold beer * talks about Kara * sits on a bleacher and talks
about fame * insomnia, then sleep

The Dunkquists are just sitting down to
dinner when I return to Altadena. Hannah has prepared something
called white chili and jalapeno cornbread. She tells me she’s glad
I got back in time to join them.

After dinner, I ask Bo to take a walk with
me, and he grabs a couple bottles of German beer from the fridge
and checks with Hannah to see if it’d be all right for him to step
out for a minute. I think it’s pretty sad when an adult has to ask
permission to go outside.

“Your son needs a bath,” she says from the
kitchen sink. We’re standing in the foyer by the front door.

“I’ll give him one when I get back.”

“It’s seven forty-five, Bo.”

“Then you wash him, Hannah, and I’ll do the
dishes.”

Hannah drops a drinking glass into the
dishwater (it breaks) and walks over to the breakfast table where
Sam still sits in his highchair, playing with his food. As she
slides out the tray, Bo pushes open the front door, and I follow
him outside.

I love Bo’s neighborhood at night. The
crickets are chirping, the bungalows all aglow. The street is empty
so we walk right down the middle of it, the lawn sprinklers
whispering on either side of us, the soles of our loafers dragging
along the pavement. Bo hands me a beer and a bottle opener from his
pocket.

“Sorry I got you in trouble back there,” I
say.

“Not your fault, Lance. We, uh…we have some
things to work on. Hannah’s an intense person.” I’m not really
sure, but I think that just means spoiled bitch.

The beer is dark, thick-tasting, and creamy,
like cold, black coffee. I like it.

I tell Bo about my day with Kara. About Mt.
Pinos and the meadow. I describe what she looks like, how she’s a
grad student at UCLA. He’s so happy for me. You know how sometimes,
when you tell someone a piece of good news about yourself, you can
tell they don’t really care? It’s not like that at all with Bo.
It’s like
he’d
spent the day with Kara.

We walk all the way to this soccer field. I
feel lightheaded in a pleasant way. I think it’s from this good,
strong beer. The goals are rusted, nets tattered. Bo and I head for
the solitary bleacher. The sound of its metal resonating under our
feet reminds me of playing baseball in middle school. That was the
last good time before now.

We sit looking out across the playing field
and drinking beer.

“Lance,” Bo says, “I’m glad you’re here, pal.
I really am.”

I look at my brother and smile. I think I’ll
just ask him.

“Could I have your opinion on something?” I
say.

“Sure.”

I polish off the rest of my beer and set the
bottle beside me.

“I haven’t really told Kara the truth about
some things.”

“Like what?”

“About living with Mom and Dad for seventeen
years and being sort of a loser.”

“You aren’t a loser, Lance.”

“Oh, I know.”

“Lance.” He takes hold of my arm and finds my
eyes. “You aren’t a loser. I’ve always thought you had this special
insight, that you really saw people for what they were.”

“Who’d you want to be when you were a
kid?”

“You mean like a profession?”

“No, a person. Like a star.”

“Oh.” He considers this for a moment. “When I
was thirteen, I wanted to be Tommy Fields.”

“From The No-Names?”

“Yeah.”

I laugh, because Tommy Fields was a skinny,
long-haired rock star from the mid-70’s. He was always being
rebellious in interviews, and all of the songs he wrote were titled
“Bad Love” or “Dying for You.” Real subtle themes. But he
accidentally lit himself on fire during a concert in 1980, and no
one ever heard about him after that.

“Why’d you want to be him?” I ask.

“I don’t know. It was just a stupid
fantasy.”

“No, really. Think about it.”

He thinks about it.

“Well, I loved rock-and-roll. I mean, who
doesn’t want to stand in front of a screaming crowd? It’d be a
thrill.”

“Yeah. To have everyone know you and love
you. Doesn’t it ever make you sad being obscure?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Right now, you and I are sitting here in a
huge, exciting world, just two normal guys that no one’s ever heard
of, and no one ever will. Doesn’t that make you sad?”

“No.”

“Well, it does me.”

“Why?”

“Because when I die, I’ll be instantly
forgotten. You and Mom and Dad will remember me, but that’s just
until you croak. Think about how presidents feel, even the bad
ones. And movie stars. Even washed-up ones. They know that even if
they were to die tomorrow, they’d be remembered. They made a dent,
you know? Can you imagine what that must feel like?”

“Probably not as good as you think,
Lance.”

“No. Better. I think it must be the best
feeling in the world.”

Bo finishes his beer and slings the bottle
out into the grass.

“You want to know what the best feeling in
the world is?” he asks me. “Happens to me once a day. It’s
ten-thirty, the news has ended. I turn off the television, and
before I go to bed, I walk down the hallway and crack the door to
Sam’s room. And I peek in at my son, sleeping peacefully in bed,
under a roof I’ve provided for him. That, Lance, is the best
feeling in the world.”

I get up from the bleacher and recover Bo’s
empty bottle from the grass. I don’t condone littering. When I
return, I see that Bo has stretched himself out on the top rung,
staring up at the hazy stars.

“That’s just an instinctive feeling,” I say
to him, a little angry. “And anyone with a functioning reproductive
system can have it.”

“You’re losing me, pal. I think you’re
confused. And that’s fine. Nothing wrong with that. Maybe you could
go talk to someone like Hannah, and they could help you figure out
what you want.”

“I know what I want.”

Bo sits up and looks at me.

“What do you want?” he asks me.

Of course I don’t tell him.

Instead, I start off down the street.

It’s after one o’clock in the morning. The
house is so quiet. I can only hear the refrigerator cutting on and
off, and outside, the chirp of crickets.

I sit in a rocking chair by the window. Light
from a telephone pole in the backyard floods between the blinds and
spreads a pattern of lucent rectangles across my chest, and on the
hardwood floor.

I am very awake. Fearfully awake. In two days
I have a movie premier and a party to attend. Other social
engagements will surely follow. It’s tempting to carry on as I have
this past week. No, not tempting. Safe. I could find a job, hit the
clubs on weekends, get recognized occasionally, play at being
Him.

But that’s all I’ve done, and all I would be
doing. Playing. I realize this now. And perhaps playing would be
satisfactory for most people, but it isn’t good enough for me any
longer. Every time I come back to this house as Lance, the pain
intensifies. I was not meant to be this man. I was not meant to be
obscure.

I hold a scrap of paper which I’ve carried
around in my wallet for two years, reading it over and over in the
eerie, orange light.

James Jansen

203 Carmella Drive

Beverly Hills, California. 90213.

It’s the address of my new home. It makes me
smile to think of it, and a peace settles upon me.

I can sleep now.

Chapter 17

Bo Bo’s * the namedropper * the Jansen
bungalow * breakfast in the Hummer * a brief synopsis of Jansen’s
public profile during the last year * Until the End of Time: a
screenplay * follows the white Porsche * makes the namedropper’s
day * Universal Studios * the gated life

I wake before dawn, slip into this pinstripe
Brooks Brothers shirt and khaki slacks, and tiptoe out of the
house. There’s a diner called Bo Bo’s on Sunset which looks to be
the only thing open at this hour of the morning, so I stop off and
order a cup of coffee and a bearclaw.

There are these people sitting in one of the
booths still wearing their evening attire from the previous night,
and you can tell they’re trying to act very excited about being in
a diner after partying all night, but they look dead tired. While
the cashier withdraws my bearclaw from the pastry case, I overhear
this one guy who’s completely monopolizing the conversation, busily
listing all the Stars he saw.

“…Brad Locket. Tony Vincent. Angela
Murphy
. I got a drink for her. A bone dry martini, ’cause I
read somewhere that was her favorite. And you know what she said to
me? ‘I was just thinking how I could use one of these. How
thoughtful.’ She was already sloshed I think. I told her about my
screenplay, and she said she’d love to read it. You fuckin’ believe
that? I’m going to drop it off at her agent’s office this
afternoon. You know, this is how careers get started.”

You really wouldn’t believe what happens
next. The namedropper stops mid-sentence, and I hear him whisper,
“Look who’s standing at the counter.” Any other time, I’d be
mightily pleased to have this recognition, but today is an
important day for me, and I can’t tolerate the distractions of
faking fame.

I haven’t turned around yet, but I hear the
young man slide out of the booth and begin walking across the diner
toward me. The cashier hands me the bearclaw and changes my five
dollar bill. I gather up my pastry and steaming cup of coffee, and
when I turn around, this eager young face stands before me, nervous
and hopeful. He sports—well, sports is too strong a word—he’s
attempting to wear a tux, but it’s about half a size too large for
him. It looks as though he borrowed it off his big brother.

“Mr. Jansen,” he says, and then freezes.

“Yes?” I ask impatiently.

He closes his eyes, takes a big breath. I
walk on toward the door, but he steps in front of me.

“Please, I know you’re very busy, but please
just let me say this.” He swallows and meets my gaze. “You’re my
favorite actor in the entire world, and I’ve written a screenplay
with you in mind for the lead. Can I give this to you? Would you
take it and not throw it away?” From under his arm, he pulls out
this script and practically shoves the thing in my face.

“You know,” I say, accepting the script and
smiling, “I’m actually looking for my next project right now.
What’s your name?” He has to think about this for a moment.

“M. Connor Bennett.”

“Well, Connor. Tell you what. I’m going to
read this today, and if I like it, we’ll be in touch.”

“Oh my God. Thank you so much, Mr. Jansen.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My contact info is on the cover
page. Holy shit.”

Then he hugs me.

I drive up into the Hollywood Hills.

It takes me an hour to find Carmella Drive,
this little road off Laurel Canyon.

At seven in the morning, it’s quiet and
beautiful. You can’t really see the houses from the road, since
most of them are enclosed by stone walls, but every so often,
you’ll catch a peek through a gate or a thin spot in the foliage.
It makes my head swim to think that a Star or director or producer
lives in every house I pass.

It’s one colossal mansion after another.

What real estate agents might call
“bungalows” also perch on the hillsides which overlook the waking
Valley. Do you know what the technical definition of a “bungalow”
is? I looked it up once: “A one-story house, cottage, or cabin.”
There’s no fucking way these are bungalows.

195. 197. 199. 201. 203 Carmella Drive.

My heart racing now.

I slow the Hummer to a crawl and drift past
the mailbox of James Jansen. His house is a bungalow, set below the
road, and from what I can tell, it commands a spectacular view of
the Valley. Instead of stone, a wall of hedges hides his home from
view.

I cruise on and pull over when the shoulder
widens, a couple hundred yards down the hill from his mailbox.

My coffee’s gone cool in the hour it’s taken
me to find Jansen’s place.

I sit in the Hummer eating the bearclaw, as
close as I’ve ever been to JJ.

To my knowledge, Jansen owns five homes: (1)
a 12,000 square-foot log cabin in Montana; (2) this 5,000
square-foot bungalow in the Hollywood Hills, his primary residence;
(3) a 5-bedroom apartment overlooking Central Park in Manhattan;
(4) a three-story beach house in Nags Head on the Outer Banks of
North Carolina; and (5) a villa in the South of France.

According to tabloids, rumors, Web sites, and
everything else I’ve read about him in the last year, Jansen has
not left LA in nine months. He hasn’t worked on a project in three
years, and his public and social appearances have been on the
decline. He hasn’t even been out in public (movie premiers, the
Oscars, fundraisers…) since before Christmas. And people are
beginning to wonder why. I won’t even touch the speculation, but if
his seclusion continues much longer, it will become a major story.
But as of right now, his absence is only curious.

In my rearview mirror, I can see Jansen’s
gate a little ways up the road. Since I have nothing to do now but
wait, I lift Connor’s script from the passenger seat.