True Hollywood Lies (8 page)

“It’s marked. Here—”

With catlike grace, he walked over to me and stood so close that our faces were almost touching. He ran his hand over mine
(could he feel it shaking?),
moving it toward the earmarked page I had missed. His robe fell open slightly—enough that I couldn’t help but notice the not-so-slight bulge in his dark gray RIPS boxer briefs. Fumbling with the script, I dropped it on the floor. As I started to pick it up, his arm snaked around my waist. I stopped cold.

“Why are you so nervous? I’m not going to fire you.”

“It’s not that,” I mumbled. “I’m just . . . I’m just—”

“You’re afraid I’m going to make love to you, aren’t you?” he murmured teasingly.

“No! Not at all.”
Yes, that’s exactly it.

“If we did make love, here and now—” he paused, as if finding that thought tantalizing—“I
would
have to fire you. We both said that, right? And we meant it, didn’t we?”

“Of course. I know that,” I stuttered, confused. “Uh, Louis, look, I had no right to just walk in here like this. It’s just that I could tell you were mad, and I know it was because of the early wake-up, the breakfast, the limo—”

“Don’t you feel I have the right to blame you for all of that?”

“Well, yes . . . I mean, no. I mean, well, how was I supposed to know that you’re grumpy when you don’t get enough sleep, or that you don’t eat breakfast in the morning, or that you only drink Blue Mountain, or that Malcolm was already booked?”

“Stop me if I’m wrong, Hannah, but isn’t that your job?”

“Yes, it is—but
only
as of fourteen hours ago. So perhaps you could cut me some slack!”

We were eye to eye again. I saw a million expressions cross his face. He settled on stoic indignation—an Oscar-worthy choice, I might add.

“Fair enough,” he retorted. “But grant me the same courtesy.”

“What do you mean by
that
?”

“I mean that, yes, I understand that I can be a bit testy, particularly when it’s this god-awful time in the morning. And, yes, I didn’t warn you that I don’t eat food before noon, or that my beverage of choice wasn’t in the house. And I’m not pissed at losing my driver this morning—well, maybe I am a
bit
miffed that I lost him to some junior executive on his way to LAX, or whatever.” He stopped to catch a breath. “Still, has it crossed your mind even once that maybe—just
maybe
—it’s not
any
of those things that have me pissed? That maybe it’s just the natural anxiety I’m feeling for having to carry this lousy movie on my shoulders? And knowing that if
this
one’s a clunker, then it’s more than likely I’ll keep getting offered lousier and lousier scripts, and if the next one bombs, too, and then the one after that one, that my career will be in the crapper? All because
this
day, of all days, started out wrong from the get-go, and now everything is quickly going to hell in a hand basket, and I feel like bloody shit anyway, which means I probably also
look
like shit—”

He was scared. And vulnerable. And oh so human.

All that
despite
the fact that he was Louis Trollope: actor, heartthrob, and perfect male specimen.

“No, no, Louis, you don’t! You look—well, just
look
at you! You’re . . . you’re Louis Trollope, for God’s sake!”

That stopped him cold. Warily he glanced at himself in the full-length closet mirror.

Did he see what I saw? Louis Trollope, broad of shoulder, strong of chest, narrow of hip, with those slightly tousled gilded locks and those piercing blue eyes that held—as claimed in
O
—“a mouthwatering soulfulness?”

Of course he did. It was obvious by the loving look in his eyes as he scanned his own reflection in the mirror.

There was a knock on the door.

“Mr. Trollope? You’re wanted in the makeup trailer.”

“Thank you. I’ll be right there.” Louis cocked his head and grinned shamelessly at me.

“You’re right. I
am
perfect. And no matter what, I should never let anything, be it bad luck, or trivial mishaps, or others’ incompetence—yes, meaning
you,
my darling Hannah, beautiful fuck-up that you are—stand in my way.”

With that, he clutched me close, gave me a heart-stopping kiss, and bounded out the door.

Exhausted, exhilarated, scared, I sat down. Hard.

That
was no sisterly kiss.
And he had called me beautiful.

Then again, he had also called me a fuck-up.

Fuck-up? Me? Why, what an overbearing narcissistic blowhard
—

And for the record, I had
never, ever
said he was perfect.

He stuck his head back in.

“Of course, I’ll expect no more of these kinds of inconsistencies. Your trial period can’t go on
foreve
r, you know. In light of that, I’ll make you a deal: I won’t dock your pay for today, but any further transgressions will have to be considered. That’s only fair, right? Now, grab the script, go dig up another Jamaican Blue, then meet me in the make-up trailer in five. Hmmm. Make that two.”

* * *

Louis was right:
Breakneck
, a modern-day cop-gone-bad noir-ish whodunit, had the potential to be a thermonuclear bomb at the box office.

Yes, it had Louis going for it as its star—no thanks to Randy, who’d talked him into it over a year ago in order to fill the newly transplanted Louis’s dance card and, at the same time, bolster the crumbling career of another client, a third-rate director with a reel built on lascivious teen gross-out flicks.

In Hollywood, though, timing is everything. Once Louis had broken out with
Fast Eddie
and his career path was set, Columbia was hellbent on holding him to his obligation with
Breakneck
. Unfortunately for Louis, by the time shooting began, any other A-list supporting actors who might have given its barebones script some heft were already signed up elsewhere.

That left Louis with a supporting cast of mostly B players. In other words, the other actors could say they were in a Louis Trollope film, while he could only grin and bear it—and pray that the studio would hold the film’s release until February, when the news that he had indeed garnered those much-coveted Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for
Dead End
would either give this turkey some gravy or allow it to become a subtle reminder to Academy voters that Louis, too, had paid his Club Hollywood dues.

Did I say B players? Let me clarify that, since, in fact, Louis’s cast members ran the gamut:

There was Simone Cavanaugh, who, in the 1950s, had been a winsome ingénue with a slew of Academy Award nominations of her own. Never having won, though, she did what all actresses of a certain age do: she took all roles offered—any role at all, no matter how bad the movie might be—then chewed up the scenery in hopes that the nostalgia bug would bite enough voting members to give her one more shot at Oscar gold. To do so with
Breakneck,
however, she’d have to convince her fellow SAG members that her role as a drunken down-on-her-luck Beverly Hills movie star wasn’t just typecasting.

Donnie Beaudry, now fiftyish, was always the sidekick, never the lead, as he was here, playing Louis’s partner on some prototypical L.A. police squad. Donnie was most definitely a B, having never ever gotten anywhere
near
an A movie.

Still, to Donnie’s credit, he had over a hundred films on his resumé. What, you don’t remember
Western Horizon
, or
Café California
? Perhaps that’s because those films never made it onto a marquee. However, if you’ve got a couple of spare brain cells to kill, check out the straight-to-video titles on Netflix and you’ll find a trove of Donnie’s duds. There was one way in which Donnie had put himself on the A- list, however. He’d married onto it: Bethany Revere, a starlet with a fembot physique and a black belt in judo who had found her niche playing woman-in-terror-who-later-get-revenge-by-kicking-butt roles, was now being groomed by the producing powers-that-be to take it up a notch: say, save the world, as opposed to just her own skin and that of an interchangeable significant other. When asked by the curious tabloids (in the
nicest
ways possible, obviously) just what she possibly saw in Donnie (who’d had a walk-on in one of her very first made-for-TV movies), Bethany purred, “Let’s just say he’s got a
very
slow touch. . . ” That immediately had the paparazzi asking the local L.A. madams if any of their girls, or, for that matter, their Bel-Air matron clientele, could verify—off the record, of course—that his very slow touch was in fact accompanied by a
very
long schlong.

And, finally, Rex Cantor, a chiseled-cheeked Actor’s Studio grad who’d had a couple of costarring roles in a few highly acclaimed indie films. And yet, somewhere in the past eight years or so, his path to stardom had somehow veered off course. Why? That was hard to say. Perhaps he had said “No thanks” to too many of the kinds of projects that might have catapulted him onto the A-list. Or, perhaps he had stuck it out with the wrong agent for too long. Or, perhaps he’d developed a rep for drug use that had film producers and their insurers running in the opposite direction. In any regard, playing the bad guy in a Louis Trollope film could only work for him if he had the chops to upstage Louis, which he did. (And maybe that was the
real
reason Louis was so rattled.)

While Louis played his scenes, I stood on the sidelines ever at the ready, gray cell in one hand, red cell in the other, finalizing the New York and London arrangements. By 10:30 the hotel reservations had been confirmed, Tatiana’s tulips had been ordered, and all was good in the world—at least, good enough that I could sit down for a few minutes.

Donnie’s pert PA, a chesty, corn-fed Midwestern blond cutie named Christy Tanner, offered up a hot cup of coffee and a croissant.

“Want to join us?” She pointed over to a table behind the set, where two other PAs were huddling, well out of audio range of their various bosses.

“Sure, I’d love to,” I said, taking a long sip as we walked over to them. The only guy in the group, the slightly built baby-faced Freddy Pugh, who was cuddling a chubby pug dog with a rhinestone-studded collar, readily owned up to being “Simone’s eunuch.”

“And this is Bette,” he cooed, introducing me to the dog. “She’s Miss Simone’s baby—and I
do
mean baby. Believe me: I ought to know, I’ve diapered
both
of them.”

The thought of Simone Cavanaugh in Attends left a lot to be desired.

The other PA, Sandra Chapman, a plump, sturdy forty-something with a tentative smile, described herself as Rex’s “executive assistant.”

“Oh, drop the airs, Sandy!” Freddy sighed. “You’re just like the rest of us: there to wipe brow and kiss ass. Or, is that kiss brow and wipe ass?”

Christy giggled knowingly. “Well, personally speaking, I’ve done neither—although, I have to admit, Donnie
did
once give me a kiss—”

“Do tell, sister!” exclaimed Freddy coquettishly. “Are we talking the noble brow here, or your very desirable ass?”

Christy blushed deeply. “It was nothing like that, really! What I meant was that I—well, Bethany yelled at me for making the temperature for her leg wax too hot, and Donnie saw that I was upset, and, well, he—well, he was sweet enough to give me a tiny kiss—on the cheek!” She paused, totally confused. “Believe me, it was all
very
innocent!”

“Of course, sweetie,” cooed Freddy. “And if you had offered to blow him, I’m just
certain
he’d have turned you down.”

“Freddy, that’s just—well, that’s
just disgusting
,” sniffed Sandy. “Unlike you, Christy and I have a totally professional view of our jobs. We’d
never
cross that line with our employers, right, Christy? And they know that and appreciate it. Why, Rex has only the most honorable respect for me—as I’m sure Donnie has for Christy.”

Christy had to think hard about that before nodding halfheartedly, obviously too chicken to admit a less noble rationale.

“Don’t kid yourself, Sandy old girl! Rex ain’t showing you ‘respect.’ He’s just not into lollypop love that way. At least, not with the ladies!”

“And just what is
that
supposed to mean?” hissed Sandy.

“It means that Rex may treat you like a princess,” Freddy intoned knowingly, “but that’s only because he’s one mixed-up queen himself.”

Ah, so
that
was the reason for Rex’s stilted career! Now a lot of things made sense. So, Louis had nothing to worry about after all.

“Those are just vicious rumors,” growled Sandy. “And if people like you keep that up, it will ruin his career.”

“Well, darling, take it from ‘people like me’: where there is smoke, there is fire. Your boy has hot pants, whether you want to acknowledge it or not. But don’t worry, I ain’t gonna be the one to out him. That old diva of
mine
, Miss Simone, keeps me too busy to make other people’s lives miserable.”

“More dumpster-diving?” Sandy asked haughtily.

“Nah, since she’s landed this gig, she’s cooled off on that—for now, anyway. Thank God the director’s mother had a soft spot for her. All we had to do was have his mama over for tea and – voila! We were
in
. And hell, it sure is a lot easier pilfering from the studio commissary than the trashcans in some of those fancy Beverly Hills alleyways. Too many patrol cars, you know? Some of them Beverly Hills cops should work a
real
beat, like South Central.”

He patted the big tote bag at his feet. I took a peek inside and saw several soda bottles, sandwiches, bags of chips and Saran-wrapped cookies—certainly a cheaper way to eat in Beverly Hills than trotting down to the Ralph’s.

“Of course, this gig
has
put an end to our sleeping in, right, Bette?” He cuddled the pug lovingly. “Nowadays we’re up-and-Adam by three, putting on Miss Simone’s face.”