We're So Famous (10 page)

FABULOUS PERSON: What play?

SWEET PEA: It's a series of plays about celebrity deaths.

MAX FACTOR: Like who?

SWEET PEA: Well, on Friday nights we do a car crash-themed play about Jayne Mansfield.

MAX FACTOR: Who's that?

FABULOUS PERSON: She was a movie star from the '50s.

SWEET PEA: She wasn't really a movie star. She was sort of like Anna Nicole Smith. She referred to herself as a ‘starlet in training.' The play we do is the night she was killed, in
New Orleans, on the way back from a gig in Biloxi, Mississippi. The whole play is set in the limousine. I play Jayne and my boyfriend plays her lawyer friend, Sam Brody. Extras from the restaurant play Jayne's three kids.

MAX FACTOR: Why did the limo crash?

SWEET PEA: The driver came around a corner on U.S. 90, just outside of New Orleans, and ran into the back of a truck that had one of those mosquito fogging machines on it. The truck was stopped and the road was narrow, so…

FABULOUS PERSON: Was the driver speeding, like Princess Di?

SWEET PEA: NO, the top of the limo was shaved off. The car looked like a convertible.

MAX FACTOR: Did everyone die?

SWEET PEA: NO. The children lived. People think Jayne was decapitated but really it was just the wig she was wearing. It flew up on the hood of the car.

FABULOUS PERSON: Who was the actress who had her scarf caught in the back wheel of her car?

MAX FACTOR: I never heard that one.

SWEET PEA: Isadora Duncan. She wasn't an actress; she was a dancer.

WHAT-UP-CHUCK: Hold on, Sweet Pea. I'm trying some different numbers.

SWEET PEA: Thanks, WUC.

FABULOUS PERSON: Goodnight people.

MAX FACTOR: Goodnight, Fabulous Person.

SWEET PEA: 'Bye.

MAX FACTOR: NOW that the children are out of the room, what's all this Bryan Metro stuff?

SWEET PEA: It's for a dead pool.

MAX FACTOR: I'm in a dead pool!

SWEET PEA: Which one?

MAX FACTOR: It's one at my school. This guy in my chemistry class runs it.

SWEET PEA: I have a feeling you should add Metro to your list, if you can.

MAX FACTOR: Man, I've had Don Knotts for the last two years. I thought he was going to win it for me.

SWEET PEA: Yeah, I got Don Knotts.

MAX FACTOR: Any other friendly tips?

SWEET PEA: Sorry.

MAX FACTOR: That would be something if Bryan Metro
was
dead. It would be like having River Phoenix back in '93. Or Kurt Cobain in '94.

SWEET PEA: I had Cobain.

MAX FACTOR: How did you guess that one?

SWEET PEA: Dead pool rule of thumb: When a rock star turns 27, put him on your list.

MAX FACTOR: How old is Bryan Metro?

SWEET PEA: 43.

WHAT-UP-CHUCK: Don't count your money yet, Sweet Pea. My friend says Bryan Metro is alive and well.

SWEET PEA: Does he know where he is?

WHAT-UP-CHUCK: L.A. He's resting before the American tour. My friend said he was at a party two nights ago and Metro was there. It was for the new Brad Pitt movie. He said Metro looked like shit and that David Geffen had him put in a limo and sent home.

SWEET PEA: Does Metro have a place in L.A.?

WHAT-UP-CHUCK: Sorry, didn't ask.

SWEET PEA: Is there any way I can call your friend and ask him some questions?

WHAT-UP-CHUCK: No can do. If they find out he's talking, he could get fired. There's been some stories floating around and Metro thinks its people at his label leaking stories about him because they want to dump him.

MAX FACTOR: There goes the pool.

SWEET PEA: Thanks, WUC.

WHAT-UP-CHUCK: No problem.

Ms. Tiffani-Amber Thiessen
3253 Wrightwood Court
North Hollywood, CA 91604

Dear Tiffani-Amber Thiessen,

You recently had your photos developed at Imagistic Photo Developers. We want you to know how much we appreciate your business. Enclosed are coupons which are good on your next visit to Imagistic. We hope to continue to be your photomat of choice.

Also, I wanted to tell you that I thought
Saved by the Bell
was a pretty good show, and that I liked your work on
90210
, or
Melrose
, I can't remember which now. Somewhere I saw a picture of you as a child, when you modeled for the Peaches and Cream Barbie doll. I saw you once in person too, out in front of Mann's Chinese Theater. You were with what looked like your brothers (one about eighteen, the other in his mid-twenties) and you were goofing around putting your hands in the cement hands of movie stars. You look like a really nice person.

Anyway, just supposed to be sending these coupons. Oh—and I wanted to ask you a question. You gave an interview to
YM
magazine last month and the interviewer asked you a question about what you liked to do with your free time and you answered that you liked to travel and the interviewer asked you a question about where you liked to go and you said Hawaii. It came out that you liked to stay at the Hilton and I don't know if you know this but that's where Bryan Metro stays when
he goes to Hawaii (which I hear he likes to go to a lot) and I'm wondering if you were ever there when he was there. I'm a fan of his and am concerned about the rumors that are going around. I know it's a long shot but if you can provide any information about what Bryan's up to now, it would be appreciated.

Yours sincerely,

Mr. Michael Ovitz
1357 N. Rockingham Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90049

Dear Michael Ovitz,

You recently had your photos developed at Imagistic Photo Developers. We want you to know how much we appreciate your business. Enclosed are coupons which are good on your next visit to Imagistic. We hope to continue to be your photomat of choice.

Also, I understand that you are Bryan Metro's new agent. I'm wondering if it's possible for you to forward the enclosed letter to him. Bryan doesn't know me but I am a huge fan of his and I'd like to get in touch with him. I don't know if you have a policy against forwarding mail—some places do, I know—but I would appreciate it if you would make an exception in this case. I'm not sure how else to reach him as I'm told the president of his fan club has gone missing somewhere in Costa Rica and mail sent to the P.O. gets returned. Please, Mr. Ovitz, forward this letter to Bryan Metro.

Yours sincerely,

P.S. I'm also enclosing my head shot. I'm an up-and-coming actress and would love to be represented by you.

I set my alarm to wake up at five. Craig rolls away from me as I sit on the edge of the bed. It feels like night. I am confused as to whether I've actually been to sleep and if so, that I've closed my eyes long enough to dream. I smell like the cigarette I allowed myself on the ride home, the long drive up Sunset after dropping Paque and Daisy off.

I eat a bowl of Applejacks in the glow of the computer screen. I chew quietly but each crunch sounds like a rockslide in my head. Milk drips over the bowl and onto the magazines fanned out under the chair.
Variety, People, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, Spin, Details, Maxim, GQ, Esquire, Vanity Fair
—even the
National Enquirer
, the
Star
and the
Globe
. Nothing. No mention of Bryan Metro, not even an article in the monthlies about the canceled shows. The silence makes me suspicious.

The agenda this morning is to check in with my dead pools, hit the Bryan Metro homepages (official and unofficial), check the online versions of
Entertainment Weekly
as well as the
San Francisco Chronicle
, the
Washington Post
, the
Wall Street Journal
, and the
New York Times
. I'm debating whether or not to hire a clipping service as I retrieve the
Los Angeles Times
from outside the front door when the headline screams out: VIDEOTAPE SHOWS SEAN FEAR IN HOTEL ROOM WITH MINOR. Before it registers that Sean Fear is Craig's best friend—it can't be that Sean Fear, can it?—that Craig and Sean were roommates when they both first moved to Hollywood, that Sean's fiancée, Heidi, is actually a good friend of mine, that Craig and I last saw Sean and Heidi—when? dinner at Succor on Melrose?—before any of that registers the phone rings. Dazed, I walk back into the bedroom. Craig
is sitting up in bed saying, You're fucking kidding me, right? and I offer him the paper as proof but he pushes it away without reading it and just like that we're driving through the deserted Hollywood streets, to the Chateau Marmont, where Sean Fear, the popular actor of such films as
Night Game, Renters
, and
Knollwood
, is hiding out.

I know from the one other time I've been to the Chateau—when I first moved to Hollywood I sought out bungalow 3, where they found John Belushi on his side in bed, all the blood drained from one half of his body and collected in the other—that the Chateau Marmont is not the most secure hideout in town. I know this because the one other time I was there I simply strolled through the front door, past the draped lobby and front desk and walked back to the pool without seeing a soul. This time Craig and I take the same route but the guys from Hootie & the Blowfish are playing frisbee in the narrow courtyard while a couple girls look on from the shaded patio. Inside, the lobby is lit by the early sun and the dark greens and reds and yellows of the couches and carpet make the lobby look like that room at your grandparents' house that no one ever sits in. The place smells like someone is baking lemon pies.

There's no one at the front desk but Craig knows the room number so he punches the floor on the elevator and the door starts to close but a hand catches it, startling me, and the actor Christopher Walken gets in and presses his floor. Even though it's early morning, Walken is sweating and he seems tired. He starts to lean against the elevator wall but catches himself and then stares at me. I don't look but can feel him
staring and when he exits the elevator I think how much he looks like Gerald, the waiter who plays him at the Starion.

Craig clicks open the door to Sean's room. Heidi has on sunglasses and is on the bed, flipping through a copy of
The Paris Review
. Sean comes out of the bathroom once he hears that it's us. This is the Jim Morrison suite, Heidi says nonchalantly and starts giggling.

Hey, Craig says to Sean.

Sean nods. His big screen smile is gone and his eyes scan the floor.

Hey, he says. Thanks for coming.

We're just standing, not saying anything. Heidi has a smile plastered on her face and she looks up from
The Paris Review
and says, Now you have another play for the Starion.

Sean winces. Heidi, please don't, he says.

Did Jim Morrison really stay here, I ask, trying to ease the tension in the room.

It's the Jim Morrison suite all right, Heidi says. She lifts her sunglasses and I see that her eyes are swollen from crying. Legends only, she says.

Sean doesn't say anything. Craig asks about the tape and Sean recounts what he'd already confessed to Heidi, that the tape was real, that it happened in New York. She didn't even give me a chance to buy the tape from her, Sean says, incredulous. Heidi replaces
The Paris Review
in the night stand and pulls out a prescription bottle and dry swallows two blue tablets.

Did you know she was underage, Craig asks.

Sean shakes his head no. She isn't underage anymore, he says. That much I know.

When did you find out she sold the tape, I ask.

I woke up to the sound of the mob of reporters outside my gate, Sean says.

I smuggled him out in the trunk, Heidi says proudly.

Do you know for sure it was the girl who sold the tape, I ask.

Sean thinks. I'm assuming, he says.

Well, Craig says. What now?

I'm to lay low, Sean says. Stay out of sight.

Why don't you take a vacation, Craig suggests.

We are, Sean says. We're leaving tonight for Greece.

Do you need anything while you're gone, Craig asks. Someone to look after the house?

Sean smiles. I think it's well looked after as is, he says.

I laugh and even Heidi cracks a smile.

But there is one thing, Sean says. We left so fast this morning that Heidi forgot her purse at the house. And it has all of her identification in it.

I can't stand the thought of going back up there, Heidi says.

Sean looks at us. Is there any way I can ask you to fight through the madness up there to retrieve Heidi's purse, he asks. I'd offer you money but I know that would just insult you.

Craig, loving the challenge, says, No problem.

Sean gives Craig the keys to Heidi's car and goes over how to deactivate the alarm on the house. I excuse myself and go to the bathroom. Someone has carved I LIKED MYSELF BETTER BEFORE I BECAME WHO I AM on the windowsill and I run my fingers along the smooth grooves of the letters.

Craig and Sean were in this Saturday afternoon movie called
Nimble
, about two would-be thieves trying to pull off
the score of a lifetime. Craig played a guy named Anderson, a beach bum whose parents were killed when he was small and Sean played Pluto, an ex-con who had relocated to California so he ‘could see the sun' after all his time in prison. Craig has a tape of
Nimble
and sometimes I pop it in if I'm bored. It's an awful movie—Sean's studio leaves it off his official bio—but one of those awful movies that you take pleasure in watching every once in a while.

As Craig navigates Mulholland and Sean's house comes into sight, I'm reminded of the scene in the movie where Anderson and Pluto manage to sneak past the security guard at the gallery where the jewels they've been hired to steal are kept and, with trembling fingers, open the safe only to find it empty because as we ease up to Sean's gate, there isn't a soul around.

How weird, Craig says.

Once we're through the gate Craig clicks the garage opener and the garage door opens slowly like a heavy eyelid. We pull in next to Sean's Mercedes and the garage fills with the smell of exhaust.