We're So Famous (3 page)

We walked up Fifth Avenue. Daisy pointed out Tiffany's and we stood in front of the sign and said ‘oh dahhling' over and over. Daisy's neck is long and smooth like Audrey Hepburn's, which we noticed on our ten millionth viewing of that movie (Daisy's mom owns it).

Me and Daisy skipped the block between Tiffany's and Central Park when Daisy stopped cold. Look, she said. She pointed at a hotel that looked like a castle. What is it, I asked. It's where Gatsby confronted Tom, remember, she said. Then I figured it out. The Plaza Hotel.
The Great Gatsby
is Daisy's all-time favorite book; she's read it more times than some people have read the Bible. She was in the middle of reading it the first time when we dropped out of school. Sometimes guys accuse us of being dumb and if they do, Daisy starts right in talking about how many times she's read
The Great Gatsby
.

Me and Daisy gawked at the chandeliers in the lobby, which was like looking up at stars. Because it was so late there was no one around. Daisy asked the waiter if we could please please please sit at a table and he smiled and said sure. The waiter's eyes were sunk in so far his head looked
like one of those Halloween skull masks. We ordered Cokes and sipped them, imagining all the shiny people who must have passed through the lobby of the Plaza and wishing we were them.

Our waiter, Mel, made sure our Cokes were bottomless. We got the feeling he liked having us around. He kept walking by our table and making funny comments about people who were walking by. Better give them the penthouse he said about an enormously fat couple. Things like that. We found Mel more amusing than handsome and it was fun just to sit and watch and laugh. Finally Mel came to our table and didn't say something funny. You guys have to go, he said. I'm getting off now if you want to go get a beer or something, he offered. We said sure, we could do that, and Mel took us back to the West Village, to a dark wood bar called Minetta's. Mel knew the manager, Taka, a squarely built man with a friendly smile. While Mel and Taka shook hands me and Daisy looked around at all the great pictures on the walls. They had old-time cartoons up with real pictures of people we didn't recognize. Daisy pointed out a small picture on the wall. It was a picture of the actor Alec Baldwin and his actress wife, Kim Basinger. What was funny about the picture was that it was hung right where it was taken so you could see Alec and Kim sitting next to each other in the spot you were standing in front of. Daisy sat where Kim was sitting in the picture and said, Oh Alec, in a southern accent that was so funny Mel and Taka started laughing.

What happened next was the subject of an argument the next day about what exactly Mel said. It started with us
noticing how Mel seemed to be a sort of big shot in Minetta's. The bartender, Donna Marie (who is herself an actress—she played De Niro's girlfriend in that movie about the mob guy who goes to the shrink; we asked her if Bobby D. liked that Bananarama song about him but she said she didn't know), sent drinks over without Mel having ordered them. Mel looked different out of his all-white Plaza outfit too. Less of an angel. At some point Daisy asked what time it was; it was after one. Remember we have to go line up for
Letterman
, she said. I said, Yeah, that's right. I noticed Mel didn't say anything and I thought he would at least ask us about it. He pretended like he didn't hear us. We'd seen that look before, the look some men get when you say you have to get home at a certain time, or that you have to get up early the next day. Suddenly there was a buzz in the bar and people craned their necks to look out the window. We looked too and saw the big white limo idling at the front door. It must be Alec and Kim, Mel said. But the doors didn't open and we saw Taka go out and talk to the driver and come back in.

I'm going to A.C., Taka said. Who wants to go?

Mel laughed. How about it girls, he asked. Want to do some gambling?

Me and Daisy communicated with our eyes how much we wanted to ride in the limo. But we didn't necessarily want to go to Atlantic City. Once we went to Las Vegas to party with these friends of Rick's who were in commercial development. We thought he meant making commercials but it turned out they had something to do with construction and building offices. These guys had another girl—
Veronica something—with them at the hotel. After a night of watching these guys gamble we all went up to the suite and partied. The office guys had some coke and we did it. They had a bar and we drank. We partied pretty late with them and at some point Veronica something said she had to go. Me and Daisy were surprised because we thought she was the black guy's girlfriend—she spent the whole night hanging off him and she partied with him back at the suite—but it turned out she was a hooker. The black guy, I think his name was Hank, said he'd drive her home but the hooker smelled something fishy and wanted to be paid. Hank said, Relax, bitch, I'll pay you and he smacked her across her face. Me and Daisy closed our eyes but we heard that sound in our ears. The other guys just laughed and Hank pushed the hooker into the bathroom and slammed the door but we could still hear him punching and kicking the hooker, whose crying became less and less until it just stopped. Me and Daisy ran out of the hotel when the others weren't looking. We had to call Daisy's mom to get home and what we told her was that we got really sick on some food and thought we might have to go to the hospital. It was the best story we could come up with.

So we didn't want to go to Atlantic City because we didn't even know Mel or Taka but we really wanted to ride in the limo. What about
Letterman
, Daisy asked.

I know someone who works there, Mel said. Of course we weren't surprised later—after we'd gotten separated from Taka and Mel, who disappeared from the blackjack tables—that Mel was lying. (We even went straight from the Port Authority to the Plaza the next morning looking for him but
the manager said no one named Mel worked there.) But Mel convinced us to go and we followed him out to the limo as Taka grabbed two bottles from behind the bar.

Mel and Taka sat by the doors of the limo and me and Daisy sprawled out on the leather bench in front of the bar, which had a long electric blue neon strip running across the top. A little TV built into the bar stared at us like an eye that never blinked. Daisy unsecured one of the glass tumblers. Don't drink their booze, Taka said, it's too expensive. He produced the bottles of wine he'd taken from Minetta's and we toasted our impending success in Atlantic City.

Veterans that we are, me and Daisy drank almost a whole bottle between us. Men will let you drink all the liquor you want; we learned that a long time ago. Without saying anything we stood up and stuck our heads out the moon roof. The limo accelerated to pass a slow car and our hair blew into our eyes. We're flying, Daisy said. She stuck out her arms like Superman and laughed. I laughed too and then suddenly Daisy's laugh turned to choking and then she vomited over the side of the limo. The wind caught the chunks and blew them against the limo, scattering the vomit in a yellowish-orange spray across the trunk. Daisy coughed twice and then smiled, mouthing, Sorry. We ducked back into the limo and she passed out. Mel turned on the TV and we sat and just stared, transfixed by the flickering images no bigger than the size of a hand.

The casino looked like a cafeteria in a shopping mall; the green and beige diamond shapes in the carpet gave us vertigo. The bright light burned our eyes too and made everyone white like ghosts. We arrived sometime after 3
A.M. and pretty much the only people gambling after 3 A.M. were people serious about dice and cards.

Mel and Taka sat at the baccarat table and me and Daisy were like Bond girls, standing behind their chairs, inhaling cigar smoke. We tried to follow the game—we wanted to know how hard a game whose minimum bet was $100 was—but it was near impossible to figure out that shite game. Taka won right away and the others at the table, men with bags under their eyes that looked like coffee cups filled to the brim, shot him a dirty look. Daisy said why don't we try our luck at blackjack and so we did but we found out we didn't have any luck and the most fun we had that night was telling this old fart that we were showgirls. When he asked us at which hotel Daisy said, Hotel California. The old fart nodded like he knew exactly where it was.

At a certain point Mel and Taka drifted away from us and Daisy was the one who said, Let's head back. I agreed with her. On the bus ride back to New York it started to sink in that we probably weren't going to see
Letterman
after all but we decided we would try calling the Ed Sullivan Theater from the Plaza pay phone to see if there were any extra tickets, but no one picked up.

After an afternoon nap, we completed a second night of shooting, which was basically us reshooting the scenes from the night before. Then Chuck took us to see the actor Paul Newman at the New School. Paul Newman had started a program there for people who wanted to be in the movies. Me and Daisy have only seen one Paul Newman movie:
The Hustler
. It was Paul Newman from
The Hustler
we had
in mind when we went to the New School with Chuck. We were surprised that Paul Newman
in person
looked like he was a million and a half years old. He reminded Daisy of her grandfather the way he just sort of sat up there and stared like he was trying to contact other worlds.

The event had a moderator, an old bald guy who probably wished he was a famous actor but settled for being the friend of a famous actor. We sat in the back of the classroom because all the ass kissers crowding the front of the room around old Paul made us sick. That's the thing about all these shiteheads in college; they pay a gazillion dollars to go to film school on the off chance that they'll rub shoulders with someone, whose ass they'll kiss, hoping that person will make their career for them. Me and Daisy said fuck that. If you want to do something, you do it. For instance, before they were Bananarama, Keren worked for the BBC and Sara and Siobhan studied journalism at the London College of Fashion. But they realized how much working sucks it out of you and how you can get only so close to your dream that way. So they started spending their nights singing to backup tapes in London clubs, knowing that sooner or later either word-of-mouth would spread or someone would see them and make them famous. Which, of course, is what happened.

Inevitably one of the ass kissers asked Paul how he got started in the movies. How many times has Paul Newman had to answer that one? But Paul was gracious and said what he'd probably said a hundred times or more. Another ass kisser, one positioned virtually at Paul's feet, asked what advice he had for aspiring actors. The room shushed and
everyone stared straight to the front of the room. You have to want it more than anything, Paul said. You have to never give up, never let anyone tell you that you're no good, Paul said. The crowd of ass kissers clapped like old Paul just told them they were going to live forever.

Chuck asked Paul what he thought the difference was between working in front of the camera and working behind it. Paul made the usual joke about actors really wanting to direct and said something general about how much harder it is behind the camera than in front of it. I looked over at Daisy and she wasn't paying attention either. We were both thinking about getting home in time to watch
Letterman
when we heard our names. Chuck was telling Paul about our movie, pointing at me and Daisy as the stars. Paul craned his neck to get a look at us and Daisy just sort of waved, embarrassed. The guy filming the whole thing for the school turned the video camera on us. We could've killed Chuck. When the deal was over Chuck rushed to the front of the room to join the crowd of ass kissers and me and Daisy went downstairs to the cafeteria to find a TV but there wasn't one. I pulled an Almond Joy from the vending machine and we sat at a table in the cafeteria listening to the lights overhead hum, Daisy drawing her name in spilt salt with her fingers.

Back in Phoenix, we were anxious to get our tape. We dialed Elliot and Hunter's number, but their number was disconnected. We hadn't heard from Rick in forever so we called him to find out what was going on but his phone number was disconnected, too. Daisy turned on the television
while I checked the number with information and Daisy said, Look, it's them. And sure enough over the shoulder of the anchorwoman was a picture of Elliot and Hunter with the caption SENATOR'S SON SLAIN.

Turn it up, I said.

Daisy hit the remote and the anchorwoman's voice rose in the living room. The details of the murder were scarce. As far as the police were able to determine, Hunter and Elliot were shot to death in their home somewhere around midnight. Daisy noted that it was the day after we recorded with them. Holy shit, Daisy said, look at that. A picture of Elliot at the White House with his father, Senator Hawkins, flashed in a succession of pictures, mostly of the senator and his wife at various parties. The anchorwoman came back on and over her shoulder appeared crude sketches of people the police wanted to talk to. A neighbor woman told the police they were the last people she saw at the house. We couldn't see it at first—Daisy was the one who really saw it—but sure enough the sketches were of me and Daisy and Rick.

Daisy said, Try Rick's number again. Her hand shook as she beamed the remote control at the TV, switching it off. I dialed Rick's number and the disconnection recording played in my ear but Daisy started to freak out, pacing the room, looking out the window like she was in the government witness relocation program.

I hung up the phone. Look, I said, we didn't do anything, we don't know anything. Daisy looked out the window again. We should call the police, I said.

But they're gonna ask about Rick and now Rick's
disappeared and they're gonna want to know why, Daisy reasoned.

I said we didn't know why and that if we didn't go to the police it would make us look guilty of something. We agreed to wait until the morning to call the police because we secretly hoped the police would figure it all out overnight or we'd hear from Rick. Once that shite was straightened out, we hoped to get our tape back. (We
did
feel sympathy for Elliot and Hunter, who were, as far as we knew, nice guys, and they certainly didn't deserve to be murdered—if we could, there'd be a ton of things me and Daisy would like to undo.)