West of Paradise (42 page)

For a while, when the restaurant was still open, the bus owner had considered having the tour include a lunch at Mezzaluna, but the restaurateurs had not been interested in making it an official tourist attraction, nor could the bus company get them to agree to a cheapie meal. As a desperate measure, they had the driver double back to the Ben and Jerry's where Nicole bought her last ice cream, the one that was found half-melted by police. Nobody could remember the exact flavor she'd had, so they'd let the people on the tour order whichever one they wanted, and included the single scoop cone or cup in the price of the tour.

Still, the whole excursion lasted less than forty minutes, and even with melting ice cream people were dissatisfied. So the company decided to take the bus on an extended tour to include other famous homes, feeding on the general hunger for inside information about stars, which people imagined they could get from seeing the outside of their houses. Outsight, it might be called, supposedly providing a glimpse into what made celebrities tick—or, in O.J.'s case, ticked off.

Thus it was that the O.J. tour bus, following the route of the Movie Stars Homes' map, toodled this balmy Saturday on St. Cloud Road in Bel-Air. And thus it was that Arthur Finster, happy as an outcast lark, careering around curves on his way to crash Norman Jessup's wedding to Carina, instead crashed head-on into the O.J. tour.

*   *   *

Seating was free, there being no bride's side or groom's side since Carina had no family, Norman had only his mother, and everyone in attendance was presumed to be a friend and supporter of both. So except for the elder Mrs. Jessup, who was ushered to a seat down front by one of the groom's men, Bunyan Reis, people could sit where they wanted to, depending on when they arrived.

Rodney Sameth arrived early, as he was leaving right after the ceremony for the Isle of Wight, and wanted to show respect for the proceedings. He'd had no choice but to agree to attend once his cover had been blown and it was printed that he was in Hollywood. “Rodney!” Perry Zemmis said. “I didn't know you were still in town.”

“I'm not,” he said. “I'm gone.”

“We're all so excited about your new movie. It's been too long since we've seen a Sameth original. How do you make them so good?”

“Because I do them with integrity,” Rodney said. “And because I don't live here.”

Wendy did not intend to get there the same time as Samantha Chatsworth. But she had lived in this New Age world of California long enough to understand there was “Meant to Be,” or “Beshert,” as Mortimer Schein, on whose arm she was, called it.

“Such a lovely day,” Wendy greeted Samantha, in her best we-British-don't-say-what's-on-our-minds manner. “Such a pretty dress.”

“It's Lacroix,” said Samantha. “He's doing the clothes for the wedding.”

“Mine is Schein. I believe you know Morty.” They moved down the stairs together. “Oh, but of course. You brought us together.”

“It was only for the clothes line,” Samantha said, her voice strained.

“Well, as they say in California, sometimes you think you're doing something for one reason, and it turns out to be totally for something else. Oh, Morty, look at the gazebo. What beautiful flowers.”

“Sterling silver roses,” said Mortimer Schein. “My favorite. I'd like to cover you with them.”

“Well, then you will,” said Wendy.

“Excuse me,” said Samantha, trying to hurry.

“Isn't the gazebo gorgeous,” mused Wendy. “Can you imagine a lovelier setting for a wedding?”

“No,” said Samantha, caught in a slow-moving, very polite crush down the stairs.

“What a shame we can't get married here, isn't it, Morty?”

“Not really,” he said. “You're going to love our temple.”

“We're marrying in his family's temple. That way we can be underneath his mother's chuppah. They brought it all the way from Poland. They're Holocaust survivors.”

“I see,” said Samantha.

“I certainly hope so,” said Wendy. “Are you alright?”

“I'm fine,” Samantha said.

“Morty, do you have a quarter?”

He reached into the pocket of his pants and handed one to her. “Here,” Wendy said, and gave it to Samantha, smiling sweetly.

“What's this for?”

“You might want to make a call.”

*   *   *

Kate had come with Jake Alonzo. She had finally returned his call, gotten him past his irritation that it had taken her so long, explained that she had been involved with a story. Soothed and more eager than he probably would have been had she responded to his interest sooner, he had invited her to be his date for the wedding.

“They should have gotten married months ago,” he said, moving her down the aisle. “That way you wouldn't have taken so long to go out with me.”

“That isn't the reason I waited.”

“No? You weren't holding out for a big event?”

“I'm not that kind of girl,” she said, and smiled, and pressed the tip of her right index finger into her cheek, forcing a dimple, so he'd know the words were a jest.

“What kind of girl are you?”

“I was working that out. That's why I waited.”

“What conclusion did you come to?”

She looked at him carefully. “I can be had.”

“What a relief,” he said, and putting his arm around her, pressed her close, moved her face against the hollow of his throat.

“Hard to believe you came with him when you could have married me,” said Linus Archer, from behind them.

“I'm not ready for marriage,” said Kate. “I have things to do.”

“I liked it better when you were all in the kitchen,” Linus said. “Barefoot and pregnant.”

“How about tied to a tree?” asked Jake.

“That's a dirty lie,” said Linus. “We're going to get that Finster fuck. How come you didn't come in on the class action suit with us, Jake?”

“People like Arthur take care of themselves,” Jake said, and taking Kate's hand, pulled her into one of the rows.

“What did they say about you in the book?”

“You'll find out for yourself.” He took her arm, and they sat. “So what's with the unpublished manuscript your grandfather left you?”

“I've been trying to work out what to do about that, too.” All around her were notable people, literally aglow in the late afternoon sunlight, the women glittering with beads, well-sewn sequins, and jewels, the men haloed with the subtle radiance of power. Many of them nodded their heads in greeting to her now. Some of them smiled. Wendy leaned in to kiss her. Darcy Linette, whom Kate had never actually met, raised her hand in greeting, and put it to her ear, as though it were a phone, and mouthed “Call me.”

“What's to work out,” said Jake. “It's a lost Fitzgerald. You owe it to the world to make it available.”

*   *   *

Helen Manning was wearing green, a gown made from three sarongs she'd bought on the beach in Bali with golden threads woven subtly through the fabric that matched her hair. Tyler, holding her arm as they made their way down the stairs, held it very protectively, at the same time being careful not to grasp.

“You're the most beautiful woman here,” Tyler said, softly, not quite in her ear.

“I'd rather be in Bali.”

“Let it go.”

“It, or you?”

“Both,” he said. “You promised you wouldn't do this if I came with you. No whining.”

“I didn't mean to whine. But why can't you be with me?”

“This path…” He indicated the rose-petal-strewn walkway, but his eyes looked far off, mystically taking in the entire arena that was Hollywood. “If I stay on this path, I'll never reach my perfect goal.”

“And that is?”

“I don't know yet.”

“Maybe you never will,” Helen said. “Maybe it's only because it's unattainable that you think it's perfect.”

“Could be. But we're talking about you.”

“Right,” said Helen, brightening.

“You're a great woman. And you're ready now for the person who really deserves you. The one who's smart enough, and successful enough, and rich enough, and funny enough, and famous enough, and deep enough.”

“And where am I supposed to find this paragon?” she asked.

He looked at her for a moment with everything he felt. “It's you.”

*   *   *

The musical group behind the gazebo segued into traditional wedding music. The gentle lull of Pachelbel rolled across the lawn and the people sitting there like an affable wave.

Above the sound, beyond it, Fletcher McCallum thought he could hear the wail of a siren, and tried to close it out. He remembered the moment when he was still in law school and there'd been an accident ahead of him and how, as he ran to the mangled cars in the road ahead, his first thought had been not “Is anyone dead?” or “Is anyone hurt?” but “Who's liable?” And he'd understood in that moment that he'd made the transition from human being to lawyer.

It was a transformation he did not judge in himself, but simply acknowledged as part of his road. For all he tried to pass on to his sons of integrity and caring and compassion, he understood he was not there for justice or right, but for his clients. It helped, of course, when their cause was just, because for all his composure, he was a passionate man when it came to an issue. And it was really much more civilized to string a man up by his thumbs in a court of law than to kill him.

Still, it was a flaw in him, he considered, that even at a moment like this, with the glory of the greenery, the beauty of the crowd, the flowered crown on the white gazebo, the serenity of the setting, the peaceful glide of the swans, the grandeur of the music, his attention should be caught by a siren. He wondered whether it was fire, emergency illness, or accident. But then the groom's men began to assemble in front of the gazebo, and he brought his attention back to the proceedings.

*   *   *

“So what's the story?” Jake asked Kate.

“The story?”

“Your grandfather's story.”

“Well,” she began. “It's about this Hollywood producer. And he cheats, and lies, and even steals, but all through his life, there's this one faithful woman who loves him and never forgets him. She's there for him. And he always comes back to her.”

“I love it,” said Jake. “I absolutely love it. What's it called?”

“West of Paradise,”
Kate said, capitalizing it with her breath.

“A real Fitzgerald title,” he said.

“I thought so, too,” said Kate.

“So what happens?”

“Well … he does everything imaginable that's amoral and terrible, but he always survives. And then he does a kindness for a friend, and that's the thing that finally destroys him.”

“That's pretty cynical,” Jake said. “Fitzgerald was a romantic.”

“Well, we all have to grow up sometime,” said Kate.

“I guess…” Jake said.

There was a rustle behind them. The flower girl came down the aisle, strewing rose petals on the silvered carpet. She giggled as she did so, and threw some of them at one of the onlookers she apparently knew. Behind her, the ringbearer came, with a gold ring on a silver satin pillow. He looked very serious, his eyes intent on the ring.

“It sounds like a great role,” Jake said.

“I imagine it will be,” said Kate.

“I'd really love to play it. When could I see the manuscript?”

“Probably in a couple of months,” she said.

“Why so long?”

“I'll have to transcribe it. At the end of his life he was very drunk and probably ill, so the writing is hard to make out.”

“Well, I guess I'll just have to wait. But I'm excited. I mean,
really
excited. I can hardly sit.”

“Well, it's okay to stand,” said Kate. “Here comes the bride.”

Afterword

The statue of Larry Drayco stands beneath Victor Lippton's office at Cosmos. It is a huge bronze head, with a very big grin on its face and oversized teeth.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences turned down the idea of a Larry Drayco Award. But a special dinner was held to honor him, which satisfied Lila Darshowitz, who attended the event. The dinner was at the Beverly Hilton, and it was such a success that it was decided the dinner would be held every year, as a way of raising money for the Writer's Guild. Larry's biggest debt, not counting what he owed lawyers, was fines he owed that union for not paying writers the Guild's prescribed legal minimum. The award was to be given posthumously to the producer himself and accepted by Lila, for tenacity, courage in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds, and, though it was not put into official language, chutzpah. But the first time turned out to be the only time it was presented, as they never found anyone again who had Larry's nerve.

*   *   *

Asher Pfaltz, Hollywood historian and the town's most erudite book critic, pronounced the novel
West of Paradise
a “devastatingly brilliant literary find, more devastasting for the loss not only of writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald, but readers of an age that was bent on self-improvement.” He went on to quote a colleague at
The New York Times
who had noted that in Fitzgerald's time people “read great writing because, like all good art, it was thought to improve the character of the person, to aid in the general bettering drift of the American dream.” Pfaltz then cited Horace, in his
Ars Poetica,
that good writing should both educate and entertain, and concluded that
West of Paradise
succeeded, although it had not yet been selected for Oprah's book club.

The film, a screen adaptation by Kate Donnelly of the Fitzgerald novel, was produced by Norman Jessup in association with Perry Zemmis, and released by Cosmos Pictures, starring Jake Alonzo. In spite of more than respectful reviews, it did very little business since it had no special effects.