21
Early that November, having lived in L.A. a couple of months, I figured I’d embrace the culture, which as far as I could tell meant working out and not eating lots of things in complicated variations that changed with each person I met to the point where it seemed that basic vegetarians had more food options than most Angelenos allowed themselves. Not that there isn’t real culture in L.A., there are museums and the Music Center and all that, but they are pushed aside somehow, ignored. Culture in L.A. is like the sidewalks there; nice to have, but not used very much.
I decided to try the working-out part of L.A. culture, so one morning I found a bright and airy but intense-looking workout studio in West Hollywood that offered all sorts of classes. I picked salsa dancing because it sounded fun and was starting in ten minutes. I went into the studio, found a spot in the front row, and looking around at the strategically spandex-clad women, realized I was probably the only person there who at no point in life would ever think I might professionally need that skill. In the row behind me and just to the left was a famous pop star I recognized named Viv. Her career had started off phenomenally huge a few years back with a Top Ten album that garnered her the Grammy award for best new artist, but then it had stalled midair with her second album’s release. She was still in the pantheon, but in the unenviable position of having to prove herself once again to the industry and to her fans. A few minutes later, class began in a burst of ecstatic musical sounds, and I tried to follow the steps that the teacher was exuberantly executing, but didn’t do very well. Just keeping count to the fast Latin tempo was a problem, but I was having a good time, so I didn’t care and besides, I figured I’d get it sooner or later.
I decided to make the salsa class a regular part of my week. Every Tuesday and Thursday at nine A.M. there I’d be in the front row so I could follow the teacher’s moves, which were still not completely easy.
On the Tuesday of my third salsa class, in the middle of a particularly tricky combo, Viv, who had also been going regularly, suddenly sidled over to me, put her hands on my hips, and said in my ear, “Just focus on the legs, forget the arms and hands until you get the footwork down. Two, three, four. One, two, three…” As she alternated pressure on my hips with her hands, helping me feel the rhythm change and shift, I remembered her dance-filled videos, then she moved to a spot next to me in the front row for the rest of the class. As unusual as her gesture was, it felt perfectly normal, like a big sister California-style.
At the end of class, Viv asked if I wanted to have a juice with her. There was a sundeck with a health food bar in the back of the studio, far away from the traffic sounds of La Cienega and outfitted with lattice screens and potted palms and hanging ferns to obscure the ugly apartment building that abutted it. Dark green wrought-iron tables with chairs that left crisscross marks on my legs were spread throughout to relax at while we replenished what was burned off.
“You looked like my friend,” Viv said, after she downed her shot of wheat grass before settling in with a tall watermelon juice. We were sitting at a table under a heavy Boston fern, its tendrils curling down, reaching toward Viv like the fingers of a fan.
“I did? Who?”
“No, not someone in particular. When you walked into class that first time, my publicist was with me, and a friend of mine had said she might join us, so we were both looking out for her, but my publicist had never seen her before, so she pointed at you thinking you were my friend, and I said, ‘No, that’s not her.’ Then she said, ‘She looks like someone who’d be a friend of yours.’ Isn’t that funny?” Viv made it sound like we had just discovered our grandmothers were first cousins. We stayed for an hour, talking about her music, my art, life in L.A., and before we parted, we traded phone numbers.
Driving home, I was enveloped in the feeling of finding a friend. New school shoes is how it felt. Shiny and pretty with one or two uncomfortable spots maybe, but those would get broken in, as they took me on adventures of many kinds.
A couple of nights later, I arrived at Andrew’s house early one evening, and the front door was opened by a slight man with sandy brown hair. Before I could wonder who he was, the man put his hand out and said, “Hello, Yvette, I’m Patrick, I believe we met on the phone.” He was as polite and solicitous leading me back to Andrew’s office as he had been so many years ago when he arranged for a doctor to come to my apartment, then wired money to me. It was like meeting family, someone I already had a connection to. Andrew got up from his desk when he saw us come in, walked over to kiss me, then handed Patrick a small piece of paper, saying, “These two calls I will take.” Then wrapping his arm around me, he said, “C’mon, honey.” And we went to his bedroom.
Driving down the hill a few hours later, I realized that I was on a very short list of people whose calls were always put through to Andrew no matter when and no matter what he was doing, and calls constantly came in at Andrew’s, like jets lining up at Kennedy with operator-woman and Patrick running traffic control. He always came to the phone for me, and had since the beginning way back in New York. If he was in the middle of a meeting, he’d say, “Where are you?” then, “How are you?” and after hearing that I was okay, he’d tell me he’d call me back. It was the epitome of safety, his attention and concern and time every day. It was like having a million dollars that somehow fit into a back pocket of a garment that I wore daily. Him. Andrew currency. Not that I’d spend it in public. Without him ever saying it, I knew that our relationship was a secret.
Rarely, he’d be unreachable, like when he was at a postproduction studio where he was completing his latest film, Valiant Hour, but Patrick would always tell me, or Andrew would himself. Like he would before seeing Stephanie; he’d say he’d be out that night, and I knew what that meant without asking him.
Andrew was seeing Stephanie, a two-time Academy Award–nominated actress who had landed the role of his love interest in Valiant Hour, which all the gossip columnists agreed might finally grant her the coveted ultimate award from the industry. Not to mention the award of being on Andrew’s arm at every public event and in between his sheets. She was his girlfriend, or that was the word Andrew used when he spoke about her to me.
I had known that Andrew and Stephanie were together long before he said anything about it, thanks to the media chronicling the relationship assiduously from its beginning a year before. When I first read about it I still lived in New York, and I had thought she didn’t seem his type. Stephanie was tall and coldly blond and Nordic, like some Viking taking over the land. Then when I moved to L.A. and started seeing Andrew regularly, I really didn’t believe in their relationship. The emotional validity of it. I had a feeling Andrew was with her because she was perfect for his film. He generally got involved with his leading women, as if the films he picked to do were some sort of obligatory matchmaking service. And it was impossible for me to believe that Stephanie really cared about him. She looked like a woman who, if she ever pulled herself away from the mirror long enough, would eat her young, so I figured she was just using Andrew to get the trophy that really mattered to her, while she was one on his arm. And he on hers.
A few months before Stephanie had started seeing Andrew, she came into the restaurant I worked at in Greenwich Village. She was in New York promoting a film, the film she had done that must have gotten Andrew’s attention and put her on his radar screen as the next girl for him. She had heard about the great little French bistro in the Village that everyone was raving about and had to come in for a meal. But not just any meal. Stephanie was macrobiotic at that point, though God knows what fad she’s moved onto since, so the chef was instructed to cook special macro dishes for her that she could eat while her dinner companions chowed down on the regular fare of paté and cassoulet and tripe and French fries. I guess Stephanie was under the delusion that the chef would be honored to cook for her and us to serve her, but all of us waiters drew straws, with the loser having to take her table, and the chef grumbled and complained the whole time he cooked the brown rice and steamed the sad vegetables and made the soggy beans. He would have been honored if she had eaten a meal he wanted to cook, otherwise, we all wished she had gone to one of those health restaurants in the East Village, but clearly they weren’t fabulous enough.
Lying in bed later that night, knowing that Andrew was in bed with Stephanie—he’d told me he had to meet her at some party—I had a wonderful daydream that Stephanie suddenly decided to quit her career and leave Andrew, but I knew that would never happen. And Andrew wouldn’t break up with her before their movie came out because that would be bad for box office, so I’d have to wait until after the opening in the spring to see what he’d do, like make another movie with her, or dump her and find someone new. Like me. A part of me hoped Valiant Hour would be a big success for him, but another part hoped it wouldn’t, but only because of Stephanie, so he’d never see her again and I could move in. Literally.
One morning after salsa class, Viv and I were on the sundeck at our usual table drinking watermelon juice and talking about our weekends. It was late November, but the morning was still warm as if the heat of the summer had saved itself to emerge one final time before withdrawing for the year. I had been jumpy all morning, and had hoped the class would exhaust it out of me, but it hadn’t. I needed to talk about Andrew. After seeing him regularly for almost three months and still not telling anyone, I felt about to burst. The impressions of his body on my skin, the daily and multiple phone calls, the withdrawal I went through in between seeing him, all of it was commanding my head nonstop. I needed to get it out to someone. I considered calling Carrie in New York, but we had started drifting apart once I began SVA and was buried in schoolwork. Then when I moved in with Tim, our regular communication ended, so talking to her after so much time wasn’t an option. And I needed someone local, a friend, which Viv was, and she was right in front of me, drinking her juice, going on and on about her boyfriend, so for me not to say anything about Andrew felt like being at lunch with her and not eating a meal. Starving, just looking in. I wanted to talk, but in a controlled kind of way, so that Viv would forget all about it afterward, only remembering if I talked about it again. There was no way she could know it was Andrew, so I decided to conceal his identity, and began telling Viv about this guy I was seeing, Andy—a nickname Andrew was never called. I said he went out of town sometimes—my way of talking about not seeing him when he was with Stephanie—and I’d miss him so much, but we talked on the phone all the time and about the sex we had and…
It felt good to get it out, and Viv was an attentive listener. She made noises that encouraged me to talk and nodded at other parts; she was completely understanding, even saying things that were dead-on about Andrew, as if we had been speaking about him the whole time I’d known him.
The phone was ringing when I got home. It was Andrew wondering where I’d been, he had come by my apartment, but I wasn’t in. I was so happy to have finally been able to talk about him to Viv, even in a veiled way, that I told Andrew about the salsa classes and my friendship with her, though not about the conversation she and I had just had.
“Viv, the pop singer?” Andrew said in a tone I had never heard before.
“Yeah, her.” I immediately felt uneasy though I couldn’t figure out what could be wrong.
“Viv.” Andrew’s voice pounced on the word. “Who released a couple of albums, but now is in free fall?”
“Yes, her. What’s the big deal?”
“She’s Stephanie’s best friend.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes. You didn’t tell her anything about us, did you?”
“Oh, God, no. I wouldn’t do that.” My mind was scrambling, trying to remember everything I had said to Viv.
“Good, because otherwise we’re fucked. Stephanie is pretty vindictive. I can handle her, but I wouldn’t want her wrath on your head.”
I was quiet for a moment while that horrible thought sank in. “Jesus, how fucking small is this town?”
Which made Andrew laugh, as if I were starting to understand something he had learned before I was born. And actually, I realized, he had.
“As long as you didn’t say anything to Viv—who, by the way, has one of the biggest mouths in Hollywood, so don’t tell her anything you don’t want broadcast on the street—we’ll be fine. Call me later,” he said, then his voice moved down a few places inside me until it reached exactly where he wanted it to be. “You need to fuck me tonight.”
“I sure do.”
I hung up the phone thrilled that I was going to see Andrew soon, but flipped out about Stephanie and Viv. Fuck. How could I have been so stupid as to use the name Andy? Daddy had always said that the way people get caught in lies is that they can’t remember what they said, so right before I told Viv about Andrew, I thought I’d use a name close to his so I wouldn’t get tripped up. But fuck, Stephanie and Viv were best friends. Jesus, I wished I had known that. And how weird was it that of all the people I made friends with, or who had made friends with me, she’s removed from Andrew one degree. Though maybe everyone is in L.A. I prayed Viv wouldn’t say anything to Stephanie, though really what could she say? But if Viv had figured it out, and told Stephanie, who then got all over Andrew about it, he would be pissed off and would stop seeing me, and…Fuck. I would just have to tell Viv the next time we talked that Andy and I had broken up and pray to God that she forgets everything I’d said.
Two days later, Viv and I were on the patio after salsa class, drinking our watermelon juice while she talked about her boyfriend, Craig Beltram, a music executive for a huge record label she wanted to get on. As she talked, I was mentally rehearsing how to say that Andy and I were over. I had considered telling her that I couldn’t stay for juice this time, but I realized that I needed to get the lie about the lie over with, so that I could move on and stop worrying nonstop as I had been for the last forty-eight hours. She was complaining about Craig’s habit of being late, so I told her how I just couldn’t take Andy’s being out of town and had broken up with him last night.
“Good for you,” Viv said. “You deserve to have someone who’s here when you want him.”
Then she started going on about all the cute guys at the parties she went to with Craig, and how I could go with them from now on and meet someone else. I was thrilled she had bought the lie so easily. All that worrying for nothing. But then her topic swerved.
“You know, my best friend, Stephanie, is seeing Andrew Madden, though he still fucks tons of other women on the side,” Viv said, looking at me intently. “You’re so smart for what you did. I wish she would dump him.” She put down her juice and started playing with the wrapper of the straw she had used. “You know, it’s funny, but I was thinking the other day about what you said, about your Andy, and in a way, he sounded so much like Andrew Madden.”
I nearly choked on my watermelon juice and suddenly wished seeds were in it, so I would have had that excuse. I had given no identifying clues, other than the immense stupidity of shortening his name, though maybe the longing affection in my voice was a clue, as if the encountering of Andrew in that specific sex/love way induced a melody that all reports of him were sung in and Viv had recognized the Andrew tune.
“That is funny. But the Andy I was seeing is nothing like him, from what I hear.” Which I knew was true. Andrew with Stephanie was as separate from him with me as alloy to gold.
“Well, that’s good,” Viv said, looking hard into my eyes. “Because Andrew Madden is the biggest womanizing dirtbag son of a bitch that there is.” She paused for a moment, as if considering whether to vilify him further. “But you’re too smart to get hooked up with someone like him.” Her eyes were on mine, watching my reaction. “I would just love to give Stephanie proof of how badly he treats her so she can dump his ass already. I feel sorry for anyone who is stupid enough to get involved with him, but he just pulls them in. You wouldn’t believe the number of women he fucks.”
The best I could do was nod noncommittally. Thank God, Viv had to meet her publicist, so she jumped up, kissed me on the cheek, and told me she’d call me that night.
I walked to my truck on La Cienega in a daze. Okay, she definitely somehow had suspected. Fuck. I just hoped she believed that bullshit about my not seeing Andy anymore. But she had no proof that she could go to Stephanie with, so I just needed to let it all blow over. Go to those parties with her and meet other men and pretend that I wanted to date them.
Or maybe I should stop being friends with Viv. It did seem kind of dangerous, and I really didn’t want to hear any more stuff like that about Andrew. But it would seem weird to suddenly cut the friendship off, and she had already looked suspicious enough. Besides, I liked Viv. And really, I hadn’t said anything that was proof positive about Andrew; she’d probably just forget about it.
But why did Viv hate Andrew so much? Her face had contorted into such intense, ugly vehemence when she talked about him—it was weird. Maybe she had wanted to be his girlfriend and was pissed off that Stephanie got him first. Viv had sounded like she hated Andrew because he didn’t want to be with her. And I didn’t know what to think about the “He still fucks tons of women on the side” remark. There couldn’t be tons. He and I had been together two or three times a week since I started seeing him and he still had to see Stephanie, so how much time could be left, not to mention his being in postproduction on his film. Probably enough for a few fucks here and there, and okay, I had always known there were other women—Christ, I had met Suzy in New York after all—but they had never bothered me before because I wasn’t having sex with Andrew and no one else was in his life the way I was. And all those other women he fucked didn’t mean anything to him, so I had never cared about them, but suddenly I did. Okay, I knew he didn’t take other women’s calls the way he took mine—well, Stephanie’s probably, but he had to with her—and with Andrew, phone access was everything. So my status with him was safe. I just had to keep it that way. And pray that after his film opened, he got rid of Stephanie.