I fingered my Strokes T-Shirt and took a moment to grieve the boy I used to know, before giving him my decision.
. . .
After I got off the phone with Russell, I went to find Mike in the TV room, where he was watching one of his old movies. A large residual check had come in a few days ago, and Mike had gotten a new flat-screen TV after paying down a lot of his debt. It was a tremendous first step, because the old Mike had been using his residual checks to feed his gambling habit for a while now.
“What’s up?” he said, when I came into the room. “I’m just watching the movie that bought this TV.”
“Nice,” I said, sitting on the couch beside him. “I need you to pause it though.”
Mike’s face immediately went into worried mode. “Are you still mad at me about the other night? Are you leaving?”
“No,” I said. “As long as you stay away from the tables, I’m not leaving until you don’t need me anymore. I promise you that.”
Mike smiled, more grateful than a grown man should be for that vow. At times like this, I found it hard to believe that he had dumped Tammy Farrell so callously. Then again, she loved him, so he dumped her before she could dump him. It had probably seemed perfectly logical in his traumatized mind back then. It probably still did, which was why I was going to advise Mike to take at least a year before he got involved in another serious relationship—even if that last girlfriend of his wanted him to make a cameo on Dancing with the Stars.
“But, Mike, I’ve got to talk with you about something. . . .”
I told him what was going on with the Congressman Farrell story, and also about Russell hitting me with his horrible-ass ultimatum.
After I finished, he nodded, like he completely understood the situation. “Davie, you’ve more than made up for selling me out to Celeb Weekly. Don’t worry about it.”
I shook my head. “See, this is why we still have a lot of work to do. I chose you, Mike.”
I don’t think he could have been more surprised if I up and slapped him again. “What? Why?”
“Because you may have done some wrong things and you may have made some bad decisions, but you’re a good man. You are. And you deserve my loyalty.”
Mike didn’t say anything, just sniffed. And then he started crying. I drew him into my arms and wondered if I just had a talent for making grown men cry.
. . .
A week later, Mike started spending the nights I was at work sitting at Nicky’s bar and “gambling on good scripts”—which was our inside joke for choosing a comeback project.
Now that we had gotten the right team in place, and the word had gotten out about his “radical rehab,” scripts and calls had begun trickling in. Also, I hadn’t had to talk him out of a Vegas trip ever since the Big Decision, which meant I was sleeping better on the air mattress outside his room.
Times were suddenly good again. But I think I was most grateful because helping Mike un-fuck-up his life kept me 24/7 busy. I only had time to be sad about James at night before I went to sleep and in the morning. The disappointment of waking up without James was crushing at times, but this terrible emptiness couldn’t last forever. I had to keep on living. And I had to make things up to Mike. That’s how I convinced myself to get out of bed most mornings.
. . .
I was making Mike breakfast a couple of weeks after the Big Decision when he came into the kitchen, talking on his BlackBerry.
“Yeah,” he said, “yeah, you know I totally agree on that point, but you should probably talk with her about that.”
He extended the phone toward me.
“Who is it?” I whispered.
“Hugh Phillips’s assistant.”
“Hugh Phillips? You mean the Hugh Phillips?”
Now the last time I checked, Hugh Phillips was the guy who had directed Mike in a string of blockbuster summer action flicks, back when Mike was still bringing his A-game to even the dimmest material.