He laced his fingers across his chest and took a deep, contented breath. “Quiet’s not that easy to come by these days.”
I knew he was talking about more than just the noise level of his city. The guy had been living in a circus for the past five years. I couldn’t even imagine. I’d found a bit of “fame” with my line of work, too. But author-fame was completely different from actor-fame. I’d gotten my share of fan letters and notoriety, but I could still live my life without intrusion. I could still go to the supermarket, unshowered and no makeup, without having to worry about some paparazzo jumping out from behind the lima beans. Well, I used to, anyway.
“How do you do it?” I asked. “How do you deal with every detail of your life being so public?”
He shrugged. “Believe it or not, I don’t really think about it. ‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity’ and all that. It keeps me working. You always hear celebs bitching about the latest pictures of them splashed all over the tabloids. But believe me, they get even bitchier when they don’t appear in those things. I mean, most of those articles paint me in a decent light. These days, anyway.”
I thought about his tumultuous past. “That must have been difficult.”
“I was drunk through most of it. I hardly even realized people had noticed me.”
“They did. Trust me. It’s like one day, you were just Trip Wiley: Actor, and the next, you were Trip Wiley: Superstar. Did you notice the difference?”
He huffed at that. “I don’t know. I came back here in… what? October of two-thousand, right? I was at the top of my game career-wise, but feeling lower than I had in my entire life.”
I winced at his admission. No matter what he said the other day, I knew I was the reason he’d gotten so depressed.
“Swayed hit the theaters and it hit big.”
“I remember.”
“Well, the offers kept pouring in. I was already working on Red Nevada and I had already signed on for The Sanction by the time I won the Oscar. I spent Academy Award night in a bar, by the way. I didn’t even know I’d won until the next day when my agent, David brought the thing over to my house.”
“I spent it in a bar, too. I knew you were going to win, and I couldn’t even think about hearing your name get called, much less watch you walk up onto that stage to accept it. Having to see you thank… her.”
“There wouldn’t have been anything to thank her for.” He gave a squeeze to my knee at that admission, but didn’t dwell on it.
I knew he was only trying to downplay his relationship for my benefit. But he was engaged to that woman, for godsakes. I knew Trip better than that to believe he took such a thing so lightly.
His voice was anything but light when he said, “My mother was a wreck. When I think about how selfish I was, drinking like that… God. She was already dealing with my alchy father, and then her son goes and hits the booze. I’ll never forgive myself for doing that to her. To Claudia. They were the ones who got me through that time, you should know. I left you in New York, came back here, and couldn’t talk about it for months. I was an absolute wrecked mess. Mom came out to L.A. for a ‘visit’, but I knew Claudia had tipped her off, and what she was actually doing was checking up on me. She surprised me at my house one day, telling me she came out to help with the wedding planning. Just hearing the word ‘wedding’ made me sick. I threw up. Right there on the patio, at her feet.”
“You did not!”
He smiled, knowing I was such a twisted witch that I actually found the scenario entertaining.
“I did.”
“Why did you take the engagement as far as you did? It doesn’t really seem very fair to Jenna.”
He practically snorted. “Oh, please. Jenna didn’t care about anything but looking pretty in her wedding gown. She couldn’t even see I was a mess. She just kept making plans, and I just kept avoiding setting a date. Two years she turned a blind eye. Two years of bloodshot eyes and slurred speech and whiskey dick. It’s like she didn’t want to see. I finally hit rock bottom and she was forced to face the truth. She couldn’t really ignore the fact that I’d moved into the treatment center, for godsakes. I did that on my own, by the way.”
I’d read about a few of Trip’s drunken shenanigans in the tabloids. They were mostly treated as entertaining little stories about America’s new favorite bad boy, relaying the tales of the amusing stunts he had pulled at some prominent club or Hollywood party. But then… rehab.
“We were engaged for two years and she was screwing around the whole time, I think. Not like I can blame her. I couldn’t really see it through the bottom of a bottle, or maybe I just didn’t care. Even still, I used rehab as the excuse to make the break. She didn’t fight me on it.”
“What made you finally go?”
“What was my rock bottom, you mean?”