“Not really. He wants me to sneak him into the house so he can kiss his feet. He treats me like a messenger, or the maid.” Rose laughed at the description.
“Even when there are no secret identities, Hollywood is crazy.” But the money was good, and the prestige enormous. “Did you hire the cleaning service I recommended to you?”
“I did. They’re starting tomorrow. I don’t need much. I’m not going to entertain or anything.” She couldn’t, or it would blow her cover. She couldn’t have anyone to the house for the duration, nor take the risk. “It will be a long six months.”
“You might enjoy it,” Rose encouraged her.
“They’re all so full of themselves, even the assistants. It’s fun watching the stars, though.” She sounded very young when she said it.
She made a salad for dinner, took a swim, went to bed early, and watched another movie. There was a fabulous library of DVDs. And the next day the fun began with one actress having a tantrum over a costume, and the other arguing with Malcolm about the script, and he stormed off the set. The director calmed both women down, and then came to sit next to Alex for a little while. He was quiet and even tempered and handled everyone with incredible sensitivity and grace. Malcolm, on the other hand, was a diva, and slunk back to the set after lunch with a scowl on his face. He acted like an angry child, despite the dazzling physique.
“I can’t wait till we get to the murder scene and smear blood over both of them,” he said through clenched teeth, and Alex laughed.
“I won’t tell Mr. Green you said that.” He looked mollified after that, and handed her a Coke as they watched the rehearsals, which were pretty rough. Sam worked with each of the actors to explain the psychology of their role, and he had nailed it perfectly, as Alex paid rapt attention. She made some notes and Malcolm asked her about them.
“Why are you taking notes?”
“Mr. Green expects me to tell him what happens on the set. I’m his eyes and ears here.”
“And he listens to what you say?” Malcolm was impressed.
“Most of the time. Our relationship is based on mutual respect.”
“He doesn’t need advice from anyone,” he said reverently. “What did he think of the script, by the way?”
“He likes it. There are a few rough spots here and there, but nothing he can’t live with, or we can’t fix.”
“I expected him to be tougher than that.”
“It’s a good script,” she complimented him.
“Tell him thank you,” he said and disappeared again.
They worked until dinnertime again, and Malcolm surprised her by asking her if she wanted to stop for something to eat on the way home, if she had time and Mr. Green wouldn’t mind.
“Sure. Why not? He’ll be fine with it.” Malcolm seemed like an important ally to have, and was worth getting to know for that reason.
They stopped at the Polo Lounge on the way home, and he asked her a thousand questions about her employer and none about her. But she learned that he had gone to USC film school, had worked in television before moving on to feature films, and wanted to write his own series. He was thirty-three years old, had never been married, had no kids, and had recently broken up with a rising young starlet who had left him for someone else. “I didn’t really care. We’d only been dating for three months.” She had the feeling, from listening to him, that Hollywood was some kind of shell game where everyone switched partners constantly in order to get ahead, and traded the last partner in for someone more important. It sounded exhausting to her, and incredibly manipulative and superficial.
“It must be complicated here.”
“It is,” he admitted. “Dating is all about who you want to be seen with. Like what car you drive. It’s about where they can get you and how far. The person is a vehicle to the next level. Then you switch and cover the next fifty or a hundred miles up the mountain with someone else.”
“Does anyone ever go out with real people?” It was an insider’s view of a world she didn’t want to know, where everything was false, hair, teeth, breasts, and heart.
“Not really,” he answered her question honestly. “That’s a waste of time.”
“Does anyone here ever fall in love?” she asked, and he laughed.
“You sound like Goldilocks. Hollywood is about making movies and becoming a star. Not about love. You can go to Arkansas for that. Or Nebraska. That’s where the real people are. Not here. Where are you from?”
“Boston.”
“And you live in Scotland with Mr. Green?” She nodded, remembering her role, and the identity she and her agent had created for him out of whole cloth.
“I do.”
“Do you go to Montana with him too?”
“Most of the time.” She was nervous he would ask her questions about Montana, which she knew nothing about. “I’ve been in Europe with him for the last two years.”
“Whereabouts?”
“Italy, Ireland, France, England, Germany, the Czech Republic, Spain,” she reeled off all the places she had traveled to, and he looked vastly impressed.
“Does he have houses in all those places?”
“Some,” she lied.
“He must lead such an interesting life.”
“Not really. He writes all the time. He has no social life, he rarely goes out. His passion is writing.” She was talking about herself, which Malcolm didn’t know.
“You can tell, that’s why he’s so good. How did he get interested in crime?”
“I think his father got him into it as a boy.” He ate it up as he listened.
They left the restaurant together, after splitting the bill for dinner, and walked outside to claim their cars from the valet. He drove a Porsche, which he said was leased.
“I only drive good cars when I’m working on a movie,” he said to her as he unlocked the door and got in. “What you drive is important here.” She thought of the white Rolls they had rented for Mr. Green. It was all about fakery here, and appearances, for the length of the film. And then everyone turned into pumpkins and white mice until the next one. It seemed like an odd way to live.
“Thank you for taking me to dinner,” she said and smiled at him.
“It was fun. Give the man my best.” She promised to do so and they both drove off, and she thought about what he had said. She couldn’t help wondering if there were any real people there at all, and then she laughed out loud in the car, because she wasn’t real either. She was in L.A. as a fraud too, pretending to be a man who didn’t exist.
Chapter 16