“The sun?” I asked.
My father shook his head and threw the huge green thing back in the fridge.
“Compost,” he said with a knowing grin. “Compost is everything from lemon peel, to garlic cloves, to rotten cheese.” He pulled my brother and me closer to him. “You need to create a fertile terrain for things to come to fruition, kids. Johnny Depp’s agent is my lemon peel. The Viper Room is my garlic clove, and the film Max and I are going to make is delicious rotten cheese. We are officially in the right milieu.”
“So Johnny Depp is not going to be in your film, then?” my brother concluded.
I kept walking around the house, amazed at how different it looked. My father’s office extended into the backyard, where a workstation had been set up on the patio with a desk, a computer, and another phone.
“What’s all this stuff?” I turned to my parents again.
“We didn’t want to tell you over the phone because we didn’t want you to be worried and think it was worse than it is,” my mother said.
“Worse than what?”
“We’ve started preproduction on the film and we’re using the house as a—”
“Production office,” my father concluded with a professional tone.
“We have a crew of people working for us already and we didn’t know where to put them. We couldn’t, you know…” Serena faltered.
“Afford an office,” my father finished. “Yet. It’s all going to change when the money comes in. We might even move out of the Valley.”
“Move out of the Valley?” I gasped with a shiver of exhilaration. Now I was glad they’d stayed behind.
The hallways were lined with black-and-white portfolio pictures of important-looking yet obscure Hollywood actors. Next to them were Post-its of their possible roles in Ettore’s film. Tamara Landkin: Grace? Ellen Studelli: Stephanie? If These Walls Could Talk was the title of Ettore’s movie, and it would be a psychological horror film, a Poltergeist-style ghost story inspired by the haunted Hotel Alexandria in downtown LA—one of the most prestigious venues in the city during the heyday of the motion-picture business, which had since turned into a low-income housing cluster of rooms and apartments. Shooting at the Alexandria was cheap, especially on the eleventh floor because the hotel owners believed it to be infested by ghosts and wanted nothing to do with it. That was where most of the paranormal activities took place, they said.
“It’s actually completely haunted, which is great for the actors. Less work to get in character,” my mother explained.
I entered the dining room. It was sealed off by a makeshift sliding door. On the other side were a bunch of suitcases and some furniture I recognized from Max’s old house.
“This is where Max is storing his things,” Serena announced timidly.
Max gave me a sly, melodramatic look. “Lo siento, chica. Just for now.”
He slid through the door, whistling. My father pretended he just remembered something urgent and followed him out. My brother and I stayed, question marks in our eyes.
“He didn’t have anywhere else to go!” Serena finally broke down. “He was evicted. His landlord was a real bastard, you know.”
“What about Phil Collins? Isn’t he his friend and neighbor? He has a mansion. Can’t he stay with him?”
“It would look bad,” Serena said with pride.
“When were you going to tell us this?”
“Aren’t you happy?” she asked, her quivering lip ready to go off. “Max is fun to have around and Dad is finally going to make his American film. You should be happy. I don’t understand why you can never just be happy.”
Max, in a bathrobe, crossed the kitchen with a Dorito chip popping out of his mouth.
“We’re deducting rent from his production fees,” my mother explained.
“You’re paying him to produce the film?”
“It’s a co-production,” my mother sighed. She seemed annoyed, like we were stupid for not understanding this thing that happened in Hollywood where people converted their homes into offices and gave out free rooms to producers.
“Dad gets the money from Italy and Max is going to get money here. Then they put the money together and we make the film. Once Max gets his money, he’ll pay off production expenses and contribute with rent for his room here.”
“So where does he sleep?” I asked.
Silence.
I dashed out of the dining room. My mother caught up to me, trying to delay the inevitable. I reached my bedroom. Serena leaned on the door to block me.
“It’s temporary,” she pleaded.
I pushed her aside and opened the door. My clothes had been stacked at the far end of my closet. My posters had been removed and folded onto my desk. An ashtray filled with Cuban cigars and joint butts sat on the windowsill. The yellowing walls were staled by smoke and the bed was covered in bundles of sweatpants and dirty emerald green silk boxers.
I let out a scream.
“Just until he finds a new place. It’s easier if we’re all in the same house.”
“Where do I sleep?”
In my brother’s room Serena had created a Eugenia corner with a desk, garage-sale lava lamp, and Nirvana poster.
“Cool lamp, right? When I saw it I thought of you right away.”
I poked my brother’s water bed with the tip of my shoe. It gurgled and moved in tiny waves.
“If you don’t like it we’ll put a real mattress on the floor for you. How does that sound?”
My brother shrugged his shoulders, looking at the wall. “I hate Nirvana.”
13