Bleak (27 page)

Glenn arrives on a flotilla of complaints. He didn’t get an aisle seat; his cushion was too thin; the peanuts had a strange curry flavor; he couldn’t see the movie screen because of the large head in front of him; the flight attendant didn’t give him enough water; the baggage carousel was very slow; there were too many people in the arrivals hall.

From the second he gets into the car at LAX to the moment I pull into the parking lot of Bleak, he goes on and on about the inferiority of air travel. It’s like he’s never been on a plane before.

Carrie handles it with such good humor, I’m not sure she notices it. Maybe he’s been this way since they got out of the cab in JFK, in which case she’s probably so immune to his whining, she can’t hear it.

Or maybe I sparked it by asking how the trip was. Engaging in the most basic form of common courtesy is a rookie mistake I won’t be making again.

As soon as we enter the apartment, Carrie announces she’s taking a shower and disappears into the bathroom, leaving me alone with Glenn.

“This is a great apartment,” he says, looking out the window toward the courtyard and the billboard advertising a movie with Jack Nicholson.

“Thanks. Can I get you anything? Water? Lemonade? Coke?”

“No apple juice?”

I look in the crisper. “Apples.”

“Water’s fine,” he says in such a resigned way I feel like another disappointment he has to suffer like a slow luggage carousel or a thin cushion.

While I’m filling the water glass, I hear Carrie turn on the shower. “I have some cookies if you want. Milanos? Or roasted peanuts. I promise, no curry flavor.”

Glenn sits on the couch and bounces twice as if to test the springs. “I’m all right, thanks.”

I put his water on the coffee table and return to the relative safety of the kitchen. Everything is where it should be—no dishes in the sink, no mail on the counter—and I wish I hadn’t cleaned for them this morning so I’d have something to do right now. But there’s no help for it. I have to talk to him. “You and Carrie will take my room. I’ll sleep out here on the convertible.”

“That’s not necessary,” he says.

On the face of it, it sounds like a nice, well-mannered, Long Island boy thing to say, but it’s completely devoid of sincerity. It’s entirely necessary.

“So you’re going to Santa Barbara tomorrow?” I ask.

“We’re gonna check out a few wineries.”

I’m not really hungry, but I dig an apple out of the fridge to give me something to do. It’s so awkward chatting with Glenn. I can’t tell if he knows I don’t like him or if he’s just a difficult person to talk to.

“We’re going to do the
Sideways
tour,” he adds. “I printed out the map. We’ve got reservations for lunch at Los Olivos Café. That’s where Miles, Jack, Maya and Stephanie have dinner.”

“Sounds like fun,” I say, although it seems pretty lame to follow in the footsteps of a decade-old movie that’s wasn’t even that good.

“It should be.”

Silence again.

I realize it’s my turn. “And Disney the day after?”

“I’ve never been. I hear they have a system so you don’t have to wait on the really long lines.”

“Yeah, the fast-pass service. You get a time stamp that tells you when you can go on the ride, so you don’t have to wait.”

“That’s cool. I hate waiting on lines at amusement parks.”

“Interesting. Waiting for rides is my favorite part, except for waiting for food. Now that I really love, especially when I’m hungry.”

Glenn looks at me funny but doesn’t call me on the sarcasm, possibly because he doesn’t recognize it. His tendency toward literalness is why he doesn’t get me or Ruby. He thinks we’re stupid instead of clever.

While Glenn is trying to come up with something to say, Carrie comes out of the bathroom with wet hair and bare feet. “Wow, I feel so much better. It’s amazing how the smell of plane diesel fuel really clings to you.” She throws herself onto the couch.

I offer her something to drink.

“Nope, I’m fine. Fully hydrated from the plane. And no food either. I don’t want to ruin my appetite for dinner. What time’s the reservation?”

Tonight we’re going to a Japanese spot Simon picked out. It’s replica of a palace situated high on a hill, with excellent views of the city and sumptuous red couches. I think Carrie will like it. The food’s pretty good too.

“Eight-thirty.”

Glenn yawns pointedly. “Yikes, that’s late. I hope I can make it with the jet lag and all.”

“If you want to stay behind and crash, feel free,” I offer, knowing it won’t be that easy to get rid of him but figuring it’s worth a shot.

He shakes his head. He’s in, no matter how much he has to suffer.

Carrie leans back against the cushion and reaches for the remote. “Do you mind if we stay here and chill until dinner?”

I shrug. It’s all the same to me.

“Put the game on,” Glenn says, sliding closer to Carrie until he’s pretty much sitting on top of her. Then he takes one of his octopus hands and put it on her knee. It stays there for a moment before creeping up her thigh to her crotch, where it remains.

It’s going to be a long week.

Every day I log in to my account to check the status of the check. Because $50,000 is a lot of money and Southfork Savings is based in New York, it takes a painfully long time for the funds to clear. Each day the money sits in my account is another opportunity for me to back out. It would be so easy to cancel the check.

But I hold it together long enough to finally see that my balance is $78.42.

This tiny amount of cash—barely enough for dinner and a movie—somehow sounds worse than zero.

To keep my mind off abject poverty (no, not poverty—faith, investment, the future), I take out the screenplay with comments from Joshua Smallweed. Despite his admiration for my talent and love for the script, he’s made copious notes that fill three single-spaced, typed pages. His feedback is more precise than Lester’s and certainly more useful. He doesn’t just tell me what’s wrong with the script but how he thinks I can fix it.

I’m not one hundred percent sure his solutions will work but at least it’s a beginning.

Working diligently through the day, I only check my e-mail every hour and a half. The meeting with the investors took place two days ago and now I’m giving Lester time to volunteer information before I have to start hounding him for it. It’s a new approach, one that I optimistically believed yesterday would work; today I’m not so sure. I can’t conceive that there’s nothing to tell me. That there’s no information in itself conveys a tremendous amount of information.

I don’t know why I’m still fighting this battle. It’s been three years, and Lester never once offered up a single thing willingly. Why don’t just I give in?

Despite the novelty surrendering presents, I e-mail Lester at four o’clock to ask what’s the word on the meeting. Now the ball’s in his court. I’ll wait until Monday, then try again.

In the meantime,
Tad Johnson
gives me something to focus on. Here at last is a production team that values me. They don’t think I’m a fly to be swatted or a creditor to be dodged or even a writer who must be humored with fake options. The difference between respect and sufferance is so huge the Grand Canyon could slip between.

I stop at six when Simon knocks.

“Has the dynamic duo returned yet?” he asks softly.

I open the door. “It’s safe. They only left the Getty about ten minutes ago.”

“In that case,” he says, bending his head toward mine, “I can say hello properly.” The kiss is anything but proper and by the time he pulls back, I’m clutching his shoulders for balance. It’s amazing how easily he can make my knees tremble. “I know how you feel about public displays.”

Feeling a little more steady, I take a step back and let the door close. “I’m down with public displays. It’s public obscenity I take issue with.”

“Maybe he doesn’t realize they’re not alone. He could be missing the chromosome that identifies when other people are in the room.”

“If only,” I say, walking to the kitchen. Suddenly I’m in the mood for a glass of wine. Just thinking about Glenn drives me to drink. “I’d be so much better with it if it were a genetic defect and not him trying to keep my sister on a short leash. It’s total ownership. He just knows if he gives her one breath of space she’d run the other way.” I put the Cabernet Sauvignon on the counter and sigh. “Right. I promised no more complaining, so it stops right here. How was your day?”

Simon sits on the couch. “Good. Colleen quit today.”

I put the glasses on the coffee table and sit down. “Colleen?”

“Incompetent who can’t transfer calls. Celia doesn’t have the guts to fire anyone, so she tortures them until they quit. Colleen broke the record for holding out. Forty-one days, six hours and forty-two seconds.”

“The previous record?”

“Twenty-four days, one hour and eleven seconds. Although it’s somewhat controversial because the guy who keeps book insists she came in that day just to clear out her stuff and she officially quit the night before.”

“You guys bet on this stuff?”

“Absolutely.”

“That’s a little harsh, isn’t it? I mean, someone’s out of a job.”

“Amazingly, they all tend to be mean people who are remarkably difficult to feel bad for.”

“Convenient.”

“Absolutely.”

After the stress of the day—it’s over and done: I can’t get my fifty large back no matter how much I want to, which I don’t (mostly)—it’s wonderful to unwind with Simon. He’s been pretty amazing all weeklong, dealing so patiently with Glenn I’d swear they’re best friends and giving me a safe place to hide when Carrie and her octopus get to be too much. You always learn the truth about people in times of crises and now I know Simon is a saint.

Simon takes a sip of wine and asks about my day. “Did you hear anything from Tulk about
Tad Johnson
?”

Having decide not to discuss any movie business with him, I’ve spent the last month dodging questions about my screenplay. Part of being a saint is keeping up with his girlfriend’s career. Most of the time I feel awful about lying but I don’t know what else to do.

“No word today,” I say.

He wraps his arms around my shoulder and pulls me against his side. Then he runs a hand through my hair. “I hope you’re not too disappointed that the offer hasn’t come through.”

Ashamed by the concern in his voice, I bury my face in the glass. “It’s the way it goes sometimes.”

He presses his lips against my forehead but doesn’t say a thing. I’m relieved. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up. At some point he’s going to find out the truth.

I should just tell him now.

But nothing has changed. Not until
Tad Johnson
is actually made—or at least starts shooting—will he stop thinking of me as a naïve fool who believes in miracles. He’ll lecture on long shots, warn me about investing emotionally and constantly remind me of his own dismal experience. I can’t handle that, especially not on the day my entire life savings disappeared from my bank account.

I’ll tell him in a couple of weeks, when the shooting schedule is firmed up and casting is complete.

Besides, it’s almost seven and the dynamic duo are about to return any minute. There’s no time to get into a heavy discussion about the future of my career even if I wanted to.

Oh, well.

On their last full day, Carrie and Glenn want to relax and hang out in my neighborhood. We hit my favorite greasy spoon for lunch, then walk over to the Griffith Observatory, where Glenn turns into a total astronomy geek and spends hours lecturing us on the movement of the solar system. He even contradicts a few details in the Hall of Sky exhibition copy.

At five, I leave them at the apartment and drive to Ralph’s to pick up some food for dinner. I figure since it’s their last night here, I might as well make something special. My repertoire is pretty limited but I’ve printed out a recipe for beef stroganoff that seems simple. I’ll make a Caesar salad to go with it and caramelized brussels sprouts. For dessert I pick up cannolis from Simon’s favorite bakery.

Eager to start cooking, I unlock the front door and step into the apartment. Carrie is sitting at the dining table with every single piece of paper in the apartment scattered around her: bank statements, credit card bills, food receipts. All the drawers in the kitchen are open and the couch cushions have been overturned. It looks like the apartment has been ransacked by thieves.

Glenn comes out of the bedroom. “No luck. All I found in her underwear drawer was underwear and her passport. It’s a pretty terrible photo too. Look.”

The groceries almost slide from my arms. “What are doing?”

Surprised, Carrie looks up. Far from appearing guilty, she seems angry. “Funny. I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

I put the bags down on the couch and stride over to the table. “I can’t believe you’d do this.”

She laughs without humor, somehow affronted as if she’s the one who walked in on her sister snooping around her apartment. “You can’t believe I’d do this?
I
can’t believe you’d do
this.
” She holds up a stack of papers and I instantly recognize it as the Solution Pictures contract. “I mean, seriously, Ricki, have you lost your mind completely? You gave them your entire life savings. Everything you have. Are you crazy? Have you fucking lost it entirely?” Her voices raise as she stands up and walks toward me. “And we were worried that you didn’t have health insurance or weren’t replacing your oil every three thousand miles. Not that you were handing over your
entire life savings
to a bunch of wannabe movie producers. How fucking stupid can you get?”

The anger I feel is so cold, my heart is frozen. It stands in my chest surrounded by icicles and doesn’t move. The only beating is in my head, a loud pounding like a horse’s hooves across an open field. Despite that, I’m remarkably calm. I take in the entire scene—the ransacked apartment, my sister’s outrage, Glenn holding my passport open to the photo—and feel strangely detached from it all. I grab the contract from Carrie’s hands and start gathering up the other papers on the table.

“So that’s why you’re here?” I ask, ignoring a fresh paper cut on my thumb. “To spy on me? To report back to Mom and Dad?”

“No, I’m here because I’m worried about you,” she says softly, her tone now the embodiment of sisterly concern. “We all are. You’re so secretive. You never tell us anything. You keep saying everything’s fine but you don’t have a job or any detectable source of income. You lie to Mom about working at a law firm and avoid answering questions. We thought if I came out here and spent some quality time with you I might be able to figure out what’s going on.”

And—bam!—just like that, my anger goes from cold to hot. “Oh, my God, you’re so full of shit. If you were so concerned about me, why did you bring…that”— I can’t think of a word fulsome enough to describe Glenn—“
thing
with you to paw over my underwear? This trip hasn’t been about quality time with me, a one-on-one with the Carstone girls. You’ve spent every minute with your needy, cloying boyfriend who can’t seem to breathe if he’s not fondling you obscenely. Oh, and when he’s not doing that, when, say, you’re in the bathroom and indisposed, he’s fucking complaining all the time. So don’t you
dare
say you came out here because you wanted to be with me. I’m not fucking stupid.”

Carrie curls her hands into fists but struggles to appear calm. Her voice is as smooth as silk when she speaks. “You’re angry with me, and I understand that. But don’t take it out on Glenn. I’m your problem, not him.”

Her tone, her stance, her words are so fucking superior. I can just hear her telling me to listen with my ears, not with my mouth, like some fucking kindergarten teacher. “No, Glenn isn’t my problem. I don’t have to spend the rest of my life with a lame-ass clingy octopus in my lame-ass ashwood kitchen because I’m too scared to risk not finding someone better. So you’re right. Glenn’s your problem. And you’re welcome to it.”

I swing around and march toward the door, which I slam shut with a satisfying bang. Then I pound on Simon’s door, muttering, “Please be home. Please be home.”

He opens it a second later. “Hey,” he says with a grin, “I was just about to—”

I brush passed him and into his apartment. “She’s fucking unbelievable. To come into a person’s apartment and go through their stuff and read their private documents and then have the gall—the utter,
utter
gall—to claim she’s concerned about you. And to bring that whining, fondling machine with you and pretend like this visit wasn’t about taking long, romantic walks through the
Sideways
vineyards. And all that, ‘We’re worried about you, Ricki.’ ‘You never tell us anything, Ricki.’ ‘We know you’re lying, Ricki.’ God, it’s so fucking unbelievable.”

Simon watches me pace back and forth in his living room until my tirade runs out. Then he grabs me by the shoulders and looks into my eyes. I’m so angry I can barely see him.

“Take a deep breath, count to ten and tell me what’s going on. You had a fight with your sister and found her snooping.”

“He had his hands in my underwear drawer.”

He leads me to the couch and gets me a class of water. “That’s not fair. I haven’t even seen your underwear drawer.”

I smile wanly and feel myself calming down. “My parents were worried about me not having a job, so they asked Carrie to come out and spy on me.”

“Yikes, that’s pretty harsh.”

I knew he would get it. “Isn’t it? And the thing that kills me is she had the
gall
to pretend this visit was about spending time with me. In seven days she didn’t ask me a single question about my life and then fourteen hours before she leaves for the airport, she ransacks my apartment to find out what’s going on. It’s the hypocrisy that gets to me.”

Simon sits on the arm of the couch, takes my hand and squeezes. “Come on, now, be fair. You’d be mad regardless.”

“Well, yeah. When I came into the apartment and found her holding that contract I was gripped by an ice-cold rage I’ve never felt before. And she had the audacity to get angry at me.”

“What contract?”

“Solution Pictures.”

The second the words are out of my mouth, I realize what I’ve done. Fucking hell.

Surprised, he shifts his position to get a better look at me. “Solution came through for
Tad Johnson
?

I nod.

“But that’s great news,” he says, with a wide grin, “and the answer to your parents’ concerns. You do have a job. I don’t understand why she was angry.”

I can lie or I can tell the truth. Instead, I evade. “I don’t know,” I say, lowering my eyes because I can’t bear to see the delight on his face. “She’s crazy.”

“When did the Solution deal happen?”

I lift my eyes. “What?”

“The Solution deal. When did it come together? If you’ve got the contract, it must be pretty far along.”

“I don’t remember when it happened. Recently.”

Simon tilts his head down and looks at his lap, where he holds my hand in his. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

And just like that, I collide with the moment of truth. No more lies, no more evasions, just unvarnished honesty. I hate Carrie. “I didn’t want to argue about it,” I say.

“Why would we argue?”

I sigh. Somehow this is harder and easier than I thought—harder because I know his calm is deceptive and easier because I’m almost too exhausted by my knockdown with Carrie to care. “Because they didn’t so much as buy the script as ask me to invest in it.”

His grip on my hand loosens, then releases, but he doesn’t say anything. I wait and wait, but he remains unquestionably mute. The clock on the wall ticks, birds land on his balcony and his across-the-hall neighbor comes home singing loudly to her iPod.

After five minutes, I can’t take it anymore. Maybe if he hadn’t let go of my hand, I wouldn’t read such dire things into his silence but he had, so I do. “Aren’t you going to say something?”

“No.”

The syllable is short but stunning. “Why not?”

“You obviously don’t want my opinion on the matter.” He stands up and disappears into the kitchen. “So if you’re no longer cooking, what do you want to do for dinner? Order in?”

The last thing I expect from him is little-boy sulkiness. He seems too mature not to fight it out like a man. I stand up and follow him. He’s flipping through a binder clip of menus. “Look, it was a really tough decision for me and I knew how you’d feel if I told you I was thinking about putting fifty thousand dollars into a project and I just didn’t—”

The menus fall to the floor in a heap. “I’m sorry. How much?”

His tone is mild, but that’s just because the amount hasn’t sunk in. Unable to meet his gaze, I drop to my knees and pick up the menus. “Fifty thousand dollars.”

“Holy shit. Are you out of your mind?”

I feel a perverse sense of satisfaction at his reaction. “See? I knew you’d think I was crazy. You have no faith in me. Harry said I was—”

“Hold on. You talked about this with Harry?”

I nod and suddenly realize there are worst things than lying about the Solution contract. It’s not so much what he says as the way he says it: a mixture of shock and disappointment.

“The Harry you were seeing a couple of months ago?” When I nod again, he leaves the kitchen. I rush to my feet, leaving the menus on the floor. In the living room, Simon is pacing. “The one who hooked you up with that Vholes guy, who’s been bleeding you dry?”

As soon as he brings John into it, my shame over Harry deserts me. I know I was wrong, but at least I admit it. Simon won’t give an inch over Vholes and I’m sick of it. Why are relationships always the same argument over and over again? “John Vholes didn’t bleed me dry,” I say for the hundredth time. “He gave me lessons.”

Simon doesn’t care. “So you’re still seeing Harry?”

“Yes,” I say automatically, then immediately backtrack when I hear the implication. “No, I’m not
seeing
him. I see him.” The look he gives me is so intensely furious it could make a statue tremble. “We hang out as friends. We’re not dating.”

But Simon isn’t listening to me anymore. He’s wearing a hole in his carpet and mumbling under his breath how this was all a terrible mistake. Then he stops, turns and looks at me. “Obviously I’m wasting my time here.”

The words make my heart stop and I open my mouth to argue but nothing comes out. My thoughts are jumbled. All I can think is no, no, no. This isn’t happening. Not over some stupid guy who doesn’t matter.

“You don’t trust me,” Simon says wearily, “and I can’t do this with someone who doesn’t trust me.”

I feel the tears forming as I stare at him, amazed at how wrong he has it. Somehow he’s turned the whole thing on its head. “No, you don’t trust me,” I say, swallowing hard to push back the lump in my throat. “You don’t trust me. You never have.”

He shakes his head sadly. No one in my life has ever looked as stricken as he. “If you actually believe that, then we really have been wasting our time.”

The tears threaten to overwhelm me. I don’t know when I’ve ever felt this despondent in my life, like any hope for the future has been washed away. All I have is the present, this one terrible moment to live in for eternity.

Because I don’t want him to see me cry, to know that on a basic level he’s broken something vitally important inside me, I run out of his apartment, down the stairs and onto the street. I sit on the grass, pull up my legs and sob until my eyes are like sandpaper. I take several heaping gulps of air, shiver from the chilly breeze and straighten my back. I can’t sit on the curb for the rest of my life.

I don’t have my bag with me but my keys are in my back pocket as well as my credit card from the grocery store, which I didn’t bother putting back in my wallet. I could go to the movies or the Growlery or the galleria. But what I really want is a shoulder to cry on. I feel so terribly alone.

I drive to Harry’s. I don’t care what evil things Simon thinks in his suspicious little mind. Harry is a friend. That he was never more than that makes me sad but there’s nothing I can do about it. Some people you love; some people you don’t.

By the time I reach Harry’s block, I feel more in control. Parking is difficult, and it takes me ten minutes to find a spot. As I walk up the drive, I realize I should probably call first. It’s a Saturday night. What if he’s not home? What if he has a date? But I don’t have my phone with me so I let it go. If he’s not home, I’ll leave. If he has a date, I’ll also leave.

I ring the doorbell and wait impatiently. After a moment, the doorknob turns and there he is. I’m so relieved, my knees go week. “Thank God you’re here. I’ve had the worst day,” I say, stepping past him into the room, “and just needed someone to talk to.…” I trail off as I see who else is in the room: John Vholes, Howard Tulkinghorn and Joshua Smallweed. All of them are gathered around the table with four empty bottles of champagne and half-drunk wineglasses. I look at Harry, confused. He turns away.

For a moment there is shock, a pervasive amazement that fills the room as they stare at me as dumbstruckly as I stare at them. Then Tulk holds his glass high. “Ricki, darling, we were just drinking to you. To the prettiest sucker in all of suckerdom.”

They drink.

The second I see them together, I understand. The scales fall from my eyes and in an instant I grasp the entire picture. From the moment Harry met me at Boodle’s, he had this scene planned. All I had to do was go along like a dumb fuck.