Famous (5 page)

“Aces.”

He smiles that oh-I-know-what-you’re-up-to
smile. And he’s right. I am up to it.

“Oh to be you. Well, then. I’ll leave you
three. Jim, come find me before you leave, and I’ll give you that
script.” He winks at me and walks inside, and before my attention
turns back to the women, I get to wondering whatever happened to
Wittig. Scanning the dim, flashy living room, music pumping through
the glass, I finally see him: a short, tweed-suit sporting,
gray-bearded man, martini glass raised, in the thick of that
dancing colony, sandwiched between two tall, slim men.

Chapter 5

his caterpillar * why they can’t stay at the
Waldorf * the triangle of goodness * the joy of twins * the
contents of their refrigerator * doesn’t even say goodbye * the
diner called DINER * it’s all chemicals * studies his lines * Dr.
Lovejoy

Four years ago, I carved a deep gash into my
chin with a razor. On purpose. It bled for six hours before I
realized I needed stitches. It took four to close the wound, but I
got what I wanted—a quarter-inch scar on the left side of my chin
nearly identical to the one on Jansen’s.

It looks like the footprint of an
eight-legged caterpillar now, and the twin with short hair is
touching it as we sit in the backseat of a cab, en route to their
pad, as they call it.

“That is the most precious little scar I’ve
ever seen,” she says. “Look at this, Dawn.”

“Oh God, that’s cute. How’d it happen?”

“I walked into the corner of a car door on
the set of
Greener Grass
.”

These women can’t keep their hands off me.
I’m sitting in the middle of the backseat, one on either side of
me, focusing on their luxurious smell rather than the cab funk.

“Where the fuck are you going, dude?” Dawn
yells at the cabby. “I said East Thirty-Seventh and Lexington—”

“We go there.”

“You’re taking the long way. I want the short
way. You’re out of your mind if you think I’m paying the scenic
route fare.”

“What is scenic route?”

“Unbelievable,” Dawn mutters. “He knows
exactly what he’s doing. We aren’t fucking tourists here!”

Heather places her right hand on my cheek and
turns my face toward hers. Of the two, she has sweeter eyes.

“Baby, why can’t we stay at your pad tonight?
I know you must be shacked-up in some killer suite.”

“I’d love to,” I say. “I really would. But
I’m here with my girlfriend. Now she expects me not to come home.
That’s all right. But showing up with two buxom ladies like
yourselves would get me thrown out on my ass. You understand.”

“Shit, I’d sleep in Central Park if it was
with you.”

Heather and Dawn live in a two bedroom
apartment in Murray Hill. I have a hunch they’re models, but I
don’t ask. I mean, they have to be, right? How do two
twenty-year-olds afford a place in Manhattan?

It’s 1:15 in the morning when we step out of
the elevator onto their floor. The building is dead silent. I’m
walking behind them, and they keep looking back at me with these
wicked grins. I know it should’ve occurred to me long before now,
but it hits me suddenly that we’re probably going into their
apartment to be naughty. And my head’s spinning so much from this
wonderful, inconceivable day which began more than eighteen hours
ago, that I can’t even assess whether or not I’m ready to live out
this fantasy. I’m not a terribly sexual person in real life. There
are guys out there, who I’m sure think about it much more than me.
I don’t even look at that much porn. I’ve only slept with one
person in my entire life—this nice girl I dated my freshman year in
college, when it still looked like I might turn out like everyone
else.

So as Heather unlocks the door to their
apartment and we stroll inside, I’m kind of wondering whether I’m
up to this.

Man, these women must be in love with
themselves. When the lights flick on, I notice that the living room
walls are adorned with enlarged photographs of Heather and Dawn.
The one over the couch is a photo of one of them (can’t tell
which), in a cowboy hat, sitting bareback on a very lucky horse,
and looking sultrily into the camera. Over the flatscreen, they’ve
hung a collage of all the magazine covers they’ve appeared on.

“Thought I recognized you two,” I say as my
eyes pass over the collage. I don’t really recognize them. Just
being nice. “Been in the city long?” I ask, moving through the
living room and to the window which peers out over the fire escape
and into another apartment building. Through an open window, I see
the red digits of an alarm clock in a bedroom. I’m sure a couple
sleeps somewhere in that blue darkness, and for some reason, the
thought of this makes my chest ache for half a second.

“Nine months,” one of them says, answering my
question. They’ve disappeared into the kitchen, and I hear ice
cubes dropping into glassware.

When they return to the living room, Dawn
takes my jacket and Heather hands me a glass of bronze liquor.

“Hope you like scotch,” she says. “Best thing
we got.”

I sip it. Tastes rotten and fiery, in a good
way.

“It’s fine.” When you’re famous, people open
the good stuff.

“You’ve got a nice place here,” I say.

Heather walks over to the window and takes my
hand. She leads me back to the couch, and the three of us sit down
with our drinks. I’m nervous, but the scotch is helping. These
girls are so gorgeous. Almost too gorgeous. If you saw them from a
distance, you’d think they were sophisticated, too, but sitting
here beside them, I see they aren’t. I’m not saying they’re stupid
or anything. Just not as deep as I first thought. Maybe because
they’re young. I guess everybody you meet is eventually a
letdown.

“How old are you?” I ask.

“Twenty,” Heather says. “How old are
you?”

“Thirty-eight.” Shit. Jansen’s thirty-nine.
But I don’t think they know that.

Heather begins to run her fingers through my
hair. They’re both looking at me sort of funny, and you can tell
they don’t really want to talk.

My scotch is gone.

“How does it feel?” Dawn asks me while
Heather touches the cool tip of her nose against my cheek.

“How does what feel?”

“Out of that entire crowd of scrumptious men,
we picked you.” She brushes her hair behind her shoulders and tilts
her head, waiting my reply. Her dress glitters, rose and gold.

“You do this often? Is this your thing?
Finding guys at parties and bringing them home with you?”

“It’s not like we’re whores,” Dawn says.

“I don’t think he means that,” Heather
defends. “Jim, when we see a guy we both like, we bring them home
and make them feel good and let them make us feel good and make
each other feel good. It’s a triangle of goodness. You see anything
wrong with that?”

“No.” Feeling pretty aroused now.

Heather nibbles my ear and stands. “Come
on.”

I follow the twins into their bedroom. Feel
like I’m straddling this fence, and on one side is fear, on the
other, pure sensuality. They sort of go hand in hand I think.

“Ladies,” I say as we enter the dark bedroom,
and Dawn lights three candles on a dresser and turns on a lava
lamp. “I know you probably think I do this all the time, but I’ve
never had two. I just don’t—”

“We’ll take care of you, baby,” Heather says
as the bite of the struck match fills the room, and I kind of love
her for saying that.

They step out of their glittery dresses and
climb onto the bed. They’re naked in the candlelight, on their
knees facing each other. Long hair. Short hair. Miles of smooth
skin. Like one creature. More beauty than I have ever seen. They
hold hands. The comforter is black silk. They begin to kiss, and
then wave me over to join them.

This moment, this night is so much more than
Lance deserves. As I undress, I can feel him beginning to fade. I
won’t fight it. I think I’m beginning to understand now.

Some things, you just let die.

In the morning, I climb out of bed before
they wake and walk into the kitchen, fully intending to prepare a
breakfast of historic proportions. But when I open the fridge, I
see that this is not in the cards. There’s a bag of lettuce,
several dozen bottled waters, and more Yoplait than any human being
should ever see at one time.

I open the freezer, praying for a bag of
bagels, something, but it houses only trays of ice and frozen
dinners. Low-fat, no salt, low-calorie, cholesterol-free, organic,
soy, vegan meals, to be specific.

My head feels like a bowling ball on my
shoulders, and yogurt isn’t going to remedy this hangover. I walk
back into the twins’ bedroom. They look lovely curled up
back-to-back, and I stand there for a moment, just taking them in.
I couldn’t do this if they were awake, because last night is over.
Last night wasn’t about a connection, or liking, or loving. It’s
awfully sad, and I’m doing all I can not to give a shit, but that’s
difficult for me. So I stand at the foot of their bed for five
minutes, watching them sleep, loving them as much as one can when
under the gun of these callous rules.

Then I take my horribly wrinkled clothes out
into the living room and dress. I’ll need to get my suit pressed
before I go anywhere important. It’s 8:10, and I’ve got to have
some coffee, something greasy.

I don’t even leave a note.

So it’s 8:30 and I’m strolling down the
sidewalk, and I’ll bet everyone who walks past me is thinking, man
that guy had a big night. And I did. It’s true. My suit looks like
shit, and I’ve got these dark sunglasses on, a script under my arm,
and even though I feel pretty rundown, I’m floating.

I cross E. 40
^th
Street, and
there’s a diner on the corner called DINER, so I step inside and
claim a stool. I go ahead and take the sunglasses off so people
don’t think I’m an asshole. It’s okay to wear them outside at this
hour of the morning if you’re a Star, but inside might be pushing
it.

I order so much damn food it takes up more
than my allotment of counter space, but who gives a fuck, you know?
I’m just in that kind of a mood this morning, and that’s pretty
rare for me. Normally, I’m highly concerned about what people
think. Even strangers.

I’m not used to being this happy, and I can’t
imagine it lasting all day. If I’m still this high in ten hours,
I’ll be hurting, like at the end of an orgasm when it all becomes
too much. You know, it’s kind of sad being this happy, because it
can’t last. And the second you realize that, the joy begins to
wane. And once you start coming down, you wonder if you were really
happy at all, because shouldn’t real happiness withstand the
knowledge that it can’t last? And once you realize you weren’t
really happy, it occurs to you that what caused this interval of
euphoria was nothing more than a bunch of chemicals floating around
in your brain.

Fuck me. I’ve talked myself out of being
happy.

When I finish the short stack and the bacon,
I get my coffee refilled and pull out the script. It’s only a
twenty-eight page play. My lines begin on page fifteen and end on
seventeen. Matt’s gone to the trouble of bolding them for me.

As it turns out, my character is a
therapist—the absolute worst therapist you’ve ever met in your
life. And in my scene, Gerald brings Cindy (they’re the main
characters in the play) to have a session with me because Cindy has
mistreated the love of Gerald’s life—his dog, Poopsie.

I’m Dr. Lovejoy, and the scene goes like
this:

ACT ONE

SCENE FIVE

AT RISE:

The following morning. GERALD and CINDY are
sitting beside each other on a loveseat, alone in the office of a
psychiatrist, DR. LOVEJOY. DR. LOVEJOY walks in and sits down in a
chair before the couple. GERALD is visibly upset.

GERALD

Thank you for seeing us on such short notice,
Dr. Lovejoy.

DR. LOVEJOY

Yes, well, my time is extremely limited, so
why don’t you tell me the problem.

CINDY

(sarcastically)

I’m the problem.

DR. LOVEJOY

I’ll decide that.

GERALD

No, she’s right, Doctor. She most certainly
is the problem. She’s an enormous problem.

DR. LOVEJOY

(to Gerald)

So. You initiated this session. What would
you like for me to say?

GERALD

What do you mean?

DR. LOVEJOY

What did you come here to hear? Everyone who
comes into this office has something in mind they want to hear.
Some behavior they want rationalized. Permission to cheat on their
wife. Write off their parents. What is it that you want?

GERALD

I want you to help us to—

DR. LOVEJOY

(standing and shouting)

Just stop! Let us dispense with you trying to
make me think you really care about having this relationship
healed. Let’s go right to the end of where all of this is going.
What do you want? Permission to leave her? Go ahead. Leave. You
want to change her. Knock yourself out. I don’t care. Just tell me
what you want to hear, and I’ll say it convincingly and
sympathetically, and give you my bill and you can go ahead and do
what you were already going to do, with my four hundred and
twenty-five dollar-an-hour blessing. So, Gerald. What. Do. You.
Want. To. Hear.

GERALD

(tearing up)

Last week, Cindy microwaved my dog, Poopsie,
for forty-five seconds. It didn’t kill her, but she walks
diagonally now. I want to microwave Cindy’s Persian cat.

DR. LOVEJOY

(sits back down and leans forward, looking
intently at CINDY and GERALD)