Going Down in La-La Land (26 page)

That night I took a few Xanax from Candy to help me sleep and felt much better the following morning. I even went to the Beverly Center the next day for some shopping therapy. I needed new threads for my new job. My intention was to be as professional as possible and use the opportunity I was being given to present myself in the best way to every business contact I came across. This was one chance I wasn’t going to blow.

In the meantime I saw John during evenings when he was free. A toothbrush of my own had taken up residence next to his in the master bathroom. In magazines I would see pictures of him and read blurbs about various women he took to public events. He had a number of different “beards” he went out with. Whether he was sleeping with them I didn’t know, and I hadn’t asked. As a famous everyday all-American Joe carrying a successful sitcom on his shoulders, he had to do what he had to do. The bottom line was he was good to me.

Never did he demand things of me, that I be around for him at his disposal as far as our sexual relationship was concerned. It was always “Do you want to come over?” or “If you feel like it.”

With the holidays a few weeks away, his assistant Stacy showed me the ropes. Stacy was a fresh-scrubbed and friendly young girl with an average build and average weight. But she carried herself with a sense of confidence and authority. I really liked her. She had been accepted into the graduate program at USC Film School, the most prestigious in the country.

“
John is such a sweetheart,” she told me when we were driving around our first day together. “He really is the best boss I’ve ever had. This is not an easy job to give up.”

“
So how did you two meet?” she asked me later that same day.

“
Oh, a friend put us in touch,” I said, and then quickly changed the subject.

Stacy wasn’t stupid. I’m sure she had come to a conclusion regarding John’s sexuality and personal life. But it was clear she liked and respected him, so it wasn’t an issue. If anything, the way she spoke about John made it sound as though she were protective of him. If she had any suspicions about how John and I met, she kept it to herself. Though she came in his house for work purposes every weekday, we had never crossed paths until I got started on the job myself.

Stacy introduced me to his agent and everyone on the set, the publicity people with the network, even everyday people such as the dry cleaner, landscaping service, and maids. Luckily John was signed with William Morris, not Acclaimed Talent. I would have dreaded having to go back to that place every week, although it would have been fun to rub my new job in Matthew, the head receptionist’s, face.

“
John’s a casual guy,” Stacy told me. “But don’t be fooled. He is worth millions and pulls in as much as a Kelsey Grammer or Jennifer Aniston. He’s just not the kind of guy to surround himself with a huge entourage like Puff Daddy or someone like that. A lot of other stars earning the money he makes employ full-time chefs, housekeepers, bodyguards, and more. It’s really amazing when you think about it.”

Overall, the job was cushy one. Some of it was banal, like picking up and dropping off dry cleaning and waiting for a piece of furniture to be delivered. But at fifty grand a year, I wasn’t complaining. For me, the job was a godsend. The highlights, such as accompanying John on appearances, far outshadowed any drudgery.

When he did
The Tonight Show,
Jay Leno came back into the dressing room, shaking hands with everyone including myself. It was out of this world. At a holiday comedy review Stacy and I hung out backstage with all the other performers and their people, everyone mingling around and chatting it up, having a good time. It was unlike anything I’d done before. Overall, I didn’t feel like I was just a minion, as was the case at Acclaimed. I was actually meeting people, and enjoying every minute of it.

I drove to Vegas to be with my parents for a few days over the holidays. It helped that I was in good spirits, and that I was able to buy my family some nice gifts. As a college student I always felt like such a drain on my folks. So it was fun to spoil them for a change. I bought my father some great kitchen appliances, some Buddhist reading which he was into, and mountain biking gear. I bought my mother an outrageously expensive Louis Vuitton handbag, a Hermes scarf, and Barnes and Noble gift certificates.

As usual, I got along well with my father. But my mother and I hit it off famously. They had no idea about my escapades in the adult film industry. I had told them I was working as a receptionist the whole time, and had met John Vastelli through my job at the agency.

I had a close call however, when I ran into Sarah and Stephen while helping my mother with some last-minute shopping at the mall. Sarah was in town visiting her own family and had invited Stephen along. His family was probably relieved to be rid of him for the holidays.

My mother had gone to the shoe department in Macy’s and I was milling around the men’s department.

“
Hey, sistah!” I heard from behind me.

Looking up, I froze in a bundle of nerves.

“
Oh, hi!” I replied in mock delight, trying to play it cool. I was planning on seeing Sarah when I looked up her sister, but on my own time and without Stephen being around.

“
What are you two doing here?” I asked innocently.

“
What does it look like?” Stephen asked, lifting up handfuls of shopping bags and doing some curls with them, flexing his perfect biceps.

“
Stephen’s staying with us for the holidays, experiencing a Vegas Christmas,” Sarah laughed.

“
So you’ve been very busy since we’ve seen you last,” Stephen said slyly, cutting to the chase. “We all saw those magazines with you in the buff. I have to say that I haven’t seen any of your performances, but Fred gave you a thumbs up. And Fred is a tough critic. You know he only tells it like it is. As a matter of fact, I believe his exact words were that if he knew you were that hot in bed, he would have spent less time making small talk with you and tried to get some action instead.”

It was an underhanded compliment. Both Stephen and Sarah were giddy with gossip, their white teeth gleaming with devious Crest White Strip smiles. But I didn’t have time for a spitting match. My mother could be coming from the shoe department any minute, and I was sure Stephen wouldn’t drop the subject in her presence. On the contrary, he would have loved spilling the beans in front of her, and giving the A-list something to laugh about when he got back to LA.

I just shrugged it off.

“
You know what they say, when the going gets tough, you uh, do what you have to do!” I stammered with an awkward smile, tripping over my words.

“
Well, you landed up doing a lot more than I ever would have guessed,” Stephen laughed. “Can we look forward to any future exposure from you?”

“
I don’t think in that capacity. But then again you never know. Life is funny that way. The fans really seemed to like me,” I added.

Stephen was about to say more when I broke him off and quickly said, “Listen, I really need to be getting back home. Sarah, I’ll give you a call soon.” I pecked her on the check quickly and started walking away.

“
Great seeing you both!” I exclaimed before turning around.

“
Don’t be a stranger, Adam!” Stephen said as I made my getaway. “The whole town knows you’re not shy, you don’t have to be with us.”

“
Later!” I said not looking back, disappearing down the escalator.

I found my mother in the shoe department.

“
Ready to eat?” I asked.

“
Well, I thought I might try these on,” she deliberated, picking up a shoe and holding it up for me.

“
What do you think?”

“
I think they’ll make you look like you’re a hundred,” I said, trying what I could to get her out of the store as soon as possible. “Come on, let’s grab something to eat. I’m starving.”

With that I dragged my mother out of the mall, careful to avoid a close call. I guess it would be awhile before I could put a put my recent X-rated endeavors out to pasture.

I was back in LA right after Christmas and floored at what awaited my arrival. I was at John’s house, helping him sort through some paperwork when he said out of the blue, “Hey, Adam, I left some documents on my nightstand. Can you grab them for me?”

“
You got it,” I said, and zipped to the master bedroom.

From across the way I could see the nightstand was completely cleared off with the exception of a slim white box, wrapped in a red bow. Looking down I read “Merry Christmas Adam.” Opening it up, I was stunned to see a stack of hundred dollar bills, one after the other.

“
Holy shit,” I whispered out loud.

There was easily more than three grand in there. This was too weird. I felt like a kept lover in some movie. At the end of the bills was a note that read “There is more in the nightstand drawer.”

I opened the drawer with a shaking hand to find a perfectly wrapped box inside. The seal on the top read Cartier. I painstakingly took apart the perfect gift wrap, pulling gently on the satin bow. A glimpse of velvet greeted me as I took off the lid. It was definitely a watch box. The velvet top snapped back revealing a classic Cartier watch with a crocodile band and diamonds surrounding the face. No one in my family owned a piece of jewelry that expensive.

“
You like it?” I looked up to see John grinning broadly at the doorway.

“
John,” I gasped in shock. “This is too much. I can’t accept this.”

“
You can and you will. I’m your boss, and it’s a job requirement. A sure way to piss off your new boss is to refuse a gift.”

Generosity was one of John’s greatest attributes. He had been generous buying gifts for the whole crew and cast of his show. The year before he had taken them all on a trip to Hawaii during hiatus. That’s why Stacy had said the decision to go to back to school was so painful, he really was the best boss she ever had.

John and I put the task of sorting mail aside for the moment and spent the rest of the afternoon in the sack. When we were finished, he put my new watch on my wrist, and we took a nap, my Cartier-clad arm resting across his chest.

John was cohosting a network New Years Eve special and needed my help. I spent the next few days going to rehearsals with him and racing around to get everything in order. I was beginning to become familiar with a number of women that John would take out with him in public. There was Susan, a nice woman who worked for John’s production company. Another woman, named Olivia, was a writer on his show.

I especially liked Olivia; she was pretty in a very organic and earthy way. She often came over to the house with a female friend named Grace. I suspected she was actually a lesbian, and Grace was her lover. But they never spoke about it or brought it up. When Olivia came by most of the conversation revolved around
Life’s Lessons.

There was a third woman that John would date on occasion, and whom I disliked at first sight. Her name was Zinnia, and she went by that one name alone. But Zinnia was far from being a Cher or a Madonna. She was a starlet in the 1980s whose biggest claim to fame was costarring with a famous football quarterback in his motion picture debut. Hired on the basis of her sultry looks, they alone were her one asset; otherwise she lacked in the talent department. She managed to stretch her fifteen minutes to a few spreads in
Playboy
and a stint on a nighttime soap opera. But that was all back in the day. Now she seemed nothing more than a Hollywood hanger on, a freeloader whose outfits made Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson look like Sisters of the Holy Order.

What bothered me even more was somehow I felt I had spoken with her before, somehow crossed paths with her. And it wasn’t because she had once been on TV during my childhood. It was something more. I just couldn’t place my finger on how, why, and where I knew her from.

“
John,” she would gush when she came over, “I love that new dining room set you have. It’s absolutely exquisite!”

When they went out John paid for everything, and she was guaranteed free entrance to every big-time affair and party in town. For Christmas John was more than generous, buying her diamond earrings from Tiffany.

“
Oh, my God!” she shrieked when opening them. “John, you shouldn’t have!”

Yeah right,
I thought.
If he didn’t do the “shouldn’t haves” you’d be out the door so fast there would be skid marks.

It killed me that John had to live his life as a secret and maintain a facade with the help of such a phony freeloader. But any revelations or questions of his sexuality would have destroyed the image and career he had worked so hard to build. Certainly, no one would buy his down-and-out everyday guy routine.

Still, he seemed to get a kick out of Zinnia, complete with her facelift, joker lips injected with more collagen then Melanie Griffith’s ten times over, and grossly out of proportion implants. She flattered him and doted on him, so I thought their association was harmless enough, until I told Candy about her.

Candy was still my one and only confidante, the one person I knew I could go to with anything.