Goldenboy (18 page)

“You needn’t be,” I
replied. “I don’t expect I’ll be seeing him again.”

He sat at the foot
of the bed. “I’m sorry,” he said firmly. “I’m being a bitch.” He held out his
hand to me. “Friends?”

I took his hand and
smiled. “Friends.”

“Let me take you to
lunch.”

“Okay.”

He stood up and
looked around. “I haven’t been up here in a long time,” he said. “Never did
like this room. Come get me when you’re ready.”

Only after he left
did I remember that his lover, Ned, had killed himself here.

It was one of those winter days in
Los Angeles when the wind has swept away the smog and the air is clear and the
light still and everything has the immediacy of a dream. I parked on a street
called Overland in the Hollywood Hills. It was lined with white-skinned birch
trees. Their nude branches shimmered against the sky. Tattered yellow leaves
clogged the gutters and the air was scented with the rainy smell of eucalyptus.
There were no cars on the street and the houses were barely visible behind
walls and fences and sweeping lawns that had never been trod upon except by
gardeners.

I pressed the
intercom button on a white wall. A moment later Rennie asked, “Henry?”

“Yes, it’s me.’’

“You’re on time,’’
she observed.

“A bad habit of
mine.”

There was a buzz
and I pushed a wooden door and found myself in a courtyard paved with
cobblestones and lined with pots that bore flowering plants and miniature fruit
trees. I crossed to the house, where a door formed of planks opened. Rennie
stood in the doorway. Her hair was pulled back from her head. She wore black
pants and a loose silk blouse the color of the sky. Three strands of pearls
hung around her neck.

“Come inside,” she
said, after kissing me lightly on the lips.

We entered a long
rectangular room. The ceiling was crossed with beams of rough pine. The walls
were blindingly white and the tiled floor the color of dried roses. The
furniture was Mexican country antiques. Over the fireplace was one of

Diego Rivera’s lily
paintings. Above a long sofa was a tapestry that looked like a Miro. A big
round crystal vase on a table held a dozen long-stemmed white roses and stalks
of eucalyptus.

“Lunch is almost
ready,” she said. “How about a drink?”

“Mineral water,” I
replied.

She went to a bar
and poured a glass of Perrier and a small sherry and brought them to the sofa
where I was sitting. I took the Perrier from her. She settled in beside me.

“Salud,” she said,
and we touched glasses. “I’m glad you came.”

“So am I,” I said.
In the silence she seemed distant. I tried to think of things to say and
settled, finally, on admiring her house.

“Thank you,” Rennie
replied. “It’s my weakness. I bought it ten years ago with the only money I
ever made in Hollywood.”

“From movies?”

She laughed. “Oh,
no. Real estate investments. I never made a cent out of the movies.”

Just then, a squat
Mexican woman in a lime-green frock appeared at the archway that led into the
dining room and said, “Senora, lunch is ready.”

“Thank you, Fe,”
Rennie said, and turning to me added, “It’s so gorgeous out, I thought we’d eat
on the patio.”

She led me through
the dining room onto a patio built around a small pool. The pool was fed by a
stream that trickled from a concrete wall set into a hillside garden. Near the
pool was a table set for two.

“Your husband?” I
asked.

“He’s at an
interview,” she said nervously. “He may show up later.”

We sat down and I
looked at her. The light picked out the lines that fanned from beneath her
eyes. She looked tired.

“Is everything all
right?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, Henry,”
she replied. “It has nothing to do with you. There was a scene with Sandy this
morning.”

“About what?”

“What else, Tom’s
career.” The maid brought out salads and set them before us, a mix of sweet and
bitter greens. She lifted her fork, then put it down again. “Tom is an actor
who can’t act,” she said. “My solution is for him to learn. Sandy’s solution is
for him to make all the money he can before he’s found out.”

The maid reappeared
and poured Rennie a glass of wine. I shook my head as she tipped the bottle
toward my glass.

“What’s Tom’s
solution?” I asked, cutting a piece of lettuce.

“It depends on who
talked to him last,” she replied, grimly.

“Who’s been
responsible for his success?”

“He has,” she said,
abandoning any pretense at eating. She produced her cigarette case and lit a
cigarette. “Some people are just so beautiful that life seems to speak to us
through them — they’re vital, radiant. Tom is like that. It’s more startling in
men than women, I think, because we don’t usually let ourselves think of men
that way. But Shakespeare knew. Remember the sonnets? ‘Shall I compare thee to
a summer’s day,’ was written to another man.”

“Golden boy?” I
offered.

“Something like
that.” The maid removed our salad plates and replaced them with plates of
spinach pasta in a cream sauce. “I’m a fool for beautiful men,” she added. “No
doubt there are psychological explanations.”

“To appreciate
beauty?”

“It’s more than
that,” she replied, tilting her head back to reveal the pouched skin beneath
her chin. “I always wanted to be beautiful.”

I began to speak
but she cut me off.

“Don’t say it,
Henry. I’m not fishing for a compliment.” She crushed her cigarette in a heavy
marble ashtray. “I’m forty-seven years old. I look into the mirror and see my
mother. When a woman reaches that point, she loses whatever illusions she has
about being beautiful.”

“Is it so
important?”

She finished her
wine. “It’s life and death,” she replied, “if you’re not. You, of course, are.”

I couldn’t think of
a reply that didn’t sound wildly immodest or incredibly smug. “Thank you.”

“You’re embarrassed,”
she said, smiling.

“It’s not something
I think about.”

“I thought
homosexuals did,” she said.

“I suppose that
depends on which homosexuals you know,”

I replied.

The maid made
another pass at the table, pouring more wine, bringing us plates of veal and
baby carrots.

I heard tires
squeal and then a door in the house slammed shut. The maid appeared with a
frantic look on her face.

“S
eñora
—”
she began.

Rennie looked at
her and then at me. “Henry, Tom’s — “

Suddenly Tom Zane
appeared at the doorway, drinking from a bottle of champagne. His face was
flushed beneath his tan and his golden hair was disheveled.

“It’s the
ambassador,” he said, recognizing me. “And, of course, my lovely wife.”

He swayed above the
table. The maid brought him a chair.

“Sorry I missed
lunch,” he slurred. “How’s about a little après-lunch drinky.” He attempted to
pour champagne into Rennie’s wine glass. She moved it away and the champagne
sloshed onto the table. He blotted it with the sleeve of his coat.

“I think you better
eat something,” Rennie said mildly and told the maid to bring him a sandwich.

“It’s all right. I
ate breakfast.” He had trouble getting his mouth around the last word. The maid
brought him a ham sandwich. He wolfed it down and asked for another.

“How was the interview?”
I asked.

“The reporter was a
dyke,” he said. “She spent the whole goddamn time giving the eye to some broad
at the next table.” He looked genuinely injured as he related this. Another
sandwich was brought to him.

“Was Sandy there?”
Rennie asked.

“Hell,” he said,
his mouth full. “He was after the busboy. This town’s a regular Sodom ... Sodom
and...” He looked at me for help.

“Gomorrah,” I said.

“That’s right,
gonorrhea. You ever had the clap, Ambassador?”

I shook my head.

“Smart man,” he
said. “Keep your peter in your pocket. But you’re queer, huh?”

Rennie said, “Tom,
stop that.”

“It’s okay,” Zane
said. “I’m a little queer myself.” He held up his hand and measured an inch
between his thumb and forefinger. “Maybe this much.” He shone a beautiful smile
on me. “Maybe more.”

“I think all people
are basically bisexual,” Rennie said, irrelevantly.

“That right?” Zane
asked. “You ever made it with a dyke, honey?”

“You know I haven’t,”
she replied.

“What about you,
Ambassador? You fuck girls, too?” He looked at me, smiling. “I bet you’re not
even a real queer. I bet it’s just a line. Does it work?”

“All the time,” I
replied.

He lowered his
voice to a stage whisper. “You try it with Rennie?”

Rennie said,
sharply, “You’re drunk, Tom, and you’re embarrassing my guest. Stop it.”

He attempted a
smile that withered under her gaze. To me he said, “Sorry. Too much to drink.”
He rose, stumblingly, from the table. “I need some sleep. Excuse me.” He looked
at Rennie who was lighting a cigarette. “I’m just tired, honey.”

“I know,” she said.
“It’s all right.”

His face relaxed
into a grin and he made his way into the house.

Rennie looked at me
and shrugged. “Tom drinks too much,” she said.

“I see that.”

“There’s nothing I
can do about it.”

“Probably not.”

We talked for a few
more minutes but it seemed her attention was wandering toward the direction of
the house. I got up and excused myself. She walked me to the door.

“I’m sorry about
all this,” she said. “Can I see you again?”

“Of course,” I
replied. “Any time.”

She kissed me and I
headed across the courtyard to the street.

I had just opened
the door to my car when I heard my name being called. I looked back at Rennie’s
house. Tom Zane was hurrying toward me.

“Let’s go
somewhere,” he said. His breath was eighty proof.

“What are you
talking about?”

“Come on, let’s
just go.”

Rennie had appeared
at the gate.

“You need to sleep
it off,” I said.

“Yeah, but not
here.”

I looked back at
Rennie. Her arms were folded across her chest. She lifted her hand and waved at
me. I looked at Tom. It would probably be a favor to her to take him away.

“Where to?”

“My house. On the
beach.”

“Get in,” I said.

He got in and
scooted across the driver’s seat to the passenger side.

“Where are we
going?”

“Malibu,” he said.

Rennie had gone
back into the house. I started up the car, made a U-turn and headed down to
Sunset. By the time I got there Tom was asleep.