Hollywood Boulevard (9 page)

    "Jarrad. Yeah, they're on the twelfth take of the lead guy walking toward a door. The lighting's all f— screwed up or something."

    "Well, Jarrad, you came, you saw, you didn't conquer. Not that you couldn't. Please tell Mr. Lucerne his wife thanks him but is not able to come to the set tonight." He didn't move. "Were you told to kidnap me, take me down at gunpoint?"

    "I was told not to come back without you."

    "No beer?" He shook his head. "It was a fool's errand, Jarrad. I don't take orders so easily. You tell the director I appreciate the message and the messenger and be on your way." Jarrad nodded and turned to go. "You eat my dinner for me, okay?" I called after him. He looked like he could use a meal.

    "I don't really eat," he called back.

    I opened up a carton of Trader Joe's pumpkin soup, ate it with a

glass of wine, washed the pot and bowl, and wondered what next. I killed some time going over neglected bank statements. I changed into a nightgown and was watching an old Bette Davis movie about a rich girl fooling around with mobster types,
Fog over Frisco
, when Andre came in at midnight. I think he must have been early. He slapped his phone down on the table and headed for the bottle of vodka in the freezer and one of the frozen glasses next to it. It must have been a bruising night.

    "Get the shot you needed?" I called from the couch.

    "Just," he said downing the vodka and pouring out another, still standing. "Dammit. The lighting people were going at it, taking all night. A simple shot. Dammit."

    I was deciding whether I should shut the movie off, which I did not want to do; I was enjoying Bette. "But it came out all right?" I didn't care if it did or not. I'm supposed to care, or at least act the part.

    I knew he knew I was only being polite and would hate the cheapness of it. "Oh, stuff it," he said, coming over to the couch. "Why didn't you come down to the set?"

    Things were turning foul; a squall was in the air. "I'm not ready for cameras . . . for that whole scene."

    "The camera would not be on
you.
. . ." he said, not finishing his thought. A look of disgust surfaced and passed. "What is it you do all day?"

    The question was out of bounds, and he knew it. What I did all day was an accounting that led inevitably back to what I had once done all day, and that led back to why I didn't do it anymore. It was a question always hovering that we'd been dancing around for a long while; it was the DMZ we tacitly agreed to steer clear of at all costs. "I am going to bed," he said to my silence. He shut the bedroom doors.

I turned off the television. " Good- night, Bette," I said softly.

    After his light went out I poured myself a brandy and went out onto the balcony, into the cold night air. The light was on in White Shirt's garage; otherwise his house was dark. Most of the houses were dark. The hills looked like a village asleep. To the right, L.A. was eternally on: neon patches and low dark in- betweens, downtown lit up but not as much as New York's downtown at night. A plane crawled silently across the sky.

    Andre was never one for a good, meaty argument, not like Joe and I could go at it. He's too aloof for that, or controlled. His passion is reserved for his work. I noticed our arguments were of shorter duration these days. They don't resolve so much as peter out. Are we running out of ammo, the knives and darts growing dull, or are we tired or bored with the same old hurt? What is the same old hurt anyway between a man and a woman that the penis and vagina connecting does not bridge come the light of day or, better, lightless night? Some brief moment of tenderness soothing the ache?

    I was wide awake. I already regretted agreeing to see Harry. Dammit! It was cold. Silver moonlight shone along the balcony rail. I leaned out to greet her majesty the moon, lying leisurely on her side, owning the night. I think it a form of sin to fail to greet the heavenly bodies when we encounter them. But what's this? Leaning further out, bare feet and shoulders in my nightgown, the chill boring into my bones, my eyes glanced down to see a woman lift herself out of a large bed. I nearly gasped. The bed light shone on white- on- white linen, the same white sheets and white down quilt as on our bed. Flesh on white. I stood, rapt by the vision. Assuming the nymph had gone to the bathroom, I waited. After a minute I trotted soundlessly back inside for my cashmere shawl. " Naked girl exiting bed in still of night," I told myself. I held my breath. But wait, that was one of our rooms, that was one of Andre's people— the pretty little she returned to the bed. Lo! Another body! More white flesh on white sheeting.

    Was the bedmate male or female, youthful, smooth androgyny from where I stood, looking down. The back windows in the rear of that small unit, below and across the drive from us, are below grade— at about car level. Most units have frosted louvered windows in back, squat rectangles above the beds. This window was clear. Could the lovers imagine being seen? Imagine another guest wide awake with a bird' s- eye view of their nakedness? Would they have dreamed that an accidental witness would stay and stare, her breath nearly taken away as the two young bodies briefly intertwined when the girl climbed back into bed? And would they suspect her delight when the other person got up to use the toilet, his maleness now on view? Oh, happy view.

    Alone and under the quilt, the woman wiggled her hips. I knew the movement well. But was it a contented or an anticipatory wiggle? Had I witnessed the preamble or the postcoital moment? Oh, delicious moment to see the unconscious nakedness of lovers. The bathroom light went out. He returned, she sat up, and, legs tucked beneath her (I couldn't quite see her breasts), leaned in his direction. She seemed exultant, alive at every pore. Did I sense a slight hesitation or unresponsiveness on his part? This would have been sensing a filament, a quiver in the air surrounding the lovers. Ah, she reached over and turned out the light.

    I stood alone on the balcony, the aura of the scene stilling me, the intimacy of it. A mockingbird in mating was singing somewhere out to my left, the repertoire recited over and over. I walked quietly inside. What a gift this night had given me. Why did this delight me so? Voyeur, you will be punished!

    This brings me back to White Shirt. I can no longer locate the Provençal blue door. Did I imagine it? From the pool the other day, seated in a different corner, while hiding out from the maid— and the searing sun— I had a very different view of his house. There is a muddy sea- green door to the flat, boxy part of the house and a long brick stair leading up to it. Also, there is a door below the stairs, to the right, I think. I can be certain of very little. For example, I thought I saw a stroller in the yard last weekend. There was a woman, the first female I've seen with White Shirt and I assumed since she was acting with propriety that she was related in some way— sister, ex? And I thought a child sat in the stroller. An hour later, however, when I checked, the stroller was still in place and the afternoon had grown chilly. The light had changed too. Was it a cripple instead, in a wheelchair? Toward evening I had to conclude I was wrong on both counts. Who would leave an invalid or a child out all day into the evening, the heat evaporating fast as the sun went down? The car seemed to be gone from the garage too. How much do I make up; how much do I see only to correct later on? There was, as it turned out, no stroller, no child or cripple. I don't know what I'd seen— a lawn chair, a table? Whatever it was, it was gone.

    I have not seen the woman again. I did see a tall balding man one day. He and White Shirt were walking on the lawn in a friendly, familiar way. I thought that day that White Shirt might be gay. The gay theory held until there were no further sightings of the balding man, or any other man. But that leaves the sheets. White Shirt hangs an inordinate number of sheets out on his line for someone who appears to live alone. The question is: Am I bothered by the idea that White Shirt might be gay? Just how far are my musings willing to go?

    Okay, I admit, I want clues, a never- ending supply of clues. I want to know what goes on, but from the safety of distance. I want to feel good somehow in my discreet peering into others' lives. And I do mean discreet. And to feel good, not sensually but more that things are harmoniously in their place and all is as it should be and, and, and what? What? I don't know. A wash of good feeling— what's wrong with that? Nothing, except I want the dark corners too, the shadows created by thick bougainvilleas on a sunny day, the soft light at night, the person awake when they should not be; I want all to be well and yet— mysterious. I am not interested in the normal and well- rounded, the life of overt purpose and presumptions.

    I sense no such purposefulness with White Shirt. For one thing, like me, he has too much time on his hands. He hangs out the sheets nearly every day. No intimate apparel or shorts or shirts. A single male who hangs out his wash, is home a lot, and putters. Divorced? He's not old. Not middle- aged; late thirties or early forties? I don't see other clotheslines on the hills; maybe they are there, but I don't see them. How much would a cheap pair of binoculars cost? Is that too much of a commitment? Have I committed myself to spying on White Shirt? He has a sports car, but he hangs his sheets out to dry. Thinking about it, White Shirt is the only one there for me
to
observe. Where are all the people? Is he a watcher like me? A furtive slinker into corners?

    I glanced up the other day— that's not true— I stood up from the couch, where I was reading that endless novel, feigning interest, and walked to the large window just in time to catch a glimpse of White Shirt before he slipped behind the very tall pine tree that hides much of his yard. Of course he didn't
slip
behind the tree. He moved behind a tree on his property in the service of some gesture or other, perfectly natural; a chore, or working in the garden— perfectly in order. It only
seemed
that he slipped into the shadow of the tree. Possibly it wasn't even him. I looked again, this time from the large bedroom window. No one there. Had I only imagined someone slipping out of sight? The car was in the garage— I checked, so I knew he was at home.

    He could be a self- conscious observer, possibly a writer. He could feel illegitimate some of the time, he could work and then not work, he could feel he has purpose and then feel he has none. He could dwell on a fringe, not fully embraced or embracing. He could be a perpetual outsider, a criminal of the soul, so to speak, a person slightly out of tune with others while possibly, if unevenly, attuned to his society of one.

    It was nearly two a.m., time for bed. All in all it had been a very rich night.

    We slept in the next morning. Thank goodness Harry scheduled for two o'clock. He had a client coming and would lunch late. We awoke at eleven. Andre was surprised to see me lying next to him. He was perfectly gleeful when I said I'd be having lunch with Harry. "That's excellent," he said, watching me as I got up to shower. He said it at least three more times over the course of the morning. I smiled, biting down the question: What was so excellent about me lunching with Harry Machin?

    We ate breakfast. I made tea; Andre made the Wolfgang Puck coffee the hotel provided. He cooked us eggs and toast and insisted we eat outside at the round balcony table. It felt like a little holiday with our plates of breakfast in the sunny morning. Jam and butter and an orange shared. "There's a man out there," Andre said, not pointing. He meant White Shirt. "There, across the way, looking." He looked at me. "Do you see?"

    "Yes," I said, keeping my eyes on Andre, "I've noticed the man."

    We said good- bye at our cars. I headed for Beverly Hills, Andre to the day's location. We agreed to phone each other later. "Excellent," he said again as I lowered myself into my car. I set Harry's address in the GPS and pulled out. Andre waited for me to go first. He pulled over when one of the PAs drove up behind him and tooted, not Jarrad. I sped off. I continued straight for as long as I could before cutting over to Sunset. I passed Gardiner Street and thought of the bungalow I had once lived in, the big floral upholstery I'd once cried into.

    It took a long time to reach Harry's. The Los Angeles streets were achingly familiar as I drove. I knew the minute I pulled up to his house I'd made a mistake. Harry opened the door, his housekeeper, an Englishwoman of stout proportions, at his side. He looked as if he'd been to the grave and back and there was something else, a fierceness I'd not seen in him before. I sensed Harry had a different hold on things and that every gesture counted. His pallor was waxy gray, and he was not so much thin as loose. Poor old Harry. He was tired just walking out to the garden. "It's polluted today," he said. The view of L.A. smeared below us was dim, as if a Vaseline glaze had been rubbed on the camera lens. Even this high up the air was not inviting to breathe, and the day was suddenly very warm.

    "We'll eat in the dining room," Harry told Lundy, the housekeeper, who would have to reset the table. The house was hushed and impersonal. Harry kept photos of some of his more famous clients hanging in a large downstairs powder room. The living room was comfortably decorated. Not by Harry. There were overstuffed couches and big- leg chairs in spacious rooms, a low, sprawling house. I think Harry'd always been more at home in his office. The grounds appeared extensive, but that was the typical illusion created by pricy gardening contractors. I looked out of a large bay window, and I could have been on a ranch, a small farm or a suburb. L.A.: It's all smoke and mirrors.

    Harry groused some about the client who'd come up to see him earlier. An actor on the way up who couldn't accept the smaller parts Harry was bringing in for him. "I'm getting him regular work to build on; he threatens to fire me? He should do me the favor."