Leading Man (19 page)

Eliska was waiting for me on the beach. She was wearing a red one-piece swimsuit, a straw sunhat, and a pair of unlaced black Keds. On her, the outfit made my pulse do the cha-cha. “Come on,” she said, leading me along the shore. “You aren’t going to believe what I’m going to show you. I found it the other day. It’s amazing.” Wherever Eliska was taking me, it wasn’t nearby. We hiked along the shore for about twenty minutes, chatting and getting reacquainted. Eventually, I got around to asking her the obvious question.

“How come you don’t have a boyfriend?”

Eliska sighed. “There was a boyfriend,” she answered as we walked in the sand. “He was English. His name was Jeffrey …”

She met Jeffrey in Prague at an art show at the old Stalin Monument in 2001, when she was twenty-three, and was immediately infatuated. He was British. He was handsome. He was an aristo. He opened doors and showed Eliska a world she hadn’t even imagined existed. “I felt so
backward compared to him,” Eliska said. “He came from this wealthy English family and I was just this girl from nowhere.” Jeffrey took the girl from nowhere for trips to France and Spain and Italy and introduced her to a stream of exciting new friends who discussed film and music and art. “I fell for him completely,” Eliska said. “I was sure he was the man of my dreams.” But after a year of romantic globe-trotting, Jeffrey’s father back in Mayfair began tapping on his watch and telling him to come home. Youthful infatuation was one thing, but he wanted his son to marry a proper English girl, not some Slav from a former Soviet puppet state. He threatened to pull the purse strings shut if Jeffrey didn’t leave Prague, and without the Slav. Jeffrey obeyed. Eliska never heard from him again.

I was so wrapped up in her sad tale that I stopped wondering where Eliska was taking me. I had found a kindred spirit. True, the details of our sob stories were different—her heart was broken because of a snobby dad out of a Merchant Ivory movie; mine because a movie star seduced my girlfriend—but we had been on the same emotional journey. We had both lost loves to worlds where we didn’t belong, where we could never be more than sightseers. I wanted to tell her I knew how she felt, share my own sorrows with her. But we came to a small rocky cliff that jutted into the water, blocking the shoreline, and Eliska started climbing. “It’s just over these boulders,” she promised, offering her hand to help me climb.

On the other side, shielded by sand dunes, was the secluded cove Eliska had been looking for. She kicked off her sneakers and led me into the warm crystal blue sea. I gave her a quizzical glance as we waded up to our knees.

“Be patient,” she said softly. “It’ll be worth it, I promise.”

She was still holding my hand, so I gently drew her toward me and leaned in for a kiss.

“That was nice, Max,” she said when it was over. “But it still makes no sense. I’m still going to Prague when this movie is done—I have graduate school. And you’re still going back to America. Besides, kissing is not why I brought you here.”

Looking around, the reason Eliska brought me to this place became breathtakingly clear. All at once, we were surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of tropical fish, a wiggling swarm of brilliant fluorescent blues and reds and greens and yellows. They swam around our legs and planted ticklish kisses on our feet. “Can you believe it?” Eliska whispered, dipping a hand in the surf so that a tiny orange fish could nibble at her fingertips. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful in your life?”

No, I surely hadn’t. Watching Eliska splash in the surf, playing a gentle game of tag with her new fish friends, I had the oddest sensation. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, although I knew I’d experienced before. Ah yes, I finally remembered. This was what happiness felt like.

About four months after my trip to the Bahamas, Sammy called. “I’m coming to Los Angeles,” she said. “Let’s have dinner.”

I’d been dreading hearing Sammy say those words, but it was only a matter of time. Three years had passed since that night in my office in New York when I almost kissed her. I’d flown around the world. I’d moved clear across the continent. I’d bought a sports car and a new wardrobe. So much had changed, but seeing her again, in the flesh, there was no telling what I might do.

Just thinking about it made me feel guilty, and not only because I was having impure thoughts about a married woman whose husband was in a wheelchair. I also felt like I was cheating on Eliska, which made no sense at all since I wasn’t in a relationship with Eliska, not a physical one, at any rate. After our kiss in that Bahamian cove, we went our separate ways. But we exchanged e-mail addresses, and much to my surprise, I found myself involved in a regular correspondence with a new pen pal in Prague. Opening
my laptop and discovering an e-mail from the Czech Republic was fast becoming a favorite part of my week.

As epistolary romances go, it wasn’t exactly Lord Byron’s letters to his mistress. Mostly our e-mails were simple scribbles about nothing at all, little blips of personal minutiae—movies we both liked, songs we both hated, that sort of thing—but Eliska had a way of making even these small exchanges charming. Her e-mails always struck just the right note of cautious, getting-to-know-you intimacy, and they always made me want to learn more about her. I found out, for instance, that she spoke four languages, enjoyed David Lynch films, grew up with a dog named Barah, once dreamed of becoming an ice skater, and had a habit of ending her e-mails with complicated emoticons that would take me half an afternoon to decipher. I couldn’t really say what exactly I hoped to gain from our e-mail friendship—Eliska still lived seven thousand miles away—except it ended up being the closest thing to a genuine human exchange I’d had with a girl in ages.

Sammy and I met for dinner in Beverly Hills at the ludicrously trendy Shui Hotel, where she was being put up by Monarch Pictures. The studio had flown her out to talk about Johnny doing audio commentary on the DVDs of all the old Montana movies, which were being repackaged as part of the hype campaign leading up to the summer release of
Less Talk
,
More Killing
. Johnny had agreed to do it—he could use the quarter-million-dollar fee—but the studio was beginning to wonder if he was physically capable. A paparazzi shot had recently been published in one of the supermarket tabs—a photographer had bribed
his way into Johnny’s apartment building’s garage and snapped a close-up of the star in his chair being loaded into a van. Johnny looked like the Crypt Keeper’s handsomer twin. Sammy’s mission in LA was to convince the suits that her husband would be able to perform.

I knew the Shui well. I’d stayed there myself before I moved out west, when the Four Seasons and Chateau Marmont were full up. The rooms all had instructions pretentiously stenciled on the walls: The word dream was printed over the bed, eat was over the minibar. I always thought they missed an opportunity by not stenciling the bathrooms. The best part, though, was the reception desk. Behind it, built into the wall, was a big glass booth where you could observe a real-life model sleeping on a mattress in her underwear. Or his underwear, depending on whose shift it was when you checked in. I would always wonder what the conversation sounded like when the models called home—“Hey, Mom, I finally got a job in showbiz!”

The Shui had a world-class restaurant, Opium, a big airy brasserie with polished blond wood floors and impeccably white walls. It served the finest French-Chinese fusion food in LA. Or maybe it was Japanese-Cuban. Or German-Inuit. I could never remember. Whatever was on the menu, eating at the hotel made a lot of sense for Sammy. There’s no way she could have slipped past the ring of paparazzi that were on permanent stakeout around the Shui. I spotted one of them smoking a cigarette on the sidewalk by the garage entrance, his camera discreetly slung behind his back. Another was leaning against a parked Jaguar, a trilby hat tipped over his brow. In New York, the paparazzi were a big, noisy marching
band—you could see them coming a mile away. But in LA, they were like ninjas with cameras. They blended into the background until a celebrity tripped the wire, then they swarmed en masse out of nowhere.

“You look older,” was the first thing Sammy said as we walked into the restaurant.

“You don’t,” I replied, being totally truthful. Sammy really did look amazing. Smelled terrific too. When she hugged me hello in the hotel lobby, the familiar scent of her skin gave me a sense-memory buzz. When the hug was over, Sam grabbed me by my shoulders, looked me in the eyes, and gave me an affectionate shake. “Max, you have no idea how much I’ve missed you,” she said, then she came in for a second squeeze. If I’d had any doubts as to whether I would still feel that old pull of attraction, they were gone. It was going to be a rough night.

“How’s Johnny?” I asked Sammy as we settled in at our table. “Is he going to do the DVD commentary?”

“I told the studio that there’s nothing wrong with his voice,” she said. “But between you and me, I don’t know. He gets tired so easily. He’s fifty-five, but he’s got the stamina of a ninety-year-old. He falls asleep in the middle of conversations. Seriously, you’ll be talking to him and suddenly you hear snoring.” Sammy took a long sip of wine. “The thing is, Johnny
really
wants to do it. I keep telling him that his legacy is going to be huge whether he does a DVD commentary or not. He’s Johnny Mars, for Christ’s sake. But he’s got his heart set on it.”

“He’s lucky he’s got you looking out for him,” I said. “I’m sure you convinced the studio.”

“Well, it wasn’t all selfless, coming to LA,” Samantha said, taking another sip. “To be honest, I really needed to escape. I hardly ever get to leave the apartment anymore. Especially now, since that photographer got that shot of Johnny in the garage. It’s like all the other paparazzi smell blood in the water. They’re in a frenzy trying to get another picture. I can’t step out on our balcony without flashbulbs going off. Remember that photographer in the black SUV? He’s
still
following me around. It’s such a relief to get away. I feel like I can finally breathe.”

“You know, we have paparazzi in LA, too,” I told her. “They’re right outside the hotel.”

“Yeah, but in LA I don’t feel so exposed,” Sammy said, a blissful smile on her face. “I don’t feel as conspicuous. Look around, nobody is staring at me. It’s like I’m not even here. I feel free!”

“Oh, they notice, all right,” I said. “It’s just that people in LA have more practice pretending not to stare at celebrities in restaurants. I guarantee you, right now the name ‘Samantha Mars’ is being whispered at every table in the place.”

“Oh, shut up,” Sammy said. “Don’t spoil this for me. You’re in enough trouble already for leaving New York. I hate the fact that you’re thousands of miles away. I know we didn’t get to see each other that often, but it was comforting knowing you were close. In case I needed you. You know me better than anyone in the world, Max. Better even than Johnny.” She reached across the table and squeezed my hand, and didn’t let go for the longest time. It was the most intense skin-on-skin contact I’d had with
Samantha in years. “You know, if I hadn’t met him doing that Chekhov play in Concord, you and I would be an old married couple by now.”

A waiter arrived with menus, giving me a moment to collect my thoughts. You know how in cartoons a little angel and devil appear on opposite shoulders and argue over what someone should do? My shoulder angel must have been caught in traffic on the Santa Monica Freeway, because the only one whispering in my ear was the red guy with horns and a tail. “She’s lonely,” he said. “She’s vulnerable. This is it, Max. This is your chance. She held your hand! She’s practically begging for it!” Then my mini angel finally showed up. He was sweaty and panting. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, bending over to catch his breath. “Sammy
is
lonely, she
is
vulnerable,” he said. “And if you took advantage of her, how could you ever look at yourself in the mirror again? She’s your oldest and dearest friend, Max. Do you really want to screw that up? Besides, aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves? Just because Samantha held your hand doesn’t mean she’s inviting you to commit adultery with her.”

Samantha ordered the coconut mustard seed sustainable Chilean sea bass. I had the mango-infused mallard drizzled with chutney reduction. Before the waiter left, Sam asked him to bring another bottle of wine.

“I love Johnny, I really do,” Samantha went on. “But it’s so hard sometimes. Every day is such a struggle. And every day is the same. There’s no relief. And no hope that it’s going to get better. People keep telling me how strong I am. I’m supposed to be Saint Samantha. It makes me want to scream. I’m not as strong as people think. I’m
no saint. You of all people know that, Max.” She refilled her wineglass. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought she was trying to get drunk. “What about you?” she said, abruptly changing the subject. “What’s going on with you? Tell me about your love life. Are you seeing anyone?”

“At the moment, I’m between engagements,” I said, watching the devil and angel wrestling across the tablecloth. I thought about telling Sam about Eliska, but what was there to say? That I was chasing after another girl I had no chance of getting? “I guess I just haven’t found the right woman yet.”

“Why
is
that?” Sammy pressed. “I mean, you date all these girls—how come you never fall in love with any of them?”

“I fell in love once, remember? You were there.”

“And you haven’t fallen for anyone since?” Sammy asked.

“No, but I’m not dead yet,” I said.

“I’m the only girl you’ve ever been in love with,” Sammy repeated, almost to herself, as if that incredibly obvious fact had never fully dawned on her before. She gave me a big, warm smile. “That makes me want to cry,” she said. “That breaks my heart in the best possible way.”

“Well, don’t get a big head over it,” I said, pouring myself a large glass of wine. It had taken thirteen years, scores of late-night phone calls, and Lord knows how many bottles of merlot over dinners just like this one for Sammy to figure out how I felt about her. Now that she was finally seeing what had always been right in front of her eyes, she was looking at me in a way she hadn’t since
we were in our twenties. My palms began to sweat. “It’s the clown nose you wore when you were doing children’s theater,” I feebly joked. “I’ve never been able to get over it.”