My Lucky Star (19 page)

D
IANA NAMED HER RESTAURANT
Vici in honor of her late husband, Stephen’s father, the man who’d “conquered” her heart. The place is a posh trattoria decorated
with black-and-white photos of the late Roberto, and it serves hearty “peasant fare” at prices that make you wonder if it
wouldn’t be cheaper to just buy your own peasant and throw an apron on him. It’s popular with both Diana’s aging contemporaries
and that segment of young Hollywood that finds it amusingly ironic to hang out with the Steve and Eydie set. Diana herself,
though normally loath to dine in public, knows that the chance of sighting her is one of the few reasons people tolerate its
lackluster food and larcenous prices, so she keeps its heat simmering with periodic appearances. Once a year she dons an apron
and plays waitress, a shrewd stunt that never fails to keep the small $30 pizzas moving briskly.

I arrived early, found a corner booth in the dimly lit bar, and settled in. I expected a longish wait, but Stephen strolled
in five minutes later in tandem with the thickset unsmiling bodyguard who accompanied him on all forays into public arenas.

It was only the second time I’d seen him in the flesh, and faced once more with his astonishing perfection, I could only stare
open-mouthed, little lust bombs exploding in my chest. I hastily composed my features into a more decorous expression and
waved to him. He saw me and flashed a smile that hit me like a heart-seeking missile. There were a dozen or so industry types
arrayed about the bar and though they seemed as blasé a crowd as ever yawned its way through a Golden Globes, not one could
help staring as he passed by. The bartender, poor lad, gawked so helplessly that he poured a martini right onto Christina
Ricci’s cigarette.

I rose to greet him and was pleasantly astonished to find myself on the receiving end of a full-fledged hug with cheek brush.

He murmured into my ear.

“So how you doing, James Bond?”

“Not bad, Mishtah Caliber. And yourshelf?” I replied, wishing I did a better Sean Connery. He laughed though and we sat, ordering
drinks from the saucer-eyed bartender who’d practically teleported himself to our booth. When he’d gone I looked around at
the other patrons, several of whom were glancing our way.

“Do you think it’s safe to talk here?”

“I think we’re okay if we keep our voices down.” He jerked his head toward the bodyguard, who’d stationed himself at the bar.
“Anyone gets too close, Ravi’s here.”

Our drinks came and we toasted.

“How’s the script coming?”

I said it was going well and he said he couldn’t wait to read it. He asked about my background, where I’d grown up, how long
I’d been writing. His interest seemed genuine; every answer met with follow-ups and the attention was going to my head faster
than the Cosmo I’d ordered as a subliminal hint that he could consider me his bitch.

“Gosh,” I said finally, “you must think I’m an egomaniac, prattling on about myself this way.”

“I’m curious. When you do what I do the people you meet know a lot about you and you know nothing about them. And I want to
know about you, Phil.”

“That’s really nice of you. It’s just... y’know,” I said, glancing meaningfully at my watch.

“Right,” he nodded, then leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “So, let’s hear it. Lily and Monty. What are they saying
about me?”

“Well,” I said, suddenly flushed. “Basically, they say that you’re, uh, well...gay.”

He stared at me, his expression unchanged.

“And?”

It was suddenly clear to me how foolish I’d been to think Stephen would respond to this “bombshell” with gasps and calls for
smelling salts. It was hardly news to him that he was gay, nor was it any surprise that his aunt and uncle knew, having once
caught him with a mouthful of tennis pro. What he wanted to know was what they planned to actually publish. I repeated their
stories about him filching Monty’s porn and the tennis instructor, plus Lily’s claim that they’d dined with him and Andrew,
his now disclaimed, then quite open, boyfriend. He took it all in, his face calm and inscrutable. When I’d finished he sat
a moment digesting it, then said, “Anything else?”

I hadn’t planned on telling him about the hustlers since Lily didn’t even know and I feared embarrassing him. But I sensed
he could tell I was holding something back, so rather than sow mistrust, I lowered my voice to a murmur and said, “I didn’t
bring it up ’cause it won’t be in the book, but Monty says he’s heard stories about you more recently. He said he’s heard
them from... well, his hustlers. He mentioned a Kyle.”

His impassive demeanor cracked a bit. He exhaled sharply and, raising his eyes to heaven, downed the rest of his scotch. The
bartender, noting this, practically pole-vaulted over the bar to ask if we’d like another round.

“Please,” said Stephen.

When he’d gone Stephen favored me with a weary smile.

“Thank you for this.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Now, I’d like you to do something for me. Two things actually.”

“Name it, Stephen.”

“Steve. First I want you to keep this to yourself. You haven’t told anyone, have you?”

“Of course not!”

“Well, don’t. Not my family or Sonia or your partners.”

The bartender returned with our drinks, then hovered a moment as though hoping we’d ask him to join us. Stephen shot him a
perplexed look and he withdrew, a maidenly blush on his cheek. Once he was out of earshot I asked Stephen what the second
thing was. He took a sip of his drink, then leaned in so closely I thought for a breathless moment he might kiss me.

“Talk her out of it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Lily. Convince her to leave this stuff about me out of the book.”

I sat there a moment, slightly dizzy from both the tallness of the order and the intoxicating proximity of his face.

“Uh, okay,” I said finally. “I mean, I’ll try.”

“It’s not enough to try, Phil. You’ve got to
do
it.”

“Oh. Okay, then, I will.”

He sat back but his eyes never left mine. He frowned sexily, distending his lower lip in a come-hither pout.

“You think I’m a hypocrite, don’t you?”

“No!”

“A self-loathing closet case?”

“Not a bit!”

“I’m glad, Phil. Because I’m not. I just think what Lily’s doing is wrong. If she wants to tell her story, that’s fine. But
this is
my
story. The only one who has the right to tell it is me. And I will.”

“You
will?
”

He glanced quickly around the bar, then returned his riveting gaze to me. His eyes blazed with sincerity and there was even
a hint of moisture in the corners.

“Yes, I will. Trust me, the day will come when I write my story, and when I do, I’m telling everything. And if my family or
the studio or my agents don’t like it, well, fuck ’em. My life is
mine
and I’m not ashamed of any of it.”

His words had a profound effect on me. I gaped worshipfully at him like some transported pilgrim beholding a saint’s tibia.
To know that he planned to commit so courageous an act, albeit at some distant and unspecified date, further solidified my
belief that he was as noble as he was scrumptious. I struggled to frame some suitably eloquent response, but the best I could
manage was, “Wow! That’s great.”

“It’s what I’ve planned all along. It’s just a question of when.”

“When were you thinking?”

“When it’s time. When it feels right. It has to feel right.”

“Well, of course.”

“But when that time comes I don’t want my aunt to have beaten me to the punch. You can understand that, can’t you?”

“Oh, absolutely. It’s just...”

“What?”

“I’m not sure how to convince her. She seems pretty determined.”

He shrugged and blinded me with a grin.

“You’re a pretty persuasive guy, Phil. You convinced
me
to hire you even though you’d never had a picture made. If you could pull that off, talking an old lady into leaving some
gossip out of a book should be nothing.”

He gave me an encouraging clap on my shoulder. His hand lingered, lightly rubbing my upper arm. “Say, you’ve been working
out, haven’t you?”

Good God, was he flirting with me?

“A little,” I said bashfully.

“It shows,” he said. He gave my biceps a firm squeeze, a gesture that carbonated my bloodstream. If two Cosmos can make the
nice-looking fellow who’s flirting with you seem like a movie star, imagine what it’s like when the flirter actually
is
a movie star. A pleasant wooziness stole over me and I feared that any moment my head would loll back and my tongue damply
unspool the way Homer Simpson’s does when he dreams of doughnuts.

He withdrew his hand from my arm, then leaned in toward me again, his tone thrillingly intimate.

“Can I count on you, buddy?”

“Absolutely!”

“You’ll do this for me?”

“Come hell or high water!”

“Thank you. And thanks for being my friend. I don’t meet a lot of guys I feel I can...
trust
. But I feel that about you. And if you come through for me, I’ll be grateful.” His eyes traveled shyly south, then rebounded
back up to meet mine. “
Very
grateful,” he repeated, fixing me with a gaze so smoldering, so freighted with sex it would not have surprised me to glance
down and find that my shirt was unbuttoning itself.

I boldly returned his gaze, throwing in a few sex rays of my own, and said, “I won’t let you down, Steve. I promise you that
—”

“Hey, Stevie! Who’s your boyfriend?”

The voice, brash and grating, had come from the bar. I looked up and saw a beefy, fiftyish man wearing a conservative gray
suit. He had mottled, leathery skin, short carrot-colored hair, and a bulbous misshapen nose that bespoke a lifelong devotion
to gin and fisticuffs. His bearing suggested a military background. He had that swaggering, contemptuous air certain old soldiers
display when confronting effete men whose bodies, they feel certain, contain an unmanly shortage of shrapnel.

I despised him on sight, partly because of his annoying machismo but mostly because he’d intruded at the very moment when
my —my?
Everyone’s!
— dream was finally coming true.

The instant Stephen heard the man, his sex face vanished, replaced first by an annoyed grimace and then, as he turned to face
his heckler, a cool insolent smile. The interloper started toward us and Stephen’s bodyguard shot over to intercept him. Stephen
waved the guard away, informing him the fellow was an “old friend.”

“Hey, Rusty. Been a long time. Not long enough, but long.”

“Who’s your boyfriend?” repeated Mr. Surly.

“Why? Jealous?” He turned to me. “Meet Rusty Grimes. He’s what passes for a DA these days.”

I realized at once the source of their enmity.

Five years ago Grimes had charged a man named Roger Banks with the murder of Banks’s ex-boyfriend. The evidence was flimsy
and many felt that in prosecuting the case the state’s lurid emphasis on Mr. Banks’s fondness for light S and M was both pointless
and homophobic. Since Banks, when not applying tit clamps to recent acquaintances, was a model citizen and prominent in many
gay charities, his case became a literal cause célèbre with numerous stars, Stephen among them, rallying to his defense. Banks
was acquitted and two years later HBO produced an all-star film version of the case. Stephen played Rusty, complete with prosthetic
nose, and his brilliantly caustic portrayal had struck Rusty as a more than adequate casus belli.

“Nice to meetcha,” said Grimes, not deigning to look at me.

“Philip’s writing my next picture,” explained Stephen. “So what are you doing in a hip place like this? Besides making it
less hip?”

“Saying hi to my kid. He tends bar here. I hope this picture’s better than your last one. Whew!” he said, wittily miming a
frat boy’s response to a fart. “I saw it on a plane and people still walked out.”

“If only you’d joined them.”

“Maybe this one’ll win you an Oscar to put next to your other two. Oh, wait, I forgot—you lost, right? Both times?”

This was a low blow. It was well known that Stephen, the son of an Oscar winner, yearned for one of his own and that his losses
had rankled him sorely. It was then that I decided I was letting down Team Donato and risked forfeiting Stephen’s regard if
I did not rally to his side.

“Are we keeping you, Rusty?” I asked pertly. “Don’t you have places to go, faggots to frame?”

Stephen smiled and Grimes, who’d not expected me to stick my oar in, gave me that squinty appraising look long favored by
schoolyard ruffians.

“Aren’t you a cutie-pie? Wudja say your name was?”

“Philip Cavanaugh.”

He took a pad and pen from his pocket and made a note.

“Ooh!” I cried, mock cringing. “He’s writing my name down! How theoretically intimidating!”

“Nice seeing you, Rusty,” said Stephen.

“I get the picture. The lovebirds wanna be alone. Nice running into you, Stevie.”

He started off, then turned back to us.

“Stevie, do me a favor?”

“What’s that?”

His lips twisted in a sour little smile. “Make a mistake. Just one, okay?” And with that he turned and left, waving goodbye
to his son, who’d watched the whole scene with undisguised dismay.

Stephen said, “Thanks for jumping in. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Hey, any enemy of yours is an enemy of mine.”

“I appreciate that, but watch your step with Rusty. He’s a powerful guy.”

“What can he do to me?” I asked unprophetically.

There seemed little hope of rekindling the deliciously steamy atmosphere Rusty had so rudely shattered. It wouldn’t have mattered
if there had been, since within moments of his departure the voice I’d been dreading called out shrilly from beyond the bar.

“Hey, guys!”

“What’s Gilbert doing here?” muttered Stephen.

“He got wind of this from our answering machine and invited himself along. He’s such a
starfucker.
”