So 5 Minutes Ago (19 page)

“I promise to make this as painless as possible,” he says, smiling again.

I don’t smile back, which G takes to be a green or at least a yellow light. In the next few weeks, there will be more fallout from the merger—maybe even a further exodus of clients. “Although I don’t know that, I am braced for it,” he says. “So we’ll all just deal with these events as they arise. But BIG-DWP will survive, I can assure you of that.”

“What are you saying?” I say, not following him.

“I’m saying that whatever happens, I don’t want you to be concerned about the short term. I mean, there is more than enough to do, for everyone to do, servicing their own clients without worrying about others.”

“Others?”

“Other publicists. And their clients.”

He says this casually. Too casually. In fact, if I was the suspicious sort, I would say that G was 1.) onto my meeting with Suzanne and 2.) telling me expressly
not
to do what she asked me to do not thirty minutes ago.

“I’m sorry, I’m still not following you.” If you want me to side with you and let Suzanne twist in the wind, you’re going to have to spell it out.

But G just shakes his head. “I’ve kept you long enough.” He drops his hands from the window and steps back. “Is this a BMW?” he says, glancing at my car.

“Audi.”

“Oh, right,” he says, smiling broadly. “Right. Volkswagen.” And he keeps right on smiling as I roll up the window, put the car in reverse, and rocket out of his lair.

14 Dr. Faustus, Line One

                  I’m home staring into the refrigerator trying to decide if I want a Diet Coke to perk myself up or wine to calm me down. After the day I’ve had, it could go either way. I’m just deciding on hedging my bets and making a cup of tea—
tea, there’s an idea—
if I actually have any, when I hear my phone ring for what seems like the millionth time since I walked in. I don’t own a thing. The house is rented, the car is leased. I don’t even have a magazine subscription, but telemarketers still hunt me down.

“Land Shark” comes floating over the machine.

Steven. I pick up.

“Where are you, still in your Ryan O’Neal phase playing racquetball?”

“Actually, he played squash and rather well. At least better than me. So how’d it go with Suzanne?”

“News sure travels fast in the big city.”

“Yes, it does. Now open up.”

“Open up?”

“
Land Shark
? Don’t tell me you don’t remember that episode of
Saturday Night Live
?”

“Wait a minute, you’re here?”

Steven and I are close, but we have our limits. Our one unspoken rule is that we don’t go to each other’s houses. The office. Drinks after work. Parties. Constant cell phone contact. But not home visits. That’s a little
trop intime
even for us. Other than the time I had the flu and he dropped off a week’s worth of chicken soup from Greenblatt’s, Steven has never been here.

“Yes, now open your gate. I have food.”

“You have food? That changes everything.”

I buzz him in through the front gate and flick on the porch light. It’s always amusing to watch people navigate my stairs at night. Not exactly user-friendly. Stone, pitched at roughly thirty-five degrees, which is probably not even code, and with half the path lights out.

“God, you need a funicular to get up and down your stairs,” Steven says when he finally reaches the bottom. “Or a guide dog.”

“Bitch, bitch, bitch,” I say, opening the door.

“Here,” he says, handing me a large white bag. “I may be uninvited, but I don’t come empty-handed.”

I peer into the bag. A white take-out container of salad, another smaller bag, and a bottle of Viognier. Good Viognier. “You brought me Viognier and salad?”

“I brought us the Viognier and you the salad. But not just any salad. It’s that salad from that restaurant in Laurel Canyon.”

“We’re
in
Laurel Canyon.”

“I live in Coldwater and
I
can never keep all the canyons straight. They’re like all those former Soviet republics that became countries. Like where is Chechnya and who really cares?”

“The salad?”

“It’s the one that’s supposed to make women go into labor.”

“Okay, first that’s a myth and second, you thought I needed it why?”

“Because I thought it might make you let it all out. Like what the fuck is going on with you lately?”

“You’re right and I’m sorry,” I say, taking the bag and heading into the kitchen. I was wrong not to tell him about G’s little come-on at the Viper Room. And I was seriously wrong in thinking Steven wouldn’t notice. “But first, I have to have a glass of wine.”

I open the wine and tell him everything. Hop onto the kitchen counter and go through it all. G at the Viper Room. His threats about layoffs and his creepy implications about how I can keep my job, right down to his running his hand down my arm.

“Ew,” Steven says, leaning against the counter and giving a little shudder. “I still can’t believe you never told me.”

“I was too busy telling myself I imagined the whole thing.”

“I suppose,” he says, nodding like this could be true. On Mars. “But didn’t he tell you what venal acts you could commit to keep your job?”

“I’ll get to that.”

Then I do Suzanne. Our little come-to-Jesus meeting this afternoon. When I finish, Steven stares morosely into his wineglass. “She really asked you to beg the Phoenix to stay on, on her behalf? That’s so sad.”

“No kidding. I mean, I worked with her for what, maybe a month when I first got out here? I didn’t think I made any kind of impression. Now, out of the blue Suzanne thinks I’m the one with keys to her castle?”

“Look, you got me,” he says with a shrug. “I still don’t get why it’s so important she stays on. I mean, clients come and go all the time.”

“I don’t totally get it either,” I say, hopping down and reaching for the salad. “But Suzanne made it sound like it was the way her contract with G was written. That they each had to maintain a certain number of clients. For all I know, specific clients were listed by name.”

“So what are you going to do? Go out to Malibu and get Rapunzel to let down her hair?”

“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” I say, dishing out the salad onto two plates. Steven peers at it suspiciously.

“It’s lettuce,” I say, holding out the plate. “I don’t think it’s going to cause you to give birth.”

He tastes a leaf, shrugs, and takes the plate. “Okay, where were we?”

“That I don’t know if I’m going to go out to Malibu to plead on Suzanne’s behalf.”

“Right. So why not? I mean, what’s to lose besides your self-respect which apparently neither of your bosses thinks you have anyway?”

“Because G asked me not to.”

“
What?
When?”

“You asked me if he spelled out the venal acts I could commit to keep my job? Well, he did. Tonight, in the parking garage after I finished up with Suzanne. We just happened to be leaving at the same time. As if.”

“Normally, I would say some wiseass thing about Deep Throat—”

“Yeah, I know, so just save it because this is really freaking me out a little,” I say, cutting him off. “G basically said if I wanted to ensure my future with the agency, I needed to cast my lot with him. Become part of his team.”

“How? By fucking him?”

“I think he has other employees for that,” I say, rattling off G’s little speech in the garage. “All of which comes down to letting Suzanne twist in the wind—whichever way it blows.”

Steven looks incredulous. “Come on. Two weeks ago G was practically putting you on probation. Now he’s recruiting you for his special ops team?”

“No, he’s saying that when Suzanne leaves—not if, but when—her equity position in the agency will be divvied up among a handful of key employees who have apparently proven themselves worthy.”

“Which is worth what, a few grand a year maybe?”

“Now. But if they sell the agency, it could be worth millions.”

“Okay, and don’t take this wrong, but why you? Why is G offering this to you? You’re hardly the most devoted employee now.”

“I think that’s part of it. That I’m the newest DWP hire and presumably have the least amount of loyalty to Suzanne. I also think that he needs at least one DWP publicist and her clients on his handpicked team. I mean, BIG-DWP can’t just be BIG with a different name.”

“So what are you going to do?”

I look at him. “I guess what everyone does in Hollywood. Betray someone.”

An hour later, the salad is gone, no one has given birth, and we are no closer to figuring out what I should do. But after half a bottle of Viognier, I’m starting to get sick of the whole thing.

“I’m just going to quit,” I say, all but prone on the sofa with Steven sitting facing me at the far end. “I mean, I’m sick of publicity anyway. Why should I help either one of them? They’re both just using me.”

“Is that patio furniture?” Steven says, ignoring me to study my dining table that is, yes, wrought-iron patio furniture dragged in from the back deck.

“Yeah, it came with the house. I only got the sofa and chairs when Josh and I split up. So I brought that inside for the winter.”

“Oh, good thinking,” he says. “I mean, it goes so well with the rest of your stuff.”

“Hey, have you priced furniture lately? Every time I go shopping for a new table, I just get depressed and wind up buying a new handbag instead.”

“Okay, why shouldn’t you quit?” Steven says, off the furniture issue now. “Because if G is serious, you could be looking at some potentially serious money, as you say. Or the potential for some serious money. Which is the only reason anybody comes to Hollywood. To quote the late, great Sam Kinison, the assholes would show up for yard work if it paid as well as Hollywood does.”

I’m just wondering if that’s actually true, when Steven suddenly jumps up. “Wait,” he says, heading into the kitchen. “I totally forgot. The coup de foudre.”

“’Clap of thunder’? Don’t you mean coup de grâce?”

“Wait till you see what it is.”

He emerges a minute later carrying the second, smaller bag. “Here,” he says, handing it to me. “Open it.”

“What is it? OxyContin?”

“That would be nice. But no.”

I sigh, sit up, and unfold the bag. Inside is a white ceramic soufflé dish covered with tinfoil.

I look up at him. “Open it,” he says again. “You’ll be happy.”

I pull back the foil. Rice pudding. With a crinkly wrinkled top, like the top layer of paint that has congealed in a can. “Oh my God, where did you get this?”

“Did you notice it’s baked, not stirred? Just the way you like it. And no raisins.”

“I’m not kidding. Where did you get this? You can only get stirred at Greenblatt’s.”

“Where do you think? I made it.”

“You
made
me a rice pudding?” Either I am to be completely pitied or Steven has unknown talents.

“It was on the Food Channel. That crazy English guy. He was doing a menu of nursery food, whatever that is. Anyway, I thought of you and your stories about the rice pudding at your grandmother’s club back in Philadelphia.”

“I told you about the Union League?”

“Several times,” he says. “Now, should I get spoons or do you want me to just put the bowl on the floor and the puppy can go nuts?”

“No, the puppy can share,” I say, flopping back on the sofa and cradling the pudding. Suddenly the day looks to have a much better finish than I thought possible even an hour ago.

Steven disappears into the kitchen and begins opening what sounds like all my cupboards looking for bowls. “I don’t think I’ve eaten rice pudding as an adult. At least not willingly,” he says, shouting a bit over the noise. “Are these Waterford?” He appears in the doorway a second later holding up two cut-crystal bowls.

“Wedding present.”

“Nice,” he says, holding one up to the light. “Should we use them?”

“Use them? They’ve never been used,” I say. “Just like everything else from my life. Still waiting for the starting gun to go off.”

“I thought we were over the my-marriage-failed-my-life-is-a-mess phase,” Steven says, heading toward the sofa armed with bowls and spoons. “I mean, there’s Charles now.”

“Maybe,” I say, more sulkily than I intend. “Can you have a relationship that’s just on the phone?”

“Honey, there’s an entire toll-call industry devoted to just that,” he says, sitting down beside me and patting my hand. “Look, you guys are just getting started. He’s called you what, every day since he left? You’re golden.”

“Well, it feels like vermeil. Looks good, but who really knows?” I flop back on the sofa again and watch Steven spoon out the rice pudding. One scoop for him. Four for me. Four should do it. Plus a little left over for the morning.

He hands me my bowl and then takes a bite from his own. “Okay, that was fun,” he says, putting the bowl down.

“Don’t worry, it won’t go to waste,” I say, licking the back of my spoon.

Steven watches me eat for a second and then gazes around the living room again.

“So other than your patio furniture, this all looks pretty cool. Is this antique?” he says, nodding at the Oriental rug.

“Yeah,” I murmur between bites. “Grandma’s. As was that and that and that,” I say, nodding at the burled walnut coffee table, the Spanish leather folding screen in the corner, and the sideboard against the wall holding my stereo system and TV.

“Is that a Frank Lloyd Wright?” he says, getting up to examine the sideboard.

“I think so,” I say. “
Grandmère
was a tad eccentric in her tastes. I have two red leather chairs downstairs in the bedroom that she had made from the seats in their old Mercedes. They sit about five inches off the floor, but they are striking. Are we surprised that Amy took the family silver and the Limoges and left me the dregs?”

Steven turns and looks at me. “The dregs? You have all this fabulous stuff and you’re so busy feeling sorry for yourself that you can’t get it together to buy a fucking dining room table?”

I stop in midbite. “Hey, I never said I felt sorry for myself because of my furniture. I love this stuff. It makes me feel more at home than anything Josh and I ever bought together. I feel sorry for myself because the rest of my life is a mess.”

Steven shakes his head. “I’m beginning to think it’s not so much of a mess as you want to
believe
it’s a mess. You bitch about your clients not taking responsibility for their lives, but I don’t know if it isn’t exactly what you’re doing as well.”

I drop my spoon into the bowl with a clatter, gather up the rest of the pudding, and stalk into the kitchen.”Hey, don’t be mad,” Steven calls out.