HOLLY
“A philosopher who makes house calls is perhaps the coolest accessory a girl can have at the moment in L.A.”
I am a complete bitch. The guy saved my bag with no ulterior motive and got his face mashed in the process. Now I’d virtually castrated him. As much as I tried to blame Nancy for making me paranoid, I had to accept the bulk of responsibility myself. Maybe the poll was right? Maybe I was all the things they said about me? Maybe I was worse?
Minutes later, while I was discussing with Joseph what needed doing in the garden, Leo came out of the poolhouse and stood under the shower totally naked. Yes, totally naked.
“Erm, um…Leo? Did the swimming trunks fit okay?” I called out to him as casually as I could.
He responded by calling out to ask whether I had an anti-nudity policy in force. I refused to make eye contact with Joseph, but I just know he was smirking. I’d provided Leo with a pair of black Versace swim trunks that Ted had left behind after he’d told his story to the Star.
“What about the trunks I gave you?” I yelled down.
“Too poncy. I’d be embarrassed,” he yelled up.
I balked at this. I had a naked street person—an uncircumcised naked street person, at that—in my garden, and he was embarrassed? Actually, I couldn’t stop staring. I’ve never seen an uncircumcised penis before. It looks so much ruder than a circumcised one. I was only jolted back to reality when I heard Joseph muffling a chuckle into his hanky.
“If it’s a problem…I’ll put them on,” he offered, shrugging his shoulders as if this was somehow conceding to an unreasonable request.
I told him that nudity was definitely a problem. Joseph muttered something about watering the plants around the side and disappeared.
I could tell that once he got out of earshot he was going to howl with mirth, and later he was going to tell all his friends and family about this. By the six degrees of separation theory, the whole of Mexico would know all about my naked street guy by lunchtime!
Ricky Martin would be telling Madonna over dinner, and she’d be telling her friends in London, and tomorrow Jack, the head of network, would ring up from his holiday villa in Tuscany and say, What’s this I hear about you having a street bum with an uncircumcised penis in your garden. Is this how you repay me?
Jack has always left me feeling that my existence is an unpaid debt I still owe him for. The only two people I talk about in therapy—apart from the men I date—are Jack and my mother. Both of them make me fret and leave me with feelings of deep inadequacy. My mother trumps Jack in only one way—she actually goes on talk shows to expound my inadequacies to the nation. Jack at least reads from the Hollywood script written for me by the network press department when he talks about me to others.
When Leo came back out of the poolhouse wearing the trunks, he pulled a few he-man poses that made me giggle. He has a surprisingly good body, taut and molded in all the right places. But I tried not to think these sorts of thoughts. Leo was a man, but not in the available-for-fantasy sense of the word. He was a street person—well, a sofa-surfing beggar, albeit a good-hearted, reasonably attractive sofa-surfing beggar. This is what I reminded myself as he began mocking me by taking deep cleansing breaths.
I suppose I asked for that one. I went indoors to change.
I opted for my strappy Gucci sandals, a Chanel bikini bra and a sarong I’d bought in Bali. I told myself I was dressing for me, but I knew I looked sexy in this outfit. Even Ted, who is, let’s say, economical with his compliments, loves this outfit. “Pretentiously casual,” he used to call it, but it always gave him a hard-on.
Grabbing a pitcher of iced ginseng that Conchita had prepared earlier, I went back outside to check on Leo. He was still under the less than powerful shower by the pool. I waved.
“Shite shower,” he yelled. “I thought the Americans invented the power shower?”
I pressed my temples as his voice echoed all around the Hills. What had happened to British reserve?
Joseph must have had his hearing aid in, because he came charging around from the side where he’d been hosing. Excited about the possibility that there was more comedy on the way.
“It’s all right Joseph. Leo’s just taking a shower.”
Joseph shuffled around on the spot reluctant to miss the action. His hose gave me an idea and, taking it from him, I sent him round to the faucet to turn it on full.
The pressure was incredible, so much so that I had to straddle the thing, and even then I was struggling to control it by the time Joseph came back. It took the two of us to maneuver it down the slope. “Watch out,” I called to Leo when we were in range. “Here comes the pressure you wanted!”
Joseph and I took aim and fired, virtually knocking Leo off his feet with the force of our water cannon as we aimed the jet up and down his body. Every time he opened his mouth to say something water shot in and he’d start choking. I don’t suppose it was that comfortable, but Joseph was having the time of his life. I thought he was going to have an asthma attack as tears of hilarity streamed down his face—the guy was having a hell of a day.
We were making so much noise we didn’t hear Nancy arrive, and when we did finally become aware of her presence she’d already set up her tripod and was busily attaching a camera.
“I had to get this historic event on film,” she explained when I called out to her. “Aren’t I brilliant, darh-ling? I swung by the camera hire shop on the way here.” She was using her fake British accent.
Leo was oblivious to anything apart from the need to keep his eyes and mouth closed. His white body was pressed against the black-tiled surface of the shower, and was still being pounded by our water cannon.
“What has the clever cat dragged home this time?” Nancy drawled appreciatively when I abandoned my post and came over to give her a hug. “You didn’t mention anything about this street person of yours being a god.”
Nancy, as ever, looked the embodiment of chic. Making me feel, as ever, like the princess of anti-chic. It’s partly what she wears and partly the fact that she’s six feet tall and weighs…like, erm…let me see…nothing. She was wearing her sleek beige Armani, and expensive I’m-not-wearing-any-makeup-whatsoever-makeup, and C.K. prescription glasses (because contacts are so over).
“He is magnificent,” she purred. Nancy is one of those few American women who manage to carry off the purr and the pout without sounding foolish.
Her use of “darling” and “sweetie” gives the impression that she’s spent time in London on the Absolutely Fabulous set. A lot of people in the industry think she’s pretentious, but that’s only because they don’t understand her.
The thing I love most about Nancy is her eagerness to try new stuff. Like she’s trying philosophy—get this, she even sees a philosopher. His name is W—in terms of cool, having a letter rather than a name has enormous cache.
W makes house calls to her place in West Hollywood. It’s all very mysterious, but a philosopher who makes house calls is perhaps the coolest accessory a girl can have at the moment in L.A.
“I take it all back, Holly. Clever you. What a discovery! Clap, clap, clap.”
“Well, it wasn’t really like that!” I started to explain.
“Don’t be modest. You said we needed a New Betty and you went straight out and found him. Well done, you.” She was holding the camera on her shoulder and aiming it at Leo, who was now taking his well-deserved swim.
“No, you’ve got it wrong. All wrong! Leo can’t be the New Betty. He just can’t.” My emphatic tone surprised even me.
Nancy looked concerned. “Why not? It’s perfect. High-life meets lowlife. Uptown meets downtown.”
All I knew was that I had to talk her out of this. My face was burning and I felt like my stomach was full of bees. “Well, we don’t do men, do we?”
To signify that this was the end of the matter, I turned my attention to the salad Nancy had brought with her from Urht Café, one of our favorite organic havens. Scooping up a leaf of coriander, I started munching. “Mmmm—yummy.”
“We haven’t done men in the past, I know, but so what? All the more reason to start, right?”
Placing the camera back on its tripod, she sat down beside me in the shade of the umbrella, popped a pine kernel into her mouth and began to nibble. “Underneath the bad teeth there lies a body—and, oh, what a body.”
“His penis isn’t even circumcised!” I don’t know why I said that.
She waved a hand dismissively. “Mere formality—we can sort that out too.”
I could feel a cluster headache coming on. Even under the umbrella the sun was too strong. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, even the flies.
Nancy took a leaf from the salad. “An adjustment here, an adjustment there.” She shrugged. “The raw material, you have to concede, is perfect.”
“Well you’ve changed your tune,” I said—had she forgotten the telling off she gave me earlier? The one that made me virtually attack Leo. “You were telling me he was a cannibal earlier.”
“I was just concerned for you. If you’d said you brought him home with you to rescue our ratings it would have been different.”
It was comforting to know that it was okay for me to bring home cannibals if it boosted our ratings. Not that I was surprised; Hollywood is the sort of place where your best friend will plunge a knife into your back and then call the police to tell them you’re carrying a concealed weapon.
“Look, Nancy, I think you’re mixed up about what my intentions for Leo were when I brought him back here. He saved my bag. I was only—”
She wasn’t listening. “And as for those eyes—they’re amazing.”
“Neon green,” I added, and the thought of his eyes made me feel dizzy. It was just so hot in the sun. “That thing’s not on, is it?” I asked, referring to the camera. “You know I can’t argue naturally when I’m on camera.”
“Just agree, then!” she teased, pouting prettily. “Admit it, we’ve found our next makeover. Your problems are over. Now you can give that magazine and its readers’ poll the finger.”
An image of the pickup truck guy giving me the finger earlier that day flashed through my mind. “Seriously, I don’t think it’s a good idea for various reasons, Nancy. It’s the celebs who bring us our ratings. If we just get people off the street it will change the look of the show. People watch MakeMeOver to see stars, not street people. We’d be going into Jerry Springer territory if we use Leo.”
“We’ll be going into off the air territory if we don’t darh-ling. Ratings have dropped steadily this season and this poll won’t help. You’re losing your market share. We need to prove that you’re still a player. We need a change if we’re going to survive.”
“But he’s a bum—you said so yourself!”
“You mean he’s got the cutest tight ass?”
He did have a gorgeous ass. “No, I do not,” I replied crisply.
“You’re not focusing on how brilliant my idea is darh-ling. Can’t you see? The noble savage reconstituted into—” She stopped, reaching for her word.
“Yes? Into what?”
“Well, just look at what New Betty did for the show. That was the only time we were ever mentioned in the New Yorker.”
Sometimes Nancy is impossible. Strike that. Nancy is always impossible, but some times she is more impossible than others.
She rolled her eyes in irritation (probably because I’d taken the last piece of coriander). “I’m telling you, this guy is our salvation. Change his life and that magazine will look ridiculous for declaring you out of touch with real people. If Leo’s not real, who is?”
We both sat quietly for a bit, watching Leo lapping the pool in a strong over-arm. Nancy wasn’t letting it drop. “Point one: that is a body. Point two: this is L.A., the city of himbos and bimbos and making their dreams come true. Fact: with his body and his looks he could be anything he wants. We just have to clean him up and dress him up.”
“Nancy! He can’t construct a sentence without uttering an obscenity. We can’t put him on air.”
“The possibilities are endless for a guy with an accent in this town,” she marveled.
“Yes, but even models/actors/writers/whatevers require straight teeth,” I pointed out.
“I’ll take him to my dentist.”
“Nancy, he’s a down-and-outer, and worse than that he’s a man, and we always agreed we would never do men on the show—not even celebrities. Men don’t change—ever.”
“Come on, Holly, you don’t believe that.”
I do. “I do,” I insisted. “How many men are there who’ve ever changed the way they look, let alone how they act or what they do? There is no male equivalent to Madonna—think about it.”
Nancy removed her glasses and looked me square in the eyes. “That’s why this is such a brilliant idea. We’ll make him change. If anyone can do it we can. He’ll be the exception to the rule and we’ll be the ones who did it. We’ll have a media sensation on our hands if we pull it off. Think about it. Please, Holly!”
“No,” I repeated, although I knew she was right. The raw material was there. Leo was gorgeous, if a little on the rough side. If we did succeed in doing a makeover on Leo and changing his life we would have a sensation on our hands, but I still wasn’t comfortable with the idea. “Besides, he’d never agree to do it,” I argued, slightly less sure of my ground here.
“Let’s just ask him.”
“He’ll say no. He’s got his own life, his own commitments. He’s got a share-house in a nice area, friends, a work colleague who depends on him, even.” I was grasping at straws and I knew it.
“Imagine the response if it works out.”
“What? And we turn a street bum into a wannabe? Nancy, you’re naive. Leo’s a scrounger—no doubt with less education than my gardener.”
“I thought you said he lives in a share-house and has a job.”
“Well, begging is a type of job, isn’t it?”
“He’s a good swimmer,” she purred, right at the second when the shadow of Leo fell over us.
“Is that what you think of me, then?” he asked.
Nancy and I cringed with embarrassment as we looked up. Leo was standing with a towel around his waist and another around his head. With his facial piercing glinting in the sunlight, he resembled a sun king.
“I’ll get my gear and be on my way, then,” he said, before turning his back on our apologies and walking off down the slope toward the pool chalet.
Nancy nudged me hard in the ribs and insisted I had to invite him to stay now, to make up for being so mean and hurtful to him. “Otherwise you’re proving that ten thousand women know what they’re talking about,” she threatened.
“Don’t be ridiculous. He can’t stay here! You were the one asking me to frisk him for weapons and drugs earlier!”
“There’s that futon in the poolhouse; he can sleep on that so he won’t be in your way.” As if all was settled she headed off down the slope to the chalet, where presumably Leo was getting ready to leave.
They were there for about ten minutes, and I don’t know what she said, but he was wearing Ted’s Versace trunks when he came out of the chalet. Nancy and he were smiling as they made their way back up the slope, and I don’t know why but I felt weirdly jealous.
Leo told me that he was willing to stay for a few weeks, and when I smiled up at him and said that was great, he ruffled my hair. No one has ever ruffled my hair before, and it made me feel like a kid—like I had freckles on my nose. We were still looking at each other, smiling goofily, when Nancy spoke again.
“So that’s all settled,” she purred smugly. “Leo can sleep in the poolhouse and we’ll get him some new clothes.”
Later on in the kitchen, while he was getting dressed in some other clothes Ted had left behind, I told Nancy that I still thought the idea was mad.
“So let’s have a wager,” she suggested, holding up her empty bottle of Evian to signify she wanted another. “I’ll bet you your Ford Explorer that Leo has his own bus stop advertisement in a month’s time.”
“And if he doesn’t?” I asked, going to the refrigerator. “What do I win?”
“The satisfaction of being right?”
“Seriously, what did you say to him out there to make him stay?” I asked, grabbing two tiny Evians from the fridge.
“I told him you fancied him, of course,” she replied crisply, rubbing some moisturizer into her hands. Then she winked and I dropped one of the bottles on the floor.
“You told him what?” I cried out, watching the bottle bounce across the room and the water splash across the floor. I was thinking this must be what it felt like to see your life rush before your eyes.
I knew she was probably only teasing, but I was overwhelmed by a wave of embarrassment that seemed to come from way back in my past. Back in the sports changing rooms at school, when we’d tease one another about who we loved. “Holly’s in love with Mr. Wainright!” My Wainright was a trainee teacher. My first crush on a teacher. I thought I’d kept my feelings for him to myself. And I totally cringed out when my crush was rumbled.
I picked up the bottle and a cold stream of water spread across my T-shirt. “You are joking, aren’t you?”
“What?” she asked—all faux innocence.
“About me fancying Leo!”
“Well…don’t you?”
“Fancy Leo?” I squealed. “Are you crazy? You think I fancy Leo!”
She shrugged her shoulders, as if it was no biggie. “Well, I do, I know that much.”
“What’s all this?” Leo asked, walking into the kitchen and looking from Nancy to me.
I hugged them to my chest, wondering how much he’d heard. “Oh, nothing, just…erm…girl stuff.”
“Your top’s wet,” he said, pointing at my chest. And your nipples are hugely erect and horny. (Well, actually he didn’t say that, but I could hear him thinking it.) And for the briefest second it occurred to me that the idea of Leo thinking about my nipples turned me on.