HOLLY
“Scratch away at Hollywood lies, and you find the real lies hiding underneath!”
When I interviewed Leo for the final show I tried to pretend we’d only barely met. Even though the final interviews were always done live on the program, I had insisted that this one take place in the office. There was a lot that could go wrong, and if anything did I wanted it going wrong in a controlled environment. Nancy was still insisting that Leo had to make a live appearance on the night. I agreed, but there was no way I was going to let that happen.
I was cute, flirty and casual. Leo was in turn intense and silly, mucking around and deliberately misinterpreting my questions. It would still look okay with editing, but I was angry. We had an argument.
He said he felt reduced! Reduced—who says they feel reduced (apart from every spoiled star in this town including me)?
We squabbled briefly about why he felt reduced (him) and how childishly he was behaving (me).
“Look, it’s just sex,” I told him, sounding like a vamp but not feeling like one.
Tonight we’re going public with Leo at the charity fund-raiser, and after that we’ll finally have all the material we need for the show. All the “before” footage has been edited already, along with each step of his makeover. There’ll be a camera at the event, covering Leo’s attendance at a glamorous Hollywood fund-raiser, and once that’s in the can Leo is free to return to London and I can get back to Normal.
Normal. It sounds like nirvana. It sounds like my worst fears.
When I get home from my appointment with Larry the telephone’s ringing.
“Guess who, baby? I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that you called,” Ted gushes.
I can think of a lot of things I would like to have said like, I didn’t call you. I would never have called you in a million years. But you don’t pick people up on stuff like that in L.A. I used to think Ted was insincere, but the truth is he’s just overly sincere—about himself. Ted really cares about Ted in a way no one else ever can.
He said he wanted to let me know that he was going to be at the charity ball that night. He didn’t want either of us to be uncomfortable. He said he hoped we could let bygones be bygones. In Hollywood that means, Please don’t talk to the press about how horrible I was to you. As much as Ted had hurt me, you can’t afford enemies in Hollywood, so I let him talk about the ranch he’d just bought and acted like I gave a shit.
“I’d love to take you there, Holly. You can ride there, swim in the river. It’s sensationally peaceful.” Ted was the sort of person who said stuff like that—“sensationally peaceful.” He was so L.A.—a fake, but a real fake. We talked superficially about our lives, covering all bases except for the ones that mattered. I didn’t mention Leo and Ted didn’t mention my mother.
Despite all the water under the bridge of our friendship we were professionals; we knew where to go and where not to go with one another. Scratch away at Hollywood lies, and you find the real lies hiding underneath.
After I put the handset down Conchita waddled into the room, duster poised.
“Mr. Leo!” she cried. “Mr. Leo! His teacher is here and him not here!”
I followed her out to the poolhouse, where Nile was standing in his white robes and black popsocks, his face like thunder.
“He must have been delayed,” I offered, acting as if the last time I saw him I hadn’t stood by while my gardener attacked him with hedgetrimmers. “Let me try his cell phone,” I suggested, like I was the nicest, sweetest person in L.A.
Nile kicked at some of the flowers in the flower bed.
Conchita glared at him and clenched her duster.
“The traffic’s real good out there today, too,” he said, in a sort of under-his-breath type way. I hate people who talk under their breath. The expectation that I’m craning to hear, hanging on their every utterance. What a creep.
“I hope nothing’s happened to him,” he lied.
I began to panic, though. What did he mean, he hoped nothing had happened? What sort of thing could have happened? My mind threw up a thousand possibilities as the automated operator at the other end of the line informed me that the cell phone I was dialing had been switched off.
“I can’t reach him on his phone,” I said to Conchita, my voice betraying my panic.
Nile casually repeated his hope that nothing had happened.
Conchita looked like she wanted to hit him, too.
I made a silent decision that if she threw the first punch I’d throw the second.
“I’m sure he’s just stuck in traffic,” I said, a little too briskly. I was sounding borderline hysterical.
“Traffic’s real good today,” Nile reminded me. If it had been possible to jab him in the eye and not have my ass sued off me I would have jabbed Nile till his eye bled.
I was reminded of all the times in the last few days that Leo had begged not to have to see Nile again. Why couldn’t I have stood up to Nancy? I am a very bad person.
I was always hassling Leo—bossing him around, making him do stuff he didn’t want to do—and for what? The more passionate our lovemaking the night before, the colder I’d be with him the next day. I suspected that it was my way of retracting all the kisses and caresses I’d lavished on him the night before, because my rational business-minded side insisted that I had to do something to draw the line.
Nile was moving from one foot to another like a kid waiting to be dismissed. He’d be paid for the missed class and he knew it, but he wanted the afternoon off so that he could go and diss me to all his friends and clients.
“You may as well go,” I told him, and Conchita ushered him off the premises with her duster.
The last time Leo and I spent the night together, he asked me if I’d ever been euphoric.
“What do you mean, euphoric?” I asked.
“You’d know if you’ve ever been it,” he assured me.
“I suppose I would,” I agreed, matching my breathing pattern to his.
“Can you hear the beat?” he asked, as my heart rate syncopated with his.
I nodded, but didn’t speak for fear of loosing the rhythm.
“That’s what I do see—I line up the beats.”
I didn’t know what he meant, so I listened to our heartbeats and entwined my hand in his.
“I want to make you euphoric, Holly Klein.” I thought maybe he already had, but I didn’t want to say.
Sometimes I imagined he said things to me only to find he was actually asleep. Once I imagined that I heard him say, “I think I might be falling in love with you, Holly Klein.”
Actually, I think it’s the other way around. I think I’m falling in love with him, and how am I meant to push him away if I’m in love with him? Because I have to push him away. Eventually he has to go back to London, back to his crappy world of DJ-ing and market stalls and his marijuana-addled mother. He has to leave.
But he wasn’t meant to leave now!
He wasn’t meant to leave before the final night!
That’s how I justified doing something I never do and let myself into the poolhouse. It was always cool in there during the day, and I flopped down on his unmade futon. Leo doesn’t let the cleaner make his bed. He says made-up beds give him nightmares.
The first thing I check is the fake Rolex his mother gave him. He has kept it in there since I gave him the real one. Before I’ve even opened the little drawer he keeps it in I know what I will find.
Nothing.
And, knowing how much that cheap piece of crap means to him, I really start to panic.