June 2017
Young Hollywood’s “HELP IS IN THE CARDS”
Casino Night
(Chateau Marmont on Sunset, west of Laurel Canyon)
Given the choice between getting it together and getting out, Bentley almost always opted for the latter. Now Bent slipped through the crowded exit of the VIP tent, eyes on the ground, oversize Celine sunglasses on, even in the darkness.
Ten minutes, she texted Bach as she fled. Then Uber.
Fifteen, he texted back.
Deal.
She made it undetected down the tile staircase and out to the dimly lit grounds of the hotel. At the bottom of the stairs, she bumped into none other than Talullah, Jeff Grunburg’s scrawny preteen daughter, clomping slowly along in what had to be her mother’s Louboutin Pigalle pumps, four inches too high and three sizes too big.
“Hiding, Royce?” Tallulah asked, her nose in the air. “Great idea. You do more of that, you guys are sure to be toast.” She teetered on her heels for a moment—
Bentley caught her with one hand. “You okay there, kid?”
“I’m fine.” Tallulah straightened up. “But if you want that renewal, Bent, you gotta give the people something to talk about. Something to remember.” The kid sounded like a forty-year-old studio head, which wasn’t surprising, given that her custody arrangement meant she spent three nights a week with one.
Bent shrugged. “Who says I want that renewal?”
“Yeah, right. Only everyone in this room, including the waiters,” Tallulah said, clomping off toward the valet. “This is Hollywood. We can smell desperation.”
Bent called after her, “Maybe that’s just the truffle fries!”
Only laughter floated back through the air. Bentley shook her head. She was glad to see the mini Grunburg go.
Given the choice—mindless mingling versus being entirely alone—Bentley would always choose being alone, even if Porsche wanted her to stop playing wallflower and start playing wild child.
Even if twelve-year-olds like Tallulah Kyong-Grunburg agreed with her.
Even if Tallulah’s father was saying it too.
If anything, the longer Bentley thought about it, the harder the idea was to shake: if acting out would help them get the show renewed, she was more determined to withdraw than ever before.
Why shouldn’t she?
After all, being alone might get the show canceled, and if the show were to be canceled, she might get to go to college.
Being alone might give her a chance to figure out what BEING BENTLEY was actually supposed to feel like.
Being alone would at least make it easier to unbutton the top button of her pants and slip off her shoes, and she was currently contemplating both.
Freedom.
The word lingered in the back of Bent’s mind as she made her way out into the deserted hotel grounds. The brick-paved pool deck was now dark and mostly empty—except for the shadows it afforded the occasional illicit smoker. It was much quieter out here, even if the striped cushions that covered the wrought iron chaises were damp to the touch. After trying a few seats, Bent found what looked like a strategic spot in the very darkest part of the yard. Perfectly dark, perfectly out of sight from any casual passerby.
Perfectly perfect.
Bent was the queen of the hiding place when it came to Hollywood parties. She had sometimes resorted to ducking into a coat closet, a bathroom stall, or even a service kitchen when it was really bad. But tonight wasn’t that dire. It was early summer, and the evening air was warm enough to make it pleasant. Plus, half the paparazzi seemed to have fled, which could only mean Beyoncé had posted a selfie from an identifiable club somewhere in town.
Thank you, Queen Bey.
Bent could easily wait for Bach out here. She dropped her bag—and her guard—
and flung herself—
“You mind?”
RIGHT ONTO A PERSON—?!
Some sort of warm, unsuspecting person, from the feel of it.
It was a body, and it was moving, and Bentley was so startled she found herself yelping, and then shouting—
“WHAT THE—”
Bentley rolled awkwardly off what felt like a leg, or maybe a hip—and landed in a heap on the brick patio floor next to someone’s shoe. For a moment she panicked, imagining a crime about to happen, remembering the hooded figure with hidden eyes in the crowd of paparazzi.
There’s your headline, Porsche—
Then Bent’s rational mind returned. She was being stupid and she knew it. She tried to pull herself together—or at least up off the ground.
A guy—unfamiliar, at least as far as she could see in the lightless yard—sat up on the chaise. He looked to be vaguely her age, but that was all she could tell in the shadowy yard. Only one thing was clear: he was not hooded, nor was he wearing sunglasses. So, not a criminal—at least not at first glance.
Bentley sighed, relieved—and only slightly disappointed.
There goes your headline, Porsche.
“Maybe you should try that one,” the stranger said, pointing to the chair next to him. “It’s just a guess, but I think this one’s taken.”
“No, really?” Bentley could barely manage to get the words out as she crawled up onto the next chaise. She tried to calm herself down, taking a deep breath. Her heart was still shouting. “Wow. I’m sorry,” she finally said. “That was super embarrassing, even for me.”
She heard a sound like a laugh in response.
“Yeah, you probably say that to all the guys you randomly sit on by hotel pools in the dark.”
“You got me there,” Bent said, still poised on the edge of the chaise. She fought off the urge to flee, which wasn’t easy. Judging by the heat coming from her face, she was probably the color of a humiliated strawberry.
I could look for a closet to hide in. Maybe a pool house. Wherever they keep the towels around here…
“Don’t,” he said.
“Excuse me?” She didn’t dare look his way.
“Run for it.”
“Ha,” she said. HA? Why did I say that? Who says that? “I wasn’t.”
“Good. You don’t have to.” He paused. “I mean, you can if you want to, whatever.”
“Super. Thanks for the clarification.” Despite every screaming cell in her body, she took a breath and sat tentatively back in her chair.
“That came out wrong,” he said a moment later. “Sorry. I’m really bad at this.”
“Not that bad,” Bent said. “I mean, objectively speaking, you’re not the one who just sat on a faceless stranger in the dark or anything.”
“Yeah, well. That’s a low bar.”
“Not for some of us.” Bent sighed.
He laughed. “See? I did it again. I don’t mean to be rude. I just hate parties. I suck at all the blah, blah, blah.”
“I don’t know. You’re blah, blah, blah-ing okay right now, I guess.”
“How about you?” he asked.
Bent pulled her legs up to the chaise beneath her. “Me? I’m great at blah, blah, blah-ing, and I love parties.”
“I can tell,” he answered, gesturing to the empty pool surrounding them. “You’re some kind of face-sitting social butterfly.”
She laughed. “So why are you here, then?”
“Why is anyone here?” he asked.
Bent shrugged. Good question. “To be seen?”
There was a beat of silence. “To see someone.”
Right. Of course you are. Let me guess—a size negative 2 with an expensive blowout? It only threw Bent off for a moment before she pulled it together. “Yeah, well, I’m just here for the poker,” she said. “Obviously.”
“Obviously.”
Bent could hear the crickets in the bushy overgrowth that framed the pool area.
Then the stranger spoke up again. “Makes me wish I played poker—it would have been less boring in there.”
The more he spoke, the more his voice sounded familiar, but she couldn’t be sure. Bent shook her head in the shadows. “Not me.”
“Is your brother still at the tables?”
She looked his way, startled. “You know Bach?” There weren’t usually Roycers at these things, but she’d learned to be guarded.
Do I know this guy from somewhere? Is he one of Bach’s minions?
A flicker of light drifted past them—a candle, floating in the pool. Now she could see that the stranger had dark hair, slicked back behind his ears as if he’d just gotten out of the shower. Still, his face was mostly turned away, and she gave up trying to catch more than just a passing glimpse.
“Is that his name? Bach?” The boy shrugged. “I don’t really know him. He lifted some poker chips off me back there, that’s all.” He laughed.
Oh. Right.
She hadn’t noticed anyone in particular at the poker table. Not outside of Bach and his boys.
As if this whole conversation wasn’t already embarrassing enough.
Good thing it’s dark.
“Yeah, well. You have to watch out. My baby bro is kind of a card shark,” Bent said. It was true. “How did you know he was my brother, anyways?”
Because you watch us on TV every week? Because you’ve seen us play chess in our pajamas? Because you really liked that one episode about the swimming pool?
There were so many different creepy answers to that question, and she had heard them all. For a second, she almost wished the guy had been a criminal. It would at least have been a first.
“I saw you guys laughing together, and he looks like you.” The stranger grinned—or frowned. It was honestly hard to tell in the dark. (She could see his teeth flash in the moonlight, however. They were admirably white, even for this town.)
Does this guy really not know who I am? Whoa.
“How long are you going to wait for him?” the boy asked. “I’ll keep you company.”
Bent shrugged it off, though she was pleased. “We landed on fifteen minutes, but who knows? You don’t have to wait with me. You should probably save yourself.”
“But then I’ll feel guilty when they find your skeleton fused to that lounge chair in a hundred years.”
She sucked back a laugh. “Fine. Let’s make a run for it. Get out of here while we still have a shot. Cabo? Uber south to the border?”
“Not Cabo, Tulum.14 Better surf.” He nodded—then sighed. “But too far. Morongo? Pechanga? Hit the Indian casinos? Since we both obviously love cards so much.”
She pretended to consider it. “Too skeevy. How about Marfa, Texas? Art hipsters and grilled cheese? Texas is close to Mexico.”
“If you’re a drug runner,” the boy said. “Now that’s skeevy.”
“Hey, it’s a job. All jobs suck, don’t they?” Bent sighed. Especially mine. “Not that I’m complaining—but okay, I’m complaining.”
“If you’re an aspiring drug runner, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to knock it. Sounds like solid, gainful employment.” He looked around the pool patio. “At least you have a future.”
“Don’t you?”
“Not according to my dad. Not if I don’t apply myself. Like sunscreen or something.” People took sunscreen very seriously in this town.
“Ah. Dads. That’s the one problem I don’t have. Mine is Mer—my mom.” Bent stumbled on the word. Then she was struck by the silence; she usually got a knowing laugh when she referenced Mercedes, but this guy didn’t say a word. Really? Nothing? You don’t really know who I am? She kept going. “You and your dad fight much?”
“Nope. Not since I took off.”
The sound of breaking glass echoed over the patio, followed by drunken laughter. The fools were all inside—she’d come out here to escape them, hadn’t she?—and yet something about this boy’s voice made Bent herself feel as foolish and giddy now as she had felt at her first Kids’ Choice Awards.
“Idiots,” he said.
She stole another glance at his face, what she could see of it. “Are you laughing? I can’t tell.”
“And?”
“And nothing. I just wondered.”
“Ah.”
“At least you’re smiling. I think I heard it.”
“You got me. Hold on—lean in.”
Bent leaned toward him and smelled the tiny blast of sulfur just as she heard the match strike. He held it up between their faces, and they looked at each other.
It was a quick look, nothing more. They only had a few seconds before the match burned all the way down to nothing.
But there you are, she thought. The match only threw off a bit of light, but it was enough to get a partial sense of him. A glimpse of half a tanned face with angular bones, like he’d been drawn with a messy charcoal. Black hair. Luminous blue eyes. It’s you, she thought, even though she was certain they’d never met.
Bent wasn’t sure what she was feeling, or even thinking. She couldn’t think of how she would know him, or anyone else he could be—at least, not who would be at this party.
“Ow,” the boy said, dropping the match to the brick pool deck. He waved his hand in the cool night air.
That was when Bent remembered that the boy had seen her, too, and she found herself beginning to blush. “What do you think?” She tried to sound playful, but inside she was freaking out. “I mean, about me?”
He sat back in his chair. “Deep.”
It had sounded like he was teasing, but she couldn’t be sure. “Deep?”
“Yeah. You look deep. Anything wrong with that?”
Now she was the one trying not to laugh. “I guess not. It’s just—I haven’t heard that one before.”
“You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind.”
“I do.”
“Yeah? A lot of something deep?”
“Sort of. I’m thinking about—” What am I thinking about? Lifespan? Mercedes? Second chances?
“Poker?”
“Change,” Bent said, surprising herself by answering truthfully. She wasn’t going to see him again. There was no reason not to confess all, here in the shadow of the Chateau.
“What kind of change?” He sounded intrigued.
She thought about it. “A paradigm shift. Or maybe a sea change—is that what it’s called? Whatever’s bigger.”
He held up a fist. “I called it. Deep. Also, what are you talking about?”
She tried to tap his fist with hers, but she couldn’t see it and missed entirely. “When everything changes. A brain departure. An experiential rupture. A transcendental experience. A mind journey.”
“You mean like Burning Man?” He was teasing now.
Bent shook her head. “No. I’m talking about a journey journey. Where you go away. From this.”
“This pool deck?”
“This everything.” She knew she sounded melodramatic, and she didn’t care. It was how she felt.
“Okay, Frodo. Anywhere in particular?”
She took a breath. It was her big secret, and yet here she was, laying it out in the dark to a perfect stranger. “College.”
There. She had finally said it to someone, even if it was someone she hardly knew.
“College?”
“Next year. I think I want to go to one.” The words sounded strange now that she had said them out loud.
“Not to be rude, but that was sort of anticlimactic.” He was chuckling.
“Rude! Very rude! I bared my soul to you, and you’re laughing?” Bent scolded. She could feel her face getting hot.
“You’re right, I’m sorry. Okay. College. So why don’t you just go?”
Why don’t I?
This time next year, I could be graduating high school and going to college. I could live in a dorm in anonymity. I could eat in a dining hall and do laundry with quarters. I could be like everyone else.
It was something she’d only seen on TV (and everyone knew the college years of any high school series sucked) but there it was—and it was what she wanted.
If only.
She sighed, coming back to reality for the moment. “Maybe I will. I’m working on it. Getting there, I think. But I kind of have this weird job that gets in the way.”
“Right. I forgot. The aspiring drug runner.”
“Yeah, no.”
He paused for a second, apparently thinking. “Are you an actor? I mean, seeing as this is Hollywood and all?”
This is crazy. He looked at my face and he still didn’t recognize me. It was a thrilling thought, and a burst of nervous electricity spread down her spine.
“Sort of,” Bent said, keeping her voice even. “Are you?”
“Me? No. Never. I can barely even handle acting like myself. Not to mention acting my age, or acting responsible, or acting like a grown-up. I’d be the world’s worst actor.” He paused. “But you are one. Okay. That’s cool. I’m down with that.”
“Also good to know,” she said. As she did, she realized she meant it.
“So—you can’t just take time off, or whatever?”
“Not really. Not yet. Not take off, I mean, like you did. But I want to—I mean, I hope to.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“Things. My job. My family. I’m not sure. A lot of stuff is kind of up in the air right now.” Please, god, let that be true, Bent thought. “But I was thinking I might still apply to some schools, anyway. I’ll be a senior in the fall, and most applications aren’t even due until December.” Saying it somehow made it seem real.
“Yeah?” the boy asked, but he didn’t sound like he knew a thing about it, or cared. “My family would love it if I did that, but I’m not sure I’m what you would call college material.”
“Ah. Sucks for you,” Bent said.
“I mean, I’m smart enough,” he said, a little defensively, which she thought was cute. “I think.”
Look at that. He cares what you think of him—how is that not adorable? It’s not not adorable.
Bent nodded. “I get it. How do you really know, right?”
The cushions squeaked, as if he was settling in. “I figured I might go someday. I mean, I read books. And I like comics,” he volunteered, as if that was some kind of evidence of intelligence.
It is.
“Marvel or DC?” Bent asked.
“Marvel, Wolverine, and that’s not a real question.” Ding, ding, ding! “You?”
“Black Widow, and I’ll read any spy novel,” Bent said.
“Also LA noir. Like, old detective stories,” he said. Right answer.
“And history books, about wars and military strategies,” Bent offered.
“Exactly. And survival narratives. The nonfiction ones,” he countered. Three for three!
She raised an eyebrow. “Where people live off the land?”
“Is there any other kind?”
“So, zombie apocalypses?” She held her breath. This one was important.
He scoffed. “How else will you know the many uses of duct tape?”
My perfect man.
Bent sat up. “What about toxins and venom and, you know, lethal mold.”
The chaise sighed as the boy rustled next to her. “Hey, you should always know what could kill you. That’s my policy, anyhow.”
“Solid thinking.” She tried again. “What’s your take on the Big One?”
“Don’t get me started.” He sounded almost cheery now. “Every sewer pipe in Southern California is going to burst. Everyone in that room back there will suddenly be deprived of their private toilets.” They both started laughing at the thought, and he reached for her in the darkness, all the way from his chair to hers, touching her arm with one tentative hand. “So just say all that to a college. I’m sure they’ll take you.”
“Right? How could they not?” She could feel the goose bumps spreading under his fingers, and she wondered if he could feel them too.
Don’t move your arm.
He moved his arm.
Damn it.
“Now you know my big secret,” Bent said. “You probably think I’m crazy.”
“Of course you’re crazy. You’re a television star.”
“I didn’t say television. I also didn’t say star.” She raised an eyebrow, even if he couldn’t see it.
“Okay, starlet.”
“Starlet on hiatus.”
“Another clue. Actress. TV. Hiatus. Zombies. You play a corpse on Throne of the Undead?”15
“So, so close,” Bentley said, smiling in the darkness.
They sat in comfortable silence now, not really talking and not really minding. The sounds of the party floated down the stairs toward them. She imagined the room. Bach flirting and winning at the tables in back. Porsche flirting and posing for the paparazzi out front. Mercedes flirting and hovering around Jeff Grunburg and his minions.
HA HA HA HA HA. Bent could almost hear her mother’s assault laughter now.
Upstairs, everyone would be moving around one another like little schools of fish, where lots of tiny ones feasted off one big one, no matter how they all pretended not to. Nobody would be looking at anybody they were already talking to. What was the point?
Bent gazed up at the stars, what she could see of them in the city sky, which was dark now. Why do this? Why bother? What does it matter to anyone? What is this?
The boy moved in the chair next to her.
I can’t go on a regular date. A regular person couldn’t handle the cameras. I wouldn’t expect them to—and I wouldn’t do that to them.
She heard the chair scrape as he adjusted it.
Would he want to be with me? What did he see, when he lit that match? Who does he think that girl is?
Then it didn’t matter, because Bent saw Bach appear on the stairs and sat up. “I have to go.” She stood. The boy stood up next to her. She had hoped standing up would shed some—any!—light on his face, but it didn’t. His features stayed hidden in shadow.
Oh, come on.
Bent lingered for one last second. “And you were wrong, by the way. I’m no starlet. My sister’s the star.”
“Ah,” said the boy. “There you go. There’s the real crisis.”
“Why is it a crisis?”
“Because to me, you’re the star.” And with that, he leaned forward and pulled her by the hand toward him—
Then kissed her cheek, his lips soft and warm in the night.
She felt her face catch fire, turning pink.
It was the sweetest, most unexpected moment of her seventeen years, and she didn’t want him to ever stop.
He stopped.
Damn it.
“What’s your name?” Bentley breathed.
“Asa,” he said, not letting go of her hand. “What’s yours?”
“You’ll figure it out,” she said with a smile. Bent couldn’t bring herself to say it. Her name would break the spell—and she was still enjoying the revelation that someone could like her whether or not she was BEING BENTLEY.
“I will?”
“Everyone does, eventually.” She let go of his fingers as she pulled away, running across the damp bricks until she reached the stairs.
She looked back and smiled. He still hadn’t moved. She turned and took the stairs two at a time.
In her hand was his matchbook.