California

POSEUR

CHAPTER 3

MIKE POSNER KNEW THAT MOST OF THE PEOPLE IN THE CONFERence room despised him.

He was twenty-nine. Handsome in a nonchalant kind of way. Talented. The heir apparent. Hell, he was Prince William of the Los Angeles bureau of Personality magazine. Big things were planned for Mike Posner. In case anyone doubted it, Vince Reggio announced it to all one hundred editors, writers, reporters, copy editors, researchers, and proofreaders assembled in the Los Angeles offices for three days of corporate seminars designed to unleash excellence in reporting, writing, and researching.

“Mike Posner arrived less than a year ago. Already he has amassed more sources than most seasoned reporters do in a lifetime. His scoops have made him a regular on Access Hollywood, E.T., Extra, E. If he were any more dedicated, he’d be pitching a tent in front of Jennifer Garner’s house.”

There were a few guffaws, a gentle roll of laughter, and some nervous giggles—the corporate laugh track, your reaction indicative of your power, ambition, or fear. There were smiles aimed at Mike, who sat at the head table next to Bernice Banks, the New York–based editor in chief. Bernie beamed and patted his back. Mike gave a quick grin and sipped at his water. Gee, I’m just trying to do my job.

“During this conference, we’ve covered reporting techniques, research gathering, and the intricacies of the Personality paradigm,” Vince said as the staff nodded. Mike wondered if anyone knew what Vince was talking about. Bernie and Vince referred to the Personality paradigm constantly but had never defined it.

As if reading Mike’s mind, Lem Brac cleared his throat and asked, “Would you be so kind as to expand on that for me? I must admit I’ve become unsure of its meaning.”

The staff—even Mike—rolled their eyes and huffed. Bernie blinked slowly, sucked in a deep breath, and rubbed her temples.

“Vincent, would you mind enlightening Mr. Brac?”

Vince’s eyes bugged out and he gulped some air. There was silence for a few moments. Then he said, “Well, Bernie, I couldn’t do it justice. I’d rather you lobbed this ball.”

Vince held his breath as he waited for Bernie. She smiled at him and he exhaled.

She cleared her throat. “Well, as most of you know, our stories all have the same format. The opening is a scene setter at the celebrity’s home, which really gives an inside look into the celebrity. We want our readers to feel as though they’re friends with Brad and Tom and Julia and Gwynie. So when a reporter scores an interview with say, Julia Roberts, the reporter must demand to go to her home to observe her routine. Be a fly on the wall. A great scene setter would be something like Danny cooking filet mignon while Julia plays with the twins. And we always love having dogs yapping away nearby. We love celebs interacting with animals. It makes them so human. Then follow this up with a really descriptive quote from Julia about why she’s so happy with married life, et cetera. Domestic scenes like this make a good P.P. Then back that up with quotes from some thirds, which as we all know are friends, family, and coworkers. Third till you hurt and then third some more.”

As Bernie babbled on, Mike wondered if she believed what she was spewing. Julia and Danny would never even speak to a Personality reporter, unless accosted by one on a red carpet. And then they’d only recite wardrobe details.

Mike flinched when he heard Bernie say his name.

“And now back to business. Mike will discuss an equally important but often ignored piece of the reporting puzzle: source cultivating. For without gathering and nurturing sources, there would be no Personality magazine. Sources are the lifeblood of our publication. Here, the art of sourcing is more important than the art of writing. . . Mike?”

Mike headed to the podium and shook Bernie’s hand. He looked out at his audience. Many eagerly clutched pens, waiting for him to bestow wisdom. Lem Brac rolled his eyes. But what else was Lem going to do?

“When Vince asked me to speak on sourcing, I thought he was nuts. What do I know that you guys don’t? Nothing. Building sources is like making friends. You gotta get these people to like you, to trust you, to want to tell you things. It helps when you can take ’em for lunch at The Ivy or drinks at Sky Bar. . .”

As he spoke, Mike watched Lottie Love scribble away. Working at Personality seemed like a day at the beach for Lottie. Half the time Mike expected her to have a big colorful towel in one hand and an inflatable raft in the other. She’d show up at the office spilling out of spandex, her skirts a patch of fabric highlighting muscular thighs and calves. She always smelled of cocoa butter. Lottie Love was California; to Mike, she personified the palm trees and orange blossoms and sandy beaches. This speech was for her. His eyes darted around the room, always landing on her to check if she was listening. After a few minutes, he realized she wasn’t taking notes, just doodling. Her eyes were glazed, so he wrapped it up. Did he even stand a chance?

But even if he did, she’d eventually find out the truth about him.

 

AFTER HIS SPEECH, Mike was invited to lunch at The Ivy with Bernie and Vince. Mike sat in the leather backseat of Vince’s spotless Lexus while Vince and Bernie sat up front. They all picked up cell phones and feigned importance by checking voice mails, assigning assistants chores, and leaving messages for publicists. Mike held his phone up to his ear, but he was really deciphering vanity plates. Since he had moved to L.A. it had become an obsession. Almost every car seemed to have one. Even Vince’s read CR8TIF. Mike had to laugh at that one. Since his obsession began he had seen countless versions of “creative.” KR8UFF, CR8IV, KR8OV. CR8OF. He wanted to scream out his window, NO, YOU’RE NOT! Especially to Vince.

“The reason I wanted to spend time with you is because I like your style,” Bernie told Mike as they sat at a table in the back of The Ivy. “You’ve cultivated some great sources. Somehow you’ve gotten into Brad’s inner circle. And Tom Cruise. Brilliant! The anecdotes about him running around with his kids were priceless. You captured him as a regular dad.”

“Thanks.”

“Did Vince ever tell you what the catalyst was for his promotion?” Bernie asked Mike. She patted Vince’s shoulder. “He sat in dog shit for hours.”

“Well, I. . .”

“Don’t be modest, Vincenzo,” she said, leaning in toward Mike. “He reported on Julia Roberts’s wedding to Danny Moder. Of course we weren’t invited, but Vince spent hours squatting in dog shit in Julia’s neighbor’s backyard. He watched the ceremony through the fence and got every detail. They had no idea. He even saw their first kiss as man and wife.”

“God, the stench was awful. I had to throw away my pants.”

“But you were willing to do it. That’s what we need. People who are willing to lie in dog shit to get the goods.”

She lifted up her ice tea. “To dog shit.”

“Dog shit,” they said, clinking glasses.

Speaking of shit, Mike knew that poor Vince had canceled his Friday high colonic for this meal. Every day at lunchtime, Vince marched out of the office, his face puckered with importance as if he were headed out for a meeting with a major Hollywood player. However, Lem Brac had clued Mike in. “Monday is his facial. Tuesday is his massage. Wednesday is the electric beach. Thursday is a manicure. Every other Friday is his high colonic—notice his gait changes on Friday. I’ll tell you, the manicure is what I find the most offensive. I cannot tolerate a man with polished nails. It shows real lack of character.”

As Bernie droned on about something or other, Mike nodded his head and furrowed his brow. He hoped to convey his I’m-hanging-on-your-every-word look. He also hoped she wouldn’t ask a question.

“We need a circulation boost. It’s a jungle out there with People, Us, In Touch, Star, and The Enquirer competing with us for the same stories. We’re really taking a beating. Especially when you have these other rags paying huge amounts of money to sources. For us, it’s really about journalism. That’s the essence of what we do.”

Mike remembered the stories Lem told at their first lunch. Last year, Bernie was so desperate to nail an exclusive on the Sebastian Brooks–Stephanie Winters wedding that the magazine paid $100,000 to the couple’s favorite charity—PETA—so the bride’s mother would give an interview spilling the details on the nuptials.

Then, a few months after the wedding, Bernie wanted to run an article on the glamour couple’s home life. When they wouldn’t cooperate, she found a shot of the couple posing on the red carpet. She had the photo department digitally alter it to make it appear as if they were standing in front of their Beverly Hills home, welcoming in a Personality correspondent. Come on in! Let’s take a tour, they seemed to say. Reporters interviewed some hangers-on who had never even been in the couple’s home but claimed to be close sources.

But journalism is what it’s really about. . .

“We used to be the magazine everyone turned to for celebrity news,” Bernie said, her face turning red as her words tumbled out faster and faster. “Now, people are turning to the quick fixes of Us and In Touch, which are essentially photos and cutesy captions. And then there’s Access Hollywood, Inside Edition, and Entertainment Tonight. They can break celebrity gossip faster than we can. Even Nightline’s landing the big star interviews instead of us.” She shook her head and sipped some water. “That’s why it’s so important to get scoops.”

“Absolutely,” Mike offered.

“Not just any scoop. The scoop of the year. Even Diane and Katie can’t get to him. I heard Vanity Fair begged him by offering story and photo approval, but he declined. I’m sure you know who I’m talking about.” Bernie closed her eyes and clasped her hands as if in prayer. Mike noticed a piece of lettuce clinging to her front tooth. “Chris Mercer,” she whispered breathlessly.

“Chris Mercer,” Mike repeated, nodding his head. “Of course.”

Bernie rubbed her hands together excitedly. “No one knows a damned thing about him. Not the tabloids; not the television shows. No one. If we could clinch an exclusive interview with him, well. . .” Bernie clutched the base of her hen’s throat, breathed deeply, and shut her eyes. “Well, it would help us regain our place as the number one celebrity magazine. We would draw in a whole younger readership who loves Chris and wants to know more about him. He’s hotter than hot.”

“He’s hotter than hot,” Mike repeated.

“Absolutely! See, Vince, this guy is on the pulse of pop culture.”

You’re on the pulse of pop culture, Mike. You’ve cultivated some great sources, Mike.

It was much too easy to fool everybody. Ivy League graduates with their to-the-manor-born superiority but who were inferior in every other way. Hardworking, ink-stained, driven journalists who’d climbed their way up from fact checkers to editors. And all the colors in between. They all respected Mike. Hell, he lectured them and they took notes.

He was Mike Posner, the star celebrity journalist. A frequent guest on E!, Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight. Just the other night, he turned on the TV to see himself dissecting J.Lo and Marc Anthony. “My sources say they’re soul mates.” No one seemed to remember that a few months before he’d said the same thing about J.Lo and Ben. “My sources say that they are so in love. They are more alike than people realize.”

Mike barely recognized himself anymore.

 

A YEAR AGO, Michael Posner, the only child of an accountant and an elementary school teacher, had abandoned New York City and headed to Los Angeles. Suddenly it didn’t seem to matter that he had spent nearly half his life trying to get to the Big Apple. In a frenzied state, he packed up his apartment and drove across the country, hoping to achieve the dreams that eluded him in New York. A friend of a friend had a friend at Personality. . .

Mike had lived in Manhattan for less than a year when he decided to move. Before that, he’d paid his dues busting his ass at the Rochester Tribune. He had covered town board meetings where residents debated for hours the merits of a stop sign on Maple Lane, a crossing guard at the elementary school, a new fleet of police cars. His crime reporting consisted mostly of juvenile arrests for cow tipping and skinny-dipping with the occasional bank robbery or drug bust.

Every year since college graduation, he applied for a reporting job at the New York City papers. Every year, he’d get a rejection letter. Finally, after years of slogging through hicksville minutiae, Mike was hired by the Daily News.

The dream had always been alluring, but the reality was terrifying. He lived in a tiny studio apartment in an ungentrified part of the East Village. Mike would bolt upright in bed to the sounds of rats scuttling between the walls, a domestic dispute next door, or, worst of all, the phone’s icy shrill. That was enough to induce a myocardial infarction. It would be an editor sending him to Harlem or the Bronx on a murder story. After years of being the best in Rochester, Mike had begun to believe it. But in the City, he was below average.

Each time he got an assignment, Mike tried to remain calm, even though he was petrified. Reporting for a major city tabloid was fucking frightening business. But he struggled to keep his face blank and his eyes narrowed so James Davenworth, his editor, wouldn’t know how truly terrified he was. Mike knew Davenworth didn’t think the skinny, dirty-blond, wide-eyed boy from the sticks had what it took. It was as if those years in Rochester had been turned into some kind of newsroom inside joke. “I’d rather have a City College graduate with no experience than some hick who thinks he’s a hotshot,” Davenworth bellowed out one day when Mike turned in copy a few minutes past deadline.

Then a stray bullet in Harlem killed little Joey Green. It was one of many little-kid-killed-by-a-stray-bullet-in-Harlem stories. Mike had been working on a series of articles—“Death of the Innocents.” He had come up with the idea and hoped this would somehow elevate him in the eyes of Davenworth. “Hick,” Davenworth would mumble under his breath while watching Mike’s reaction when he’d tell him to head to Harlem for a murder investigation.

“Interview the parents,” Davenworth commanded as he wrung out his fat, sweaty palms. “You know, the usual stuff. The parents-wanted-more-for-their-kid kind of story. Their dashed hopes and dreams. Can you handle that?”

Mike was in no mood for Davenworth’s sarcasm that day, especially with the Posner Plan, his life map, slowly unraveling. His girlfriend, Liz, had dumped him a few minutes earlier, right outside the office. Actually, not just dumped him; she admitted there was someone else.

“What do you mean you think there’s someone else? That’s just you being paranoid. I haven’t been with anyone,” Mike said.

“I might have met someone else.”

“You might have? Was this during an out-of-body experience?”

“I mean, I’m not sure if I met someone significant or not. But just the fact that I’m considering that I might have means that something’s wrong with us.”

“Look, if you want to screw someone else, don’t try to make yourself feel better, or less guilty, by pretending we had all these horrible problems. I know the real reason.”

“I swear, Mike, it’s not that.”

“Yes it is. I know it is. It’s always been it. You don’t have to lie.”

“It’s not.”

And then, as if on cue, his cell phone went off. Davenworth.

 

MIKE TRIED TO block out Liz. He focused on little Joey Green. Mike hated—absolutely hated—talking to the next of kin. He recited the mantra of his journalism professor at Ithaca College: They like to talk about it. They need to talk about it. You are a conduit between them and the rest of the world. They want to share their pain.

But this day, everything changed. Mike knocked on the peeling gunmetal gray door of apartment 7A. It creaked open. “Mr. Green?”

“Yes,” a tall black man said, squinting his eyes at Mike.

“Hello, I’m Mike Posner, from the Daily Ne—”

“Not interested,” the man boomed as he moved his body away from the door to close it.

Mike breathed deeply and continued in a soft voice. “I’m really sorry to be bothering you. I. . . I just wanted to talk to you about your son, Joey. We’re writing an article on him and we’d like to get some insights from you. We want our readers to get to know him a little better.”

The father was just a sliver behind the door. Then he opened it wider, rubbed his gray-speckled beard with his hand, and chuckled uncomfortably. “Joey?”

“Would it be possible for me to come in for a few minutes and talk to you about him?”

Joey’s father narrowed his eyes and scratched the top of his shaved head. “Sure. Sure. You must be following his baseball career. You know, yesterday he pitched a no-hitter.”

Mike winced and Joey’s father caught it.

“You’re not here about baseball, are you?”

Mike opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

And suddenly Joey’s father’s eyes bulged from their sockets. He screamed, “Oh my God, what’s happened to Joey?”

Mike’s heart pummeled so fiercely against his ribs that he thought they’d shatter. This guy didn’t know.

“Honey, who’s there?” a woman asked cheerfully. “Is that Joey?”

They didn’t know. The cops hadn’t told them yet.

“Shit. . . the cops. . . haven’t. . .”

“Wait. What the hell’s this about?”

“Joey? Where’s Joey? OH MY GOD. JOEY! JOEY!”

Rivulets of sweat streaked down Mike’s face. He opened his mouth, but a sound like a belch came out. His Bic dropped out of his nearly arthritic fingers. Somewhere glass was breaking. He heard a loud thud. Someone had passed out. He couldn’t move.

“I’m sorry.”

“Waaiiit. What the hell is going on?”

Joey’s father lunged for Mike, but he was already out of reach. He bounded the stairs, three at a time. He couldn’t see behind the veil of sweat that covered his face and collected in puddles at his eyes. When he reached the bottom, he leaned against the building and struggled for air. He knew he should go back. If he were a real reporter, he’d ring 7A’s doorbell again. Hell, if he were a real reporter, he would have never run. Instead, his legs pushed forward, through the garbage-strewn streets. He bolted down Riverside Drive while the cross streets blurred past him. 125th. 115th. 90th. 75th. He stopped when he couldn’t breathe anymore. He bent down, hands on his knees, and struggled for oxygen. He opened a few buttons on his blue oxford shirt and waved in fresh air with a hand.

He stood there, realizing that a degree in journalism from Ithaca, several years at the Rochester Tribune, and six months in New York had been in vain. Mike Posner was not cut out for this. He had run. And the cardinal rule in journalism was you never run.

“No one was home,” he told Davenworth.

It was a stupid lie. Davenworth held up a story he had just pulled off the AP wire. A reporter had gotten there a few minutes after Mike to interview the family.

“The Daily News never runs away from a story. No matter what. Do you know how great the reaction to their son’s death would have been for the article? It’s called color, Mike. We live for moments like this. They’re the purest moments a journalist can experience. Or maybe they don’t teach you that in cow country.”

“I just. . . I’ll go back.”

“Forget it. Carmody’s already at the apartment, getting great stuff from the family and neighbors. Great stuff. She said the mother was so distraught she had to be rushed to the hospital. She may have had a heart attack.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Maybe you should reevaluate what you’re doing here. Maybe you should determine whether you’re cut out for this. This is what makes or breaks a career. Do you have the balls or not? Huh? Do you think Breslin or Hamill would have run?”

“But. . .”

“I think maybe I should have you write obits for a while until you toughen up, Mike. . . Poseur.”

Mike Poseur. They were finally on to him.

Mike watched as red-hot flames danced and leapt around the Posner Plan. They devoured it in a quick flash of light.

“I quit.”

It was the most impetuous thing he had ever done.

He had built a life around being too cautious. Even as a toddler, Mike would sneak up on dandelions as if they were land mines, his mother told him. “You never liked to be surprised,” she said. “You always had to know exactly where you were going and what you would encounter before you got there.”

Mike had disagreed with her assessment, but now he couldn’t remember a time in his life where he didn’t know precisely where he was heading. He went to nursery school to prepare for kindergarten to go to elementary school to head to high school to graduate from college to work at a local newspaper to write for the Daily News. And now, Mike was paralyzed. The dandelion was a Bouncing Betty.

Where to go?

As he made his way to the anonymity of the street, Mike suddenly thought about the things he had not done because he had been so consumed by the safety of the Posner Plan. He had never—even for the slightest moment—veered off course. He never bummed around Europe or followed the Dead or worked as a ski lift operator in Aspen. Actually, he never considered working anywhere outside of Manhattan because none of those places seemed to matter if you wanted to be the best. The rest of the United States is just fly-over country, right?

Then he remembered something. When he was a little kid growing up in the brutal cold of upstate New York, his mother would kneel alongside his bed, and they would say their prayers. For health, for everyone they loved to be happy, and for one day, California. His mother said that you walked out your door and pulled juicy oranges and lemons right from the trees in front of your Spanish-styled house. Palm trees stirred scents of citrus and jasmine through the air, she said. Everyone had pools.

“So let’s pray that one day Daddy gets a transfer there. Let’s pray for California.”

Mike squeezed his eyes shut and forgot about health and happiness and prayed for California. If they moved to California, everything would be better. “California,” he’d whisper, clenching his hands together. But instead of a transfer, his father eventually had a heart attack and died. Mike always believed it was his fault—he had prayed for California instead of his father’s health.

Soon Mike became too cynical to pray for anything. But now, as he stood out in front of the citadel he had striven to breach for most of his organized, goal-oriented life, his thoughts turned to this forgotten prayer. Perhaps it was time to veer off course and follow the scent of citrus and jasmine and the rustling of palm trees. The dreams of his youth, before he became practical.

He and Mr. Cat would pack it up and head out to Los Angeles. A friend of a friend who worked at Personality’s New York bureau told him the L.A. bureau was hiring. He could get a job there easily, the friend assured him.

So he crammed his life into luggage—his clothes, his computer, his portfolio of articles—the whole time keeping one ear cocked to the phone, hoping for a last-minute job offer or Liz’s change of heart. He called his cousin, Pete, who needed a place to live, and persuaded him to take over his yearlong lease. A few days later, he and Pete stuffed his beat-up Saab 900. Mike would have to drive with his head tilted.

There was no room for Mr. Cat.

And Mike knew that even if there were room for the frail, albino, old man of a cat with horribly matted fur, he probably couldn’t survive the journey. It wouldn’t be fair. Mike scanned his friendships to determine the appropriate place to leave Mr. Cat but came up empty. Mr. Cat was too frail, too nervous for his slacker friends who still thought they were in college. There was only one person who would be appropriate: Liz.

Just days ago, after they broke up, they had fought over Mr. Cat. Mike argued that the feline was technically HIS because it lived in HIS apartment. Liz said that maybe he had forgotten, but she had fed and brushed him and changed his litter box. Mr. Cat rubbed up against Liz’s legs, not his. Mr. Cat meowed for Liz, not him. She was right, Mike knew. He couldn’t even remember changing the litter box. But if she were leaving him for someone else, at least Mike would get the cat. He didn’t relent.

“I had Mr. Cat at my place. He’s mine. You can have supervised visitation,” he had choked out before she slammed the door.

He said good-bye to Pete, propped Mr. Cat on his lap, and drove to Liz’s redbrick apartment building on Bank Street. Mr. Cat purred quietly as Mike petted his warm, pear-shaped head. Mike felt his throat closing up on him and he breathed deeply. Don’t get emotional. It’s only a fucking cat. He had only wanted it because Liz had wanted it.

He carried Mr. Cat up the three flights to Liz’s apartment. He concentrated on his legs climbing the stairs, the smell of lamb cooking in someone’s apartment, a scratchy Muddy Waters record on a stereo. He knocked on her door, an idiot’s smile plastered on his face. A guy opened it. “Huh,” Mike said, his smile abandoning him as he leaned back to check the apartment number. “Did Liz move?”

“Ah, no.” The guy stuck out his hand. “I’m Kyle.”

 

“HI, MIKE,” LIZ said. Then her eyes filled with excitement. “Mr. Cat!” She picked him out of Mike’s arms and nuzzled him.

Mike felt as if all the oxygen had been punched out of him. “Mr. Cat is having difficulty adapting to my late-night bacchanalia. He’s asked for a more stable environment.”

She laughed, then studied him.

Mike sighed. “I’m moving to California and I don’t think Mr. Cat could handle the trip. I was wondering if you’d take him.”

“Mr. Cat? Of course, of course. California?”

“Yeah,” he said. His eyes locked with hers, waiting, but she stared back at him silently, her eyes welling with tears. And he flashed back to that night, a few months ago, when they heard an anorexic Mr. Cat crying in an alleyway. Even though the feline had black rings around its eyes, ratty fur, and fleas, the woman who had decided she didn’t love Mike picked Mr. Cat up and stroked his filthy fur.

The memory was enough, and Mike’s eyes rimmed with tears. He concentrated on palm trees, beaches, orange groves, Hollywood parties. He wished Liz had been cruel or evil, but she had only been honest. She was in love with someone else. A straggly-looking guy with a wispy goatee. Another stray. He didn’t look like much, but at least he didn’t have Mike’s problem. And who could blame her? Would he have stuck around?

Tears slipped out of his eyes and he shut them and pressed on his lids, trying to squeeze out the remaining drops. He wiped his face with the back of a hand.

“I’m sorry, Mike. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

“I’m just going to miss that stupid cat.” Mike swatted the air with his hands. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got a long drive ahead of me.” He petted Mr. Cat’s sunken cheeks. “You take care, Mr. Cat,” he whispered. “I’ll miss you.” He kissed the top of Mr. Cat’s head.

“I’ll take good care of him, Mike.”

“I know. I know. I’ll send you a postcard.”