An Accidental Affair (27 page)

I said, “You need a bath.”

“And you need a medic.”

She put her hand on mine and I interdigitated our fingers, clasped our hands together. She leaned toward me and I leaned toward her. She put her forehead against mine, closed her eyes, and gently pushed her head into mine, did that as she tried to find some physical way of reconnecting with me, any small way, and she emphasized each word.

“I’m so sorry, James. I am so sorry. The pressure was too much for me. I broke.”

We stayed that way a while.

She said, “Seems like nobody cares what happens to me. I’m bad luck overnight.”

“I care.”

“I’m talking about everybody else in the world.”

“In this world, your problems and my problems, they are nothing.
Your world is falling apart. Mine is falling apart. We think the world is falling apart. That’s not the truth. Since this happened, we haven’t passed by anyone who cares about what troubles us because they are too caught up in what is troubling them. I’m in a village of people with bigger problems.”

“Everyone is abandoning me.”

“They don’t want to be bothered with you because every relationship is reciprocal. When you touch something, it touches you. Nobody wants bad luck or career-ending publicity.”

A moment passed. Her phone rang over and over and over. Calls from friends and management and
UNKNOWN
were all rejected before the first ring had completed.

She said, “You’re not wearing your wedding ring.”

“Johnny Handsome fucked you and it fell off my hand. When a butterfly flaps its wings.”

She rubbed her temples and asked, “With whom are you staying here?”

“Your eloquence is returning.”

“With whom?

A twinge of anger returned. “It doesn’t matter.”

Her voice fractured, “A woman? You’re here laid up with some woman?”

“If I do have a mistress, it started after this happened, after I saw that tape, after I saw Johnny Handsome’s cock inside you like he was your husband and it was your wedding night.”

She moved her head from mine and sat back, eyes closed, tears falling.

She took her hand away from mine. We had disconnected.

The car smelled of her body and my cleanliness, but it also smelled of severe depression and anger as well. Her depression had a stench more powerful than my anger.

She said, “Thanks for being honest.”

“Wish that I could say the same to you. You should’ve called me first.”

“Would you have understood?”

“No. But at least I could have been prepared.”

“Do you understand now?”

“No. But once I see your old flame Bobby Holland, he thinks that I will.”

“Don’t go.”

“I’m trapped between a guy you fucked and one who wants to fuck you over.”

“You don’t have to go. I’ll let my lawyers do what they can do.”

“Which, in this case, is nothing. They can do nothing. You know that there is no choice.”

She wiped her eyes.

I asked, “Have you been sleeping with Bobby Holland since you left him?”

“No.”

“Kiss? Any type of intimacy? Digital? Oral? Anything?”

“Nothing.”

“How did he get all of my phone numbers?”

“No idea.”

“He has numbers that only a few people have.”

“Like me, your agent, your manager, and Hazel Tamana Bijou.”

“And none of them would give him my numbers.”

She nodded and I left it at that.

I asked, “Johnny Handsome?”

“I don’t know what to call what happened.”

“What does Johnny Boy call it?”

“An accidental fuck.”

“An accidental fuck.”

“When I went off on Johnny Handsome, after the shoot was done, I was in his trailer. I was livid. He was on cocaine and E. He didn’t
know where he was or whom he was with. He claims that he doesn’t remember. He had no guilt because he claims that he couldn’t remember.”

“An accidental fuck.”

“He called it an accidental fuck. Not me. When it as over, I felt as if I were raped. I felt like I was a whore on stage in Amsterdam, drugged and raped while everyone applauded. It was rape, James. I didn’t want that. That’s the way I feel, to be honest. I feel as if I were raped.”

“Looked like buyer’s remorse on film.”

“No, rape.”

“Cocaine fucked you first. Johnny Handsome was second on that train.”

“Fuck you, James. Fuck you. Get out of my car. Get out of my goddamn car.”

I didn’t say anything. Part of me wanted to apologize, but that part lost the battle.

She quieted and wiped her eyes again. “One helluva drug. Cocaine is nobody’s friend.”

“I wouldn’t know. But I guess it is a helluva drug. And for you, an old friend.”

“It was seconds. Less than a minute.”

“To me it was a lifetime.”

“Why is sex so powerful? Even when it means nothing, it’s powerful when it shouldn’t have happened, when it was fucking accidental fucking, that felt like rape.”

She reached for my hand. I moved my hand away and shook my head.

She said, “I disgust you now.”

I didn’t answer.

My cellular rang. I looked at the caller ID. It was Driver. His broad back was to us, giving us privacy, watching out for us from that
direction. Sweet Isabel passed by in her car, but she never looked our way. She passed by Driver just as I answered, then turned and vanished.

I said, “Driver.”

“Thicke, sorry to interrupt, but it’s urgent.”

“No problem.”

“I just talked to somebody who said that they were Steve Martin.”

“And during my darkest hour, what does Steve Martin want?”

When I said that, I looked at Regina, looked for some sign that said she knew about Steve Martin, some recognition. Nothing was there. She rubbed her forehead and let me talk.

“This cat sounds shaky, but that’s just nerves. It sounds legit. Not like some cloud-cuckoo-land crap. Steve Martin wants to meet. And I think that you should.”

I told Driver, “He can wait. I have a more important meeting scheduled.”

“You need to talk to Steve Martin first. I’ll text you the number so you can come to your own conclusion, although I think that you need to stop everything, return that call right now.”

“Why right now?”

“Steve Martin said you have one hour to return the call and meet, so call now.”

Driver didn’t say why, but I trusted his judgment. Right now I was too numb to make a decision on my own. I had no instinct. All of the choices I’d made so far had been bad or wrong.

I dialed the number that Driver had sent and asked, “Who is this?”

“Hello, Mister Thicke.”

“Steve Martin. What can I do for you?”

“I’m trying to do something for you.”

“Okay. What can you do for me?”

“The night that the thing happened to Miss Baptiste, I was the fly on the wall.”

“There were a lot of flies on the wall that night.”

“Not like me. You’re talking about on the set. I’m talking about before.”

That paused me. Confused me. “What good does that do me?”

“I can show you what happened and you can see for yourself.”

“It’s of no value.”

“You’re with Miss Baptiste right now, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“Is she doing okay?”

I ignored the question. “The other thing; it was already sent to my cell phone.”

“Not this. The recording that I have was taken before that happened.”

“What am I missing?”

“I’m in Venice. Abbot Kinney and California Avenue.”

“Just e-mail the information to this phone and I’ll get back to you.”

“No. This stays on my phone and my phone only. This will never be mailed out. Look, I’m tired. If you come now, if you get here within forty minutes, I’ll wait and can show it to you.”

“How much will it cost me?”

“Forty minutes.”

Steve Martin hung up.

I ended the call and told Regina Baptiste, “You smell.”

“I need a hot shower. I’ve been sleeping in the car the last two days.”

“Go upstairs to my luxurious apartment and get cleaned up.”

“There are so many people here. Someone will see me.”

“There are no paparazzi here. And right now, with your hair unkempt, with your face swollen, and those bloodshot eyes, you’re not recognizable. You could stand next to one of your movie posters or billboards and no one would think that you were Regina Baptiste.”

“Geesh, thanks. I look that bad, huh?”

“Put your scarf over your head. Put your shades on. You look
famous or interesting because you’re in a Bentley. Once you get ten yards away, no one will notice you, but they will still notice the car. No one will expect to see you here. Even if they recognize you, they’ll say it can’t be you, not here. You can’t go anywhere else, not in this area, not in this car, and not be noticed. This isn’t Sunset or Rodeo or Malibu. I’ll have Driver get you inside my apartment.”

“You have an apartment here?”

“Yes.”

“Since when?”

“Since you fucked Johnny Bergs.”

“When I go up to this…your apartment, then what?”

“I’m going to take my checkbook and meet with Bobby Holland.”

“Let Driver take you. I don’t want you to go alone. Don’t trust Bobby Holland.”

“This isn’t Driver’s concern. Sometimes a man has to handle his own business.”

She repeated, “Sometimes a man has to handle his own business.”

“Or the business of his family.”

She pulled her lips in, then smiled a little. “Okay. But do you have to do it alone?”

“Yup. Ask Johnny Handsome. I’ll have to meet with him again too.”

“This isn’t the wild, wild West.”

“I beg to differ.”

“You’re not a cowboy.”

“But I’m feeling like John Wayne.”

“John Wayne is dead.”

“Then I’m feeling like Bruce Willis.”

A moment passed. She asked, “Can I touch your hand again?”

“No. I don’t want to feel your touch right now.”

She shivered and asked, “Are you filing for a divorce?”

“Yes.”

Her tears came back, fast and swift. She nodded and asked, “When?”

“As soon as I find a synonym for Thesaurus.”

I gave her my hand. She pulled it to her face and kissed it a half dozen times.

I told Regina to drive toward Driver, and stay close to the building, close enough so no one could look down without taking the dirty screens off of their windows.

Driver came to the car. We traded. He gave me the baseball bat and I moved into the captain’s seat and put Regina Baptiste in his care.

Driver said, “I’ll call somebody to come help her with whatever she needs.”

“Are they trustworthy?”

“I trust them with my life, and that umbrella covers you and Miss Baptiste. No additional confidentiality clause needed.”

“Okay.”

“And I wouldn’t be comfortable taking care of her in the way that she needs to be taken care of at this juncture in her life. A woman should look after a woman.”

“Agreed and understood.”

I eased back out of the car and went to Regina. I hugged my wife.

She said, “What everybody is doing is wrong, especially Bobby Holland.”

“The business isn’t about right or wrong. It’s about what sells and what doesn’t sell. We’re in sales. Not the business of morals. Unless morals sell, then we sell morals.”

I released her to Driver and climbed back inside her second favorite car.

Her first favorite car was still the Ford EXP that she had driven from Montana.

It was time to attempt to unravel mistakes that were impossible to unravel.

That car was long gone, in her past. Like I hoped that all of this would be one day.

I thought about Mr. Holder and Vera-Anne. He wanted redemption.

I imagined that he was reunited with his daughter, laughing and smiling, while Vera-Anne was crying and packing, her children crying as well. Varg Veum had a simpler life.

It had become a painful existence, but it was pain of the normal, bearable kind.

But I let those thoughts go away. Bobby Holland owned my mind right now.

When I drove away, it seemed like every eye in the complex was on me. Music stopped bumping, televisions turned off, conversations ended, and people stood in their windows. I passed by Mrs. Patrice Evans and her husband. They were outside arguing. They saw me and stopped. Both stared at me like I was the grand marshal in the Thanksgiving Day parade.

Her husband’s eyes were on the car. Patrice’s eyes were on me, her mouth wide open.

I didn’t know Mrs. Patrice Evans. My name was James Thicke and we’d never met.

By the time I took to the 605, I was being followed. It was an older gray car. I didn’t know if it had anything to do with Steve Martin. If felt like a setup. I maintained the speed limit and let drivers zoom around me. The gray car stayed ten car lengths behind me. At least two people were inside. They followed me down the 105 to the 405 and into the streets of Marina del Rey.

A naked man ran down Abbot Kinney, streaked down the center of the two-lane strip that was filled with high-end shops and overpriced condos. He wore headphones and New Balance shoes, his pace an enviable six-minute mile. Nobody cared. As long as he didn’t slow traffic, no one would give a damn. It was Venice, the land of the grunge, home of the strange, where the well-to-do rubbed shoulders with vagrants, their wardrobes pretty much the same, a good place to start a sociological study, a better place to end it.

I found street parking and slowly got out of my car, but not unnoticed because the Bentley stood out like a black tuxedo at a ragged jeans party. People would look, but not many would look twice. This was the Maserati, Porsche, Lamborghini zone. There were Honda Civics, various Nissans, Ford, Chryslers, and Jeeps and cars that should be at Pick-A-Part too.

I was being followed. Just as they had followed Regina Baptiste to find me, they were still following me. Plain car, gray, four door, ten years old. I had bigger issues to deal with.

I fed the meter then stood next to my car with the baseball bat at my side.

There were no paparazzi. Not yet. But I had a half-block walk to get to my destination.