Hidden Bodies (15 page)

“Is that how he really sounds?”

She slaps my leg. “You’ll see.”

Love doesn’t believe in bad people or good people; she believes in people. Her September 11th goes like this: Love was in her first year of law school at NYU. “And in all honesty, I
hated
it,” she says. “I wasn’t getting along with anyone, you know? I was in my room watching
Legally Blonde
, wanting it to be more like that, and I mean the bad
part, when Elle Woods doesn’t even have any friends. I was miserable.”

“Weren’t you a little young?” I ask. Love is five years older than I am, many years older than Beck and Amy. But she is not
that
old. “Well,” she says.
“Remember, I was schooled independently and my dad, well . . .” Her voice trails off and I suspect a lot of her stories have holes filled by money. “So I was up all night at this
divey bar whining to my friends about how I wanted a sign.”

“A sign?” I ask.

“You know,” she says. “A sign that it was okay to leave law school.” She honks at someone who tries to pass her. “And then we’re still fucked up, just walking
it off, and it begins. The Towers, the hell, and the world goes insane, and my friends are like, holy shit. There’s your sign.”

“Wow,” I say. I will not judge her. Instead I think about her nipples.

“Please be horrified,” she says, mind reader. “I realize how
assholey
that all sounds, to say it was my sign. It sounds stupid and selfish and solipsistic to say that
September Eleventh was my get-out-of-law-school-free card.”

“That’s harsh.” Beck had to look up
solipsistic
in the dictionary. Amy did not own a dictionary.

“But when you’re young, you need all that validation and you read your horoscope and you say things like, ‘If the guy at the bar gives me two cherries and not one it means
I’m supposed to leave this bar and go somewhere else.’”

“I get it.”

Love wants to know where I was on September 11 and we are stuck in the shitty part of Sunset where it’s all strip malls. I tell the truth: I got in trouble at work. Mr. Mooney locked me in
a cage in the basement. I missed it. By the time I got out, the smoke was clear.

“Wow.” She drums on the steering wheel. She says she loves eccentric people. She loves old people. She loves a good story. She says we have really good September 11th stories and
that we could make a good movie out of them. She likes the idea of a
New Yorker who missed New York.
She asks how old I was.

“Sixteen,” I say. Too quickly.

She laughs. I want to eat her candy pussy. “Joe,” she says. “One thing about me, I don’t give a
shit
about age. I am not one of those girls. You can be younger
than me all you want.”

Her mother calls and Love talks to her about tennis balls and
Net Jets.
I can tell that Love likes me by the melody of her voice, by the way she tells her mother she’s
bringing someone.

When Love finishes up with her mother, she zips into the valet at Hollywood & Highland. “Will you think I’m a horrible princess if I say I can’t deal with this traffic and
I’m dying for a drink and I would rather just get you a jacket somewhere here?”

I don’t think Love is a horrible princess and I don’t let her pay for my clothes at Lucky or the Gap.

“Almost ready?” Love asks.

“Almost,” I say.

When I emerge from the dressing room, Love is wearing new clothes too, a tiny little white dress with slits on both sides. “Wow,” she says. “I can’t believe that
jacket’s from
the Gap.
”

I can’t believe she’s wearing a nightie to dinner, but I rip off the tag like she asks. My mom always said,
the rich are different.

I
live here now, at this particular table, on this particular night, at Chateau with these particular people, my people, the Quinns. I am born again a
Quinn, unofficial son-in-law of Dottie and Ray—the Dottie and Ray who send me their love at the Pantry!—and they know how to hug, how to talk. They are round, happy people and we talk
current events and they don’t understand the
hoopla
about Henderson. “I’m old school,” Love’s father declares. “Give me Johnny Carson or Jay Leno at his
desk. Hell, I’ll take Jimmy Fallon because the kid dresses well but don’t give me this punk on his
couch.
”

“Dad, don’t be so harsh,” Love admonishes.

“No,” I say. “I see where he’s coming from. I think Henderson was poisoning us all. There’s honor in asking people questions. There’s honesty in it.
Curiosity. It’s intellectual. Earlier generations, they were more comfortable as listeners and Henderson promoted an idea that we could all be the center of attention all the time. But if
everyone is onstage, who’s in the audience?”

Everyone stares at me, and this has happened a couple of times tonight, when I questioned the value of organic vegetables and expressed my opinion on
kale.
But I own them and I win
again when Ray claps. “You are a breath of fresh air, Joe.”

Dottie beams. “So smart.”

Love rubs my thigh. And she is right; Ray and Dottie do seem in love and they love me. Ray wants to know if I like boats and Cabo because he’s got a new
Donzi
he’s dying to
get in the water and a
place
in Cabo. “
La Groceria
,” he says, enthralled with his terrible accent. “The neighbors, they thought we were nuts, but I like a good
name. Why shouldn’t I call it
La Groceria
? Everything sounds better in Spanish.”

I Google Donzi. It costs around $500,000
.

Ray and Dottie insist I eat and drink whatever I want. “Your first time at Chateau is a special thing,” according to Ray. “Lives are made here, Joe. This is the
mother
ship.
This is our family tradition and when you’re with us, you’re family. You understand?”

Love laughs him off but he is right. Chateau Marmont is a country that doesn’t allow extradition, a safe zone, a haven, and everybody
cares
about me
.
Is my chair soft
enough? Is my drink to my liking? Is it too hot? Too cold? Do I need a heat lamp? Do I eat shellfish? I have never been so nurtured and Love whispers—
my parents, not so bad,
right?
—and I have a new respect for aspirations because this is a great way of life.

Forty breezes in and hugs me like we’re best friends. Ray huffs. “You see
all
those girls today for your audition but somehow your sister is the one who comes away with a
new fella.”

Forty brushes it off. “She’s got the love, Pops.”

“Your father and I just want to see you happy,” Dottie adds.

“I know, Mom,” Forty says. “And I assure you, when I finish casting and finalize the rewrites and get my agent the bio he needs for that pilot shooting in Sedona and get him
the rewrites he needs for that
other
pilot shooting in Culver, I assure you, dearest parents, I will meet a very nice girl and get married and pop out two perfect children. Maybe even
twins.”

Love laughs. “You’re horrible.”

But Forty’s not done. “Because it’s very easy to meet available beautiful babes while I’m heading up five projects at once.” He knocks back a shot of tequila.
“But tonight, to Mom and Dad, on Dad’s half birthday.”

In my navy blazer over a plain T-shirt, I pass as one of these people at Chateau. Ray tells stories about the good old days, running around the first Pantry, working doubles for
pennies—his parents gave him nothing, that was a different time—and Dottie says the past is the past. She says you can’t pretend you have nothing when you have so much. She
squeezes my arm. “See, his father was the
owner
and my dad was the
butcher
so it’s only because of me that he knows what it was to be poor.”

“I understand,” I say.

“Of course you do,” she says. “You’re from
New York.
”

Love keeps her hand on my inner thigh. This is a
family
and Ray and Dottie like me because I
work for a living.
I could live like this but
Westward Ho!
is, by
definition, about expansion and our party is larger all the time. Friends come by this half-birthday party and Love has to go
be nice.
Forty slaps an arm on my back.

“You don’t work in the business, right?” he asks.

“No,” I confirm. “I get a kick out of it though.”

“Your notes were of value,” he says. He tears into three packets of artificial sweetener. “Which is precisely what this business
needs
.”

He wants a high five and I’m there and he’s talking about
Almost Famous
and he vents. “People here don’t like to
think.
They’re afraid of it, like
if they do it there’s no turning back. But you’re a
thinker.
You’re like that statue. I can tell. I see that.”

“Thanks,” I say.

Ray leans in. “He’s a
professor.
”

Forty nods. And this is a nickname I can handle,
The Professor
, and Love returns, dangles her arms over me, and whispers in my ear,
Professor.

“No,” I say. “It’s
The
Professor.”

Ray claps and here comes our unofficial guest of honor, producer Barry Stein. Everyone rises for
Barry Stein
, and then Bradley Fucking Cooper—Chateau!—is hugging him,
inviting him to sit. And now, Barry is coming for us. He’s so West Coast that he could have been in
Ocean’s Eleven.
He wants us to
sit.
He doesn’t smile.
He’s too cool to smile. Dottie is
devastated
that he’s come on his own.

“The wife and nanny are in the dumps over Henny,” he says, and that’s a new one,
Henny
. He switches gears, not unlike Delilah, and slings an arm around Love.
“But Dottie, if it pains you to see me all alone, I’ll gladly take this one right here.”

Fucking pig but Love’s father laughs and Love excuses herself for the ladies’ room with a kiss on my cheek. Stein sighs. “All the good ones are taken.”

Dottie smiles. “This is Lovey’s new friend
Joe.
He’s brilliant.”

Ray endorses me too. “This kid’s got the goods, Barry.”

Barry says it’s nice to meet me and I don’t like him and I don’t like the rich, blond motherfucker approaching this table. His hat says
VINEYARD VINES
and his T-shirt says
FOUR SEAS ICE CREAM
and when I wanted to come here in a T-shirt and jeans, we had to go shopping. Love returns from the restroom and hugs this man.
“Milo, it’s so good to see you.”

The waitresses makes room for him and Dottie
kisses
him and invites him to dinner and Forty elbows me. “Don’t waste your time turning green,” he says. “Milo is
just our brother from another mother.”

I tell Forty I’m fine and then I’m on my feet, extending my hand. Milo opens up for a hug. “Fuck that,” he says. “Bring it in.”

Milo’s eyes are too big, his smile pandering. He’s overly gracious with the waitresses, too complimentary of the cake that Dottie got for Ray. He’s a fucking liar to the bone.
He’s a
television producer.
“By trade,” he says. “But my heart is in the theater.”

I want to know if his dick has been in Love and she says that he’s way too self-deprecating. All people have a blind spot. Love’s is Milo. She doesn’t understand that he
deliberately undersells himself so that she will gush over him. “Milo is amazing,” she raves. “Unlike me, he
stayed
in law school.” He looks down bashfully and
immediately I know that they were fucking on September 11th. Love goes on. “And Milo isn’t just a producer, he’s
the
producer. He’s the reason
New Blood,
Connecticut
won all those awards. He just
knows
so much.”

Milo smiles. “The lady doth exaggerate. Please, be a friend, tell me about
you.
”

But Love cuts me off. “Joe,” she says. “Milo is also a fantastic writer. He’s just back from Martha’s Vineyard where his movie played at the festival,
right?”

“Actually it was Nantucket,” he says. “And I think Uncle Barry might have had a hand in that. And it’s just a short.”

I look at Barry Stein, who just shakes his head. “All I did was watch the movie, officer. I swear.”

We all laugh as if this is funny and it isn’t and Milo tells everyone about his short fucking film and Love pays attention to him, not me. I am not involved in this conversation and I slip
away to find out a little bit more about this fucker. I go online and learn that Milo is Barry Stein’s godson, not his nephew. I learn that he and Ben Stiller posed for photos together less
than twenty-four hours ago. I learn that his short is a
based-on-fact retelling of the most searing event of Milo Benson’s childhood, when his older brother shocked Darien, Connecticut,
by murdering Milo’s father, hedge fund owner Charles Benson, in cold blood.

Fucking Republicans. They kill each other over money and then the liberal boy left over takes all the cash and makes a career out of repurposing this
one
event from his childhood, first
into a book of
drawings
and then into a
Vanity Fair
essay and then into his TV show.

I head back to the table, where Milo and Forty fight for the attention and approval of Barry Stein, who says Milo’s ideas
have tremendous potential
but pats Forty on the back and
tells him that his ideas
need work.
These are two very different statements, which is idiotic because at the end of the day, either you have something or you don’t. Milo orders an
açai bowl
and Forty orders a Patrón double. I nudge Forty and tell him that last idea sounded good.

Forty nods and Ray raises his glass. “To family, to food, to fun, to the fast and furious.”

Ray and Dottie are proof that money
can
buy happiness and Forty groans—
Dad, enough with those movies
—and Love laughs. “Joe,” she says. “Something
you have to know about my dad, he is obsessed with
Fast and Furious
movies.”