Madeline Carter - 01 - Mad Money (5 page)

“She can be, but she’s 17,” she shrugged, as
though the age alone spoke volumes. I refrained from reminding her
she was just a decade older. “I think you will have a good
influence on her,” she added.

I proceeded with caution. “I’m not sure I’ll
be in any position to have an influence.”

Tasya shrugged again, a
we’ll see
kind of gesture. “It’s a difficult time for her, I think. It’s not
so easy to be that age under any circumstances, but she has also
had many changes over the last little while,” she indicated herself
as part of the change.

“How long have you and Tyler been
married?”

“Just since Christmas. Tyler and I met in
Ibiza. I was in his last movie.” This would, I know, be
Dream a
Dream
, a remake of a Roberto Rossolini film that was yet to be
released. The entertainment press was rabid about it, though. At
times crucifying Tyler for being pretentious enough to try and
remake a European classic, at others shouting that it was going to
be brilliant and that in Tasya he’d discovered his Ingrid
Bergman.

“Ibiza. I’ve never been,” I smiled, “but it
sounds like it’s the place to fall in love.”

“It is, though I think it wouldn’t have
mattered where we were. We wrapped just ahead of Christmas and
Tyler proposed. We were married in Barcelona in a small and
beautiful ceremony,” her eyes had taken on a faraway look,
remembering.

“Jennifer flew out there for the wedding,” I
ventured.

Tasya smiled, “No, we surprised her when we
came back to Los Angeles.” Her smile faltered. “She was very
surprised.”

I could imagine. And I could also now
understand the way Jennifer’s jaw tightened up slightly at the
mention of Tasya’s name. Poor kid. Not the thing to surprise a
teenager with.

When Tasya excused herself to resume her
hostessing duties, I moved to the edge of the deck, putting my
elbows on the railing and straining to see the ocean through the
dark. I couldn’t. But, faintly, I could hear it, even above the
party noises and music. The night was clear and pleasantly cool,
the scent of eucalyptus and salt drifting through the air.

I thought about what Tasya had said; about
my having a possible influence on Jennifer. It alarmed me a bit;
made me feel responsible in a way I hadn’t signed on for. Tyler had
admitted he’d hoped his new tenant would provide a deterrent for
possible shenanigans in the house in his absence. Perhaps Tasya had
indicated a deeper hope. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

As though thinking about her had conjured
her up, Jennifer was suddenly at my elbow, a solid-looking dark
haired woman about my own age in tow. “Excellent! You came,”
Jennifer said to me before beginning introductions. “Madeline, this
is Emily.” The woman had a good humored smile and I liked her
instantly. We exchanged greetings and Jennifer went on.

“This is a secret,” Jennifer looked pleased
to not be keeping it, “Emily is
completely
not supposed to
be here. She’s not invited,” her voice dropped to a whisper. “She
crashed.
”

“OK. Well,” I wasn’t sure how to respond.
“That’s nice, I guess. Good to meet you, Emily.”

“Madeline,” Jennifer explained to Emily,
“rents our guest house,” she pointed under the deck. “She’s a day
trader and stock market
expert.
And my dad is hoping I’ll
grow up to be her.”

“Yikes, Jennifer. I wouldn’t have put it
that
way,” I demurred.

“Hmmm. Wait until you get to know him
better,” she said it with a smile, but I heard the bite.

“Stock market expert, huh?” Emily asked.
“Sounds like a good thing to know about. I’m in this business,
myself,” she spread her hands to encompass the show business types
ranged around the deck.

“Why’d you have to crash, then?” Jennifer
had asked it, but I wanted to know myself.

“Not the same league at all,” she said
candidly. “Present company — myself excluded, of course — are on
the A list. The movies I work on are somewhere below the B list.
Lately I’ve been thinking that, if you want to change lists, it
would be a good idea to hang with people from the list you aspire
to be on.” She snagged a scallop wrapped in bacon from a tray as it
went past. “The food’s better up here, too. We do a party at my
level, you’re lucky to get pizza.”

This was something I hadn’t thought about
before: the possibility of a Hollywood echelon into the 21st
century. I either liked a movie or I didn’t: and, for me, the two
things were seldom related to budget. But it made sense. In my
world, there were firms that dealt with big money clients and there
were smaller, lower profile firms that didn’t. Having always worked
with the former, I’d never spent much time thinking about the
latter.

Emily told us she was currently a first A.D.
— I had to stop her so she could explain to me that meant first
assistant director — but that she aspired to being “the big D,
myself.” She hoped, one day, to direct. Though the way things
worked, if she managed to get involved with the production of an
important film — say the kind that Tyler Beckett directed — she’d
slide back down the side of the well a bit. “But to be a second —
hell, even a
second
second — A.D. on one of your dad’s
movies would be a big enough deal for my career to make it worth
the drop.” The drop, would in effect, be a rise. It all sounded
pretty complicated to me, but Jennifer looked fascinated, as though
this were an aspect of her father’s life she’d never thought of
before.

“I’m... I’m going to be an actress,” she
confided to us. Then with a glance at me, “that’s why I’m moving to
New York next year. I’m going to study acting.”

“Why New York?” Emily asked. “There are a
lot of great coaches right here in L.A.”

I saw Jennifer’s eyes skim to the other side
of the deck where her father was happily flipping burgers and other
edible meat products. When she spoke, her voice had dropped to a
lower level. “Dad hates the idea of my being in the business. And,
anyway, I don’t want to just be Tyler Beckett’s daughter. And I
don’t think I would be anything but that in LA.”

“That’s why the crack,” I said. Jennifer
looked mystified, so I added, “you know, the other day when you
said your dad was hoping you’d grow up to me.”

Jennifer reddened slightly, but said “I
guess. He’s got the idea that I want to be an actor because of him:
because that’s all he’s exposed me to and he suddenly wants to
round me out or something.”

“So I’m part of some campaign to add
diversity to your life?”

Jennifer looked even more embarrassed.
“Something like that I guess. Are you mad?”

I laughed. “Far from it. It got me an
excellent apartment at a price I could afford and invitations to
parties that are apparently difficult to get into,” I looked
meaningfully at Emily.

Emily and I both saw Jennifer’s attention
diverted and followed her glance and smile to a young man who was
headed towards us. He was tall, lanky and looked to me to be at
least five years too old for Jennifer. He looked, I thought
uncharitably, more like he should be dating Tasya than Tyler’s
teenage daughter. Not that Tasya would have deigned to let him wash
her car.

“Hey,” he greeted Jennifer, not kissing her
but putting his hand possessively in the small of her back.

“Corby, this is Jennifer and Emily.”

He nodded to us in turn. “Hey,” he said by
way of greeting, running one hand through spiky red hair.

“Corby is a surfing instructor,” Jennifer
informed us. I bit back a laugh just in time when I realized she
was serious. Was there really such a thing? I looked him over and
realized that, if there was, it would look like this.

“We outta here?” he asked Jennifer. I was
relieved to discover he could say more than “Hey.”

“’K,” she said to him. “I’ll meet you in the
van, all right?”

“Ai’t,” he contracted the words “all right”
so far down they were almost unrecognizable, then took his
leave.

“Does he always talk that much?” I asked
Jennifer once he was out of earshot.

I was pleased when she laughed. “Hey! He’s
very sweet, OK? Though maybe not the world’s greatest
conversationalist,” she admitted with a smile. “Well, obviously, I
gotta go.”

“Obviously,” said Emily. “Your chariot
awaits, madam. But listen, this has been altogether too much fun.
You guys want to catch a movie or something next week?”

Jennifer looked delighted to be included
and, in my present newly relocated condition, I needed all the
friends I could get. “Sounds great you guys,” Jennifer said. “You
two work out the details, OK? I can make it work any night next
week. Just let me know.” And she was gone.

Emily and I exchanged phone numbers and said
we’d call each other early in the week. “But now Emily,” I said,
“you ought to go mingle. You’ve got some serious networking to do.
No sense wasting a perfectly good crash”

“Good point,” she laughed, though she
insisted on dragging me deep into the party as cover on her early
networking forays.

From my perspective, the party was a
crashing bore. I was in the center of what might have been a
headline story on
Entertainment Tonight —
if they could have
gotten access — and, after a while, all I could do was stifle
yawns. I’d always assumed that the clichés were just that: the
bubbleheaded starlet, the hungry agent, the ambitious young actor.
And while, as with most clichés, there are probably exceptions, I
didn’t see any on that night.

Emily didn’t seem to care about any of that.
She worked the room, even though it was a deck and not a room, at
all. She seemed adept — a creature in her own element — walking the
walk and talking incessantly. It was obvious that, if networking
was the way to go, Emily would achieve her goals before much time
had passed.

After a while I knew that if one more person
flashed me a supernaturally whitened smile, I’d theatrically clutch
at my head and scream, “My eyes, oh God, my eyes! I’m blind!”
Knowing that was too great a risk, I took myself out of the
networking loop and stood again by the railing, enjoying the party
more from a distance than I had at its center.

“I agree with you,” the voice was slightly
accented and it surprised me, coming as it did from the
shadows.

“Excuse me?”

The man that came and stood beside me was
the other side of 50, but was nonetheless
fine.
Up here at a
barbecue in ever-casual Malibu, he wore well-pressed chinos and a
golf shirt the way other men wear a tux: like they mean it. He
looked as though he’d given up lunch appointments for tennis dates
a decade ago and like someone who can clearly afford Cartier but
has opted for Tag-Hauer.

“It becomes intense after a while, I find.
These parties. These,” he seemed to search for the right word,
“these... competitions. In your business, it is all about
competition: who gets the best scripts, who has the best agent, the
best manager, hairstylist, it goes on and on and on. No offense is
meant, but it can be a bit overwhelming, don’t you think?”

My business: I struggled for understanding
then realized he’d assumed I was one of Tyler’s Hollywood
connections. “I’m not in the business,” I told him. “I rent Tyler’s
guest house. I’m his tenant.”

He looked slightly relieved. “I am not alone
then. It is good to meet you. My name is Alejandro Montoya, but
please call me Alex, almost everyone does.”

I introduced myself and asked what he’d
meant about not being alone. He told me he was a clinical
psychologist. No longer in private practice, he did research work
and taught some grad classes at UCLA. Tyler had met him when he’d
brought Alex in to consult on
Generation Gone
, a movie about
a midlevel executive who loses it and ends up wreaking havoc on his
company and his family. At the end of the movie, this anti-hero
offs himself. That had been the best moment in the film: I’d
loathed the movie. Having worked in a big brokerage, I’d seen more
than my share of corporate crazies. Fully half of the guys I’d
worked with had been, at various times, certifiable.
Generation
Gone
had just seemed like yesterday’s news. The world hadn’t
agreed: the film had done well and had been nominated for a couple
of Golden Globes, though no Oscars.

None of this was attributable to Alex, who’d
merely acted as a consultant. But he and Tyler had formed a
connection and now included each other on their guest lists.
“Though, to be honest, he’s had few invitations from me since my
wife and I split up. I don’t entertain much by myself. Too much
trouble.”

I realized that he’d included the tidbit
about his marital status for my benefit and, truly, I didn’t mind.
It had been a while since I’d put myself in a position where a man
might recognize me as potential mating material, it was a nice
feeling to be looked at that way again.

Alex secured drinks for us and steered me to
a table near the corner of the deck that I hadn’t noticed before.
The torchlight didn’t quite touch it, though candles illuminated
the immediate vicinity and, with a vine-covered cliff wall behind
us and the other guests fanned out over the outer regions of the
deck, it was a quiet place to chat.

We talked initially, the way single adults
most often do, about our work. That meant that, truly, my end of
that bargain was fairly brief. I was transitional. For the moment I
didn’t know what I wanted to do when I grew up. Anyway, I was more
interested in what Alex did. His area of specialization — and the
reason Tyler had brought him in for
Generation Gone
— was in
something Alex referred to as “corporate psychopaths.” The term
alone was intriguing.

“Do you really think there are a lot of
them?”

“My research in that area remains
inconclusive. I just haven’t been able to test a large enough field
of subjects.”