True Hollywood Lies (29 page)

“Ha ha. I don’t think so.”

“Why? Are you enjoying Leo’s visits too much?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“For once, Hannah, I think you should let me take care of you. You never allow me to act on that primal male urge.”

Louis wanted to take care of
me?
It had been weeks since I’d ever thought I’d feel that was possible.

“Go to Dr. Manny. Do it for me. For us.”

For us.

“Okay, Louis. I’ll go, if it will make you feel better.”

“Trust me on this one. He’ll have you feeling like a new woman. And right now, I wouldn’t mind a new woman.”

I’ll just bet you wouldn’t.

* * *

During the three days that Louis was in London, I made a visit to Dr. Manolo Lipschitz, as promised.

While I gave him the rundown on myself in extreme detail as per his instructions, he listened intently, his hands clasped over his eyes and his chair angled away from me, toward the window behind him.

At least, I thought he was listening. Until I heard him snoring.

I had almost snuck out, too, when he woke abruptly. “The session is not over yet,” he said unsteadily. “Did I doze off?”

“I’ll say.”

“No reason to be sarcastic. I had—a late night session with Hef and some of the girls, at the Playboy Mansion.” He tried hard not to smile at the memory. “A couple of the ladies are having jealousy issues.”

“Gee, I don’t know why.”

He gave me a sharp glance.

“You know, Hannah, from what you’ve said, you may share some of their symptoms.”

“As long as that’s all we’re sharing.”

“So, what you’re saying is that you’d find it hard to share Louis?”

“I do share Louis. With the world. He’s a star, remember?”

“I mean intimately, with another woman.”

What, was he kidding?

“Dr. Manny, I think you’d agree with me that most women would have a problem with that.”

“But you’re not most women, are you? You’re your father’s daughter, so you understand better than most women. And Louis certainly isn’t most men.”

“Granted, you’re right on both those counts. But still, I don’t see why that should mean carte blanche to—”

“Hannah, admit it: You and Louis need to take sex to a new level. It is no longer fresh, spontaneous. Am I right?”

“Well, yes and no. I mean it’s certainly frequent.”

“I’m not talking quantity. I’m talking
quality.
”

Ah, yes. When all else fails, there is always that cliché.

“So, what exactly are you proposing, Dr. Manny?”

“Nothing so drastic as you might think. I could suggest a sex surrogate—”

I’ll just bet you could. Which Bunny wouldn’t be willing to work
that
trade?

“—But I don’t feel that a surrogate would be necessary—for now, anyway. Of course, there is only one way to know for sure.”

He leaned forward in anticipation. A bit of spittle formed at the side of his very thick lips. “For now, I’d suggest that you videotape your lovemaking. Nothing so cinema verité as a handheld camera. Just a simple tripod setup.”

Do tell.
“Enlighten me, Doctor. What do you anticipate doing with these tapes?”

His glasses fogged up at the thought. “Well, of course, I’d examine them. In that manner, I can better assess the issues that are blocking your mutual happiness.”

Oh, yeah? And who else would be “examining” them? The boys in the grotto, during movie night at the Playboy Mansion?

I don’t think so.
“Neither Louis nor I would agree to something like that.”

At that declaration, Dr. Manny beamed knowingly. “In fact, Louis is very open with the concept.
Very
open indeed.”

“I beg your pardon? You’ve already asked him about this, even before this session?”

“Well—yes. Why, we discussed it prior to his leaving. You know, Louis and I have a long history as patient and doctor. We discuss
everything
.” A bit of drool gave away the underlying meaning of his remark. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Not until now
.

I told Dr. Manny I would think about it.

Instead, I thought about all the other poor, foolish saps who had fallen for his line.

And all the underground celebrity porn he must be distributing, for a mint.

I prayed that none starring Louis would surface.

As for me, well, I’d already had
my
money shot, and once was enough.

* * *

Louis came home from London the day before the Golden Globes. He was a happy boy. I assumed that seeing his friends and family had been a soothing tonic.

I hoped that was
all
that was making him smile.

He did not ask me how it had gone with Dr. Manny. My guess was that he had already been given a full report, straight from the quack’s mouth.

My visit to Dr. Manny taught me something, however
—to pretend to be asleep, even if I couldn’t doze off.

That mission was stymied the very night of Louis’s return, with a single phone call, at two in the morning, from Christy.

“I just ran off the set! I—I’ve been… ” Christy, sobbing uncontrollably, couldn’t finish her sentence.

“Calm down, and tell me what happened exactly!”

I was whispering so as not to wake Louis. The last thing I needed was for him to be grumpy and upset before the preparations for the next day’s event.

“Everything was fine—at first. You know, we were getting only a few pages of script at a time, because apparently they were always changing the plot, or something, I guess. At least that’s what they told me.”

“Christy, get to the point.”

“I am! You see, last night they didn’t give me
any
portion of the script to read. They said it wasn’t written yet.” She gulped down her sobs. “Okay, I thought, no prob. I’ll just improv when I get on the set. So, when I get here, Donnie comes up to me with these two actors who are starring with me. He tells me how beautiful I am, and how blown away they both are with my skills, and he says that he still needed to cover some of the financing—”

“You mean to tell me he hasn’t gotten all the financing yet? What is he, an idiot?”

“No. I mean, well,
maybe
. I don’t know! But that’s not the point! What I’m getting at is that—that they wanted me to be
nude
.”

“And you said no?”

“Not exactly. I said okay—that I was okay with nudity. But that was
it.
”

I let that sink in. “Then what?”

“Then Donnie said, ‘Well, you’re supposed to have sex, too. With the guys.’ ”

“Both of them?”

“I know!
I know!
I kind of freaked out, too, when he said that! I’m thinking, ‘What will my folks think?’ You know?”

“Yeah, hon, I know. So, what did you say?”

“I said no. At first.”

At first!

“But then he started to tear up. Said it would ruin him if I didn’t go through with it. Said he’d lose everything. He begged me, Hannah! Said he always felt he could count on me! What else could I do?”

I said nothing. It all sounded so familiar.

“So I said okay. But just—just one guy.”

“Oh.”

“Well, it wasn’t ‘just one guy.’ Donnie—he was standing on the set, sort of coaching me, you know? Well, there I was with the first guy. We’re, like, standing up, doing it. And then I feel something—someone—
behind
me. And it’s the second guy! So I’m like, ‘What the hell is this?’ And boy, is he rough! I’ve never done it that way, with two guys, and you know. . .
anal
.”

She whispered the word. “So I start screaming, and I can see Donnie and he’s giving me the thumbs-up! As if it’s all an act or something! Only it was real! The guy—that creep—
violated
me! And—and Donnie didn’t do a fucking thing!”

She broke down again. This time it took her very long to come back onto the line. “I’m bleeding! And I hurt all over. I’ve never been this sore! Please, Hannah, please! Can you come get me? I grabbed my clothes and ran to an all-night diner. On the corner of Roscoe and Canoga. Please say yes!”

Picking her up meant driving over an hour round trip to Chatsworth and back, tonight of all nights.

I didn’t want to say yes to Christy, but I had no choice. I was her friend and she was certainly in a desperate state.

“Okay. I’ll be right there.” I rose, stepped into my jeans, and carried my sneakers with me as I crept to the door. I had almost made it when Louis flicked on the light.

“Where are you going at this hour?”

He sounded suspicious. Great, just what I needed, on the eve of the Golden Globes. He was already as wired as a cat about whether he would win.

“That was Christy. It’s an emergency. She’s stranded, and she needs me to pick her up in Chatsworth.”

“Donnie’s PA, right? The one with the big tits?”

“Yep, that’s Christy.” I sat down on the bed to put on my sneakers.

“Why can’t one of those other people go get her?”

“Louis, it’s too late now. She called me. I
have
to go.”

Louis chuckled. “Chatsworth? So, old Donnie’s backing porno films, eh? Who would have thought that?” He paused, then added, “And this friend of yours is starring in it? The rest of her must not be so bad either, eh?”

Obviously on that last day on the set of
Breakneck,
Louis had been so enamored by her breasts that he’d forgotten to check out the rest of her.

“I really hadn’t noticed,” I retorted. “She’s not my type.”

“That’s too bad. Then again, three-ways aren’t all that they’re cracked up to be, particularly if the two girls get so carried away that they forget about
me.
”

I couldn’t help staring at him. Here was my chance to ask the one question I’d always wanted him to answer:

“What about when it’s two guys and a girl? Is that more fun? You know, having a buddy there, to share?”

He quit smiling and turned to the other side of the bed.

“Poor kid. I guess she’ll be leaving Donnie and Bethany after this fiasco. Hey, you still haven’t hired anyone as my new PA, right? Why not your little friend?”

If he had been facing me, he could have watched the blood drain from my face. As it was, he could only hear my anger, although I didn’t shout. In fact I whispered. “Oh, I don’t think Christy is going to want another PA position anytime soon. Samantha didn’t get back into it so quickly, did she?”

I left him with that.

So Leo was right after all.

Chapter 16: Retrograde


Rotation of a planet, or orbit, opposite to that normally seen.

Next to the sun and moon, the third brightest object in our sky is Venus.

In fact, if you happen to glance up at the sky at dawn, you’ll notice that, despite the sun’s growing glow, only Venus is still visible to the eye. Like two lovers, they cuddle closely, so closely that it is easy to envision them as lifelong partners, floating through the cosmos for eternity.

Having effectively walked away from my planet-tracking project, I took consolation in the premise that Louis and I were the human equivalents of the sun and Venus; that our pairing would last a lifetime.

For this union, I had given up my late-night planet search around Mic.

And I had given up Mick as well.

Regrettably, one I could never get back. The other, however, was still within my reach.

It was dawn when Christy and I finally left the emergency room, where she had a full rape kit and HIV tests performed. I brought her back to my cottage on the Venice Canal, where I made her some tea, tucked her into my bed, and suggested that she stay as long as it would take for her to find a job to replace her old one with Donnie and Bethany and to get a place of her own.

She was so relieved that she burst into tears. “I’ve been such an idiot! I guess I thought that being close to the two of them would give me my big break. Now I know that all I did was waste the last year of my life.”

“We all do stupid things. Your goal now is to move on and never make the same mistakes again.”

Ha ha. Like falling for some guy who is just like Dear Old Dad.

No, I reasoned desperately. Louis was
not
Leo. We were good together. We loved each other and trusted each other.

And I was the one person he could never live without.

At least, that’s what Louis had said.

It seemed like an eternity ago.

I made up my mind that, as soon as possible, I’d find Louis the PA he needed so that I could be where I was supposed to be, by his side.

That is, as long as we both felt I belonged there.

And most definitely, I would do everything I possibly could to ensure that this was the case.

Just as significantly, though, I would also make time in my life for all the things that were important to me. Otherwise, I’d be living my life through Louis, and Freddy’s prediction would come true: I’d be nothing more than a Sunset Slurpee.

’Nuff said.

I’d get back to tracking Mic.

* * *

When I walked back to the house, I noticed that, despite the early hour, Louis was already up and about, still on Greenwich Mean Time. On the coffee table in front of him was this week’s issues of
Variety
and
Entertainment Weekly—
and a scotch rocks.

Not a good sign.

“You’re certainly up early,” I said brightly. “What’s up?”

“Golf,” he grunted.

Now I remembered. Louis and the Posse were inaugurating what was to be their new tradition: golfing on the day of any awards ceremony in which Louis was in the running. To the outside world, that implied
It means nothing to me
when it really did but he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning. It could also be interpreted as
It’s in the bag
when the truth was that the race was too close to call.

Considering how tense Louis was, I was sure that now, only eleven or so hours before the awards ceremony, his real feelings leaned more toward the latter.