We're So Famous (16 page)

Paque and I told them some other stuff that wasn't true, like that
World Gone Water
was going to be a five-hour epic movie that incorporated elements of sci-fi, animation, the Western, rock-u-mentary, and French period pieces. Alan didn't think that was very funny when he returned but
L.A. MovieNews
didn't end up using our interview after all (the bit about the horse showed up in a gossip column the next day though).

Paque demanded to know where Alan was and why he messed up the interview. She screamed at him that he was fucking things up royally and chased him to his room. He slammed the door in her face without saying anything and she kicked it over and over and I held my hands to my ears.

Let's call Stella, she said. We'll tell her to come pick us up.

I called Stella's number and Craig (her boyfriend) answered. He told me Stella wasn't there and that he hadn't seen her in a couple days. He said he thought she was with Paque and me and that now he was really worried. We called the photomat where Stella worked and they said she didn't work there anymore.

I was so frazzled that I ran out to get a couple of hot apple pies from the McDonald's on Sunset, and by the time I walked there and back, Paque had cooled down and was sitting at the kitchen table with Alan, who looked like his entire family had been killed in a plane crash.

I have something to tell you, Alan said. I pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and set the McDonald's bag down next to a completed script with the words
World Gone Water
typed on the front. Some big investors picked up on
the movie, Alan said, and they want to back a full-length movie.

Great, I said but the look on Paque's face told me it was not great.

It's not that simple, Alan said. These guys have conditions attached to their investment.

I looked across the table at Paque, who I noticed was smoking Alan's Marlboros. She sat with a dazed look on her face. I nervously opened the McDonald's bag and unsheathed one of the apple pies.

How is it hard, I asked.

One of the conditions is that I have to use two actresses that they want, Alan said.

I swallowed the gooey filling and said, So you're replacing us. Just like that.

Alan winced as he ran his fingers through his hair. It isn't like that, he said. I don't want to have to do it but I have to play by the rules if the movie is to get made.

I thought you said it wasn't even going to be a movie, I argued. You said we weren't going to make a real movie.

We weren't, Alan said. But this story is important to me—it's my story—and I'd like to see it get made.

Why do we need these guys then, I asked. We can do it without them.

They have enough money to get it done and I don't, Alan said, leaning back. It's that simple.

So what are we supposed to do, I asked.

We'll have a project together, I promise, Alan said. I'll develop something especially for you two. He tried to get Paque's attention but she was staring at the floor.

Who are these actresses anyway, I asked.

You wouldn't know who they are, Alan said. They're nobodies.

Like us, Paque said.

I started crying and excused myself from the table. Paque came into the bedroom behind me. She ripped down the
World Gone Water
poster taped to our closet door and for the first time that I could ever remember, Paque cried.

Alan knocked on the door and Paque screamed, Go away, but Alan knocked again and said, Daisy, your mom's on the phone.

Tell her I'll call her back, I said.

Should I ask my mom to get us plane tickets home, I asked Paque. She'd stopped crying and was studying the weeds growing outside the window and said, I don't think that's necessary.

Okay, I said.

Alan's car was gone and I called my mom back and when she asked how it was going I said, Everything's fine.

That night I had a dream Paque and I were back at SaltBed and that we were on stage singing while Alan was in the audience. My mom was in the audience, along with my brother Chuck and everyone I'd ever known in my life. People were screaming out requests for Masterful Johnson tunes and we sang them perfect, every one the crowd asked for and in the morning I woke up exhausted, as if I'd spent the night giving every ounce of energy I had.

Daisy

Dear Sara and Keren,

When you need someone, you can't count on anybody. Stella is either avoiding us (she's probably mad because of all the publicity Paque and I have been getting), or she finally got an acting gig and is somewhere on location. Those are the only two answers Paque and I will accept. We really needed her after Alan dumped us. Neither one of us wanted to say it but we realized we didn't have anyone we could call.

Then I remembered T.J. I paged him and he agreed to pick us up.

Should we pack up our stuff, I asked.

There isn't anything that can't be replaced if we don't come back, Paque said.

T.J. picked us up in a cinnamon-colored convertible BMW, which turned out to belong to the actress Jennifer Grey, who T.J. was house-sitting for. She really lives in New York, but is renting out here because of her TV show, T.J. said.

Paque sat up front and I closed my eyes and let the wind whip around me. Whatever romantic feeling I thought I had for T.J. disappeared when I saw him again. Behind the wheel of the car, checking both ways for traffic, he seemed like just another guy to hang out with. I sensed from his coolness that he felt the same way. The clean scent of the new leather seats comforted me and I imagined it was the day before we got dumped, before we knew anything about how quickly something certain turns into something completely unknown.

Paque and I decided not to say anything to T.J. about what had happened. We told him we just wanted to get out of the house for a bit.

It sounded like an emergency, T.J. said.

It wasn't, Paque said.

Have you seen Stella, T.J. asked. She owes me some money.

Neither Paque or I said anything.

Well, T.J. said, I'm sure she'll pay me when I see her.

T.J. drove us back to Jennifer Grey's house in the Hollywood Hills, a cute little yellow house nestled safely behind a sprawl of lilac bushes. T.J. carefully pulled the BMW into the garage and you got the feeling that he probably wasn't supposed to be driving it.

Guess who used to rent this house, T.J. asked.

Who, I asked.

Barbra Streisand, he said.

It looks a little small for Barbra Streisand, Paque said.

T.J. stopped and collected a few empty beer bottles lined up on the pathway between the garage and the house.

Who is Jennifer Grey anyway, I asked.

She was the sister in
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
, T.J. said.

Think
Dirty Dancing
, Paque said.

What TV show is she on, I asked.

It's a new one where she plays herself, T.J. said, and the storylines are based on her real life.

Are they going to use the one where she and Matthew Broderick accidentally killed those people in Sweden or Norway or wherever it was, Paque asked sarcastically.

From what Paque said I knew then who they were talking about. I remembered reading in one of Stella's notebooks about the crash, about how Matthew Broderick had pulled out on the wrong side in his Volvo, right into an
oncoming car. Stella's information had it that it was an accident, and that Matthew Broderick didn't have to go to jail. Anyway, I think that's what happened. I only remember it because I thought it was weird that they were playing brother and sister in the film but they were really boyfriend/girlfriend.

Paque opened the side door and was startled by a man in a blue silk shirt and boxers rummaging through the pantry. His skin was tight and tan and his hair was bleached white. Oh, hello, he said with a British accent.

This is Jason, T.J. said. He's with the production.

Paque and I introduced ourselves and Jason said, You're in that movie. He snapped his fingers trying to come up with the title.

World Gone Water
, Paque said.

That's it, Jason said. He pulled down a box of strawberry Pop-Tarts and opened one of the shiny packages with his teeth. If you've got call for a mechanized go-cart driver, I race professionally, he said.

Paque said, I don't think there's any go-carts in the movie.

Jason's jaw bounced up and down as he chewed. That's too bad, he said between bites, I'm really good. He disappeared out the sliding glass door in the kitchen and Paque and I went to the window above the sink and watched him rejoin a small group out by the pool. A woman in a red robe sat in a lawn chair under an umbrella, reading
Entertainment Weekly
while an enormous man waded in the shallow end of the pool with a camera perched on his shoulder. A second man stayed dry at a soundboard at the edge of the pool.

That's Earl, T.J. said. He gives me money to let him film porno at the houses I stay at.

What happens if the person sees their house in a porno, Paque asked.

That hasn't happened yet, T.J. said. He rapped his knuckles on the wooden kitchen counter.

The refrigerator is covered with photos of a woman and a chocolate Labrador. Is this Jennifer Grey, I asked.

Yep, T.J. said, help yourself to anything in the fridge.

It doesn't look like Ferris's sister, I said. I leaned in to study one of the photos.

She had a nose job, T.J. said.

I thought she had a cute nose, Paque said.

It definitely looks better now, T.J. said.

It's wild, I said, it really doesn't look anything like her.

T.J. looked at the photo. Yeah, when I got the gig and I came up to the house I couldn't believe it was really her. Don't get me wrong—she's beautiful, maybe more so. But when you think of Jennifer Grey you think of Baby in
Dirty Dancing
or Jeanie Bueller. I think it's been hard for her to get work because people don't recognize her.

Only in Hollywood can you be tossed to the bottom of the heap by improving your looks with plastic surgery, Paque said bitterly.

T.J. offered to let us stay at Jennifer Grey's—Jason and the woman in the red robe, Maria, were staying there as well. We thanked T.J. and told him we'd stay the night, and he didn't make any sort of joke about us owing him big, which we appreciated.

T.J. ran out for Kentucky Fried Chicken and I took the
opportunity to talk to Paque. I want to go home, I said. There's nothing here for us now.

You might be right, Paque said. But what harm is there if we hang around to see if Alan makes good on his promise to find something for us.

I looked out the window at the scene in the pool. Alan's going to be tied up with that movie for at least a year, I reasoned.

Maybe we'll get bit parts, Paque said.

That's part of the problem, too, I said. We're only good for bit parts. We're not actresses. I don't even want to be an actress, do you?

Paque didn't answer.

Sure, I jumped at the idea when Alan called, I said, but that was because I was desperate to get away from the humiliation in Phoenix. I'm not even sure I can ever go back to Phoenix, but things can't be as crazy as they were. Plus, I'm afraid we're going to get involved in something that's going to humiliate us even more.

Humiliation is sometimes the easiest way to become famous, Paque said smartly.

It seems like we've tried everything, I said.

Yeah, Paque sighed. She looked out the window at Jason and Maria, who were toweling off. But it's precisely because we've tried everything that we should probably stick it out just a little bit longer. Why come as far as we've come—and you have to admit we've been lucky along the way, even if the end result has been unlucky—and not go all the way? We can always go back to Phoenix. And if we humiliate ourselves, as you put it, here in Hollywood we'll
either get a book deal or a TV show at worst, and then we can decide whether or not we want to walk away.

I don't know, I said.

Why don't you call Chuck and see what he thinks, Paque suggested.

I've been trying to reach him actually, I said. But I can't find him.

Paque stayed up watching television and smoking pot with the others. I took one of the spare bedrooms, the smaller one at the end of the hall with the thick white shag carpet and the twin bed. It smelled like no one had ever been in the room and dust motes rose when I switched on the bedside lamp. It seemed to me there wasn't anything to be happy about. The last thing that really made me happy was making the record for Ian. If you would've told me we were going to blow that one the way we did, I would've bet against you. Plus Paque and I really love music. All those nights we stayed up late designing album covers and picking who we wanted to be in our videos seems like a waste of energy now. I started to think about second chances. Jennifer Grey got one, but she had to play her last trump to get it. I mean, what would she sell after she sold her life to the TV show?

I decided Paque was right, that we should ride this one out as far as it would go. And if it went badly, we would walk out of Hollywood and not look back.

Daisy

Dear Sara and Keren,

I'm sorry to be sending you a letter again so soon after the last one, but you're not going to believe what's going on now. Paque and I camped out at T.J.'s for a couple of days, listening to Jason and Maria's stories about trying to make it in Hollywood—you never heard such terrible stories. Jason once pitched a tent on a director's lawn, was beaten up (not by the director), and thrown off the property. He pitched his tent again and the director gave him the part. And Maria told this disgusting story about what she had to do to just to get to
read
for a part. It all but convinced me that you have to have a check on your ambition. There has to be some things that you're not willing to do. Though I agreed with Paque that being famous is the loftiest of goals, more ambitious than being president. You can pretty much divide the world up into people who are famous and people who are not (otherwise known as People Who Wish They Were Famous).