Margot and Kara view the Manet ~ Jim’s vodka commits suicide ~ gets pitched by Harvey Wallison ~ feeling pretty shitty
Rich and Margot are talking with Kara when I return with her wine, and she’s telling them all about her studies in the art program at UCLA. She’s very engaging. Rich and Margot talk to interesting people all the time, and I’m telling you, they’re riveted.
“Well, you need to come up and see out Manet,” Margot says.
“You have a Manet?”
“Oh, it’s breathtaking. If you looked up toward the second-floor hallway when you first came in, you’d have seen it. Come on! Let me show you!”
Kara looks at me, glowing, and takes her wine.
“Gentlemen,” Margot says, taking my date by the arm. “Think you can entertain yourselves while we’re gone?”
The ladies head off through the crowd toward the house.
Rich and I lean against the railing and stare out to sea.
A mile out, a yacht cruises off the coast.
“She’s adorable, Jim,” Rich tells me. “Where’d you two meet?”
“At La Casa actually. Night I saw you there.”
“Oh, a new romance.” He sips what appears to be a Perrier.
Somewhere in the crowd behind us, a woman screams: “Oh go to hell!”
“So what’s up with that?” Rich points to the glass in my hand.
“What, this?”
“Yeah, that.”
“It’s just a vodka with—”
“Look, maybe it’s not my place, but…” He doesn’t finish the thought.
“What?”
“You’re going to kill yourself. Let me have that.”
“Are you kidding?”
He takes my glass and throws it over the railing.
Two seconds, and I hear it shatter on the rocks below.
I’m not sure what to say, so I don’t say anything.
“How’s the script coming?” he asks.
“It’s coming.”
“Yeah? You going to star?”
“Who else? You?”
“Hey, come next March, I might be the hottest ticket in town.”
“I sincerely hope so.”
Rich finishes off his Perrier. “You want one of these? I’m going to go for another.”
“No thanks.”
Rich adjusts his bowtie and sort of just takes me in.
“I don’t know what it is, Jim, but you seem different somehow.”
My stomach comes up my throat.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s the girl, but you seem more grounded. At peace even.”
“Wouldn’t that be something?”
Kara doesn’t come back for awhile, so I meander through the crowd, back toward the jazz band at the other end of the veranda. I bump into a few people who know me along the way, and one of them, an agent, goes on and on about how she read a New York Times rave review for some off-off-Broadway thing I did, and how she had no idea I had stage chops.
It’s easier than you might think talking to someone you don’t remember. Because if you let them, most people will talk exclusively about themselves. Honestly, they don’t really want to know how you’re doing. And if they do ask, it’s merely out of courtesy, and they won’t be listening to your answer. They’ll be nodding their head, smiling at you, and wondering, Do I have something in my teeth? I wonder if John’s here. Oh, there’s Mary! I need another drink.
Practically everyone asks about the screenplay Brad Morton and I are writing. Some people seem to have read portions of it. I’m telling you, there’s a buzz. Everyone asks me where Brad is, like I’m supposed to be keeping tabs on him or something. I hate that. I don’t know what I’m going to do about Brad. I really don’t.
The jazz band is smoking. Especially the drummer. He’s one cool cat as they say. The only thing that moves are his arms. The rest of his body is perfectly still, and he just stares out at the ocean while he plays these blistering fills, like he could give a shit who he’s playing for.
When I glance through the crowd again, I see Harvey Wallison making his way toward me. We haven’t made eye contact, and since he doesn’t know I’ve seen him, I walk through the French doors, into Rich’s house, moving quickly through the kitchen, a ridiculous dining room, with a table that could seat forty guests, and finally arriving at the atrium. There’s a chair beside this gurgling fountain, so I sit down and cross my legs and wait, praying Harvey doesn’t see me.
Shortly thereafter, he comes around the corner from the dining room and stops, looking over the candlelit atrium and the half dozen people who occupy its chairs and sofas. I’m hoping he won’t recognize me in the lowlight of the candles, but when he looks in my direction, he smiles and starts toward me.
He sits down in the empty chair across from mine, takes out a handkerchief, pats down his forehead.
“I hate these things,” he says. “Wear me the fuck out.”
He sips from his glass of Scotch and sets it on the wrought iron table betwixt us.
“Good to see you out again, Jim.”
“Good to be out.”
“Yeah? You feeling well?”
“I think so. Some people tell me I seem different.” He nods, touching his index finger to the corner of his eye. I think Harvey might be one of those rare listeners. “I feel different,” I say.
“Well, you’re sort of just getting back into the swing of things.”
“Yeah.”
“And I think it’s terrific that you are, Jim. You’re a helluva brave soul, and a lot of people are rooting for you.”
I pat Harvey on the knee.
Harvey sips his Scotch and removes his glasses.
“I don’t know what your timetable is for picking your next project. I’ll tell you, Guy Watson and Tyler Law are hounding me for this part. I’ve had both of them over to read with Lauren and it was good. I’m not going to say it wasn’t. But it wasn’t what it could be.”
“What do you mean?”
He looks me hard in the eyes. “Jim, I’ve only worked with you on one film, but I know when something’s perfect for you, and buddy, this is it. A role like this comes along once, maybe twice in a man’s career.”
He leans in closer. I can smell the single malt on his breath.
“I know I’m coming on strong here, Jim, and believe me, I don’t want you to do this if you aren’t ready, or if you don’t want it. But if any part of you is interested, I would urge you to come up to my place for a read. I won’t lie to you. I want you at least partly for selfish reasons. I think you’d make this film the best thing I’ve ever done. I think you’d make it a classic. But as much as I want these things for me, I want them also for you.”
He finishes his Scotch, and I’m wondering if I’m already supposed to know the premise.
I take a chance.
“So what’s it about, Harvey? I apologize, you may have already told me.”
Harvey gets up and stands in front of me.
I am very uncomfortable.
I keep waiting for him to ask me something I don’t know.
“You’re a car salesman in the Midwest. A family man. You have a wife and daughter. You come home early from work one day to surprise your wife and find her in bed with your next door neighbor, Michael. You sit outside the door and listen to them making wild, flagrant love.”
He takes a breath and half-grins at me like, Are you hooked yet?
And I guess I am. It’s a fairly intriguing premise.
“That night, about two in the morning, you sneak over to your neighbor’s house and murder him and bury him in his backyard. His wife and children are visiting family in another state.
“The next hour and forty-five minutes chronicles Michael’s body being discovered your wife’s growing suspicion that you murdered him, and your own deteriorating mental state brought on by an ocean of guilt. It’s called Next Door.”