He’s smiling. I am, too.
I say, “Wow.”
“Yeah?”
“Harvey, I want to see this movie.”
“See it? Star in the motherfucker!”
I take a deep breath. I think the only way Harvey’s going to leave me alone is if I agree to do a reading.
“All right. I’ll read with Lauren.” I don’t even know which Lauren he’s talking about.
“Really?” I don’t think he expected me to agree.
“Well, you hooked me.”
Harvey kneels down and hugs my legs. It’s sort of embarrassing.
Heading back toward my place, Kara puts her hand on the back of my neck and runs her fingers through my hair.
“What’s wrong, Jim?” she asks.
I don’t turn around. I don’t say anything.
She snuggles close to me, so that when she speaks, I feel her warm, moist breath on my ear.
“Did something happen at the party?”
“Harvey Wallison wants me to star in his new movie.”
“That’s great!”
“Everyone wants to know how my screenplay is coming along. They can’t wait to read it.”
“That’s wonderful!”
Our limo is winding up Laurel Canyon. The road is very steep. If Rex were to make a steering mistake, we’d go plunging down into a ravine.
“These things aren’t wonderful,” I say, still gazing out the window.
“Why?”
“Everyone wants things from me.”
“Well, isn’t that—”
“What if I can’t deliver?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if I can’t do the things these people want?”
“But you can, Jim. You’re a brilliant actor. I know. I’ve seen your films. You’ve won an Oscar, for Chrissakes.”
It’s two a.m., and I’m so angry. It even surpasses the fear.
There’s nothing like getting exactly what you want and it still not being enough.
Chapter 24
with Kara in the bungalow ~ Kara holds the Oscar ~ Margot’s curiosity ~ the angry goldens ~ the worst thing that can possibly happen when you’re making love to a woman (it’s not what you think) ~ finishes the job ~ finishes the other job ~ Kara takes the Defender ~ digs a hole ~ the Star Wars analogy
Even though we just came from the mansion to end all mansions, Kara’s pretty blown away by my bungalow. I take her inside and give her the quick tour. She seems particularly enthralled with my home theatre.
“You have to have me over to watch a movie some time,” she says. Of course that won’t happen. I’ve decided now, but I smile just the same and say that of course we will. We’ll pop popcorn and do the whole shebang.
Kara spends a moment staring at Oscar.
I open the case for her and let her hold it. I see flakes of dried blood in the crevices, but they’re microscopic. I’m sure she won’t notice.
“It’s so heavy,” she tells me.
“That’s what everyone says.”
“Was this like the best night of your life?”
“It was.”
I fix her a drink (Crown and Coke, very easy on the Crown) and take her out onto the patio. After the obligatory drooling over my extraordinary view of Los Angeles, we settle back into Adirondack chairs and talk superficially about the Haneline party and our interactions with various guests.
Then Kara mentions her conversation with Margot.
“Yeah, Margot was pretty interested in you,” Kara tells me.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, she was just asking how you’d been doing and all.”
“Been doing with what?”
“You know.”
“No, Kara, I don’t know.”
“With the uh…the substance abuse thing,” she whispers the last part.
“Oh. Thank you, Margot.”
“Jim, it’s fine. None of my business. I don’t care.”
“You don’t care if I’m a drug addict?”
She sighs, and I can tell by the way she plays with her ice that she’d love to have a second crack at not bumbling into this topic.
“Of course I care,” she says finally.
I reach over and take hold of her hand which is wet and cold from holding the Crown and Coke.
“I’m doing much, much better,” I tell her. “You should know that I went through some hard times a while back, but that I’ve come through it. I’m healthy now, Kara.”
It’s not much fun admitting to being a drunk and/or drug addict when you’re not, but I guess you’ve got to make sacrifices sometimes.
“You want to go inside?” I ask, and yes, I’m asking exactly what you think I’m asking.
“Love to,” she replies, and by the way her eyes have gone all soft and intense, I know that she means exactly what I think she means.
On the way to my bedroom, we pass the golden retrievers. They’re lying by the closed door to the yoga room, and when I reach down to pet them, they bare their teeth.
Kara asks what’s wrong with them, and I tell her they’re just playing, that it was a friendly growl.
We head on into my bedroom and get it on. It’s quite fun, because I care about Kara, and I feel strongly that she cares about me.
I even light two candles on my dresser and turn off the lights. It’s highly romantic.
Things are going very well. I’m making love to her more passionately than I’ve ever made love to anyone. Certainly more than the twins from New York. I have to say, we’re both enjoying ourselves immensely, and every now and then, I’ll look over through the window and see lovely LA at three in the morning, and then look down at lovely Kara. Everything’s just beautiful tonight, and I’m starting to think that maybe things will be all right, when I hear a noise.
I’m sure Kara can’t hear it, because she’s making some noise of her own, but it chills my blood. It’s the sound of a door opening very slowly. Creaking. I hear the tags on the dogs’ collars clinking, I hear them licking something, and then, through the open doorway of my bedroom, I see a hand, an arm, and then a head. Something drags itself out of the yoga room, slowly, impossibly across the floor.
I hate to do this to Kara, because she’s awfully close, but I whisper, breathlessly, “The dogs are getting into something. Can you hold on a second?”
“Jim, what are you—”
“Be right back.”
I hop down from the bed and run naked into the hall, closing the bedroom door behind me.
“Bad dogs!” I yell.
They growl, but I raise my hand to them, and they bolt off down the hallway into another part of the house.
I drag it back into the yoga room. I don’t even know what this thing is. As I make it stop moving, I keep thinking that I’m stuck in this awful nightmare. I don’t ever want to see it again.
When I finish, I wash up and walk back into my bedroom and climb into bed with Kara. She’s lying naked on top of the covers, head propped up on one elbow.
“Sorry about that,” I say, pressing my body up against hers. I can’t tell if she’s mad. I think she might be, but she kisses me anyway and pulls me back on top of her.
In the morning, Kara wakes up frantic, because she has an eleven o’clock recitation to teach. I tell her if she can drive a stick, that she’s welcome to take the Defender.
I walk her out, and we spend a minute saying all that stuff men and women are supposed to say to each other after a night like we had.
When she’s gone, I walk around the side of the house to a tool shed. Inside, I find a shovel and set about digging a hole a hundred feet or so down the hillside from my patio. It takes a long time, because the ground is very hard and dry. In the end, it’s not too deep, but it’ll have to do.
What’s even harder than the digging is the dragging of that thing out of the yoga room, all the way across my patio, down the hill, and into the bushes.
The hole is in a particularly nice spot, shaded from the sun, surrounded by sagebrush. You’d have to really be looking for it to find it, so I feel pretty good about the whole deal.