Some sort of instinct bade him hold back.
But still, shit, Jesus—
— Dusty’s stand-in was his boyfriend’s mom!
The whole freakish Welcome to L.A. synchrony of it was one of those too perfect cosmic nuggets he’d normally have shared with the actress via email or text, ASAP. For some reason it became yet another instance in which he failed to disclose. Hmmm… Clueing her in about Tristen and Larissa would have been irresistible (normally, that is), and clueing Allegra as well — though naturally, he’d have told Mama first, because Dusty liked to think she owned the worldwide serial rights to exclusives on Jeremy’s X-rated bromances, not to mention his everything else. He still wasn’t sure what made him clam up. Anyway, he was glad to have kept his piehole shut because some weeks ago he’d made the resolution to turn a new leaf with his new love and rein in his sloppy, tell-all ways. Which meant generally gossiping less and especially not gossiping about the heartbreak kid and whatever it was they had or he thought they had, not if he could help it. This latest self-improvement regime employed what 12-Steppers called “contrary action,” and Jeremy struggled to keep the fledgling relationship close to the vest. He was tired of putting his business on the street, of killing his darlings by letting the world pick the lock of the diary of his careless heart.
Was there any upside in revealing Tristen’s provenance? He couldn’t see any. The situation was already too sticky by half. On the Night of the Living Tuesday Weld, Jeremy had sensed something afoot and abreast and a-everything else (that hint of Sapphic appetizer he called amuse-bush), not just between Dusty and her double, but all three mouseketeers, a suspicion duly confirmed when Larissa slid into their booth for her sleazy sohello. Breezily letting Dusty in on the fact that he happened to be dating her stand-in’s son would start a “conversation” about the players, at minimum, and who knew where that would lead. If Dusty was having an affair with Larissa (sure sounded like it), she probably knew everything anyway — and whether she did or not, Dusty might interpret Jeremy’s reveal as icky or grandstandy, some kind of faggoty brinkmanship. It definitely would look like he was fishing.
Thank you, no, he’d sit out the incestuous quadrille for now. His dance card was full.
Contrary action…
In light-speed lucubration (still in the hall, while Allegra washed and dried, douched and cried), it hit him like a stun grenade: though he’d taken pains never to mention Dusty Wilding to his boyfriend, or anything else about his career — an absurd game he found dumbly refreshing — what sort of madness had allowed him to pretend Tristen didn’t already know everything about his life? As if an atom of his world could be hidden, and from Tristen, no less — the Kill Bill bride, the Crazy 88 of Internet trap queens! Jeremy was continually surprised, galled, and shamed by his unrepairable naïveté; the generational blind spot that made him oblivious to the avalanche of files and thumbnails that rendered a jittery, fossilized portrait of him as exacting as a Chuck Close for anyone who cared to look. Of course Tristen knew about his decades-old alliance with the film star! Of course he did — and of ten thousand other dark and minuscule things about himself that Jeremy’d long forgotten…
Suddenly, he wondered how much Tristen had told his mother about their affair. He imagined that oedipal relation to be miscreant on the level of Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore in Bates Motel—why wouldn’t they share all, routinely enlisting one another in the gory details of their mutual degeneracy? Jeremy did trust the boy yet in the moment let his thoughts run wild, shuddering as he fantasized about mother and son’s salacious comparing of notes (he wouldn’t have been at all surprised if Larissa told Tristen that she’d become “friendly” with the movie star and her wife), two Sherpas celebrating the amazing karma that had helicoptered them to Mt. Annapurna base camp for a grand expedition into the larcenous unknown.
But what manner of larceny?—
He heard Allegra flush the toilet.
An arson of sinister thoughts lit up his brain and threatened his hair; as much as he wanted to put out the fire, he wanted to watch it burn…
If his insurgent speculations were true — that Tristen and Larissa were thick as thieves — then what was the meaning, the strategy of the boy having delayed sharing that his mommy was Dusty’s camera double? Because he would have known from Day One. And when he did finally mention it, Tristen was careful not to acknowledge Jeremy’s relationship to the star, the movie, or anything else. The kid could have said, “Isn’t that bizarre, Nobodaddy? And I know you don’t like to talk about it but you’re one of the producers on that film, right? Aren’t you and Dusty Wilding, like, really close?” But, no — he just let it ride… and Jeremy definitely didn’t get the feeling he’d done that out of respect or discretion. So the question remained: why withhold what he knew all along? And on a more sinister note, wouldn’t it stand to reason that Larissa would have told Allegra (who, after all, was her lover)? You know, “Your friend Jeremy’s boyfriend happens to be my son”? And if she had told Allegra, why hadn’t Allegra shared that savory morsel with him? “Oh my God, Jeremy, you’ll never believe this!” He could understand her not wanting to get into that with him earlier because she wouldn’t have wanted to admit she was seeing Larissa — but now that she’d confessed, why wouldn’t she have mentioned it right then, on the Night of the Living Buddhist breakdown? Might the omission have something to do with what Allegra said about Dusty while they sat on the bed? “There are things I can’t even tell you”?
First things first. Assuming Ma Barker and protégé were in absolute control — that Jeremy and Allegra were their puppets, being made to dance on strings — what was it, then, that they were up to? Something criminal? Twisterella’s Web-hacking motherfuckery already pegged him as a spectrum sociopath, albeit a harmless one — at least harmless when it came to Jeremy. (Or so the old mark thought, or used to think, anyway.) Clearly, moral turpitude, embezzlement, and flimflammery were the building blocks of the Dunnick family DNA… all that kiting and trolling and five-finger discounting. And yet what, now, were the duo conspiring toward? And if they were conspiring, why would Tristen have even tipped his hand by laying out his mother’s rap sheet for Jeremy’s gratification and delight? He had the sudden, minatory thought that the boy’s throwaway bulletin about her job promotion (to Dusty’s double) had been a ruse — a game, a sort of test organized by Larissa, and that her son’s mission was to report back Jeremy’s reaction, with further actions to be determined. He wondered now if it had been a mistake not to have headed Tristen off at the pass with the immediate retort of, “Oh! Isn’t that funny? I’m old friends with Dusty and I’m producing Sylvia & Marilyn!”