Part 2 (1/2)
Julian gives me a quick glance tinged with worry, and then it's gone. ”Because I started seeing someone else and it was hard for her when I broke it off.”
”Who was the girl?”
”She's an actress. She works in this lounge on La Cienega.”
”Did Trent know?”
”He doesn't care,” Julian says. ”Why are you asking that?”
”Because he cared when it was me,” I say. ”He still hasn't cooled off. I mean, I don't know why.” I pause. ”Trent has his own...proclivities.”
”I think that was something else.”
”What's...something else?”
”That Blair still likes you.”
When Julian speaks again his voice becomes more urgent. ”Look, they have a family. They have children. They've made it work. I should have never gone there but...I never thought I would hurt her.” He stops. ”I mean, you're the one who always hurt her the most.” He pauses before adding, ”You're the one who always did.”
”Yeah,” I say. ”This time she didn't talk to me for almost two years.”
”My situation was more...I don't know, typical. Something you'd expect,” Julian says. ”The girl I met was a lot younger and...” This seems to remind Julian of something. ”How did the casting sessions go this morning?”
”How did you know there were casting sessions this morning?”
Julian mentions a friend of his who had auditioned.
”Why do you know twenty-one-year-old actors?” I ask.
”Because I live here,” he says. ”And he's not twenty-one.”
We're standing next to Julian's Audi in the parking lot off of Fairfax. I'm going back to Culver City when he vaguely mentions a meeting, and I realize I haven't asked him anything about his life, but then I don't really care one way or another. I'm about to leave when suddenly I ask him, ”What the f.u.c.k happened to Rip Millar?”
At the mention of the name Julian's face becomes too calm.
”I don't know,” he says. ”Why are you asking me?”
”Because he looks freakish,” I say. ”I actually got scared.”
”What are you talking about?”
”He's a horror movie,” I say. ”I thought he was going to start drooling.”
”I heard he inherited a lot of money. His grandparents.” Julian pauses. ”Real estate investments. He's opening a club in Hollywood...” An annoyance I never detected in Julian announces itself. And then Julian casually tells me a story he heard about this secret cult that encouraged members to starve themselves to death-some kind of torture kick, a how far can you take it? how far can you take it? kind of thing-and that Rip Millar was somehow indirectly connected to them. kind of thing-and that Rip Millar was somehow indirectly connected to them.
”Rip said something about how I'd met a friend of his,” I murmur.
”Did he say a name?”
”I didn't ask,” I say. ”I didn't want to know who it was.”
I notice Julian's hand trembling as he runs it lightly over his hair.
”Hey, don't tell Blair we met, okay?” I finally say.
Julian looks at me strangely. ”I don't talk to Blair anymore.”
I sigh. ”Julian, she told me she heard that you and I were at the Polo Lounge the other night.”
Julian's expression is so completely innocent that I believe him when he says, ”I haven't talked to Blair since June.” Julian is totally relaxed. His eyes don't waver. ”I haven't had any contact with her for over six months, Clay.” He reacts to the expression on my face. ”I didn't tell her we were at the Polo Lounge the other night.”
On a break and I'm listening to a message Laurie left on my cell phone (”If you're not speaking to me at least tell me why...”), then I delete it midway. The rooms of the casting complex surround a pool, and the rooms are filled with the boys and girls auditioning for the three remaining roles. Sudden interest from a rising young actor whose most recent movie ”caused a stir in Toronto” has taken one of the available roles off the table, the part of Kevin s.p.a.cey's son. Only one boy out of the dozens seen yesterday has met the team's approval for the other male role. Jon, the director, keeps complaining about the girls. Since The Listeners The Listeners is set in the mid-eighties, he's having problems with their bodies. ”I don't know what's happening,” he says. ”These girls are disappearing.” is set in the mid-eighties, he's having problems with their bodies. ”I don't know what's happening,” he says. ”These girls are disappearing.”
”What do you mean?” the producer asks.
”Too thin. The fake t.i.ts don't help.”
Jason, the casting director, says, ”Well, they do do help. But I get it.” help. But I get it.”
”I have no idea what you're complaining about,” the producer deadpans.
”It all seems so unwholesome,” the director says. ”And it's not period, Mark.”
Talk turns to the actress who pa.s.sed out while walking to her car after her audition yesterday-stress, malnutrition-and then to the young actor under consideration for Jeff Bridges's son. ”What about Clifton?” the director says. Jason tries to move the director's focus to other actors, but the director keeps insisting.
Clifton is the one I lobbied hard for to be in Concealed Concealed, the one I took back to Doheny when I found out he was dating an actress I'd been interested in and who showed no interest in me since there was nothing I could offer her. It was made clear what Clifton needed to do if he wanted me to lobby for him. The actor eyed me with a chilled-out glare in the lounge of a restaurant on La Cienega. ”I'm not looking for a dude,” the actor said. ”And even if I was, you're not him.” In the jovial language of men I suggested that if he didn't comply I would try to make sure he wouldn't get the part. There was so little hesitancy that the moment became even more unsettling than I had initially made it. The actor simply sighed, ”Let's roll.” I couldn't tell if the indifference was real or faked. He was planning a career. This was a necessary step. It was just another character he was playing in the bedroom on the fifteenth floor of the Doheny Plaza that night. The BlackBerry on the nightstand that kept flas.h.i.+ng, the fake tan and the waxed a.s.shole, the dealer in the Valley who never showed up, the drunken complaints about the Jaguar that had to be sold-the details were so common that it could have been anyone. The same actor came in this morning and smiled briefly at me, did a shaky reading, then improved slightly on the second reading. Whenever I saw him at a party or a restaurant he would casually avoid me, even when I offered my condolences about his girlfriend, that young actress I had wanted, who overdosed on her meds. Since she had a small role in a hit TV show her death was recognized.
”He's twenty-four,” Jason complains.
”But he's still really cute.” The director mentions the whispers about Clifton's s.e.xual orientation, a supposed gig on a p.o.r.n site years ago, a rumor about a very famous actor and a tryst in Santa Barbara and Clifton's denial in a Rolling Stone Rolling Stone cover story about the very famous actor's new movie which Clifton had a small part in: ”We're so into girls it's ridiculous.” cover story about the very famous actor's new movie which Clifton had a small part in: ”We're so into girls it's ridiculous.”
”I've never gotten the gay vibe,” the director says. ”He butches it up, I guess.”
And then we refocus on the girls.
”Who are we seeing next?”
”Rain Turner,” someone says.
Curious, I look up from Laurie's messages that I keep deleting and reach for a headshot. Just as I lift it off the table the girl from the veranda at Trent and Blair's house in Bel Air walks in and I have to pretend I'm not trapped. The blue eyes are complementing a light blue V-neck and a navy-blue miniskirt, something a girl would have worn in 1985 when the movie takes place. Immediately introductions are made and the audition happens-bad, strident, one-note, every other line needs to be reread to her by the director-but something else starts happening. Her stare is a gaze, and my gaze back is the beginning of it, and I imagine the future: Why do you hate me? Why do you hate me? I imagine a girl's anguished voice. I imagine a girl's anguished voice. What did I ever do to you? What did I ever do to you? I imagine someone else screaming. I imagine someone else screaming.
During the audition I look at Rain Turner's IMDb page on my laptop. She reads for another role and I realize with a panic that she'll never get a callback. She's simply another girl who has gotten by on her looks-her currency in this world-and it will not be fun to watch her grow old. These simple facts I know so well still make everything seem freshly complicated to me. Suddenly I get a text-Quien es?-and it takes me a while to realize it's from the girl I was flirting with in the Admiral's Club at JFK the afternoon I flew out here. When I look up again I also realize I've never noticed the white Christmas tree standing by the pool or that the Christmas tree is framed within the window next to the wall with the poster for Sunset Boulevard Sunset Boulevard on it. on it.
I'm walking Rain to her car outside the offices on Was.h.i.+ngton Boulevard.
”So, is this the movie you wanted to put me in?” she asks.
”It could be,” I say. ”I didn't think you recognized me.”
”Of course I recognized you.”