Chapter 45
Michael
Gareth, who had wanted to do Bullets more than he wanted to breathe, took Steven leaving pretty well. He called it deathbed perspective and did a few talk shows explaining himself. The studio found a new director who was half as good and twice as fast, and we were back on track, more or less, after another week and a half of shooting with Britt keeping her arms down.
The furor over Laine died down. I didn’t call her. After a few days, I took her off the accept list, but whenever I saw a pack of paparazzi, I looked for her. I thought about what I’d do if I saw her. Give her that perfect shot or give her the finger, I didn’t know. I alternated between being grateful for what she did and resenting it.
I pulled onto my street after one of the last days of shooting on Bullets. One, two, three, five paparazzi at the entrance to my driveway. No, six. Six paparazzi on the street, cameras up. Clickclickclick. None were Laine. It was as if she’d disappeared. I couldn’t even find a candid of anyone, anywhere, in any magazine with her byline.
I ignored the paparazzi. I didn’t even wave as I pulled in and closed the gate. Call time on Bullets was after sunset, and I needed a shower and a nap, in that order, but Brad’s car was in the drive.
He stood in the doorway of the guest house in his underwear and a tuxedo shirt. I forgot when I’d given him the keys, but he was a welcome sight, even half dressed.
“The fuck?” he said. “Seen the time?”
“It’s eight in the morning. You should be sleeping. At home. In your own house.” I went up the walk and onto the steps of the small house. I was fully surrounded by hedges and walls, but I wanted to get inside and out of sight.
“Dude, these two girls I was with? Started fighting right there. Like, skin under fingernails. I had to go.”
“You could have put pants on.”
“I was going house, to car, to house,” he said. “I drank the beer in the fridge, by the way.”
I waved him off and went inside. Brad slid his nearly bare ass onto a barstool. I dropped my bag onto the counter.
“You want coffee?” I asked. “I have instant.”
“Sure.” He turned the sound up on the little TV. “They’re talking Oscar for you on Cinema City.”
“The nominations aren’t for two months.”
“The posters went up all over the city. You haven’t noticed your face looking down at you?”
All over Los Angeles, before a turkey graced a Thanksgiving table, billboards went up with “For Your Consideration” across the top and a list under it. It was the studios’ way of reminding the industry of the year’s great films and performances while their Oscar ballots were in front of them.
“I don’t even see my face anymore.”
“See it, dude. Overland put, like, seven million into an ad campaign for Big Girls. And they can’t even stand Andrea.”
“It was a miracle they even released it.”
“The miracle was you, asshole. You were a fucking powerhouse in that thing.” He poured water into a cup while he spoke, thinking about not burning himself, the trajectory of the water, putting in enough but not too much.
“Remember in school,” I said, “pouring the tea?”
He laughed. “Oh, man, I felt so bad for you. You couldn’t pour water and talk at the same time.” He put the pot down.
I was amazed by how our minds multitasked only when we didn’t think about it. Like a switch flipping on, Laine popped into my mind again. Whenever I thought of experiencing life firsthand, I thought of her. One day it would stop. One day.
“I can’t do this,” I said, shutting off the TV.
“What’s that mean?”
“I don’t want to be considered. I don’t want an award. I’m done. I need a break. A something.”
“Dude.”
“Dude, nothing. I’m burned out. I don’t know what to do with myself, but I have so much to do I can’t even think.”
“You know what we used to do at home when shit got bad? Like when there was too much?” Brad asked.
“Tip cows?”
“Fuck you, that’s the Midwest, asshole. We went on a road trip. Drove up the mountain to look out over shit.”
I whispered, “Road trip.”
It was a ridiculous idea. Absurd. I was booked for the next eighteen months. I had one week in August with no work, and the slightest hiccup would fill those days. I couldn’t possibly travel. People counted on me. My new agent would scream. My dad would call me irresponsible. Ken would have to spin it. The press would assume I was on drugs, and the Hollywood machine as a whole would hate me for making them scramble.
Yet it was the most appealing idea I’d ever heard. An hour after I’d considered the idea that I couldn’t pour water without overthinking it, I was making calls to get out of town. I didn’t know where I was going, except away.
I wanted to go to places where my face was just another face, to do things I’d never done. I’d learned to mountain climb for a movie, but I’d never done it. Not for real. Not on an actual mountain. I’d only acted like a mountain climber and a ski instructor and a race car driver. Acting was done.
On set that night, Gareth said, “You go after you fulfill your commitments.” He looked at me through the mirror as we both got our makeup done. It was our last day of shooting, and my obligation to my father would be done.
“You’re lucky I’m finishing this movie,” I said. “I should leave tomorrow.”
“They’d never forgive you.”
“Fuck them.”
He laughed.
“You’re bailing on Harvey Worth?” Ken asked on the phone as I crossed my property.
I’d avoided making any industry calls until I’d told Gareth I was leaving. Ken was the last of them. I had a ton of stuff to do and no time to do it in, and for once, that felt exciting. “Yeah.”
“He makes a movie once every ten years.”
“My agent mentioned that to me repeatedly,” I said, coming to a garage only my staff had seen the inside of. I jerked the door open.
“You’re going to get killed, kid.”
“Fans don’t care.”
“Fans? You need to make a movie to have fans. I told you, even you need to get hired. Even you need to keep your reputation.”
I was surprised at how dusty the garage was, considering how spotless the staff kept the big house. I found my mountain climbing stuff with a broadsword and shield. I’d learned how to use a nunchaku for a part. I found a box of spray paint. When I was nineteen, I’d played a New York graffiti artist and learned to handle a can of paint.
“My virtuous reputation will remain intact.”
“You’re not getting it,” he said. “No one cares if you sleep around. It’s your professional reputation, your ability to deliver that matters. It’s the industry you have to appease.”
“I have a message for the industry.” I hung up.
I left the equipment. I wanted to be unencumbered.