An Accidental Affair (40 page)

“Is this something to do with a woman?”

“No. Well. Yeah.”

“Okay. What?”

My mind was on the revelation that had Bobby Holland ready to shoot me. If he had shot me over that lie, then he would be alive. I confessed. I told her that I had called the paparazzi. I told her that I had set this thing in motion. I’d made the first domino fall.

She said, “Impossible.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s impossible because…I called the paparazzi.”

I said, “I called them early that morning. Before you showered.”

“No. I had called them. I’d called them the night before. They were waiting for me to leave the night before. Leaving your house in the middle of the night, being caught, that would have been more dramatic. When I had awakened and watched you sleeping, I had already called them. I had called them while we were doing laundry. That’s why I was going to leave you and not say good-bye. I had to call them again and let them know to be at your gates in the morning.”

I paused. “Why did you?”

“Nine days with you changed me. I wanted James Thicke. I wanted you.”

“Did you?”

“I wanted that thing with Bobby Holland to end. I embarrassed him and forced it to be over. I knew his ego. He had to feel as if my leaving was his doing. It had to be his idea. But it was my planning. If I had just left him, who knows what he would’ve done to my career?”

“He was controlling you.”

“Two million over the last two years.”

“You paid him two million?”

“Yes.”

“He didn’t tell me that.”

“I gave him a mil up front. Transferred it to his Norwegian business
account. But he kept coming back for more. He needed money to keep his kids in private school. His rent. The note on his car.”

“You never told me.”

“I know. I just knew that I wanted to get away from him.”

I let a moment go by. “Your paparazzi were out there with mine.”

She said, “It was more than me. I called for other reasons too.”

“What other reasons?”

“Since we’re putting everything on the table.”

“Okay. What other reasons, Regina?”

“I wanted that other thing you were in to be over too.”

“What other thing?”

“Hazel Tamana Bijou.”

I paused. “Hazel. Did she say something to you?”

“I saw Hazel Tamana Bijou. When we were in the bar, that first night, I saw her reflection in the mirror. I saw her and thought that she was looking for me, and then I realized that she had come looking for you. The way she left, I know she had. She saw us and there were tears in her eyes. Women like Hazel don’t cry. And she cried for you, James. That’s how special you are.”

“You were jealous.”

“She inspired me. I told you that I was obsessed with you. You would’ve been my first one-night stand. You know that I’m not that kind of girl. Not even when I was on coke.”

“You knew that I was waiting on her to call me.”

“I knew. But I wanted you for me. I loved you. I had studied you. I knew your work better than you did. I was obsessed with you. I loved your mind. I loved you inside out. I told you that and I meant it. And I still mean it. What I am to others, that’s what you are to me.”

“You love me.”

“Yes.”

“Like when you told other men.”

“When I told other men that I loved them, I was only acting.”

“You engraved it on their watches.”

“One watch.”

“You had it engraved.”

“That was fiction. That was a well-written lie.”

“How do I know you’re not lying now?”

“You have to trust me.”

I was exhausted.

Two weeks of dealing with Bergs, two weeks of being a man who called himself Varg Veum, two weeks of little sleep, two weeks of being in this self-imposed hell using stress and anxiety as my mattress and pillows. But I made love to her. Because this could be my last chance to love my wife before I was dragged away and got only approved conjugal visits.

We stood up. When I moved by the dresser, I looked out the window. So did Regina. First I looked at the U-Haul. Mr. Holder was loading up the truck. Vera-Anne was down there too. Her children were with her. Vera-Anne was crying. Mr. Holder didn’t look happy either, but he was a man of resolve and he was moving forward. He was sending her away. I had killed men and didn’t feel as guilty as I felt for what was going on between Vera-Anne and Mr. Holder. It wasn’t my business. It wasn’t the business of James Thicke. That May-September affair wasn’t my concern. Their needs and insecurities had been here before I arrived. Even though at that moment it reminded me of Bobby Holland packing up Regina Baptiste’s life and sending her to me, even though I wanted to know where Vera-Anne and her kids were going, my concern, James Thicke’s concern, came from the right of where Mr. Holder and his sobbing ex-lover and her two primary concerns were standing.

Regina was looking that way, unconcerned with the distraught strangers down below.

We saw them at just about the same time. We saw the men and women walking and jogging and running this way with cameras.
Professional cameras. We saw the residents of the building congregating. Cars were slowing down trying to figure out what was going on.

Regina said, “No, no, no. It can’t be.”

I closed the blinds and we peeled back one section and peeped outside.

Two stories down were at least three-dozen people with cameras.

The paparazzi had arrived and they had managed to sneak onto the property.

Misty Mouse was out there. The girl that I had had a confrontation with in the laundry room, the neighbor who lived above me, she was out there with them. Dark jeans and a pink and green T-shirt.
I LOVE BUKKAKE.
She had recognized me. The day by the dry pool, when she asked me what I did, she didn’t know then, but be it online or on the news as they talked about Regina Baptiste and Johnny Bergs, she had recognized my face and finally called in the paparazzi.
Cruelty of Men Toward Women
. She’d brought the book by here because she wanted to see my face again. She’d wanted verification because seeing me here made no sense.

She wanted to see how much Varg Veum looked like James Thicke.

But maybe when she had come inside my apartment, she had seen all the magazines that were on the coffee table, and each magazine had Regina Baptiste’s face on the cover.

Or maybe she had Googled Club Mapona and saw my face with the other owners.

With her dreadlocks framing her face, Misty pointed toward my window and cameras flashed in rapid succession, like a gun being discharged at the enemy on Skirball Center Drive.

I wondered how much they had paid her. Probably less than her hourly clients.

This was her revenge for our tense and almost combative moment in the laundry room.

Her revenge for being tossed out of Club Mapona with her now-deceased clients.

Touché, bitch. Touché.

My enemy glared up at my window and kissed her teeth.

Regina Baptiste asked, “Did you fuck her too?”

“Nope. But I folded her lingerie. That pissed her off.”

As the commotion grew, Mr. Holder paused loading the U-Haul. He wiped sweat from his brow and looked toward Vera-Anne. He saw that she was still crying. Her babies were crying as well, but she was looking up toward my window, maybe because everyone else down there was gawking at my window. The attention of the paparazzi had her. Mr. Holder raised his head and looked at the window of the man who had brought his problems here and made Hell that much hotter for all of its occupants. And with the paparazzi, I was making it that much worse.

Regina Baptiste said, “They found me. They’re still dogging me.”

“I’ll get you out of here.”

“Are you scared?”

“I’m terrified.”

My wife lay down on the carpet, and pulled me down next to her.

She swallowed. “No one saw you.”

“No.”

“No neighbors.”

“No.”

“No barking dogs and no kids.”

“And I didn’t use my cellular. And when I had the shoot-out on Skirball Center Drive, I used Bobby Holland’s gun. I wiped it down and left it at the crime scene with the Bergs.”

“And you stole Bobby’s computer?”

“I did.”

“You threw away all of the clothes that you were wearing.”

“And rearranged his office so it wouldn’t look like it was missing.”

We lay there for a while, each inhale and exhale redefining who we were. Screenwriter and actress. Murderer and co-conspirator.

A cuckold and a woman betrayed as a result of her own action.

She wiped tears from her eyes again, wiped away tears like she was trying to wipe away both pain and death. She failed to stop the tears. Regina Baptiste was on her stomach. Her head turned to the side, facing me.

She said, “About this marriage.”

“If you say it was accidental, it was accidental. If you say it was Sasha, it was Sasha. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t the woman that I’m with now. It was someone else who looked like you.”

I ran my fingers over her body again.

Outside my window, outside of the world that once belonged to Varg Veum, the rumble grew. There were the standard Vietnamese curses and Caribbean insults flying out of the windows, the blowing of horns as the paparazzi was being rained on by profanity from men, women, and children, the outcries from a many-headed beast.

I moved closer and kissed her lips.

She whispered, “The cameras are waiting on us.”

“Let me call Driver.”

“I’m calling a mover. I’m going back home. You’re coming back home too.”

“You need better clothing. When you step outside, you need to look sizzling.”

“Vera Wang would be nice.”

“Regina. We’re in the middle of a recession. No need to go Vera Wang.”

“You’re right. This is the real world. Not the-red-carpet-and-velvet-rope world.”

“Nice jeans, a nice sexy top with a little cleavage, and you can go all out on the shoes.”

“Let me call my assistant.”

* * *

As the racket outside became more irritating than a raucous shivaree, Alice Ayres arrived wearing a nervous smile. She was dressed in beige slacks and heels, simple jewelry and looked nothing like the woman I had met at Abbott’s Habit. Her dress, her demeanor, everything was different. She was here, but never in the way, highly unnoticeable. We exchanged greetings but she didn’t look me in my eyes for more than a second. She never had. Hours after she had given me her cellular, hours after she had shown me a video of Bobby Holland feeding my wife cocaine, Bobby Holland had been found dead. She kept herself busy helping Regina put on her makeup, doing Regina Baptiste’s hair, doing all the things that Regina Baptiste asked. Not long after, Driver returned. Panther was with him. She remained stationed by the Bentley. She made sure that it remained covered. When all had died down, she would drive it from here and take it to a shop in East L.A. Driver knew a Mexican named Pedro, and Pedro had connections.

I stood in the bedroom and looked down on the crowd, a crowd that yelled out how much they loved the woman named Regina Baptiste. A teenage girl stood on top of a car and started singing “Who’s That Girl,” the song that Regina had sung on
The
Graham Norton Show
. As the East Indian girl sang, little by little, the crowd joined in. When that ended, another girl started singing “At Seventeen,” and every woman in the crowd, no matter what nationality, joined in like it was a preplanned flash mob. It was a cultural festival. Brazilian. Asian. African. Mexican. East Indian. Native American. Russian. American. European. Pakistani. While the multitude chanted Regina Baptiste’s favorite songs and yelled out how much they loved her and begged her to come out and say hello, a moving crew showed up to start packing up my apartment. They came in and began dismantling the life of Varg Veum. Regina Baptiste’s name had more pull than my American Express Black credit card. The commotion had become too loud, like a
rock concert. Neighbors had called friends and friends had driven and walked and taken the bus and Metro over from all parts of Los Angeles County, and a cavalry of policemen had to be dispatched to stop a riot from breaking out. Outside was a madhouse, but the second floor of building E had been cleared. It would be that way until we made it down to the first level. Today the elevator actually worked. The elevator opened and the shouting came like an explosion. They were all waiting. These were her supporters. Celebrity worship had taken root.

She smiled, but I knew that she was afraid. Afraid that one fool would be in a window the same way Oswald had waited in a library window for a motorcade to pass by. Or that someone would get as close to her as Jack Ruby had been to Oswald.

She was their religion of the moment. But not everyone believed.

However no blogger, no newscast, no post on Facebook, no Tweet, no one in this universe would be able to crucify what this crowd believed in. Controversy had made her brand larger.

Sleeping with Johnny Handsome had somehow made her more admirable and enviable. I couldn’t change that. Johnny Handsome had become the new James Dean.

Johnny Handsome had just died. No one would ask her what it was like to sleep with a dead man. People only fantasized about sleeping with the living. Sane people, anyway.

Regina being called one of the last women that he had had sex with would sell magazines. I wouldn’t like that, but I couldn’t change that either.

James Thicke was just her husband. Just a writer. Her name was above the title of this moment and I was just another guy with his name rolling by in the credits. I was fine with that.

Patrice’s face was a speck in the crowd. We made eye contact for a moment. Her expression was bewildered. She tried to figure out who I was. She wanted to know who the man that she had bedded for the last two weeks really was. Mr. Holder and Vera-Anne were at the
back of the U-Haul; the U-Haul was now packed with the life of Vera-Anne and her children. The rental was blocked in by traffic and a swarm of people. Vera-Anne’s mouth opened in surprise and awe. Above us, everyone who had resided on this side of the building had their windows open and had ringside seats.