Confessions of a Hollywood Star (16 page)

Both of them were out of the car before I reached it.

“Are you all right?” cried Ella. “I was worried sick! Do you know what time it is?”

I wasn’t even sure what day it was; I felt like I’d been locked in the Black Hole of Calcutta for months.

“What the hell happened to you?” Sam has a less maternal nature than Ella. “We thought you’d been arrested.”

“Except that one side of my body’s gone numb and I’ve lopped twenty years off my life, I’m fine,” I said to Ella. I looked at Sam. “What are you doing here? I thought you were on vacation from me.”

“I called him,” said Ella. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“So naturally I came running.” He gave me a wry smile. “I don’t like long vacations. The peace and quiet when I’m not speaking to you drive me nuts.”

“Let’s get moving.” I threw myself into the back seat like a girl who’s been floating on the ocean on a plank for the last three days would throw herself onto dry land. “All will be revealed when we get out of here.”

I gave them the basic outline of my story – our heroine hides in closet; our heroine is so exhausted from her hours of sweat and toil that she falls asleep; girl wakes up to find herself trapped in closet by amorous couple – while Ella tore out of the parking lot and down the road like we were in a cop show.

“I told you it was a crazy idea,” said Ella when I’d finished.

Sam looked at me over the back of his seat. “You know, you really should try getting in touch with reality once in a while, Lola. Just for a change.”

I took exception to this comment. If anything, I was a lot more in touch with reality than I’d been before I got stuck in Charley Hottle’s closet – now I knew that Mr Family Values might not believe in extramarital sex for anybody else, but he definitely believed in it for himself.

“Snooping,” said Sam. “Now you’ve added snooping to your list of talents.”

“I wasn’t snooping, I was waiting. If that guy hadn’t come in—”

“All I can say is, thank God you weren’t caught,” said Ella. “If it hadn’t been for—”

“Well, I wasn’t caught.” You can’t worry about something that didn’t happen, can you? “Next time will be different.”

“Next time?” Sam was shaking his head as if it was on a spring. “Chrissake, Lola, don’t you ever get the message? Give up.”

The exchange of opinions caused by that comment took us all the way to the Creeks’ residence. “I’d love to keep arguing with you,” said Sam, “but we’re really busy right now. Those rental cars the production company has are all crap. I’ve got to get some rest.”

Ella waited while I got into the front seat.

“You know, Lola,” she said as she pulled away from the kerb. “Sam—”

“Never mind Sam,” I said. “He’s fine. We were just having a discussion.”

“No,” said Ella, “that’s not what—”

“Let’s get going.” I yawned. “I’m totally wiped. I need to get some rest, too. After all – tomorrow is another day.”

[Cue: sigh of a tragic hero – long-suffering but too noble to complain.] “With you it doesn’t always seem like that,” said Ella.

Reality Meets My Fantasies Head On

B
y the next morning my batteries were fully recharged and I was ready to make another (and this time guaranteed successful) attack on Charley Hottle.

“I’m telling you, I’ve worked it all out,” I was saying to Ella as we padded down the hall to get our equipment. “All I have to do is—”

Ella said, “Shhh!”

“What?”

She stopped. “Don’t you hear that? It sounds like someone crying.”

I listened. I could hear something, but it was so low and muffled that unless you were a dolphin (or Ella) it was hard to tell whether it was someone sobbing or the sewer backing up.

Ella pointed to the supply closet. “It sounds like it’s coming from in there.”

“Ten bucks says it isn’t Mrs Seiser,” I whispered. “Which means that it has to be Gracia.”

“Poor Gracia.” Ella’s been raised to be polite and not to intrude on someone else’s distress. She looked at me. “Should we do something?”

I’ve pretty much been raised to be polite and not to intrude on someone else’s distress, too, but it’s something I can overcome when necessary – and in this case it was definitely necessary. Not only did we have to get our work stuff out of the closet, but Gracia was our friend. You don’t leave your friend crying amid the cleaning equipment. I went over and knocked gently on the door. “Hello?” I called. “Gracia? Are you all right?”

She opened the door enough to look out, tears streaming down her face.

“Gracia, what’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “
Nada. Nada
. I’m all right.”

“But you’re not all right. You’re crying.”

Even though it seemed pretty likely that Gracia already knew she was crying, this made her cry even more.

“Let us in,” I ordered. I pushed on the door and she stepped back enough to let me and Ella squeeze past her. It was a tight fit.

I put a hand on her shoulder as much in sympathy as because I had to put my hand somewhere. “What’s wrong?” I asked again.

Ella took a packet of Kleenex from her pocket.

“
¡Dios mío!
” sobbed Gracia, taking a tissue. “
¡Dios mío! ¡Dios mío!
”

“Aren’t you well?” asked Ella. “Have you hurt your back again?”

Shaking her head, Gracia dabbed at her eyes. “
¡Dios mío! ¡Dios mío!
”

“Is it one of the kids?” I guessed. “One of your cousins?”

“
¡Dios mío! ¡Dios mío!
”

“Something that happened back home in Colombia?” ventured Ella. “Has another of your relatives been murdered?”

“
¡Dios mío! ¡Dios mío!
” She was crying so hard it looked like someone had thrown a bucket of water over her face.

“Please,” I begged, “you have to calm down. Tell us what happened. Maybe we can help.”

Gracia launched herself into an explanation of what happened – in Spanish. Ella got A grades in Spanish in school but it wasn’t much help. Gracia didn’t speak slowly, clearly and distinctly like Señor Goldblatt.

“
Más despacio, por favor
,” Ella pleaded. “
Más despacio, por favor
.”

Gracia gulped and choked and wiped several thousand tears from her eyes. She started again.

“
Reloj?
” Ella repeated. “Watch? You lost your watch?”

“Watch?” With so many other things on my mind, I’d totally forgotten about the gold Rolex. “What watch?”

Gracia nodded. “Not mine,” she snuffled. “
El señor’s
. Mrs Seiser says I stole it. She is ending my employment.”

“But she can’t do that! You’ve worked here for ages.” Mrs Seiser complained that “those people” had no loyalty or commitment, but obviously in Mrs Seiser’s world loyalty and commitment were a one-way street.

“What señor?” asked Ella.

I said, “Charley Hottle.”

Ella snapped around like something on a spring. “What do you mean, ‘Charley Hottle’? How do you know whose watch it is?” Her face took on the expression of a girl who’s just opened the front door to find a dude in a Halloween mask wielding an axe. “Oh, Lola, you di—”

“Of course I didn’t. I’m an actor, Ella, not a thief. But I know who did.” And I told her about the guy from the crew putting the Rolex in his pocket.

“But that’s terrific!” Ella hugged me. “That’s wonderful!” She hugged Gracia. “Lola can tell Mrs Seiser what really happened and you won’t lose your job. Everything’s going to be all right.”

I wasn’t exactly jumping up and down with joy myself, though. “You think I should tell Old Boot Face the truth?”

The I-opened-the-wrong-door look was back on Ella’s face. “What do you mean, do I think you should tell her the truth?”

I could see my last frail hopes of getting into the movie fade into the stack of toilet paper behind Ella’s head. They were moving fast and waving goodbye.

“But I’ll incriminate myself. I’m not even supposed to be on that floor in the daytime, never mind after I’ve already gone home.”

“Lola is right,” croaked Gracia. “She will loose her hob.”

I often see Mrs Gerard in Ella, but right then I was seeing Karen Kapok. “So what?” asked Ella.

I didn’t want to lose my job. I wanted another crack at Charley Hottle. I wanted to be in the movie. I wanted to go to Carla’s party with my head held high and the last laugh rattling around in my throat. I looked from the stern, uncompromising glare of my best friend to Gracia’s damp gaze. Bergstrom’s wasn’t my life; my life was waiting for me (temporarily) in Brooklyn. So what if I lost my job? So what if I didn’t get in the movie? So what if Carla Santini humiliated me one last time? It wasn’t like my world was going to end. But if Gracia lost her job for stealing she might as well go back to Colombia and let them shoot her.

[Cue: sigh of the doomed hero who knows there’s no way to go but forward.] “So better my job than Gracia’s.”

Ella stood shoulder to shoulder with me while I told Mrs Seiser what I saw. Mrs Seiser stared at me the whole time like a poker player with a winning hand.

“What are you saying?” she asked when I was done.

What had she been listening to? Voices in her head?

“I’m saying Gracia didn’t take Mr Hottle’s watch,” I repeated with superhuman patience. “It was one of the guys in the film crew.”

Her lips twitched. “And what did you say you were doing on the second floor after you were supposed to have gone home?”

[Cue: deep breath, Mona Lisa smile and subtle avoidance of eye contact with Ella.] “I told you, I was looking for Gracia. I had a phone number to give her … a chiropractor … for her back.”

This time it was a Seiser eyebrow that twitched. “Gracia left right after you.”

“But I didn’t know that. I thought she might still be working.”

Mrs Seiser has a way of setting her lips that looks like she’s folded her arms across her chest and sniffed. “And you just happened to be in the hallway when this man came out of Mr Hottle’s room, pocketing the watch.”

“That’s right. I noticed it because it was a gold Rolex and I don’t see that many of them in my daily life.”

Mrs Seiser continued to stare at me like I was a guest trying to sneak a towel out in her suitcase.

I nodded emphatically. “That’s exactly what happened.”

Old Boot Face smirked. “I’m not so sure. The fact that you’ve appointed yourself the cleaning staff’s union representative wouldn’t have anything to do with this, would it, Lola?”

“But I’m telling the truth!” This always happens to me. When I lie, people believe me; and when I tell the truth, they don’t.

Mrs Seiser’s smile grew into a Cheshire Cat grin. “And why should I take your word over the interests of the hotel?”

“Excuse me?”

“You can’t think I’m going to accuse one of our guests of stealing from another guest, can you? I’ve had enough trouble from these people. And Mr Hottle is an important man.”

Ella flared up. “But Gracia’s important, too.”

“That’s right.” I stared back into those eyes as cold as a winter night in Norway. “And I don’t see why you can’t accuse one guest of stealing from another when it happens to be true.”

Mrs Seiser’s laughter was a pretty rare event, which was probably just as well. “Says
you
.”

She didn’t want to believe me. Like most people, Mrs Seiser wanted a quiet life. Whereas people with striving, artistic souls want nothing more than to stand beneath the Victoria Falls of the emotions and be washed with experience and passion, people with narrow, bureaucratic souls just want a warm room and an easy time. In the drab, grey world of Mrs Seiser, believing that Gracia stole the Rolex was preferable to accusing one of the movie crew and causing a major scene. Besides, Gracia was expendable. And so, apparently, was I.

“I see no reason to keep you on either,” said Mrs Seiser. “You’re a lot more trouble than you’re worth.”

Which I, personally, felt was something you could also say about
her
.

Ella, of course, rose to the occasion like the true sister of my heart and soul that she is.

“Then I have to quit, too,” said Ella. “There’s no way I’m staying on when you’re making a mockery of fairness and justice like this.” If Ella had been one of Christ’s disciples he would’ve built his church on her and not Peter.

“So be it,” said Mrs Seiser.

I Decide To Take The Law Into My Own Hands

I
n books and movies and stuff like that, getting fired is always a pretty depressing event (Christmas is cancelled, children cry, mothers wring their hands, men get drunk…), but Ella and I were elated. It was better than finishing school. Instead of no more teachers and no more books, it was no more dirty toilets and unmade beds. I considered it a very major rite of passage into the real world, and to celebrate, Ella and I went bowling with Morty and Sam that night.

But elation is a transient thing, and mine ended when we walked into the alleys. There was a woman mopping up spilled soda in the foyer. She was in her forties and she looked really tired. Even though she didn’t physically resemble Gracia (except for having a nose, two eyes and a mouth), she reminded me of her. Here she was in her middle years, with nothing to look forward to but cleaning up other people’s messes until she was too old to lift a bucket of water. But Gracia didn’t even have that to look forward to any more. My good mood went belly up like a bunch of bombed fish. I’d been so happy because I’d stood up for the poor and oppressed like Robin Hood, but for all I’d accomplished I might as well have burned down Sherwood Forest.

I knocked over two pins all evening.

“What’s the matter with you?” Sam asked as we sat down in the snack bar. “You couldn’t have hit a truck if it was parked at the end of the alley.”

“I can’t stop thinking about Gracia and Old Boot Face.” [Cue: the sigh of the warrior who has fought the good fight and been beaten.] “It’s preying on my mind.”

Sam put his arm around me. “But you did the right thing.” He shook his head in wonder, like a boy who’s just rubbed two sticks together and actually made a fire. “You are the darndest girl I’ve ever known.”