True Hollywood Lies (12 page)

“Too many. We’ll never finish all of them. Maybe we can get in two more before the plane lands. That should put Monique at ease that both your posterity and posterior are safe and secure.”

“I live to serve,” he said dryly. “This time, what say we get the questions out of the way first?”

“Well, I dunno—” I hesitated. The happy, playful Louis was so much more comfortable to be around than the dark, bitter one I had just glimpsed. “If you want, we can skip the questions altogether.”

“Indulge me.”

“Okay, sure,” I said warily. “So, what do you want to know?”

“What would you say to your father, you know, if he were still alive?”

Louis watched intently as I struggled with the words. “I—I guess . . . well, I guess I’d want him to know that I’m okay, and that I miss him terribly. And that—that I forgive him.”

“Why?”

“Why? Why what?”

“Why do you forgive him? What for?”

I paused again, not just confused about how to explain this but more or less surprised that Louis would even give a damn. But apparently he did—at least enough to make me think that I could be honest with him if I truly wanted to—

And yes that was
exactly
what I wanted: to go ahead and say to him what I never had the chance to say to Leo.

“Okay, here goes: I forgive him for not putting me first.”

“First?”

“Yeah, first: ahead of all of the loony wives and the bitchy lovers; ahead of this lousy studio deal, or that blowhard director. And most of all, ahead of his rep.”

“Rep?”

“Yes, his—you know, reputation. As a lady’s man. That’s all I ever really wanted from him. To come first.
Just once
.”

There, I’d said it.

“So, you wanted him to put you in front of his career.”

“Yes,” I answered defiantly. “What’s wrong with that? Doesn’t every kid deserve that?”

“Well, whether we do or not, we all certainly
think
we deserve it, now, don’t we?” he laughed wryly. “In my case, I was always coming in second to a pint of Guinness.”

I laughed uneasily with him, then we both sat quietly for what seemed like forever.

Finally, very softly, he added, “That old man of yours must have been quite an education, eh?”

Our little game had so decompressed the levity in the cabin that I would not have been surprised if oxygen masks had fallen from the ceiling.

“My turn,” I said, hoping that my question would be the breath of fresh air needed before we got to New York. “Are you looking forward to seeing Tatiana when we reach the hotel?”

“God, I hope not!” said Louis, in horror. “I
never
tell her where I’m staying. What a joke
that
would be!”

“Why? What do you mean?” I was confused. I’d done everything Louis had asked of me: ordered flowers for her, arranged their delivery to her apartment, along with his sweet little note: “My darling, I’ve been counting down the hours! From your Князь” (the last word, which I text-messaged to the florist so that they would get it right, meant
prince
in Russian). I’d even given her agency our time of arrival at the hotel. And now, he
didn’t
want to see her? Was he afraid of a paparazzi stakeout? Was that why he preferred Tatiana to stay away from the hotel?

“I like to unwind first. She wouldn’t understand that. Didn’t they tell you?”

“Who? Tell me what?”

“Genevieve. About my usual routine. You know, how I need a massage when I arrive.”

“Oh, yes!” I heaved a sigh of relief. “Of course, I know all about that. It’s all taken care of, through Barry. Just the way you like it.”

“That’s my girl.” He patted my arm but let his hand linger. “You
do
know the score.”

“I . . . I guess so.” I shrugged. I guessed his arrival massage was a good luck ritual or something. Leo’s had been playing nine holes at the Bel-Air Country Club barefooted. Go figure.

Chances were that Tatiana’s hectic booking schedule wouldn’t allow her to be at the hotel in the middle of the afternoon anyway, so I decided to let the matter drop. And if she was there, maybe I could arrange a couple’s massage for the two of them. I was sure Louis would like that.

“You’ve got one last question,” I declared brightly. “Go for it.”

“What is your ideal in a man?”

“My ideal? That’s a—a funny question.”

“Why is it funny?” Despite the nonchalance he showed as he flipped through
Esquire
, I got the feeling he’d be parsing every word that came out through that space between my teeth.

Pausing as I weighed my words, I finally answered: “I want a man who brings his heart and soul to our relationship. I appreciate men”—here I paused—“who aren’t afraid to speak their minds, to be honest. Or, as you put it, I want both of us to
always
know the score.” I gave him that gap-toothed smile he claimed to love so much. “How about you?”

“Well, frankly, I find honesty in relationships overrated.”

“You don’t say.”

“No, I mean it! While every woman I meet claims to want exactly what you’ve just described, I’ve found that, in practice, they prefer the pretty lies. Especially in Hollywood.” While I took time to digest this, he added, “I think we should go one more round.”

“We can’t. We’re about to land.” The consistent drop in the plane’s altitude was coinciding with a rise in the intimacy of his questions, both of which I found a tad uncomfortable.

But Louis was not to be deterred. “I’ll make it quick,” he said briskly, then he looked me in the eye as he asked, “Are you falling for Mick?”

“What?” I could feel my ears getting uncomfortably hot. “What do you mean? I don’t even
know
Mick.”

“You’re right. You don’t. Then again, you’d like to think you know
me
.”

I was unsure how to answer that. It was on the tip of my tongue to say, “I know you like a book!” But I didn’t. Instead, I gave him the answer he wanted to hear: the sugarcoated answer. “I thought I did. But I guess I really don’t.”

“Exactly. And that’s my point: He’s a wanker, just like the bloody rest of us blokes, love.” He gave me that dazzling smile of his. “I’m only telling you this because I’d never want anyone to hurt you—”

I was just about to ask him why he thought Mick would hurt me when, just then, Caresse came into the cabin. She was carrying two down pillows. Noting Louis’s slight nod, she leaned beside him and slipped one under his head. As her breast grazed his forehead slightly, he grinned up at her, although I assumed he was still talking to me when he said,

“—I mean, what would I do without you?”

Chapter 7: Comet

An icy object on an independent orbit around the Sun.

There are so many features that make the Ritz Carlton Suite perfect for an evening (or, for that matter, a 59-minute, $1,800 session) of naughty debauchery. And, while each amenity is unique in its ability to spark romance, collectively they create the absolutely
perfect
ambiance for fucking like rabid dogs.

Okay, well, perhaps like well-groomed highly pedigreed poodles.

Where to begin? For starters, there is its incomparable view of Central Park. As seen from the large twenty-second floor picture window of this two-bedroom suite, and framed magnificently within the brocade drapes that complement the opulently furnished room’s taupe, pale rose and celadon color scheme, it certainly sets the mood for romance!

Romantic enough to make you horny, you ask? Most definitely—particularly if someone else—say, the Hollywood studio you’re shilling for—is picking up the tab.

And if that view doesn’t ring your chime, try luxuriating in either of the two marble tubs while soaking in L’Occitane bath beads. Then dry off in the fluffy Egyptian cotton towels before swaddling yourself in thick terry robes and falling into one of the two king-sized beds swathed in 700 thread-count Pratesi jacard cotton sheets. To further set the mood, the hotel invites you to light as many of the fragrant Frette candles strewn about the room as you like. Or you can flip on the Bang & Olufsen stereo system and play a mood-setting riff from the in-room compact disc selection, as each CD chosen for its success in encouraging guests to just get it on (as determined by frequently conducted guest surveys).

And if none of this does the trick? Well, there is always the myriad of porn available via cable, as viewed through a wireless home cinema system’s 59-inch widescreen monitor.

While all of this was news to me, it wasn’t to Prudence K., who, as Louis’s regular “masseuse” during his New York journeys, readily partook in all of the amenities the hotel offered. Thanks to Louis (and other A-listers, VIPs, and expense unaccountable CEOs), the Ritz Carlton Suite was her home away from home. In fact, in preparation for her audience with Louis, Prudence K. even helped herself to the contents of the complimentary Floris shaving kit, which provided the necessary accoutrements—a tiny yet super-efficient razor and ultra-foamy scented shaving cream—to touch up her Brazilian bikini wax.

What a field day the hotelier’s quality control team would have if they were allowed to survey her opinion as to whether the Stearns & Foster SilverDream Euro Pillowtop King mattresses were truly firm enough for marathon sexcapades, or how well the Teflon stain-resistant finish on the upholstery stood up to that potent combination of semen, sweat, vaginal fluid, and Chance Chanel Eau Fraîche, or the actual burn factor incurred when kneeling on the plush wool Oriental carpets!

All of these, and more, were her domain—or so I gleaned in the 18-second elevator ride we took together down to my room, a cubby which embodied the more marketable moniker of “guest suite” in describing its meager—and somewhat less opulent—425 square feet.

“Jeez, whattaya supposed to do in this cage, fuck standing up?” Prudence K. sniffed scornfully as she surveyed its much punier bed.

Since this was to be her temporary rendezvous site with Louis—thanks to my efficiency in relaying his whereabouts to his beloved Tatiana, who had been cooling her Rive Gauche satin ankle-strapped heels in the intimate but still very public VIP lounge while Louis’s onsite point man, the ever-vigilant Barry, frantically relayed the direness of the situation to a very irate Louis and me—I prayed that this was in fact the case, since, subsequently, I too would be sleeping on those sheets.

I certainly wouldn’t be getting any sympathy from Louis on the matter: upon seeing Tatiana’s petulant pout staring up at him from the lounge’s reproduction Duncan Phyfe sofa, he hissed through his grim, teeth-gritting grin, “
Dammit, Hannah,
I thought you knew the score!”
before sauntering over to “the face that has launched a thousand magazine covers” and sweeping her up in his arms.

Then, with a slight wave, he banished me to clean up the
merde
I had made.

After getting Prudence K. settled, I shot back up to Louis’s suite and blathered out some lie about the
Vanity Fair
photo editor needing to meet with him to go over the wardrobe for the shoot later that afternoon.

“Should I come with you?” slurred the perennially annoyed Tatiana with a Slavic lilt. “That woman knows next to nothing about lighting! The photographer she chose made me look like a corpse!”

This from a woman-child whose alabaster skin was stretched so woefully thin on her bony five-feet eleven, 103-pound frame that her catwalk photos from Jean Paul Gaultier’s Auschwitz-inspired fashion show brought tears to the eyes of Holocaust survivors.

“No!” both Louis and I answered in unison.

Shooting me a daggered smile, he continued, “I won’t hear of it, my darling. She is
much
too temperamental, and I wouldn’t dream of putting you through such torment. I’ll deal with her alone. Hannah here”—with a steely grip, Louis pushed me forward into his lushly upholstered lair—“will be more than happy to keep you company while you wait. It should take fifteen minutes, tops.”

With that, he left the two of us to get acquainted; that is, Tatiana studied her Opi-glossed nails with that world-famous look of boredom etched in Prescriptives Flawless Skin foundation, while I tried not to stare . . . too much.

As
if.

It was certainly easy to see how Louis could fall in love with her, even if this infatuation, like all the others, lasted only a few months. Most certainly she was more beautiful in person than she was in her renowned partially nude Mario Testino photos, more so because, in 3-D and living color, those sharp green eyes acted like an ever-changing emotional kaleidoscope despite the placid countenance on her exquisite face.

Particularly when she was thinking about Louis, as she obviously was during the 52 minutes prior to her not-so-nonchalant inquisition of me on that very subject.

“You, Whatever-Your-Name-Is-That-I’ve-Already-Forgotten: how long have you worked for Louis?”

“Only for a couple of days.”

“Oh, yes? How did you get the job?” The chill in her voice left nothing to the imagination as to her suspicions on how I must have accomplished this magnificent feat.

“I was referred to him by Jasper Carlton.”

She grunted her grudging approval. But believe me, that guttural utterance took all the magic out of our budding relationship once and for all.

Not that I could blame her for having doubts. Heck, from what I could tell just from being with Louis for the past 44 hours, if I were his girlfriend I wouldn’t trust him on the other side of the door unless he agreed to wear an electronic ankle bracelet.

Which is probably why, like me, she leaped to grab the phone when it rang. It was all the way across the room, and, thank God, I got there first. I attribute my win to the fact that she probably hadn’t eaten in a week and therefore hadn’t had the energy for anything longer than a short sprint.

“Yeah,” I growled brusquely into the phone, praying it wasn’t Louis saying he was “all tied up”—literally—and couldn’t break away, and so was asking me to keep stalling.

“Hi, Louis! It’s Caresse.” To demonstrate that she was just as accommodating on the ground as in the air, our friendly flight attendant then purred, “Care for some company?”