True Hollywood Lies (15 page)

“Fancy going for coffee?”

Louis’s question took me by surprise. The suite was finally quiet, what with Edie, Kathy and the kids safely ensconced on the train back to Manchester (a trip that should prove to be three highly charged hours, thanks to all the naughty ideas Louis put in the boys’ heads about how they could “drive their mum narky”). The notoriously overbooked Ernestine J., payment in hand, had defected not long after being treated by the boys to a hearty breakfast of bangers, mash and ale, and, along with Chaz, Louis’s mates were off attending to any obligations that might stand in their way of hanging with the King of Players later that evening.

Which meant that Louis and I were all alone.

He’d been granted a day’s rest in order to facilitate any jet lag—which I was certainly feeling, despite the early afternoon hour. I’d assumed Louis was also tired, but obviously I was mistaken. He was up and raring to go.

Ah, my kingdom for an Ernestine J.!

“Hmmm . . . coffee . . .” Well, if anything was going to keep me from crashing, that would. “Ummm . . . does it have to be Jamaican Blue? Because, I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know where we’ll find some in this town—”

“What do you take me for, some kind of sodding twit or something? Bollocks, no! Just. . . just a cuppa of something black. Anything at all.” He reached for our coats. “In fact, I’ll let you lead the way.”

“No, this is your turf. I’ll let you lead, but if I see a place I like, we’ll stop.”

“Agreed.” He grinned playfully. “Blimey, it’s been a while since I’ve showed someone around London. It should be interesting.”

With him, it was. We didn’t stop in trendy Kensington, or the beautifully-peopled Chelsea, the oh-so-posh Mayfair, or even hip Notting Hill. No, Louis’s London was centered in down-and-dirty Soho, still—as in Louis’s day—an edgy bohemia inhabited by those on the outer fringe of culture, art and, more importantly, infamy.

“It wasn’t what I’d pictured at all,” I murmured, squinting up at the window of the grimy, three-story walk-up he’d once inhabited on Frith Street. Deceived by the morning’s clouds, I had inconveniently forgotten my sunglasses. (Not Louis. His were always there, a not-so-successful deterrent to the inevitable tap on the shoulder that preceded that disingenuous question: “Aren’t you—you know—
him
?”)

Although I could not see his eyes, his voice, mellow with memories of a time long past, put his feelings into perspective. “To a bloke from Manchester who was going nowhere fast, it was a bloody get-out-of-jail-free card. My flat mate was Nigel.” He laughed. “I still remember how pathetically long it took him to break me of my native Manchester brogue, to make me sound less—well, what we call ‘Mancunian.’ ” He shook his head in wonder. “I must have cacked up at least forty auditions before I got the hang of proper British elocution. Bugger it! I was such a tosser back then, ready to quit and go home to Manchester each time they’d tell me to bog off—very politely, of course. Used to get so angry that they couldn’t see past me accent.”

“It was only a matter of time, right?”

“Yeah, right.” He sighed deeply. “Bloody hell, those were glorious times! I worked me arse off and enjoyed every damn moment of it! Why, just look around you!” He pointed down the street, which was teeming with youthful exuberance clad in leather jackets, tattered jeans or colorful tights, and even more colorful hair. “It’s just about perfect, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It’s perfect.” It truly was. Because, right now, Louis was perfect.

He was so open. And honest. And
real.

I was so enjoying the real
Louis. And I was proud of him, proud now to be a part of his story.

We stood there for some time, just watching the carnival of Soho street life—the heavy conversations, the pickups, the put-downs, the street vendors, all still there, still very much a part of Louis—until a cloud once again overtook the sun.

“Time for that coffee now, wouldn’t you say?”

We settled on one of his old haunts, Bar Italia, a twenty-four-hour hole-in-the-wall just a block down from his old flat. By the way he gulped down the thick brew of espresso the waiter put in front of him, it was obvious that he liked it even better than the Jamaican Blue after all.

Or perhaps it was being back in the old neighborhood that he liked so much.

Within an hour and a half, he was claiming it was due to the company:
me.

But I’m sure that was only because I lent an interested ear as he talked about the very first London production he was cast in (Pinter’s
Ashes to Ashes
), and the first time he’d gotten critical raves (Stoppard’s
The Invention of Love
), and the production that got him noticed by American producers in the first place (a West End production of
Speed the Plow
).

“The damn American producers were looking for a Brit who could speak with an American accent. Well, hell, we were weaned on your cinema! I didn’t know a dude who
couldn’t
talk as if he’d grown up in the O.C., so I guess I was just lucky that I was the first guy they saw,” Louis explained, in a perfect O.C. drawl. “And to think I almost turned down the Mamet for another revival of
Julius Caesar
. Ha! Where would my life be if I had?”

“You would have made it ‘across the pond’ eventually. It was your fate. I know these things. I study the stars, remember?”

We’d moved from coffee mugs to beer tankards sometime during the unofficial happy hour of four o’clock. The fickle British sun, now fully encased in heavy dense clouds, merited the switch. I was not used to thick dark British beers (let alone thin, pallid American ones), and I could feel my tongue get furrier with each sip.

“To paraphrase the Bard, ‘the fault, dear Hannah, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves if we are underlings.’ ” He stared at me for just a second, then glanced away. His slap-happy grin couldn’t disappear as fast, though. “You’re an odd dolly bird, for Hollywood anyway, you know that?”

“In what way?” I demanded to know. Later I’d try to tell myself that it had been the beer that had made me belligerent, but of course I knew better. In truth, I was upset that he was so right, for so many reasons: I wasn’t your usual Hollywood hottie, Malibu Barbie, or California surfer girl. Still, no woman wanted the obvious thrown in her face:
that she didn’t fit in.

Louis almost choked on his foam, he was laughing so hard at my reaction. “Don’t get me wrong. You’re certainly pretty . . . enough.”

Enough?
What, now there was a standard to be met?

But of course
,
in Hollywood there’s
always
a standard . . .

“I’m not being cheeky. I
mean
it—and not in a bad way at all. In fact, I think your
ordinariness
is your most attractive feature.”

“What? I don’t get it.” The fact that I
wasn’t
pretty enough for Hollywood made me attractive?
To Louis?

He took another sip of his beer before answering. “What I’m trying to say is that you’re—well, you’re not plastic. You know, not
fake
.” He leaned in close—so close, in fact, that I could once again feel his breath on my face.

It felt warm. And nice. So much so that I felt it was worth staying awake for.

“You have
real
lips, not the blow-up-doll kind. Granted, your eyes could be just a bit larger—” he paused to scrutinize me more carefully—“And your hair… well, frankly, I
like
the fact that it’s that—that sort of gingery brown color. Although maybe it could use a bit more red, too.” He squinted to make sure, but there wasn’t much light coming in through the café’s windows. “You know what I mean—it’s not just another shade of brass. And I must say, I find it refreshing to have finally met a woman in Los Angeles who doesn’t spend every waking minute in some salon, or doesn’t have an entourage of stylists trailing after her. The way you let it run wild all over the place—very Botticelli . . . well, okay, more like pinkie-finger-in-light-socket, but it seems to work. On
you
, anyway.”

I snorted so hard that beer went up my nose. “Thanks. That’s just what I needed: confirmation from
Cosmo’
s ‘Hottest Hunk’ that I’m a total loser.”

“I think you know better than that.” All of a sudden, his voice got serious. “You’re—
real.
Sure, your nose may be a bit too… ‘pert’ is the word, right?”—He traced the pertness with a tapered finger—“And it’s obvious that those are your
real
breasts—” His hand may have stopped, but his gaze hadn’t. “Just the fact that they aren’t anywhere near Hef’s minimum is a dead giveaway that it’s all you… I mean, I hope you started with
at least
that—”

Shaking my Botticellian mop, I warned him, “Watch it, pretty boy. You’re treading on thin ice.”

“Oh, don’t I know it.” He leaned back, but he didn’t let up by any means. “And I like the way that you’re always game to try something new, even though, as we’ve discovered, you have a propensity toward mucking things up. Most women in Los Angeles would rather play it safe. Then there’s your very charming habit of speaking your mind, even at the most inappropriate times. Hmmm… and I find it endearing that you’re not worried about breaking your face by laughing. What’s truly more amazing is that you even laugh at yourself.”

I groaned out loud, just thinking about the wrinkles he was counting in the corners of my eyes. What was he truly dishing out: adoration, or insults? I was too tipsy to tell.

Whatever it was, though, it was too embarrassing to hear him continue.

“Enough already! Before this dissertation once again veers onto the subject of my gap-toothed grin, or how pigeon-toed I am, or the fact that my legs are too skinny, or that my elbows are too bony, or my ass sticks out too far—”

“As a connoisseur of the fairer sex’s bum, I can assure you that yours is currently elevated quite nicely.” He stopped and leaned outside the table. “But to make doubly sure, might I suggest we hasten back to the Lanesborough to measure its distance from the ground?”

“I’ve got a better idea.” This I practically purred at him. “What say we complete our game of Twenty Questions?”

He blinked twice. “I thought we had.”

“No, not really. You forgot to answer the very last question.”

“Refresh my memory.”

“On the plane, you had asked me what I considered were the traits of the ideal man. But you never answered that question yourself.”

“Why,
I’m
the ideal man. For every woman, of course.”

“I’m sure you think you are, but you know very well that’s not what I’m asking! I want you to describe
the ideal woman
.”

“I remember answering that very question in the ‘Actor’s Studio.’”

“No, you answered a question about your ideal
leading lady
. And, if
I
remember correctly, you stole my answer when you did. So, now it’s time for the
real
answer.”

He rose slowly and motioned the waiter for the check, but I made it obvious that I wasn’t going to budge until he answered. After handing the waiter a £100 note to clear our tab, Louis then sat back down, took both my hands in his, and looked me right in the eye.

“But I just gave it to you, Hannah dear, when I described
you
.”

* * *

The conversations that took place every fifteen minutes or so between the hours of eight and eleven o’clock the next morning between me and the director of
Rebecca
, Dorian Lancaster (né Dragomir Levanat, an obviously fully Anglicized Croatian émigré), were a near-complete primer on the most colorful phrases in contemporary British slang.

Take, for example,
bang out of order
, which means totally unacceptable. (As in “It’s bang out of order for that bastard prick boss of yours to blow off this final dubbing session!”) Then there is
bugger it
,
mad for it
,
nadgers
, and
galloping knob-rot
. (The first term expresses frustration, the second is another way of saying
enthusiastic
, the third is slang for
testicles
, and the final expression describes an uncontrollable venereal disease—all of which Dorian used in this manner: “Bugger it! That bloke is so mad for it that one day he’s going to wake up to find his nadgers covered in some galloping knob-rot!”)

But the one phrase Dorian uttered that needed no translation was something to the effect that, if Louis didn’t show up soon, the postproduction schedule for
Rebecca
would be “ballsed up” to the point that the studio might pull the plug on the project.

Would Louis be blamed? No.

I would. Again.

Bollocks!

I was too drunk to remember having stumbled into bed the prior evening. However, I did remember that our taxi had also picked up the rest of Louis’s mates as it had wended its way back to the Lanesborough, and that, even in my much too sloppy state, I’d secured Louis’s solemn oath—not to mention ones from Chaz, Nigel, Andy and Jim—that he’d be in his room,
alone
, no later than midnight that evening, to ensure that he’d be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in time for his seven o’clock wake-up call the next morning.

Obviously, they’d lied to me.

Louis
had lied to me.

Something told me I could take his last Twenty Questions answer with a grain of salt, too.

At 6:59 the next morning, after showering what was left of my hangover out of my Botticellian ringlets, I personally called Louis’s room to wake him up as well. And while I wasn’t panicking by the thirty-fourth ring, I was by the time my knuckles started bleeding from banging on his door—gently at first, then more frantically as each successive minute ticked by.

By 7:22 A.M., even Ernestine J., swathed in one of Louis’s bedsheets, would have been a welcomed sight.

After securing an extra room key from the front desk and doing a sweep of Louis’s suite to make sure he wasn’t lying facedown in a pool of prostitutes, I hit the phones, calling hospitals, Chaz’s cell phone, and every 24-hour disco the concierge suggested.