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Her doll-sized eyes looked tired, but I could tell deep down she was more lonely than frustrated.
I imagined the phone call one of her friends had made to invite her: "Fuck that guy. He's an asshole who just got famous. Come out and have some fun."
She would've agreed and put the location into her phone as she drove, listening to Jar of Hearts.
I learned to live half alive
And now you want me one more time
She turned toward the mansion and walked toward it. I hid behind a tall waiter and asked him, "Is this all gluten-free?"
As he leaned in closer, I saw Emma enter out of the corner of my eye.
"What did you say, sir?" he said in a Spanish accent.
"Never mind."
The Uber app said 15 minutes.
Fuck.
Andrew walked in front of the terrace, and I raised my hands until he noticed me.
"Did you take some cocaine?" He smiled. "Really living up to your last name."
"You've got to hide me."
"Did you steal the drugs?" He brought the champagne glass to his lips. "Why is your shirt ruined? Don't tell me—"
"Emma is here."
"Oh my god, you cheated—"
"No. No." I shook my head. I grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the valet area, where we stood between trimmed, sculpted shrubs, hidden from almost everyone.
The valet looked at us strangely. I apologized to him and gave him a $20 tip.
"Emma and I broke up. It was messy, and—"
"You didn't tell me." His voice got deeper, and I couldn't tell if it was due to the alcohol or the news. He must've had at least three glasses of champagne.
"It just happened. And, you know me. When I'm working, I'm working. Is that such a bad thing?"
My voice got higher, and I thought back to when I had no opportunities, when I was living in my car and sleeping in the back lot of Ralphs. "People would kill for this shit, you know."
I pointed toward the mansion and terrace. That was when I saw Emma heading toward the bar, so I ducked into the shrubs.
Andrew let out a laugh. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"Just cover me for ten minutes."
He smiled. "You're not in a Bond movie. She's not going to kill you."
"Wait, she's heading toward us."
I leapt behind the valet booth, right next to the worker, and said, "I know this is crazy, but my ex is here."
He put his hand over me, and for a second I thought he was going to pat my head, but he just reached for the water bottle next to me and drank from it. He didn't say a word.
I heard Emma approach, her usual LA accent cutting through the music from the DJ.
"Andrew!"
"Emma. Are you having fun?"
She got closer. "I just got here. Just saying hi to everyone I know."
"Okay. I'm sorry about—"
My face flushed with embarrassment.
"No, no. It's just unfortunate."
There was a moment of silence. Eventually, Emma said, "Well, I've got to get some more drinks."
"I'll come with you. Even though I've had a couple." He chuckled.
Their voices grew quieter as he continued, "Have you met—my Emma, she should be—"
The valet worker said, "You are safe."
I chuckled.
He smiled. "Were you on Jimmy Kimmel?"
I nodded.
"I thought you were a dick when I watched it."
I smiled. "Well, you're not the only one. There's someone else here who thinks the same thing."
I stayed there for a few more minutes, listening to the party through the hedges. Glasses clinked, somebody's laugh rose above the crowd, and the bassline thudded low and steady beneath all of it. It was the same noise every party in this city made.
I thought about Emma somewhere up there with a fresh drink in her hand, letting Andrew make her laugh. Some small part of me was almost glad she had someone to talk to who wasn't me.
Andrew came back around ten minutes later, alone, his jacket a bit crooked.
"She's fine. Talking to some producer about a script."
"Is she actually fine?"
He didn't hear me.
"Never mind. My ride's here."
"Wait. Don't do anything, you know, crazy. Just think back to that time in Italy, if anything. The bike path, Villa Albergoni, especially at sunset. God."
I smiled and stepped into the Camry. The driver said, "Ryan?"
"Yes."
The car smelled like a pine tree air freshener fighting fast food, and the driver had a phone mount that rattled every time we hit a seam in the road.
We wound down out of the hills. The party's lights shrank behind us in the side mirror until they disappeared behind the white security gates. Mulholland gave way to the flatter grid below, and somewhere around Laurel Canyon, the radio switched to a song I didn't recognize. For that, I was grateful.
For all my years living in LA, at night it was nothing remarkable. In New York, you could never get used to the view, but from the top of the canyon, LA looked different. It was a sprawling, glittering sea of neon lights that seemed to never end. Even in the valleys, there always seemed to be another mansion perched above them.
I dozed off, and before I knew it, we were at my apartment in Los Feliz.
"Thank you."
I got out of the car, dazed by my surroundings.
All I could think about was escape. I forgot almost everything, and then I realized all I wanted was to act. It was the only time I was allowed to forget.
The apartment smelled stale, and the trash bin was overflowing with paper plates, In-N-Out bags, and peeled oranges.
I opened the refrigerator and stared inside for a few seconds before closing it. I wasn't hungry. I wasn't tired anymore either. My body felt exhausted, but my mind wouldn't shut the fuck up.
I walked toward the bedroom and stopped at the doorway.
Her side of the bed was empty.
I turned around.
There were a hundred things I could've done. Call Andrew. Take a shower. Put on a movie. Read the Whiplash script again. Go to sleep and pretend tonight never happened.
Instead, an old thought came back so naturally that it scared me.
It had been years.
I knew exactly how it would feel. For twenty minutes, maybe an hour, everything would become simple again.
I sat on the couch and stared at my phone.
"No."
I put it down.
Thirty seconds later, I picked it back up.
I dialed a number I never thought I would call.
I said, "Hello. Do you have any specials at Countdown?"
His voice was gruff and tired. "Umm. Yes, the Boulevard at McCadden."
"Okay. And you have candy too, right?"
"Of course."
The phone call ended as quickly as it started.
Thirty minutes later, I was standing in a dimly lit area of Hollywood Boulevard where I could see Adam Levine's star. I had seen him at the party earlier that night.
If I ever got famous, a star here wouldn't be too bad.
The man stood beneath a liquor store sign, wearing a Dodgers cap pulled low over his ears.
"Who would you recommend? How do you know?"
We walked together in sync through the alley between McCadden and the liquor store.
"I have the money. Just give me the shit."
I changed my accent to a Southern one, and my cap hid half of my face.
He glanced toward the traffic crawling down Hollywood Boulevard. It faded from view as we moved behind a garbage dumpster.
He brought out a bag of cocaine.
"A gram?"
I nodded and gave him 150 dollars.
"Just that amount?"
I didn't say anything, and neither did he.
He left first. I heard his footsteps turn left before a bus roared past and startled me.
I returned home and sat down with the bag of cocaine on the dinner table. I stared at it for a long time. The kitchen light hummed above me, illuminating the dust and smudges on the table.
The apartment was quiet except for the neighbor's television playing the monologue from Jimmy Kimmel Live.
I couldn't help but laugh.
I had thrown away my last life because of the same addiction, but this time I was living my dream.
I was no longer a struggling actor. Almost every entertainment paper said I was a rising star, an actor to look forward to.
People now knew my name, my hobbies, and, to some extent, my personality.
How could someone this fortunate be so confused?
For a second, I thought about calling Mark, just to hear his voice and let his sleazy attitude distract me, but I chose not to.
Then I thought about calling the person who meant the most to me, but I didn't. It was too late, and Tessa always had a strict sleep schedule.
Just yesterday, I had been thinking about the dinner scene from Whiplash. It was the one Damien had shown me at that café in Silver Lake, where Fletcher talked about the cymbal, about Charlie Parker crying himself to sleep and then getting up and practicing until he became someone.
Did he write the part for me?
In my mind, the story was about greatness, but now I realized in my heart that it was really just about survival masked as ambition. After enough time, you became a Fletcher and started to hate the craft.
Jimmy's audience laughed at something on the other side of the wall. A commercial jingle followed it.
My mind raced back to the first hard scene I had to do in Margin Call, how J.C. had told me not to act but to be there in that bathroom, and how easy the result had been, like adjusting the brightness of a light bulb.
I picked the bag up one more time.
Then I walked to the bathroom, flushed it, and stood there feeling stupid and relieved at the same time, watching the water settle back to stillness.
I turned off the kitchen light. The television laughter kept coming through the wall but it was muffled now.
I lay down on the couch instead of the bed. I wasn't ready for the bed, or for her side of it anyway. I stared at the ceiling until the laughter finally stopped, the whole building went quiet, and l finally fell asleep.
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