Starstruck Romance and Other Hollywood Tails Read online

  In any case, she valued their friendship very much and all of Lolita’s support. Even Lolita’s strange dogs had pitched in. Cynthia knew that she would never stop trying to help Lolita find someone to love even though she was pretty sure that Lolita, in spite of what she said, would never settle down. She had to call her. But Lolita was not an early morning person. It would have to be later.

  Cynthia needed to check on the details of a few dates, but she looked out the window at the miraculous Los Angeles morning and suddenly had the urge to go for a walk. She wanted to think, to get a little centered . . . prepare for seeing Tanya, for Lolita, for discussing her mother’s choice for a date——something she hadn’t actually checked out yet——and later, for going to the Sternberg soiree with Jack Stone. She already knew what dress she’d wear. It was cleaned and ready. The house looked better than it had in days. Now she needed to clean her head a bit too with an early-morning get-away, like a mini-vacation. A brisk loop around the canyon would do the trick. She might do her normal walk, plus maybe even go farther and gaze admiringly at the new building on Franklin for a bit.

  She laced up her walking sneaks and headed out into the perfect morning. The orange tree in her front lawn was blossoming and its exquisite fragrance stopped her in her tracks. She pulled off one small flower, squeezed it between her fingers and brought it to her face, breathing it in like some kind of magic aromatherapy potion, which it sort of was. That scent was high on her list of reasons she loved living there.

  She turned up the block, a steep stretch that was a daunting way to start, but she loved it. She loved having to power through the toughest part early, so that everything else seemed easier. She took her phone out of her pocket to check the time: 9:13. There were a bunch of new emails, voice mails, but she’d read them later. This was why she had her phone on silent——she needed some peace and quiet. But then she noticed something else. There were several notifications on Facebook. So and so liked this, so and so commented on that. But one got her full attention, and fast:

  Pete Blatt accepted your friend request. Write on Pete’s wall.

  Cynthia came to a complete stop and stared at the screen. Pete. Blatt. She pictured him again in her room in the valley. She thought of his young voice and his sweetly sincere love for her and how, in retrospect, it was so devoid of cynicism. Even way back then, when he’d obviously been operating under the influence of raging teen lust, she also had the feeling that his adoration of her went way beyond that. That he worshipped her inside and out in the best possible sense.

  She walked into the shade of a gnarly California Oak to get a look at his page out of the sunshine, seeking to parse more info, now that she had so-called friendship access.

  Bingo: phone number. Bingo: street address. Wait a minute . . .

  Cynthia literally smacked her forehead in disbelief, like a dumb guy in a movie. Pete Blatt lived at 6138 Glen Tower Street, just blocks from where she was standing at that very moment. This was insane. She’d been walking this neighborhood for years. Had she passed him? Had they not recognized each other? No, that’s right. He had just moved back to L.A. recently.

  She leaned against the tree for a moment, catching her breath and thinking about how incredible this was. Should she knock on his door? How crazy would that be? Pretty crazy. She decided to make a slight change in her usual walking route. She’d just pass his house, check it out, whatever. She would not go up to the door, definitely not.

  She continued up the hill, twisting along, and despite the increasing steepness, she picked up the pace even more. She took a right at Cheremoya Drive and bumped into her neighbor, Celeste, an eighty-year-old retiree who had worked in animation in the fifties and sixties, first at Disney, where she painted backgrounds for Peter Pan, among other films. She liked to talk.

  “Cynthia, my dear, how are you,” she asked.

  “Oh, fine, Celeste,” she said, slowing down, but trying not to actually stop, hoping Celeste would let her continue on her way.

  “My, you’re in a hurry this morning, honey,” Celeste said. “Isn’t it too perfect of a morning for that?”

  “Yeah, well,” said Cynthia, walking backwards up the hill now, trying to be polite, but really not wanting to get hooked into a long conversation about the old days, Celeste’s specialty. Not now. “I have a lot on my schedule today, unfortunately. So, you know, great seeing you and next time we’ll chat a bit more. Have nice day.”

  “Yeah, right. Well, so far it hasn’t been all that neighborly. Did I ever tell you about the time that Walt came into my office and told me I was the best painter he ever had?”

  “Yes, yes, you have. Great story and I’m sure he was right. You are a remarkable talent.” And she was. Cynthia loved her and her work. But. Not. Today. She turned around and picked up the pace, and then looked back over her shoulder to see Celeste glaring at her, arms folded.

  “Celeste, see you soon!”

  She reached the next corner, North Beachwood Drive, and took another right. She couldn’t recall how many blocks farther up the hill it was, and she was breathing heavily now, partly because of the terrain and partly because of the mountain of nostalgia she was climbing inside her head. She passed Glen Green Street on the right and then, thirty seconds later, she came to Glen Tower Street on the left. This was it, complete with a dead end sign. No outlet. Was this sign some kind of sign? Well, maybe not, but the no outlet thing made her snooping slightly more conspicuous.

  She headed down the block, passing houses, trying to locate any numbers at all. One thing about this neighborhood was that the houses ran the gamut--everything from ramshackle ticky-tacky boxes from the sixties to restored Spanish-styles and Craftsmans, nearly all occupied by industry people.

  6122. 6124. 6130. Cynthia couldn’t believe how much of a thrill this was. She remembered that Pete had had an obsession for riding past her house on his bicycle, and here she was, decades later, walking past his.

  6132. 6134. 6136. She stopped and stood behind a short palm tree, the kind that resembles a huge pineapple, finally squinting and seeing 6138, the number she was looking for, just twenty or so yards ahead. It was the last house on the block, the very end of the dead end. Impossible to pass, really. The only reason one would need to be in front of it would be if it were your actual destination. Or, you know, if you were clumsily casing the joint. It was a tall Spanish-style structure, lovingly restored, and similar to hers in a way. Soft music drifted subtly from an open window. It was old-time music. Scratchy even——like a Victrola——a lovely swinging melody and rhythm, violin and guitar intertwined. Together with the vintage house, the music evoked another era, like Cynthia had walked back in time, way past her childhood, past her mother’s childhood, to 1920s or ‘30s Hollywood, back when this house was built.

  She thought about walking up to the door. How bad could it be, really? Well, pretty bad. What if he turned out to be an awful guy? Musicians can be pretty weird. Up all hours; high . . . most of them. They lead pretty vampire-ish lifestyles. What if he had become a first-class asshole? What good would it do to know that? Or what if he hated her or barely remembered her and only accepted her friendship to be polite and had absolutely no interest in knowing her at all? That, of course, was the dark side of social networking. Well, one of the dark sides. She stared up at the window, the curtains sailing gently in the breeze. She had serious second thoughts about the whole thing. She just was not that interested in finding out something bad today.

  Before this nonsense started, she was on track for having a very good day and she didn’t want to spoil it. She would think about the whole Pete Blatt thing and revisit it later. At least that way she could savor the fantasy of what he might have become and what meeting him might be like——the storybook version. Yes, good decision. She looked at her phone: 9:42. She would walk back around the neighborhood, get a good, long walk in, and go home in time to meet Tanya.

  She turned, pushing off hard from the sidewalk to make a speed
y departure from the street of Pete, and immediately crashed into a fellow pedestrian, who, having raised his arms in an attempt to prevent the collision, squarely placed his open hands onto her breasts like he was checking the ripeness of cantaloupes.

  “Oh, my, excuse me, I’m so sorry,” he said, while Cynthia said something more like, “Hey! Watch it! What the hell?”

  Realizing she had dropped her phone, she bent down to retrieve it. “Oh, man. I just got this thing. Oh, please, oh, please. Don’t be broken.”

  That’s when the man whispered, “Cynthia? Amas? Is it still Amas?”

  And Cynthia, looking up and into the familiar dark eyes of her former adolescent crush, replied, “Pete? Pete Blatt? What on Earth are you doing here?”

  She didn’t really listen to what he said next, because she obviously knew the answer to that question. She was focused on the area around his nose, where——low and behold——there still appeared to be a few freckles.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Pete, sounding a little deeper in pitch, perhaps, but still remarkably like he did at sixteen. “Is your phone okay? I live right over here. It’s so weird that you just contacted me on dumb old Facebook and now we bump into each other. Literally.”

  “I know, well, yeah, it is. But I live a few blocks from here.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Pete.

  “No, I walk around here all the time. I’m surprised we haven’t seen each other sooner.”

  “Oh, well, I just moved in. Hey, how about I fix you a cup of coffee and we can make sure the phone is working. If not, I’m replacing it.”

  Cynthia stared at him. What he looked and sounded like and what he was saying--it all made her happy. “Yeah, sure, I’d love that,” she said, as they headed side-by-side toward the house. “It is, by the way.”

  “It is what?”

  “My name. It’s still Amas. It wasn’t for a short time, but I got it back.”

  “Glad to hear it,” said Pete Blatt, opening his front door, which he had left unlocked.

  Day 2, Chapter 10

  Lolita hadn’t spent the whole night in jail, but it felt like it. As incarceration goes, doing time in Beverly Hills isn’t all that uncomfortable, but still, jail is jail. After failing to reach Cynthia, she tried Tanya, who also didn’t pick up. She finally got her lawyer, Arthur Robbins, on the phone. He was a short, wide, furry man with a ridiculous mustache and more hair on his back than most men have on their heads. He was also the most loyal friend she had, partly because he truly lusted after her. He was like a neighbor who does favors for the lady down the block for years on the remote chance that when she passes, it will be revealed that she has bequeathed the secret millions in her mattress to him. In terms of Arthur ever receiving any carnal remittance from Lolita, he was seriously deluded. Hers was a mattress from which he’d never yield any return on his investment whatsoever. But still, he never let her pay for his services, and she had let it go on for years, clearly knowing his motives and just as clearly restating every single time that he would never, could never buy her love, no matter what the price.

  He came and bailed her out.

  “You know,” said Arthur, opening the door of his massive black Mercedes, “we would make an excellent team.”

  “Arthur,” she said, sliding across the leather seat, “I’d be happy to pay you with money you know.”

  “Don’t be silly, I wouldn’t think of it,” he said, pulling onto Rexford Drive, heading toward her house.

  He walked her to her door, where she thanked him and said goodbye. Later, in the afternoon, after she got some rest, Arthur would return and bring her to the city lot, where her mangled car had been impounded. They would have it towed to the shop. Then he would take her to the other kind of pound and pick up King, Max, and Wilfredo, poor things. Ultimately, this shouldn’t have been that big of a problem, but in Lolita’s current state of mind it was one gigantic pain in the ass. She blamed two friends who almost seemed to be conspiring against her: Cynthia and Tanya. But that was just crazy. They barely even knew each other, right? Lolita had no idea that Cynthia had interviewed Tanya for a job, that Cynthia was planning on asking Lolita if she would mind if she hired Tanya, and that, pending her blessing, they’d literally be working together.

  Good god, what a night. She knew she’d fall asleep in a matter of moments. She inhaled deeply, and then released the kind of down-to-your-core inhale-exhale that almost always pries open the gates to dreamland. But before she passed through, she smelled something pretty foul that she immediately blamed on the dogs. Specifically, Wilfredo. He was much smaller than the others, but far more pungent. But then she realized that, of course, the dogs weren’t even there. She lifted her pillow over her head to at least block out the morning sunlight and instantly determined that the source of the stench was none other than herself. One simply does not work all day, shovel dog poop for two hours, spend four hours in jail, and come out smelling like a rose.

  She got up and took a shower, which, despite her fatigue, jolted her like a triple espresso and kicked her mind back into gear regarding Tanya, Cynthia, and everything else. She would not be falling asleep anytime soon. She called Cynthia again: nothing. She called Tanya again: also nothing. She texted Cynthia: nothing, nothing, and more nothing. She looked at the clock on the wall: 10:37 AM.

  That’s it. I’m going over there. I’ll pick up the dogs first.

  She got halfway down the front stairs before she remembered she didn’t have a car.

  Dammit, Dammit, Dammit.

  She was not accustomed to being stymied at every corner like this. She was Lolita, dammit.

  Wait. The Vespa. But no. It’s a fantastic mode of transportation, but not terribly effective for hauling four hundred and fifty pounds of dog.

  She called Arthur and got his voicemail.

  “Arthur, it’s me. Hi, sweetie.” She wasn’t proud of that sweetie. She knew he was susceptible to her flirtation and she really, really tried hard not to resort to it. But this was an emergency. “Listen, honey, can you believe it? Something else has come up. Could you do me a huge favor and deal with the car, you know, have it towed over to Henry’s Service Station. Oh, and Arthur. Also pick up the dogs?”

  She felt bad about this. She would have much preferred to pick up her darlings herself. But that was impossible with the tiny scooter and, besides, Arthur was just about the most dependable creature on Earth, at least to her. At least some of that loyalty was stoked by the most potent fuel known to mankind: eternal hope against hope for potential pussy. But she didn’t hold this against him . . . she really liked him very much. But not in that way. It was just the way it was.

  “The extra key is still hidden you know where,” she continued. I know it’s a lot to ask. You are such a friend. Thanks, honey. Kisses.”

  She really wasn’t at all worried about Max, King, and Wilfredo, who were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. They had taken care of her for years, after all. But she didn’t realize until after she hung up just how tall of an order all that was. Arthur could handle the car thing fine, but her three dogs were not always all that cooperative, especially with a man who had been hitting on her for years, without so much as a shred of evidence that that sort of attention was desired on her part. They had never taken too kindly to him.

  She had a thought and called back. Voicemail.

  “Hi. Me again. Hey, I know that my sweet boys haven’t always been your biggest fans. I suggest you bring beef. Kobe. Lots of it. Okay, that should do it. I’ll call you later. Thanks again. Bye, honey. Sweetie. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. Let’s have dinner later this week. You are the best. Oh, and watch your wallet.”

  Good god.

  She went to the garage and unzipped the black leather cover, revealing her immaculate pink Vespa. She hadn’t used it in quite a while. It was her baby. She had ridden it up Coldwater Canyon countless times to Maximillian Schell’s house, back in the day. He even star
ted calling her clitoris her Vespa, as in, “Darling, would you mind terribly if I took your sweet little pink Vespa for a ride tonight?” It was dumb, but she loved his accent and somehow it made the scooter ride over feel turbo-charged with erotic anticipation. Zipping through that neighborhood, past those houses and those magnificent lawns——the engine purring happily beneath her——was a powerful aphrodisiac. She was living the dream, mixing with Hollywood royalty. It was her ultimate fantasy--the same one that seemed to be crumbling around her now.