“Forty,” I say. “I think maybe you’ve had enough.”
He wipes his nose. “Megan. Fucking. Ellison.”
I put down my champagne. “What are you talking about?”
“Are you deaf?” he shouts. “Megan Fucking Ellison. So fuck you, Barry Stein.”
My heart beats. Megan Ellison. She made Her and American Hustle. The hooker who was dancing is now sitting on Forty’s lap, feeding him a taco.
“Forty,” I say. “Are you telling me that Megan Ellison is interested in The Third Twin?”
“No,” he says. “I am telling you that Megan Ellison is interested in The Third Twin and The Mess. Both of ’em. Boom!”
Forty found out this morning; his agent had a meeting with Megan Ellison and Megan Ellison can eat Barry Stein for breakfast. The agent says the offer will be coming any day now, and Forty and I clink glasses of champagne and his hookers flop on the bed and watch Wendy Williams and make out periodically and this is not my kind of party but at least Forty knows himself. He jumps in the middle of them and they both roll toward him.
“Now listen here, Old Sport,” he says. “Just remember it’s only interest and we don’t want to jinx it.”
We agree to wait until the news is official before we tell anyone, but I don’t know how Forty’s going to do it. He’s bouncing on the bed again, shouting, “Remember this moment, Old Sport. It’s going to happen, it is. And the second that this is out there, your life isn’t yours anymore. This is out there, and you’re the guy, the man. Everyone is gonna wanna piece of you. Everyone is gonna love you. So like, take this for you man, you know? This is your success and this is the magic hour, the golden time before the time. Just be in it. You earned it. Don’t spread it and don’t pull on it and don’t push it and don’t share it and don’t examine it. This is it. If the big one hits right now, you die a writer. You die discovered. Live like that. Live right now.”
It’s true; cokeheads can be annoying, but they also have this knack for knocking you the hell out of your head. Forty is right. This is my success and I put up with Boots and Puppies and I spent all those days at Intelligentsia and Taco Bell and I did earn it. I jump onto the other bed and I don’t remember the last time I jumped on a bed. Forty howls and turns on the Boogie Nights soundtrack and I jump and pounce and bounce and the hookers laugh and I did it. I captured the flag. I moved to Los Angeles. I found Love; I fell in love. And now this, the hardest thing to do in this world, one of the hardest things, and I’m about to do it. I’m going to make it in Hollywood.
Love texts: Have you heard from Forty? He disappeared. Sorry. Welcome to my world.
She writes again a second later: I love you.
I take a screen grab. I’ll have this image stitched onto a pillow, dozens of pillows, written into the sky, engraved into the walls of our home. It’s impossible for me to distinguish the Love high from the Hollywood high and there might even be a contact high from being in this cocaine den but I don’t need to separate one from the other. I am happy. I am here. All the fear inside of me, the CandaceBenjiPeachBeckHendersonDelilah of it all, has been sublimated by the joy of LoveTheThirdTwinTheMess.
I call Love. I assure her that Forty is safe because he’s with me. Love is relieved. Forty and the hookers decide to go for a swim in the giant pool and Forty shows off, doing the crawl and the butterfly and the breaststroke. He could be out there teaching kids to swim with his twin sister, but then, some people prefer hookers over poor children.
The whites of his eyes are red. I don’t know if it’s chlorine or cocaine. “You’re a good friend,” he says. “You know I think if I grew up without all this pressure and all this excess, I think I’d be more like you.”
I start to tell him he’s a good friend, but before I finish the sentence, he’s submerged.
IT’S the last day of Boots and Puppies and I sit on this set a changed man. Love is a ball of feelings, overjoyed, sentimental, excited. Her movie is ending and she doesn’t know it yet but mine will begin soon. We get to have a life like this, on sets, always creating, then wrapping, then toasting. I catch Forty’s eye and wink but he motions for me to stop. He’s back. He’s hungover. He’s not sure if we have a deal. He hasn’t heard from his agent all day. I tell him to relax. Let today be about Boots and Puppies.
“You’re a good man,” he says. “You see the big picture.”
“Always,” I say. “It’s the only picture.”
I am good on a set and I have come to love it here, shooting the shit, working out in the desert; I am the only crew member who will leave this location in better physical shape than I was when I arrived. I love my chair with my name on it and I love our squeaky bed. I love the way a set makes you live in the moment. Now I am excited when Milo calls action and I feel like I moved forward in life every time he calls cut.
I will miss it here. I love the kitchen table where Love first blew me; now she sucks my dick every chance she gets. I love Love. I love our movie family even if I don’t know all their names. People on a set all seem interchangeable, with dry hair and tan pants. But I love that too. I love it when it’s time for the martini shot and you get to clap and the day is over and you did it. I love the time before that too, the sweet building exuberance of the Abby—named in honor of first AD, Abby Singer, you learn things on a set, history—the almost of it all, two more to go! If we all die right now, we have a movie in the can.
Love’s parents saw some dailies and they’re so thrilled with Love’s work that they’re insisting on flying us all to their place in Cabo for a wrap party. Most movies like this wrap out at a dive bar with two-dollar beers, but because of Love, we’re going to La Groceria for two nights. Love says I will love La Groceria and she says Cabo is “gentle heaven on earth.”
I laugh and she smacks me. “Watch it, wiseass.”
“Love,” I say, grabbing a water bottle from craft. “Come on. When you hear Mexico, you think gentle?”
Milo laughs. “Lovey, Mexico is pretty much the murder capital of the world.”
It’s funny. Now that Milo accepts his fate, that he’s not going to be with Love, he’s infinitely more bearable, likable even. I relate to him, with his fucked-up parents and his creative impulses. “Yeah,” I say. “Milo is right. I mean, they behead people in Mexico.”
Just then a PA approaches. “Hey, Milo,” he says. “We have a visitor.”
Love and I turn our heads. And indeed, we do have a visitor. I drop my water bottle. The visitor is Officer Robin Fincher.
35
I am not jaywalking and this is not Officer Robin Fincher’s territory. He has no right to be here in uniform, standing on my set, looking at my girlfriend. I pick up my water bottle, and stay on the ground a moment too long, and curse under my breath.
Milo shakes his hand. “Officer,” he says. “Did you need to see our permits?”
Fincher laughs. “I just need one or two lines and a close-up.”
Poor Milo can’t tell whether or not the fucker is serious, but this is serious for me. What the fuck is he doing here?