“You’re in luck. As it turns out, I’ve been relieved of my duties as Karl Lagerfeld’s muse. I’m completely at your disposal.”
He laughed, took her arm, and swept her out.
• • •
“HOW’S THE KIT Lightfoot movie going?” she asked, after ordering.
Tiff occasionally waved to well-wishers — only rarely was he approached in full greeting. As a rule, it was understood the mogul was not to be disturbed.
“Phenomenal. I think it’s gonna be a big hit.”
“He’s really good.”
“Number one. Very down-to-earth — an old-fashion movie star. And he gets the biggest compliment I have. Know what it is?”
She shook her head.
Tiff said, “He’s not a prick.”
“Do you know him? I mean, very well?”
“What, you have a crush?” His antennae were up.
“I meant, do you ever socialize—”
“Because he’s very much a twosome, you know,” he chided.
“So I heard,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“I’d be very jealous if you wound up on his arm at a benefit.”
“I would never be unfaithful,” she said, patting his hand. “Unless, of course, I was the honoree — then I just might drag him along. Naturally, he would have to consent.”
“Fair enough. All’s fair among love and consenting honorees.”
“Are they still shooting?”
“For two more weeks.”
She got very brave and casually said, “I’d love to visit the set.” Better just to come out with it.
Two men interrupted to say hellos, then the food arrived. She would have to find a way to circle around again.
Since they’d been seated, Lisanne had noticed heads consistently turning toward one of the booths in the back.
“Is that Russell Crowe?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.
Tiff glanced over and laughed.
“See the blond kid? Adam Spiegel—Spike Jonze. He did Adaptation and Being John Malkovich.”
“I know who he is. I love his movies.”
“He’s sitting with Charlie Kaufman.”
“That’s Charlie Kaufman? God, he looks like J. D. Souther.”
“Who’s J. D. Souther?”
“He wrote songs for the Eagles.”
“Well, that’s him—Garbo himself. Two Jews from Verona. Spike’s a rich kid. The Spiegel catalog. Der Spiegel says that’s a myth, but he’s full of shit. You know who he’s married to, right?”
“I love her. Are they doing a project with Russell Crowe?”
“I wish. They’ve got a meshuga project that Charlie’s writing, about look-alikes. That’s who that guy at the table is — a Russell Crowe look-alike.”
“What is that.”
“Bottom feeders who come to Hollywood and get jobs impersonating movie stars.”
“Sounds kind of interesting.”
“Maybe too interesting. When someone wants to spend forty million of the studio’s money, I need more than ‘interesting.’ Now, if we could get the real Russell Crowe to be in their movie and pay him ‘look-alike’ prices, that would be interesting. Who knows. Could happen. You still didn’t give me an answer — which benefit would you favor, Ms. McCadden? The Friday or the Saturday?”
“That’s a tough one.”
“Tell you what. Go to both and I’ll make you a deal.”
“Shoot.”
“You can bring something to your friend for me.”
“My friend?”
“Mr. Lightfoot. See, I have a gift for him. Come to both benefits and you can be the messenger. I’ll so anoint you. Because I’m a very anointing person.”
The Varieties of Religious Experience
KIT SAT ON A cushion in his private zendo, facing the Benedict Canyon hillock that rose up like a ziggurat. A landscape architect had trucked in tons of dirt for the effect.
He stared at an abstract, shifting patch of sun on the teak floor a foot or so beyond his knees.
His next film, an Anthony Minghella, had fallen through. He was scheduled to do a Ridley Scott but not for at least ten months.
He thought of going to India for the Kalachakra Tantra, the annual Wheel of Time rite in which thousands of initiates experience rebirth en masse, coming through childhood to visualize themselves as buddhas. Seeing the Gyuto monks had triggered the notion of pilgrimage. The Dalai Lama, his teacher’s teacher, was scheduled to preside over a gathering of some quarter million devotees. Kit had attended such a ceremony before with His Holiness in Madison, Wisconsin, albeit on a far smaller scale.
There, in that unlikely place, the actor had spoken words of promise, before infinity: “O all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, please take heed of me. I, Kit Lightfoot, from this time henceforth until arriving in the essence of enlightenments will generate the excellent unsurpassed mind of intention to become enlightened in just the way the Protectors of the three times become definite toward enlightenment.” A sand mandala representing a palace was created, and the pilgrims were mentally guided through it. After a number of days, the rituals and blessings ended when the Dalai Lama himself swept up the colored sand with a broom, in readiness for dedication to the waters.
It seemed like a lifetime since he’d been to India. He had journeyed there with his teacher, Gil Weiskopf Roshi. They had visited Lumbini, birthplace of Prince Siddhartha Gautama; Bodh Gaya, where Siddhartha was realized beneath the Bodhi Tree; the Deer Park at Sarnath, where he gave sermons on the Four Noble Truths; Sravasti’s great park that hosted the Buddha’s meditation retreats, and where he converted a notorious murderer; and a saal forest in Kushinagar, the final, unglamorous place in which he left the world. The trip saturated him, and he craved India’s sounds, smells, and heart. He craved his teacher too, who had died a year after his mother passed on, to the day — craved the Dharma anew. A few months ago, he’d made vague plans to travel with Meg Ryan at Christmastime to see Ramesh, a disciple of the great sage Nisargadatta Maharaj. But now he was thinking he should make the trip alone, confining his visit to Bodh Gaya, where this year’s Kalachakra would be held.
He readjusted himself on the cushion and focused his breath, suppressing a smile as the mischievous, deconsecrated image of his old friend Alf bobbed before him. Alf wanted to go to a Golden Globe party at the Medavoys’, but Kit had bailed because he didn’t have a film out and was envious of those who did, jealous of the actors — some unknown, others long forgotten and now rediscovered — whose fates had contrived to cast them in one of those overrated, dark horse indies that infect hearts and minds each awards season like a designer virus. He felt defunct, used up, ashamed of his body of work. In the middle of his meditations
he returned to his breath, pushing through. He focused on another trapezoidal tile of sun. Insect buzz. His attention flitted from the face of his root guru, Gil, to a page of Rita Julienne Lightfoot’s love letters to the smell of her hospital room to the taste of Viv’s mouth to the little girl who watched as he came in Cela’s mouth on the edge of the playground of Ulysses S. Grant School.
Alf loomed again, the irrepressible jester, trickster. Shapeshifter. He got his kicks by tweaking his more famous friend and knew what buttons to push. Yesterday, he’d made a point of telling him Spike Jonze was up to something big — Spike was about to do a really wild film, “more genius than Adaptation,” about celebrity look-alikes. Alf said he didn’t know much more than that, but did know Spike was supposedly out there looking for a “Kit Lightfoot type.” When he heard that, Kit had laughed out loud, playing it cool. (He’d secretly resolved to phone the director at home and get the friendly lowdown. If there was something for him, he’d most likely have heard. Spike would have called or his people would have approached.) Kit wanted to do challenging work; it haunted him that he hadn’t yet made his bid. He was desperate — so he told himself — to do something magnificent, to work with an art house hotshot, any hotshot, young or old, step right up. He completely understood Tom’s need to have done the Kubrick thing. Respected it. Admired it. Then the Master went and died, as if in homage to Tom’s great taste and timing, Tom’s great luck. Kit kept telling himself that he wanted to do a film to challenge him in his core the way his practice once had, back in the day. But even if he found the right project, there were obstacles to surmount — he knew that he needed to be empty enough to exceed real or imagined boundaries. Maybe he just didn’t have it in him; never did and never would. Maybe he was just a pretty boy with swagger, gutless and not that bright, the King of People’s Choice. And that was that.