Lisanne seized up and stopped her crying as if doused with cold water.
“My God!” said Roslynn, hand rushing to mouth. “My God.”
“They still can’t find the sonofabitch who clobbered him,” said Tiff. This time, it was his wife’s head he caressed. He nodded at Lisanne and said, “Got the fantods, huh.” He said to Roslynn of their guest, “This one’s got the fantods.”
“He was just so wonderful when I brought him your gift,” said Lisanne, from the heart. “So smart and so sweet.”
“I had her bring him the Sotheby’s Buddha,” Tiff explained. “To the set.”
“He’s so young and so talented and it’s—just — so — unfair and so terrible!” The Loewensteins drooped their heads in sorrowful affirmation. “So kind, so unaffected.” She fought for breath. Roslynn touched her arm. “I just had the feeling — I mean it was so obvious—that he was such a warm and generous person.”
“That he was,” said Tiff absentmindedly, as if in eulogy.
“For someone to just do that to him—”
Annoyed with himself, Tiff quickly amended: “That he is.” Thinking aloud, the executive said, “We’ve already wrapped, but that’s a ninety-million-dollar summer movie. We’ll need someone to loop his voice — that’s done a helluva lot more often than people imagine.” He scratched his ear and stared through the Cézanne, cogitating arcane postproduction stratagems. “You two should play hooky today,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “Go see a movie at the Grove. Go to the beach house. Hey, we heard you had a few dates with Phil Muskingham.”
“He’s sweet.”
“He’s really smitten with you,” said Roslynn.
“You could do worse than marry that one. I’ll be working for you one day.”
“Are you going to see Kit?” asked Lisanne.
“No,” he said adamantly. “No point in sitting vigil. It’s gonna be a circus over there. I’ll wait till he wakes up.”
“Do you think we should bring him the Buddha?”
“What?” said Tiff, nonplussed.
“Maybe it would be something he… his assistant could bring it from the house. He’s a Buddhist and maybe—”
“Let me ask you something, Lisanne. Where was the Buddha when he got whacked on the head? The Buddha didn’t help then, and I sure as hell don’t think it’s gonna to help now.” Roslynn gave him a look. “Roll your eyes, Roz, but that’s why I’m agnostic. Besides,” he added. “Too expensive to have laying around a hospital room. It’d be gone within the hour.”
“What about the Courage Awards?” Roslynn called after, as her husband turned to leave.
“Sunday,” said Tiff. “What about ‘em?”
“Are we still going?”
“I’m not understanding you,” he said combatively. “Of course we’re still going. Why wouldn’t we be still going?” She regretted her remark. “You mean, because of the bad thing that happened to Kit Lightfoot? Who are they going to give the award to if I’m not there, Roslynn?”
“I don’t know, Tiff,” she said, turning inward.
“To one of the waiters? To Suzanne Pleshette? Or how ‘bout ‘Frasier’? I’m getting the Courage Award, right? There’s a shitload of people who worked their asses off organizing that — months and months of hard work. They’re gonna raise three million dollars. That’s their goal. And you know how? From the people who are in business with me who buy the fucking tables and spend money at the fucking silent auction. So I don’t understand you, Roslynn. You think they’re gonna not raise three million dollars because of what happened to Kit Lightfoot? It’s a terrible thing, kids, but it ain’t the Twin Towers.”
“Enough, Tiff,” she said.
Lisanne instinctively moved closer and held the older woman’s hand. Roslynn was gratified to have a witness to her husband’s noxiousness.
“Burt Bacharach’s presenting. Did I tell you?”
“No.”
“I guess you didn’t know. I thought I told you. I thought I told you four times. Burt may do a thing with Elvis Costello, and I think he asked Paul McCartney, as a surprise. If Paul’s in town, which I think he is. And I just happened to have given money to his one-legged cunt of a wife for the land mines. So voilà: the stars are all in alignment. So what, dear Roslynn, are you saying? That you don’t want to go?”
“Nothing,” said Roslynn, con brio. “I’m saying nothing.”
“Of course we’re going,” said Tiff. He turned back to Lisanne as he left the room. “And you and Phil should come too.”
Hot Property
THE L.A. TIMES real estate section showcased homes that were bought, sold, and leased by celebrities, and sometimes Becca clipped and mailed the features to her mom. Annie said that a lot of the brokers were former actresses, and Becca could understand why. She admired them — it took guts for a girl to look in the mirror at twenty-eight or twenty-nine and say, “It’s over. I’ll never be famous.” But it took real smarts for that same girl to take the bull by the horns and go into a field that one day, if she were creative and industrious enough, might allow her the trappings of celebdom that would otherwise have been beyond her reach: say, a hillside manse. Because that’s what a Realtor could have for herself if she put in enough blood, sweat, and tears. Realtors learned all the tricky ins and outs of buying and selling, and Annie said they were in a great position to join that exclusive club of people whose passion is to buy homes and do makeovers, then sell them at tidy profits (Courteney Cox and Diane Keaton were masters of the art). Becca thought the best thing about being a Realtor was that you got to dress up for work, sometimes to the nines, and you drove around all day in one of those cute little Mercedes with the saucy butt-trunk. (Though when she occasionally saw middle-aged brokers, thick in face and gut, carting for sale signs around on sky blue Sundays, it scared her in terms of thinking, Ohmygod, could that happen to me?) Becoming a Realtor was the kind of thing her mom might do; she was pragmatic that way. In fact, the next time Dixie started leaning on her to come home, Becca thought a viable thing would be to say that she was considering becoming a real estate agent and that she needed to stay and study for the test. Call the dogs off for a while.
Her heart raced as she folded the paper back to the front page and read the banner.
HOT PROPERTY
HER EXTRA TERRITORY
BY RUTH RYON, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Actress Drew Barrymore has purchased a Hollywood Hills home on nearly 1.5 acres for about $4.5 million.
Barrymore had been leasing since her former Beverly Hills — area home sustained fire damage in February 2001. She subsequently sold that property.
Described as a “two-story mid-century ranch with a long private drive,” the compound she bought includes a four-bedroom main house with a two-story living room, a guesthouse, and a guardhouse that is staffed full-time. The estate, estimated to have about 9,000 square feet of living space, also has a gym, five fireplaces, and a billiard room with a bar. The grounds, behind gates, have a motor court, views from downtown L.A. to the ocean, a pool, and a yard with pathways and gardens.
Barrymore, 28, who starred opposite Ben Stiller in Duplex, also has a leading role in Look-Alike, to be written and directed by Spike Jonze and released in 2004.