The Hollywood Project: Shuttergirl Part 5

Irv had been like a father to me when I needed guidance, and though he'd earned the right to say whatever he wanted to me, I wasn't used to getting scolded. I was used to simply going where my gut instructed.

"You taught me this job," I snapped. I was tired and trapped and still smarting from the remembrance of Michael. I felt worthless enough without Irv poking my raw places.

"I taught you how to take pictures. I didn't pick you out of a few thousand so you could stand outside clubs in the middle of the night. You have a gift, and you're throwing it away on trash. You were meant for better."

"You're full of it. You've encouraged me since I was fifteen. You mentored me to hustle Hollywood, and if hustling means something different to me than it means to you, that doesn't change the facts."

"You're wasting your life. Think about it," he said.

"'Don't think.' Isn't that what you said? 'Shoot with your eye, not your brain?'"

"I was talking about the art, not the business."

"It's still good advice," I said.

"Youth. Swear to G.o.d, it's wasted on the young."

I sighed. "I'm sorry, Irv. I'm not trying to throw your words back in your face."

"But you are." His eyes were sunken, and his skin was ashen.

I hadn't thought about Irv getting old until that moment, but even his voice had aged. His transition from kooky middle-aged guy to concerned old man had happened while I wasn't looking.

"I'll think about it," I said, tapping my phone, as if my attention on it would make a tip come through it. But there was no tip.

Tom was on his way back with a tray and a girl in sparkly shoes. She had her arm looped in his.

"G.o.d," I said, "I hope she's better than the last one."

"You and me both."

Chapter 7.

Michael What had it been about her? And why did I care?

I had problems on top of problems. I had neither the desire nor the time to let a woman get under my skin. It wouldn't be fair in any case. I was going to do the movie and get my father back on his feet, and I didn't have a minute for anything else.

But once I'd retrieved my car from Venice and started the drive home, my concerns over the movie and my PR problems were replaced by excitement. Laine. Right in front of me. She had gone from a beautiful and sullen teen to a stunning and witty woman. I'd felt explosive, like a test tube of nitrous, ready to detonate at the slightest agitation, as soon as she was within reach. I had to pull over at a bus stop and see if I still had her number. I synched my phone and scrolled through ancient backups. My head was down and clear of worries about anything but what the girl in the bleachers thought of me.

This was a one-eighty. I was supposed to run from her. I had a bizarre relations.h.i.+p with paps, so intimate and so distant. A one-way mirror through which they could see me, but I couldn't see them.

Her number was gone, of course.

Even at three something in the morning, I could text Monie and have her dig up Laine's number. In my world, a ridiculous request was almost normal. I pressed the phone to my lips then just did it. If Monie didn't want to answer the text, she didn't have to.

I didn't wait for an answer. Sitting in a bus stop, even in the middle of the night, was an invitation to be seen by strangers.

As I snaked up the hill, I checked for SUVs parked across the street from my house. Nothing yet. Even paparazzi slept sometimes. I hit the gate remote and turned into the drive. Little holes the diameter of camera lenses had been poked into my hedges. In the end, I'd just covered the inside of them with tarp, turned my gate into solid metal, and tried not to be home, ever.

I stopped inside the driveway and pulled the emergency brake. When the gate closed, I took out my phone. Monie had messaged me back.

-213-343-5529- I fist-pumped. Monie was getting a fat bonus. I dialed the area code then stopped. I'd forgotten what Laine had become. Had she put a hole in my hedge? I had a career that left me no time for relations.h.i.+p maintenance. If I was going to be irresponsible and get involved with a woman, I probably couldn't pick anyone worse than Laine Cartwright.

But when she'd given me a do-over at Club NV, it was like a drop of sugar water on a dry tongue. Even after Britt, and Ken, and everything that had happened between meeting her and sitting in my car in my driveway, I wanted to experience the excitement of her again.

I had no reason to step outside my path. I was set. It was like senior year all over. Everything was a go.

Back then, I'd been tightly scheduled and ready at the gate. I had Lucy, who I loved as much as an eighteen-year-old can love anyone, and I felt settled there. Acting was the least risky career path I could have chosen, but to calm my father's disapproval, I'd majored in English lit, knowing full well the drama department was ready to switch me. I'd gone and auditioned for two features behind my dad's back but with my mother's approval.

I hadn't known the girl who started sitting in the tennis court bleachers in October, and as I tried for that inside corner over and over, she didn't seem to be there because she knew me either. Her face was buried in a book, legs akimbo over the seats in front of her as if she were ready to spring.

"Do you know her?" I'd asked Lucy one night when she came by at the end of practice.

My girlfriend looked at the bleachers and wrinkled her nose. "That's the new Hatch kid. Soph.o.m.ore, but she's way behind on everything. Dumb as a post. And cranky. I mean, they pulled her out of the gutter. You'd think she'd be happy. h.e.l.lo?"

I was fascinated. The gutter? What was it like in the gutter? What kind of person did it make you? And how could something so beautiful, even from twenty feet below, come from the gutter? Who was she? Inside. I think I looked up at her-with a sneaker leveraged against the seat in front, the other knee draped over the armrest to the side, a book in her lap, and impossibly long hair waterfalling over her shoulders-for one second too long.

Lucy had tugged on my jacket. That long look had caused no end of trouble for the gutter girl.

It was either that, or months later, when I lobbed a ball up there to get her attention.

"Thank you!" I called. Tennis etiquette dictated that I say "thank you" instead of, "Hey, can you get that for me?"

She put her book down, untangled herself from the seats, and grabbed the ball.

"Do you talk?" I shouted.

She folded her arms. "When I have something to say."

She'd been so hard, so impossibly distant. Her unavailability was thrilling. I had absolutely no control over my curiosity.

"And you have nothing to say?" I shouted.

"I do. Your coach says to give it a rest twice a week. You should listen."

I could have said the same to her, but she probably needed to study more than I needed to practice.

She threw the ball down. It went wild and landed on the other side of the court. "Sorry," she called down. "Can I have a do-over?"

I lobbed another ball up to her. "Thank you."

She scuttled for it and threw it back. It landed close enough to me to be called a successful throw. She'd waved and sat back down, twisting her legs around each other and getting back to her studies.

I realized I'd been in the front seat of my car and stroking the edge of my phone for way too long, remembering her. She was a vortex. I'd avoided getting swallowed up in her once, and now, more than ever, I needed to avoid it again. I would replace the camera, finish the movie with my father, and do whatever I had to do afterward.

I tapped the little garbage can by Monie's text, and the DELETE key came up.

Chapter 8.

Laine Tom slid in next to Irv with his tray of tacos and horchatas. Randee waited at the head of the table for a second before slipping in next to me. She gathered up a greasy waxed bag of fries and a packet of ketchup.

Tom doled out the food. "Kill wanted to know how I got into the Emerald Room."

"How did you get into the Emerald Room?" Irving asked.

"Laine got us in."

"Please tell me you won't make that public," I growled.

"No," Tom said, smearing green salsa all over his burrito. "I told them I went in as a civilian. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it."

"You might get sued," I said as I noticed Randee drawing a perfect red line of ketchup across a single fry.

"Or Kill could get sued," Irving said. "They go after the deep pockets."

The color drained from Tom's face, if there had been any there to begin with. "I didn't realize."

"I'm not saying I told you so." I pointed my straw at him. "But I want to. I'm saying, if you act docile, they'll drop it."

"How do you do it?" he asked. "How do you chase so hard and never get into trouble?"

"I know where the lines are." I said it self-righteously even though I shouldn't have. I kept in the career lines, but I hadn't gone into the Emerald Room so my brother could meet a girl. My a.s.s had been on fire to see Michael again, to talk to him, and I had been looking for an excuse to make it happen. Why did I only realize my motivations after the fact? I shook my head. "I wouldn't worry about it. America's Boyfriend won't rock the boat hard enough to get in on the lawsuit, and everyone will be bored of it in a week. In the meantime, lay low."

"What am I supposed to do for money?" He pushed his food away. "I made a good take on this, but a couple of weeks?"

Randee spoke up. "We'll get you some work with the band. It'll be fun!"

Tom shrugged as if that was nothing, but I saw the tension melt off him. For the next half an hour, we talked about anything else: what movies were being made where, the best spots to shoot, what kind of camera Tom should get me.

"Seven grand?" he said, his face puckered.

"At least. Unless you can get a discount from Merv. I'm sorry, but I'm not letting you off the hook for this."

My phone rang with a number I didn't recognize. Usually that meant a good tip, and usually I'd get a shot of adrenaline and reach for my rig before I even answered. But this time, I wondered for a split second if it was someone corroborating whether or not I had been on the balcony with Michael.

I knew right then that I wouldn't lie for Tom. "h.e.l.lo?"

"I'm sorry, I just realized it's the middle of the night."

"Excuse me?" I said.

"Is this Laine Cartwright?"

"Is that who you dialed?"

There was the pause that usually came after an aggressive reply to a request for immediate self-identification.

"I hope so, or I'm going to have to apologize to a complete stranger."

I didn't recognize his voice until he was in the middle of that sentence, and my knees turned viscous.

"I know it's irregular, but my a.s.sistant got your number," Michael said. "I hope you're not upset with me."

I glanced at Irv then Tom. If they could see the quivering in my gut, they gave no sign.

"How did she get it?" I said, stalling.

"I can ask her in the morning. I don't want to wake her again."

"Can you hold on a second?" I slipped off the bench. It was rude to talk on the phone at the table, but more importantly, I needed to hear what he had to say without Irving watching me and Randee listening like a boom mic. I tried to keep my head as I crouched on the curb of the parking lot. It was relatively quiet, and the smell from the dumpster wasn't so bad.

"I'm sorry I left like that," he said.

"Don't be. Tom should be apologizing. He crossed a line. And me too. I didn't mean to take a picture on the balcony. It was an app fail."

"I'll get your brother a new camera."

"It was mine," I said, "so don't worry about it. I have a good spare."

"I want to replace it."

I smiled a little. "You were always so decent. But no. He wasn't supposed to bring it into the club, so he's got to sh.e.l.l out the cash."

"My father would be disappointed if I didn't take responsibility for my actions."

"It was a nice rig." I leaned against the cinderblock wall and rolled a half-empty beer bottle with my heel. "I don't want to put you out."

"I'll borrow money from my parents if I have to."

I smiled. I couldn't help it. The fact that he'd thrown my camera from a balcony clamored for my attention and told me I should be mad. I was mad. I was boiling mad. But then again, I wasn't.

"I can't come to your office to pick it up. People will talk." I kicked the empty beer bottle until it rolled a few feet and clattered. I hoped he couldn't hear it, or he'd know I was in a filthy parking lot.