Confessions of a Hollywood Star (7 page)

She feigned surprise at seeing me behind the counter.

“Oh my God, Lola! I totally forgot you work here.” Of course she had. “I just had to get out of the house for a while. I mean, you wouldn’t believe what it’s like! They’re starting the shoot in a couple of days, so we’ve already got Bret and Lucy in the guestrooms and the costume designers and wardrobe people in the cottage because they need so much space. It’s total chaos – I feel like I’m living in a boarding house. Not that they aren’t all really sweet. Especially Lucy. She’s just as nice as she can be. Being a big star hasn’t spoiled her at all.”

So that was why she’d dropped by: to rub it in. “I guess we all have our crosses to bear,” I murmured.

“Don’t we just?” laughed Carla. “So we found ourselves passing by and I thought, hey why not go in?” It was like the Queen stopping her carriage because she’d never been in that McDonald’s on the corner. “Daddy’s sure our maid sells some of the stuff my mother gives her to Mrs Magnolia.” Then, in case I’d leapt to the wrong conclusion, added, “Not that he’s ever come in here of course.”

Alma rolled her eyes. “Well, why would he?”

“So you know, I thought, why don’t I just have a look? It isn’t right if she is selling Mommy’s gifts to her, is it?” Carla’s smile was serene.

I smiled back. “Maybe if you paid her a living wage she wouldn’t have to.”

“I really am going to miss your New York sense of humour.” She gave a small and painful laugh to prove it. “It’s so refreshing.”

I spread my arms wide to include every corner of the room. “So now that you’re here, what do you think? See anything you recognize?”

Alma snorted, which I took as a no. “You know…” Alma’s voice slithered around us. “I always thought old clothes all went to Christian Aid charities and stuff like that. You know, for really poor people in the Third World.” She looked around. “This place is really…” She searched her vocabulary (usually limited to the names of designers and “Yes, Carla” and “Oh, Carla”) for a word that might describe a store that sold nothing that was outrageously expensive or new. “Different.”

Carla cocked her pretty head to one side. “It’s got a really down-home feel, hasn’t it? You just know ordinary people shop here.” The floodlight of her smile fell on me. And worked here, too, obviously.

I picked up my book again. “Shucks,” I said in a real down-home twang. “You just holler if you need any help.”

Things Are Bad, Then Things Get Worse

I
had a date with Sam that night. I wasn’t really in the mood (there’s nothing like an encounter with Carla Santini to demolish a person’s
joie de vivre
), but a great actor has to be able to rise above her moods. You have to put on your costume and make-up and get out on that stage no matter what state your personal life is in. Your heart may be in more pieces than a broken windshield, but if the evening’s fare is a comedy, you still have to make the audience smile and laugh and forget their woes. So I put myself in a cheerful, positive frame of mind and resolved to forget about the movie for at least one night.

Sam picked me up after work in his dad’s van (you can barely fit people in his Karmann Ghia, never mind a bicycle).

We went to Triolo’s for pizza (even though it’s miles out of town in the middle of nowhere) because Sam fixes Mr Triolo’s car and Mr Triolo loves him. We always get a salad or dessert on the house.

“Well if you ask me it’s pretty astonishingly ironic that I’m the one who heard about the movie first and Carla’s the one who gets to be in it,” I was saying as we reached Triolo’s.

“Twenty.” Sam sighed. “That’s the twentieth time you’ve mentioned either the movie or the Santini since we left the store.” He pulled into a space near the entrance. “I don’t know what you’re so het up about. I thought the Cep-Santini War was over. I thought you had nothing but contempt for Tinsel Town.”

It’s astounding how photographic everyone’s memory is when it comes to something I said.

“I’m not het up,” I informed him indignantly. “All I said was that I think it’s grossly unfair that Carla not only gets everything she wants, but things she doesn’t want too. And that I should’ve known better than to try to get anywhere asking minions. It’s like asking the prop person to tell you how to interpret your lines.”

Sam turned off the ignition and looked at me. “OK, you’re not het up – but since you’ve just spent the whole ride over talking about Carla and this dumb movie, do you think we could have a moratorium on all conversation involving them – at least till after we’ve eaten?”

I said, “Of course.” It’s not like I’ve got an obsessive personality.

Most of the light in Triolo’s comes from candles stuck in wine bottles, which makes it very atmospheric, but pretty dark too. We sat at the front near the window so we could see what we were eating.

It’d be as hard to have a bad time with Sam as it would be to climb Everest with towels on your feet, so it was easy enough to stick with the moratorium. In fact, for over an hour I forgot that things like Carla Santini and Hollywood movies existed. When we were ready for dessert, Mr Triolo himself came to take our order. It’s another sad fact of life that everyone has an ulterior motive, and pizza men are no exception. Mr Triolo came himself not just because he likes us, but because he wanted to know what Sam thought the new noise in his car might be. Much as I love Sam, I can’t say that I share his passion for the inner workings of the automobile. So while they were discussing all the things that might make Mr Triolo’s car sound as though it was about to implode, I let my eyes wander round the room. The walls are decorated with old photographs of generations of Triolos (Mr Triolo’s parents on their wedding day; Mr Triolo as a child in front of an ancient hovel in the Old Country; Mr Triolo’s grandfather standing in a field with a dog).

I was thinking that the reason Mr Triolo’s pizza was so good was obviously because he came from solid peasant stock and marinara sauce flowed through his veins with the blood, when Mr Triolo must’ve noticed I was going into a trance and suddenly said, “Hey, Lola. You’ll be interested in this. Guess who that is at the back table?”

My gaze fell on the table tucked into a dark corner at the rear of the restaurant (any further and it would’ve been outside). There was a couple sitting at it. He had his back to me and she was wearing a floppy hat, so it was hard to see her face. They were leaning towards each other, talking intensely. From what I could see of her mouth they were probably arguing.

I shrugged. “I give up. Who is it?”

“Oh go on…” It just shows how adding a little excitement to the most prosaic lives (by filming a movie in their town, for instance) can change people. Mr Triolo’s always been a man I associate with flour and cheese, and not with a carefree, exuberant nature, but now he gave me a playful poke with the menu. “I’ll give you a hint. The guy’s producing that movie they’re making here.”

Sam groaned out loud. “For Chrissake, Sal. Not you, too.”

Mr Triolo and I both ignored him.

“Really? Hal Minsky?” I’d read his name in the local paper. Nonetheless, I wasn’t sure Mr Triolo could be trusted on matters of Hollywood trivia. He once boasted that he hadn’t gone to a movie since John Wayne died. “Are you sure?”

Mr Triolo nodded. “Waitress heard them talking when she brought them their drinks. That’s when she recognized the young lady.”

I squinted into the gloom at the rear of the restaurant. I could make out a few golden locks peeking out from the woman’s hat. But it was the mouth that gave her away. The collagen injections made it look infected.

Because of Sam’s lousy attitude about the movie and everything connected to it, I hid my excitement. “Why that’s Lucy Rio, isn’t it?” I made it sound like I was identifying a pizza by its ingredients; mozzarella
and
goat’s cheese with capers, why that must be the house special.

“Thatta girl.” Mr Triolo gave me a playful wink. “Got it in one. I knew you’d know.” He tapped his chest. “Me? I wouldn’t know who she was unless she was wearing a nametag.”

Having woken me up, Mr Triolo returned to discussing his car with Sam. I waited until they were deep in the world of spark plugs and pistons and then, very casually, I excused myself to go the ladies’ room. The door that leads to the ladies’ room is opposite the corner where Lucy Rio and the producer were sitting.

I walked slowly and calmly, a girl with nothing on her mind but checking that her mascara hadn’t gone spiky. When I got close to their table, I stopped to look at one of the pictures on the wall (Mrs Triolo with Goofy at Disney World).

“For the last time, Lucy, it’s impossible,” Hal Minsky was saying. “There isn’t enough room at the Santinis’ for another fifty people. You’ll have to live without the astrologer, the herbalist, the psychic and the aromatherapist for a few weeks.”

So much for Lucy Rio not being spoiled by being a big star.

“I don’t see why we can’t go to a hotel,” said Lucy Rio.

“And have the press camped outside for the duration? Have you forgotten what a bad mood having the press camped outside puts you in?”

“Not as bad a mood as living under the same roof as that jerk Bret Fork,” she snapped back.

And so much for the rumour that Lucy Rio and Bret Fork were secretly dating.

“You won’t say that if they get hold of that story about your father.”

Lucy sniffled and her voice quivered. “That’s my father’s problem, not mine. I’m just an innocent victim.”

Hal Minsky sighed. “And that’s another thing. Enough of the fights and tantrums. You haven’t been there forty-eight hours yet and already you’re—”

Obviously, not as nice as she could be.

Suddenly aware of my presence, Hal Minsky glanced over at me. Acting as though I didn’t even know they were there, I gave Goofy and Mrs Triolo one last affectionate smile and casually stepped through the door marked Toilets.

I locked myself in the far cubicle so I wouldn’t be disturbed while I rehearsed what I was going to say. I didn’t want to be too obvious (Lucy Rio once threw a bag of poo at a photographer for trying to take a picture of her scooping up after her dog), so I’d pretend that it was Hal Minsky I recognized. “Excuse me,” I’d say. “I don’t want to bother you, but don’t I know you from somewhere? You seem really familiar. Do you work around here?” Then, to throw him off his guard, I’d say, “Maybe in the Walmart? Or at the gas station?” Then – suddenly and with an endearing touch of embarrassment – I’d recognize him. “Oh, I don’t believe it,” I’d gasp. “You don’t work in Walmart. I know who you are. You’re Hal Minsky, the famous producer, aren’t you?” Everybody knows how egocentric movie people are, so I figured the famous bit would make him mellow and allow me to go on. I’d tell him how, as an aspiring actor myself, I’d always admired his work. “Oh, of course,” I’d say. “How
could
I forget? Carla Santini did say you were in town.” He’d be delighted to discover I was a friend of Carla’s. He’d say, “You know, we are looking for a few extras, if you wanted to come along…” I’d be surprised – happily, but modestly, surprised.

After I finished my rehearsal, I had to touch up my make-up and make adjustments to my hair of course. First impressions are very important. There was some old movie star Mrs Baggoli once told us about who was discovered sitting at the counter in a soda fountain. Think of it. If she’d been having a really bad hair day, or had a spot on the end of her nose like a Christmas light, she would never have been noticed. She would’ve ended up going back to the boring little town she came from, her dreams all turned to dust, and ended up overweight and working in a diner.

When I was finally ready I stood behind the door for a few seconds, controlling my breathing. Then I counted to three, pushed open the door and stepped through.

Hal Minsky and Lucy Rio were on their feet. She was standing at his shoulder, still talking at him and swinging her bag as if she might hit him with it. He was concentrating on taking his receipt from the little plastic tray. They were ready to leave.

It’s true that under our veneer of civilization the primitive man still lives. In that instant, the same instincts that guided my ancestors when confronted with angry woolly mammoths took over. Spurred on not by thought but by the need to survive, I flung myself across the space that separated them from me.

“Mr Minsky!” I cried. “Mr Minsky, if you could just wait one minute, I really have to talk to you.”

He didn’t even look at me. “I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake.” He took Lucy Rio’s arm and yanked her towards the door. She stepped on my foot.

But a little pain wouldn’t have deterred my ancestors and it didn’t deter me. I grabbed hold of his elbow. “No, I haven’t made a mistake. I know you’re Hal Minsky. I’ve seen your picture in the paper. I—”

He finally looked at me. Well, he looked at the hand that was holding onto him. “Would you mind letting go of my arm?”

“But I really have to talk to you.”

“I’m not going to ask you politely again.”

I let go. “I’m sorry, Mr Minsky, I’m really sorry, but it’s extremely important that I—”

“I’m warning you young lady, if you don’t leave me alone I’m calling the manager.”

Young lady?
I always imagined movie people were really hip and cool, but he sounded astoundingly like my mother. I was so surprised I took a step backwards. “But I—”

“I don’t know who this person is you’re confusing me with, but for that last time – I am not he.”

“But Mr Minsky, I’m a friend of Carla Santini’s.”

This announcement had the same effect on him that it would have had on me. He gave Lucy Rio a shove that made her stagger. “Damn hick towns. Come on, let’s get out of here.” He bolted for the exit.

I think my jaw fell open.
Damn hick towns?
Was he calling
me
a hick?

I watched them steam to the front and out of the door. I was too numb with shock to even think of going after them.

“You know, I did recognize him,” said Sam when I got back to our table. “I saw him being interviewed once. He’s that dude who made that crappy movie about the President getting abducted by aliens. What’d you say his name is?”