Lauren Takes Leave (33 page)

“Jesus Fucking Christ.” Kat shakes her head.

I try to calm her down, although my own heart is beating
wildly. “I know, it’s making me anxious, too.”

“No, Lauren! I mean, walking right beside our van is Jesus
Fucking Christ!”

All heads turn to follow Kat’s pointer finger. Indeed,
strolling a few paces in front of us is a man in a long, white, flowing robe,
with stringy brown hair extending down his back.

Jodi rolls down her window and sticks her torso out.
“Hey!” she calls. “Hey…Son of God!”

The man turns toward the sound of her voice. Spotting her
waving at him, he waves back and smiles. “Yes, my disciple. What may I do for
you?”

“Can you, like…tell us why there’s so much goddamned
traffic?”

“And why you are dressed like that, and what the hell is
going on here, and, oh, about a million other things,” Kat adds
conversationally.

“I do not believe that God almighty has damned the
traffic.” He pauses and smiles at his own little joke. “But I will guess that
the swell of cars is caused by the closing this afternoon of Collins Avenue.”

“Closing?” Jodi calls back, echoing what we are all
thinking.

“Yes, for the Gay Pride Alliance costume parade. It
is…heavenly. You may be stuck here for a few hours until the road is reopened.
They are preparing the parade of floats now.” He bows and continues on his way.

“Fuck those gay motherfuckers and their gay motherfucking
parade!” Jodi swears.

“She’s really someone’s mother?” Lenny asks no one in
particular.

Kat slides the van door open on her side and jumps out.
“I’m going to get a better look, just see how bad it really is up there,” she
says. “Back in five.”

Lenny gives us a half wave and follows her out into the
heat.

“Great,” I sigh. I scoot over to the middle and tap Jodi
on the arm. “You okay?”

“Just don’t,” she whispers, pulling her arm away from me.
“I know you mean well, Lauren, but please. Don’t even
try
right now.”
She sinks lower in her seat and takes out her BlackBerry. “I better e-mail my
mom.”

Given the choice between sitting in the thick silence of
the van or going out into the thick Miami heat, I pick the latter.

Which is a choice that changes everything.

I’m walking north, weaving my way delicately between
hordes of parade-goers, sunbathers, and tourists lining the avenue. Some groups
of performers have assembled themselves in clumps here and there, dressed in
elaborate flamenco costumes and other outlandish, garish (and, in one case,
ass-less leather) splendor. It looks more like Carnival in Rio than any gay
pride parade I’ve ever seen in New York.

Again, I find myself regretting that we’ll have to leave
Miami so soon. I would have loved to watch the full entertainment and all the
floats go by.

I stop in front of an art deco hotel to let a crowd of
tie-dyed and jean-short-wearing hippies pass. In that moment, a white
Hummer-style stretch limousine pulls up next to me and honks “La Cucaracha.”

I turn toward it and smile, anticipating a bunch of
Elvises or Marilyns will emerge.

Instead, a window toward the back of the vehicle rolls
down halfway, and a man’s hand emerges. He’s pointing to me. I do the obvious
and point to myself, too. The hand makes a thumbs-up signal.

I am not approaching an unmarked vehicle like that, no
matter how intrigued I might be. And intrigued I am. I shake my head back and
forth. The last thing I need on this trip is to be abducted.

The tinted window rolls down a few inches more. The man’s
hand comes back out, this time waving a fedora.

I’d know that stupid hat anywhere.

Then, just as quickly, the hand and hat withdraw and the
window slides back up.

I approach the vehicle and knock. “Okay, Tim. Let me in.”

The automatic locks release. Without thinking much beyond
Well,
this should be interesting
, I pull on the handle, jump in the Hummer, and
slam the door shut behind me.

It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness
inside the cavernous limo. I can make out three figures. I assume that the
smaller one is Tim and the other two—big guys sitting around the side of a
U-shaped seat—are his bodyguards.

I sink into the black leather and enjoy the air-conditioning.
“Well?” I say, deciding to play it really cool as my heart beats out of my
chest. “You wanted something?”

Tim turns on a small light overhead. His dimples crease in
a sort of sad smile. He looks tired and worried at the same time, as if he’s
been left without a tour bus in Lithuania and can’t see a way out of it, like
he did in 1999, in a riveting performance of my-wife-played-by-Katie-Holmes-is-dying
sort of a way.

I almost feel bad for him.

“Look, Lauren,” Tim begins. “You are perhaps the sanest
one of the bunch—lying to your husband and dabbling with infidelity
notwithstanding—and so I thought it would be best to choose you as the one to
hear me out.”

I consider this, mentally scrolling through my coconspirators,
and nod in agreement. I don’t trust myself to actually say anything, so I bite
my tongue and wait.

Tim nods back. “Good. So, here it is.” He takes a deep
breath and asks the bodyguards to give us some privacy. Once they have left the
vehicle, I feel more at ease. Tim senses this and begins. “I’m down here to
shoot a movie in the Everglades.”

I shrug. “Okay, I believe that. Kat was right, then.”

“That’s not the interesting part.” He shakes his head
ruefully. “This movie I’m doing. It’s about this ordinary guy who finds himself
in extraordinary circumstances. Without boring you with too much plot, suffice
it to say that he ends up being falsely accused of killing his own son, and now
he’s on the run from authorities while trying to prove his own innocence.”

“Like
Presumed Innocent
meets
The Green Mile
meets
A Few Good Men.
”

He nods. “Only totally different. Because it’s set in the
Everglades.”

“Cool,” I say, thinking the opposite.

Tim grants me signature smile number three, the one with a
hint of irony.

“Fine, you got me, I think it’s kind of a dumb premise.
But I’m sure you’ll be great in it. Continue.”

“Anyway, the dude is forced to literally live in the wild,
hiding out in the jungle-like terrain of Southern Florida’s preserved wetlands.
He spears fish and eats mangrove crabs and oysters to survive.”

“Now, that is cool,” I add. “Very
Cast Away
-ish.”

“Yeah. Except not, because it’s set in the Everglades.” He
sighs, seemingly annoyed. I know the clock is ticking here on getting to the
plane, so I hold my thoughts and let him continue uninterrupted. “Anyway,
there’s this one scene where the guy comes up against a crocodile, and he has
to fight it for survival. In the script, the man and beast both walk away from
the confrontation scarred, but alive. I liked that. I thought it was perfect
symbolism for what happens later in the movie, during the courtroom drama
scene. It’s actually one of the reasons I signed on to the project in the first
place. That scene
moved
me.”

Here he pauses and I say nothing, certainly not what I’m
thinking, which is to burst out into a Jack Nicholson–style
You can’t handle
the truth, crocodile
!

“So on Wednesday morning—just two days ago—I’m in my trailer,
and I’m getting psyched up for that scene, because we’re scheduled to shoot it
at nine. Only my assistant comes in and hands me a revised script. I get this
bad vibe, you know, as she passes it to me. Sure enough, I flip through it
looking for the changes. Now there are snakes hanging around with this croc,
and my character has to kill them before even battling the croc. Like it’s a
video game and you have to get past snake level before kicking it up to croc
level. I mean, ultimately it’s not that big of a deal, since I get to have
final say on how the scene plays out, but now I’m torn.”

He looks at me like this is a significant moment. Like, at
this point in the story, I’m supposed to laugh or cry or gasp, only I don’t
know which response to give. I settle on the truth. “So?”

“Snakes!” He scratches the back of his left hand with his
right, just like he did yesterday, and I realize this is the reason why. He
can’t stop the itch coming from inside, and it has something to do with this
very issue. “I fucking hate snakes! They creep me out big-time! It’s, like, one
of the
only
specifications in my contracts, all caps: NO SNAKES, and
this douche-bag director knows it.”

I can’t help smiling at his use of the term
douche bag
.
Lenny would be so proud. Quickly, I realize what that smile must look like to
Tim, though, so I try for moral support. “Guy’s clearly a douche.”

“Right?” Tim shakes his head sadly. “So, I was about to
remind him of that line item and ask that we return to the original, scripted,
snakeless version. Until.” Here he pauses, lost in thought. “Until I thought,
what if this character is afraid of snakes, like I am? Then suddenly, the
director’s rewrite is actually much better than the original. The added depth
provided by this snake-killing scene heightens both the physical and the
emotional stakes for my character, bringing him to a place he never knew he
could go.”

“It’s brilliant,” I say, the English teacher in me kicking
into high gear. “Because then the scene possesses both internal
and
external conflict.”

“Exactly.” Only, he doesn’t seem happy about the
revelation.

“Great, so you solved the problem!” I say.

“No, because suddenly,
I
was conflicted. I knew
what was best for the film. But it wasn’t what was best for me. Lauren,” he
says, his eyes filled with pain. He’s pleading with me not to think less of him
as he makes this admission. “I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t green-light
those serpents. I needed time.”

“So?”

“I walked off set yesterday morning.”

I can see that he’s rattled, admitting this. “That’s
pretty big, huh?” I sound like Georgie, coaching a child who has just read
aloud for the first time.

“Never done it before. Real dick move.”

I try to think of something proactive to say while my mind
is processing this new information: Tim Cubix is
afraid
of something? I
settle on, “What’s next?”

He leans back into the leather seats and considers this.
“Big press due to come on set tomorrow. I know I have to be there. Everyone’s
losing money as is, each day I’m not there filming. If this story gets out, it
will go national.”

“
Inter
,” I say. “International.”

“Fuck.” He looks my way with ironic grin number five.
“Fucking snakes.”

I’m starting to warm again toward Tim, the vampire
superhero with an actual Achilles heel, but then my smile turns chilly as I
consider what he’s not admitting. “Snakes or no, you really lied to us.”

“In a way,” he concedes again, this time with regret. He
scratches his scruffy beard. “I wish I hadn’t done it that way, but I just
didn’t see any other choice at the time.”

I can see it pretty clearly from his point of view. But I
have to think about what Kat would say, how Jodi would respond. “
And
you
used us.”

“As a disguise, of sorts, yes. I needed to regroup, and
you guys just happened along, yelling at each other at the perfect time.” He
smiles genuine smile number one.

I wanted to stay mad at him, really I did.

But the thing is, I’m not only a somewhat sane person, I’m
also the kind of person who likes to give others the benefit of the doubt.

And who can hate a genuine movie star who genuinely hates
snakes with such conviction, I ask you?

So, anyway, as I sit in his stretch Hummer limo,
Tim
Cubix is apologizing to me
. Do you understand how bizarre that is? And how
huge? He’s
sorry
for lying to us. His intentions were self-motivated,
but weren’t ours as well?

As if sensing my hesitation, Tim adds, “It wasn’t
one-sided. You guys used me, too, you know.”

“For your fabulousness?” I joke.

He laughs, a deep chortle. “As Kat would say,
Absofuckinglutely.”

Something is still troubling me, though. “How do I know
you’re not lying to me right now? I mean, you
are
an actor.” I don’t
mention that I’ve privately nicknamed and catalogued all of his expressions.

“I hate when people say that. It’s like you can’t possibly
ever be considered truthful if you lie for a living.”

“When you put it that way…” I joke.

“Yeah, it sounds really bad.” He stops to consider what
else to say. “I guess you just have to trust me, right? Isn’t that what friends
do?”

“Oh, so now we’re friends.”

“I hope so, Lauren. I really do like you nutballs.” Spoken
like one who knows us pretty well, I think.

“Oh, what the hell.” Even if it is fleeting, I’d rather
have this moment with Tim under false pretenses than not have it at all. I put
out my hand and we shake on it. “It’s all good.”

Now that we’re back to being allies, I debrief Tim on our
dilemma with Sonia Goldberg. “There’s a massive gay pride parade blocking
Collins Avenue, and then there’s a plane that’s supposed to take off in one
hour and twenty-five minutes…with us on it!” I summarize.

Tim signals to the bodyguards, who get back in the car,
and the three of them, together with the driver, try to figure out what to do
to help us.

Tim pauses from his conversation for a second and lets his
gaze drift out the window.

Something in the parade catches his eye, because the next
thing I know, he’s barking orders to the bodyguards and forming a plan.

“What?” I ask, excited in a clueless-puppy sort of way.
I’m completely happy about his strategy and I have no idea why!