My Lucky Star (21 page)

“And sometimes,” beamed Gilbert, “it all just comes together overnight.
So
good seeing you again!” he said and, like a cat who knows there’s no more life to be shaken from the mouse, released his
limp prey and swept jauntily to the exit. The rest of us bade farewell to the deceased and followed behind. When we reached
the sidewalk, we found awaiting us there the sole thing that could have made Gilbert’s stratospheric spirits soar even higher.

“God!” moaned Gina as flashbulbs exploded in our faces. “They always find us.”

Stephen and Diana, long accustomed to such ambushes, took as little notice of the cameras as gazelles in a game preserve.
Gilbert, taking his cue from them, affected a bland insouciance as he wished loud good nights to his dear new friends. As
I edged forward to take my place in tabloid history, a firm hand gripped my shoulder and yanked me out of camera range.

“Real smart,” hissed Sonia. “You want Lily seeing you in the paper with Diana?”

I sulkily conceded the point and sought shelter behind her suddenly convenient bulk. Diana’s driver pulled up and whisked
her into the car just as the valet delivered Stephen’s Porsche. Just before he got in, he turned to where I stood lurking
behind Sonia and winked at me.

“Good work!” he called.

“Thank you!” shrieked Gilbert.

My car came next and as I pulled away I noticed Gilbert chatting up a photographer whom he was no doubt advising on the correct
spelling of his name.

“W
ELL, HOW MUCH FUN
was that?!” brayed Gilbert as he danced into the house a few minutes behind me. I replied that a good time had indeed been
had by all.

“Not by Moira!” he said, collapsing in giggles on the couch. “I ask you, Philip, have you ever in your life seen anyone so
thwarted?
So thoroughly and magnificently
skunked?”

“She was hurting all right.”

“Wait till we tell Claire!”

“Are you crazy? We can’t tell Claire!”

“Why not?” he asked.

“How do we explain why we were out to dinner with Stephen and Diana?”

“Oh, right. We could always say it was a meeting about the script.”

“That she wasn’t invited to?”

Gilbert frowned thoughtfully, then agreed that, as pleasant as it would be to tell Claire how we’d vanquished our ancient
foe, it might on balance be wiser to keep mum.

“Oh, and by the way,” he said, his eyes suddenly narrowing to a flinty stare, “what was that business with you and Stephen?”

“What business?” I replied with a yawn, as bed seemed suddenly advisable.

“Oh, please—I show up two minutes early and there you are canoodling in a booth!”

“Oh, that,” I said with a dismissive wave. “We
told
you. We both got there early and decided to have a drink.”

“It was
arranged
, ” snapped Gilbert. “It’s why you wanted to go in separate cars... ‘Oh,
Gilll
-bert,’ ” he mewled in the offensively precious voice he employs when imitating me, “ ‘I have some errands to run before
dinner—let’s just meet there, okaaay?’ You were meeting Stephen!”

I was not, of course, about to betray the trust Stephen had placed in me. I held firm, resolutely maintaining that my encounter
with Stephen had been pure chance.

“Puh-leeez!” scoffed Gilbert. “I saw you at dinner—that goofy Kansas-in-August grin. Not to mention the way you ladled out
tons of dirt about Diana and nothing at all about Saint Stephen. We’re really supposed to believe Lily and Monty haven’t said
a word to you about him liking boys?”

“They haven’t.”

“Oh, give it up! I know
exactly
what happened. Stephen doesn’t want his wife and mom to know what Lily’s got on him. He told you to meet him early so he
could warn you to keep your mouth shut— which you did because you’re gaga for him and you have this delusion that if you do
what he wants he’ll throw you a fuck.”

It did not surprise me that a boy as blithely devious as Gilbert would so swiftly intuit my arrangement with Stephen, nor
that one so lacking in nobler sentiments would characterize it so coarsely. Still, his having guessed the truth placed me
under no obligation to concede it. I tossed my head and poured myself a scotch, remarking on the vividness of his imagination.

“Oh, c’mon! I’m right and you know it! I’m not mad, hon—just
tell
me, okay? What’s Lily said about Stevie that’s got him so nervous?”

“She hasn’t said a word.”

“Well, I like this! Here I am, your oldest friend in the world, and you won’t share the hottest gossip you ever heard! It’s
not like I’m going to tell anyone!”

“Oh, right!”

“Then you admit there’s something to tell!”

“I admit nothing!”

“Gawd!” he wailed, hurling a throw pillow at me. “After all we’ve been through how can you possibly be more loyal to him than
me! Can’t you see he’s just using you? Honestly, Philip, there are times I think you haven’t the tiniest
shred
of common sense!”

The doorbell rang and he sprang eagerly to his feet.

“That’ll be Moira!”

“What!”
I blurted, passing scotch through my nose.

“I asked her by for a nightcap.”

“Moira?!”

“Yes.”

“You
invited
her?”

“She came out while I was waiting for my car. She said she had a favor to ask and when could she see us? I said how about
now.”

“A
FAVOR?
Have you lost your mind?! We are
not
doing any favors for Moira Finch!”

“Of course we’re not,” smirked Gilbert. “We’ll see what she wants, then turn her down flat.”

“If we’re just going to say no, why ask her over in the first place?”

Gilbert knotted his brow, clearly marveling at my inability to grasp the obvious.

“So she can see the
house.
”

The Moira whom Gilbert now admitted bore little resemblance to the dazed and defeated wraith we’d left behind at Vici. She’d
regrouped and now seemed serene and delighted to see us. Nothing in her demeanor suggested we were anything but the very dearest
old friends who’d been apart far too long and were now joyfully reunited. This pose, I knew, stemmed from her native duplicity
and need of a favor, but it still made me nervous. Moira is never more dangerous than when she’s being nice.

“What a
fantastic
house! The views are just spectacular! I love what you’ve done with the inside too. So clean.”

“Actually,” confessed Gilbert, “it’s not ours. Our friend Angus is letting us stay here awhile. Angus Brodie? The actor?”

“You
know
him? I’m so jealous I could die! This kitchen’s a dream! Is that a Gaggenau?”

Gilbert sweetly offered to give her the tour.

“I would
love
that!” she declared ecstatically. “God, it’s so good to
see
you guys!”

When Moira wants something she does not shy from laying it on thick. As she flitted from room to room, she gushed and marveled
over every sconce and skylight, carrying on like a Karachi goatherd who’d been snatched from her mud hut and deposited in
the Hearst Castle. By the time she’d inquired of a Pottery Barn vase if it was Baccarat or Steuben, I knew that when favor
time came she wouldn’t be asking us to feed the cats while she visited Nana. The tour concluded in our office, which jutted
out from the second floor and, having glass walls on two sides, afforded the most impressive views.

“So,” she said, running a reverent hand across the cluttered desk, “this is where it all happens!”

“Yes,” replied Gilbert, and I willed him, unsuccessfully, not to add “the nerve center.”

He sat behind the desk, the better to create a tableau in which he was the entrenched Hollywood muck-a-muck and Moira the
lowly supplicant. She gazed out at the view for a moment, and when she turned back to us her eyes were suddenly dewy with
emotion.

“I am
so proud
of you two! I mean, I always knew you’d succeed. How could you not with all that talent? But Stephen Donato and Diana Malenfant?
How great is that?”

“And such nice people too,” said Gilbert.

“Oh, I could tell. So how long have you been writing together?”

“Not too long. Just our spec script and now this.”

“We’re writing it with Claire.” I said this not out of fairness to Claire but as a veiled warning, since Claire’s strategic
brilliance had been our most potent weapon against Moira’s vile stratagems when last we’d tangled.

“Claaiirre!” sang Moira fondly, as though they’d not daily wished each other a slow agonizing death. “How
is
she? Do say hi for me!”

“So,” said Gilbert, “what have you been up to?”

“Where to start?” she said with a jovial laugh. “Well...a little after we last saw each other I decided it was time to shake
things up. New places, fresh challenges. So I came out here. I was only going to scope things out, stay maybe a few months,
but then I met Albert. Gosh, I
so
wish you guys could have met him. He produced a ton of great movies from the fifties right up through a few years ago. He
was a wonderful guy, kind and smart —a real gentleman. He totally swept me off my feet and the next thing I knew I was Mrs.
Albert Schimmel!”

“You’re married?” I said.

“Widowed,” she said, glancing downward to convey that this saddened her. “I knew going in we’d only have so much time. He
was a good bit older than me. His lungs were terribly weak and he would keep smoking those darn French cigarettes. Still I
knew I’d be grateful for however long we had. Such a mensch.”

“Rich?” asked Gilbert.

“Comfortable.”

“Kids?”

“No. It was his greatest sadness.”

“Not yours I’ll bet.”

“Oh,
you,
” she said, playfully swatting his knee. “So anyway, I was a
wreck
after he died. A complete basket case! But after a while I thought, well I can’t just sit around this big old mansion crying
all day. It’s the last thing Albert would have wanted. So I decided to become an independent producer. I rented an office,
hired an assistant. I took meetings, optioned some books, made a gazillion phone calls. I’ll be honest, guys, I hustled my
ass off and after a whole year —nothing! I had no idea how hard it was to get a little movie made! I mean, maybe I’m naive
but I’m amazed how cold people in this town can be. You write them the nicest letters and they don’t even respond! If you’re
already a big name they’re sweet as pie, but if you’re just trying to get started, forget it!”

It was laughable that a girl as canny as Moira should affect surprise at the town’s notorious clubbiness and odd too that
she had not, in her infinite cunning, found some way around it.

“So after a while I decided why bother? I mean, why does anyone want to make movies in the first place? To make people happy,
right?” We could, of course, have argued with that sugary premise, but we just nodded, curious to see where she was going.

“And there are other ways to do that. To make your own special gift to the world. I just had to find one that, you know,
spoke
to me and would help me nourish my healing, spiritual side.”

Lacking toupees that could leap from our heads and spin around three times before landing askew, we let this comment pass
as well.

“So one day I was showing my house to some new friends and it suddenly hit me—
this
could be my gift to the world. My home! It’s so damn big, so sprawling and beautiful with all this drop-dead landscaping.
Why not turn it into a spa and share it with the world? So that’s what I did!”

She detailed for us how she’d hired a brilliant architect who’d gutted and redesigned the vast house, converting the ballroom
into a treatment center while peppering the grounds with charming guest bungalows. Moira had meanwhile toured the poshest
spas of California and Europe, taking notes and luring away top talent. By the time construction had finished she’d assembled
a staff unrivaled in its expertise, plus an Italian dermatologist able to dole out the Botox and a few other surreptitiously
offered goodies that had not yet won FDA approval.

“So that’s the story, kids! I named the place Les Étoiles and we opened last month. Needless to say, it wasn’t cheap. It cost
me every penny Albert left, not to mention a hefty bank loan, so you can imagine how much it means to me that it succeed.
And of course the whole key to that is image. Buzz. And that’s where that little favor I mentioned comes in.

“When I saw you guys tonight with Stephen Donato, I thought to myself, ‘My God, that’s
exactly
the sort of person who should be coming to Les Étoiles. Someone accomplished and admired who has to cope every day with these
incredible pressures and who could really benefit from this blissfully tranquil environment I’ve created.’ And I’m not saying
it wouldn’t be pretty nice for me too! Once word got around that Stephen Donato enjoyed little getaways there, the whole town
would be clamoring to get in.

“I’d be
so
grateful if you guys would bring him in sometime. And of course,” she added hastily, “you’d both be welcome too. My treat,
everything included — meals, drinks, treatments. Stay as long as you like.”

I glanced over at Gilbert, who, to my unbounded horror, seemed actually to be considering it. He had the torn, troubled look
of a child who knows he’s not supposed to enter strange cars, yet can’t help noting that the cookie has icing.

“So we could stay like a week?” he asked.

“Two weeks!”

“Gilbert!” I barked, leaping to my feet. There are moments that call for tactful diplomacy and others that demand swift and
decisive action, however impolite. This was unquestionably one of the latter.

“S’cuse us!” I said to Moira, seizing Gilbert by the elbow. “We’ll just be a minute!” I yanked him out of the office and dragged
him down the hall to his bedroom.

“Have you gone insane?” I hissed, shoving him onto the bed.

“Ow! What’s your problem? It’s not like I said yes.”