So 5 Minutes Ago (22 page)

An attendant cruises by wearing a kimono and an alarmed expression. “Ladies, is there, ah, anything we can get you?” she says in her whispery Asian accent. “Some ice water? Or more tea?”

“No thanks. We’re fine,” I say, forcing myself to smile. “We’re just waiting for our massage appointments.”

The attendant checks her watch, gives us another worried glance, and shuffles off. Silence radiates off Amy. I stare out at the rain. We never could travel as a family. Even when we were kids. Stupid to think we could get along now. I look over at her. So pious in her stillness. Her marriage. Her pregnancy. In the
rightness
of her life and the
wrongness
of mine. I close my eyes and try and force myself into stillness. I take a few deep breaths. Shit. All I want to do is knock that pillow off her eyes and tell her to stop being such a jerk. That I am not jealous of her, have
never
been jealous of her, that I actually feel sorry for her, stuck back in Philly with Barkley and seeing Mom and Dad every other weekend. That I moved to L.A. precisely to
avoid
that life.

“Oh, honey, this is such a lovely place.”

I open my eyes a crack. Helen. At the foot of our lounges, wearing her own buttery robe and a blissful expression. “I’m so glad you suggested it. It’s so, I don’t know,
calming,
” she says, sinking onto the end of my lounge.

“Yeah, Mom, it’s calming all right,” I say, sitting up. “How was your facial?”

“Oh, it was wonderful,” she says, rubbing her cheek. “Not that I’m any expert. But the girl was so nice. Hmm . . . Where’d you get that tea?”

“Oh, it’s over there,” I say, nodding toward a sideboard at the back of the room. “I can get you some if you want.”

“No, I’ll get it. In a minute.” She turns to the window. “I have to say, even with all this rain, this trip has really turned out surprisingly well.”

I look at her looking out the window. I know I should just let it go. But I can’t. If the dam is broken, the dam is broken. “Why? What were you expecting?”

She turns back to me, looking slightly startled. “Well, I didn’t mean surprising. You know, it’s just what you hear about Los Angeles. What you expect.”

“Like what exactly?” I say. “You mean the riots and O.J. or the Oscars?”

“Oh, Alex,” she says, sighing. “You’re always so defensive. I only meant that whatever I was expecting from this trip, it’s been different. That’s all. In a good way.”

“So you were expecting it to be bad?”

Amy snatches the eye pillow from her eyes. “This is what I was talking about,” she snaps. “This kind of hostility.”

“Oh, girls,” Helen says, shaking her head. “Don’t spoil this, this way.”

“You know, I’ll just get you that tea,” I say, clambering up off the lounge and nearly colliding with a therapist.

“Mrs. Harbinger? We’re ready for your pregnancy massage now.”

Amy gives her a blazing smile—the beaming Madonna—and the two of them float off. Since I’m up, I decide to get the tea anyway. Give myself a minute to calm down, get out of the raging torrent. When I come back, Helen has taken Amy’s place on the lounge.

“Thank you, honey,” she says, taking the cup. We lie there for a minute, sipping our tea and staring out at the rain.

“What are you having done?” she asks after a minute.

“Shiatsu.”

“Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Not if you’re used to it.”

We fall silent again.

“What was Dad doing this afternoon?”

“He and Barkley went to the automotive museum.”

“Oh, right,” I say.

We sit there silently again, sipping our tea.

“Honey, we really have had a wonderful time. Whatever you may think. Whatever Amy may have said.”

I stare straight ahead. I know she is looking at me. That she wants me to take the olive branch she’s holding out. And I should take it. For all our sakes, I should just take it.

But I can’t.

“Well, I’m glad,” I say evenly, my eyes never leaving the rain-lashed window. “I’m really glad.”

We sit silently again. After a minute, I hear the rustle of her robe.

“Well. I’m going to go down and change,” she says, getting to her feet. “We have a long trip home tomorrow.”

She stands next to me and suddenly I feel the weight of her hand on my head. “You always had the most beautiful hair,” she says, stroking my head. “Of all of us, you were the lucky one.”

I don’t say anything. Luck is not something I’ve ever, ever had. Even if she doesn’t know it, I do. So I just nod and keep staring out the window. Staring until it all blurs together and I can’t see the rain anymore.

16 Running as Fast as I Can

                  The deal with the Phoenix, like all celebs, is you don’t just show up. Not without an invitation. And FBI clearance. For one thing, the fortresses are not equipped to just let people in. For another, the fortress owners usually need twenty-four-hour notice. Just to get ready. Unless you’re like Cybill Shepherd, who likes to run out the clock while her visitors cool their heels in her living room watching the fish guy clean out the saltwater tank.

My pilgrimage along PCH to the Phoenix’s latest nest has required dozens of calls. Suzanne and the Phoenix’s manager. Suzanne and the Phoenix’s assistant. The assistant’s assistant. Me and the second assistant. Finally, I am in. I have no idea what the pretext for my meeting is—no doubt something Suzanne cooked up having to do with the Phoenix’s new reality series—but I am clear on my mission: Save Suzanne’s Ass.

Or at least Suzanne thinks that’s my mission. I have yet to decide, despite G’s Deep Throat efforts in the parking garage. As far as I’m concerned, I have an audience with the Phoenix, but no idea what I will actually say once I am there. Maybe this is my way of backtracking from the line that I apparently drew in the sand during my phone call with Charles. A call that was, predictably, the last time we’ve spoken, but that’s a whole other issue. Or maybe it’s some proactive reaction to my parents’ visit over Thanksgiving, a visit that has left me, ironically, determined to make a go of my demeaning but still-so-glam job. Nothing like a visit from Mom to focus the mind.

Or maybe it’s my way of hedging my bets in the shifting inter-office wars between Team Suzanne and Team G. According to the latest intelligence, Suzanne’s lawyer is threatening counter suit—that classic Hollywood ploy—so now G’s attempts to thin the ranks have been put on the back burner. Temporarily.

Besides, the week after Thanksgiving, Hollywood is neck-deep into its annual year-end madness, the flurry of big-budget holiday releases and pious Oscar hopefuls, and with the chaos of award season yet to come. Given the all-hands-on-deck mode now operating at every studio and publicity agency, even G knows it’s no time for head rolling. Still, the feeling is that it’s not a question of
if
Suzanne and most of the DWPers hit the road, but when and how. Already the smart money is on an exit strategy during the post-Oscar doldrums. But as we all know, a lot can happen in Hollywood in those few short weeks.

“Here you go,” Steven says, dropping the directions to the house on my desk. “But before you leave, can we go over your call sheet?” I glance at the directions. One of the far corners of Malibu near Point Dume, with no doubt the requisite fabulous ocean view.

“Wait, which house is this?” I say, staring at the address. Last time I had seen the Phoenix, she was holed up in some monster rental off Doheny. But that had been between tours or boyfriends or surgeries or something.

“The one she bought last year. The one that’s already for sale. Because it’s been in
Architectural Digest.
Because she’s bored with it and because she already bought a new house that she’s renovating,” he says, distractedly flipping through my massive call sheet.

“Oh, right,” I say vaguely, recalling pictures of a bunkerlike beach estate with morbid, Addams Family interiors. Or maybe that had been her furniture catalog when the Phoenix had been in her retail phase. “You know, why is it that female stars buy and discard houses like they’re Manolo Blahniks? I mean, just take the Phoenix, Scooby, and Courteney Cox. Between them, they’ve probably owned more than two dozen houses in the past five years. But all the guys, like Jack and Warren, Johnny Carson and Michael Douglas, buy houses and hang on to them.”

“That’s because they just trade up the women they put in them. Or down, if you’re looking at it chronologically,” he says, without glancing up from the call sheet.

I ponder this a second. “Like baseball managers and the free agency system.”

“Or plastic surgery,” Steven says, looking up impatiently. “I mean for the women. Redo your face. Redo your house. You know,
moving on.
Like we need to be doing now, given all these calls.”

“I don’t know,” I say, ignoring his impatience. One of the ironies in my making a more concerted effort at my job is that I am slower at returning calls. Like any publicist worth her Palm Pilot. “I think it’s because women have more of their self-esteem wrapped up in their home. And it’s not just celebrities.”

“I guess that explains your penchant for patio furniture indoors,” he says, giving up and heading for the door.

“Hey, I cooked you marshmallows,” I say, flinging a pencil after him.

“Women and sugar,” he says, dodging. “More sacred than sex.”

I always forget that, even without traffic, getting out to the far reaches of Malibu is a haul. No wonder nobody lives out here full time. Except for surfers, has-beens, and retirees like Johnny Carson and Barbra. I pass the old Getty museum. And the nursery that was almost wiped out in the floods two winters ago. The Colony. Geoffrey’s restaurant. The road where I used to go horseback riding when I first moved to L.A. and, like every new female transplant, felt it my duty to leap aboard some dusty steed every weekend. Just so you could say casually on Monday mornings, “How was my weekend? Great. Went riding. In Malibu.” After I got hives from plowing through one too many thickets of fennel, and especially after the time I nearly got thrown when we encountered a rattlesnake on the trail, I started spending my Sunday mornings at the car wash, reading the papers at the Starbucks down the block. There were snakes of a different sort, but at least I didn’t get hives.

I check the address again. Cliffside Drive. God, did I pass the turnoff? I reach over to the passenger seat and fish out the
Thomas Guide,
heavy as the Yellow Pages, and flip to the Malibu section. Or try to. You think driving while talking on a cell phone is dangerous, try reading the
Thomas Guide.
I fumble with the book for a minute—where is page 667? torn out, of course—nearly driving off the road before I give up and dial Steven. My personal satellite navigation system.

“Where the fuck is this place?”

“Where are you?”

“Just passed Geoffrey’s. And Coral Canyon,” I say as I whiz by.

“You know, I’ve got three other calls going,” he says.

“Well, I’m missing the right
Thomas Guide
page and who am I supposed to ask for directions out here, Nick Nolte?”

“Oh, hang on,” he says, putting me on hold. He clicks back on in a minute. “Okay, two more miles. Take a left at Dume Drive.”

“Thanks, Hansel. Next time, I’ll definitely drop bread crumbs.”

In about three minutes I see the turnoff and hang a left. It’s a narrow road snaking down toward the beach with the water on one side and sprawling estates on the other. Like every upscale L.A. neighborhood, it’s also stone empty. Not a soul or a FedEx truck in sight. As if nuclear winter has fallen. You only know money lives here because the carapaces remain. I try to count down the address, but hardly any are posted; the houses just get bigger as I get closer to the water. Finally I see it. Just like I remember from the magazine, only more massive. And more bunkerlike. A genuine fortress.

It’s the usual drill getting in: roll up to the gate, punch in, recite password
BIG-DWP,
drawbridge comes down. I expect the usual pack of animals. Mastiffs. Or Irish wolfhounds, given our surroundings. Instead, I see only a lone gardener in a straw hat stooped over the far end of the lawn. For a second, I feel like I’m in that scene in
Chinatown
where Jack Nicholson shows up at Faye Dunaway’s estate, where only the gardener is working. Except for the faint roar of the ocean, it’s utterly silent. And a little eerie. Most stars thrive in the midst of chaos. Kids, dogs, assistants, nannies, ringing phones, a million cars in the driveway, overbooked schedules. Too many commitments and not enough time. It’s their way of stilling the demons that stalk them:
What if they forget about me?

But apparently the Phoenix’s self-esteem needs no such shoring up. At least not here. No one would ever accuse her of being a minimalist, not with that showgirl wardrobe and all those wigs made out of Christmas tinsel, but her house has the bunkered, deserted feel of a secret government lab.

I am admitted by the side door. The servant’s entrance. Amazingly there are still no dogs. And even more amazingly, no Latinos. Just a slim, thirty-something brunette in tight jeans and a T-shirt. Tracy. Or Stacy. The Phoenix’s personal chef. Or her trainer. Or a post-op nurse. It’s not clear and I don’t bother asking. Tracy/Stacy leads me through the kitchen. Acres of black granite and chrome with not a pot, pan, or piece of food in sight. Just a plate on a tray wrapped in something like six layers of plastic wrap and holding a wan-looking chicken breast, broccoli, a few cherry tomatoes. It looks like punishment. Or a public school lunch. Not a meal for someone who once hawked $2 million worth of cosmetics in an hour on QVC.

We leave the kitchen—and the twenty-first century—and push through a door into, yes, I was right, the Addams Family abode. Or Harry Potter’s dungeon. It’s so dark, I can’t make out much except for the crucifixes and swords hanging on the walls, and the mirrors with their frames in the shape of snakes. The few pieces of furniture I can make out in the gloaming look edged in gilt and covered in leopard-print velvet. What Henry VIII might have owned if he’d lived in Vegas.

“She’s upstairs,” Tracy/Stacy says, as she leads me to a curving marble staircase. We climb up, passing a giant tapestry hanging in the stairwell. I gaze up at it, trying to make out the looming female figure. Joan of Arc? Hillary Clinton? Or maybe the Phoenix herself? It’s hard to tell, it’s so dark, smoky, even.

We climb on and I start to feel dizzy. Maybe it’s the elevation. Or maybe I just have to sneeze. Finally, we hit a landing, a hallway with what looks to be a cat scuttling down the far end. If Maggie Smith suddenly leapt out at us, I wouldn’t be surprised. “Here we are,” Tracy/Stacy says, stopping in front of a large carved-wood door. She knocks, waits, then pushes it open. A blast of sandalwood and patchouli hits me.

Given all the smoke, my first reaction is that the room is on fire. But as my eyes adjust, I make out half a dozen smudge pots of incense and scented candles smoldering away. Probably a séance with the Phoenix’s dead husband. Actually ex-husband, her former-manager-turned-Christian-radio-talk-show-host who died in a freak recording accident two months ago—something to do with his microphone shorting out when he bowed his head in prayer—and who was, according to the tabs, now communicating with her from beyond the grave. Presumably telling her to have her wiring checked.

I turn back to Tracy/Stacy, but I’ve been abandoned by Charon on the banks of the Styx. Oh well. I brace myself and take a step into the perfumed murk. “Hello?” I say, feeling my way into what appears to be a huge bedroom. At least she’s consistent. Last time I met with her, she held court in her darkened bedroom from atop her leopard-print-covered bed.

“Hello,” I say again. Nothing but the guttering candles. Suddenly, I see a flash of light and, like a vision out of the mists, the Phoenix is here—the corn-silk-white hair, barefoot, gray sweats, and baggy pale blue cardigan sweater. And cradling a cat. Venus on her day off. “Hi,” she says, in her familiar foggy-brassy voice. “This is Botox. She just had her bath.”

“Really,” I say, springing into action. At least this part is familiar. Whatever they trot out, just go with it. “Oh, she’s so clean,” I say, rubbing the cat’s still-damp head.

“And that’s Lipo, her brother,” she says, nodding at a second cat who’s crept out of the shadows and is winding himself damply around my ankles. “She just loves him,” she says, bending down to put Botox on the floor. “And that’s pretty much it.”

“Okay,” I say brightly, as I try to disengage my feet from the cats.

“So Alex, right?” she says, eyeing me now.

I’m tempted to remind her that we’ve actually met and spoken on the phone several times, but think better of it. “Yes. I’m Alex. Davidson. From Suzanne’s office?” I say, trying to address her without staring at her face, its waxy perfection, astonishing on camera but even more compelling in real life.

“Right,” she says, nodding and turning toward a second door. I stand there, not sure if I should follow her. “They’re in here,” she says, turning back to me. “You need to see them, right?”

“Uhm, sure. That would be great.” I have no idea what she’s talking about, but I follow her through the doorway into a small closet. A closet of jewelry. Rows upon rows of beaded necklaces, bracelets, and earrings, like a booth at a mall.

She reaches out to finger some of the strands. “These are just a few of the ones that I’ve made over the years. Like this is an early one,” she says, handing me a necklace of tiny glass beads strung on a cord. It looks like something I made as a kid in camp.

“Stunning,” I say, taking the necklace. “Really beautiful.”

“And these are some of the more recent ones.” She reaches for larger, chunkier strands with beads of turquoise, citrine, and aquamarine. A couple have crosses dangling off them.