My Liar Page 6

  “Sure,” said Annabeth. She loved going to the movies at the museum—their screening room was so much nicer than a regular movie theater and the audience so much more human than the people who showed up at industry screenings. She’d actually seen Robert Frank’s documentary in Austin but she wouldn’t mind seeing it again, especially with Laura. “Do you want me to bring my notes on Trouble Doll?” she asked.

  In fact, since Saturday morning Laura had reread the draft herself and was no longer so sure she wanted to hear what Annabeth had to say. “You read it already?”

  “Didn’t you get my message?”

  “The thing is, it’s looking like Elisabeth Shue might really be interested, so we’re probably going to have to do a whole new draft for her, but sure, bring your notes. The movie’s at six-thirty. Meet me in the courtyard; I’ll get the tickets.” Elisabeth Shue? From Adventures in Babysitting? That was a “real” actress?

  Annabeth arrived at the museum at five-thirty. There was some kind of event being set up with a stage and speakers, and trays of hors d’oeuvres were coming out of a catering trailer. A lot of rock ’n’ roll types were milling around looking lost, kids with big hair and pegged jeans—they didn’t know their way around the museum but had come to see the legendary documentary. An early sprinkling of people was also starting to arrive for the night’s courtyard event, swing-dance enthusiasts. This group was for the most part younger than the rock ’n’ roll crowd and wore their own very specific costumes. Finally, there were two minority factions: much older swing-dance fans, perhaps of the original vintage, and fortyish African-American jazz enthusiasts—the dance band featured a local keyboard player who was going to blow the roof off the roofless courtyard, and his friends and neighbors had come to cheer him on.

  Annabeth circled and observed but could not find Laura. She was only a little anxious. It made a certain amount of sense that Laura would be late, although Annabeth was starting to doubt that there would be any tickets left for sale when she did arrive. Nevertheless, it was an interesting crowd and the experience of just being outside among other humans was so rare that she was enjoying herself thoroughly; it was like a wedding without any family. Soon they were going to start selling drinks, and Annabeth thought maybe it would be just as much fun to have a cocktail on the concrete plaza and listen to the swing band as to file into the auditorium with all those sallow rock ’n’ roll fans. When she saw Laura sauntering toward her from the direction of the museum entrance, she was smiling a relaxed and happy smile, as though it had never occurred to her that there was any urgency about their situation. Annabeth waved; Laura shrugged. When she got within earshot, she explained the shrug:

  “It’s sold out, I’m sorry. It never occurred to me it would be such a scene.”

  “It’s okay,” Annabeth said, “I’ve been having a great time just watching the crowd.”

  Laura made a skeptical face and looked around. “Funny mix,” she said. “When does the band start?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not till seven, right?”

  “Well, let’s go upstairs and see some art, and then we can come down and have a drink.”

  It had not occurred to Annabeth to enter the museum. She hoped Laura wouldn’t be the sort of person who wanted to have long, analytical conversations about the artwork within earshot of other patrons.

  “You’re shivering,” said Laura. “Are you cold?”

  “A little, I guess.”

  “Here,” said Laura, removing her blazer and handing it to Annabeth—it was the one she’d bought at American Rag. When Annabeth put it on, the silky lining was warm and smelled like Laura. The jacket felt light on her shoulders and fit beautifully, skimming her wrist and hip bones, tapering at her waist. Despite the T-shirt and Levi’s she had on underneath, she felt suddenly sleek and well put together.

  She followed Laura upstairs to a gallery where work by a photographer named Lewis Baltz was on display. The photos were eerie, mostly barren industrial landscapes, piles of trash, ruined interiors. Annabeth found them compelling but had no idea why. Laura hated them because, she said, they “looked smug.” Annabeth nodded, trying to imagine what Laura meant, but all she could think about was how smug she, herself, felt in Laura’s blazer.

  “Hey,” said Laura, “let’s dance!”

  “What?”

  “Downstairs.” The band had started playing. “C’mon, it’ll be fun.”

  “I don’t know how,” said Annabeth.

  “I’ll teach you,” said Laura, heading across the gallery toward the exit.

  Annabeth didn’t follow. She had been poleaxed by the sight of her own Doc Marten–clad feet; they might as well have been lead-soled. She saw herself attempting to dance, staggering like Frankenstein’s monster, tripping and stumbling, then reaching for support as Laura’s fifteen-hundred-dollar blazer sheared open at the shoulder, ruined, beyond repair.

  Laura turned to see why Annabeth’s footsteps had not followed her own. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, reading Annabeth’s apparent terror. “It’ll be fun. Just watch.”

  Annabeth stepped closer while Laura lifted her arms slightly to provide an unobstructed view of her feet. “It’s just one, two, three-and one, two, three-and one,” she explained as her feet performed a slow-motion swing step.

  Annabeth followed tentatively, making no obvious mistakes but knowing that skills performed flawlessly during the instruction phase were no proof against disaster on the dance floor.

  Down in the courtyard, Laura backed her way in among the dancers, beckoning Annabeth forward. But after a few agonized strides, Annabeth shook her head no and began to retreat. Laura made a pleading look, then slipped her glance outward, and, as though summoned, a tall black man stepped forward and offered her his hand. Laura looked at Annabeth for her approval, Annabeth nodded, and the two were off.

  Taking a seat at a nearby table, Annabeth relaxed at last. The band was swinging, Laura was obviously having a great time, and Annabeth was wearing the coolest blazer on earth. She wondered whether David would like this scene, and if he knew how to dance. She couldn’t picture it, but then again, she wouldn’t have been able to picture Laura dancing either, and there she was, sassily waving her hand beside her face in time with her feet like she’d been doing it all her life.

  After another number, Laura returned to Annabeth’s little café table and sat down.

  “You’re a really good dancer,” said Annabeth.

  “You’re a really good wallflower,” said Laura.

  “Yeah, well. Lots of practice. Plus, I enjoy it…”

  “Well, there you go.” Laura looked around, craning her neck to take in the whole scene.

  “Do you want your blazer?” said Annabeth.

  “I’m all sweaty,” said Laura, making a face.

  “You might catch cold. Sorry, I seem to be channeling someone’s mom.”

  “Not yours?”

  “No, not mine.”

  “Where’s your car?” asked Laura.

  “Over on Spaulding.”

  “Mine’s in front of the Tar Pits. Walk me and then I’ll drive you over.”

  “Sure,” said Annabeth, though it hadn’t been a question.

  The La Brea Tar Pits are contained in a parklike enclosure in an otherwise entirely urban part of Los Angeles. Driving by, one sees only a lagoon overhung by ferny trees. In the burbling shallows of that lagoon, however, are a group of monumental bronze sculptures: a family of woolly mammoths, one of them trapped in the tar and trumpeting desperately in the direction of her small child on the opposite shore. The baby mammoth’s trunk is extended toward the mother in reply. As Laura and Annabeth strolled by the lagoon, the sulfur smell caused Annabeth to look closely at this scene for the first time. Unprepared for its narrative force, she felt her eyes well up with tears. Mother stuff always got to her. Embarrassed, she began rooting around in her pockets for a tissue, forgetting until she felt the silk lining that the jacket she was wearing bel
onged to Laura.

  “What are you looking for?” asked Laura.

  “Nothing,” said Annabeth.

  “Gum?” asked Laura. “I have some Altoids in the car.”

  “It’s those fucking woolly mammoths,” said Annabeth. “I’ve never really looked at them before.”

  Laura followed the direction of Annabeth’s derisive nod. “I wonder how many millions of dollars that cost,” she said.

  “Prehistoric kitsch,” Annabeth muttered.

  “They should put that on the state flag instead of the whad-dayacallit,” said Laura.

  “Bruin?” asked Annabeth.

  By then they had arrived at Laura’s car, a beautifully preserved black Karmann Ghia. Annabeth was fascinated by its smell—the leather upholstery was too old to offer much odor but when combined with the smells of motor oil, old machinery, Laura’s perfume, and Altoids, it was an evocative mix. As Laura buckled herself in and started the engine, Annabeth realized she was still wearing the wildly expensive blazer and began to take it off before fastening her own seat belt. She didn’t want it to get wrinkled.

  “You should keep it,” said Laura, recognizing what Annabeth was trying to do. “I didn’t realize it read so blue. It’s much better on you than on me—brings out your eyes.”

  Annabeth didn’t know what to say, and by the time she coughed up the words “But it looks great on you,” they no longer sounded like part of the same conversation.

  “Where’d you say you were parked?” said Laura.

  “Over there—make a right at the light.”

  Annabeth stared blankly through the windshield, trying to decide whether to go on resisting Laura’s gift. She hadn’t even seen how the jacket looked on her; she only knew how it felt.

  As they turned the corner onto Spalding, Annabeth realized she hadn’t even mentioned the script. It was still in the back seat of her car, which they were fast approaching. “I really loved Trouble Doll,” she said. And she had loved it, in spite of seeing its deficiencies…but most of all she had loved it because it was the project she was going to work on with Laura, the one that would make all this discomfort and maneuvering worthwhile. They would become real partners, like Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker or Arthur Penn and Dede Allen.

  “Thanks,” said Laura. “She’s still a little fuzzy, Bunny, but I think the opening sequence helps with that, don’t you?”

  “When she’s watching the other girl at the club?”

  “No, the very beginning, walking down the highway.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Annabeth. “Do you want the script back? It’s in my car. I made some notes—”

  “No, that’s okay,” said Laura. “We can talk about it more when we really get going. Anyway, tonight was fun.” Simpson had ultimately talked her into giving the current draft to Elisabeth Shue. And if it wasn’t really ready, she didn’t want to know.

  “Yeah, really fun! Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me.”

  “For the blazer.”

  “Okay, you can thank me for that. Call me, okay?”

  Annabeth got into her own car and took a deep whiff for comparison. It smelled like a car, nothing more, nothing less. The blazer, however, still smelled like Laura. She hung it up carefully when she got home, even though opening the closet door made a creaking sound and David was asleep on the couch.

  The next morning, she saw that her priorities had gotten confused, and as soon as the hour seemed reasonable enough, she drove to Laura’s house (the address was on the script) to deliver her notes and, reluctantly, offer Laura back her blazer. Greg answered the door, looking like he’d just gotten out of bed. He was wearing nothing but a much-laundered pair of gray sweatpants and Annabeth couldn’t help but notice, even with her eyes trained only on his face, that his genitals were distinctly outlined by the clinging fabric.

  “Annabeth-the-editor?” he said, after looking at her briefly, and then, “Come in. The coffee’s just about to spurt.” He seemed friendly enough but, sensing that Laura might not actually be home, she hesitated. Greg was very handsome in a Waspy, dissolute way—as long as she kept her eyes above his waist. As if reading her mind he said, “Sorry you caught me en déshabillé, so to speak.”

  “I’m late for an appointment,” she lied, improvising. She took the script out of the shopping bag that also held the jacket, carefully turned inside out and folded. Obviously, Greg would have accepted both items without argument.

  “Ah, your notes,” he said. “She’s at the gym, I guess.”

  “Nice to meet you,” said Annabeth.

  “My pleasure,” said Greg, shaking the hair off his forehead and looking over her shoulder. And then, sure enough, she did hear a spurting sound coming from inside.

  “My fix,” said Greg, “if you will. Gotta go.”

  And Annabeth nodded, relieved to be left alone on the doorstep, her mission accomplished, and the blazer still in hand.

  Two weeks later, Laura and Greg drove into the desert to attend a party at a friend’s bungalow near Joshua Tree. It made Laura a little bit uncomfortable to leave town with Trouble Doll now hovering so close to a deal. Simpson had heard from his contact at UTA that Elisabeth Shue had been “adoring” the script, which she was halfway through. An official response was due at any moment, and in Laura’s mind scouting, casting, and the hiring of department heads was all but finished. As they made their way through the endless fields of metal windmills, she decided on a DP, a production designer, a first assistant director, and an editor—more or less.

  “So what did you think of young Annabeth, anyway?” she asked Greg.

  “Cute,” said Greg.

  “Did she seem smart to you?”

  “I met her for thirty seconds, Laura.” But his wife often sought his advice on subjects like this—people he barely knew, books he hadn’t read, scenes she hadn’t shot yet.

  “I think she’s more ambitious than she lets on.”

  “Is that a bad thing?” Greg asked.

  “I mean, what if she actually just likes to cut film?”

  She considered this possibility while checking her reflection in the visor-mounted vanity mirror. Maybe the shamefully expensive face cream worked. “I’m sure she does,” she said. It was Annabeth’s unwillingness to just come out and say what she presumably wanted—to cut Trouble Doll—that made Laura uncomfortable. Growing up, she’d had a cat named Herman Munster who used to bring mauled birds to Laura’s bedside and then sit waiting for her to wake up. She had scolded him and put him outdoors every time it happened, but he never seemed to catch on that she didn’t want the dead birds. Annabeth was like Herman Munster, somehow.

  “Are they going to be playing tonight, do you think?” Greg asked, meaning the members of the band who were throwing the party.

  She knew he was insecure among this crowd—Art Center graduates who had known him when he was actually showing and selling work, and when that work was actually good. It surprised her that he had even agreed to go to the party. She was starting to see Joshua trees on the side of the road, which meant they were getting close to their destination. “I think they just want to kick back,” she answered.

  After a few tequila shots, Laura hit the dance floor. She was a fabulous, if narcissistic, dancer and could go on for hours, no partner necessary. Throughout the party, she played a game with herself where she had to make eye contact with as many men as she could without any of them successfully engaging her in conversation. One guy tried to grab her on her way to the bathroom, but she stopped him with a look. Greg sat outside in the dark, smoking pot with their host’s teenage son and his friends, who told him about their bungee-jumping adventures at the Devil’s Punchbowl.

  On the way home, after forty-five minutes of silence, Greg said, “Why did you act like such a twat tonight?”

  “Because I can’t stand being married to a zombie,” Laura said.

  “Bullshit. You just needed to charge your batteries. And I’m the idiot wh
o chauffeured you into the desert for two hours so you could shake your ass in Mike Viola’s face.”

  Eventually they were both so mad they had to pull over. When the car was stationary, they stalked off on separate tangents into the black nothingness: Laura kept to the asphalt, Greg scrabbled into the dry vegetation, where the tip of his cigarette glowed as he drew on it. It was the only thing Laura could see. She was afraid of snakes, scorpions, and large spiders, all of which could easily have been slithering around in the creosote. After a while, she realized he probably couldn’t see her at all, so she returned to the car and sat in the passenger seat with the door open. She missed the days when her husband had been faithful to her, when he never came home at five in the morning still revved on coke, but she could not bring herself to ask him what had happened because she was afraid of how she, herself, might figure in his answer.

  Greg finally sauntered back, pulled her around to his side of the car, and told her to get on her knees, which she did. “I’m going to trust you not to hurt me,” he said, but when she nodded he held her chin. “And not to do anything but exactly what I tell you.” And so, crouching while Greg sat halfway inside the car, she blew him. Two cars passed but didn’t slow—Laura pictured Greg’s stoned, shut-down face captured momentarily in their headlights.

  9

  “How much have I told you about Simpson?” Laura asked Annabeth one morning on the phone.

  “Not much.”

  “Well, now that we’re actually working together, I’ve been hearing some weird things about him.”

  Annabeth wasn’t sure why Laura was telling her this. “Really?” she asked.

  “Like, he says he’s just back from a few years in London, which is true because I checked around. But I got a couple of different versions of why he left. Everyone agrees there was some kind of a problem with an ex-girlfriend, a model. My friend Cass said he’d threatened the girl with a gun when she broke up with him. And Becca Lawson heard he was stalking her, and she got him deported or something. And we’re talking about a guy who looks like Opie.”