Aftermath of Dreaming(81)

The hardest part was not being able to defend him, to talk about who he really was, about what I liked and loved in him. Keeping quiet and pretending, while they tore him down and chewed him up. It made me want to protect him; I couldn’t believe this went on so much. But Andrew seemed to know it did; at least he knew that Viv instigated a lot of it. As I turned onto my street, I wondered how he could have lived with it for so long, but then I realized it must be like underbrush on a path that his boots kick through while he emerges unscathed.

That night at his house, Andrew told me about his meeting with Viv.

“All she did was talk about sex—mine. And practically right from the beginning, so I didn’t even try to bring it around to a professional conversation. I figured it was her meeting, she can blow it however she wants.”

We were in his kitchen, eating delicacies out of bowls from the fridge that the chef had created, sitting at the marble island on the hard metal stools. I had a feeling someone once had suggested cushions—a decorator maybe, a girlfriend from back when—but Andrew had vetoed it, liking the duality of outward discomfort while luscious food went inward.

“She couldn’t shut up about it,” Andrew went on. “All the women I’d f*cked and how beautiful they were—‘What a list,’ she said. I told her that she hadn’t done too badly herself.”

“You mean the men she’s been with or…”

“What do you think?” Andrew smiled at me.

“Oh.” I was silent for a moment. That gave Viv’s hatred of Andrew a whole new twist. Maybe it wasn’t him she wanted to sleep with, but Stephanie. Or both. Who the f*ck knew. “But how do you know who…”

“Word gets around.”

I should have known. This town really was just one big little high school and all inside information was reported to Andrew.

“And the shit she talks about me—what’d I ever do to her? You’d think she would have thought about that before she tried to get in my next film.”

“So why’d you meet with her, then?”

“Because I can, and I’ll make sure she never works on my film or anyone else’s.” He smiled at me quietly and deeply above his dark blue T-shirt, then pulled my head toward his chest and moved it down until it rested in his lap.

Andrew never asked me why Viv and I were friends. Maybe in the midst of his hatred for her, he understood what there was to like. And I did like her. She was vivacious and fun and wonderful one-on-one. We’d meet for coffee or lunch, go to salsa class or get a pedicure, and shopping with her was the best. She knew cool little undiscovered places downtown and in tiny neighborhoods where we could buy cheap, exotic things while we talked the whole time. L.A. was her city and to me she was L.A. The whole way she greeted life: huge smile, cute body, charm talking, and pure drive underneath. Being with Viv helped me understand how the city grew and moved. One-on-one was wonderful; it was when other people were involved that things got weird.



It was the weekend launch of Valiant Hour, the film Andrew had produced, directed, and starred in with Stephanie. There was tons of press for months before, and Stephanie was all over the talk shows on the nights leading up to the opening. Even Andrew did an on-camera interview, which usually he avoided. It was with Holly actually. She had moved out to L.A. and was the new entertainment goddess for a national news show and I suppose that’s how they met. There was a huge premiere for the film that I read about in the paper the next day, then finally the seventy-two-hour moment that everything had been shooting for arrived—opening weekend. The reviews moved Stephanie’s career to a pinnacle higher than it ever had been and Andrew was reaffirmed as the genius he was.

I went to a twelve-thirty feature on the opening Friday. Alone in the dark with my popcorn, watching Stephanie and thinking of Andrew viewing each frame, I tried to interpret the story line as some kind of allegory for them since she died at the end.

I had seen still photographs of the movie in Andrew’s kitchen one night. On a table in the corner under the windows, which the dark outside had turned into mirrors, was a light box with color slides spread out on top. Like the mess in a child’s room, it looked like it would be there for a while.

Andrew was picking the poster shot and other photos to be used for press. He pulled a chair up close to his so I’d be next to him and able to see his choices and rejects. They all had Stephanie in them. Good Christ, this woman looked like she would never die. She was above death, too full of a singular stunningness to succumb.

Andrew was making small piles; some he’d go back to, others he pushed aside. He would show me one, look at me with an eyebrow raised, then set it down in what he’d determined was its appropriate place.

At one point he said, “Do you know how long I’ve been doing this?”

I thought he meant looking at the slides that night, so I started to rub his back, which he gave himself into, but then he said, “Longer than you’ve been alive.”

Oh, that. I moved in front of him and removed my dress. The slides and Stephanie became a thing of the past.



I called Andrew when I got home from Valiant Hour to tell him how much I loved it. His voice got that formal tone it sometimes had—a combination of embarrassed, polite, and tongue-tied—but it would have been odd not to mention it, this huge thing going on in front of our eyes. And I was proud of him, which sounds silly and hubristic, but there it is. I would’ve sung his praises to the world if I could. So I said it to him, and he thanked me, simply and rather elegantly, then told me that the next couple of days were going to be crazy with Stephanie and everything.