Chapter 7 #3
He scratches his elbow. “Because you live in Hollywood Hills.”
“You called me that before I lived there.”
“Then… I don’t know. Guess because you were in those movies.”
“But the first time you called me that I hadn’t been in any movies yet.”
“I don’t know. Just something to say, I guess.”
I brush dirt off my hands. “You don’t remember, do you?”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“I’m not gonna play games with you, man.”
We’re quiet for a little while longer, then I peek at him. “You called me Hollywood the first time we met. At my birthday party?”
Harvey stares at me and shrugs. “Okay.”
“I spilled punch on myself. You asked me how it was hanging.” I study him to see if any of this sounds familiar. “Then you just walked off laughing.”
“Oh, yeah.” He grins. “That was pretty funny.”
“Glad you were amused,” I mutter.
“Oh, come on,” he says. “You’re not mad about that, are you? You gotta admit it was funny. Spilling punch all over yourself at your own party.”
I flick my gaze toward him, showing him just how funny I think it is.
“Wait.” He laughs. “Is… is that why you hate me? Over that?”
“No. No, that’s not why.” I already know how pathetic and pouty it sounds when I mumble, “That was the only thing you said to me the whole night, though.”
Now that I’ve uttered the words, I cringe on the inside. It’s pathetic to be carrying this silly teenage grudge years later. But that is not the only reason I hate him.
“And then you got the same car as mine,” I add. “You were always wherever I was, but you wouldn't talk to me or anything. It was like you were stalking me or trying to copy off me. It was irritating.”
He seems to be thinking about what I’ve said.
After a beat, he says, “Judd Pinksy was trying to unload a Jaguar he bought for his wife that she didn’t want.
It’s not exactly like yours. The interior is different, and it’s a couple years older.
I bought it off him. I wasn’t even thinking about you or your car. ”
I lean my head against the wall, glad it’s dim so he can’t see how red my face is.
Watching him ride around in the car he bought from Hot Night’s lead singer would piss me off to no end.
I was convinced he saw the car I got for my birthday and was deliberately trying to annoy me.
I built it up in my head and believed he was doing it all on purpose.
But he wasn’t thinking about me at all. For some reason, I feel disappointed.
“It’s gone, though,” Harvey says. “I wrecked it.”
“You what?”
“That’s why I’m here.” He pauses. “I crashed it into a cop car.” He moves some hair aside and points to the scar. “That’s from the windshield glass. I got arrested, and the judge gave me an ultimatum. It was either here or jail.”
“Jail, huh?” I look at him, curious.
“Yep. And I didn’t want that so… here I am.”
It’s blistering hot inside this thing, and the air is stuffy and thick. It feels like I’m inhaling a cloud of dirt. “How long have we been in here now?”
“An hour maybe.”
“Fuck.”
Neither of us speak for a while. The only sounds are our shoes shuffling in the dirt and a sniff or a throat clear here and there.
This is what the inside of an oven must feel like.
My mouth is dry, and I really, really wish I had some pills.
I move closer to the doors, just in case Timber brings his truck down early so I’ll hear it.
“Why were you in New York with Shelley?”
He looks at me like he doesn’t know what I mean.
“Last year,” I say. “Remember? That Studio 54? You were there with Shelley.”
“Yeah, she’s hot.”
I shake my head in disgust. “And you always want to be with all the women I’ve been with.”
“You did Shelley?” He grins.
“No, but she was on the show with me. And you were there dancing with her.”
“And you were jealous.” He’s still grinning.
“I wasn’t jealous. I just didn’t understand why you were there when I was. And with her of all people.”
He shrugs. “Just one of those things, I guess.”
“Bullshit. You knew I was going to be there, didn’t you?”
He gives me a look. “What? How the fuck would I have known that?”
“The papers talked about it. Me and Krissy promoting the film. You had to have known.”
“I was just there, Hollywood. Okay? There’s no conspiracy. I was just there. And she was there. She asked me to dance with her, and I did. That’s all there is to it.”
“You’re such a liar.”
“Fine. I’m a liar.”
I almost ask what happened to Shelley when we went downstairs, but I don’t. We sit in another long period of silence until Harvey speaks again.
“You know, I watched your show when I was a kid.”
I cast a look at him.
“Thursdays at seven thirty, I’d be in front of the TV.
” He’s quiet for a moment. “My dad was always throwing these parties, and they could get pretty loud. If I turned the TV up loud enough, it would drown them out.” He pauses again.
“I thought it would be so cool to have a magician for a dad. Reggie’s life looked so fun and happy.
I wanted my life to be like that. I wanted to be him.
And I guess…” He pauses for a long moment.
“I wanted to be you too.” He says it like he’s just now realizing it.
I don’t realize I’ve been holding my breath until I exhale. He’s looking anywhere but at me, and I can’t look away.
“I almost didn’t go to your birthday party,” he says quietly.
“I didn’t have time to get you anything, and I thought Gayle wouldn’t be available.
” He pauses and scratches at something on his shoe.
“Every time I went over to you, you were surrounded. And it got to the point where I’d been there for hours, and time kept passing, and that just made it worse.
I didn’t think you’d really notice because there were so many other people there.
I drank that spiked punch, probably more than I should have, and when I saw you, it just kind of came out.
” He chuckles a little. “I thought it was funny and thought you would too. But you didn’t. ”
I shift, trying to find a more comfortable position in the dirt. “But that wasn’t the only time. We’d both show up at the same place, and I know you saw me, but you wouldn’t speak to me. Like at 54.”
“You didn’t speak to me either.”
“Yeah, well…” I don’t have a good response to that. The unfinished thought lingers until Harvey cuts it off.
“You would just try to fight me instead.”
“It wasn’t just me,” I grumble.
“Most of the time it was.”
“That’s not true.”
“Really?” He sits up straight. “So you didn’t throw the first punch when you saw me here?”
I turn away from him.
“Or a few months ago?”
I don’t want to listen, and I search my memory for an instance where I didn’t go after him first. There must be a few. “I might have thrown the first punch, but you were provoking me. You were trying to get me to hit you.”
He laughs. “Yes. That’s exactly it. I really wanted you to do this.” He points to his black eye that’s faded quite a bit. “No man’s life is complete without a shiner from some washed-up asshole.”
“You’re doing it right now,” I snap at him. “Running your mouth. What am I supposed to do? Just let you talk shit to me?”
He shrugs. “Sticks and stones.”
“And I’m not washed-up,” I mutter. “I’m going to be on a new TV show.”
“Right on, Hollywood.” He claps obnoxiously, and the small space makes it louder. “America misses The Boy Next Door.”
“Shut up.”
“You can be that perfect angel again. I’ll buy you a halo. The girls will be lining up to suck your magic dick.”
“I said shut up.”
“I’ll be sure to tune in. Bet it will be a riot.”
“Why? So you can wish you were me again?”
That shuts him up.
It shuts him up for a long while, and another long period of silence ticks by.
He wanted to be me, huh? I refrain from telling him that’s a stupid thing to wish for.
It doesn’t make sense, and I think he’s lying.
He says things like this sometimes, and I can’t tell if he’s just being an asshole or if he’s serious.
Why would he want to be me? He’s had it made his whole life, and then he goes and squanders it by getting into trouble and winding up here.
If I were Pete Laden, I’d be embarrassed to have a son like him.
It must be lunchtime. The heat makes me feel like I weigh a thousand pounds. Sweat drips down my cheek.
“It’s weird how we always end up at the same place at the same time,” I mumble.
“You’re obsessing over this way too much.”
“And now we’re trapped in here.”
“Must be fate.”
He’s joking, but I shake my head. “I don’t really believe in all that stuff.” I find a thin piece of plastic and twist it between my fingers. “But I don’t know. There could be something out there.”
Harvey leans his head against the wall. “Tamar has some Tarot cards. She gets them out after she does her yoga or whatever. One time, she told me to ask a question and shuffle the cards. Then she did this layout on the table. All it was, was a bunch of vague mumbo jumbo that could fit anybody, like a horoscope. She really believes in that stuff, though. She said she gets guidance from them.”
I look his way. “What did you ask?”
He smiles. “When am I gonna get laid again?”
I laugh. “Of course you did.” I trace patterns in the dirt with the piece of plastic. “Who’s Tamar?”
His voice is a little quieter. “My stepmom.”
I’d never really thought much about his family beyond his dad.
I think Harvey’s stepmom is Pete’s second or third wife.
He has other kids too—Harvey’s half siblings.
I don’t hear much about them, probably because they’re so much younger.
Too young to have gotten into any trouble yet.
I wonder what that must be like. Watching your father get with other women and get them pregnant.
Pete’s a rock star, though. From a distance, that kind of thing is expected. It’s probably different up close.