Chapter 20
TWENTY
Travis
Being back in L.A. wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Sure, it was smoggy and dry. The memories were bad. I was still homeless. But I had half of a new record finished back in Portland, and my girlfriend was here. Even I could see that things were looking up.
My Uber dropped me at the gates at the foot of Andy’s driveway. I buzzed his security system and waved at the camera above my head. The gates swung open with a click.
I walked up the driveway with my duffel bag slung over my shoulder like a hobo in an old movie. Andy’s front door opened and he stood on the step, hands on his hips, wearing a faded Hawaiian shirt and cutoff jean shorts that were cut too high on the thigh for everyone else’s comfort except his.
“You’re like the clap,” he said when I reached the steps. “I can’t get rid of you.”
“I missed you, you old crustacean,” I said. I dropped my bag at my feet and hugged him.
“Oof,” he said as he slapped his palms on my back. “I see you’ve been reading your dictionary.” When I let him go, he gave me a scowl. “Care to explain why my second ex-wife is here?”
I grinned at him. Andy’s second—and final—wife, Elena, had been one of Hollywood’s top stylists in the nineties. She was tall, flawless, and of foggy Eastern European heritage. Even though she and Andy had divorced a decade ago, she still came by to hook up with him on a regular basis—something I knew because I had encountered her on many a morning after, walking in a dignified manner down the stairs and through the kitchen while I ate my breakfast or while I lounged by the pool. I had realized early that lecturing Andy on the inadvisability of ex sex was a bad idea. At over sixty, Andy knew what he was doing, and so did Elena. If they wanted some no-strings nookie, it was nothing to do with me.
But I figured that I had met Elena on enough walks of shame to call her up and ask for wardrobe advice. She had agreed, and here we were, meeting at Andy’s house.
“Admit it,” I said to Andy. “You’re happy she had an excuse to come over. How long since you banged her?”
He glanced at his tanned wrist, where he had never worn a watch in his life. “Forty minutes or so. Maybe forty-five.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, brushing past him into the house. “Now she and I can get down to business.”
Elena was in the living room, where she had wheeled in a clothing rack. She slid hangers down the rack, rearranging garment bags. Her salt-and-pepper hair was tied up in a complicated twist, and she wore fashionable black-framed glasses, a dramatic one-shoulder top, and jeans that fit her like a second skin. The work she’d had done on her face—and her boobs at some point—was top shelf. It wasn’t a mystery to me why Andy still slept with her. She was out of my age range, but she was a straight-up babe.
I smiled a greeting at her and stepped forward to take her hand, but she gave me a frosty look over the top of her glasses frames. “You,” she said to me in her Eastern European accent. “You look terrible. For a pretty man, you dress ugly.”
I plucked her hand from her waist and held it in both of mine. “I need your help, Your Majesty.” I pressed a kiss to the back of her hand. “I, a lowly peasant in the world of fashion, beg for your royal assistance.”
She made a face. “Ugh. What is this?” She waved up and down in front of me, indicating my jeans and leather jacket. “You have no clothes. I know because I have seen you naked next to the pool. I said to Andy, Why do you have a naked boy by your pool? He said, Naked boy is sad, leave him be. Now you want to stop being naked. So I brought you clothes.”
I shifted my weight. I hadn’t thought I was naked quite so much during my low period. “Uh, sorry about that. I was going through something, you know, I was kind of?—”
“I do not care,” Elena declared. “Your sadness does not concern me. Your clothes concern me. I have dressed many beautiful men. Brad Pitt. Luke Perry. Jon Bon Jovi would not hire me, and look how he dresses.” She shook her head. “I knew the waist size of Bruce Willis. Robert Downey Jr. called me for every event, until—” She broke off and looked away.
“Elena is sensitive about Robert Downey Jr.,” Andy said softly next to me.
“I don’t wish to speak of him,” Elena said, making me feel like she was chiding me, even though she had brought him up.
“Sure,” I said. I motioned to the clothing rack. “You didn’t have to go to this trouble, Elena. I only wanted you to give me some pointers.”
“I do not give pointers, ” she declared. “I dress people. I dress men. It’s my calling.”
I glanced at Andy. He smiled at me.
Elena had retired from styling, but I hadn’t known until this moment that she hadn’t wanted to quit. I could suddenly see what had happened: from being sought after in the nineties, the bookings and phone calls had started drying up, and there had been less and less demand. She had faded out of the business—Hollywood was ruthless with women over forty—but she missed it. Elena was pretending to do me a favor, but without thinking, I had actually done one for her.
I pointed at the garment bags on the rack. “These are for me?”
“I made some calls,” Elena said. “I know exactly what you should wear to a premiere. This is child’s play for me.”
“You don’t know my measurements.”
She gave me her frosty look. “If I see a man naked, I know his measurements. So I know yours.”
“Right. We should stop bringing that up, maybe.”
Andy laughed.
I looked at him. “Why didn’t you tell me to wear clothes?”
“I did,” he said. “Plenty of times.”
I sighed. “Okay, we’re moving on. Let’s see.”
I had a moment of doubt before Elena unzipped the first garment bag. She was good at her job, but she hadn’t dressed anyone in a while. What if the clothes she picked belonged in 2005?
Then she showed me the first outfit. And the second.
Andy whistled. “Nice.”
Elena unzipped the third garment bag.
I looked at her. “You know I don’t have any money, right? These look expensive.”
Elena snapped her fingers. “I make some calls, the designers give me clothes. I told them your name. You’re a singer like Andy. Your girlfriend is a beautiful actress. Everyone loves her, loves both of you. You are very popular on the TikTok. The designers want you to wear their clothes so they can see them on the TikTok. They gave me the clothes I choose for free.”
She unzipped more bags, then opened boxes. Tuxes for the premiere, casual clothes, jackets. Shoes. Accessories. Watches. Jewelry.
A whole new wardrobe worth six figures, delivered in a few days. Because I was popular on the TikTok. Because of Katie.
I was famous again. Because of Katie.
Our fake relationship was working.
I missed her like crazy. The last time I’d seen her was at PDX, where I’d kissed her in front of the crowd, just like we planned. After I’d kissed her everywhere else in our bedroom.
I didn’t like this. It felt fucking weird. Did Katie think that I was dating her just to get free clothes? That I was sleeping with her for the same reason? Did she think I was doing all of it just because I was broke?
The comments her assistant read to her over the phone came back to me. According to the internet, I looked fuckable, but either I was going to screw Katie over, or she was going to break my heart. There was no third option.
But there was no way out now. I was here for the premiere. Katie wanted her role with Edgar Pinsent, and she deserved it. That was what this was about. Turning down these clothes—aside from the fact that it would hurt Elena’s feelings, which would make Andy mad—would be stupid and unproductive. I needed good clothes. The premiere was what Katie wanted, so it was what I would do.
I stepped forward and kissed Elena on the cheek. “You absolute goddess,” I declared. “I love all of it. Thank you.”
She held up a hand, but I knew she was pleased. “It was no trouble.” She turned to Andy. “He isn’t so bad. Tell him to try it all on.”
“Marry me again,” Andy said to her, and I thought he meant it.
“Stop asking me,” Elena said. “It is physical only. We agreed.”
He sighed.
I picked up one of the tuxes from the rack. I would change upstairs, because from this day forward, neither of these two would see me naked ever again. “You should marry him again, Elena,” I advised her. “I would.”
“No,” she said to me. “Once was enough. Now go put clothes on.”
I did.