Chapter 4 - Rocco
Chapter 4
Rocco
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
Well. That didn’t quite go as planned.
Rudy and Lucy would surely be underwhelmed.
Other than an odd assortment of William’s things that I can’t unpack without Beatrix to add context—old photos, and some scraps of paper covered in a nearly illegible scrawl—I’m left alone with a café crew of rubberneckers trying to decipher what I’d just done to that poor woman. Reeks of dejected baby-mama territory, I’m sure.
Time to jet. Quickly.
I shuffle her dad’s things into the folder. Leave the muffin, take the coffee. I ate most of the top already anyway.
As I’m scurrying away from this little morning mess I’ve put myself in, the barista rushes over with a coupon card. She’s grinning with a rabid level of enthusiasm.
“I added a few extra punches to get you a free cup next time.” She waits a half second and then, “Also, I put my number on the back, if you ever want to go out for an evening coffee. Or drinks, dinner. Whatever you’d like. Maybe mornings aren’t your thing. Totally respect that.”
I grab the card, thank her with a brisk nod, and continue to the door. She won’t get a reply from me. Not about that free coffee or the number. My brain’s too frazzled for more flirtation, no matter how cute she might be. Even if I did put in a good ten minutes chatting her up when I got there, the most pleasant part of the café experience.
Right now I need to fix this Beatrix . . . problem. How, I have no clue. But there’s no choice. Too much on the line, for both of us.
I walk toward the parking lot, grabbing my remote starter from my back pocket. My Maserati is the only thing I own, other than my oversized house with a view, that fully screams “douchey rich celebrity.” It’s Italian at least, so my second-gen father doesn’t bust my balls too much. Just waxes on about how Italian and German cars are engine focused but electrical nightmares. Which I politely tune out because this car’s been one of the most reliable things I’ve got going in my life.
Not today, though. Of course. Because everything about this day feels doomed.
I keep clicking my starter to no avail. It’s my favorite feature, because I can just get in and go in a very chilly sixty-degree cabin. A godsend in LA, especially in the summer months. I might’ve lived in this city for half my life, but I still have my East Coast ketchup blood. You can take the boy out of Jersey,etc.
As I reach the car, still frantically jabbing at the buttons like I’m expecting a miracle to happen, I notice Beatrix parked next to me. Staring out the front window of her silver Jetta. It looks like she’s . . . crying?
Shit. Tears—they instantly put me on edge. Especially when it comes to Beatrix, who doesn’t strike me as the crying type.
I panic, turn back to my car—which I can immediately tell is dead from the ominous emptiness of that overpriced screen. No clock, no outside temperature, no compass. Must be the battery.
Maybe this is a sign.
Beatrix is still here. I can suck it up and ask her for a ride, try to work it out on her turf. Listen more. Talk less.
Yep, this feels like a solid plan . . . or at least the only one I can think of off the top of my head.
“Damnit!” I yell, slipping into acting mode to heighten the stakes. “Why?! You’re a six-figure ride! Only a year old and the battery drains?” I smack the top of the car in a show of outraged disbelief. Loud enough to pull Beatrix from her trance. Our eyes lock, and she looks more mortified than I could’ve anticipated, swiping a hand across her cheeks to remove any evidence. I edge in closer, motioning for her to lower the window. Beatrix goes directly to a giant eye roll, not missing a beat. That barbed wire guard of hers slamming straight back down. What was just seconds ago a deeply vulnerable moment alone in her car has morphed into a hostile enemy takeover.
I’m the enemy here, if there was ever any doubt.
She rolls the window down, stopping after a few inches. Wide enough to hear me but narrow enough that if I was thinking about putting a limb through the opening—which I certainly am not—I’d be thwarted.
“Wow, what a place to be in, huh? You and your fancy car, stranded at a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop that’s clearly already called the paparazzi to report your blowout.” She snickers, probably because her comment just made my left eye twitch with a surge of panic. Brutal.
“I’m sure that didn’t happen,” I lie. It very well could have. “The barista gave me a free coffee and her digits. She actually enjoyed my company this morning, unlike certain others.” Shoot. I did it again. The low road. Picking fights and pushing back, even if warranted, won’t help my case. “Look, you were right,” I say, changing course. “I have no business asking for favors or shortcuts to play your dad. Your script, your words—excellent words, I should say, and not just because I’m trying to suck up—should be enough. I’m sorry. Genuinely. And you’re also right now—I don’t want to stay here for hours waiting on triple A while the people inside would gladly treat me like a zoo animal.”
“Wait, hold up. You mean even fancy A-listers call triple A? Not just us plebeians?”
Beatrix sure knows how to serve up pointed faces that capture exactly what she’s feeling, or at least what she’s choosing to express. This one is the most bitingly sarcastic sad face I’ve maybe ever witnessed, on or off set. She might as well be doing the tiny violin gesture. It’s hard and heavy and holy shit, does it full on get me.
God, it’s impossible to not be fascinated by this woman.
“I guess I’m not as fancy as you might think.”
“Hm.” She shakes her head. “Not possible. I’m sure you have an army of drivers and assistants at your beck and call. But if I rescue you now, will you promise to leave me alone about my dad? Let me process your portrayal of him on my own terms and not incessantly demand my approval? Because it’s fucking exhausting, you know.”
“Me?”
She waves a hand aimlessly in the air. “Yes, you. All of it. Making this movie is my dream, but that doesn’t mean it’s not also a nightmare. Some days, at least.”
I lean in closer to the window, and she rolls it up even more—there’s maybe an inch of air space now.
“Yes, Beatrix. I agree to everything. Now, please, I just want to get out of here. See those nosy Nellies in there?” I nod back toward the front window where there’s a small crowd of onlookers: the barista, that grouchy regular, a handful of new customers who have wandered in. “They’re way too invested in this. I bet they’re taking videos of this very moment, wondering if I’m about to carjack your sweet old VW.” I tuck the folder under my arm and press my hands together in prayer, giving my best desperate puppy eyes.
The lock clicks. Victory.
I head over to the passenger side and climb in, sliding the folder carefully into the door’s side pocket. Take a deep breath as I settle in. The heady smell of . . . crayon . . . fills my nose. I sniff a few more times to be sure. Yep, it’s like I’m sitting in a massive Crayola box.
“That’s Delilah’s perfume,” Beatrix says before I have a chance to ask. “Smelled like fresh crayons since day one. Will your olfactory holes be okay?” She side-eyes me as she turns the car on.
This may have been an epic mistake. I suddenly feel like a child who tumbled into a predator’s lair.
“No, no, it’s fine. Just . . . unexpected? It’s comforting, really. Nostalgic. I loved the smell of crayons as a kid. Rudy and I would always draw in coloring books during auditions to keep us grounded. My mom never wanted us to stress about getting gigs. She always wanted us to”—I air-quote—“ ‘be kids first and foremost.’ ”
“I’m thrilled Delilah can bring you back to that special place.” More side-eye. Clearly exceptionally uninterested in any behind-the-scenes Riziero brother factoids. “Now, where exactly am I taking you? This is LA—I can’t believe I didn’t ask before agreeing.”
“My house would be great. I’ll find someone to give me a ride back later when triple A shows.”
I’m not sure what answer she expected, but she looks remarkably displeased. Even by Beatrix standards.
“Look,” I say, hands raised in surrender, “no funny stuff. This isn’t some trick to take you home to my place.” She gives me an even sharper what-the-fuck face. Despite my best efforts—or if not best, at least somewhat decent—this is still going rather poorly. “What I mean,” I try again, “is that I just need a ride home from an esteemed writer and colleague. Dogs don’t shit where they sleep. At least I never do, not anymore, rest assured. And I—”
“Dear god, make it stop,” Beatrix cuts in, slapping a hand against the wheel to shut me up. “Firstly, that’s a terrible analogy. Never use it again. Seriously. Ever. Secondly, we may have our issues, but I’m fairly confident you wouldn’t be making a move on me after trying to collect the deepest, darkest, most intimate memories from my mind for the sake of your . . . your craft. I suspect even you wouldn’t do something so stupid and reckless for the sake of a potential hookup. Which I would of course never allow to happen for a vast multitude of reasons, one of which being that you’re playing MY FATHER in a movie about MY LIFE!” She’s yelling now, full out, and we haven’t even left the parking lot.
In hindsight, it would have been far more pleasant to wait out triple A, zoo animal and all.
I clear my throat, trying to gather something useful from the shambles of my composure, because I’m stuck here now, aren’t I? “Duly noted. I’d seen your less-than-positive reaction and thought I needed to clarify my intentions. But I value our working relationship, and I respect that your art and your personal life are separate. I’m sorry for botching this all up. Repeatedly.”
Her hardened glare softens, ever so slightly. The furrowed brow smooths. The angsty pout remains, but I seem to have worked her down from the highest ledge.
“Where am I going? Right by the ocean, so . . . must be Malibu. Am I right?” Her lips perk up, more smirk than sunshine, like she knows exactly what a predictable cookie-cutter celebrity I am.
I huff, but I smile back, because I can’t seem to stop myself. “Close, but no. The Palisades. Just head west on Sunset, and I’ll tell you when to turn.”
She nods, cruising forward, and the silence sinks in around us. A few minutes later, when it’s shifting into awkward territory, Beatrix flicks on the radio, and some vintage No Doubt starts to play. “Don’t Speak,” appropriately enough. As the bona fide musician in the family, Rudy used to teach me to listen to the bass lines in their music. He was such a fan of Tony Kanal, he’d buy Adidas tracksuit gear that even my Italian uncles would be proud of, just to jump around on stage like a cool guy slapping his bass. Got me into the tracksuit life, too.
“Did you know,” I say, tapping my leg to the beat, “Tony and Gwen were a thing back in the day? I think she wrote this song after their relationship ended. Pretty wild they could overcome a breakup like that to stay in the band. I’m sure their massive success was a good incentive, though.”
She ignores me. Or so I assume, after a minute passes. But then: “They weren’t famous yet when she wrote this. They stayed in the band because they loved the music, not because they were too scared to ruffle the money feathers.”
Cool. I can’t win, can I? No topic, no matter how innocuous it may seem, is safe territory with her. Best to be as silent and inconspicuous as possible for the rest of our ride.
As I’m cowering in my seat, I spot a glossy tabloid nestled beneath my left foot. Huh. Wouldn’t have pegged Beatrix for the tabloid type. Too lowbrow for her. But it’s a pleasant surprise, at least in a moment as desperate at this one. A needed distraction. As I grab it from the floor, I see it’s a “Best and Worst of the ’90s” edition. Complete with my name listed on the cover, amongst the other “it” boys of the era: Andrew Keegan, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Devon Sawa, etc.
“So,” I say, fanning the magazine, unable to resist breaking my silence rule, “on second thought, you’re not going to take a wrong turn and slash me up in the hills are you?”
She’s too fixated on driving—and ignoring me, generally speaking—to acknowledge my joke.
“Let’s see here, just need to flip around these pages to find me, and . . .”
My jaw drops in shock.
Because there, leading the section about Rocco Riziero, my dewy youthful face has been penned up and vandalized like some junior high burn book. Complete with devil horns, patched-up eyes, and hoop earrings so large even Cher would be envious.
An unexpected development in this all-around unpredictable day.
“Whoa,” I say, because I obviously can’t just sweep this one under the rug. “You’re a regular Picasso, huh? I look good with hoops, I gotta say. I may have to try it sometime.”
Beatrix cuts her gaze my way, finally noticing the magazine in my hands. She starts turning a shade of red I’ve only ever seen in cartoons—and boy, am I enjoying watching the color change in real time. I wasn’t supposed to see her artwork, clearly. And yeah—she should be embarrassed. What the hell have I done to deserve something as petty as this?
“Give that to me,” she snarls, making a futile attempt to grab the magazine out of my hands, just as I realize what’s on the bottom of the page.
My ex—Piper. She’s undergone a similar treatment. Doodled on and tagged up. Some witchy devil vibes.
“Wow.”
Beatrix swipes again, more assertively this time. She rips the page in question out from beneath my fingertips—one large tear at the seam—and tosses it directly behind her. I watch as it flutters and lands under the rear windshield.
“I wasn’t planning to murder you in the hills, although now I’m not so sure!” Her eyes are back on the road, making it difficult to decipher just how serious she might be. I drop the rest of the magazine back on the floor. That stuff is such overpriced, mostly inaccurate drivel. The worst part of being in this industry—people believing my personal life is public. “Not that it’s any of your business, but my friend gave the magazine to me as a joke, part of my Christmas gift. Some gift, right? But I had a long flight home, and I was stressing about our impending coffee meetup. The doodling was . . . surprisingly cathartic.”
“So do you typically like to deface people who are asking for your help? Is it some kind of role reversal thing? A confidence builder, knocking someone who’s got more clout than you? I guess that’s why I never do anything like that. I’m usually on top.”
Oof. What the fuck, Rocco? No turning back from that ugly comment now.
But still . . . what kind of thirtysomething adult human does something like that?
“You’re unbelievable, you know that?!” I thought she’d been yelling before; I was mistaken. “I spent a long time trying to figure out how to work with you without spilling this little secret, but you know what? Fuck it! Since I’m chauffeuring you, and you’re a captive audience in my car, I guess the moment of truth has arrived.”
I’m thrown for a curve—what could I possibly have to know about this now semi-terrifying woman who defaces my photo in a magazine as a coping mechanism? I sit there silently, gearing up to find out.
“Let’s start with some clues, shall we? Remember that Y2K New Year’s Eve party you hosted at the Roxy? Or how about the trip you took just a few weeks before? I believe you said it was your most ‘tourist-y holiday’ in New York City . . .”
My heart skips a beat. That was the last time I skated at Rockefeller, which means . . .
Holy. Shit.
“Trixie?”
The cutting glare she gives in response tells me I guessed right.
Months too late.
“I can’t believe it’s you! You look so different.” Which sounds . . . weak and pathetic. She does look different, as everyone does after a seventeen-year lapse. But when I take in the details now—those dark gray eyes and round, pouted lips, the dusting of light freckles across those sharp cheekbones—it’s all so her. So obviously, glaringly her.
Our time together on set. And off. Our holiday . . . fling.
I may be the worst human on the planet.
“Wow.” I try to collect myself. “I haven’t seen you since—”
She cuts me off. “The Roxy party. Where I discovered you casually making out backstage with Piper Bell. After naively thinking we were, I don’t know . . . becoming something real. That I maybe meant something to you.” She pauses and I’m scrambling, wondering what in the world I could or should say, when she dives right back in for more. “How could you possibly forget an entire month of dating me? You flew me on a private jet to New York to see the Rockefeller tree. We had a romantic date in Little Italy—the only ‘real’ place on Mulberry, you claimed.”
“Da Nico’s,” I say quietly, my brain twisted up in a deluge of memories with ladies from that particular era of my life.
Trixie, though. I see so much Trixie.
“How fitting,” she chuckles, eyes fixed beyond her steering wheel, away from me. “You remember that part. A perfect memory when it comes to fine Italian dining, but you can’t even recall the woman who shared your favorite wild boar gnocchi. It was magical, Rocco, that trip to New York. All of it, if I’m being honest. Every minute we had together. The best time in my life, followed directly by the worst.”
I’m speechless. Totally, wholly dumfounded.
How? How could I not have connected the dots before now?
It’s not that I’d forgotten all about Trixie—I’m not that callous. I just hadn’t made the mental leap to Beatrix. Those superficial differences, they tripped me up. She’d traded in her signature ’90s look: corduroy pants, Airwalk kicks, a rotation of crop-tops and tight button-ups (I’m vividly recalling a particular one, a gas station attendant shirt a few sizes too small, “Bob” embroidered on the pocket), barrettes clipping back her hair. Black hair, much darker than the brunette she is now. Heavy blue lids and eyeliner that would have made Robert Smith from The Cure applaud. She’d always reminded me of a ska/punk Neve Campbell from Wild Things. Part of the draw, of course.
This Beatrix here and now, she’s still got traces of that edge, but aged up and classed up. Less overtly angsty. She’s always been beautiful, but it looks like she doesn’t even have to try these days—doesn’t care if she’s noticed. Which of course just . . . adds to the appeal.
But it’s more than the outward appearance, isn’t it?
Trixie, she’d disappeared. Not just from the party. But fromLA.
Still . . . the reasons aren’t good enough. I should’ve realized from the first day, our lunch with Lanie. God, what must Beatrix have thought at that lunch?
The guilt returns with such vigor, my stomach turns over. I wish I could pop open the door and roll myself out.
Beatrix turns to me, finally taking her eyes off the road. “What a joke, right? The way the universe threw us back together now. For this movie that means more to me than anything else in the world. So, you know what? Fuck you, Rocco. You wanted to understand why I’ve been so cold to you on set? Well, there it is. What do you think? Sufficient rationale?”
I open my mouth, no words coming out, right as a bright light fills the Jetta’s cabin. Headlights, maybe.
Screeching.
Boom.
Countless exploding stars, and one giant comedic star wipe.
Then nothing.