They're Not Your Friends Read online

  “Isn’t Vincenzo brilliant?” Bernie flashed a huge grin. “He couldn’t have planned it more perfectly. We’ll be able to nail Lottie Love. There’s no way she can deny it. . . Mike, you look pale. I hope that thing you’re eating didn’t give you E. coli.”

  The restaurant started spinning. Mike guzzled more water. He heard Bernie whisper, “Sebastian Brooks just walked in.”

  “He’s with an entourage. Is anyone there your source? That stuff you got on Sebastian was pure gold. I loved him dancing in his underwear to ‘Love Stinks.’”

  Mike couldn’t get the whirring and buzzing to go away. He felt like he was choking. His heart pushed up his throat. He swallowed more water.

  “He gets my panties wet, excuse my bluntness. I’d love to do a profile on him,” Bernie said. “Mike, you think it could happen? Mike?. . . Mike?”

  He felt sick, like any moment he might spew his pizza right in Bernie’s face. How could he have been so stupid? He should have known he was never alone in that place. Christ, it was like working for a prison. They probably had cameras in the crapper, too.

  “Mike, I think one of the guys just smiled at you. It must be your source. Don’t look. I don’t want you to blow your cover,” Bernie said. “Oh, that Sebastian has a great tush. He is sooo cute.”

  Bernie cooed. She was considered a no-nonsense leader who wasn’t impressed by celebrity, but Mike had heard from Lem that she drooled over the ones she liked. She’d follow her favorites at parties and then beg for an autograph when she thought no one was looking. She’d promise cover stories if they posed with her, and she’d stand there while the camera flashed, squeezing out a look of indifference. The photo would eventually find its way into the publisher’s letter, as if mingling with celebrity were all in a day’s work for her.

  “Miguel, you have to get us a profile.”

  “Yeah,” Mike croaked out. “I mean, I don’t know. My source says he needs some time. . .” Mike massaged the back of his neck. “He and Stephanie just ended it for good last week. He’s not ready for a relationship right now, anyway.”

  “That’s great stuff, Miguel. Great.” Bernie winked at him. “But he will be back in the dating world, and we do want to be the first to get an exclusive on the new woman in his life. We don’t want to read about it in The Enquirer.”

  Fuck. Just when things were going so well, he had to blow it. The story of his life. Liz. Little Joey Green. Even Amber. Probably Catherine. He was just a hick from Rochester. He never should have left. He didn’t have the right immune system for this place or this job. It wasn’t in his DNA. He should have stayed at the local paper. He’d be editor in chief by now.

  “Vincenzo, should we tell Miguel what we caught on tape the other day? Or is it a little too risqu for our boy from the boondocks?”

  Hick. Hick. Hick.

  “Well, you’ll have to do the honors, Bernie.”

  Hick. Hick. Hick. Hick. Hick.

  Bernie leaned in again. “The other day, a few DVDs were stolen from Melissa’s in-box, so we decided to take a look at the film to see if we could nail our culprit.” Bernie paused, shook her head, and leaned even closer. Mike could smell the plaque on her teeth. She giggled. She took a sip of water, started laughing, and spit some up. She wiped her mouth and turned toward Vince. “Vincenzo, help me.” She burst into a fit of laughter.

  Vince leaned in toward Mike. “We have twenty minutes of Melissa. . . well. . . I mean. . . she was. . .”

  Bernie guffawed. Ravioli flew out of her nose.

  “. . . pleasuring herself with one of those stuffed cats,” Bernie roared. She leaned her head right on the table as her body shook with laughter.

  Vince smirked and shook his head.

  Bernie thrust an index finger into Mike’s face. “See, I told you it was too much for him. Look at him! Look at him!”

  “Mike?”

  “Mike, are you okay?”

  Mike exhaled and shut his eyes.

  “You don’t need to look at that tape.”

  Bernie glugged her water, wiped her eyes, and took an enormous breath. Then she crinkled her eyes at Mike.

  “Mike, what is it?” Vince said.

  He should just tell them. So what, they fire him? He didn’t need this shit. These people were assholes.

  He looked hard at them. His heart skittered.

  “Well. . . well. . .” He exhaled. “It’s just that it might be really embarrassing.”

  Bernie guffawed again. “Not as embarrassing as Melissa getting head—excuse me, tail—from Hello! Kitty,” she bellowed. The entire restaurant stared at her.

  Mike closed his eyes and swallowed. “Forget it.”

  “Mike, what are you getting at?”

  Her eyes bored into him. He gulped hard. Then the words just spewed out of him.

  “It’s just that he’s been with the company for so long.”

  “Who? Who’s been at the company? Who?”

  “It just that. . . well, can’t you just talk to him? I’m sure he’ll tell you everything. He didn’t mean anything by it. He’s a good guy.”

  “Lemuel Brac? Lemuel Brac?” Bernie boomed. Heads turned again.

  “Mike? Lem Brac’s been stealing from the office?” Vince asked incredulously.

  “No! Of course not. Well, I mean, well. . . he was only helping Lottie. He let her in the building. You can ask him about it. He’ll tell you everything. He didn’t do anything.”

  There, that wasn’t so bad. Maybe Vince wouldn’t review the images. His heart relaxed a bit. The room shifted back into focus.

  “Not so bad? Not so bad? He aided and abetted a trespasser!”

  “Well, I mean, she was only taking her things.”

  “Her things? Anything she did while at Personality magazine is the sole property of the magazine. Mike, why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

  “Well, I. . .”

  “This is grounds for dismissal.”

  His stomach somersaulted. “But. . . but. . . I didn’t.”

  Bernie laughed. “Not you, Miguel, Lem Brac. I’ve wanted to get rid of that piece of English deadwood for years now. Some of the older staffers consider him venerable. They always fought me on it. But now I have the proper ammunition.” She rubbed her hands together.

  “But he really didn’t. . . Don’t fire him.”

  Bernie’s eyes narrowed. “She probably screwed him, didn’t she? He’s the crypt keeper, but that wouldn’t stop that little slut. I don’t know what all these men find so appealing about her. I guess it’s the fake tits. Isn’t it? Men always love big tits. Real or not. Vincenzo? Miguel?”

  Vince and Mike exchanged helpless looks. Mike bit into his pizza. He chewed but couldn’t swallow.

  “Just talk to Lem.”

  “Actually, Vincenzo, he does have a point. Let’s see if we can talk to Lem about this. Get him to retire on his own. I’d rather not have the papers find out that we bugged the office. ‘Page Six’ would have a field day with that. And the old-timers in New York would yell entrapment. They’d think we were trying to frame Lem.”

  “Whatever you say, Bernie.”

  “Once again, Mike, you seem to know everything. What would we do without you?”

  Mike smiled. Vince looked hard at Mike as if seeing him for the first time.

  California

  N TUR Vu

  CHAPTER 18

  COLDPLAY’S “A RUSH OF BLOOD TO THE HEAD” BLASTED FROM Mike’s radio as his Saab snaked around the tortuous roads that sliced through the dehydrated, dusty mountains of Mandeville Canyon. He was headed toward Ferris Wheel of Faith, a celebrity charity event for sufferers of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Chris Mercer, whose cousin had some kind of inflamed bowel problem, was one of the celebrity hosts. Mike would interview Chris, rush back to the office, and churn out the story.

  He drove past castlelike homes featuring turrets and redbrick moats, Spanish villas with corrugated tiled roofs, Swiss chalets with stained-glass wi
ndows, Chinese pagodas, English Tudors, Southern plantation estates. It’s a small world after all—especially when you had a ton of money and lived in Brentwood.

  Mike wheeled through a secluded gravel street where flag-waving valets directed him to a stretch of land overlooking an endless cacti and yellow wildflower basin. As he parked his car, his cell phone rang.

  “Mike Pos—”

  “Where’s my Rolodex?”

  “What?”

  “Listen, you asshole, you couldn’t have my Rolodex more. And I want it back. NOW! If you don’t give it back, you’ll be sorry.”

  Mike felt light-headed. “Who is this?”

  “You know who this is. It’s Lottie Love. You have my Rolodex, and I want it back.”

  “Lottie, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “Okay. Fine. Be that way.”

  “Lottie, I really don’t know what—” But the phone went dead.

  Mike had an idea where it was. Amber’s. But he hadn’t had the nerve to call her since she had rooted around in his pants. Besides, what did it matter? What was Lottie Love going to do to him that he hadn’t already done to himself? He couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d betrayed Lem, the only guy who’d befriended him this past year. Who had Mike Posner become, anyway?

  LIMOS WHISKED GUESTS up the mile-long windy road to the mansion. Mike headed toward an idling one. He jumped in and smiled at the woman next to him. It was Mira Sorvino. The limo driver looked at him through the rearview mirror.

  “You have your invite?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can I see it?”

  Asshole, Mike thought, as he pulled the crumpled card out of his pocket. He held it up for the driver.

  “That’s a blue invite,” the drive huffed. “The limo’s for VIPs with gold invites. You’ll have to wait for the shuttle.”

  “But you’re going up anyway. What does it matter?”

  “I’m sorry, it’s the rule.”

  Demoted, Mike had to wait half an hour for the shuttle to crunch up a gravel driveway and deposit him near a walkway illuminated by candle-wielding bronze lions.

  Mike looked around. The mansion was an homage to every architectural style. It was as if the owner—some producer Mike hadn’t heard of—couldn’t make up his mind about what he wanted his house to be. So it became a little bit of everything: a tiled Mediterranean roof with a Swiss chalet slope, a piled fieldstone facade, an arcade of Doric columns festooned with spiral scrolls, and a sweeping Southern-plantation-style porch, complete with a wicker swing set, chairs, and a pissing-boy fountain with the water flying into a leaping fish’s mouth. Despite the view of the yellow-colored foothills, the place had almost no windows, save for a few dark slits that gave the house a permanent case of ennui. The oversized front door was a slab of dark wood intricately carved with gargoyles, angels, and some Greek and Roman gods. A dozen busts of chalky-white demigods wearing laurel leaves ornamented the edges of the roof.

  The enormous lawn was littered with bronze and silver statues. There was a prebloated Elvis, his bronze mouth molded into a croon and his hands locked on guitar strings as thick as cables. There was Marilyn, her skirt billowing, her bronze face staring blankly ahead through wide, vacuous eyes. There was a beaming Dorothy in pigtails carrying a smiling Toto in a woven bronze basket. On the next tier of the sloping lawn was Barbra, her hands clasping a microphone, her face pinched in song, a silver tear suspended on her left cheek. James Dean scowled nearby with a cigarette dangling from thick lips. His hair was like the bow of a ship.

  With a lawn like this, in any other part of the country the producer would be considered trailer trash. Here he’s brilliant. Mike flinched, realizing this was something Lem would say.

  “RECTUM. ANUS.”

  A woman’s voice boomed through the P.A. system. “No one likes to use these words. No one ever wants to believe that the star of The O.C. or Everwood or The West Wing sits on the potty. So, repeat after me. Because if we can get you guys to admit it, the world won’t feel so ashamed. Okay. Everybody. . . I have a rectum. . . I have an anus. . . I make bowel movements. I am a healthy person! Everyone. All together.”

  Yelling “I have an anus” were actors Mike vaguely recognized. Everyone at the office, with the exception of Lem, could rattle off the names of the Now Big Things and the Next Big Things, in both TV and film. But Mike still had no idea. He looked around for Chris Mercer and Cyndi Bowman. He checked his watch. He still had an hour before the interview. He went to the bar and ordered a Sierra Nevada.

  Mike stood at the periphery, slowly sipping his beer and staring at the black mountains silhouetted against the lavender sky. They seemed so close and so alive that Mike felt if he ran to the edge of this producer’s property, he could pet them and feel their steady breath and the warmth of blood stirring inside them. The moon, transparent behind a screen of silver clouds, looked like the tiniest feather drifting languidly above the festivities—a feather that could be knocked across the sky by a faint sigh of one of these craggy black behemoths.

  Los Angeles is all about scenery.

  Beautiful women brushed past him, giggling and chattering excitedly. He surveyed the crowd and eyed Chris holding court at a nearby table. He stood in front of his admirers, leaning his left arm on a leg that he was casually resting on a wicker chair. Mike stared. Chris, despite being an asshole (and quite short), was unbelievably handsome, with jet-black hair, deep-set violet eyes, a square chin, angular cheekbones, and lips that Glamour would describe as cherry red and pillowy. As he spoke, weaving his hands through the cool air, the rest of the table leaned in, hanging on each word. Then they laughed, loudly, their heads jerking back in appreciation. Chris shoved his hands in his pockets, nodded at the table, spun on his heels, and continued on to the next batch of admirers. He moved slowly, as if to heighten the anticipation of the crowd he was heading toward. “Hey, Mercer, over here.” “Yoo-hoo, Chris!”

  Mike felt smaller than ever before as he stood there, enveloped in the sublimity of the mountains and celebrity. Lem had been right all along, hadn’t he? When the two had gone out to lunch when Mike first started, Lem told him not to become friends with any of them. When Mike said he didn’t intend to, Lem disagreed, even though they had just met. Trust me, you do want to be their friends, he had said.

  Mike lifted his glass in the air. “To Lem. You know more than I gave you credit for.” On Monday, maybe he could make it up to Lem somehow.

  He noticed a stunning blond, probably a model or an actress, watching in amusement.

  “I’m really not that crazy,” he said. Then he brought the drink to his lips and sipped.

  “That’s too bad, because I am.” She laughed.

  Mike tried to think of something witty to say, but his brain shorted out on him, and he stood there mute, overwhelmed by her shiny hair and perfect face and tanned legs.

  “I’m Julia.”

  “Mike.”

  “Hello, Mike. Are you an actor?”

  “No. A writer.”

  “Really? Movies?”

  “No.”

  “Television?”

  “No.”

  “Documentaries?” She cringed and started to pivot away.

  “Magazine.”

  She turned back toward him and smiled.

  “Oh. Which one?”

  Mike loved this moment. Everyone—unless you were an enormous star—was impressed with Personality. Practically the entire country had grown up with it, devouring pages about their favorite celebs. And it was always doubly fun to tell an actress, because for a brief moment he could pretend the possibilities were endless.

  “Personality.”

  A pause. A glint in her Caribbean blue eyes.

  “Ohhhh. Personality.” She moved closer to Mike. “I’m an actress. I’m starring in a pilot.”

  “Oh, really? What’s it called?”

  “Sin Gals.”

  “Singles?”

  “
No, Sin Gals. It’s about single girls who, well, become prostitutes. It’s Pretty Woman meets Friends but with a lot more humor.” She flashed a smile. “So what do you think, Mike? Do you think it will be picked up?”

  “Absolutely. Sounds better than watching a bunch of doctors or cops or bachelors.”

  Julia laughed. “It hasn’t been picked up just yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Gregory Perry, the creator, is a brilliant writer. There’s so much crap on television these days. If this isn’t picked up, I swear, I’ll. . . I’ll. . . become an accountant.”

  Mike laughed. “That’s pretty drastic. Let me refill your drink. What’s your pleasure?”

  “Whips, chains, leather.” Julia giggled.

  Mike smiled.

  Julia raised her hand as if she were a student hoping to be called on. “Actually, I must confess, that’s a line from the pilot. Not bad, right? I think this series has hope.”

  “So do I.”

  “I feel like a Bellini. That’s if the bartender has fresh peaches. If not, I’ll have a margarita with Patron and fresh lime juice.”

  Mike returned to the bartender, a stocky bald guy whose eyelashes fairly dripped with mascara. “Peaches,” the bartender asked, shaking his luminous blue-veined head. “Is it for someone?”

  “Well, I’m not gonna put it in my gas tank.”

  The bartender frowned and shook his head as if Mike were a complete idiot. “To put it in plain English, what is the name of the person it’s for?”

  “Julia.”

  “Julia? Julia Roberts is here?” the bartender demanded as his eyes scanned Mike’s face. “Wait a minute. I read in the trades that she’s filming in Europe. So what’s this Julia in?”

  “Sin Gals.”

  “Oh. That hasn’t even been picked up,” the bartender said, his voice deflating. “Like I said, there’s no peaches. Can I get you something else?”

  Mike ordered Julia a margarita, wondering if the bartender would have torn through the yard, slithered up trees, and shook them for peaches had Mike mentioned a more stellar name. At least in Rochester, where no one had heard of a Bellini, where Bud Light ruled the bar scene, everyone was treated the same. What am I doing at a party like this? Mike wondered. He was suddenly overwhelmed by homesickness.