Robby and Gloria lay soaking wet on the red stone floor next to Artie Eichman's Olympic-sized pool as the Hollywood elite watched on, some chanting her name. The former star and the agent wannabe's open mouths pressed against each other's, circling tongues darting and probing under the guise of artificial respiration.
Gloria knew that anything even remotely sexual about her CPR methods would start rumors that could delay her agent stripes. But she also knew that this was Mr. Bell, the only perfect teacher she ever had, her father after her real father left home, the teacher who saved her from drugs and promiscuity through a small screen TV, and she had wanted him since she was fifteen.
Robby forced himself back to life with a giant cough. He spit, hoping water would come out of his lungs, but it didn't, but no one knew enough to know that it should.
"Are you all right?" Gloria asked him.
Robby saw the lords and ladies of the entertainment industry huddled above him with concern dripping down their face, and he knew that the show must go on.
"No one else wanted to go for a dip?" he drunkenly slurred.
"Thank God," exhaled Trudy, who was standing right over him.
And everyone applauded.
"Thank you, thank you," shouted Robby as he used Gloria to help him up, then he bowed to his very captive audience. "Now I'd like to do some impressions!"
"Honey, we ought to go now," Trudy said, putting her hand on his arm.
"But the party's just getting good!" he said as he shook her off and jumped into a near-perfect Nicholson. "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!!!"
"I think you had a little too much party tonight, Chief," said Artie in his friendliest voice. "Let Trudy take you home and we'll have a nice chat in the morning."
"Look, ma-an," Robby said as he staggered so close to the pool the crowd gasped in fear of him falling in again. "I know I had a couple more than I should've, but I just need some of that famous Artie Eichman coke to cut through the booze, and I'll be fine."
In case any of you still cling to a twenty-plus year old myth about Tinseltown's sordid level of drug abuse, let me bring you up to date. Yes, there are still many industry folks who ingest all sorts of illegal substances, but today most muckety-mucks actually look down on it. The people who do drugs live in constant fear of being thought of as unreliable "druggies" by the people who don't. Artie was one of the ones that do.
"You know I don't do coke, Robby," Artie lied sympathetically. "You must be confusing me with someone else because I never did drugs, other than pot, in college."
"I'm sorry, Artie," Robby laughed at his mistake. "Everyone! I have an apology! If you heard me say Artie is a big cokehead, I was wrong. He was just a pothead in college. All he does now is give drugs as gifts to his big clients. Sorry if I misled you."
A very embarrassed Artie faked a big hearty laugh for his guests' sake, then whispered to Robby, "Will you get out of here?"
"Get me some coke."
"I'll get you some goddamn coke tomorrow," he whispered. "Now go!
"Okie-dokie," Robby said, then turned back to the crowd. "He said he'll get me some co-ca-eene tomorrow! Who thinks I should believe him?"
"Honey, let's go," insisted Trudy.
"Robby, go home," pleaded Gloria.
"You want me to go?" Robby asked Gloria.
"It's the best thing for you, so, yes," she answered.
"You saved my life. According to some Asian tradition that I saw on some sitcom, I am now your slave, so, okay. In fact, I think it was MY sitcom."
"Okay, then we'll talk tomorrow," uttered an embarrassed Gloria.
"I am your slave," Robby drunkenly continued, fawning over the humiliated beauty. "I am your SEX slave!"
Robby was well aware that this was the worst possible way to woo the agent wannabe, but he didn't care. He had come to his senses by then and realized that his art and his craft, his son and his wife, had to come before the basest of his instincts. As much as he wanted Gloria, as hard as she made him, he wanted his career back more.
"Your sexxxxxxxxxx slave," he said, enjoying the sound it made. Then he made a grandiose bow, took his wife's arm and headed into the house whereupon he tripped over a jutting stone tile, conspicuously acting like it hadn't happened at all -- Chaplin himself couldn't have done it any better.
"I'm okay!" he shouted for the crowd. "I'm okay! I thank you all for your support!"
Then he stuck out his arm for Trudy to take and led her into the house once more.
Artie Eichman's Hollywood Hills estate had a large, round circular driveway in the front, and it was slowly becoming more crowded than the party itself. It wasn't that the valet parking service Artie had hired was slow -- it was simply that the out-of-the-way canyon road on which he lived was too small to accommodate his one thousand guests and their five hundred cars. Many had been parked nearly a quarter of a mile away, and the overload was causing the traffic down the tiny street to be as bad as any L.A. freeway.
Robby and Trudy waited for their car among the people who left right after the fireworks, most of whom were too embarrassed to speak to them. Ironically, it was only those who barely knew Robby who offered their condolences and best wishes.
Gloria and I waited among the same crowd, also being too embarrassed to say anything to the Rockmans. I had given my jacket to my utterly drenched date to help keep her dry, but she didn't seem to mind being wet -- it was actually refreshing in contrast to the warm July night air. But the coat did serve to cover up her sopping, transparent dress and, hence, naked body, and for that she was grateful.
My white Mustang convertible (which is in my movie if you'd bother to check it out) pulled up just moments before Robby's black Lexus SC400. As I tipped the valet for the free parking, I could already hear Robby keeping the show going.
"No, I'll drive," Robby slurred loudly to his wife. "I'm fine."
"No, I'll drive," Trudy said coldly as she blocked his entrance to the driver's seat.
"Stop it, I'm fine!" he drunkenly continued. "You're embarrassing me."
"No, you're just embarrassing yourself," she accused.
"Blah blah blah," he retorted.
The other millionaires, waiting for their cars, who might've have been at one point entertained by Robby's antics, now simply resented the delay that would cost them an extra quarter hour for their baby-sitters.
"Let her drive, Robby," Gloria shouted through my open top.
"I am your slave," he shouted back, then got into the passenger seat of his Lexus.
Trudy tipped the valet, got into the driver's seat and closed the door. Then, after the most shocking night of her life, she received the greatest shock of them all.
"Wasn't that great!" exclaimed Robby, cold sober and enthusiastic.
All Trudy could think to say was, "What?"
"Man, do I play the greatest drunk in the world or what?" he rhetorically asked. "The whole time I was wondering if Artie'd realize I was just doing "Star Is Born." But he probably doesn't even remember that's where he found me. You knew, though, didn't you?"
"You mean you weren't drunk?" she asked, incredulously.
"Do you think I could pull all of this off if I was? Come on."
"I don't, I don't understand," she stuttered.
So Robby laid out his entire scheme for her. "Larry gets roles, Hugh gets roles, Charlie gets roles. Downey gets a Golden Globe for goodness sakes. Why? Because they apologize for their bad behavior. Well, you heard 'em. 'I have nothing to apologize for.' But I do now, and I'm going to get more. I'm going to be the biggest, drunken, coked-up asshole Hollywood has ever seen, and then I'm going to WOW them all with the greatest heartfelt apology they ever heard. If this is how the system works, I'm going to work it."
Trudy was speechless.
"Don't worry," Robby went on, "I'm not really going to do coke or any of that, and I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to explain it all to you first but --"
Before he could finish, there was a rap-tap-tap on his window.
It was a major twenty-something movie star. I won't tell you his name, but you know him, and he was of the same age as the demographic that adored Robby's TV show.
Robby rolled down his window halfway, and the young movie star dangled a zip lock baggie half filled with white powder.
"Hey man," said the young movie star.
"Hey man," slurred back a drunken Robby.
"I never knew you were cool," said the young movie star.
"Me neither," said Robby.
"It's a gift," the young movie star continued as he dropped the bag onto Robby's lap. "I never would've graduated high school without you."
"Thanks, man," said Robby. "Let's do a meal."
"Yeah, man," responded the young movie star. "Definitely."
The young movie star walked away. Robby pressed the power window button and it slid up, then put the coke in his jeans pocket as he turned to Trudy.
"See? That druggie superstar, who can't even act, is going to get me a part in his next major motion picture. I'm on my way back," he boasted. "So whatdya think?"
Trudy, confused beyond belief, could only respond with the one thing that had been plaguing her all night. "If you knew about Artie and me, you should've talked to me about it privately. You didn't need to announce it to everyone!"
"What're you talking about?" he asked. "I made that up with everything else."
"What?" she asked incredulously. "You made it up?"
"I had to say something bad about you," he answered, and then it hit him. "You're not REALLY having an affair with Artie, are you?"
"What's going on with you?" she cried. "Why are you doing this to me?"
"I was playing a role," he said, it now being his turn to be confused. "I had every intention of telling you the truth as soon as we got into the car. I had nothing to pin on you -- I only wanted to hurt Artie and I assumed you would understand. So I said you had been cheating on me for a year. But you weren't, were you?"
"Why don't we talk tomorrow?"
"Were you?!"
"No!" she cried. "Not for a year!"
"At all?" he said so quietly sheepish because he was now afraid of her answer.
She didn't know what to do. She had never directly lied to him before. She had deleted facts, avoided truths, but since the twelfth grade she had never overtly lied to him.
"Two months," she said so softly you could barely hear it.
"No, you didn't," he said, desperate to give her one last chance. "You're just getting me back for embarrassing you, right? Tell me the truth. You never fucked Artie... did you?"
She could barely speak. She could only look up at the road as she held back her tears and mumble a pathetic, "I'm sorry."
"So am I," sighed Robby as he kept his true emotions inside. "If it means anything to you, I probably will forgive you -- eventually. I'll probably even blame myself -- eventually. In the meantime, I -- I -- I've got to go to work."
And he opened the door and got out of the car.
"Robby," she called after him as he headed down the canyon road.
"Go to hell!" he shouted for the benefit of all those waiting for their cars.
"ROB-BY!" she shouted in that horrible combination of anguish, anger and guilt.
Robby ignored his wife's protests as he marched on to the first car ahead of his own. It was a white Mustang convertible with the top down, and it had been in my film.
"How 'bout givin' me a ride?" he asked me.
"Where you going?" I asked back.
Robby looked at Gloria, then back at me.
"Her house," he said as he winked.
And before I could come up with a polite excuse why that would be impossible, Gloria answered for me.
"Sure," she said, opening her door. "Hop in."
As he squeezed in next to her, the two of them sharing a single bucket seat, I felt like a dad driving the kiddies to the prom. Because it was clear to anyone who saw it, and it seemed that the most important parts of Hollywood did, that Robby was going to have this beautiful young woman for his very own very very soon.
And it was going to be the single worst night of his life.
*** Up Next: "Gloria's Brentwood Condo" ***
The main characters in this e-novel are fictional and are not intended to portray or resemble any actual individuals, whether living or dead (except for Jeff Abugov who is a real screenwriter, director and producer.) Although certain real people and companies are mentioned in this e-novel, all of the events are fictional and are not intended to portray or resemble any actual events.
Copyright © 2015 Tinseltrash, Inc.