Robby and Lisa wolfed down some burgers and fries at Ed Debevic's, a fifties-style diner in the heart of Restaurant Row in the Easternmost tip of Beverly Hills. He had offered to take her to another swanky tinsel-joint, but she clearly had had enough of that for one evening.
"But I'll be there with you from the beginning this time," he had said. "You won't have to face any of them alone."
"Don't care," she said. "Please."
Of course, he agreed. He also realized that this "meeting her somewhere" business was far too risky for both of them. He determined to buy her a cell phone that she could keep hidden from her father so he could always reach her. His first stop tomorrow would be at a Circuit City or Good Guys.
Once again, Lisa did most of the talking, which was fine with Robby. She was an amusing young lady, he realized. Intelligent, witty and fun. When he laughed at her jokes, he wasn't just being polite. When he told her about show business, her questions and comments were insightful and to the heart of the matter -- not the usual fan adulation that he would expect from a teen-age girl. There was no "what's Tom Cruise really like?" or "how do you remember all those lines?" Instead, she asked him about finding the emotional truth of a scene and the difference between "net" and "gross."
All in all, he actually liked her.
As they savored their one-dollar sundaes and sipped their coffee, Robby asked her what she'd like to do next. Dinner at Royalties was generally an all-night affair, so Robby hadn't bothered to make any other plans. He offered to take her to a movie at the Beverly Center, or to let her show him off to her friends at the Noho Cafe.
The second suggestion intrigued Lisa, but she decided it would look cooler if they showed up at the Noho later, at the end of the night. There was somewhere else she wanted to go first.
It never occurred to Robby that she would ask him to take her to the lookout point at the top of Mulholland Drive where they had first met less than a week ago.
"I want you to show me how it all happened," she explained. "And I want to meet you properly for once. Every time we've ever met, it's been so weird. How can anyone be friends that way? Maybe up there we could, like, I dunno, introduce ourselves to each other or something."
Robby couldn't help be touched by the innocence of the teenager's request, and so he agreed. Naive, yes. But even after all his years in Hollywood, Robby had a horrible habit of assuming everyone said what they actually meant.
"But after that, could we go out for ice cream?" he asked.
"Only if you're a good boy," she kidded him.
They laughed and joked and chatted as he drove them up Beverly Drive, past the beautiful mansions, under the swaying palm trees and the full moon, and they both were enamored with their city. It was another one of those perfect L.A. nights. Robby had the sun roof of his Lexus SC400 open, and the windows down. The warm July breeze blew Lisa's stringy hair over her face, creating more fodder for their jokes and laughter.
Regardless of how the evening had begun, it was the single greatest night of her life.
But as they headed up the canyon -- and Beverly Drive changed its name to Coldwater Canyon -- they approached the lookout where they had first met. Their laughter subsided, as did their conversation. They both knew the spot they were approaching well, for they hadn't stopped thinking about it for days -- each of them having replayed in their minds the events that had changed their lives forever.
Robby pulled over just a little way before the lookout canyon cliff. The two got out of his Lexus as he began to explain the original, innocent plan that he had once hoped everyone would believe.
"I never meant to hurt anybody -- I just wanted my career back," he explained. "I had called 911 and notified the press on my drive up. I reeked of gin and I had a baggie of cocaine in my pants pocket. All I had left to do was give them a show. So I banged myself up with a rock to make it look like I had tumbled out of a moving vehicle, then I shoved the Dodge into gear and let it fly. The pickup was simply supposed to sail off the cliff, crash on the ground below and light up the sky -- and I would come off as nothing but a sick, lucky son-of-a-bitch. I knew it was impossible for anyone to be on the canyon floor, but it never occurred to me to check the lookout. The second I saw you guys I got this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I hauled myself over there to save you as fast as I could, but I knew I wouldn't make it in time. We were all lucky."
There was just a slight sniffle as he told her the story -- it was the sniffle of a decent man confessing his monstrous lie.
Lisa had never seen an adult so vulnerable in this way before, and realized for the first time that Robby wasn't really an adult. In chronological years, maybe, but at this moment he was in actuality just a frightened little kid like she was, and all she wanted to do was comfort him. So she wrapped her arms around him to soothe him.
"It's okay," she said as she rubbed his shoulder. "It's okay. No harm, no foul."
Robby was immediately uncomfortable as the underage woman pressed her gawky frame against his body, intuitively sensing this was heading in a direction he couldn't allow. So he hugged her as well, gave her a quick, paternal peck on the forehead, then casually moved himself out of it.
"So let's go down to where we actually met," he said as he opened the passenger door of the Lexus for her to get back in. "I know we can walk, but I don't think we should leave the car in the middle of the road like this."
Lisa got in without complaint, and they drove the eighth of a mile down to the actual lookout. Robby parked in the dirt lot as they both got out, and Lisa told him all about Mitch's attempt to rape her, her terror as the pickup creamed the Volvo seconds before she was out of it, and her utter panic and confusion as to what to do once the cops started questioning her. Her true feelings poured out to the actor through streams of tears as she opened up to Robby in a way that she hadn't done with anyone. She explained that she had only accused Robby of rape because of her fear of her father and her need to be popular, and she felt intense guilt over it.
Robby couldn't help but want to comfort the girl - but it was his turn to hug her, and the last thing he needed was to be hugging a seventeen-year-old girl in such a romantic spot.
"It's okay," he said, neutrally. "No harm, no foul. We're friends now, and it's going to work out best for the both of us."
"I'm so sorry!" she wailed as tears dripped down her face. "I never got to say that to you, but I'm so so very fucking sorry!"
"It's okay," he said. "I forgive you."
"How can you?" she asked as she buried her head against his chest. "I practically ruined your life. Your wife threw you out, and now you've got to pretend that you're going to marry an ugly, scrawny nerd like me! You must be so embarrassed. I'm so sorry!"
"You're not ugly," Robby said, gingerly and uncomfortably patting her shoudlers -- and meant what he said. He had never seen Lisa as pretty or ugly -- just as a wonderful, sweet, pained child. All that other negative stuff was MY editorial. "You're a beautiful young lady, and I'm proud to call you my fiancee."
"No, I'm not!" she wailed as she looked up into his deep blue eyes. "I'm skank. Everyone says so!"
"You are not skank!" Robby said directly into her half-closed blue-green eyes. "You are pretty, and lovely, and important."
"Really?" she asked with a sniffle that she didn't bother to hide. She was mesmerized by his eyes, his face, and mostly his kindness.
"Really," he said, smiling back.
Then she pressed her lips against his and kissed him. A warm, wet, soft kiss that was pleasurable to Robby, wonderful, immoral and illegal.
Whether or not Robby enjoyed it a second or two more than he should have is not the point. He didn't expect it and he was surprised that it had happened, as well as surprised that the virgin-teen kissed as wonderfully as she did. But this wasn't a Gloria-situation in which he wanted the woman and stopped himself only in order to be true to his wife. This was a seventeen-year-old girl and an emotionally tenuous one at that. So he gently pushed her away the very moment he realized that he wanted her.
"I told you," he said as gently as he could. "Nothing can happen between us."
"So you DO think I'm ugly?" she said as she moved away from him. "It's okay for you to say it. Everyone thinks I am."
"I don't think you're ugly, Lisa," he said honestly. "I think you're a child. And I'm a forty-year-old man."
"Your internet bio says you're thirty-seven."
"And it will say that until I'm fifty, but that's not the point," he said as he tried to take her hand but she it moved away. "C'mere."
"No," she said as she sat down in the bushes, picked up a big, thick branch off the dusty ground and proceeded to unconsciously rip away its leaves. "You're not my friend -- you're just using me."
"I'll admit it, Lisa, I am using you," he quietly said as he moved towards her. "But I can still be your friend. I simply can't have any... relations... with you."
"Gloria said you do it all the time," Lisa accused him as she ripped the leaves off the branch ever more violently. "I'm not saying you've got to commit to me or nothing. I know you don't want to marry me. But I'm offering to let you fuck me, and you won't do it, and you do it with everybody but not me, and the only possible reason you won't is because you think I'm skank."
"Gloria said all that?" he asked. "What the hell did she say?"
This was only a partial bluff on his part. Gloria had already warned him about Lisa's delusions about the two of them, and it was easy for him to believe the neophyte agent no matter what the teen-age girl said. On the other hand, Gloria was an unscrupulous agent who clearly wanted to represent and make love to him. In a "she-said-she-said" face-off between a beautiful unscrupulous agent and a well-meaning yet unstable teen-ager, Robby had no idea who to believe.
Who would you believe, given the facts that he had?
"Don't you dare fucking play dumb with me," Lisa countered. "I may be ugly, but I'm smart. I know what I hear, and you fuck anything that moves. But not me? What, I'm not pretty enough for you? Well, fuck you! Beauty comes from within, and I'm fucking beautiful and you're just too fuckin' dense to see it!"
"Maybe I am," Robby said in his best effort to contain the situation. "I may very well be. So, maybe I should just take you home now."
"Yeah, maybe you should," she said as she stood up quickly, then swung the big branch like a baseball bat across the back of Robby's head.
Robby dropped to the ground instantly. Lisa jumped on top of him and continued to bang the branch upon on the back of his head over and over. It was only when she ran out of breath that she dropped the branch and lay down on top of him, crying.
"I love you, you idiot!" she screamed. "Why can't you see who I am?!"
But Robby didn't respond. So she whacked the branch upon on his head again.
"Answer me!" she shouted.
But he didn't respond.
She grabbed his wrist and felt nothing, and realized, sadly, that he was dead.
In a way, she envied him that. At this point, she would have gladly traded places.
The fact that she had no idea what part of the wrist she should check didn't occur to her. Robby was very much alive, although he did have a concussion and would remain unconscious for most of the rest of the night.
But Lisa believed that she had already killed the man and, given her past record, she was terrified of being sent to some mental institution.
She jumped into Robby's Lexus and tore off back home. She had only reached the first Valley turn-off when she realized what a stupid thing it was to bring his car back home with her. If she had inadvertently killed the man, the last thing she wanted was to have his car parked in front of her father's house.
So she drove back to the lookout to dump the car off. She could easily walk across Mulholland and down the canyon road -- it would take her forty minutes, tops -- from which she could grab a bus or a cab home. If she was lucky, she could hitch a ride back down anyway. Optimistically, she'd be home in an hour an a half. Pessimistically, two hours. It was eleven o'clock, curfew time, and she could easily dismiss her worst-case scenario tardiness with her parents with a simple "me and the girls lost track of time."
But when she returned to the lookout and parked his car, Robby was gone. Yet in the sand was a third set of footprints and the smudgy impression of his body being dragged away.
*** Up Next: "In The Minds Of His Enemies" ***
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.