When Trudy Rockman walked out onto her Studio City front lawn to address the press, both the legitimate and the illegitimate news media were astounded. It was clear she was going to give them some real dirt, and it was rarely this easy. So they pointed their cameras and turned on their mini-cassette recorders, and hoped that her tale was truly ugly.
"I can't stand him in my house another minute!" Mrs. Rockman cried, desperately. "He promises to stop snorting and drinking, but he doesn't, and I can't take it anymore! And he promises it's over with the girl, this CHILD, but when he comes home drunk like this... flaunting his lies in front of my face... I'm done believing him! I'm done protecting him! I'm finished!"
By now, the tears were pouring out of her eyes like an Iowa flood, and she wasn't acting. The specific words she was saying may not have been the actual truth, but she was honestly telling the world that her marriage was over, and it tore her apart.
The press feared that was the end of her statement, and quickly jumped in with a barrage of questions that only made the seemingly frail woman even more emotional.
"When did you find out about Lisa?"
"What did you say to him?"
"Does your son know?"
"SHUUTTT UUUPPPP!!!!!!" Trudy shouted from the inner recesses of her pain.
Few people in few circumstances can get a howling mob of journalists to shut their mouths and listen. This was one of those few circumstances, and Trudy was one of those people. Her anguished cry for silence pierced the hearts of even the most cynical tabloid hack, and suddenly the smoggy July air was filled with a deafening silence.
"It doesn't matter what I said to him, and it doesn't matter what he said to me. The cokehead rat is out of my life for good. I won't put up with another lie, another drink, or another teen-ager. That's all you need to know from me."
"I booked him a room at the Beverly Hills Hotel, so follow him there because he's your story, not me or my son. After tonight I won't know anything because I'm never speaking to him again! One last point. I'm taking the s.o.b. for every penny he's got!"
Then she entered the house and slammed the door behind her.
"How was that?" she asked Robby, smiling proudly through her tears.
"Why did you do that?" Robby asked, exasperated. "If I go out there now and tell them it was all a scam, you'll look just as despicable as me."
"But you would never do that to me," she said knowingly as she gently stroked the hair off his forehead. "And that's why I did it."
"This is crazy," said a bewildered Robby. "I chose you. Why would you --"
"Because I can't live like this, Robby," she said. "And you can't be happy without it."
"Of course I can," he countered. "As long as I have you and--"
"You know, my Dad used to always say you had a bug," Trudy interrupted. "Right from the start. But I had never met anyone with the kind of passion you had. It wasn't just for acting, it was for everything, it was for life. My fear was that you'd become a jerk if you got successful, but you didn't. The bigger you got, the kinder and more generous you became. You were everything a woman could want from a man, and the total antithesis of what a star is supposed to be.
"But then it came crashing down. Everyone said it's normal, common. Actors don't last forever -- though we all thought YOU would. But when you didn't, you fell to pieces. No, not drugs or alcohol, but you fell so deep into depression that it was only a matter of time till you WOULD go there.
"And now you're back. Maybe not completely, but you're well on your way. And you're loving it, aren't you?"
"No," he said. "I love you, and Andy, and--"
"Tell me the truth," she insisted. "You loved every moment on those hospital steps with Lisa, didn't you?"
"No, I--"
"You had no idea what she would say, and it excited you. Your brain scrambled for something in case she said you were lying, and it thrilled you. Then she proposed and you were suddenly off-script and you had to ad lib, and you were one with the universe."
"All right," Robby muttered as he forced himself to face the truth. "I enjoy performing. But it's meaningless if I don't have you with me."
"You've got it backwards, my darling," she said. "I'm the one who's meaningless if you don't have some show to perform in. But you have one now, and it's going to bring you more."
"You're wrong, Trudy," he honestly insisted, his voice cracking and his eyes watering. "You... and Andy... are all that matter to me."
"I think you believe that," she said softly. "It's just... not... true."
Then she checked to make sure that the blinds were drawn so that the press couldn't peer in, and she put her lips to his in one final, tragic kiss.
"Good-bye, my love," she said. "My life with you has been exciting and wonderful. But now I'm older and I want something that's easy and boring."
Then she headed off to her now lonely bedroom.
"I'll be back as soon as this is over!" Robby called after her since he had no choice but to accept defeat.
"I just hope I haven't met someone else by then," she said sadly, then she disappeared into the room and locked the door behind her.
Robby could hear her burst into tears and wanted to cry himself. Of all the horrible things that had happened to him since he set his plan into motion, this was by far the worst. He had been completely willing to give up his entire comeback for her, but she loved him too much to allow it. In effect, she was dissolving their marriage because she believed it to be for his own good. She was the most giving, generous person he had ever met, and he could only damn her for her martyrdom.
Yet despite the denials he had made to her, he knew she was right. Another year or two of unemployment and he might very well turn into the drug-abusing heel he was now only pretending to be. But it was the scandal that was making Trudy cringe, not any real acting work, and the paparazzi would disappear the moment he made his public apologies. He simply had to get his career back and stay faithful to her in the process -- no matter what the press might say about him -- and in the end it would all work out.
It had to.
So he wiped away the moistness from his eyes because it was time to face the press. Given the public declaration he had made earlier that day that he was leaving his wife, he couldn't let the vultures see how torn up he was that she had thrown HIM out. He also knew he had to make good on Trudy's story that he had come home drunk.
He went to the liquor cabinet -- which was ordinarily only opened when they had company -- and yanked out a bottle of overpriced gin. He filled his mouth with the ghastly stuff, and swished it around for awhile, then spit it out in the wet bar sink. Then, finally, bottle in hand, he picked up his bags, took a deep breath and entered center stage.
The press, who had been expecting him, already had lights and cameras set to go. Robby walked out onto his lawn with just a trace of a stagger and jumped into his brilliantly, subtle performance.
"I din't wanna live in a hotel," he drunkenly slurred. "I wanted to hang here till I could find a beach place where you all would enjoy pestering me, you bastards."
This got a flurry of laughs from the press, which had been his intent.
"So I gotta go to the hotel 'cause the l'il woman says," he went on. "But I don't feel like being alone right now, so which one of you pricks wants to ride with me?"
Every print and TV reporter screamed out their willingness. Robby was pretty sure that any of these hacks would accept the offer -- he had counted on it. He randomly chose a skinny, longhaired young man with a Nikon-D1X and a plaid shirt that was half tucked into his torn jeans. Robby had no way of knowing that the disheveled twenty-nine-year-old was already making a name for himself as both a photo-hound and a writer at one of the biggest tabloids in the country which, I'll say, was called "the Gazette." Of course, had Robby known this, it wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference to him.
Once inside Robby's Lexus, the young photo-journalist asked Robby one question after another. Robby didn't answer a single one. Instead, he fulfilled his own agenda.
"You want an exclusive interview with me and Lisa?" he offered. "I'll guarantee it. But you've got to do me a favor first."
The reporter-photographer was all ears.
"Now that her parents know about us, they won't let me talk to her," he explained. "But you guys are as much detectives as you are journalists. If you can figure out a way for me to contact her, we'll give you the first interview. Till then, I don't answer shit."
The deal was made, and the young man whom I'll say was named Ralphie Sullivan was thrilled. It would be so easy for him, and it would further his reputation as one of the tabloid gossip greats.
Robby arrived at the Beverly Hills Hotel just moments before the press. The seemingly gay desk clerk was incredibly hospitable and polite, pretending not to notice the paparazzi as his eyes blinked allergically at their flashing bright lights.
Trudy had booked a one-bedroom suite for Robby. Ordinarily, he would have told the clerk to just give him a regular room, but with the press around, he knew they would use it to simply make him look pathetic. To be a pedophilic bastard was one thing -- to be a cheap pedophilic bastard was something else entirely.
His new home was essentially an insanely expensive, pleasant one-bedroom apartment. He let himself drop down into a corner of the living room and cried because he never thought his life would come to this. He was paying an inordinate amount of money to live in the same-sized space in which he and Trudy had lived when they were young and broke.
The events of the past few days swam through Robby's head in one disjointed, jumbled mess, and he could find no perspective on any of it whatsoever. He simply had to talk it over with someone to make sense out of it, but that someone had always been Trudy. He couldn't think of a single person to whom he could entrust his sordid tale. So he called me.
By this time, I totally believed everything he had told me at our breakfast. I had seen him and Lisa on Friday's news, and it was like watching the movie of a book you had read -- not quite as you thought it would look on screen, but close. Yet it was precisely those things that were slightly off that made me realize Robby had told me the truth -- Lisa's initial confusion, Robby's hesitancy over her proposal. If their love were real, they never would have been so off-kilter with the other's fabrications.
It was the first of many such calls Robby would make to me over the course of his adventure, and eventually a deep friendship between us grew out of them. Unfortunately, nothing that would be of interest to you was discussed since Robby only told me what you already know. Given that I said virtually the exact same thing in the chapter entitled "A Prick Goes to Work," I hereby promise to stop bringing up our meals and phone calls unless they actually pertain to the story -- which they may or may not.
About half an hour after we got off the phone -- about a quarter hour shy of midnight -- Robby was in the same existential funk that he had been before he called me. Our chat had been exclusively about his plan, but none of that was what was truly bothering him. For one thing, what he never brought up in our phone call -- the only thing he ignored when I brought it up -- was Trudy. The bottom line was that he missed his wife, and he was lonely. And all the Emmys and Golden Globes don't shield anyone from such a basic, human pain.
All he wanted to do was talk to someone, anyone, about anything, so he could rid his mind of the realization that he had screwed it up with the greatest woman on the planet. He even considered calling Artie at home on the premise of needing advice on some "Gun Butt" matter. Now that he was working, Artie would take his call -- and Artie loved to pontificate on any show business matter whether he had a clue or not. In the end, though, Robby decided against it. He had a punch-in-the-nose reserved for Artie, and he didn't want that tainted by a pleasant conversation.
So he was left alone with his thoughts.
"I'll be back as soon as this is over," was the last thing he had said to her.
"I just hope I haven't met someone else by then," was the last thing she said back.
She couldn't have meant it, he told himself. He was going to remain completely faithful to her -- no matter what he would get the press to say -- and he couldn't imagine her doing otherwise. It had to be a face-saving response, and nothing more.
And yet it hounded him.
"I just hope I haven't met someone else by then."
So when he heard the knock on the door, he was thrilled to be freed from his own thoughts. If it were some annoying "School, Sweet School" fans who felt they had a right to disturb him at this late hour, they would be welcomed in to share cocktails and amusing anecdotes. If it were housekeeping who had come to turn down his sheets, he would dazzle them with jokes and juggling. He even entertained the notion that it was Trudy herself who had seen the errors of her ways and come to beg him to return home.
But it was none of the above, nor any of the other possibilities that flew through his mind as he opened the door.
It was Gloria, and she no longer had her arm in a sling. She was wearing tight leather slacks, and a t-shirt that was three sizes too small which revealed most of her flat midriff and much of her cleavage. Her nipples protruded through the white cotton, and her blonde hair was perfectly coiffed.
"I saw it on the news," she said. "I thought you might need a friend."
It was all Robby really wanted at that moment -- a friend -- even though pure, innocent friendship was the furthest thing from Gloria's mind, as evidenced by the ultra-hot apparel she had on.
She was so alluring to him, and he knew he should tell her to go the hell away. But what if her gesture of friendship was authentic? They had spent many hours on the phone together when Artie wouldn't take his calls, and she had been the only one to jump into Artie's pool to save his life four days ago. If he told her to sit across the room on a solitary chair, she would... of course, she would.
Just a friend, just someone to talk to, that was all he wanted.
At least that's what he told himself when he invited the beautiful blonde into his room.
*** Up Next: "An Affair To Forget" ***
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.