Present Day -  In the Cabana

I sit at a desk inside a cabana, poolside, at a fairytale Spanish-style estate in Beverly Hills.  Platinum records litter the walls.  This cabana is the office of the assistant to concert promoter, Matthew Vaughn.  I am an undercover rockstar, dripping with passionate stage fright.  I am an artist and a temporary assistant to the powers-that-be in the entertainment industry.  My life is a dichotomous fantasy.

This is the second Monday in a row that I am on this particular assignment–a two-day gig–that terminates at 6:30 p.m.  It’s 11:23 a.m. and I wonder what will come if I write all day, as a way to pass the hours.  Oh, the hours.  Springtime sunrays filter through lush trees, across the Spanish tiled pool, through French doors.  This place would be heaven, if only it were mine.  If only I were more than a temporary assistant living a temporary life.

I have been assisting entertainment types for twelve years now.  My very first assignment­ was a full-time gig about a quarter mile from here–across the street from the Beverly Hills Hotel–in the home of an iconic film producer and his trophy wife.  I was twenty-three years old then and fresh out of college.
I remember my very first day on that first job.

Twelve Years Ago –  Across From The Beverly Hills Hotel

I’m a wannabe movie star with stars in my eyes.  I can’t wait to meet Mick Mandalay.  Although I have been hired as the personal assistant to his wife, Marina, he is the producer, and the one who will surely catch his very first glimpse of me and then immediately cast me in his next film.  Marina has instructed me to call them Mr. and Mrs. Mandalay, at all times, never mind the fact that she isn’t much older than I.

I have been on the job for about an hour, perched nervously, properly, at the desk in my new office.  In my smart, plum dress and low-heeled sling backs, my blonde hair tucked neatly behind my ears–I’m trying to make my best first impression–I hope my intelligence shines through my star power.

I hear a shuffling behind me and so I turn anxiously to look at him and to relish my very first moment in the presence of a real life Hollywood movie producer.  I glimpse him and he is perfect–just as he should be–the one who will discover me!

I rise from the chair, involuntarily, and extend my hand to him, “I’m Stella Carella,” I say enthusiastically, “Mrs. Mandalay’s new assistant.  It’s an honor to meet you.”

Mr. Mandalay looks at me from across the room as if I am an alien in his house and asks, “Do you know where she is?”

I draw my hand back lamely and stammer, “She’s in her bedroom getting a manicure.”

With that Mr. Mandalay spins on his heel and leaves me to ponder my first audition.  It didn’t go as I had imagined it would, at all.  Doesn’t he know who I am?  My aunt is a friend of his.  She is rich and powerful and she got me this job.  What about nepotism? Can’t he see that I am a star!

Present Day – In the Cabana

Now, behind my brand new Gucci reading glasses, I raise my thirty-six year old eyes just slightly from my laptop to see my newest temporary boss­–Matthew Vaughn–stride toward the cabana, across his fantastic backyard, with the confidence of someone who has earned his own estate and fulfilled his own dreams.  My guesthouse in Santa Monica (a converted garage) is half the size of this pool house.  My monthly stipend (i.e. inheritance) pays my rent and my horrific eating-out habit, but not much more.  I am still an assistant.

I take him in without longing, angst or fear, although all of those emotions could be present, if I would allow them.  I lean back in my (well, his) chair, instead of sitting up like an abused dog in tense command, as he walks through the door.  I sit at a crossroads, and this time I am choosing the other direction, if it’s the last thing I do.  I am not going to react; I am not going to jump; I am simply going to be.  I breathe deeply in order to slow my heart rate.

He smiles at me and I smile back reservedly.  I think back to last Monday, when we met.

Last Monday –In the Cabana

I smile widely and start to rise in order to offer him my hand.

“Hi Matt,” I offer openly, but then catch the unenthused look on his face and sit back down, as Mr. Mandalay flashes through my mind.

Always the new girl, I feel anxious and unsure from the beginning of the gig on, like I am a cocktail waitress carrying a tray of martinis across the crowded bar, my first night on the job.

The Bentley guy arrives late to pick up the Bentley and drop-off the rental, so I have to interrupt Matt’s personally trained workout session and it’s somehow my fault, or at least that is how I am made to feel; I am clearly imposing by trying to meet his needs.

I’ve never met this man before in my life and the maid encourages me to go upstairs, right after his workout, to get him to sign his credit card receipt.  Awkward!

Thank God, I chose to linger at the bottom of the stairs until he came down, I think later as I read in the Temp Manual: never go upstairs uninvited!

For the rest of the day Matt barks orders at me, demands that I hand him a pen that is inches from his hand; and then throws the fax he has just signed down on the desk, as if he is angry at me for doing my job, “Now, fax this back to John!”

I think back to last Friday when I was temping on the Paradise Lot and called Matthew Vaughn’s full-time assistant in order to get the skinny on the gig.

Last Friday – Paradise Lot

I am on my lunch break, sitting on a bench outside the Producers Building.  I have just wolfed down an oversized carton of Mexican comfort food from the commissary taqueria, in order to pad myself for the battle of the rest of the day.

“Matthew’s cool,” the assistant assures me, “cool,” he pauses, “but, very straight-forward.”

“I get it; speak when spoken to but not more,” I respond on cue to let him know that I understand.

“Right,” he says, “he’s not Anna Wintour or anything, but this is the entertainment business.”

I hang up the phone and briefly wonder to myself, why does the entertainment industry have to be this way?

As of yet, none of my dreams have come true, and the only true skill that I have developed since college, other than the fine skill of being a free-spirited artist with arrested development, is the skill of assisting the powers-that-be in Hollywood.  It is a skill that I have honed to absolute perfection, and one of which many people have dreamed, but it just isn’t feeding my soul anymore.  The novelty has officially worn off, and I feel empty.

Present Day – In the Cabana

“That’s a very red Mac,” Matthew Vaughn says now.

“What’s that?” I ask a little confused by the pleasant, small talk tone in his voice.

“Your Mac.  It’s very red.  Did you order it online?”

“Oh, no, it’s a cover,” I share, tapping on the red, plastic cover.

“Ahh, very cool.  I should get one of those.  My Mac is silver and very scratched.”

“Then, yes, you should.”

“Well, I’m off to get my teeth cleaned and then lunch.  Please email me with my calls.”

“Will do; have a good one,” I offer, because, after all, he is being nice this time; and, after all, I am, technically, still an abused dog.

I look at him just to see and detect a slight smile as he turns to walk out of the pool house.

I watch him walk across his stunning backyard: he is tall, dark, successful & sexy in his own quirky, introverted way.  I allow a little longing to slip in–but just a little–that I could one day be the girl (woman, now) who lands herself inside the life of the movers and shakers, instead of on the fringe, taking their calls, bringing them coffee, ordering their lunch and making their Botox, dentist, manicure, lunch, travel appointments…..

Present Day – In the Cabana – Later

It’s 12:30 and I’m still tapping away on my red Mac when the phone rings.  I pick it up and answer as I have been instructed, “Matthew Vaughn’s office.”

“Is Matt there?” asks a husky male voice.

“He’s unavailable, may I ask who’s calling?” I ask in my throatiest secretary tone.

“This is Sam Gold, who’s this?”

“This is Stella, the temp,” I answer back, my voice rising an octave and taking on an immediately sarcastic, dripping with saccharine, voice.”

“Do you know who I am?” asks Sam Gold.

“Oh, I know EXACTLY who you are,” I assure him.  “There’s a picture of you staring at me as we speak,” I say glancing down at Sam’s smiling face and thinking, do YOU know who I am?  Do you remember having a complete meltdown when I was temping for you six years ago, begging me for advice on how to turn your life around, and then continuing to abuse me a mere two days later?

“Well, imagine that,” Sam says, “I was just making sure.  You’ll tell Matthew I called?”

“You bet!” I sing enthusiastically.  “Have a nice–

Sam hangs up and I follow suit.  Adrenaline grabs me out of my chair and sends me pacing around the pool house.  I stop in front of the framed photo of Sam that leans up against the French door from the floor.  I think back to last Monday when I first walked into the pool house and saw Sam’s face for the first time in six years.

Last Monday – In the Cabana

I enter the pool house and look around with a smirk on my face.  This is as Hollywood as it gets.  Could any set-up be more uniquely cliché than this?  My eyes scan the platinum records on the wall, my heart flip-flops at the sight of the Pink Floyd album, personally autographed for Matthew Vaughn.  It is not at all shocking to me.  I already know that Matthew Vaughn rubs elbows with anyone and everyone of note in the music industry.  I worked for his S&M Concerts business partner, Sam Gold, for six weeks back in 2005.  I shiver at the thought of it, as my eyes fall to a framed picture that leans against the French door from the floor: it is a mock magazine cover, that reads: Sam Gold for President – five reasons you should vote for Sam. Sam’s smiling face has been superimposed on the shirtless torso of a flexing bodybuilder.  I pause as my hand covers my mouth.  I haven’t seen his face since the day I walked out of his office in the middle of my temp shift.  That same fearful, sick, feeling takes over.  That was the first and last time I walked out in the middle of a shift, assuming that I make it through this assignment, although many experiences have warranted a walkout throughout the years.

Present Day – In the Cabana

Now, looking down at Sam’s silly smiling face, I laugh loudly; I don’t feel sick at all.  I don’t feel sick and I don’t feel afraid and I don’t feel tiny.  I feel free and I feel like I could take it or leave it, and very soon, I am going to leave it.

                                                                                         ***
It’s 1:00 p.m.  The day is going smoothly.  Matt’s been out the house and leaving me alone, when a young waif, appearing quite intelligent, actually, about twenty-five years younger than he, pokes her head into the pool house and says, “Hi, I’m Gardenia.

“Oh, hi, Gardenia,” I reply, “I’m stella.”

“Has Matt called?” she asks.

“No, he hasn’t,” I pause, “he left about,” I have no clue when he left nor do I care, “an hour ago?”

“Yes, he went to get his teeth cleaned.”

“That’s right!” I yell too enthusiastically, proud of myself for remembering even one detail about the work I am supposed to be doing here in the pool house.

“Thanks,” she says and then flits across the gorgeous backyard with her flimsy sundress swaying in the breeze and her flip-flops slapping the stone tiles.

Last Monday…

HALT THE PRESSES:

My temp agency just called and talked me into going back to the Paradise Lot, where I was last week when I swore off temping for the rest of my life.

Last Friday Paradise Lot

Sitting on a bench outside the Producers Building in the smokey-mirrored utopia that is the Paradise Lot, I stare into the space of a place that I have come to know like home.  I don’t know if I am sad, mad, fed-up, or excited about my unknown future–but I know that Matthew Vaughn will be my very last assignment as an assistant in the entertainment industry.  I just know I am going to make a change.  I am going to stop chasing that proverbial dangling carrot for once and for all.  I will never again take a temp assignment on this lot. Nine years is enough.  If and when I return to the entertainment industry, it’s as a creator or not at all; as myself or nobody.

Thursday morning they spent driving around in circles, running errands and laughing.  Halfway through the day, Jake took the wheel and drove the Lexus toward the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  A new exhibit had opened and Jake had made it a point to add it to their agenda.  Amedeo Modigliani was an expressionist Italian painter and sculptor (1884-1920).

Sicily had not been familiar with Modigliani’s work until Jake opened her eyes to such beauty.   He had been talking about the upcoming exhibit since the day they met.

Jake could not wait to take Sicily to the museum.  It was a passion they shared.

“Another field trip?” she asked pointedly as he parked Lexy.

“Consider it work, my dear.”

Inside the museum Sicily was in heaven.  She read every word posted about the artist and gawked at a large black and white photo of him.  Modigliani had been dashing and debonair, a ladies’ man with a pronounced jaw that jutted forth haughtily, dark hair and mysterious eyes.

“He was one of my mother’s favorites,” Jake told her.

“I can see why.  There’s such sensuality about him.  It comes through in his work,” she said admiringly.

Jake gestured to the photo; “She always said that her mother’s side of the family shared physical attributes with the Modigliani family, like lineage had been crossed in a past generation.”

Sicily smiled, “Or maybe in a past life.”

“You’re big on that, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

“I like that about you.”

The energy was alive in the exhibit rooms.  Sicily could feel the presence of the artist in his paintings, sculptures and sketches.  Present proof of a past life! Like every moment she spent with Jake, there was a surreal quality about these moments in the museum.  She felt deeply connected to the experience, knowing that she was exactly where she was meant to be, at the precise moment she was meant to be there.  She slowly absorbed each piece of work, especially fascinated by a collection of oil paintings that Modigliani had done of the women in his life: his muses.  He had an elegant flair for capturing the emotions in a woman’s eyes and on her face.  Sicily was intrigued by the sorrow, the desire, the yearning, the tenderness—the boldness and the playfulness—with which Modigliani had detailed seemingly simple paintings of his female subjects.

As she strolled from piece to piece, Sicily could feel Jake’s eyes following her, burning into her.  She was acutely aware of him appreciating her every move.  She had never felt so cherished—like she was a work of art on exhibit, and he was the patron.  He came up behind her and motioned to the painting in front of her.  The subject was a female with golden hair and glassy eyes the color of the ocean.  One strap of a flimsy, white nightgown had been pulled down to reveal one perfect nipple.

Girl in a White Chemise

“Do you see yourself?” Jake whispered. The warmth of his breath tickled her ear.  His voice was husky, and she could feel him between her legs.

“No,” she lied, her voice trembling.

“I do,” he said defiantly.

She had to get away from him.

Leaving him in the lurch, she stole into the adjoining room engrossing herself in Modigliani’s sculptures.  A few minutes later Jake was behind her again.  She turned to him before he could accost her hormones again with the sound and feel of his voice in her ear.

“Do you notice how his specific style comes through in each medium he uses?” she asked matter-of-factly.

“Indeed I do and indeed I wish we were here alone,” he reached out and gently tugged her closer to him.  “My threshold for people in environments like this is quite low,” he told her in his charming, elitist way.  “A man just came up behind me and muttered in my ear, ‘this guy—Modigliani—he’s flat.’”

The look of disgust on Jake’s face caught Sicily by surprise.  She laughed abruptly because she adored his quirks so much, “How dare he!”

She wanted to slip her arms around him and kiss him right there on the spot, but she couldn’t.  In her mind she cursed the age difference, doubting that she could ever find a man her own age who loved museums as much as she did, as much as Jake did.  As she disengaged from his hold, his obvious disappointment panged her heart.  She ignored it and moved on to the next sculpture.

The exhibit ended at a gift shop.  Sicily disregarded Jake as he filled his arms with Modigliani souvenirs.  His eyes still followed her, and it made her nervous.  People stared, or at least she thought they did.  She could not settle into being paid to browse around a museum.  She knew he was filling his arms with gifts for her while she was on duty.  She pretended to be distracted by an accordion file, boasting a delicate Monet oil painting on the front.  She innocently traced the edges of the file with her finger, and then he was behind her.

“What d’ya find?” he asked eagerly.

“I found an accordion,” she responded sweetly to make up for her hurting him.

She demonstrated how the file could be squeezed together and spread apart, how one could organize their thoughts alphabetically in it.  Jake picked up a white box that contained a compressed accordion file and put it under his arm.  He walked to the cash register and paid for the souvenirs.

Outside the museum Jake opened Lexy’s passenger door for Sicily, indicating that he would be driving.  He loaded his purchases into the trunk and then climbed into the driver’s seat.  He reached into his backpack and pulled out a CD set.  He proceeded to load one of the CDs into Sicily’s player and then handed her the CD jacket.

“I brought a treat for us,” Jake told her.  “This will be fun, even if it is muffled.”

She looked at the CD jacket and let out a little gasp.  It was an audio set of Charles Bukowski reading his poetry near the end of his life.  Jake had made a note to buy the set for Sicily the very first time they spoke on the phone.  He had remembered!

Their eyes met.

“You know what I love about you, Cowboy?” she blurted unexpectedly.

“Tell me.”

“You listen and you remember.”

“My dear,” he said, “you are easy to hear and impossible to forget,” he touched her face lightly, “know that.”

She could hardly breathe.

SIGNS IN THE NIGHT

a trilogy of novellas

Book Two: Present Proof of a Past Life

(Sneak Peak)

Jake’s CD ended and Sicily looked up realizing that more than an hour had passed.  Time had flown.  She had typed out what she could make of his messy words, and felt pretty confident that she had interpreted and formatted them as correctly as humanly possible.  As Jake rarely took the time to lift his pen from the page when his ideas were flowing, she had tried to separate his words into an identifiable song format.  Her end result was twelve typed pages of lyrics, broken up into three working drafts with which Jake and Hudson Black had been working.

Sicily stared at the words on her computer screen; they stared right back at her, and they seemed to scream; they seemed to beg; they seemed to plead; and so she did exactly what her heart told her to do.  Slowly at first, and then more quickly, with an almost maniac fervor she began to rearrange the lines.

Cutting, pasting, deleting, and even adding a word here or there, she came up with her version of how this song should go; and, just like that, she was co-writing with the greats:

  Present Proof of a Past Life

 A beat before the year turns new

I fill my ear with some old tunes

Feelings rush back in a clear blur

A revival of who we once were

It schools me on all that I know

About how the future will go

All that I’ve labored to release

Comes back to rustle with my peace

(Pre-Chorus)

Like that poem you’ve yet to pen

I already know it by heart

How our start was just like our end

We’re together when we’re apart

(Chorus)

It doesn’t mean all that much

That I can still feel your touch

Or that you can still read my mind

As our thoughts become entwined

It’s just present proof of a past life

We’re present proof of a past life

A strike before the clock turns back

I wonder how we got off track

I recall as solid as this second

The essence of you that I reckoned

And our image that I behold

Has been much easier to fold

Tucked away in an armoire

Where I save us for my memoir

(Pre-chorus)

Like that song you’re about to sing

It’s already got me dancing

How time and space cease to exist

When the next and last start to twist

(Chorus)

It doesn’t mean all that much

That I can still feel your touch

Or that you can still read my mind

As our dreams become entwined

It’s just present proof of a past life

We’re present proof of a past life

(Bridge)

I think we’re in it for the long haul

Like Writing the Australian Crawl

As another year comes to an end

It’s funny how they start to blend

And though we keep on moving faster

We still can’t outrun our master

So, we keep on moving faster

(Chorus)

It doesn’t mean all that much

That I can still feel your touch

Or that you can still read my mind

As our fates become entwined

It’s just present proof of a past life

We’re present proof of a past life

To be continued…