Gazelle

  1.

  Julian Russell rubs his blood shot eyes in small, slow motions with two, elongated fingers as his agent drones on over the speakerphone. He blinks his eyes open, blinks away the spiraling colors and geometric kaleidoscope a proper eye rub will cause, focusing on the reality before him. The vast living room spreads out before him like a hotel lobby, cold, detached, decorated in steel and black on white Italian marble, surrounded by windows that look out over a dark hillside that spreads out into the city. It floats like an blinking island trapped between the night and the vast, black sea. He winces at the sudden vertigo and slouches against the glass desk top. His feet feel no ground beneath them,his lungs fill with desperate, short breaths of synthetic air. He feels the impending attack and groans. Only three hours since he returned and already he’s splitting.

  “Hey, Mike,” he interrupts.

  “Yeah, chief?”

  “Do we have to go over this now? I’m a little tired.”

  “I know, I know, man, I’m sorry. You just got in, you’re exhausted, youshould be relaxing. I just want us to be ready. Tomorrow’s the day. Listen…Jules,you already know what I think. It’s a solid deal. Nate's an amazing artist, and he wants you for the part, absolutely, won't even consider anybody else. The figures are right, the exposure is perfect. Even if it doesn’t pull in the numbers, which it will, it’s a major film with a cock the size of Texas behind it. It’s gonna get you out of the fuckin’ boondock Indy shit once and for all. This type of situation is how you get gold, know what I’m saying?”

  Julian frowns, his thick brows scrunching over piercing blue eyes. He studies his reflection in the desktop and switches to a dazzling smile, displaying his freshly veneered teeth beneath a thin, tight lip. That’s the winner, he thinks.

  “Yeah, you’re right. I don’t even know why I hesitated this long, honestly. It’s cool. I like the script, you have my notes. We’re good,” he says, still smiling despite the dread in his eyes.

  “We are good. Absolutely. Julian, man, you know I love you. I know what it took to get you here, I know it was hard coming back. But I promise you,I swear to you on the fucking scalps of my children, it’s not going to be in vain. This is it. I’ve been on the edge more than once with a no-name about to cross over and I know all the signs. This is your time, understand? This is it.”

  Julian nods, studying the hardness in his eyes at these words. His agent was one of the craftiest of his kind, moving in and out of circles like a pilot fish, latching on, never wasting a second on anyone that couldn’t be‘someone.’ Julian knew Mike was the man he needed, Mike’s on-going presence was a testament and often the only trust Julian had in the actuality of his current and future success. Still, he was a long ways from fully trusting Mike ever again. A succession of Mike’s‘no-name’ clients who had crossed over passed through Julian’s memory, ending, inevitably on the face of Lindsey.

  "I know. This is it," he says softly, remembering the flash of her brilliant smile, transcending the screen, close enough to touch, to graze with the tips of his fingers. That sensation, that reality of knowing she was just a girl sitting beside him, touching her bottom lip with his thumb. It was a memory he did not normally indulge, and enough time had passed that even if these little stingers did pop up, he usually swatted them away like an annoying fly. But there was no question, the memory had caught him this time. It stung like hell. A sudden dread engulfed him as he wondered if his time in L.A. would be riddled with painful flashes such as these.

  “Absolutely. You have just catapulted yourself to a whole new level of the game.”

  “I’m not exactly‘unknown’.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s‘known’ and then there’s‘infamous.’ It’s absolute freedom we’re talking about here to do whatever you want from now on. No more bullshit chick flicks, okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, we’ll see…” he sinks back into his massive leather throne, her face fading as he shakes if off.

  “No, no, no, hey! I don’t want to hear that fuckin’ tone!” Michael says, mistaking his melancholy for hesitation. “That is the tone of losers and scaredy cats. This is a good thing, Julian, all around, okay? You need to celebrate! Go out,get yourself done right, okay? Have a party, for fuck’s sake!!"

  "A party...right..."

  "Yes, a party. With actual human beings. Be young,get crazy, live while you can! Just don’t mess up the place. I’ll call you tomorrow with the details. You’ve made me a very happy boy, Jules.”

  “Well, that’s what I live for, Mike. Making others happy.”

  He hits the 'end' button and shoves his phone across the desk, watching it spiral to the corner, stopping short of its plunge. For a long time, he stares out the window, scrunching his long toes into balls against the cold, marble floor until he feels them again. They told him he was pretty enough to be a model, an actor, famous,‘infamous,’ and so he began to be those things, discovering a true love for acting as he trained. But in the decade since he decided to really try, the‘long road’ leading to this moment with the dark valley beneath him and his fate signed, he never really believed it would happen. He never imagined the moment when he crossed from the audience to the screen forever, never allowed back. It was always the end game for him, always the ultimate goal, of course. And yet, he could never imagine it as a reality because there was never a reality on the other side unless he created one. A sickening dread washes over him as he looks to the massive, flat screen television.

  He hears the clicking of CeCe’sheels echoing against the hollow halls. They come to a stop before him and she waits, studying the defeat in the curve of his spine and his hanging head. He turns a weary eye to her pitying gaze and tight smile. Her grey streaked hair is pulled back into a tight bun that elongates her aging neck and thin frame. Her delicate hands clutch a laptop and files, along with a weathered planner packed full of his immediate future designations. She looks remarkably like his first grade teacher, and he wonders, not for the first time, if certain characters repeat themselves throughout one’s life.

  “How’d it go?” she asks.

  “Well. It looks like you’re about to get a lot busier. You ready for world dominationa?”

  She smiles again and glances at her watch. “It’s a little late for world domination. Can it wait tilthe morning? Glenn and I are going out for burgers.”

  “Burgers? Jesus, I can’t remember the last time I had a burger.”

  “Neither can I. I can’t remember the last time I had any sort of meal that came in a bag. It’ll be fun.”

  He smiles and turns his gaze to the window once more.

  “This place is an ice box,” CeCefrowns. “So typical of Michael. I really couldn’t imagine a more perfect home. Are you sure you’ll be okay here?”

  “It’s temporary. We’ll find a home tomorrow.”

  “You shoot Adore tomorrow.”

  “After.”

  “The Paula Dell Foundation meeting. You’re speaking at their gala in two months.”

  “…After that, then.”

  “You meet with Warner.”

  Julian sighs, realizing he was possibly stuck in this moratorium indefinitely. “How‘bout you find me a place, then? Just…get a house somewhere secluded and gated, but in an area with shops and shit around it. Nothing like this. Do it as quickly as possible, this place gives me the creeps. It looks like I’ll be in L.A. for the next year, at least.”

  “I’ll get on it first thing tomorrow. Do you need anything else, Julian?”

  He smiles up at her. “Apparently, I need to celebrate. Can I borrow your car?”

  Julian drives down Glendale in a blue Prius, the radio playing a local station dedicated to oldies, his Yankees cap pulled down around his eyes. He has been driving for several hours, losin
g himself in the city. He drove past old haunts, old memories, realizing how little he had actually driven himself the last time he lived in Los Angeles, how little he had paid attention to his surroundings. That panicked, fragmented feeling had overwhelmed him then. The more successful he grew, the more distracted he became with what he was not doing or who he was not becoming, completely unaware of how powerful and known his face had grown. He was a pretty pony, being pranced around by Mike, meeting the right people, partying in the right places, unable to focus on any one thing except what needed to be done next. He would often return to that first rush of exposure, realizing his grasp began to slip then, making him vulnerable. He remembered one of the last times he walked into a public place without being prepared. It was a steakhouse he was meeting his agent at for lunch. Photographers mobbed him with questions specifically for him, as if they knew he was going to be there. He was use to the occasional picture or fan but this was almost organized. They swooped on him, laughing and jeering. He tried to appear unaffected, in control. But he stumbled past them, confused, unsettled, not in control of his gaze or stance. His heart pounded as he pushed past them, hearing only parts of their questions, which were about a girl he had been casually dating. He moved through the restaurant, hardly hearing the hostess directing him. He was aware suddenly of their gazes. Women and men, the look of awe and wonder, stripping him, placing him in and out of context, struggling to reconcile the reality and illusion. As he moved through the crowd, his eyes fell on Lindsey sitting next to Michael. Her beautiful pearl skin, her pale hair wrapped in a loose, French braid over a gauzy, white summer dress. Her eyes glittered playfully as she beamed at him in a compassionate, knowing manner and, before he recognized her from the illusion as well, before he was trapped between the two worlds like the people around them, he fell in love with her like a normal guy would a normal girl. Afterwards, he knew Michael had set the whole thing up. They would walk out together amongst the waiting photographers, a casual lunch date of two clients Michael met with to discuss a movie proposal for both of them that implied so much more. It wasn’t real from the start.

  His heart slumps as he rolls to a red light. Her face flitters and he shoves it away, watching her skitter across his mind and fall back into place beneath the immediate tasks and unknown he has meticulously mounded over her for the past year. He sighs and scratches his forehead, wincing at the ache of her memory, as he spots a dive bar.

  “Time to celebrate.”

  The music is blaring, drunken karaoke that carries out into the street and greets him at the red, cushioned doors. The crooner stands in the corner, beneath a blue spotlight, swaying and belting a string of mumbled notes to‘Tears of A Clown.’ Surrounding him are tall, metal tables with locals watching him, glassy eyed as they hum along, waiting for their turn. A wood backdrop carved with dust-covered filigree surrounding huge mirrors behind the bar reflects the sad debris of a beaten, exhausted crowd. Curved bottles lining its shelves glitter like seductive fortunetellers, promising their mysteries for the right price. Julian tugs his cap down and hunches up to the bar.

  “Jack and coke,” he calls to the bartender, and then adds,“Make it diet coke.”

  The bartender, a robust, balding man in a Hawaiian shirt and khakis, frowns into the drink he begins to prepare. His cheeks, a deep, sun burnt red from his daytime construction job, puff around his bulbous nose for a second as he swallows his retort. No real man orders diet coke, Julian imagines him saying. The bartender places the drink in front of Julian, mockingly tossing in a few maraschino cherries. “Four bucks.”

  Julian places money on the bar, scoops out the cherries and sips the drink, watching the bartender glance at his own reflection in the backdrop and quickly smooth his fledgling hairs over a non-existent hair line. He feels his phone vibrate and takes it from his back pocket. His brother and the‘Sunday Check-In’ call. He hits‘ignore’ and runs an idle finger over one of the cherries before squishing it into the bar top. To his left, a short man a little older than himself, Latino with a pompadour and thin moustache, is running game on an aging Latina in a tight tube top and skinny jeans. She wears heavy, cat-like eyeliner over sagging, hooded eyes that stare back at her in the mirror. Her hair stands high on her forehead and sprouts out on the sides in a red halo of ratted, teased tangles. She ignores his advances and drinks her Bud Light, as if he were indistinguishable from the loud, obnoxious singing. He watches the little man smile and laugh, carrying a conversation of two by himself. His teeth flash much too often, both desperate and menacing. Yet there is nothing truly unkind, nothing threatening in his wide eyes, hungrily devouring the woman even as she pays him no more attention than a fly. He hops around her, ordering a drink from the bartender whose simple nod acknowledges he’s a minor character in this script. Julian envies them, like he does with every person he sees acting out their lives without an audience.

  “Hey! Uh, excuse me!?”

  He thinks, immediately, the call is for him. He hunches lower and sips his drink, fighting the resentment of being recognized just as he was beginning to relax.

  The bartender turns an annoyed eye in his direction and lumbers towards him. “Yeah?”

  “Can I borrow your phone? My car is dead.”

  The girl is suddenly pressing into his right side as she leans over the bar. He sneaks a glance up at her. He sees the nose ring and glasses first, followed by the arms covered in tattoos. Her lashes are long behind the thick frames, her plush lips dark red against her brown skin. Her hair is a thick mass of black held in a loose bun at the base of her neck. She glances down at him for a second without any real regard before turning her imploring look back at the bartender.

  “Don’t you have a cell?”

  “Of course I do,” she says, annoyed. “But the battery is gone. It’s been dying fast lately. Look, I just need to call roadside service and they’ll help me. Can you let me use your phone?”

  “No, sorry,” the bartender says.

  She stares back at him in disbelief. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah, man, I can’t do it. It’s a business phone.”

  “This is an emergency! Please, I just need to call one place. Look, see?” She rummages through an engorged, overfilled satchel and pulls out a roadside card from a glittering wallet covered in stickers and random collage. “You can dial the number for me and everything, I promise it’s not long distance. It’s an 800 number.”

  “I can’t! Sorry!” The bartender shakes his head.

  “Why?!”

  “Because, then what? I have to do it for everyone? No way, man.”

  “Jesus, are you for reals?”

  “Yeah, sorry.” He turns his back and waddles away before she can say anything else.

  “Hey,” Julian says, reaching for his own phone. “You can use mine.”

  The girl turns her gaze to him fully for the first time. Her initial instinct is to refuse assistance from a stranger, especially given the crowd. She frowns for a second, scrutinizing his possibilities of being a threat. His eyes are hard to see beneath the cap but she can see his skin is clear, healthy, and his teeth gleam with excellent care. Her eye catches his large, blue pools, seeing them clear and bright. Her own eyes widen and his heart sinks, thinking she recognizes him. “Really? Are you sure? I swear it’s not long distance.”

  “Yeah, it’s cool. Go ahead.”

  “Thanks!” She pounds in the number and presses the phone to her ear. “That guy’s a dick. Like, who doesn’t have a cellphone these days? Nobody needs to use his stupid phone, nobody’s gonnabother him for it! Well…except me...”

  “Yeah, he seems kind of like a prick,” Julian says.

  “I just got off work and I stopped at the liquor store across the street for two seconds and my fucking car won’t start up again. And it’s my friend’s bachelorette party tonight. I’m so late as it is,” she grumbles. “Yeah-hello? Alice Alvarez. 1998 Toyota Corrolla, pale blue…I don’t know. It won’t start. Yeah. How l
ong? Okay…I don’t have a phone, though…hold on.”

  She puts her hand over the receiver and looks at Julian with the same imploring look she gave the bartender. There is nothing flirtatious or helpless about the gaze but Julian immediately feels a desire to help her, and cannot understand how the bartender refused her so easily.

  “They need to have a number to call once they get here. Are you going to stick around for like, a half hour or so? I’ll buy you a drink.”

  “Sure,” he smiles.

  She flashes him a quick grin, her red lips stretching thin over large teeth. “Okay, hello? Yeah, use this number. Thank you!”

  She rubs the screen furiously on her shirt and hands him the phone. “Thank you so much! I totally appreciate this.”

  “It’s not a big deal.”

  “Apparently it is.” She knocks on the bar and leans forward towards the bull of a bartender. “Hey, man! Can I at least get some drinks?”

  He saunters towards her, a look of both triumph and submission, rolling a toothpick in his mouth. “What you want?”

  “Gimme a gin and tonic. What do you want?” She asks Julian, nudging him playfully.

  “Jack and coke.”

  “Diet?” The bartender snickers.

  “Yeah.”

  The bartender moves to make the drinks and Alice shakes her head, laughing as she turns to Julian. “What a miserable fuck…”

  “Yep,” Julian smiles.

  “My name is Alice,” she says, holding her Healthy Grocery nametag up to show him with one hand and extending the other.

  Julian takes her hand and hesitates. “Dennis.”

  “Dennis?”

  “Yeah…why? Don’t I look like a‘Dennis’?”

  “I-honestly have no idea. The only‘Dennis’ I know was a‘menace.’ You kind of have a menace about you, I guess. What do you do?”

  He sipped on his empty drink to buy time. “I’m a dentist.”

  Her laugh was a sharp bark that startled him. She covered her mouth and took her drink.

  “Eight bucks.”