Tim Green - Exact Revenge

Helena leans into me as we fall into the back of the line and says, “This is a joke, right?”

“If you think working your ass off is funny,” I say, kissing her forehead.

“Is that supposed to scare me?”

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

“You’re right.”

She looks up into my eyes. Hers are burning.

“You’ll be on your own, you know,” I say. “I have work to do in New York.”

“Why not here?” she asks.

I don’t think she realizes it, but she’s gripping my forearm. I pat her hand and say, “I have a job to do. Besides, I don’t want to crowd you.”

“You couldn’t.”

“Maybe not,” I say, “but I won’t.”

“What if I need… or want you?”

“Tell you what,” I say, giving her hand a squeeze before taking it off my arm. “I’ll check in.”

“What are you?” she says. “My fairy fucking godmother?”

“A lot of things are going to change, you know,” I say, lowering my voice.

“That’s bullshit,” she says.

I touch the smooth skin on my face and turn to go.

“What the hell is all this? What about lunch?” she says.

“You need to do this,” I tell her. “Without me here every minute. Then you’ll decide what you want to do.

“No one owns you, Helena. Remember that.”

“You’re goddamned right,” she says, raising her voice and her chin at the same time. “I can do whatever the hell I want. And if I want to give it away I can do that too.”

I nod and step backward and say, “I’d like that very much, but we’ll see.”

I REALLY DON’T WANT to interfere with Helena’s progress. And I really am busy with my own plans. Still, we speak almost every day and she keeps me up to date. While her version of things and Darwin’s aren’t quite the same, in a little over two months her first single starts right off at number seven.

Since she’s filming a video in Los Angeles when I get the news, I grab my plane and head out there for a visit, promising her dinner at Chez Nous. We land in Burbank earlier than expected, and instead of going to Hotel Bel-Air, where Helena’s staying, I have the car take me directly to the studio on the Warner lot where they’re already shooting the video for her next single. During the ride, “Love to Hate You” comes on over the radio and the DJ makes the appropriate fuss over the hot new artist named Helena.

I tap my foot as I listen and drum my fingers on my leg. Buildings and the trunks of palm trees glowing orange in the late-day sun whiz by on North Hollywood Way. The lot is snuggled up next to the back side of the dusty green Hollywood Hills. The limo passes through the gates after only a brief stop. We go by French Street, where Bogart met Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca and come to a stop in front of a studio the size of an airplane hangar. The doors are open partway and they’re wheeling a helicopter inside on a massive dolly.

Darwin is waiting and opens the car door. His face is flushed and beads of sweat have broken out on his forehead even though the shadows are long and cool.

“She’s fucking lost it,” he says.

“Easy,” I say. “What happened?”

“Money is money, but this is too much,” he says, his face pinched. “Put a fucking gun in my ribs. You believe that?”

“What’d you do?”

“Me? She won’t fix her hair. Won’t wear the costumes put out. Won’t stop cursing like a sailor. She’s a mean bitch, I’ll tell you. Makes Ozzy Osbourne look like he came out of charm school.”

“What’d you do?” I ask.

“I just told her,” he says. “One top ten single isn’t shit. You know that. I told her if they can’t see her tits, they turn the channel.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have said that.”

“Tits are tits. This is the record business.”

I press my lips tight and look at him in his flowery silk shirt. He’s much more respectable in a tie.

“I’ll talk to her,” I say, pushing past him and walking into the dark cave of the studio.

“Not now,” he says, catching up. “They’re almost ready to shoot.”

An enormous man with long stringy blond hair and a face as big as a shovel is down on the floor in the middle of it all with a camera on his shoulder. Joe Pytka. He shouts directions, and every time he barks a ripple passes through the brightly lit set. There are fifty people milling around, some of them in tall canvas chairs clustered around a monitor, servers behind a catering table complete with a roast beef under a heat lamp, but most of the people are hurrying to and fro with lights and electric cords and power tools. The helicopter is suspended from a crane now and its rotors are twirling lazily.

There is a girl with Helena’s proportions hanging out of the open door of the helicopter with a wind machine blowing back her long brown hair. A stand-in wearing a low-cut purple dress and lots of cleavage.

After a minute, without removing his eye from the camera, Pytka shouts for Helena. There is a flurry of activity in the back corner of the set. Young men and women wearing headsets and carrying clipboards suddenly part and from behind a curtained area Helena emerges with a makeup woman dusting her face, the hairstylist fussing, and the little old lady glaring up at her and running her mouth.

Helena doesn’t see me, but she makes a beeline for Pytka and, standing over him with her legs set apart, says, “I’m wearing this.”

She’s dressed in faded jeans and a snug purple T-shirt.

“Goddamn it,” Pytka says, struggling upright. “We’re already two hours behind.”

“You said the color had to be right,” she says. “Now I’ve got your goddamned color.”

“The hair color certainly isn’t right, but that’s not my fault,” the bald hairstylist says with a hand on his hip.

“Who the fuck asked you ?” Helena says, turning on him.

He wilts. The little old lady presses her lips tight and closes her eyes.

“Darwin!” Pytka bellows.

“See?” Darwin says to me. “See?”

He waddles toward the director with his hands raised.

“Helena,” I say.

When she sees me, her face lights up. She runs and jumps and wraps her legs around me, kissing my face until I can’t help smiling.

“ What are you doing?” I ask.

“Shooting a video,” she says, kissing my lips and climbing down.

She takes my hand and squeezes it.

“We’re at number seven.”

“You pulled that gun on Darwin?” I say, making my face stern.

“Oh, he’s an ass,” she says, tugging at me. “Come look at this trailer. It’s a star trailer.”

She’s smiling, but I can see the water in her eyes. I let her pull me outside the studio. Her trailer is around the corner. She’s talking to me fast, telling me about songs and clothes and the people that she’s met. I stop her on the steps.

“Helena?”

Her face crumples up and two tears streak down either cheek. She gives her head a quick shake.

“I’m sorry,” she says, then turns and runs around the back of the trailer.

By the time I get there, the engine of her yellow Boxster is racing and the car takes off with a screech. I run back to the front and jump into my car.

“Follow her,” I tell the driver. My driver is excellent and we keep up. It’s after the rush, so the thick flow of traffic is moving steadily. She’s not trying to lose us, but she’s not stopping to talk either. She takes 134 out to the 405 and all the way down to Manhattan Beach as the sun drops into the Pacific. She parks the car right next to the stairs to the beach, hops out into the hazy dusk, runs out along the wooden walkway, and disappears. My heart hammers inside my chest. A blood-red sun smolders beneath the smoky purple clouds. It’s as if she’s been swallowed up.