Bruce Wagner - Still Holding

• • •

SHE ASKED WHY he called himself Rusty and he said because that was his name. Then he said it was Elaine’s idea. Anyway, he liked using his counterpart’s “appellation.” There was a purity in it, he said. Like the servants in that movie Gosford Park who took the names of their masters.

• • •

SADGE WAS IN the bathroom when Becca’s phone vibrated — it said UNKNOWN in the little luminous window. It was Rusty. He asked if she wanted to go to a party Grady Dunsmore and his wife were having. He was out of the hospital and celebrating in his new house. Rusty said he’d pick her up at Ürth Caffé at nine. She impulsively called Annie and asked her to come. Becca told Sadge that Annie was having monster period cramps and she was going to bring her Vicodin and stay for Six Feet Under.

Rusty wasn’t thrilled that Becca had invited her friend along. When he called her the chaperone, Annie got feisty with him, which he seemed to like. Becca was quiet as he drove, subdued, entranced, in her mind already his girlfriend. Annie hassled him about beating on that guy in Playa del Rey. Rusty enjoyed the razzing. Becca could tell that Annie thought he had his redeeming qualities.

They drove up Laurel Canyon to Mulholland. Annie asked about his friend’s house. Rusty said it had been in escrow for six months and finally closed, and that Nicholson and Brando apparently lived right across the street. Annie asked about Grady’s injury. Rusty said he’d been shot by the police a few years back. The girls left it at that.

A valet took their car. Decorated golf carts ferried guests to the house, but the trio chose to walk through the gate and descend the long, steep drive. The fractured tiara of a mansion lay below. There were crowds of people, and Becca gradually made out a South Seas theme. Fiery tiki torches surrounded the pool. Women in grass skirts served drinks and canapés.

They saw Grady beaming at them beyond the sliding window of the living room. Music boomed from inside and liquor sloshed from his glass as he limped out to give his old bud a modified bear hug.

“You did it,” said Rusty. “It’s a fucking palace.”

“Yes, we did it, we fucking did! Absolutely. But all this?” He put an arm around Rusty’s shoulder then took in the pool, the revelers, and the evening air itself before glancing Becca and Annie’s way. “Everything you see? A tribute to Questra. Wish she could be here to see it.”

“She is here. She’s here. ” Rusty thumped Grady’s chest at the heart. “Here, there, and everywhere.”

His maudlin friend let it sink in. “Thank you. Thank you for being here and thank you for fucking saying the beautiful shit that only you can say.” Grady turned to Becca. “An awesome cat. He’s crazy — and fuckin awesome. But you probably already know that.”

“You remember Becca,” said Rusty.

“Hey now,” said Grady. “I’m not gonna forget Becca. Ain’t nobody gonna forget Becca. Welcome. Welcome to my righteous home.”

“This is my friend Annie,” she said.

“Hi,” said Annie.

“Hey, Annie Fannie.” Suddenly energized, Grady looked all around him again. “Place is a trip, ain’t it? We got Hefner beat.”

“It’s incredible,” said Annie, in earnest. Grady’s hoarseness and cock-eyed brio reminded her of a younger Nick Nolte.

“Three acres! That’s one more than Marlon. But the house is a pile — it’s a teardown. Used to belong to Russ Meyer. Know who Russ Meyer was? Ol’ Russ was seriously into the female anatomy, with special emphasis on the breast. The large breast. Man was my hero. Did you see the pool yet? Check it out. There’s an observation room down below. Super sixties! Ol’ Russ used to like to sit and watch titties float by. I don’t even think they had implants back then — no silicone, anyway. No Viagra either. Fuckin Stone Age.”

Grady got pulled away. He waved at Rusty and the girls as he was sucked into the house.

“What does Grady do?” asked Becca as they headed toward the pool.

“Personal trainer. He was Kevin Costner’s stunt double — before he fucked up his leg. They still work out together whenever Kevin does a movie. He’s K.C.’s camera double too.”

Annie said, “I don’t understand how he has this place.”

“A settlement from the city.”

“The shooting?” asked Annie.

“Nah, that’s a whole different deal. Their little girl drowned in a municipal pool. A light in the tile shorted out or some such shit — the kid he had with Cassandra. Questra. Electrocuted her. Took five years, but they got eight million. You’ll meet Cass. She’s around somewhere. Trippy lady. Hard-core.”

They passed the tiki bar, where drinks were being dispensed from an enormous ice sculpture. Blue-tinted gin flowed over the massive crystalline chunk into high-stemmed glasses. Just before the stairway that led beneath the pool came a makeshift shrine. The framed photo of a shiny-smiled toddler was surrounded by leis and votive candles.

They went down the storm cellar opening to a small booth with a glass wall allowing a view of the swimmers. Their shoes puddled. It was dank and smelled of mold. A girl smoked a joint, nodding her head in stoned, silent assention at what she saw through the aquariumlike window: a disembodied woman, about six months pregnant, sat on the steps of the pool getting head from a fat old Hell’s Angel type. Everything was below the water from the breasts down. The bearded biker wore only Levi’s. Every twenty or thirty seconds, he surfaced for air before going down again.

“That’s Cass. Grady’s old lady.” Then, with a smile: “I told you she was hard-core.”

Impermanence

LISANNE THOUGHT ABOUT letting Robbie know that she was expecting. She would have e-mailed, had he been an e-mail person. Anyhow, she was glad he wasn’t.

It would have been so easy to have the doctor flush it away. She wasn’t showing and was hefty enough to think she never would, even if she carried to term. For the moment, Lisanne had the perverse luxury of putting the whole thing out of her head. She went to yoga a lot that week over on Montana. There was a kind of remedial class for fatties, newbies, and old folks.

To her shock, one morning Kit Lightfoot and Renée Zellweger slipped in, just as class was beginning. (She wasn’t sure if they came together.) The ninety-minute session was difficult though not nearly as crowded as the advanced levels — a hip choice, thought Lisanne, for a celeb. She could deal with Renée, but having Kit there made it tough to concentrate. She’d always had a crush on him: now there he was, barely ten feet away, sweating his tight, insanely famous butt off. The teacher kept telling everyone to “stay present,” and Lisanne thought she must have picked up on her delirium.

After the group Namastes, Lisanne lay in the corpse pose, trying to time her departure from the sweat- and sage-scented room with Kit’s. When he left, she waited a beat, then got up to stash her mat in the anteroom. She retrieved her things from the shelves and laced up her shoes in slow motion. Her mind wandered. The next thing she knew, Kit brushed past. He looked in her eyes and smiled and Lisanne’s heart actually fluttered. With a surrealistic pang, she thought of her pregnancy. Renée emerged from the large room. The two stars said quietly enthusiastic hellos. They left, and Lisanne discreetly followed.

Her car was conveniently parked a length away from Renée’s. Lisanne opened the hatchback so she could fuss around while eavesdropping.

“Gonna go see the monks?” Kit asked.

Renée grinned inquisitively.