Bruce Wagner - Still Holding

“Enough, Tiff,” she said.

Lisanne instinctively moved closer and held the older woman’s hand. Roslynn was gratified to have a witness to her husband’s noxiousness.

“Burt Bacharach’s presenting. Did I tell you?”

“No.”

“I guess you didn’t know. I thought I told you. I thought I told you four times. Burt may do a thing with Elvis Costello, and I think he asked Paul McCartney, as a surprise. If Paul’s in town, which I think he is. And I just happened to have given money to his one-legged cunt of a wife for the land mines. So voilà: the stars are all in alignment. So what, dear Roslynn, are you saying? That you don’t want to go?”

“Nothing,” said Roslynn, con brio. “I’m saying nothing. ”

“Of course we’re going,” said Tiff. He turned back to Lisanne as he left the room. “And you and Phil should come too.”

Hot Property

THE L.A. TIMES real estate section showcased homes that were bought, sold, and leased by celebrities, and sometimes Becca clipped and mailed the features to her mom. Annie said that a lot of the brokers were former actresses, and Becca could understand why. She admired them — it took guts for a girl to look in the mirror at twenty-eight or twenty-nine and say, “It’s over. I’ll never be famous.” But it took real smarts for that same girl to take the bull by the horns and go into a field that one day, if she were creative and industrious enough, might allow her the trappings of celebdom that would otherwise have been beyond her reach: say, a hillside manse. Because that’s what a Realtor could have for herself if she put in enough blood, sweat, and tears. Realtors learned all the tricky ins and outs of buying and selling, and Annie said they were in a great position to join that exclusive club of people whose passion is to buy homes and do makeovers, then sell them at tidy profits (Courteney Cox and Diane Keaton were masters of the art). Becca thought the best thing about being a Realtor was that you got to dress up for work, sometimes to the nines, and you drove around all day in one of those cute little Mercedes with the saucy butt-trunk. (Though when she occasionally saw middle-aged brokers, thick in face and gut, carting for sale signs around on sky blue Sundays, it scared her in terms of thinking, Ohmygod, could that happen to me?) Becoming a Realtor was the kind of thing her mom might do; she was pragmatic that way. In fact, the next time Dixie started leaning on her to come home, Becca thought a viable thing would be to say that she was considering becoming a real estate agent and that she needed to stay and study for the test. Call the dogs off for a while.

Her heart raced as she folded the paper back to the front page and read the banner.

HOT PROPERTY

HER EXTRA TERRITORY

BY RUTH RYON, TIMES STAFF WRITER

Actress Drew Barrymore has purchased a Hollywood Hills home on nearly 1.5 acres for about $4.5 million.

Barrymore had been leasing since her former Beverly Hills — area home sustained fire damage in February 2001. She subsequently sold that property.

Described as a “two-story mid-century ranch with a long private drive,” the compound she bought includes a four-bedroom main house with a two-story living room, a guesthouse, and a guardhouse that is staffed full-time. The estate, estimated to have about 9,000 square feet of living space, also has a gym, five fireplaces, and a billiard room with a bar. The grounds, behind gates, have a motor court, views from downtown L.A. to the ocean, a pool, and a yard with pathways and gardens.

Barrymore, 28, who starred opposite Ben Stiller in Duplex, also has a leading role in Look-Alike, to be written and directed by Spike Jonze and released in 2004.

She costarred with Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu in the movie versions of the 1970s TV series Charlie’s Angels, which she also produced. Barrymore also appeared at age seven in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, rereleased in 2002.

Brett Lawyer and Ed Fitz of Nourmand & Associates, Beverly Hills, represented Barrymore in buying, according to sources not involved with the deal.

She hadn’t thought about the fire in a while, but now she remembered news footage of the bantering couple climbing into their BMW in the middle of the night to good-humoredly flee the flames — there was something about them that was a little too manic and Becca knew their marriage was already in trouble. Just thinking about that homely idiot Tom Green pissed her off. He is so majorly fucked up! Drew gave him everything: her house, her heart, her invaluable connections… stood by him for his lame-o ball cancer (Annie wondered if it was a stunt but even Becca thought that was going too far because she knew the comedian had truly suffered), and never wavered ! Tom Green could have learned so much from Drew the producer, Drew the businesswoman, Drew the icon and showbiz vet. But in the end, all Tom Green wanted was to be in shitty, shitty movies, party with whorey-looking supermodel rejects, and host a fifth-rate Conan loserfest. In the end, all Tom Green wanted was to whine about how you should be careful never to marry someone who had a team of publicists. Oh! How galling! Tom Green should be so lucky! And like it’s Drew’s fault to be the legend she is! It’s Drew’s fault that Steven Spielberg is her godfather and that she was in E.T. when she was a baby and that for a hundred years her family was theatrical and cinematic royalty! But the worst of it was, they were married —they exchanged sacred vows —and now that it was over, Tom Green didn’t even have the decency or common sense to keep his chinless cancer mouth shut. People were like that. People were ungrateful, fickle, boring, greedy, vindictive, and morally bankrupt. All anyone ever did was cover their own ass and Tom Green was covering his, busily rewriting history. Not Drew —Drew let everything hang for the world to see. She had her weaknesses, but you could never say she wasn’t a stand-up person, that was Drew to the max, and when Green got that final (spread-to-the-brain) tumor Becca was certain Ms. Barrymore would be there for him 1000 percent. She wasn’t one to hold a grudge at death’s door.

Becca sipped at her latte and savored the description: “two-story mid-century ranch with a long private drive.” It was like the beginning of a novel! Four bedrooms seemed cozy — just right. A guesthouse was always nice for friends or relatives (that was the kind of arrangement she dreamed of for Dixie), but if she so desired, on nights when Drew had the compound to herself, it also gave her the luxury of crashing elsewhere on the property, like a gamboling gypsy, for the fun of it — the wherewithal to mix it up, if she felt moody or devil-may-care. “A guardhouse, staffed full-time…” probably a necessity, because of stalkers — still, Becca couldn’t imagine what that would be like. You could wake up at three in the morning freaked out from a bad dream and wouldn’t even have to call 911—all you’d have to do was shout for your private live-in police! Annie would die when she told her. Becca reread “gym, five fireplaces,” and suddenly the house didn’t sound so snug anymore, though she was pretty sure it would feel snug because Drew probably did it up in the Topanga — Beverly Glen — Laurel Canyon hippie style, all dark wood and stone, dog-friendly Shabby Chic couches and worn, deceptively expensive Native American rugs. “A yard with pathways and gardens…,” pathways leading God knew where. I would give anything, Becca thought, to pitch a tent at the end of one of those trails, if only as an in-residence Pilates teacher or masseuse.