Bruce Wagner - Still Holding

They embraced. After the applause died down, Jay did his jokey debonair thing. “Those screams — if our viewers at home are wondering — are partially for me. Something in the aftershave.”

Laughter. More swoons, hoots, and hollers.

“All right,” Jay chastised. “That’s enough now!”

He turned to his handsome guest. “So how the hell are ya?”

Hair-trigger whoops came before he could answer. Kit raised an eyebrow at the audience and chuckled. A few isolated screams.

“I’m great. I’m great, Jay.”

First words greeted by more electric commotion (everyone was having fun, and fun was what it was all about) which gradually though never completely faded away.

“I saw you at a benefit last week,” said Jay.

“For scleroderma,” said Kit, nodding.

“Yes. For a lovely lady who Mavis, my wife, has actually known for years — Char Riordan. They’re doing wonderful research.”

“Yes.”

“Making great strides. Do you go to a lot of those things? I would imagine you get asked to lend your name to causes.”

“This business is so frivolous, Jay, and so many of us have been absurdly blessed. I mean, let’s face it, I put on makeup for a living—”

“You could always work on Santa Monica Boulevard…”

“Don’t quit my day job, exactly! But I think we get compensated on such a ridiculous scale, that we’re… compelled… to do what we can. Otherwise, you’re just a kid in a sandbox. I try to do my share.”

Applause kicked in, soberly encouraged by Jay. “So you went last week—”

“I had a personal connection. Viv and Char — the woman being honored — are very, very close.”

“That’s of course Viv Wembley,” said Jay, pausing to acknowledge the audience as they whooped and applauded. “In case the folks out there didn’t know,” he added with a wink. “The very lovely, and by the way very funny star of Together. And I want to get to some other things — it’s well known you have an interest, a long-standing interest, in Buddhism, and you’ve agreed to talk with us a little about that tonight in connection with an upcoming event — which is something you rarely do and I’m thrilled you’re going to enlighten us, so to speak. But first, I’m dying to ask you a question.”

“Shoot.”

“Someone told me you and Viv have nicknames for each other.”

The audience hooted while Kit squirmed appealingly. “Who told you that?”

“ Vee haff ways. Now come on, Kit, tell us what she calls you.”

He hemmed and hawed. The crowd cajoled.

“She calls me Bumpkin.”

The audience let out a happy groan. Warm laughter. Wolf whistles.

“Now come on!” said Jay, admonishing the mob. “I think it’s very sweet. ” He turned back to Kit. “She calls you Bumpkin.”

“That’s right, Jay.”

“And… what’s your nickname for Viv?”

“I don’t think we should go there.”

The audience protested, then began to plead.

“This is a family show,” Kit added.

Laughter. More pleading. Isolated begging whoops.

“Now, you were supposed to do a cameo on Together —”

“Jay! I thought we were moving on!”

“We are, but this is important. I heard Viv was mad because that cameo hasn’t yet happened.”

Kit looked at the host with keen-eyed admiration. “Oh, you are good. You are really good. ”

Audience laughter.

“Bumpkin’s been a very bad boy,” said Jay.

“Yeah, she’s not too happy. But I’m busy! I’m in the middle of shooting a picture! I’m in a little bit of hot water here, Jay, help me out!”

“I’m trying to be sympathetic. But to most of us, being in hot water with Viv Wembley probably isn’t the worst thing in the world.”

“Think you’re man enough to handle it?”

The audience laughed. Jay cracked up, blushing.

“When we come back, I want to talk about the Dalai Lama — he’s a friend of yours, right? — and the important work you’ve been doing building clinics over there.”

“Helping to,” Kit added, with a modest smile.

“Where are they, India?”

“Yes,” Kit said matter-of-factly. “India.”

“For the refugees.”

“For whoever needs them.”

Jay looked straight into the camera and said, “Kit Lightfoot. Right here. Right now. Wearing makeup. So don’t touch that dial.”

How Verde Was My Valle

RUSTY INVITED BECCA to his apartment. They met instead at the Rose Café, a few blocks from where he lived. She wasn’t ready to be alone with him just yet. There was something so tender about him but something dangerous too, like the actor he portrayed.

When she asked his real name, he said Rusty, without a trace of irony. He said he was from Sarasota. His father was a wealthy entrepreneur who, among other ventures, had been involved in business dealings with Burt Reynolds, a pal from college. About himself, Rusty used the term jack-of-all-trades. He had worked as a racetrack stable hand, a private nurse to the wealthy (“like the guy who killed that billionaire in Monaco,” he said with a laugh), and a thief whose expertise was delivering the items on grocery lists of antiquarian books for reclusive bibliophiles. He was so disarmingly forthright that Becca didn’t know which fanciful story to believe.

She immediately regretted asking if he had an agent. She should have known that Elaine Jordache was his lifeline to the business, such as it was. When Becca mentioned her work with Metropolis, Rusty said he did theater too, when he could, preferring it to the game of auditioning for film or television, which disgusted him. He asked if she was single, and Becca felt foolish because she told him about Sadge and how everything was between them — just blurted it out. He put his hand on hers and she laughed nervously then got teary-eyed, the two of them like an image from the cover of an old Pocket Books romance. He asked again if she felt like coming to his home. Becca shook her head. He smiled, pleased by her reticence.

“Then let’s go to Magic Mountain.”

She left her car in the lot.

• • •

THEY WERE ON the freeway, heading north. She wanted to be cool around him and not make any missteps. She was glad when he turned up the radio because it calmed her not to have to make conversation. He knew all the words to “Baby, I’m Yours,” and even though half-goofing, his voice was sensuous and beautifully modulated. He kept looking over, winking devilishly. She felt like she was high.

Rusty took an off-ramp and after a few miles, they pulled onto the grounds of a sprawling hospital. When Becca realized that Magic Mountain had been a joke or a ruse, she got nervous. They parked and began to walk. To allay her fears, he began a little travelogue. He said that, fifty years ago, Valle Verde had been featured in a Brando movie about paraplegics in rehab. He had lots of Hollywood trivia like that in his head.

Rusty confidently threaded his way through a maze of polished linoleum corridors, with the occasional nod to a passing nurse. He was an old hand. No one stopped them or asked who they were visiting. Young, heavily tattooed men loitered in wheelchairs, alone or in quiet groups. Most of their heads were shaved. One bore the legend CLOSE COVER BEFORE STRIKING on his skull. Rusty said they were gang bangers whose luck had run out.

He led her into a patient’s room. A brawny, shirtless man stood by the bed with an attendant. He looked at Rusty with cold hostility before breaking into a grin, as if for a moment he hadn’t recognized him.

“Hey now,” said the man.

“Hey now,” said Rusty.