Beneath a Starlet Sky Page 5

  “Just make me a promise,” I plead with the fear of my crazy Hollyweird parents as I look into his green eyes, “Don’t hold it against me?”

  “I promise.” Lev laughs and reaches over to seal it with a kiss.

  My single hope for tonight is that my parents will actually notice that I’m really happy—and in a functional relationship for the first time in my life—which is anything but Hollywood now. Now let’s just hope they behave.

  “Make a right here,” I say, pointing to Chez Santisi, a sprawling Spanish-style house that was built for the silent movie star Colleen Moore in the 1920s. My mother is constantly redecorating and remodeling the place with items from her world travels: the enormous ornamentally wood-carved front door that originally belonged to a Hindu temple, the tumbled marble mosaic tile in the Olympic-sized swimming pool from Morocco, the Venetian blown-glass chandelier in the entryway. “Home Sweet Home,” I joke as we pull up the long gravel driveway lined with jacaranda trees.

  Stepping out of the car, I smooth the fabric of my dress.

  “You’re gorgeous, Lola Santisi, in Crocs or Labootininis,” Lev says. And I love him even more for still having no idea how to properly pronounce Louboutins. We step up to the huge front door and ring the doorbell. “What’s that music?” I say as we wait for the door to open. It sounds like—Fiddler on the Roof.

  “Shabbat Santisi shalom,” my mother says excitedly as she flings her arms open to embrace Lev. Her usually frizzy blond hair has been tamed into a smooth up-do. And she really overdid the makeup tonight. Her blue eyes are loaded down with smoky shadow and reams of mascara. “You must be Lev.”

  “Shabbat Santisi shalom?!” I say. “What’s going on, Mom?”

  “We’re all so busy these days, it’s easy to forget the importance of family,” Mom says. The family she leaves behind for Deeksha retreats in India, colon cleanses at We Care in Desert Hot Springs, and when she’s home—the Byron & Tracey Salon for daily hair and makeup? That family?

  “It’s lovely to meet you, Mrs. Santisi. If I’d known this was a Shabbat dinner I would have brought matzoh ball soup,” Lev says.

  “That’s so sweet of you, Lev. And please, call me Blanca. But I actually made the matzoh ball soup myself,” my mother says proudly.

  “You what?!” I exclaim. “Who are you and what’d you do with my mother?”

  “Oh, Lola, you’re such a silly!” she says, smiling off into the distance. Who is she looking for? “Do you like my outfit? It’s a Bedouin gown I picked up in Israel when I was on that pilgrimage to the Red Sea,” she says, the gazillion gold bangles up and down her arms clanging together as she runs her hands over the beaded caftan. Pilgrimage? What pilgrimage? The only pilgrimage my mother takes is to Rodeo Drive for the trunk shows. “Alex, Alex darling, where are you? You’re missing the moment,” my mother suddenly yells.

  “Alex? Who’s Alex, Mom?”

  But before my mother has time to answer, a scruffy-haired, thirty-something man in gray cords and a black hoodie wielding a video camera comes running into the room, accompanied by an equally scruffy guy carrying a boom and another carrying a light.

  “Oh, darling, didn’t I tell you? Alex is my wonderful, wonderful cameraman. Now, don’t you mind him one bit. Just pretend he isn’t even here.” Mom turns to Alex. “Are you rolling?” Alex buries his eye behind the lens and gives her a thumbs-up.

  Suddenly my mother throws herself around Lev. “We are so glad to finally meet you,” she says. “Welcome to our humble home! Shabbat Santisi shalom!”

  “Mom, can I have a word with you outside?” I ask.

  “Darling, there’s nothing that you can’t say to me here, in front of Alex’s camera. This is a reality show. The realer the better.”

  Stupid, stupid me. I actually believed that this evening was about Lev and me. Of course it’s not. It’s about her—and Wristwatch Wives.

  Mom is coproducer and costar. There’s also Christine Buchenwald—the forty-five-year-old—okay, maybe fifty-five, but after that last face-lift, you wouldn’t guess a day over forty—wife of Peter Buchenwald, the movie producer who’s famous for his womanizing and thirty-year habit as a functioning cocaine addict as well as his blockbuster movies. Christine went from being the Daughter Of a Famous Movie Tycoon, to a terrible marriage and Wife Of a Famous Movie Tycoon. Then there’s Lucinda Mayes, otherwise known as The Newby. She’s the twenty-eight-year-old Wife Of Stan Mayes, the founder of the hottest agency in town, and the agent behind the careers of some of the most powerful actors in Hollywood. And finally, Francesca Della Rosa, the ex-wife of the owner of Della Rosa restaurant. Despite their divorce and Gabriel’s prompt second marriage to a super-model, he and Francesca remain in constant communication. As in: “Clooney needs a table for six at eight.” Click. They share custody of their two teenaged daughters, who often grace the pages of Vogue and Bazaar, photographed in the Hollywood Hills Lautner House Gabriel left to Francesca in the divorce. Since the divorce, Francesca’s gotten involved in her own venture: a restaurant in Hollywood to be opened in conjunction with—surprise—the premiere of Wristwatch Wives.

  “Mom, outside. Now,” I demand, dragging her by her Bedouin gown until we’re outside the front door and away from Alex’s prying lens. “The cameras? Tonight? So this is why you finally wanted to meet Lev? To get footage for your damn show? And here I thought that for once you actually cared about whether I was happy. Lev is really important to me, Mom.”

  “And this show is really important to me, Lola,” my mother says. “Wristwatch Wives is my shot at something. Honey, you’re getting a shot at your dream as CEO of Julian Tennant. And I want that for you so much,” my mother says, grabbing both my hands in hers, looking me deeply in the eyes, then kissing me on the forehead. “I really do,” she adds softly, looking beyond me. She drags me away from the front door then breaks her motherly revelry. “It’s always been about your father. I want out of that shadow,” my mother says, dropping my hands. And if anyone can understand wanting that—it’s me. “Besides, what could I do? I just found out that Francesca got footage of the family’s intervention for the daughter’s Oxy addiction. She is such a show-off. And Lucinda’s filming the opening for her new line of vegan detox jewelry. And Christine’s got couples counseling and her colonoscopy, like that hasn’t been done before. All I’ve got is a lot of Papa swearing about that ridiculous Nic character and Christopher moping. I’ve worked too hard to end up on the cutting room floor,” she says. “The network says if we don’t grab viewers in the first two weeks, we’re dead for pickup for the next season.” Mom grabs up my hand again and drags me back to the front door, her face softening in a smile. “Just think: if you end up marrying Lev, we’ll have all this footage of the first time he met your family to show your children.”

  “Why do you keep looking above my head?” I ask. And as I follow her eye line I notice something new by the front door, and it’s not a mezuzah: it’s a camera. “Jesus, Mom!?”

  “Oh, just pretend they’re part of the woodwork. Now can we please just go inside and try and have a nice time? I’ve been working all day on this dinner,” my mother says. “Please, honey, for me?”

  “Okay, Mom, I guess,” I say, thinking about how my mother has indeed always been the silent force behind my father, who’s always grabbed 100 percent of the spotlight. It would be nice for my mother to have her shot at creating something. “But let me just check with Lev to see if he’s okay with it.”

  “Thanks, sweetheart,” Mom says, fishing around in her caftan pocket. “And would you mind having him sign this little release, please?”

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper to Lev as I walk back inside. He’s leafing through the New Yorker he found on the coffee table next to the new People. I quickly scan People’s headlines: “Rock Royalty’s Super Couple Om and Nano: Saving the Planet—One Tree at a Time” catches my eye above “Cut-Throat Couture’s Coz Dishes on the New Season.” Just seeing her name sends a chill down my
spine. I flip the mag over. One anxiety moment at a time. I try to shake off my work anxiety and focus on the anxiety at hand. “I didn’t think she’d be filming tonight,” I whisper to Lev. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. Stop worrying about me. I’m fine. Are you okay?”

  “As long as you don’t let go of my hand,” I say as we follow my mother into the dining room, where the gang’s already seated at the dining table. Christopher is slumped back in his chair, one hand placed on Kate’s thigh, the other brushing back his disheveled sandy hair. Kate’s sneaking a peek at the BlackBerry she has resting in her lap, her intense blue eyes accentuated by her slicked-back chestnut ponytail. The strumming of my father’s impatient fingers on the table is the only sound in the room. He hasn’t taken his white Panama hat off, and I see that he has bare feet beneath the orange sarong he’s wearing. He looks like when he woke up this morning he mistook Bel Air for Havana.

  “Hey guys,” I say as Kate and Christopher get up to give us a hug. I can’t help but notice the tension between them.

  “Dad, this is Lev,” I say nervously. It was so much easier when I brought Actor Boyfriends home. It was just expected that they’d sit there in rapt adoration of my father, and that he’d write them off as idiots—which they were. With Lev it feels different.

  My father puffs away on his cigar with one hand and extends the other, “Welcome to the zoo,” my father says, shaking Lev’s hand. That’s it: it feels like Lev is a zoologist visiting the animals.

  “I’m very glad to finally be meeting you, Mr. Santisi,” he says.

  “Paulie, call me Paulie,” my father says.

  “I’d like to do a Shabbat prayer. Please, everyone, hold hands,” my mother instructs as she lights the ridiculously expensive Diptych candles she uses for her weekly Goddess meetings instead of Shabbat ones. I look sideways at her with those eerie camera lenses peering on and I’m beginning to wonder who the director is at this table. It’s certainly not my father, who takes that moment to clamp down on that cigar between his teeth.

  “Why is this night unlike any other night?” my mother says, her head bowed solemnly into her chest.

  “Mom, I’m pretty sure that’s Passover,” I interrupt.

  “Oh geezus, Blanca,” my father bellows. “Is this all really necessary? You already took these fucking cameras to Al’s birthday party last night at DeNiro’s house. Enough is enough. Can’t we just eat?”

  “Mom, when did you decide to take up Judaism?” Christopher chimes in.

  “I’ve always been very identified with my Judaism,” my mother says, shooting Christopher a slightly warning glance.

  “Yeah, you love Goldie Hawn,” I say.

  “And the lox from Nate ’n Al’s,” Christopher adds.

  “I never take off my Star of David,” Mom says, stroking the Jen Meyer gold design around her neck—which I’ve never seen her wear before. Ever. “And I go to mass as often as possible,” she adds vehemently.

  “Mom, you mean ‘services,’” I say. “It’s not called mass. Mass is for Catholics. We’re Jewish. They’re called ‘services.’”

  “Now please, all of you, shut up and let me get back to praying,” my mother demands with a sideways glance to the cameras as she bows her chin back to her chest.

  “Get that fucking thing out of my face,” my father yells at Alex, who’s gotten a little too close. “Come on, Blanca,” he continues. “This is absolutely ridiculous. Can we please just eat and get this done with.”

  “All right, all right,” she says, waving her arms in the air and rushing into the kitchen, quickly reappearing with a tureen of matzoh ball soup. “Honey, could you give me a hand with the platters on the counter?” she asks.

  “Where’s Lorena?” I ask, looking around for Nanny No. 9—the last nanny in the string that raised Chris and me and stayed on after we left to be my parents’ housekeeper.

  “Never mind,” my mother says, quickly swatting away my inquiry because she obviously wants to appear to be a Hollywood-Housewife-Who-Has-No-Help. Is this a joke?

  “Let me help you, Mom,” I say, getting up from the table and returning with the two silver platters.

  “Mmmmm, lobster ravioli,” Kate says. “This looks fabulous, Blanca!”

  “And pork cheeks,” my mother adds as she leans over Lev to serve him.

  “Even the shiksa knows this isn’t what you’d call a kosher meal,” Kate whispers to Christopher.

  And then Lev leans into me and whispers, “Isn’t it a bit odd to be eating pork at Shabbat dinner?”

  “If that’s all you think is odd, we’re in good shape,” I whisper back, putting my hand on his knee beneath the table and mouthing “I’m sorry.” But before I can get a sense of whether he’s holding up okay, my father starts in.

  “So, Lev, I guess you’re some kind of doctor?”

  “Actually, Paulie, I’m in my final year of residency at Cedars-Sinai. I’m planning to be a trauma specialist,” Lev says. “I’m basically living in the ER these days.”

  “So, I guess you get a lot of the crackheads and drunk frat kids, right?” Papa chuckles. “You probably get paid shit, right? You know Frank Luks? He’s my cardiologist. Best fucking cardiologist in the country. He makes like, five hundred, six hundred grand a year. You ever thought of cardiology?”

  “Papa, Lev’s job is incredibly important,” I say. “Do you realize how many lives he’s saved? What does it matter how much he—”

  “Lola, it’s fine,” Lev says, clasping my hand, then turning back to Papa. “Paulie, cardiology’s a fine specialty, but my heart’s in emergency medicine. The field has made the most incredible advances in just the last five years. Last week we saved a guy with a dissected aorta who wouldn’t have had a chance at a less cutting-edge ER. You should’ve seen how the team worked—it was like … almost like we’d choreographed it. It’s literally the stuff of life and death.”

  “I bet it was incredible to watch,” Mom says, her eyes glittering. “Lev, what you do sounds very impressive.”

  “Thanks, Blanca,” Lev says. “I really feel like I make a differ—”

  “Yeah, fine, whatever,” Papa huffs. Class dismissed. He turns immediately to my brother.

  “So, Chris, when are you going to stop with these ridiculous commercials and get down to some real work,” he demands.

  “Oh no,” I mutter beneath my breath.

  “Those ‘ridiculous commercials’ pay the bills,” Christopher says, tearing into his pork cheek a little too vigorously with his knife.

  “Paulie, do you know how many of my clients would give their left arm to be directing some of the spots Chris is doing?” Kate is a lioness protecting the den.

  “It’s commercial tripe,” my father persists. “It’s beneath him.”

  “Please, Dad, not now,” Chris says, gesturing to the cameras circling about. Which seems to put a muzzle on my father—for the moment.

  “Who wants rugelach?” Mom trills, jetting to the kitchen and returning with a tray of them and a stack of photo albums tucked under her arm. “I baked it myself! Lev, may I serve you some?” They taste suspiciously familiar. They’re in fact the rugelach from Nate ’n Al’s I’ve been eating since I was a kid. Ironically, they’re the one testament to our Judaism that my mother could actually stand by, as they were always in the house. She plunks the array of photo albums onto the table.

  “Uh-oh.” I sigh as Christopher lets out a moan from across the table.

  “Really, Mom? Do we have to do this?” he asks.

  But Lev’s already grabbing one of them as Kate does the same. He immediately starts laughing as he opens to a shot of me at six years old dressed in one of my mother’s magenta flowered DVF wrap dresses that’s plunging down to my bellybutton and that’s so long it’s dragging on the floor, a gold five-inch Versace heel peeking out from beneath it. My eyes are bright and hopeful as I smile widely for the camera beneath a huge hat emblazoned with a silver G.

  “So
that’s how you walk in those heels of yours. Practice started early on,” Lev teases, rubbing my back.

  “What I want to know is where is that hat?” I say, leaning in to take a closer look at the signature charcoal gray seventies Givenchy that’s nearly covering my entire face.

  “That’s a total mini-version of Lo, isn’t it,” Kate says, running a red painted nail over the photo and turning to Chris, who nods in agreement.

  “She’s always had a light around her,” my mom says to Lev as I feel my face turn crimson. I’m suddenly the vulnerable six-year-old girl in the picture. “A sense of humor, and, of course, impeccable taste. Raiding my closet to play dress-up was a regular occurrence in the Santisi house,” she adds maternally. “I felt it nurtured Lola’s creative spirit.”

  “Look at this one.” Kate flips to a shot of Christopher and laughs. “The aspiring director.” It’s a nine-year-old Chris sitting in our father’s director’s chair with a camera in his hand in a miniature version of the outfit that he’d wear today: little Levi’s, a plaid button-down, and red Converse.

  “That was on the set of The Assassination,” my father chimes in. “It was summer, and the days we shot in L.A. Chris came with me to the set every day. He could see the monitor from where he sat. So he got to see everything we shot,” my father says, a hint of pride in his voice.

  “I helped the script supervisor. Well, I’d sit next to her and she let me pretend that I was helping,” Chris says, looking at me with an unusual shyness about him. I have the sudden urge to leap over the table and wrap my arms around my brother. Underneath Chris’s coolness, he’s still that insecure nine-year-old boy trying to win over his father—or at least get him to look sideways in his direction.

  “There isn’t one photograph of you in here where you’re not holding a camera,” Lev says to Chris.

  “I gave him his first Leica,” my father says, leaning back in his chair and lighting his cigar.

  “He said, ‘Take pictures of what you see’—I was six years old,” Chris says, rubbing his refined hands over the knees of his worn-in Levi’s.