Therapy

took him about ten minutes to notice me. He looked just as I remembered him, perhaps a few pounds heavier, with a big potato-shaped face and a fringe of baby-fine hair hanging down over the collar of his jacket. Nice smile. But I couldn’t imagine why I’d ever wanted to get in the sack with him. He got into the car and I said “Welcome back to L.A.” and stuck out my hand just as he made a lunge at my cheek, so there was a little confusion but we laughed it off. He said, almost accusingly, “You’ve changed your car,” and I laughed and said, “I should think so. I must have had at least five cars since you were here... ” No, it’s a Mercedes. I traded in the BMW for a white Mercedes with red leather interior. It looks great. Just a minute, I got another call...
    Fuckit fuckit fuckit... Sorry, just thinking aloud. That was Lou Renwick at Global Artists. Our star won’t sign unless his buddy directs, and the buddy’s last picture was a crock of shit. These people are such assholes. Never mind, I’m gonna hang in there. I have points in this one... Yeah, I optioned the book... Where was I? Oh, yeah, well, we drive out to Venice, and walk up and down by the beach, weaving between the joggers and surfers and roller-skaters and frisbee-throwers and dog-walkers, looking for this restaurant, and eventually he thinks he’s found it, but it has the wrong name and it isn’t even a regular fish restaurant but a Thai place. However when we ask inside they say they’ve only been in business for about a year, so we figure it probably is the right one. In fact the look of it stirs a faint memory in me too.
    Tubby wanted to eat outside, though it was kinda cool and I was underdressed for al fresco dining... Oh, a sleeveless top, and that black cotton skirt I bought in your shop last year. With the gold buttons? That’s the one. Tubby said there’d been a wonderful sunset when we ate in Venice before, but yesterday was overcast you remember, so there was no particular reason to sit outside, but he more or less insisted. The waiter asked if we’d like anything to drink and Tubby looked at me and said, “Whiskey sour, yes?” and I laughed and said I didn’t drink cocktails any more, I’d just have a mineral water, and he looked strangely put out. “You will drink some wine?” he said anxiously, and I said maybe a glass. He ordered a bottle of Napa Valley Chardonnay, which struck me as a tad economical for a guy who was shacked up at the Beverly Wilshire, but I didn’t say anything.
    All the wayout to Venice I’d been jabbering away about Switchback because my head was full of it and I guess I was like showing off a bit, letting him know I’m a pukka movie producer now, not just a TV executive. So when we’d ordered our food I figured it was time to let him have his turn. “So what’s been happening to you, lately?” I said. Well, it was like the moment in a disaster movie when somebody casually opens a door in a ship and a million tons of seawater knocks them off their feet. He gave a sigh that was like almost a groan, and proceeded to pour out a tale of unrelieved woe. He said his wife wanted to divorce him and his TV company wanted to take his show away from him and he had a chronic knee injury that wouldn’t heal. Seems his wife walked out without warning, and then walked right back in again two weeks later to share the house under some special arrangement called “separate lives”. Like they not only have separate bedrooms but they have to take turns to use the kitchen and the washing machine. Apparently the British divorce courts are very strict on laundry. Yeah. If she knowingly washed his socks it could screw up her petition, he says. Not that there’s any risk of that. They don’t even speak to each other when they meet on the stairs. They send each other notes, like North and South Korea. No. He suspects there’s somebody, but she says not, she just doesn’t want to be married to him any more. Their kids are grown up... She’s some kind of college professor. He said it just blew him away when she told him... Nearly thirty years — can you believe it? I didn’t know there was anybody left in the entire world, outside of a Sunset Home, who’d been married to the same person for thirty years. What seemed to bug him more than anything was that all that time he’d never cheated on her once. “Not that I haven’t been tempted,” he said. “Well, you know that, Louise.” And then he