Michael's Secrets (8 page)

“Was,” Michael said, looking at the bottles on the bar. “The show was cancelled.”

“Wow, for how long?” Steve asked obviously impressed.

“Eighteen seasons, I was there from the beginning to the bitter end,” he answered as he sipped his soda.

“That’s so cool,” Steve said. “And now you write screenplays full-time?”

Michael looked at Steve. “For the moment. A movie I wrote will be released in January, and after I’m finished here, who knows.”

Steve patted Michael on the back and said, “I’m sure you’ll find something.”

Michael leaned back and looked at him, saying, “Yeah, I should be able to scrape up some kind of living when I return in a year.”

Steve smiled at him and said, “Is money tight now that the show was cancelled?”

Michael thought this was an awfully personal question and looked at him disapprovingly.

“Oh, was that inappropriate?” Steve asked.

“Kind of,” Michael said.

“Well, it’s just that you were trying to hail a cab, and I figured you can’t afford a car right now, and you moved here to write a screenplay …”

“You should never assume anything,” Michael interrupted, tilting his head down to look at Steve. “I own a house in Santa Monica and a car. I just figured I wouldn’t need one here, and in case you’re worried about my eating noodles every night, I could retire today if I wanted to.” Steve’s eyes opened wide, and Michael took another sip of his drink. “Well, Steve, it was great meeting you and thanks for getting me in, but I think I better go home. Who can call me a cab, here?” Michael asked.

“I can drive you home,” Steve offered.

“No, I don’t want to put you to any trouble,” he said as he got up from his seat.

“It would be no trouble,” Steve said as he also got up. “Besides, I can see how a big Hollywood writer lives.”

“You won’t be impressed. I’m subletting an apartment from a friend of a friend,” Michael said as he walked to the door. “So, can the bouncer get a cab?”

Steve grabbed Michael’s arm, and said, “I’ll take you home. Geez, what are you afraid of?”

Michael turned to look at him and said, “I’m not afraid of anything. I just don’t want you to get the wrong impression.”

“Hey, big guy, it’s just a ride, lighten up,” Steve said as he opened the door and led Michael out.

They walked to the parking lot around the side of the building, and Steve opened the driver’s side door of a black Toyota pick-up, clicking the lock release for the passenger side door for Michael, who thought a real gentleman would have opened his door first.

“Mr. D.C. Falcon drives a Japanese truck?” Michael asked.

Steve started the truck with a laugh and said, “Where are we going?”

Michael gave him the address, and Steve drove him home. When Steve pulled up to the apartment, he asked, “Mind if I come in?”

“Actually, yes,” Michael said. “I just moved here, and I’m a little tired. You have my number, give me a call. And, thanks for the ride. I appreciate it.” He then stepped out of the truck, and Steve pulled off. Michael hoped he wouldn’t call, figuring there was no reason to get involved with someone’s boyfriend even if they were on a break.

As he closed the door behind him, his cell phone rang, and Michael didn’t recognize the number.

“Hello,” Michael said, wondering who would call after midnight.

“Hey, this is the guy who just gave you a ride home,” Steve said.

“Oh, thanks again,” Michael said. “By the way, what is your last name, Steve?”

He was silent then answered, “Smith, but my friends call me Smithy.”

“Smitty?” Michael asked.

“No! Smithy,” he corrected Michael.

“Nice to have met you. I’ll call you Steve as Smithy sounds goofy,” Michael told him.

“Nice to have met you, Michael; we’ll talk later, bye,” and he hung up. Michael figured he was not much of a talker on the phone, and he was certain he made that up.
Smith? Who is named Smith anymore? And, Smithy?
For his own mental well-being, Michael hoped Steve would never call him again and programmed his name into his phone, so he would know if he did.

Michael took a shower and climbed into bed, and his cell phone rang again. “Is this guy persistent or what?” Michael said out loud, but he noticed the caller ID indicated it was Sam. He answered, happy to hear his voice.

“Michael, how is Washington?” Sam asked, sounding as excited to hear Michael’s voice as he was to hear Sam’s.

“It’s OK, although I’ve only been here a day. Why are you calling so late?”

“Oh damn,” Sam said, “I forgot about the time change.”

“It seems none of my friends can calculate time,” Michael said with a chuckle. He had to smile as he wished Sam was there, so they could see each other again, having not been face-to-face since they had dinner at Anna’s.

“Guess what?” Sam asked and answered quickly. “Sid got me an audition for a small part in a movie, and they liked me! It’s only about three lines, but that’s three more than I’ve had before!”

Michael was genuinely happy for him. It was a start, albeit a small one, but at least he would get to speak. “That’s great, Sam,” Michael said. “It could lead to more work. Who’s the director?”

“Peggy Martin,” Sam replied. “Can you believe it? I’m going to be directed for forty-five seconds by Peggy Martin! I can’t thank you enough for telling Sid about me!”

“Wow, Sam, a Peggy Martin film. This is big time. I know her very well. She was member of the ensemble on
Los Angeles Live
the first five seasons,” Michael told him, making a mental note to give her a call. “What’s the part?”

“I play a bumbling valet at a Hollywood party. How is that for typecasting?” Sam said, and Michael could actually hear him smiling.

“Well, I know you’ll nail that part! My car is still whining from you turn at the wheel,” Michael said half-jokingly. “Well, Sam, it’s after midnight here, so I’m going to bed. Keep in touch and tell me how it goes. When do you film your scene?”

“Monday!” he yelled. “Oy, I have such diarrhea I am so nervous.”

“Nervous is good,” Michael said. “It’s when you get too over confident that you screw up. You’ll be great, and Peggy’s a sweetheart. Break a leg! Good night.”

“Good night, sexy man,” Sam said. “I’ll call you later this week to tell you how it went.”

“All right, kid, take care.”

Michael was genuinely happy for him. Sam was a really nice guy, and Michael also hoped that if he became successful, it wouldn’t go to his head. Michael had seen so many people become such egomaniacs once they had a small taste of success. He wasn’t that sleepy, so he called Peggy Martin, knowing it was only after nine on a Saturday night, and she was known to stay home more than go out partying.

“Hello?” she answered with her well-known nasal, whiny voice.

“Peggy, it’s Michael Bern,” he said to his old friend, who was now one of the most respected directors in the business.

“Michael, how are you? Did I hear you moved to Washington? What the hell are you doing there?” she asked.

“I’m co-writing a screenplay with Sharon Gorman. Remember Sharon?” Michael replied.

“Oh yeah. I always liked her. Who’s directing it?” Peggy asked.

“I’m not sure as we haven’t even started writing yet. I just arrived yesterday, Peggy.”

“Let me know who as soon as you know,” Peggy said. “So, why are you calling me? I thought Stanley King directed all your pictures?” she asked sarcastically.

“If by all, you mean one, yes, for the moment,” Michael said.

“I was an idiot not to go for that one. Word around town is that it’s going to be a huge hit,” she said, making Michael nervous because whenever a film was declared a hit six months before its release, it was surely going to be a flop.

“Well, I’m making no predictions. But that’s not why I called,” Michael said. “You have an actor, who I think is playing a bumbling valet on your picture.”

“Oh yeah. Good-looking kid and loaded with personality. I was impressed by him seconds after he read for me,” Peggy said, putting his mind at ease. “He’s never had a speaking part. I wonder how that
alta cocker
Sid found him?”

“Peggy, are you sure you aren’t Jewish? What Italian says
alta cocker
?” Michael asked. “Anyway, I just wanted to put in a good word for Sam. He really is a nice kid and deserves a break.”

“What, are you worried I’ll make his life a living hell? Why are you so concerned? Wait a minute, did you fuck him?” she asked.

“No,” Michael insisted. “I discovered him.” There was silence. “Peggy?”

“I was banging my head to see if there was wax in my ears,” she said half-jokingly. “Since when do you discover people?”

“I don’t, but this kid parked my car at Sylvia’s party a few weeks ago, and something told me he had a chance, given the right circumstance,” Michael assured her.

“OK, Michael, for you, anything, but only if you promise to insist I direct your next picture,” Peggy said demandingly.

“You have a deal,” he said.

“Good night, Michael, and I’ll be kind to the kid,” Peggy said.

“Thanks, Peggy,” Michael said. “I won’t forget this, good night.”

Peggy, Sid and Michael were proof that there were actually nice people in Hollywood. They always looked out for up and coming talent. Unfortunately, in most cases, these brats would turn into divas the minute they earned six figures. Michael helped a young actress get a small part on
Los Angeles Live
a few years ago after she pleaded with him at a party in the Valley. She did pretty well, but she never thanked him. A year later, after she was cast in a few prime TV roles, Michael ran into her again at a party, and she acted as if she never met him. Michael wished he could say that was the only time that happened, but it wasn’t. Michael walked up to her toward the end of the party and said to her, “Be nice to everyone on the way up because you’ll meet them all again on the way down!” She gave him a look as if he were covered in shit and feathers and walked away. She is now in rehab after playing bit parts in
Lifetime
movies, and from what Michael has seen in recent pictures, she looks like hell.

Michael liked helping people, and although he was bitten in the ass on many occasions due to his generosity, he hadn’t hesitated to help Sam. If he also turned diva on him, then so be it. Michael was used to it, and what goes around comes around.

The next day, Michael read Sharon’s novel,
Romancing the Capitol.
He had to admit to Sharon that he had not read it yet. She gave Michael a hard time about it but forgave him after chiding him for an hour. He liked the book, which was about two senators from opposite sides of the aisle who fall in love – a Republican woman from the South and a Democratic man from the Northeast. Sharon’s narratives were well-written, but there was not a great deal of dialogue in the book, so Michael knew their work was cut out for them. By mid-afternoon, he had finished reading it and called Sharon to tell her he liked it and to send him the treatment and any scenes she had already drafted.

Michael then went out for a walk in search of a gym to join. Steve had told him on the ride home about Results the Gym on U Street, so he walked down 16
th
Street to U Street and spotted the large yellow banners in front of the gym. After getting a tour and learning they opened at 5:00 am, Michael decided to join without going to any other gym in town. The next morning, which was a Monday, he woke up at four-thirty and began a routine of working out at five and getting home by six-thirty. The gym was only a twenty-five-minute walk from Mount Pleasant, so it was convenient enough, and the mornings weren’t crowded with the after-work, spandex wearing, happy-hour club boys he so despised.

Michael was feeling more at home in D.C.

* * * * *

Michael spent two weeks every summer in Washington visiting his Nana Mary, his maternal grandmother. She was a tall woman like his mother, and she did everything left-handed but write. The story was that when she was in grammar school, they tied her left hand behind her chair to force her to use her right hand. They tried to do the same with Michael’s mother, who was also left-handed, but Nana Mary complained, and they let Hannah use her left hand.

Nana Mary always wore blonde wigs over her thinning but extremely long gray hair. She also wore thick glasses over her blue eyes and orange tint lipstick. (She was also the blonde, blue-eyed Jewess, who had to read the
Jewish Daily Forward
backward to the neighbors in Baltimore before she could marry his grandfather.) Nana Mary was also one of the best-dressed women Michael knew. “I never buy cheap drek,” she declared, always shopping in the finest stores. Yet, she was tight with a buck when it came to anything frivolous and lived comfortably all her life. She never smiled, and he rarely heard her laugh as she was the most serious and humorless person he ever knew.

There were pictures of Nana Mary and Grandpa Michael Summers all over the apartment, and in all of them, she was actually smiling. She mourned his death for the entire twenty-five years she was a widow. Arlene, who was a friend and neighbor of Nana Mary’s when she lived in Newport News (where Nana Mary’s family had settled in 1905, and where she returned in the 1950s after living in Washington most of her life,) once told Michael his grandparents were the most devoted couple she ever met, and that his grandfather’s death hit her very hard, which is why she moved back to Washington after his death.

Nana Mary had few friends, or at least that was the impression Michael had. When he visited her, no one ever dropped by. When he would visit Grandma Rose Bern, her friends were always dropping by for coffee or just to chat, but Nana Mary did not have a life like that.

However, she was an amazing woman in that she worked until she was eighty-two as the head secretary for Leggum and Gerber, a large real estate company located in Cleveland Park, even after her eyesight started to fail. In 1968, she had cataract operations on both eyes, when it was still considered a dangerous and major operation. Michael remembered her crying before the surgery because she thought they were going to take out her eyes. She also insisted they leave her wig on during the surgery, and she emerged from the operating room with it cock-eyed. They had compromised; she could wear it as long as she took out the pins. The recovery was six weeks, and she could not look down for the entire recovery period. Whenever she chose new frames for her glasses, she had to put them over her old frames, so she could get an idea what they looked like.