DINNER IN L.A. - Chapter 3

DINNER IN L.A.

a short story in three chapters

Chapter 3

The helicopters made a wide sweep over PCH and the ocean, then back over our hillside. Had they come to check out my rooftop body? Effie did say the police would be here “any minute.” Was a dangerous criminal on the loose… a new hillside strangler? Did the strangler murder the man in the Hawaiian shirt? We bandied these thoughts around until Jim noticed that, except for some police cars, PCH was void of traffic. We all looked down on the empty highway, then saw a stream of headlights in the distance. As the lights got closer, we realized that this was just another high (or low) speed chase. We decided to go into the house so we could continue our scintillating conversation without having to scream over the incessant chopper engine noise.

We gathered in the living room, as Susan brought out a sinfully rich chocolate cake from the latest trendy bakery. I don’t do desserts (the only food vice I don’t have) so I plopped down on the sofa facing the view that was unobstructed by a wall of windows and sipped my wine. The helicopters continued to circle and when they were over the ocean, total blackness behind them, they appeared to be eye level, giving me the sensation that I was hovering in a plane. I wondered what would happen if someone in one of the helicopters discovered my body and alerted the others. Would they try to land on the roof, ruining a possible crime scene, or would they tape it for the 11:00 news? Probably both--- this is L.A., after all.

We endured the muffled noise for another ten minutes before the helicopters left, presumably because the high (or low) speed chase was over. We didn’t bother to turn on the TV. After watching O. J. in his white Bronco all those years ago, the chases just seem redundant now, though local news never seems to tire of them as they try to recreate that O. J. drama. They don’t seem to get the fact that we watched that chase because it was O. J. Duh!

Back outside I grabbed another piece of now-cold pizza and was surprised that the rock music was no longer blasting from below. We were all laughing as Carol told us about her latest ad campaign for a “feminine hygiene” product that was using the slogan “A Rose By Any Other Name,” when we heard a gun shot. Automatically, we hit the deck (a practiced reflex in L.A.), but after lying on cold flagstone for a few minutes our southern California comfort trumped our fear, so we got up. Ben brazenly looked over the edge of the terrace and began to laugh. We rushed over to see what was so funny and saw that a movie screen had been added to one end of the faux Neutra house’s cement terrace. Bridge chairs were arranged in rows in front of it and the catered party guests were watching an old black and white gangster movie. Bogie appeared on screen, drew a gun and fired, the shot reverberating off the hillside. I half expected to see my rooftop body get up and return fire. But he continued to lay motionless and alone.

It had been a few hours since I first called 911 and I was getting angry. Why hadn’t the police come to investigate? Where was the CSI team or medical examiner? Didn’t anyone but me care about Mr. Hawaiian Shirt?

I again took out my cell and dialed 911, ready to give whomever a piece of my mind. Effie was still on duty. She was silent as I vented my frustration for a full minute. Finally, she cut me off.

“Look lady, yours is not the only dead body in L.A.”

That said it all. I hung up and grabbed another piece of pizza. This time I tried the arugula and pine nuts.



The End.

DINNER IN L.A. - Chapter 2

DINNER IN L.A.

a short story in three chapters

Chapter 2

Though daylight was dimming, Susan scrounged up a pair of binoculars for a better look as the others all stared at the motionless body. No one thought he was dead except me. Ben suggested I’d been writing crime stories far too long and that the man was probably a “B” movie director resting after a long day dealing with petulant actors and uncreative studio heads. Jim asked why a “B” movie director giving Ben an opening to expound on his theory that “B” movie directors wore colorful Hawaiian shirts as a cheerful uniform to brighten their glum days of incessant studio interference. He went on to explain that “A” movie directors who get “final cut” tend to favor calm, monochromatic polo shirts except Quentin Tarantino, of course, who dresses like an accountant from Bakersfield. Everyone actually thought seriously about this for a minute until Carol wondered if the man was in the midst of a new kabala meditation exercise. Jim thought the guy was probably stretching out his back muscles after too many hours at the gym.

Susan looked through the binoculars and focused.

“I think his eyes are open,” she said as she handed them to me. I looked through the lenses. His eyes were open. I watched carefully for 30 seconds. They didn’t blink.

“OK, smarty,” I said as I gave the binoculars to Ben. “You tell me what director, “A” or “B” lies on his back at dusk, not moving, staring at the sky not blinking. That guy’s deader than a Neiman-Marcus mannequin.”

Ben looked. Bob, Carol and Jim looked. They all looked at me. I got my cell and dialed 911. After a dozen rings (the operators were probably on latte breaks) an upbeat “Britney” finally answered, convincing me that women named “Vera” should answer emergency calls. It strikes me as odd and a bit scary that so many years after the advent of the women’s movement, an abundance of bubbly Lindsays, Chelseas and Tiffanys are being groomed as the nation’s future CEOs. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind those names as long as they don’t end in “i” with a little heart over it, but not that long ago there was a certain dignity to a woman’s name… solid, practical and somehow comforting. No-nonsense names like Nora, Agnes and Harriet. Even when new parents back then reached for the fanciful or poetic, they picked names like Rose, Ivy, Fern, Pearl, Ruby, Opal... names rooted or dug out of the earth. I wondered if this was an L.A. phenomenon. Were there more Idas than Ashleys in America’s heartland?

I snapped out of my musing and explained to Britney who I was, where I was and what we saw. Cheerfully, she thanked me for calling, promising to report my body (well, not my body, Hawaiian shirt’s body) to the nearest police precinct. She then told me to have a nice day.

My day had been a wash, but the evening was showing promise. I had done my civic duty and now our little party had something to talk about other than work or lack, thereof. We wondered who “he” was, if in fact he was a director or even in show business. Usually we automatically assume as much… L.A. is a company town, after all. But maybe he was a drifter picked up by a buxom blonde and lured to that rooftop to be murdered in a real-life film noir… well “noir” anyway.

Noir? Suddenly I had an uncontrollable urge for pinot noir, so I filled my glass and gorged on chips and guacamole (an L.A. staple) until the pizza finally arrived. Not New York’s wonderfully artery-clogging sausage and pepperoni pizza, but California nouvelle pizza--- barbeque chicken… arugula and pine nuts… goat cheese with sun-dried tomatoes. I actually like these pizzas, but I’d definitely move back to Manhattan if the pizza joints in L.A. started making tofu pizza. They can make Prozac pizza or kid’s pizza with Ritalin (heaven forbid we Angelenos be seen as hyper or edgy), but tofu… my transplanted New York mind just couldn’t get behind that.

Led Zeppelin was now blasting from the catered party below, drowning the mellow jazz of Miles Davis’ “Sketches In Spain” wafting out of Susan and Jim’s open French doors. Rather than compete, Jim turned Miles off as we ate our pizza and continued to wonder who the man was lying prone on a Malibu rooftop.

The sun was now down. I sat on a lounge chair next to Ben and bit into my slice of goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes. I had already eaten two barbeque chicken slices, so I wanted a new taste bud experience. Being outside, sipping wine and eating fancy pizza, little lights shining in the terrace’s sweet-smelling fruit trees and candles glowing in and outside the house, reminded me just how seductive L.A. can be.

Talk turned to politics, the second favorite topic of conversation in a town filled with Hollywood-types who want to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom, but by the time I was on my fifth piece of pizza (did I mention how much I love pizza?) the topic returned to the “industry”… whose TV series was ending… whose marriage was ending… yada, yada, yada.

I got up to check on the man with the Hawaiian shirt. The glow of the lights shining up from PCH offered just enough illumination to see that the body was still there… still in the same position… still not moving. It had been more than an hour since I called 9ll, so I called again. This time “Effie” answered the phone, a definite Vera-type making me believe I was now in competent hands. After repeating my story, Effie put me on hold, then returned and assured me that the police had been notified… they would be there any minute. Happily, she did not wish me a nice day.

Suddenly, news and police helicopters were circling above, light beams shining down the hill and onto the highway, the noise of their engines eliminating all ambient sounds, including the rock music from below.



To be continued…

DINNER IN L.A. - a short story in three chapters

Chapter 1

I wasn’t looking forward to dinner. I didn’t want to drive to Malibu. I didn’t want to be social. But, Ben wanted to go. He was writing a new TV show and Susan, his executive producer, was hosting with her husband, Jim, a successful production designer. Pizza! Normally, I love pizza and I like Susan and her husband well enough, but I was cranky. I had recently been hired to write for a freshman sitcom called “Women in Jail” (not a topic that instantly springs to mind as a situation comedy) but, before my contract was even entered into a computer, surprise, surprise… the show was cancelled. Job security--- not a show biz perk.

So, not more than two hours after receiving this career-crushing news, we were going to an impromptu dinner with people who were gainfully employed. Who needed that?! Ben wasn’t trying to be insensitive. He truly thought that being with some friends, eating my favorite food and drinking some good California merlot would take my mind off my disappointment. Ha! We’d been married nearly ten years and it still bewildered me that he knew so little about my emotional vicissitudes. How could he not know that I wanted to wallow in my misery for at least 24 hours?

When we arrived and walked out to the beautiful flagstone terrace, I was surprised to see another couple standing by the bar. Now, not only did I have to put on a happy face for two people I knew, I’d have to smile and talk to two people I didn’t know and didn’t want to know. At least not tonight. They’d ask us what we did. We would tell them we’re writers. Ben would regale them with stories from the latest show he was working on, but when they asked me what I was working on, what would be my gracious and witty reply? Nothing?

The new couple was dressed in black, the uniform of wealthy west side L.A. The guy had on black trousers and a black polo shirt… she a black mini-skirt, black tee and black Jimmy Choo sandals. Ben at least blended in, with his black linen shirt and faded jeans (always appropriate in L.A.). With my faded jeans I’d worn a white linen shirt. I was wearing strappy leopard sandals, however, which gave my “ensemble” a throw-away Melrose Avenue “cred.” But being unemployed, which breeds insecurity (an L.A. malady), I mourned my lack of black.

Jim offered me a glass of merlot and I took a big gulp as Susan introduced us to Bob and Carol, friends from Susan’s Boston PBS days. A documentary producer, Bob had happily “sold out” to work in reality television, producing such shows as “Fantasy Family” and “Kids Take Over.” Carol worked in advertising. After the initial greeting and shaking of hands came the inevitable--- Bob asked me what I did. I told him I was a television writer.

“Really,” he replied. “What are you working on?”

I took another big gulp of wine. “I’m in development,” I answered… a euphemism for nothing.

Bob laughed. “Me, too. I’m developing my golf game.”

I decided the evening might be salvaged and sipped my wine with ladylike flourish.

Susan and Jim’s house sat on a cliff with a spectacular view of the ocean. And, if you looked down their sloping hillside property, you could see the Pacific Coast Highway and the rooftops of houses lower on the hill.

Ben and Susan were in the midst of some anecdote I’d heard a dozen times, so I grabbed a handful of chips (my second favorite food group) and walked over to the edge of the terrace. The sun was setting and the sky was filled with shocking pink clouds along the ocean horizon. Cars were rushing up and down PCH and I wondered if any of the drivers noticed the vivid sunset, or whether they were too busy talking on their cell phones. Directly below, black-clad guests at a catered party mingled around a lap pool in the middle of a drab cement patio attached to a sprawling 60’s “modern” house. Tall, skinny Cyprus trees surrounded the industrial-style terrace. I hate those trees… too thin, like most of L.A.

As if to coordinate with the house, 60’s rock music drifted upward as a few of the partygoers danced around the uninviting pool (though how the women managed in ridiculously skinny four inch heels was a mystery). I tried to imagine the owners of such an ugly house… definitely entertainment lawyers (who else would buy an over-priced Motel 6), when my eyes drifted to the neighboring rooftop of the faux-Neutra designed monstrosity. There, lying on his back, spread eagle in the middle of the roof was a man in jeans and a Hawaiian shirt. He wasn’t moving. I watched for a few minutes, but still no movement, so I called for everyone to come quickly, there was a dead body below. Why I said “quickly,” I haven’t a clue.  If the man was dead, he certainly wasn’t going anywhere in the immediate future.

To be continued…