Fic: Made Men, Entourage, Vince/Eric, NC-17, 5/6
Continued from Part 4.
He calls the next day, the minute he wakes up. He calls Eric, gets voice mail, calls again, hangs up, and then calls Stephanie. “Thank God,” she says. “I’ll schedule a lunch, he’s a fucking wreck.”
It’s not exactly what Vince wanted, but hearing that Eric’s a wreck - which is exactly what Vince feels like, like a car wreck or a train wreck or something where bent, twisting metal might have pushed its way into his chest - makes him feel a little better. “One o’clock at the Palm?”
“He will be there. Absolutely.”
He cleans up and puts on something he knows Eric likes, then changes into something else, then changes back to the first outfit. Then he throws a jacket over that, because - he is trying, but he doesn’t want to look like it. He calls Turtle for a ride, and he brings Dom along.
“What’s with the jacket? You got some business meeting?” Turtle asks.
Vince shrugs. “E and I have some things to work out,” he says.
“He forget to take the trash out?” Dom asks.
“Something like that.”
The guys drop him off and have the good taste, surprisingly, not to go in with him. “We’ll get a bite down the road, you call when you need a lift back, or if you do,” Turtle says.
Inside there’s a secluded corner booth waiting, thanks to Stephanie, and Vince takes a seat and orders a bottle of red wine. It’s 1:05, and Vince figures Eric will be there any moment, so he lets the waiter open it and pour two glasses.
By 1:20, Vince has finished his first and poured himself a second. Around him the restaurant is full, like usual, and though he’s back in the corner of the booth, he feels like everyone there can see him. Everyone there can see he’s being stood up. He keeps his phone on the tabletop, where it glares the passing minutes at him. No missed messages. No new calls.
The waiter comes by to see if he needs anything. “No, thanks,” Vince says. “I just - has anyone -”
“I haven’t seen Mr. Murphy yet,” the waiter says. Vince can’t tell if his look is knowing or sympathetic. “It is Mr. Murphy, right?” Vince nods. Of course he knows Eric. Eric eats here all the time - business dinners, lunches, hell, he probably knows the busboys by name. “Yes. Well. As soon as I see him -”
“Thanks,” Vince says.
“Would you like some bread, while you wait?”
What I want, Vince thinks, is not to have to wait at all. “You know, actually, I think I might go ahead and order.”
He gets a steak, then orders two more, to go, for Dom and Turtle, and a smaller piece for the dog. He doesn’t order anything for Eric. He’s going to sit here and eat his expensive steak, alone, and when he’s done he’s gonna get up and leave. If Eric shows, great. If not - he’s through waiting around.
When Eric arrives at 1:40, Vince is getting close to having finished the full bottle of wine, and his steak has just arrived. Eric starts with, “I’m so sorry I’m late.”
Vince doesn’t look up from his meal. “That’s fine,” he says. “I’m used to it.”
The waiter comes by to see what Eric wants, and he orders a salad, something quick. Vince asks the waiter to bring his other food, too, and though he looks briefly surprised, he complies. Eric grabs a piece of bread and starts tearing it into pieces. Vince savors his steak. It really is good. Peppery.
“Look,” Eric says. “We need to talk, right? After last night.”
Vince shrugs. “You know, I’ve been thinking about that,” he says. He slices another slim bite of the steak. It’s a beautiful, rosy pink in the middle, cuts like butter. “I’m not sure there’s that much to talk about.”
“Vince -”
He chews, and chews, and chews. After he swallows, he looks up just briefly at Eric, whose eyes are wide and look a little bruised beneath the lids. Vince sets down his fork and meets his gaze. “I’m through waiting on you,” he says. “I’m through playing second fiddle to your job.”
“Vince, that’s not -“
“Bullshit it’s not true. That job is your life. You’re working all the time, you fight with everyone, you’re turning into a tiny little Harvey and you don’t even realize it.” Vince looks back at his food, picks up his wine glass. “You don’t even have a life anymore. And even if you did, I don’t think you have any intention of sharing it with me.”
“You’re breaking up with me,” Eric says. He sounds absolutely astonished.
“What did you think was going to happen?” His wine glass is empty. He wants to grab Eric’s, but the intimacy that would allow that - that’s gone. He gets it, now. Everything that came together for them in Australia has already fallen apart. All that’s left now is to say the words. “You were forty-five minutes late to the one meal that could have saved us,” Vince says. “And I’m not even surprised by it. I’m not even - it’s exactly what I expected of you. Where were you? Did Harvey need something?” Eric swallows so hard Vince can see it. “Yeah, it’s probably better if you don’t tell me.”
“Wait,” Eric says. He reaches out, grabs Vince’s sleeve. “Why are you - what - this is because I can’t go to Colombia with you?”
“No,” Vince says, pulling his sleeve away. “It’s because I’ve eaten too many dinners alone this year.”
“You can’t - OK,” Eric says. “OK. Look. I’ll, I can fix this. I can be better, I’ll take more time -”
“E, you’ve said that before. I can’t believe you anymore.”
“Vince -”
“It’s over,” he says, so quietly he has to look up to make sure that Eric has heard him, and then he’s sorry he looked, because the expression on Eric’s face almost makes him take it back. He looks like he’s been kicked, or struck. He looks exactly how Vince feels. “I can’t trust you anymore,” he says, mostly to remind himself.
Eric rubs his face, and for a moment Vince thinks he’s gonna cry. Instead, when he pulls his hands back, something resembling a normal expression appears, just in time for the waiter to slide over Eric’s salad and Vince’s to-go boxes. Vince offers his credit card, and the waiter promises to return it immediately.
“You’re just gonna leave me, huh?”
“I think I have to,” Vince says.
“I love you,” Eric says.
“Yeah, I love you, too,” Vince murmurs. “But maybe that’s not enough right now.”
The waiter drops off his bill, and Vince signs it and gathers his things and leaves. He doesn’t look back. He just messes with his phone, texting Turtle to come get him, and waits quietly at the front, hoping Eric doesn’t come by.
When Turtle arrives, Vince climbs into the front seat. “How was lunch?”
“I got you some steaks,” he says, and as he hands them back to Dom, he adds, “And Eric and I broke up.”
There’s a heavy, silent moment in the car.
“You want I should wait for him in the parking lot?” Dom asks.
Turtle says, “At least his car. I mean, you gotta get him to give his car back.”
“He’s driving the new S-class roadster,” Vince says. “He gave the car back a while ago.”
And somehow it’s that, thinking of Eric’s Maserati sitting in Vince’s garage, that gift returned, an early sign, that makes Vince suddenly feel a little choked up. He turns toward the window so the guys can’t see it, and he wonders if they’re going to be able to salvage anything, if they’ll ever even be friends again.
He tells himself that there could still be a happy ending to this, that maybe Eric will chase him to Colombia, that maybe Eric will show up on his doorstep that night, having quit his job and sold his house. He tells himself that, and it’s what gets him through the next few days and eventually what gets him on a plane to Colombia, even though he knows, he really does, that it’s not true.
The truth is, as soon as he’s done filming, Vince falls apart.
First, he goes to Colombia for three months to film with Haggis. He takes Turtle and Johnny; Dom can’t come because of his parole. It’s insane, even after Haggis drops his vision of Vince gaining so much weight. They’re compressing 130 days worth of filming into 90, so every day is long and hard, and it’s the Colombian jungle so even when he’s not working he’s hot and tired all the time. Haggis is a great director but he, like every director, has his own issues, perfectionism among them, and Kelvin isn’t quite equipped to handle things. Things go wrong left and right, and Vince finally has to call in a favor, through Ari, to get more money for the project. When the film goes out, he’ll be listed as a producer. He never thinks about calling HWP or Paramount, even though Ari says Harvey’s been interested in Medellin since Day One. He doesn’t hear from Eric the whole time he’s gone, and he doesn’t make any calls, either.
They get back to L.A. and Vince fires Kelvin - with a nice severance package and a good reference - and signs up with Barbara Miller at Ari’s suggestion. They start working on getting Vince a new film, and Vince finds he doesn’t really care. When Ari tosses him the newest action-superhero flick out of Warners, some spinoff of the Ironman/Marvel Avengers franchise that needs a villain, Vince shrugs and says fine, whatever, and they throw ten million at him to film over most of the winter. Instead of canceling his reservations in Australia, he moves them into Johnny’s name and gives it as an early wedding gift.
The only nice thing about never officially being out is that no one can officially ask him about the break-up, so after the film is over, when Vince finally has time to process things and he really starts to kind of fall apart, no one but the guys says anything. Ari offers some cheesy advice like, “Chin up, pal, you were dating below your potential, anyway,” and Shauna cancels the few little appearances he was supposed to do, but mostly Vince is alone in his big house with his big misery. Eric moved his things out while they were in Colombia, and Vince came home to find his keys on the counter. No note.
They drink almost every night. Vince doesn’t get stupid drunk, he doesn’t get dangerous, but the guys come over - well, Turtle and Dom come over, because Johnny’s busy with wedding stuff - and they have some beers and play games on the Wii or set up elaborate golf challenges by the pool or in the living room. Vince finds it hard to go to bed alone, even after the four months in Colombia where he slept in a tiny trailer bed. Turtle gets him some pills for it - Dom’s first suggestion is a hooker - and he takes one every night until he doesn’t find it such a struggle to lay in the king-sized bed and not think about Eric.
Still, he thinks about moving.
He knows Eric’s doing OK. He’s even seen his name in Variety a couple of times, recently, as a producer on some big picture coming up for the fall. “Yeah,” Ari confirms, when Vince manages to ask, “he’s probably gonna get an Oscar, this time.”
“Good for him,” Vince says, and he doesn’t ask again.
What hurts the most is how far they’ve fallen apart in such a short amount of time. Vince thinks about Eric a lot - not every minute, not anymore, but still every day - but that’s all he can do. Think. Eric’s not around. Vince isn’t even sure how to best get a hold of him, if he wanted to. He doesn’t try Eric’s phone because he’s afraid the number will have changed. He doesn’t even know if Eric’s still living in his same Malibu house, and he’s not sure he could find his way there, if he had to. He doesn’t know what the proper way to break up with someone is, whether he’s even allowed to make contact, whether he’s expected to. Whether there’s some amount of time after which he could call and ask if they could be friends. He’s never felt this way before, and it sucks.
The guys keep telling him he needs to get back out there, so he goes to clubs and he fucks a few girls and even a guy, and none of it helps. The casual thing that used to be so fun now feels kind of sad and desperate to him. He wakes up alone and he hates it, and he hates Eric a little for not being there and himself a little for being upset at all.
But he keeps it pretty quiet. He lays around the house and lets Ari and Barbara and Shauna handle everything in his career and Turtle and Johnny and Dom handle everything else, and all he works on is learning to breathe, all he works on is trying not to think about how much everything fucking sucks. He is, off and on, successful.
Until one morning, four months back from Colombia, when Shauna calls and says, “Honey, don’t freak out but something big’s happened and I’m headed your way right now.”
“Mm-hm,” Vince says, still snuggled up to a pillow in his bed. Yeah, Eric’s old pillow, with Eric’s cologne (Vince bought a bottle) sprayed on it. Fine, whatever, he’s pathetic. He never had a relationship that lasted more than a month before this thing with Eric. “You know the code.”
She’s there ten minutes later, and Vince joins her in the kitchen, making coffee as she talks. “Eric did an interview. Who would want to interview him, right?” Vince shrugs. The other weird thing about this break-up is that, even though he’s never really talked about the reasons with anyone, everyone is on his side. “But, anyway, he’s on this 40-under-40 list, and so they interviewed him.”
Vince sits at the dining table and looks up at her, nonplussed. “You’re here to talk to me about Eric? Because - Shauna, I think you know, I don’t really have any say in what he does or doesn’t -”
“Look at this,” she says, and she shoves a photocopy of a magazine page at him. It’s a picture of Eric, looking very sharp in a dark shirt with slightly flared sleeves, his head slightly ducked, one hand rubbing his neck like he does when he’s nervous, but his eyes staring up and straight ahead at the camera. His hair is spiked - probably done by some flashy stylist - and looks good, and there’s even a glint visible off his dark shoes. He’s wearing an expensive silver watch and a half-smile that’s both seduction and pride. In short, he looks very, very hot and just a little gay.
“Whoa,” Vince says, holding it in both hands.
“Read it, Vincent, don’t drool on it.”
There’s only a short piece, underneath his name:
ERIC MURPHY, 34, VP for PRODUCTION, DREAMWORKS SKG
Though he’s only been in Hollywood for six years, Eric Murphy has worn more hats than most -
“What am I looking for?” Vince asks. He’s distracted, still, by the picture, and the way that it’s making him vaguely nauseated, or maybe a little turned on.
“Second paragraph,” Shauna says.
Though Murphy agrees that Dreamworks has had a good year with his help, more money doesn’t always equal more happiness. “I just ended the longest relationship I’ve ever had,” he says. “I’m heartbroken, to be honest. I made twenty million this year and to do that I lost the love of my life, and now I smoke like a chimney and make depressing movies all the time. Welcome to Hollywood, right?”
Vince feels - well, he feels a mix of things. Light-headed, a little, and for whatever reason, angry, and also, over everything, sad. He wants to put his head down on the table, on top of this scorching picture of Eric, and just bawl. Instead, he clears his throat. “You came all the way here just to make sure my heart’s broken, too?” he asks.
She frowns. “Sweetheart, no,” she says, almost too gently. “This - this isn’t the end of the story.”
Vince pushes the picture away. “Now you’re gonna tell me he’s not even talking about me.”
“It’s definitely you,” Shauna says. “That’s the problem. Variety’s already figured it out, they’ve already got a quote from about a year back, you saying that your friendship with him was the longest relationship you’ve ever had, something like that. I got a call from Nina there this morning. People wasn’t far behind. And all of the rumors from when he was in the hospital - that’s all about to hit us in the face.”
Vince can’t figure out whether he should laugh or cry. “I’m gonna be outed, you’re saying. Now that there’s nothing to even out.”
“People are going to ask,” she says. “You’re supposed to do promos for Cuarón next month, and honey -”
“Cancel them,” Vince says. “Fucking - I don’t even want to - Jesus Christ,” he says, and now he does put his head down.
“Vincent, please,” Shauna says. “Look, I know, I know, honey, I know it hurts and -”
“Go away,” he says. He doesn’t let go of the picture of Eric, even after she’s gone. He’s not that surprised when Turtle shows up, within twenty minutes of Shauna leaving, and admits that she called and sent him over.
“Jesus,” Turtle says, looking at the picture. “It’s kind of hard to believe that’s our same guy, huh?”
Vince nods. The raw hurt has started to scab over again, back into the terrible quiet pain that's only there when he thinks about Eric. “Do you still talk to him?” Vince asks.
Turtle shrugs. “Not really,” he says, and when Vince keeps looking at him, he says, “He was at the fitting Thursday.”
Vince nods. He missed Johnny’s groomsmen’s fitting without even knowing it - Barbara and Johnny’s wedding planner have been figuring out those details around him. He wants to be supportive, but he’s not up for all the romance right now. “How’d he look?”
“Uh, I don’t know. Not like that. More, uh, pretty tired, I guess. His girl was there with him.”
Vince’s head snaps up. “His girl?”
“Steph, you remember.” Vince pulls his sweater closer around himself, feeling a deep and instant sense of relief. If Eric was already dating again - even after seven months, Vince isn’t sure he could take it. “She was on the phone pretty much the whole time, but E didn’t really, like, take any calls, just sort of stood there and chewed his fingernails a lot. I remember that, he got blood on something so he had to buy it.” Turtle shakes his head. “He bought Drama’s tux, and all of ours, too.”
“Flashing his money around,” Vince says, but Turtle shakes his head again.
“I don’t even know if Drama knows, E just did it at the end, real quiet.” Turtle clears his throat. “He asked about you.”
That hurts. “Yeah, what’d you say?”
“I said you’re fine,” Turtle says. “Or fine enough. I don’t know.”
“I am not fine,” Vince says slowly. He puts his head down again, though he doesn’t cry. He just rests there, his head pounding, his shoulders so tense he’s afraid to move.
“Lemme call him,” Turtle says.
“No.”
“C’mon. You guys gotta work this out. You, like, Vince, I’m worried, man, I’m worried this is doing something to you.”
“It is,” he says, “but I think this is how it’s supposed to feel. I don’t know. I never broke up with anyone before.”
“Vin, he was - I know I’m not supposed to, like, say this, but the guy was your best friend, and he was your, y’know, like, life partner. You two were fucking made -”
“If you don’t stop talking,” Vince says without raising his head, “I’m gonna cry.”
There’s silence, then, and though Vince feels embarrassed by it, he also finds it soothing. He takes some deep breaths. When Turtle says, tentatively, “Vin?” he pulls his head up.
“Let’s get wasted,” he says, and Turtle nods so fast it’s like having a bobble-head across from him.
The next day, he’s roused from his hangover by a phone call from Ari. “Shauna says you aren’t doing press.”
“Yeah,” Vince grumbles, not bothering to sit up. Not sure if he can. “Why. What.”
“If you don’t do press, the movie sinks. If the movie sinks, Vince, we can’t tie up Thor.”
“That’s fine,” Vince says. “I’m not feeling very super anyway.”
“Vince - you signed a contract,” Ari says. “You have to do press. If you don’t, everyone in town’s gonna ask why.”
“They’re just gonna ask about Eric,” Vince says.
“No. No. No one’s going to do that, because I’ll kill them if they do. And we’re not worried about the press, Vince, we’re worried about the people who go to movies and the people who make movies, and most of them don’t give a rat’s ass about your love life. You don’t do press and they’re gonna assume it’s the movie that’s got you down, not your worthless elfin ex.”
“Fuck you, Ari,” Vince says, and hangs up. He turns his phone off, and then, for good measure, throws it across the room, and goes back to sleep on Eric’s pillow.
But Ari is persistent, as always; the doorbell rings around 4, when Vince is finally alive enough to be drinking coffee in the kitchen.
“You have to do this,” he says. “You’re already booked on Leno, you’re already booked on The View and Letterman. I might be able to cancel Larry King - he’s so old he won’t even know if you don’t show - but these others, Vince -”
“Do I look like I’m in any condition to do fucking press?”
“You look beautiful. You look like ten million bucks. So shoot a Red Bull or hit a bong or whatever, baby, I don’t care, you look great and the movie needs you.”
Vince sighs. “I’m not. I can’t. Did you see the thing for Vanity Fair?”
“I did. I did. And if I could have stopped it, I would have, but Vinnie, this isn’t play time, anymore. Eric’s in the news, so-fucking-what. You know what they say, living well is the best revenge, and if you do these few little interviews, we’ll get Thor sewn up and you can be living ten million dollars worth of well real fucking soon.”
“Please get out of my house.”
“You’re an actor. You can fake being fine. Just think of it like five fifteen-minute plays you have to do,” Ari says. He’s pleading. It’s sort of disgusting.
“Out,” Vince says. “Now.”
An hour later, the house phone rings and Barbara Miller leaves a message on the machine that’s alternately maternal and mean. Vince erases it and goes back to sitting in front of the television, getting high with Turtle. They finish three rounds of drinks, and then Vince gets up to get a fourth while Turtle works out on a boxer on screen. The doorbell rings while he’s in the kitchen, and he groans. “Fucking Ari,” he says, and tells Turtle he’ll get it.
It’s Harvey.
“Open the fucking door, kid, because you’re gonna fucking listen to me.”
Vince doesn’t actually catch most of what Harvey says, because even though he’s spent most of his life speaking and hearing a particularly profanity-rich dialect of English, Harvey’s cursing is beyond the pale. But he does catch the gist of it, which is summed up in one sentence:
“You’re gonna promote this fucking movie with everything you have, or I’m gonna fucking destroy you.”
Vince sighs. He’s alone in the living room with Harvey, because Turtle, the pussy, took one look and scampered. For once, Vince really wishes Dom were around. He shifts, standing behind the armchair to keep a little distance between himself and Harvey and the spitting. “Why?” he asks, feeling tired, all the alcohol and pot now just weighing him down. He’s not even afraid of Harvey anymore, he just wishes he weren’t so fucking loud. “You don’t even have an interest in this movie.”
“Bull fucking shit, I don’t have an interest. Who’s got Cuarón’s next film, huh? Did you pay any attention to that, or were you too busy fucking the extras during filming? Brushing up on your cock-sucking, whatever.”
“You know I wasn’t fucking anybody during that film except Eric.”
Harvey laughs. “Right. Right. Boy wonder, who’s had his head so far up his ass since you went south that I would’ve ripped his lungs out by now, if he were on my side of things.”
“You never would have fired Eric,” Vince says. “He was worth too much. You think I don’t know what he did for your company?”
“Yeah, honestly, kid, I do think you don’t know,” Harvey says. “I had five projects headed down the tubes when that bastard came on, and a year later I had five finished movies. Five. That little prick gets stuff done, and maybe it ain’t the way I’d do it, but he finishes it, he gets up, he does it again. Reminds me of me, except for the fag part.”
“He’s married to his career,” Vince says. “So maybe he’s just like you after all.”
Harvey rolls his eyes. Vince thinks they’re headed back to the yelling, but instead, Harvey sits on the couch. “Everybody who’s worked with that kid wants to do it again,” he says. “You know that?” Vince shrugs. “Yeah, you know that. You’re a pretty kid, and you’re not dumb like you look, and you had that boy wrapped around your little dick for most of his life. The two of you, now, there’s a fucking Hollywood story waiting to be made. People love him. People love you.”
Vince scoffs. “What about you, Harvey? You don’t love either one of us. So, what, you’re just telling me this out of the kindness of your heart?”
“I’m telling you because I’m 50 years old, I just fucking sold my company for a hundred million dollars profit, I eat what I want, I drink what I want, I fuck who I want, I make movies that win Oscars, I haven’t ever had to touch a Viagra, and I’m not half as happy as that kid when he was going home to you at night.” Vince recrosses his arms, keeping his face carefully, perfectly blank. “I been in Hollywood half my life, and you had a good thing, you two, and I don’t know what you did to fuck it up, but -”
“What I did? What I - I didn’t do anything!” Vince says. He’s surprised to find himself shouting, but Harvey brings it out in him. “I - he was never here! He was so busy being your fucking golden boy that I never saw him, I was miserable, he was miserable -”
“Yeah,” Harvey says, shaking his head. “Ain’t love grand. News flash, kid, love ain’t like the movies. It’s not some easy, float-through thing. You want something, you gotta work for it. Now, maybe E wanted success more than he wanted you. I doubt it, but fine. What was it you wanted more than him? Did you fight for him, or did you just stand there like a pretty little pussy?”
“I’m not talking about this with you,” Vince says. “Why the fuck are you here?”
“Because you’re gonna do these press rounds.” Harvey folds his hands together. “Say you’re going to.”
“No,” Vince says, almost laughing.
“You are,” Harvey says. “Because you really aren’t dumb. And because a man is only as good as his word, Vince, and you gave your word to that director, to everyone who worked on that movie, that you’d support it. And that director gave his word to me that this was going to be a success. So now, now we have a problem, because if you turn out to be a liar, then that makes him a liar, and do you know what I do with liars, Vince?”
Vince rolls his eyes. “Eat them for breakfast. Piss in their skulls. I get it, Harvey, OK? Very bad things.”
“That’s right, Vince,” Harvey says, and he pushes to his feet. “Very bad things.” Vince shakes his head and doesn’t look up as Harvey walks out. “And call your fucking boyfriend before he gets himself fired from Paramount.”
He smells cigar smoke when he passes the front door.
Vince doesn’t sleep well that night.
In part, that’s because Turtle’s out of the little magic pills. Dom suggests they just get wasted, but Vince’s head still hurts from the night before. So he goes to bed and he can’t help it, he thinks about everything Harvey’s said, and the next morning at breakfast he stops the conversation dead when he says, “Do you guys think I gave up on Eric too easily?”
He sees Johnny and Turtle give each other a look. “Uh, what do you mean, bro?” Johnny asks.
Vince shrugs. “Something Harvey said. I dunno. Like - like maybe I expected him to do all the work?”
“Fuck that,” Dom says.
Vince looks past him to Turtle. Turtle shrugs. “What are you looking at me for? I got no experience in this kind of thing.”
“Yeah,” Vince says. “I know. Sorry.”
Johnny puts his arm around him and says, “Look, things are gonna work out.”
“Yeah, man,” Turtle says, tapping his shoulder awkwardly. “If Drama can find true love, you know it’s gonna happen for all of us.”
“It’s inevitable that we ask ourselves these questions after a major life event. To say, ‘Did I do everything I could?’, that’s human fucking nature, Vin,” Dom says, and Vince looks up at him, completely surprised. Dom shrugs. “What, we only got the networks in the joint. That Oprah, she makes sense some times.”
Vince shakes his head. “OK. I’m fine. Just - sorry, this thing with Ari and Shauna and the magazine’s been driving me nuts, and -” And I have no one to talk to but you guys, he thinks, but he doesn’t say it. Instead, he puts on his best smile and says, “But today’s not about me, right?”
“That’s right,” Turtle says, his voice too bright. “T minus one week, Drama, you ready?”
“I’ve never been more ready in my entire life.”
That afternoon they’re leaving for Vegas for the bachelor party, which is the kick-off for Wedding Week. The week itself will end with the actual ceremony on the beach in Jamaica, but first there are the parties and final details to handle in L.A. Vince, as best man, was supposed to plan the party, but he turned the reins over to Turtle a while back. They’re staying at the Hardwood Suite at the Palms, a two-story super room with a half basketball court/party room that’s going to cost Vince about 25K. When Turtle tells him that, he shrugs and says, “Another good thing about E not coming along is I don’t have to hear any griping about the price tag.”
Eric is one of the groomsmen and was invited by default, though Turtle told Vince a few weeks back that he’d said he’d skip it.
He is, however, about the only person who isn’t at the party, which is really an awesome deal. Turtle’s invited just about everyone Johnny knows and “a few others on top of that,” so the 200-plus party takes up most of the seven-room suite. There are Hardwood Suite jerseys for everyone and even some Hardwood Suite cheerleaders to keep the party going. Vince watches Turtle trying his best with one of them while he fends off offer after offer from girls by the bar.
“Go ahead and look around,” Vince says as the fourth girl in fifteen minutes asks if he’ll give her a tour of the suite. She frowns, but Vince gives her his best sunny, oblivious look and turns back to the bar. He signals for another beer and glances around; if Johnny’s nearby, he’ll turn on the smile again. Luckily, he’s involved in some kind of death-match three-on-three game with Ralph Macchio and a guy who looks familiar from reality TV. He turns back to his drink and glances over to see who’s taken the girl’s place at the bar.
“What the -”
It’s Eric. He’s looking up at Vince, his hand wrapped around a beer. “Hey,” he says. It’s the first time Vince has seen him in person in seven months, and his first thought is that Eric looks bad. But that’s not really true - he looks as fit as ever, wearing some kind of probably expensive dark polo and jeans, his hair spiky like in the magazine. Still, he looks kind of shitty, red-eyed, slouching, and it takes Vince a second to realize why - Eric’s drunk.
“E?”
He nods. “Hey, Vince. Hey.”
Vince grabs his shoulder. Eric’s pale and a little sweaty. He swallows, then burps quietly and laughs at himself. “How long have you been here?” Vince asks.
“Downstairs,” Eric says. “Down. At the bar. I was - “ he lifts his beer, and Vince grabs it before it reaches his mouth. Eric frowns and looks puzzled. “I was drinking.”
“Yeah, I can tell.” Vince has had a few himself, but he’s nowhere near as drunk as Eric is. He stands up, keeps his hand on Eric’s arm. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Eric says. “Everyone asks - I’m fine. Fine.” He looks up. His eyes are watering. “I might throw up.”
“Shit.” He gets Eric turned around and starts pushing him through the crowd. “Coming through, hey, move,” he says, and Eric starts repeating him and laughing a little as they go. Vince steers him away from the locker rooms and toward the bedrooms at the back, each of which has an attached bath. He swipes his card to enter and pushes Eric through the door ahead of him.
“Dark.”
Vince hits the lights, and finds Eric standing three feet away, staring straight up.
“Whoa.”
“Are you gonna be sick?”
Eric shrugs. He shuffles forward, then drops face-down onto the bed, groans faintly, and doesn’t move.
“E?” Nothing. Vince walks over tentatively, afraid Eric’s going to startle and throw up. He sits cautiously on the end of the bed. “Um. Eric?” He shakes his shoulder and gets a little grunt. OK. Alive, at least. Vince pulls his hand back and rubs his own face. Shit. He has no idea what to do. Sure, he’s had visions of Eric crawling back to him over the past few months, but he never saw it happening like this. The guy might not even know where he is or who he’s with. He might, Vince thinks with a little thrill of alarm, have some kind of serious alcohol poisoning. Eric was usually pretty good about holding his liquor; to be this wasted, well, Vince doesn’t want to think about how many drinks that would take.
He gets out his phone and calls Turtle, who answers with a shout. He grumbles but agrees to leave the party, and a minute later, he’s there, next to Vince, the two of them staring down at Eric’s prone form.
“We oughtta get him on his side,” Turtle says. “Is he awake at all?”
“He was,” Vince says.
Turtle looks over. “Drugs?”
“I don’t think so,” Vince says, but he’s not totally sure. It would be out of character, but - it’s been a while. “He just said he’d been drinking downstairs.”
Turtle sighs and grabs Eric’s arm. “Smells like whiskey,” he says. “That’ll do it.”
They get Eric arranged on to his side. When Vince asks if they should take off his pants or anything, Turtle says, “Uh, there’s no fun in that tonight.”
“I meant to make him more comfortable.”
“Way he is, we could drop him off the balcony right now and he’d sleep like a baby,” Turtle says. He taps Eric’s face with his hand, and Eric snorts a little. “Yeah, he’s OK.”
“He doesn’t look OK.”
Turtle rolls his eyes. “Just wait till morning,” he says.
The party’s still in full swing. Vince can’t ask Turtle to quit just to babysit Eric, and he’s not going to ask Dom. Johnny is clearly out. “I’ll stay with him,” Vince says, and Turtle nods.
”Good idea.” He winks, and Vince groans and shoves him back into the hall. “OK. I’m going.”
After he’s gone, Vince doesn’t know what to do. He could stretch out next to Eric - the bed’s certainly big enough - but that seems, well, both presumptuous and weird. He doesn’t want Eric getting any ideas, and if Eric came here with ideas, he certainly doesn’t want him to think that it will be this easy. Instead, he finds his way to the couch, lays down, and tries not to think too hard, yet, about what this all might mean.
Part 6
He calls the next day, the minute he wakes up. He calls Eric, gets voice mail, calls again, hangs up, and then calls Stephanie. “Thank God,” she says. “I’ll schedule a lunch, he’s a fucking wreck.”
It’s not exactly what Vince wanted, but hearing that Eric’s a wreck - which is exactly what Vince feels like, like a car wreck or a train wreck or something where bent, twisting metal might have pushed its way into his chest - makes him feel a little better. “One o’clock at the Palm?”
“He will be there. Absolutely.”
He cleans up and puts on something he knows Eric likes, then changes into something else, then changes back to the first outfit. Then he throws a jacket over that, because - he is trying, but he doesn’t want to look like it. He calls Turtle for a ride, and he brings Dom along.
“What’s with the jacket? You got some business meeting?” Turtle asks.
Vince shrugs. “E and I have some things to work out,” he says.
“He forget to take the trash out?” Dom asks.
“Something like that.”
The guys drop him off and have the good taste, surprisingly, not to go in with him. “We’ll get a bite down the road, you call when you need a lift back, or if you do,” Turtle says.
Inside there’s a secluded corner booth waiting, thanks to Stephanie, and Vince takes a seat and orders a bottle of red wine. It’s 1:05, and Vince figures Eric will be there any moment, so he lets the waiter open it and pour two glasses.
By 1:20, Vince has finished his first and poured himself a second. Around him the restaurant is full, like usual, and though he’s back in the corner of the booth, he feels like everyone there can see him. Everyone there can see he’s being stood up. He keeps his phone on the tabletop, where it glares the passing minutes at him. No missed messages. No new calls.
The waiter comes by to see if he needs anything. “No, thanks,” Vince says. “I just - has anyone -”
“I haven’t seen Mr. Murphy yet,” the waiter says. Vince can’t tell if his look is knowing or sympathetic. “It is Mr. Murphy, right?” Vince nods. Of course he knows Eric. Eric eats here all the time - business dinners, lunches, hell, he probably knows the busboys by name. “Yes. Well. As soon as I see him -”
“Thanks,” Vince says.
“Would you like some bread, while you wait?”
What I want, Vince thinks, is not to have to wait at all. “You know, actually, I think I might go ahead and order.”
He gets a steak, then orders two more, to go, for Dom and Turtle, and a smaller piece for the dog. He doesn’t order anything for Eric. He’s going to sit here and eat his expensive steak, alone, and when he’s done he’s gonna get up and leave. If Eric shows, great. If not - he’s through waiting around.
When Eric arrives at 1:40, Vince is getting close to having finished the full bottle of wine, and his steak has just arrived. Eric starts with, “I’m so sorry I’m late.”
Vince doesn’t look up from his meal. “That’s fine,” he says. “I’m used to it.”
The waiter comes by to see what Eric wants, and he orders a salad, something quick. Vince asks the waiter to bring his other food, too, and though he looks briefly surprised, he complies. Eric grabs a piece of bread and starts tearing it into pieces. Vince savors his steak. It really is good. Peppery.
“Look,” Eric says. “We need to talk, right? After last night.”
Vince shrugs. “You know, I’ve been thinking about that,” he says. He slices another slim bite of the steak. It’s a beautiful, rosy pink in the middle, cuts like butter. “I’m not sure there’s that much to talk about.”
“Vince -”
He chews, and chews, and chews. After he swallows, he looks up just briefly at Eric, whose eyes are wide and look a little bruised beneath the lids. Vince sets down his fork and meets his gaze. “I’m through waiting on you,” he says. “I’m through playing second fiddle to your job.”
“Vince, that’s not -“
“Bullshit it’s not true. That job is your life. You’re working all the time, you fight with everyone, you’re turning into a tiny little Harvey and you don’t even realize it.” Vince looks back at his food, picks up his wine glass. “You don’t even have a life anymore. And even if you did, I don’t think you have any intention of sharing it with me.”
“You’re breaking up with me,” Eric says. He sounds absolutely astonished.
“What did you think was going to happen?” His wine glass is empty. He wants to grab Eric’s, but the intimacy that would allow that - that’s gone. He gets it, now. Everything that came together for them in Australia has already fallen apart. All that’s left now is to say the words. “You were forty-five minutes late to the one meal that could have saved us,” Vince says. “And I’m not even surprised by it. I’m not even - it’s exactly what I expected of you. Where were you? Did Harvey need something?” Eric swallows so hard Vince can see it. “Yeah, it’s probably better if you don’t tell me.”
“Wait,” Eric says. He reaches out, grabs Vince’s sleeve. “Why are you - what - this is because I can’t go to Colombia with you?”
“No,” Vince says, pulling his sleeve away. “It’s because I’ve eaten too many dinners alone this year.”
“You can’t - OK,” Eric says. “OK. Look. I’ll, I can fix this. I can be better, I’ll take more time -”
“E, you’ve said that before. I can’t believe you anymore.”
“Vince -”
“It’s over,” he says, so quietly he has to look up to make sure that Eric has heard him, and then he’s sorry he looked, because the expression on Eric’s face almost makes him take it back. He looks like he’s been kicked, or struck. He looks exactly how Vince feels. “I can’t trust you anymore,” he says, mostly to remind himself.
Eric rubs his face, and for a moment Vince thinks he’s gonna cry. Instead, when he pulls his hands back, something resembling a normal expression appears, just in time for the waiter to slide over Eric’s salad and Vince’s to-go boxes. Vince offers his credit card, and the waiter promises to return it immediately.
“You’re just gonna leave me, huh?”
“I think I have to,” Vince says.
“I love you,” Eric says.
“Yeah, I love you, too,” Vince murmurs. “But maybe that’s not enough right now.”
The waiter drops off his bill, and Vince signs it and gathers his things and leaves. He doesn’t look back. He just messes with his phone, texting Turtle to come get him, and waits quietly at the front, hoping Eric doesn’t come by.
When Turtle arrives, Vince climbs into the front seat. “How was lunch?”
“I got you some steaks,” he says, and as he hands them back to Dom, he adds, “And Eric and I broke up.”
There’s a heavy, silent moment in the car.
“You want I should wait for him in the parking lot?” Dom asks.
Turtle says, “At least his car. I mean, you gotta get him to give his car back.”
“He’s driving the new S-class roadster,” Vince says. “He gave the car back a while ago.”
And somehow it’s that, thinking of Eric’s Maserati sitting in Vince’s garage, that gift returned, an early sign, that makes Vince suddenly feel a little choked up. He turns toward the window so the guys can’t see it, and he wonders if they’re going to be able to salvage anything, if they’ll ever even be friends again.
He tells himself that there could still be a happy ending to this, that maybe Eric will chase him to Colombia, that maybe Eric will show up on his doorstep that night, having quit his job and sold his house. He tells himself that, and it’s what gets him through the next few days and eventually what gets him on a plane to Colombia, even though he knows, he really does, that it’s not true.
The truth is, as soon as he’s done filming, Vince falls apart.
First, he goes to Colombia for three months to film with Haggis. He takes Turtle and Johnny; Dom can’t come because of his parole. It’s insane, even after Haggis drops his vision of Vince gaining so much weight. They’re compressing 130 days worth of filming into 90, so every day is long and hard, and it’s the Colombian jungle so even when he’s not working he’s hot and tired all the time. Haggis is a great director but he, like every director, has his own issues, perfectionism among them, and Kelvin isn’t quite equipped to handle things. Things go wrong left and right, and Vince finally has to call in a favor, through Ari, to get more money for the project. When the film goes out, he’ll be listed as a producer. He never thinks about calling HWP or Paramount, even though Ari says Harvey’s been interested in Medellin since Day One. He doesn’t hear from Eric the whole time he’s gone, and he doesn’t make any calls, either.
They get back to L.A. and Vince fires Kelvin - with a nice severance package and a good reference - and signs up with Barbara Miller at Ari’s suggestion. They start working on getting Vince a new film, and Vince finds he doesn’t really care. When Ari tosses him the newest action-superhero flick out of Warners, some spinoff of the Ironman/Marvel Avengers franchise that needs a villain, Vince shrugs and says fine, whatever, and they throw ten million at him to film over most of the winter. Instead of canceling his reservations in Australia, he moves them into Johnny’s name and gives it as an early wedding gift.
The only nice thing about never officially being out is that no one can officially ask him about the break-up, so after the film is over, when Vince finally has time to process things and he really starts to kind of fall apart, no one but the guys says anything. Ari offers some cheesy advice like, “Chin up, pal, you were dating below your potential, anyway,” and Shauna cancels the few little appearances he was supposed to do, but mostly Vince is alone in his big house with his big misery. Eric moved his things out while they were in Colombia, and Vince came home to find his keys on the counter. No note.
They drink almost every night. Vince doesn’t get stupid drunk, he doesn’t get dangerous, but the guys come over - well, Turtle and Dom come over, because Johnny’s busy with wedding stuff - and they have some beers and play games on the Wii or set up elaborate golf challenges by the pool or in the living room. Vince finds it hard to go to bed alone, even after the four months in Colombia where he slept in a tiny trailer bed. Turtle gets him some pills for it - Dom’s first suggestion is a hooker - and he takes one every night until he doesn’t find it such a struggle to lay in the king-sized bed and not think about Eric.
Still, he thinks about moving.
He knows Eric’s doing OK. He’s even seen his name in Variety a couple of times, recently, as a producer on some big picture coming up for the fall. “Yeah,” Ari confirms, when Vince manages to ask, “he’s probably gonna get an Oscar, this time.”
“Good for him,” Vince says, and he doesn’t ask again.
What hurts the most is how far they’ve fallen apart in such a short amount of time. Vince thinks about Eric a lot - not every minute, not anymore, but still every day - but that’s all he can do. Think. Eric’s not around. Vince isn’t even sure how to best get a hold of him, if he wanted to. He doesn’t try Eric’s phone because he’s afraid the number will have changed. He doesn’t even know if Eric’s still living in his same Malibu house, and he’s not sure he could find his way there, if he had to. He doesn’t know what the proper way to break up with someone is, whether he’s even allowed to make contact, whether he’s expected to. Whether there’s some amount of time after which he could call and ask if they could be friends. He’s never felt this way before, and it sucks.
The guys keep telling him he needs to get back out there, so he goes to clubs and he fucks a few girls and even a guy, and none of it helps. The casual thing that used to be so fun now feels kind of sad and desperate to him. He wakes up alone and he hates it, and he hates Eric a little for not being there and himself a little for being upset at all.
But he keeps it pretty quiet. He lays around the house and lets Ari and Barbara and Shauna handle everything in his career and Turtle and Johnny and Dom handle everything else, and all he works on is learning to breathe, all he works on is trying not to think about how much everything fucking sucks. He is, off and on, successful.
Until one morning, four months back from Colombia, when Shauna calls and says, “Honey, don’t freak out but something big’s happened and I’m headed your way right now.”
“Mm-hm,” Vince says, still snuggled up to a pillow in his bed. Yeah, Eric’s old pillow, with Eric’s cologne (Vince bought a bottle) sprayed on it. Fine, whatever, he’s pathetic. He never had a relationship that lasted more than a month before this thing with Eric. “You know the code.”
She’s there ten minutes later, and Vince joins her in the kitchen, making coffee as she talks. “Eric did an interview. Who would want to interview him, right?” Vince shrugs. The other weird thing about this break-up is that, even though he’s never really talked about the reasons with anyone, everyone is on his side. “But, anyway, he’s on this 40-under-40 list, and so they interviewed him.”
Vince sits at the dining table and looks up at her, nonplussed. “You’re here to talk to me about Eric? Because - Shauna, I think you know, I don’t really have any say in what he does or doesn’t -”
“Look at this,” she says, and she shoves a photocopy of a magazine page at him. It’s a picture of Eric, looking very sharp in a dark shirt with slightly flared sleeves, his head slightly ducked, one hand rubbing his neck like he does when he’s nervous, but his eyes staring up and straight ahead at the camera. His hair is spiked - probably done by some flashy stylist - and looks good, and there’s even a glint visible off his dark shoes. He’s wearing an expensive silver watch and a half-smile that’s both seduction and pride. In short, he looks very, very hot and just a little gay.
“Whoa,” Vince says, holding it in both hands.
“Read it, Vincent, don’t drool on it.”
There’s only a short piece, underneath his name:
ERIC MURPHY, 34, VP for PRODUCTION, DREAMWORKS SKG
Though he’s only been in Hollywood for six years, Eric Murphy has worn more hats than most -
“What am I looking for?” Vince asks. He’s distracted, still, by the picture, and the way that it’s making him vaguely nauseated, or maybe a little turned on.
“Second paragraph,” Shauna says.
Though Murphy agrees that Dreamworks has had a good year with his help, more money doesn’t always equal more happiness. “I just ended the longest relationship I’ve ever had,” he says. “I’m heartbroken, to be honest. I made twenty million this year and to do that I lost the love of my life, and now I smoke like a chimney and make depressing movies all the time. Welcome to Hollywood, right?”
Vince feels - well, he feels a mix of things. Light-headed, a little, and for whatever reason, angry, and also, over everything, sad. He wants to put his head down on the table, on top of this scorching picture of Eric, and just bawl. Instead, he clears his throat. “You came all the way here just to make sure my heart’s broken, too?” he asks.
She frowns. “Sweetheart, no,” she says, almost too gently. “This - this isn’t the end of the story.”
Vince pushes the picture away. “Now you’re gonna tell me he’s not even talking about me.”
“It’s definitely you,” Shauna says. “That’s the problem. Variety’s already figured it out, they’ve already got a quote from about a year back, you saying that your friendship with him was the longest relationship you’ve ever had, something like that. I got a call from Nina there this morning. People wasn’t far behind. And all of the rumors from when he was in the hospital - that’s all about to hit us in the face.”
Vince can’t figure out whether he should laugh or cry. “I’m gonna be outed, you’re saying. Now that there’s nothing to even out.”
“People are going to ask,” she says. “You’re supposed to do promos for Cuarón next month, and honey -”
“Cancel them,” Vince says. “Fucking - I don’t even want to - Jesus Christ,” he says, and now he does put his head down.
“Vincent, please,” Shauna says. “Look, I know, I know, honey, I know it hurts and -”
“Go away,” he says. He doesn’t let go of the picture of Eric, even after she’s gone. He’s not that surprised when Turtle shows up, within twenty minutes of Shauna leaving, and admits that she called and sent him over.
“Jesus,” Turtle says, looking at the picture. “It’s kind of hard to believe that’s our same guy, huh?”
Vince nods. The raw hurt has started to scab over again, back into the terrible quiet pain that's only there when he thinks about Eric. “Do you still talk to him?” Vince asks.
Turtle shrugs. “Not really,” he says, and when Vince keeps looking at him, he says, “He was at the fitting Thursday.”
Vince nods. He missed Johnny’s groomsmen’s fitting without even knowing it - Barbara and Johnny’s wedding planner have been figuring out those details around him. He wants to be supportive, but he’s not up for all the romance right now. “How’d he look?”
“Uh, I don’t know. Not like that. More, uh, pretty tired, I guess. His girl was there with him.”
Vince’s head snaps up. “His girl?”
“Steph, you remember.” Vince pulls his sweater closer around himself, feeling a deep and instant sense of relief. If Eric was already dating again - even after seven months, Vince isn’t sure he could take it. “She was on the phone pretty much the whole time, but E didn’t really, like, take any calls, just sort of stood there and chewed his fingernails a lot. I remember that, he got blood on something so he had to buy it.” Turtle shakes his head. “He bought Drama’s tux, and all of ours, too.”
“Flashing his money around,” Vince says, but Turtle shakes his head again.
“I don’t even know if Drama knows, E just did it at the end, real quiet.” Turtle clears his throat. “He asked about you.”
That hurts. “Yeah, what’d you say?”
“I said you’re fine,” Turtle says. “Or fine enough. I don’t know.”
“I am not fine,” Vince says slowly. He puts his head down again, though he doesn’t cry. He just rests there, his head pounding, his shoulders so tense he’s afraid to move.
“Lemme call him,” Turtle says.
“No.”
“C’mon. You guys gotta work this out. You, like, Vince, I’m worried, man, I’m worried this is doing something to you.”
“It is,” he says, “but I think this is how it’s supposed to feel. I don’t know. I never broke up with anyone before.”
“Vin, he was - I know I’m not supposed to, like, say this, but the guy was your best friend, and he was your, y’know, like, life partner. You two were fucking made -”
“If you don’t stop talking,” Vince says without raising his head, “I’m gonna cry.”
There’s silence, then, and though Vince feels embarrassed by it, he also finds it soothing. He takes some deep breaths. When Turtle says, tentatively, “Vin?” he pulls his head up.
“Let’s get wasted,” he says, and Turtle nods so fast it’s like having a bobble-head across from him.
The next day, he’s roused from his hangover by a phone call from Ari. “Shauna says you aren’t doing press.”
“Yeah,” Vince grumbles, not bothering to sit up. Not sure if he can. “Why. What.”
“If you don’t do press, the movie sinks. If the movie sinks, Vince, we can’t tie up Thor.”
“That’s fine,” Vince says. “I’m not feeling very super anyway.”
“Vince - you signed a contract,” Ari says. “You have to do press. If you don’t, everyone in town’s gonna ask why.”
“They’re just gonna ask about Eric,” Vince says.
“No. No. No one’s going to do that, because I’ll kill them if they do. And we’re not worried about the press, Vince, we’re worried about the people who go to movies and the people who make movies, and most of them don’t give a rat’s ass about your love life. You don’t do press and they’re gonna assume it’s the movie that’s got you down, not your worthless elfin ex.”
“Fuck you, Ari,” Vince says, and hangs up. He turns his phone off, and then, for good measure, throws it across the room, and goes back to sleep on Eric’s pillow.
But Ari is persistent, as always; the doorbell rings around 4, when Vince is finally alive enough to be drinking coffee in the kitchen.
“You have to do this,” he says. “You’re already booked on Leno, you’re already booked on The View and Letterman. I might be able to cancel Larry King - he’s so old he won’t even know if you don’t show - but these others, Vince -”
“Do I look like I’m in any condition to do fucking press?”
“You look beautiful. You look like ten million bucks. So shoot a Red Bull or hit a bong or whatever, baby, I don’t care, you look great and the movie needs you.”
Vince sighs. “I’m not. I can’t. Did you see the thing for Vanity Fair?”
“I did. I did. And if I could have stopped it, I would have, but Vinnie, this isn’t play time, anymore. Eric’s in the news, so-fucking-what. You know what they say, living well is the best revenge, and if you do these few little interviews, we’ll get Thor sewn up and you can be living ten million dollars worth of well real fucking soon.”
“Please get out of my house.”
“You’re an actor. You can fake being fine. Just think of it like five fifteen-minute plays you have to do,” Ari says. He’s pleading. It’s sort of disgusting.
“Out,” Vince says. “Now.”
An hour later, the house phone rings and Barbara Miller leaves a message on the machine that’s alternately maternal and mean. Vince erases it and goes back to sitting in front of the television, getting high with Turtle. They finish three rounds of drinks, and then Vince gets up to get a fourth while Turtle works out on a boxer on screen. The doorbell rings while he’s in the kitchen, and he groans. “Fucking Ari,” he says, and tells Turtle he’ll get it.
It’s Harvey.
“Open the fucking door, kid, because you’re gonna fucking listen to me.”
Vince doesn’t actually catch most of what Harvey says, because even though he’s spent most of his life speaking and hearing a particularly profanity-rich dialect of English, Harvey’s cursing is beyond the pale. But he does catch the gist of it, which is summed up in one sentence:
“You’re gonna promote this fucking movie with everything you have, or I’m gonna fucking destroy you.”
Vince sighs. He’s alone in the living room with Harvey, because Turtle, the pussy, took one look and scampered. For once, Vince really wishes Dom were around. He shifts, standing behind the armchair to keep a little distance between himself and Harvey and the spitting. “Why?” he asks, feeling tired, all the alcohol and pot now just weighing him down. He’s not even afraid of Harvey anymore, he just wishes he weren’t so fucking loud. “You don’t even have an interest in this movie.”
“Bull fucking shit, I don’t have an interest. Who’s got Cuarón’s next film, huh? Did you pay any attention to that, or were you too busy fucking the extras during filming? Brushing up on your cock-sucking, whatever.”
“You know I wasn’t fucking anybody during that film except Eric.”
Harvey laughs. “Right. Right. Boy wonder, who’s had his head so far up his ass since you went south that I would’ve ripped his lungs out by now, if he were on my side of things.”
“You never would have fired Eric,” Vince says. “He was worth too much. You think I don’t know what he did for your company?”
“Yeah, honestly, kid, I do think you don’t know,” Harvey says. “I had five projects headed down the tubes when that bastard came on, and a year later I had five finished movies. Five. That little prick gets stuff done, and maybe it ain’t the way I’d do it, but he finishes it, he gets up, he does it again. Reminds me of me, except for the fag part.”
“He’s married to his career,” Vince says. “So maybe he’s just like you after all.”
Harvey rolls his eyes. Vince thinks they’re headed back to the yelling, but instead, Harvey sits on the couch. “Everybody who’s worked with that kid wants to do it again,” he says. “You know that?” Vince shrugs. “Yeah, you know that. You’re a pretty kid, and you’re not dumb like you look, and you had that boy wrapped around your little dick for most of his life. The two of you, now, there’s a fucking Hollywood story waiting to be made. People love him. People love you.”
Vince scoffs. “What about you, Harvey? You don’t love either one of us. So, what, you’re just telling me this out of the kindness of your heart?”
“I’m telling you because I’m 50 years old, I just fucking sold my company for a hundred million dollars profit, I eat what I want, I drink what I want, I fuck who I want, I make movies that win Oscars, I haven’t ever had to touch a Viagra, and I’m not half as happy as that kid when he was going home to you at night.” Vince recrosses his arms, keeping his face carefully, perfectly blank. “I been in Hollywood half my life, and you had a good thing, you two, and I don’t know what you did to fuck it up, but -”
“What I did? What I - I didn’t do anything!” Vince says. He’s surprised to find himself shouting, but Harvey brings it out in him. “I - he was never here! He was so busy being your fucking golden boy that I never saw him, I was miserable, he was miserable -”
“Yeah,” Harvey says, shaking his head. “Ain’t love grand. News flash, kid, love ain’t like the movies. It’s not some easy, float-through thing. You want something, you gotta work for it. Now, maybe E wanted success more than he wanted you. I doubt it, but fine. What was it you wanted more than him? Did you fight for him, or did you just stand there like a pretty little pussy?”
“I’m not talking about this with you,” Vince says. “Why the fuck are you here?”
“Because you’re gonna do these press rounds.” Harvey folds his hands together. “Say you’re going to.”
“No,” Vince says, almost laughing.
“You are,” Harvey says. “Because you really aren’t dumb. And because a man is only as good as his word, Vince, and you gave your word to that director, to everyone who worked on that movie, that you’d support it. And that director gave his word to me that this was going to be a success. So now, now we have a problem, because if you turn out to be a liar, then that makes him a liar, and do you know what I do with liars, Vince?”
Vince rolls his eyes. “Eat them for breakfast. Piss in their skulls. I get it, Harvey, OK? Very bad things.”
“That’s right, Vince,” Harvey says, and he pushes to his feet. “Very bad things.” Vince shakes his head and doesn’t look up as Harvey walks out. “And call your fucking boyfriend before he gets himself fired from Paramount.”
He smells cigar smoke when he passes the front door.
Vince doesn’t sleep well that night.
In part, that’s because Turtle’s out of the little magic pills. Dom suggests they just get wasted, but Vince’s head still hurts from the night before. So he goes to bed and he can’t help it, he thinks about everything Harvey’s said, and the next morning at breakfast he stops the conversation dead when he says, “Do you guys think I gave up on Eric too easily?”
He sees Johnny and Turtle give each other a look. “Uh, what do you mean, bro?” Johnny asks.
Vince shrugs. “Something Harvey said. I dunno. Like - like maybe I expected him to do all the work?”
“Fuck that,” Dom says.
Vince looks past him to Turtle. Turtle shrugs. “What are you looking at me for? I got no experience in this kind of thing.”
“Yeah,” Vince says. “I know. Sorry.”
Johnny puts his arm around him and says, “Look, things are gonna work out.”
“Yeah, man,” Turtle says, tapping his shoulder awkwardly. “If Drama can find true love, you know it’s gonna happen for all of us.”
“It’s inevitable that we ask ourselves these questions after a major life event. To say, ‘Did I do everything I could?’, that’s human fucking nature, Vin,” Dom says, and Vince looks up at him, completely surprised. Dom shrugs. “What, we only got the networks in the joint. That Oprah, she makes sense some times.”
Vince shakes his head. “OK. I’m fine. Just - sorry, this thing with Ari and Shauna and the magazine’s been driving me nuts, and -” And I have no one to talk to but you guys, he thinks, but he doesn’t say it. Instead, he puts on his best smile and says, “But today’s not about me, right?”
“That’s right,” Turtle says, his voice too bright. “T minus one week, Drama, you ready?”
“I’ve never been more ready in my entire life.”
That afternoon they’re leaving for Vegas for the bachelor party, which is the kick-off for Wedding Week. The week itself will end with the actual ceremony on the beach in Jamaica, but first there are the parties and final details to handle in L.A. Vince, as best man, was supposed to plan the party, but he turned the reins over to Turtle a while back. They’re staying at the Hardwood Suite at the Palms, a two-story super room with a half basketball court/party room that’s going to cost Vince about 25K. When Turtle tells him that, he shrugs and says, “Another good thing about E not coming along is I don’t have to hear any griping about the price tag.”
Eric is one of the groomsmen and was invited by default, though Turtle told Vince a few weeks back that he’d said he’d skip it.
He is, however, about the only person who isn’t at the party, which is really an awesome deal. Turtle’s invited just about everyone Johnny knows and “a few others on top of that,” so the 200-plus party takes up most of the seven-room suite. There are Hardwood Suite jerseys for everyone and even some Hardwood Suite cheerleaders to keep the party going. Vince watches Turtle trying his best with one of them while he fends off offer after offer from girls by the bar.
“Go ahead and look around,” Vince says as the fourth girl in fifteen minutes asks if he’ll give her a tour of the suite. She frowns, but Vince gives her his best sunny, oblivious look and turns back to the bar. He signals for another beer and glances around; if Johnny’s nearby, he’ll turn on the smile again. Luckily, he’s involved in some kind of death-match three-on-three game with Ralph Macchio and a guy who looks familiar from reality TV. He turns back to his drink and glances over to see who’s taken the girl’s place at the bar.
“What the -”
It’s Eric. He’s looking up at Vince, his hand wrapped around a beer. “Hey,” he says. It’s the first time Vince has seen him in person in seven months, and his first thought is that Eric looks bad. But that’s not really true - he looks as fit as ever, wearing some kind of probably expensive dark polo and jeans, his hair spiky like in the magazine. Still, he looks kind of shitty, red-eyed, slouching, and it takes Vince a second to realize why - Eric’s drunk.
“E?”
He nods. “Hey, Vince. Hey.”
Vince grabs his shoulder. Eric’s pale and a little sweaty. He swallows, then burps quietly and laughs at himself. “How long have you been here?” Vince asks.
“Downstairs,” Eric says. “Down. At the bar. I was - “ he lifts his beer, and Vince grabs it before it reaches his mouth. Eric frowns and looks puzzled. “I was drinking.”
“Yeah, I can tell.” Vince has had a few himself, but he’s nowhere near as drunk as Eric is. He stands up, keeps his hand on Eric’s arm. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Eric says. “Everyone asks - I’m fine. Fine.” He looks up. His eyes are watering. “I might throw up.”
“Shit.” He gets Eric turned around and starts pushing him through the crowd. “Coming through, hey, move,” he says, and Eric starts repeating him and laughing a little as they go. Vince steers him away from the locker rooms and toward the bedrooms at the back, each of which has an attached bath. He swipes his card to enter and pushes Eric through the door ahead of him.
“Dark.”
Vince hits the lights, and finds Eric standing three feet away, staring straight up.
“Whoa.”
“Are you gonna be sick?”
Eric shrugs. He shuffles forward, then drops face-down onto the bed, groans faintly, and doesn’t move.
“E?” Nothing. Vince walks over tentatively, afraid Eric’s going to startle and throw up. He sits cautiously on the end of the bed. “Um. Eric?” He shakes his shoulder and gets a little grunt. OK. Alive, at least. Vince pulls his hand back and rubs his own face. Shit. He has no idea what to do. Sure, he’s had visions of Eric crawling back to him over the past few months, but he never saw it happening like this. The guy might not even know where he is or who he’s with. He might, Vince thinks with a little thrill of alarm, have some kind of serious alcohol poisoning. Eric was usually pretty good about holding his liquor; to be this wasted, well, Vince doesn’t want to think about how many drinks that would take.
He gets out his phone and calls Turtle, who answers with a shout. He grumbles but agrees to leave the party, and a minute later, he’s there, next to Vince, the two of them staring down at Eric’s prone form.
“We oughtta get him on his side,” Turtle says. “Is he awake at all?”
“He was,” Vince says.
Turtle looks over. “Drugs?”
“I don’t think so,” Vince says, but he’s not totally sure. It would be out of character, but - it’s been a while. “He just said he’d been drinking downstairs.”
Turtle sighs and grabs Eric’s arm. “Smells like whiskey,” he says. “That’ll do it.”
They get Eric arranged on to his side. When Vince asks if they should take off his pants or anything, Turtle says, “Uh, there’s no fun in that tonight.”
“I meant to make him more comfortable.”
“Way he is, we could drop him off the balcony right now and he’d sleep like a baby,” Turtle says. He taps Eric’s face with his hand, and Eric snorts a little. “Yeah, he’s OK.”
“He doesn’t look OK.”
Turtle rolls his eyes. “Just wait till morning,” he says.
The party’s still in full swing. Vince can’t ask Turtle to quit just to babysit Eric, and he’s not going to ask Dom. Johnny is clearly out. “I’ll stay with him,” Vince says, and Turtle nods.
”Good idea.” He winks, and Vince groans and shoves him back into the hall. “OK. I’m going.”
After he’s gone, Vince doesn’t know what to do. He could stretch out next to Eric - the bed’s certainly big enough - but that seems, well, both presumptuous and weird. He doesn’t want Eric getting any ideas, and if Eric came here with ideas, he certainly doesn’t want him to think that it will be this easy. Instead, he finds his way to the couch, lays down, and tries not to think too hard, yet, about what this all might mean.
Part 6