The Lost Expert, page 6
“Your move, Grandpop.”
“Mine? Already? Ah … okay … lemme see … there it is … I got ya now, ya little bugger …”
Reed stopped talking. Or maybe he’d stopped a while ago? He reached over and filled up Chris’s glass. It was empty. Empty again, Chris thought. He had the sudden urge to giggle. More champagne, the tiny bubbles popping on his brain making it hard to think. Reed was going to get rid of Holmes? So maybe Holmes took off before he could get fired? Or maybe Reed …? Reed what? Chris’s stomach growled. Was there bread or something? He looked around for the waiter. Weren’t they VIPs?
“What? What’s the problem?” Reed was like an over-perceptive animal, a purebred gun dog. He noticed everything. “Drink your champagne, Holmes. Relax.”
Out of nowhere, the waiter appeared, picked up the bottle, and pointedly topped off their just refilled flutes. Before Chris could ask him for something, a piece of bread, a bowl of nuts, a menu, he was gone again.
“Look,” Reed continued. “They wanted you. The money men. The bean counters. I couldn’t fight them on it. I knew I couldn’t. Not after last time. I lost a lot of their cash on that one. Shit.” Reed shook his head ruefully. “I honestly do not know why I bother. Does it even matter anymore? What’s one more movie gonna do? So maybe it doesn’t matter. Movies don’t change the world anymore. They’re just entertainment. So I gave in. What choice did I have?” Reed was whispering again. Chris felt heat on his cheeks. He was blushing. It was like being on the subway, a disheveled stranger abruptly crying on your shoulder. “I’m being honest with you, Holmes, which is more than you’ve ever done for me. I told them, fine, we’ll cast him. And here you are, you little prick, making the movie of your life.”
Reed gulped champagne; the lights burnt a bright red oval for a few seconds before fading to a pyramid of sombre olive.
“But that’s it, Holmes. That’s the only thing I’m changing. The last two movies were crap,” Reed said. “Really crap. Studio garbage. I kept trying to meet them halfway. Not this time. You got that, Holmes?”
“Sure,” Chris said.
“Sure,” Reed said. He shook his head, perhaps in disbelief. “Anyway, what if it does matter? There’s a chance, right? This could be the one. Couldn’t it?”
Reed looked at him, defiant and pleading. How old was Bryant Reed? Chris was bad with ages. Maybe sixty? Seventy? The way he was looking at him, the lines around his eyes, the loose skin pulling his cheeks down, suggested a much older man.
“I want to make one more,” Reed said. “Just one more great one.” It was like he was begging. Chris felt the urge to turn away, to lose himself in the blurred mist of colour. But he couldn’t. Reed was enlisting him, summoning him, beseeching him.
The restaurant turned blood orange. The waiter set a long, rectangular plate in front of each of them. “Trio of foie gras,” he said importantly. “The chef describes this one as a play on the American hamburger, with deep-fried panko onion coating on a fresh-baked mini sourdough. And this one —”
“Just leave the food,” Reed barked. The waiter froze. He didn’t seem to know what to do. Reed giggled, a jovial, high-pitched whinny. The waiter spun on his shoes and walked off.
Foie whatever, it was delicious. Slimy and meaty, heavy yet weirdly insubstantial. Would they bring more? Who had ordered it for them? Alison? Maybe that’s the way it was at this kind of restaurant. Nobody ordered. Nobody asked about the price. Things just arrived. Chris hungrily eyed Reed’s plate. The director had taken a tiny nibble of the one on the bun, then grunted and pushed the whole thing to the side.
“What?” Reed said. “You want ’em?”
Chris shook his head, no.
“Go ahead,” Reed said, pushing his plate over to Chris’s side of the table. Unable to resist, Chris picked one up and demolished it in a single delicious bite.
“So where did you go, anyway?” Reed asked casually.
“What?” Chris said through bulging cheeks. He chewed slowly, buying time.
“What?” Reed scoffed. “Remember when you took off for three days while we sat around on the set pissing money? And you can bet that’s coming out of your pay, you little fuck.” Reed giggled again. He was a little tipsy now, Chris thought. Chris laughed too.
“No. Seriously. Where did you go?” His bulgy eyes narrowed.
Chris was at a loss. He tried to smile mysteriously.
Reed shook his head. Dismissive? Disgusted? “You got off the plane. You checked into the hotel. And then nothing. Nada. Gone like the wind.”
Reed’s lips suggested a smile, his beady eyes blazing angrily.
“To the new me,” Chris said. He lifted his flute, toasted himself, and drank.
WHEN CHRIS WAS THIRTEEN, the backyard fence had burst into flames. It was just after Halloween, early November, 6:30 p.m., already dark. For as long as he could remember, he’d been a latchkey kid, his parents both working long hours downtown, returning, in their separate cars, rumpled and exhausted. That evening had been no different. He’d done his homework, except for the math. He’d do the math later. Or not at all. Ian, the kid across the street, did his math for him when he asked. Increasingly, Chris had been asking. Things were changing. The wheat separating from the chaff. His parents, once a single, immutable entity, MomandDad, were transforming — ignoring him, fighting with each other, coming and going randomly, unpredictably. Last month, after a particularly voluble dispute, his father hadn’t come home from work for several days. Though it upset Chris more than he could understand, it hadn’t been that big of a change. The house, which framed the space of his life, remained as it had always been: filled, but weirdly empty.
With Krunk encouraging him, they’d started catching the bus to the west side of downtown. Krunk, pre-contacts, in oversized specs that at least somewhat covered up his burgeoning acne; the both of them gawky and awkward in faded T-shirts and dirty sneakers. In the city, they would browse used bookstores, share heaping platters of cheap Chinese noodles, sneak into R-rated movies. His friend was beefier then. With his pimply face bathed in movie glow he looked like an awkward baby, ugly and bulgy-eyed and beautiful the way only a teenager can be. But that didn’t stop him from leaning back nonchalantly, putting his feet up on the back of the seat in front of him, and generally acting as if he’d seen it all before. Chris was the opposite — already tall and lean for his age, but sitting with his arms crossed, his back straight. The movies, replete with every manner of drugs, drinking, and sex, filled him with a sense of expectant dread. Is that what comes next? But how to get to it? And what is it, exactly?
The night of the fire, Chris had been sprawled on the couch, half watching tv. He hadn’t had any dinner and had been thinking about microwaving something or maybe even working himself up to scramble some eggs. That ’70s Show came on, an episode Chris had seen before. He was ambivalent about the show. The loving Formans were always finding time to bring Eric’s wayward group of misfits into the family; no one ever had to be alone, and any other potential outcome turned out to be the result of a momentary misunderstanding. The laugh track spun into a commercial for frozen pizza pockets. The doorbell rang. Expecting some sales pitch, Chris reluctantly padded down the dark, carpeted hallway and into the tiled foyer. The bell rang again before he got there. As he approached the white front door, he noticed there was a strange pattern, a jumpy origami shadow projected against it. It made him turn. A line of bright orange flames cut through the darkness, through the kitchen’s bay windows, illuminating the gloomy front hall. The back fence that bordered the small woods behind their house was burning. Chris stared. The doorbell rang again. Sirens swelled in the near distance. It’s like something from a movie, he thought.
Chris walked slowly into the kitchen, drawn to the fire, mesmerized. The voices on the other side of the front door got fainter as he drifted away. He slid open the back screen door and stepped out onto the patio. Outside, the fire was loud, crunching the air. Chris stepped off the concrete patio and onto the grass, stiff and cold under his sock feet. He walked five, six, seven, eight steps forward. The fire filled his vision. The back fence was in a full burn. He could feel the heat on his cheeks. He stepped closer. A cinder hung in front of him before landing on the grass, sparking then smouldering. He put his arm on his forehead, as if to shield his eyes from a fierce sun. The heat enveloped him. He tasted smoke.
A hand on his shoulder pulled him back. Chris turned and saw his mother. He abruptly buried his face in her shoulder, sobbing. She walked him back to the patio, where they watched the fire crew arrive and extinguish the blaze.
Now, once again, red flames danced. Thirteen years had passed. The fire had been traced to a couple of high-schoolers carelessly discarding their blunts in the dry leaves heaped against the fence. The house had long since been sold. The sound he remembered was of his parents splitting apart, like a burning log suddenly cracking in half. And his grandfather, gasping for breath. He’d died quickly, it seemed, though the whole thing happened over a matter of months. Chris mainly remembered his sense of betrayal followed by keen, irreversible loss. He died. Just when Chris needed him most, he died. Chris could still feel it: the heat dancing on his cheeks. It had never left him, never faded; it had only been waiting, latent in his neurons. Here it was again — a heat, shocking and distant. An empty void.
The projected blaze turned blue. Chris turned away from the soft, liminal scene that had gently played with their senses throughout the dinner of small, strange offerings, elaborately alien foods that seemed designed to evoke the flavours of not just other places but other worlds altogether.
“Earth to Holmes?” Reed said, grimace-smiling. “Usually, they can’t get you to shut up. Now I can’t get you to say two words in a row.”
Chris nodded affably in agreement. Throughout the elaborately drawn-out dinner, Reed had occupied the conversation. Among other things, he’d told Chris the story of the giant trout he’d almost bagged fly-fishing in Colorado. The story was long and involved. It included the exploits of a minor character actor, plus a local stripper, a Comanche guide, peyote, vodka, beer, and a dog, maybe Reed’s dog. The longer the story went on, the less Chris followed it. High on champagne, he was content to just be in the rhythm of the words, rolling along with the guttural baritone of Reed’s folksy morality play. But Chris was listening carefully now, Reed’s change of tone catching his attention. “— thought I was screwed. Thomson Holmes wants to do a serious picture,” Reed said, mimicking some self-important executive. “I choked on my coffee. I thought they were shitting me. I thought it was a practical joke. He really admires your work. Seriously, I was looking for the hidden camera.” Reed grabbed his champagne flute, waving it around, his gravel voice reaching a crescendo. “I didn’t know you meant it, Holmes!”
Reed drank. Chris drained his glass. He felt the cold liquid sluice into him, separate him; he wasn’t there, not really.
“There it is again!” Reed barked. He slapped the table, and their glasses rattled. Other diners paused their quiet conversations but couldn’t quite bring themselves to stare.
“What?” Chris asked.
“That look you just gave me. That’s the look you keep giving the camera. Like you’re so sure of yourself, you’re not even here. You’re somewhere else, right? You’re there. What’s the deal, Holmes? They change your meds? Don’t take this the wrong way, Holmes, but I always thought of you as the kind of guy who seemed happiest when you were lifting weights in front of a full-length mirror.”
Chris felt it too. His face tugged into a smile. He wasn’t who he said he was. He wasn’t who he wanted to be. He was someone else.
“Whatever! I’m tired of looking at your perfect mug. Let’s go smoke some cigars.”
Chris shook his head. “You go ahead.”
“Cubans, man, they’re legal here!”
“No, really, I’m good.”
“He doesn’t want a cigar,” Reed pondered aloud with furrowed forehead. “He’s on the cover of Cigar Aficionado, but he doesn’t want to smoke a cigar.” Chris held his gaze until the older man shrugged. And with that, Reed walked away, leaving Chris to contemplate the restaurant’s vanity bonfire, burning bushes on white walls, slippery memories infused with Technicolor.
Obviously, Holmes smoked cigars. Boxes of them, sausage stogies hand wrapped by an ancient coven of Havana abuelas barely visible as they sit working in their own private clouds of pungently sweet smoke. But not The Lost Expert. The Lost Expert didn’t smoke cigars, or anything else for that matter. Was that who he was? Who he wanted to be? It was getting late. Laurie would be worried. He’d just give her a quick call. Reassure her. He didn’t have to get into all the details. Anyway, she wouldn’t believe it. Who would believe it? He wasn’t the most exciting boyfriend, he wasn’t overflowing his bank account or working on the cure for a deadly disease or dreaming up the next great Hollywood franchise; but he was present, always around. In the evenings, if Chris had successfully fended off Krunk’s advances, they would sit on the couch chatting. Quite often, Laurie would bring up some self-improvement article she’d come across that had reminded her of something — say his difficulty saving, or his lack of concentration, or his inability to settle on a long-term career goal, etc. Chris would listen, nod. It would sink in, he figured. Eventually. They might watch a show on Laurie’s laptop or read their books. Sometimes Laurie would ask for a shoulder rub, sometimes they’d play Scrabble. Chris always lost. By 10:30, Laurie was yawning, and they were off to bed.
He’d just give her a quick call before —
“Excuse me, are you …?”
Chris turned, looked up. A blond woman in a stylish business suit that bared unseasonably tanned arms and long legs stared down at him.
“Yes,” Chris said immediately.
“I love your movies,” the woman said.
The way she said it, with just a faint tinge of irony. She knew better. She didn’t love his movies.
“Thanks,” Chris said.
A laugh, suppressed. They both looked over at the table the woman had come from. It was, in fact, the only table still occupied in the restaurant. The other two women at the table, also fashionably made up, gave drunkenly embarrassed thumbs up.
“Please,” Chris said. “Sit down.”
“Oh no, I don’t mean to interrupt. You’re with your friend.”
“Oh, ah, yeah. He’s, uh, not exactly my —”
“I know,” the woman giggled. “He’s Bryant Reed.”
“You recognize him?”
“Oh, well, I’m a bit of a film geek.” The woman laughed prettily. She was older than Chris by at least ten years.
“Sit down. He won’t mind.”
Out of nowhere, a glass appeared for the woman and both their flutes were filled.
“Oh!” the woman said, surprised and pleased.
“Would you like a drink?” Chris managed.
“I said to my friends, ‘He looks a little lonely, doesn’t he?’ And they said, ‘Go over, say hi.’ So I thought — when else would I ever get the chance to —?”
“What’s your name?” Chris asked.
“Daphne.”
“Daphne.”
Daphne sipped her drink and leaned in.
“Don’t get me wrong, we’re used to seeing all kinds of — you know, with the film festival and all — and, well, I guess it’s, like a, a Toronto thing — I mean,” Daphne giggled, “I hope I’m not — bothering you.”
Chris shook his head and smiled, encouraging her. Daphne rambled on. Before Laurie, he’d always been fallback material, a second choice, end-of-the-night-you’ll-do type. He was tall and skinny, and everyone had always told him he was good-looking, but somehow that had never translated into making him attractive. His mother always said he just needed a bit more in the confidence department — as if you could buy it at Hudson’s Bay, save up for it, waft it on, the man perfume that vanished your problems.
Daphne laughed at something she said. She twirled a manicured finger into her long hair and considered him. Chris thought of Alison, her similar gesture; the way she’d looked at him when he’d asked her about his scene in the bedroom. Her smile, a shimmer on her lips. She believed in him. She wanted to believe in him.
The door to the restaurant opened. Chris looked up, relieved. Reed stepped toward the table. “I see you’ve got company,” he said mockingly. “Don’t stay up too late now. We’ve got the big Jew scene tomorrow. And don’t even think about …” He gestured at Chris abruptly, imprecisely, then turned away. Chris flushed. But the embarrassment he felt receded almost instantly as another emotion flooded over him. Relief. Reed was gone. It was over. All he had to do was walk out of the restaurant and into the dark, anonymous city. He’d go straight to Laurie’s. He’d shake her awake and tell her everything.
“Wow! Bryant Reed!” Daphne breathlessly gulped at her champagne. Chris slumped. Daphne had perfect posture and beautiful brown-green eyes. In his new world, everything seemed to have a sexier, shinier, more exciting counterpart. Daphne replaced Laurie. Bryant Reed a more accomplished, but just as jaded, Krunk. Thomson Holmes as the new Chris? Sure, why not?
