Comedy of Erinn (23 page)

“He's not at APE.”

“What?”

“He got a job at another company. Doing a show on cougars. You know—older women, younger men.”

Erinn, you're an idiot,
she thought.
You ran out and ignored him. How long did you expect him to care?

Maybe she should just let Jude recede into the past
.
Perhaps that was best for everyone.

Another thought struck Erinn.

“And Massimo? Did you send him to the farmers' market? Was that a set-up, too?”

Mimi snorted. “No, sweetie. You found that gem on your own.”

“What could you possibly have against Massimo?”

“I'm up to speed—Suzanna has told me all about him.”

Erinn and Mimi were both silent as they watched Caro chase a leaf around the bench. Erinn looked back at her house and toyed with the idea of retreating—of not pushing the conversation any further. But as hard as she tried, the past few weeks on
BATTLEready!
had changed her, reawakened her to the world. She didn't really want to return to her old ways, shuttered against life, but she knew there were some things she was going to have to face in order to move on.

Unfortunately, Mimi knew about those things, too.

“Put the damn cat back in the house and I'll treat you to lunch,” Mimi said.

“That's OK,” Erinn said. “I think I'm having lunch with my sister.”

“Oh, really?” Mimi said. “I was just over there, and she didn't mention it.”

“She doesn't know.”

E
rinn and Suzanna looked over their menus at the Veranda, the beautifully appointed bar in the Casa del Mar Hotel by the sea. Erinn couldn't remember the last time she'd been in the hotel. Even though it was in her neighborhood, the prices had been out of her range for years. Erinn looked contentedly out the window at the Santa Monica Pier, which could be seen from the big picture window in the bar.

Sharing glasses of white wine, the sisters left each other to her own thoughts. Erinn looked around the room. The Casa del Mar Hotel was built in 1926 during Prohibition and catered to the glamorous Hollywood community. The hotel was rumored to have had a special relationship with the police, who would tip off customers to stash their booze before a raid. The hotel hung on to its glory through the thirties and early forties, but when it was commandeered by the U.S. Navy as a rec center for enlisted men, the property went into a nose-dive. By the late nineties, the hotel's history included a stint as a rehab center, and it had garnered a respectable if still down-at-the-heels reputation as a Pritikin Longevity Center. Erinn had always loved the building and was thrilled, at the turn of the twenty-first century, to find the hotel fully restored to its 1920s grandeur. It was just a shame that her money started to run out just as the hotel was reopening its doors.

Erinn tried not to think about those days. She thought about how she had slowly lost touch with the world—and created a sad, solitary life. She saw with complete clarity how she had almost repeated the same mistakes all over again. But Jude had not betrayed her, and while Massimo might have sold her series out from under her, it was an innocent mistake.

She had wasted enough time sulking in New York and was looking forward from now on.

Erinn realized it had been a while since they had spoken. Her sister seemed to be staring absentmindedly at the menu. Erinn broke the silence.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

“Thank God for Eric,” Suzanna said, snapping her menu shut. “Since he got his business degree, he tells me meals like this one are deductible.”

Erinn ordered a shrimp-and-crab Louie and Suzanna ordered a yellowtail roll.

The food was delicious, and the sisters enjoyed small talk throughout their meal. The Wolf women had a tradition that any intense conversations were to be had over coffee. Suzanna and Erinn could both hear their mother's admonishment that meals were not to be ruined by “high-running passion at the table.”

Coffee—for Erinn; Suzanna was on a strict decaf green tea regimen during the pregnancy—finally arrived. Erinn realized that Suzanna knew nothing about Massimo's part in the still unresolved
Let It Shine
debacle, or her nerves would have gotten the better of her by now. There was no sign of her biting her lower lip. While Erinn studied her sister, she had to admit that she felt like she was leading a lamb to the slaughter. She was ready to attack.

Suzanna met her sister's gaze.

“So, Mimi told me you know all about our ‘renting the guesthouse' thing.”

Erinn's jaw dropped open.

“I can't believe Mimi told you! Is there no loyalty anywhere?”

“Eric said we'd never get away with it.”

“You don't seem very contrite!”

“Well”—Suzanna rubbed her rounded belly—“I'm not. I thought it was for the best. And frankly, I think Mimi and I would have done a lot better than that Massimo.”

She's trying to turn the tables
.

In the past, Erinn would have just shut her sister off. But if Erinn were going to face the world with a new, more positive attitude, she felt it best to practice with someone who loved her.

“OK,” Erinn said. “Let's talk about Massimo. I want to know why you dislike him so.”

“It's not that I dislike him,” Suzanna said. “Well, it is. But I have reasons.”

“Which are?”

“In alphabetical order?”

Erinn raised her eyebrows over her coffee.

“OK,” Suzanna continued, putting her coffee cup down. “I'm just going to lay my cards on the table. No more beating around the bush or sweeping things under the rug.”

“Suzanna, please, I'm in cliché hell. Get to the point.”

“He's a user.”

“He is not!”

“Erinn, you let him move all his stuff into your guesthouse. Then he moves into your house. He takes advantage.”

And you don't even know that he quit his job and gave my show idea to the production company
, Erinn thought.

If she was going to defend Massimo, she decided, best not to bring any of that up.

“That's not fair. You decided you disliked him before you even met him,” Erinn said.

“You're blind to his—many—faults,” Suzanna said. “You don't see the truth because he's . . .”

“Because he's what?”

“. . . Italian.”

Erinn felt the coffee stick in her throat. She was afraid that this was what was prejudicing her sister. She refused to meet Suzanna's eye.

“You can't condemn a whole country, just because of . . .” Erinn said.

“Because of... ?” Suzanna asked.

Erinn knew her sister was calling her bluff. She had not mentioned his name in almost twenty years. But this was a new day.

“Because of Augustino,” Erinn said.

“Wow,” said Suzanna, taking her sister's wrist gently. “I'm impressed. Well, if Massimo has brought you along like this, maybe I'm being too hard on him.”

Erinn wondered. Had Massimo brought her along? Had Jude? Or could she give herself some of the credit? But Massimo was the subject at the table, so she continued.

“I don't think you can compare Massimo and Augustino.”

“I'm not comparing them,” Suzanna said. “And I'm not
blaming
Massimo for being Italian. I'm just afraid you've fallen for him
because
he's Italian.”

“Surely you give me more credit than that. I mean, I've met other Italians in the last twenty years.”

Suzanna sipped her tea. Erinn waited.

“Augustino was the love of your life,” Suzanna said. “You were never the same afterwards.”

“Afterward,” Erinn corrected, absently. “And that's what's supposed to happen when the love of your life dies.”

“I know,” Suzanna said and squeezed Erinn's wrist again. Augustino had been dead all these years and this was the first time she had talked about him to anyone.

Augustino Artigiani had been an actor who ran in Erinn's Broadway crowd. Originally from Bari, Italy, Augustino led the same charmed life as Erinn. He moved to New York and got an agent within twenty-four hours and his first off-Broadway role in 1984. He met Erinn at a party in a cavernous loft in SoHo. She spoke a little Italian, which she had studied in school, and he was captivated.

In the following year, Erinn sold a play and Augustino got plum lead roles. When Erinn sold
The Family of Mann
in 1987, Augustino squired her to all the press conferences, television appearances, award shows, and soirées. They used to call each other “Fanny” and “Nicky”—although Augustino was a better sport than Nicky Arnstein any day.

But the world spun out of control in the late eighties, with the AIDS virus laying waste to everyone in its path. Nobody knew what had hit them. Augustino was one of the first casualties, but certainly not the last of Erinn's friends to die from that horrible, wasting disease. Erinn thought back to 1990, when the local hydrangea plants had picked up a fungus that was killing them all over the city. All the beautiful plants and all the beautiful young men—and women— seemed to be dying. To this day, Erinn couldn't look at a hydrangea without feeling overwhelming sadness.

When Augustino was diagnosed, there were many questions and few answers. So many people in those days pointed fingers at AIDS victims—trying to keep the disaster from their own door—by calling it the “gay disease.” But Augustino, who had the bad luck to have contracted the disease through a blood transfusion, refused to qualify his sexual orientation. He was no better or worse than any other unlucky person, among them so many of their mutual friends, who had been stricken. In Erinn's eyes, he died a hero.

As the months took their brutal toll, Erinn found out answers didn't really matter anyway. All that mattered was Augustino was dead.

Right after Augustino died, Erinn remembered sitting in front of a brand-new contraption called a “home computer” and just staring at the screen wondering, “Who is next?” She was diligent about getting tested for years afterward, always braced to be “next,” and sometimes disappointed when she was given yet another clean bill of health. She found it ironic that HIV continued to be considered a gay disease, as all the women she knew diligently went for their screenings every six months.

Erinn's thoughts returned to the present as she watched a waiter pour more coffee and offer more hot water for Suzanna's tea. Erinn looked up as Suzanna handed her a tissue. Erinn rubbed at her eyes. She hadn't realized she'd been crying.

“So many people died,” Erinn said.

“And you died with them.”

“What was I supposed to do, carry on with my little Noel Coward existence by myself?”

“Erinn, it's time to move on. Get on with your life.”

“I can't win with you,” Erinn said. “You tell me I'm stuck in the past, but now I've let Massimo into my life and you think I'm pathetic.”

“Not path—well, yes, I do think you're pathetic. But I'm willing to keep an open mind if you are.”

“What does that mean?”

“I'll entertain the possibility that Massimo is a great guy who just happens to be a charming Italian and it's kismet or whatever, if you entertain the possibility that he's a con artist who's playing you like a violin.”

“Ah! A musical con man. The worst kind.”

Both sisters laughed, relieved to end the tension.

“I'm keeping an open mind about Massimo, I assure you,” Erinn said, and was surprised to find that she meant it.

Erinn took a sip of water while Suzanna signaled the waiter and ordered a shot of Baileys Irish Cream to add to Erinn's coffee. Both sisters were inordinately fond of the spiked coffee, but Suzanna hadn't had one since she found out she was pregnant.

“Bottoms up,” Suzanna said. “You're drinking for two. OK, now on to the big question,” she said, her cheeks pink, even though Erinn was the one drinking alcohol. “You boinking Massimo?”

Erinn cringed. The sisters had never shared those kinds of intimacies. And clearly, Suzanna wasn't exactly comfortable with this conversation, reverting to her childhood word for sex.

“
Boinking
? Suzanna, please. We're grown women.”

“OK . . . are you
fucking
Massimo?”

“No,” Erinn said quickly. “I have not been
boinking
Massimo. What do you think I am, a sex maniac? Do you really think I'd sleep with Jude and Massimo at the same time? What would Mother say?”

Suzanna sputtered, then coughed harshly.

“I think Mother would say you're a total slut!” Suzanna said, strangling on her words. “What are you talking about? Are you saying you had sex with Jude?”

Erinn's eyes widened. She assumed that Jude had told Mimi about their night of passion—and that Mimi had told Suzanna. She'd visualized the scenes very clearly in her head, and it never occurred to her that it hadn't happened.

“I thought you knew.”

“Well, I didn't.”

“You know now, so let's drop it.”

“Fat chance! I introduced you . . . sort of... and I get to know. I can't believe he would have sex with you!”

“Why not?”

“You're so . . . mature.”

“Why don't you come right out and say it? I'm old and he's young. You think it's unseemly.”

“Are you kidding? I think it's
totally
seemly. We're just a couple of late bloomers, that's all.”

Erinn looked at her sister, who seemed embarrassed but sincere.

“Maybe Mimi can get you a job on Jude's new show about cougars. No wonder he jumped at the chance to direct that show! Life imitating art.”

“You are being extremely immature.”

“Who seduced who?”

“Whom.”

It was as if the floodgates had opened. Erinn filled her sister in on all the Jude details at Valley Forge. Suzanna seemed a bit more understanding, Erinn thinking she was near death and all that.

“Wow,” said Suzanna. “That must have been intense.”

“You have no idea.”

“Was it weird afterwards? I mean . . . awkward?”

“In the extreme. And I haven't been able to forget about it—or him—no matter how much I pretend otherwise. Even after Valley Forge, as I watched him work, I realized he was a very special, talented person. And now I've thrown it all away, thinking he sold me out. I should have known he would never do that. Just as I should have known he would never tell Mimi about our . . . indiscretion.”

“Oh my God!” Suzanna said. “You're in love with him.”

“You always distort things,” Erinn said. “I'm just saying I came to appreciate him on many levels.”

Suzanna suddenly sat up straight.

“Sorry. The baby just kicked. This is too much excitement, I guess.”