Gary Firth was a fifty-something-year-old Hollywood small-time legend who looked at least ten years younger than he actually was—as movie stars tend to do. He’d made a career mainly in TV in the nineties and late aughts, when I had not so platonically fallen in love with him as I watched reruns of his small-town dramedyFish Out of Water.
He’d been steadily working in indie film and prestige TV since then but had never found another enduring and successful show again. I knew he’d been in conversations for the part that had eventually gone to Dashing Henry inLA Misconducts, but Firth had turned it down as he lived in New York and didn’t want to spend so much time of the year away from his family.
In the end, the actor, who—unlike Henry—was all graciousness and class, had had a five-episode arc in one of the seasons ofLA Misconductswhen I was also working there, which is how I’d met him.
That morning, when David and I so inelegantly bumped into him at the shooting of his latest movie, he also recognized me. And that’s when I had the idea of asking him a somewhat strange favor.
···
“What did you do to Dashing?” The Troubelmakr had been repeating the same question for the last twenty minutes.
After the initial confusion, the team of the movie relocated David, me, and a highly shackled Troubelmakr to the hotel’s famous Gallery Bar and Cognac Room.
Even if it was barely 11 a.m. and the bar was still very much closed, the crew lent us a stand-in bartender who mixed me and David cucumber mango Cosmopolitans because we were both in desperate need of day drinking.
We were supposed to be trying to make the Troubelmakr confess about his involvement in the demise of Dashing Henry, but the stalker proved immune to all our lines of questioning and kept asking over and over whatwehad done to Henry.
I was starting to believe he wasonlyan overzealous stalker and nothing else when the key element of my latest brilliant plan finally made an arrival. Gary Firth granted my favor and stepped in, not seeking attention but catching it anyway.
“Elena, you’re swooning,” David whispered in my ear as Gary Firth entered the bar.
For clarity’s sake, let me tell you that I may have been swooning about my teenage TV crush, but it was David’s breath on my neck that caused all kinds of interferences in my confused brain.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” I snapped at David. “Gary, thanks so much for taking the time.” I donned my best, most affable smile. And somehow, I managed to remember yet again that I hadn’t showered or washed my hair that morning—or the previous one.
“Anything for a colleague,” Firth said. And I believed him. Or perhaps his facial features were way too masculine and symmetrical for me to ever assume him capable of anything ungenerous.
The actor took one of the tall chairs from the bar and seated himself close to the Troubelmakr.
“Hi, I’m Gary Firth. Pleasure to meet you,” the actor told the stalker.
“I’m Marky Fitzsimmons,” the Troubelmakr said, visibly starstruck. It looked like I wasn’t the only one who had a thing for Gary Firth.
“How do you spell Fitzsimmons? Zee, ess, and two ems?” interrupted David. At some point, he’d managed to produce a pen and a reporter notebook, and he was already taking notes.
“Er, yes,” Fitzsimmons said.
“Marky, you were chasing down my friends Elena and David,” said Firth. He nailed the pronunciation for both mine and David’s names like not many people manage to do.
Okay, perhaps I was mildly swooning, but can you blame me? I was still in shock, and a nice person was taking care of me and David. It was probably that last element that made me realize the reason I was so smitten with Firth wasn’t (only) because he was beautiful but because he was helping me help David. I suddenly understood that I’d been quite distraught about myexand his alleged involvement in the murder of a deplorable human being. But I preferred to ignore that realization and bury it under all the other things taking place.
“I want to know what they did to Dashing Henry!” Marky/Troubelmakr answered. I kept being stunned at his insistence that we had done something to Henry. Also, he seemed to genuinely like the late actor, and that was a sentiment I wouldneverbe able to share or understand.
“Why do you think they’ve done anything to him? Did you read this morning’s article on theVoice?” Firth asked, and Marky nodded.
I did feel a bit self-conscious then when I realized that absolutelyeveryonehad read about mine and David’s dalliance and our propensity to express ourselves loudly while making love.
“The article said Ramos ran over Henry and the jobless girlfriend helped him!” Marky/Troubelmakr said.
“It didn’t say that! It was preposterous and poorly written, and I’m not even jobless. I have an overall deal!” I protested. I refused to be reduced to the role of the jobless girlfriend. I was neither one nor the other.
“Don’t worry Elena, I got this,” said Gary, and I was starting to get a little annoyed. Why was he being so nice when the Marky/Troubelmakr dude was a total ass and a possible murderer?
“Why do you think they had something to do with Henry’s death? The police also have a subscription to theVoiceand could have apprehended them,” the actor continued.
“She’s the mayor’s daughter!” Marky/Troubelmakr pointed at me.
And there it was. The one thing even more inescapable than my ten seconds of micro-fame as an idle screenwriter with a great sex life: my identity as a nepo baby.
