The Plan

Chapter 10.

"Who's this?"

"It's Ryan Bolt."

"Jeez, Ryan, didn't sound like you, buddy. It's Mickey."

"Mickey." He smiled. "Where the hell are you?" Acting now, pretending, needing to be somebody else for a while.

"I'm out here at the Bel Air. Got the presidential cottage. I ran a recon mission by the pool. They put out a bunch a' easy targets. Got twenty-five-year-old skin laying around, half-naked, on chaise lounges. We could score wearing Nixon masks."

"It's just, my car's in the. shop. I'm kinda stuck out here," Ryan hedged.

"I'll send a car for you. Stay where you are. The Mick has a tank rolling." And Ryan was listening to a dial tone.

"Fuck." He was too screwed up to leave. Too full of anxiety, but Mickey hadn't given him a choice. Then he thought maybe what he needed was to fight through it… to be with somebody like Mickey who tasted life. Maybe it would take his mind off the mess his life had become. He remembered, Mickey could make stuff happen.

The Bel Air Hotel was a Hollywood aquarium where white swans drifted lazily in the landscaped lakes. Wealthy studio whitefish had private cottages and schooled out by the swimming pool waiting for their divorces to become final. Occasional agents prowled the restaurant, dorsals hissing, little pieces of insincerity stuck in their teeth.

New York Tony had driven Ryan there in a black stretch limo and led him to the presidential cottage which was up behind the pool.

Tony knocked on the door… "Me," he said gently and, in a moment, the door opened and Ryan was looking at the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen. She was in her late twenties with glossy black hair. Her eyes were green and iridescent, her olive skin like natural silk. She was in a tennis outfit and it showed off her exquisite tan legs. Ryan thought, What is Mickey doing cruising the pool with this goddess on hand?

"Ryan?" she seemed to know him.

"Yes…" his voice fight, stomach acid still flowing like sewer runoff.

"It's me, Lucinda. Mickey's sister. Don't tell me you've forgotten me completely?"

"Lucinda…" he finally said, his mind desperately grabbing at rungs on a memory ladder.

"Yeah. We met when I was just a kid. I can tell you this now." She smiled. "Back then I had a terrible crush on you."

He tried for a rakish grin and missed.

"Come in. Mickey's on the phone."

She led him into the antique-laden room. New York Tony stood by the door. Mickey was on the phone, his back to them. He was wearing a polka-dot shut and Bermuda shorts, with sockless loafers.

"Okay, check that out and get back to me." He hung up the phone, turning, his round cherubic face changing gears completely as he broke into a grin.

"Hey, Ryan… Sis turned out pretty good, no?" "She certainly did." Ryan was having trouble taking his eyes off her.

"She's on her summer break." Mickey put his arm around his little sister.

"You aren't still in college?" Ryan asked.

"I graduated from Sarah Lawrence and I'm doing my doctorate in psychology at UCLA."

"I couldn't get her to go to Harvard." Mickey grinned.

"After the damage you did to the family name, they'd have had me under twenty-four-hour surveillance," she joked.

"Hey, come on, I wasn't that bad… Was I that bad, Ryan?"

"You were awful." Ryan smiled, remembering a couple of lost weekends when they'd met occasionally in New York during their college years.

"Gotta go, got a tennis lesson at one. Good to see you, Ryan." She stopped in front of him, holding out her hand, looking into his eyes… And then she was gone.

"Come on," Mickey said. "Let's get lunch. I made a reservation in the hotel dining room."

The maitre d' led them to the best table.

"Hey, Ryan, don't take this the wrong way, but are you okay?"

"Sure. Why?"

"You look fucked-up. You're not doing drugs, are ya?" "No. Come on… You nuts?"

Mickey hadn't changed at all, Ryan thought. Always right to the point with no bullshit. He still had that force of personality that drew people to him.

"Lucinda is beautiful," he said, trying to change the subject.

"Yeah, she's a sweetheart. She counsels kids who can't get their belts through all the loops. Spends hours with them."

The maitre d' himself brought the menus and pulled out a pad to take their orders.

"Hey, Claude… You 'member those vongole I had here two months ago? With the angel-hair…?"

"Vividly, sir." Claude grinned. "We sent ten gallons to your mother, airmail."

"Can ya whip us up some a' that… for two? And the real dry chardonnay, the Acacia." Claude left, bowing out in reverse.

He had ordered for both of them as if what Ryan wanted didn't matter, and somehow it was okay.

"So, how's everything going with you?"

"Tearing up the field," Ryan lied.

"I know a few guys out here and the word I been gettin' is you been stepping on your rep." Mickey frowned. "I hear you're packing an attitude and when they see you coming, they drop the blinds. I'm thinking that doesn't sound like the old wide receiver, so I figured I'd look you up." He was smiling but his eyes weren't. "What's the play?"

"Since Matt died, nothing has worked quite right. I'll punch through it." Ryan remembered how Mickey had flown out when Matt died. He'd lived in the Bel Air guesthouse and handled everything for Ryan. He even picked out the clothes Matt was buried in.

The food came and Mickey ate savagely while Ryan picked at his plate.

"Look, I don't wanna get in your face, man, so if I'm outta line, tell me, but if you wanna change of venue, I maybe have something set up that could work for you… Take you away for a while."

"What are you talking about?"

"There're these guys. We do a little business sometimes, and they're miming a guy for President of the United States… I was talking to my friend and he said they needed somebody who could produce a documentary. I know that's chickenshit stuff to a guy like you, with Emmys and everything, but if you're looking to get a little air between you and these L. A. hairbags, I could make a call."

"Documentary?" Ryan said. "I never did a documentary." His heart was racing. Something irrational told him to take it… to get the hell out of here. All the memories, the shadow dreams. The self-centered sameness of his life was crushing him. He'd been heaping one lie on top of another to stay afloat, hoping everyone else he knew failed so he might win. He'd never been that way before. He knew that he had somehow poisoned himself…

"You still with me?" Mickey asked, bringing him back. "Like I said, it isn't my boogie, but I know I could set it up. Tell you what… I gotta stay out here for a day and fix some things for Pop. I can set it up tonight and we'll fly back to New Jersey tomorrow. I'll introduce you to these guys."

Ryan was frozen with indecision. Mickey read him.

"What happened to you, man? What happened to the guy who used to run fucking Z patterns in front of rabid linebackers? You're sitting here with a complexion gray as spoiled meat. The Mick has gotta pump some voltage in t' you."

Something about Mickey's energy stirred old feelings.

"Why not," he finally blurted. "Make the call."

"I can tell you, now you've said yes, you're saving my ass on this, buddy." Mickey grinned. "I promised these guys I'd find somebody to do this film, and here I end up with Emmy-winning Ryan Bolt… They're gonna shit."

Ryan felt himself blushing, and Mickey looked at his watch.

"I gotta go. Could you do me a favor? I promised Lucinda I'd take her to dinner before this came up. Would you get me off the hook and take her for me?"

"Sure."

"Tomorrow, you and me and Lucinda fly on my dad's jet back to Jersey. It'll be old times."

It was happening so fast, it was all Ryan could do to hang on.

They were sitting on the porch of the bungalow in the yellow sunset. She had changed since her tennis lesson and was wearing shorts and a silk blouse. She was breathtakingly beautiful. There was something so sweet, so simple about her that Ryan felt he was in the presence of royalty. He felt recharged by the light in her green eyes.

Without warning, he heard himself say, "I've been having a terrible time lately. I've been acting irrationally. I'm having…" He stopped. Why was he telling this gorgeous girl this? He sounded like a complete head case.

"You have anxiety attacks?" she said, finishing his thought.

"Yes, dreams where I'm chased by dark, evil presences that I can't identify."

"You've pushed your shadow away."

He looked at her. She was staring into his eyes, completely invested in him.

"Whafta you mean?"

"I'll give you a book… it's called Meeting the Shadow. It's a lotta Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, but it's fascinating. What it says is, if you deny your dark side, you will stifle yourself. Everybody has a devil in them. These kids I'm working with are so angry, they could almost kill. I try and get that darkness out. I try and get them to confront it. Maybe you have something in your past that you've repressed. If you could find out what it is, it would fire you."

"Repressed, you mean something in my past that I don't even remember…?"

She nodded.

"And it has something to do with Matt?"

"It could, but Matt is in your conscious. The shadow is in your subconscious. Losing Matt could be stirring it up… like sediment coming up from the bottom."

He looked at her for a long beat. They were sitting here in this artificial lily pond with white swans, in the middle of a riot-plagued city, breathing smog and talking about his psychotic tendencies, yet somehow it seemed perfectly normal.

"Will you marry me?" he joked.

"If you'd asked me when I was seven, the answer would have been yes."

They sat in silence for a long moment.

"Do you ever think of Rex?" she asked suddenly, her face strangely blank.

"Yes, occasionally." He wondered why she had asked. "That was the weekend we met," she finally said.