Where are you echo blue, p.12
Where Are You, Echo Blue?, page 12
I called Hazel, and the police came around the same time she did.
They didn’t want to press charges, because he was Jamie Blue and they loved him—one even asked for a picture with him—but he was too drunk to stand. I had seen my father angry before, but never like this.
They told Hazel that they couldn’t look the other way because I was a minor. If I hadn’t been there, they could have written him off as another actor getting drunk and throwing his shit into the Venice canals. Dennis Hopper lived around the corner—you think they weren’t used to that? But there was a kid in the house, even if I felt like anything but a kid.
They arrested him and brought him in on charges of disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct.
24.
That night, Hazel did a very un-Hazel thing. She mothered me. Well, maybe not mothered. A mother would cradle you and comfort you. But she parented me. She ordered us a pizza after the police left with my dad, while someone tried to fish the Milo Baughman from the canal. Hazel told them if they could get it out, they could have it.
“Do you want to sleep at my house tonight?” she said.
I shook my head. I couldn’t imagine Hazel’s house feeling at all comforting. I imagined it to be clinical and cold, and she probably had her housekeeper vacuuming up behind you wherever you walked with a little dustbuster. She didn’t want me there. She just felt complled to offer because I was her highest-profile client and had nowhere to go. What I really wanted in that moment was to go back to my mom’s. I had been so hard on her, so angry and resentful toward her for sleeping her life away, for being stuck in her house worrying about the paparazzi. But my mother didn’t destroy furniture. She wasn’t violent. Or drunk. And she didn’t belittle me, didn’t take my success as an insult.
“This is going to look very bad,” Hazel said. “Your father is going to have to go to rehab after this. He’s got to clean up his reputation.”
“What does his reputation matter at this point? This is about him getting better, isn’t it?”
“Normally you can be a bad boy and nothing will stop them from forking over their money at the box office if the movie is good. A handsome male movie star with talent can usually get away with anything. But this is different. He’s a dad, and he lost control while his daughter was in the house. That’s the issue.”
He also hadn’t been in any good movies for a long time.
“The other issue is that Jamie is not the only movie star in the house. See where I’m going with this, darling? You have Holly and the Hound coming out in the summer. We don’t want this problem continuing, because we don’t want it to overshadow you.”
* * *
• • •
Holly and the Hound began filming in January, while my dad was at rehab, which was a great distraction. I felt like I was a part of something from the start. Before we began shooting, Belinda (who was playing Holly’s best friend, Roxy—her mother had come around) and I got to meet with Christine Camper, our director. We told her we didn’t want Holly and Roxy to be cutesy and sweet. We wanted them to be artsy and edgy. I showed her some of my Debbie Harry inspiration photos, how she often wore a T-shirt and jeans while performing at CBGB. She was cool and gritty but still approachable. That’s what I wanted Holly to be like.
“Oh, so you don’t want to make another Pollyanna?” Christine said, laughing.
“Hell no,” I said. “I hate that bitch.”
At that stage of my life, I was feeling bold. I had opened two movies that were number one at the box office, and I knew my worth. I knew I had bankability. I knew I was, as they say in the industry, “viable.”
Christine Camper was this small woman who wore leather jackets and bright red lipstick. She had made an independent film and also directed a number of television shows. She was an anomaly back then because either you were a TV director or you were an independent filmmaker—you weren’t both. She told us that she didn’t expect her first studio feature to be a Disney movie, but she took the gig for the money. She was determined to bring originality to it, to create a film that wasn’t condescending to teenagers. Disney, shockingly, liked her ideas. It was a perfect match.
Entertainment Tonight came while we were shooting at an outdoor school location to get behind-the-scenes footage.
“Do something fun. Do cartwheels across the field or something,” the ET producer said.
Instead, Belinda and I sprung off the metal bleachers, stole pom-poms from wardrobe, and taunted the extras in cheerleader uniforms. Then I persuaded the old guy who was using the striping machine on the baseball field to let me run it, and I made zigzags from third to home base.
I could sink into Holly because she was someone I wanted to be. Holly was messy. She took chances; she didn’t exactly fit in or try to make anyone happy. She wasn’t a people pleaser like Pollyanna—she didn’t need to be, because her parents supported her no matter what. And she got to gallivant around her small seaside town with her best friend and her hound dog. I envied Holly’s life.
Those days, I stayed between my dad’s house with Alma and my mom’s. My mom had been working with a life coach and, with no one else to take care of, had a fully scheduled life. Yoga at eight in the morning. Chai tea at ten. Meditation at two o’clock. Painting at four o’clock. Martini at five. Toast and eggs at ten before bed. She had alarms set for everything. The yoga, the martini, the meditation, and when she could take her anxiety pills.
Something about staying with her felt awkward. She was always watching me, which was different from when I lived there when I was little. It was more subtle than how she used to smother me in her dark bedroom. Now, she was trying this whole newfound “love and light” approach. Everything was a suggestion.
“You should really meditate, Echo. It would be good for you to calm your brain.”
“Did you always sleep this much? Or is this something new?”
“Maybe you need to take a pottery class. Using your hands might recalibrate your energy.”
I wanted her to say what she was thinking—ask me if I was taking drugs. (At this point, I was averaging at least a Klonopin a day, mostly at night.) I needed to know that someone cared. That was the wrong word. She cared, but wouldn’t it have been nice if someone had taken me by the hand and said, Here, we’re in this together. Here, let’s get this mess cleaned up. But she didn’t; she couldn’t. And despite her positive self-work, I was just as alone as I’d always been.
* * *
• • •
By the time Holly wrapped in the beginning of March (with all signs pointing to another success), my dad was scheduled to get out of rehab. Hazel wanted to discuss a few things before the press got all over it.
“The first question I have for you is about your mom. Can we get Mathilde to show up at the premiere? Coming out of hiding to support her daughter would be a huge story and overshadow your father’s release from rehab.”
“She would never,” I said flatly. “Also, about him. Why do we have to be on the defense? Aren’t we past that?”
Hazel pursed her lips and lowered her sunglasses to the bridge of her nose. I could see what she was thinking.
I continued. “He’s sad, Hazel. That’s why he acted like that. He committed a year of prep and a year of filming to that picture. And the article—”
“Echo, darling. I have advice for you. Do not make excuses for destructive men or you won’t be able to quit. Do you understand me?” She lit a cigarette. “No one loves your father more than me, darling. No one has put herself on the line for him more than I have, but he should not act that way for the sake of his fans or, more importantly, for you. You were hiding in the closet that day, afraid for your safety.”
“It wasn’t like it was a tiny closet, Hazel,” I said. “I have a pretty big walk-in.”
But she was right. I kept doing this. Defending both of my parents. My response was always the same when people asked. “My mom’s great. She paints. She’s very happy staying out of the spotlight.” And “My dad? Oh, my dad—he’s good. Matthew, Matthew was an artistic project for him, and he knew not everyone was going to get it. It’s not about the box office. It’s about the craft.”
Isn’t that what you did for emotionally broken parents? You made excuses for them. And he was out there, in the spotlight, taking chances. You had to give him some credit. Not every movie star was doing that. Most of these leading men took safe roles; they didn’t move to Wales for a year to work with an experimental director. I only wanted to make things better for my dad.
They all told me to act like an adult when it suited them, because I had a job. Because I had fame. Because the paparazzi followed me. Couldn’t I act like an adult when it mattered the most—to help my dad?
“What if Dad and I did a movie together?” I said to Hazel. I was fourteen. She puffed on her cigarette for a minute and then lifted her glasses. She wiped her eyes, just under her long mascara-heavy lashes. Women like Hazel never really let you know what they’re thinking until they decide to be blunt and slice you in half. Her success depended on keeping those cutthroat convictions coming but packaged in a bow.
“I thought about this and haven’t broached it to your father yet.”
“Why not?”
She took a whopping drag of her cigarette and exhaled, the smoke rings looking like little angels flying into the clouds.
“Can I have one?”
She laughed as if I entertained her by asking.
“Since when do you smoke?” I generally tried to keep my habit pretty low-key, but it was hard to believe Hazel had no idea. I just figured it had never been convenient for her to mention it. I played along.
“Didn’t all the glamorous movie stars smoke?” I said. “Lauren Bacall. Marlene Dietrich. Bette Davis.” I despised the briefly concerned look that crossed her face. I was beyond childhood, and she knew this.
“You have me there,” she said, amused, before sliding her lighter and a cigarette across the table, which I then lit, blowing jagged smoke rings at her. She raised her eyebrows, impressed.
“Be straight with me, Hazel,” I said. “Don’t coddle me.”
“People will come to see your dad, yes, but they want to see your dad with you. Which is very different than your dad being the main billing at the box office. You are in prime-time mode, and Disney wants more teen vehicles for you. They want to extend your contract. You don’t need to do a movie with your dad.”
This wasn’t about what I needed. She should have known that.
“What, am I going to do Disney movies forever? I don’t know if I want that.”
“I’m not going to respond to that comment.” I didn’t have to ask what she meant. If I stuck with Disney long enough, I was set for life, even once the public stopped thinking I was cute, and even if I got ugly (which Hazel often reminded me happened to child actors all the time).
“The truth is, your father will see it as a big blow to his ego, darling.”
“Getting bad reviews for a movie he worked on for a year isn’t a big enough blow?” I said. “How much worse can it be?”
“Having your teenage daughter pull you out of the ditch is not how a man like your father operates. You have to understand, Echo, and maybe you already do, but women and their appreciation of him are a big part of his makeup. He likes to have his ego stroked. Not buried.”
“I’m not one of his girlfriends,” I said uncomfortably.
“Still, you are a girl, my dear. And your daddy, who looks like a confident, debonair guy, is a very fragile man.”
She crushed the cigarette out in the crystal ashtray already overflowing with lipstick-covered cigarette butts. I did the same.
“I understand that. But I have an idea. We have to make it like I need him, like he’s doing me a favor. Like he’s adding to my career,” I said to her. “Or better, like I miss him after his long stretch away making Matthew, Matthew and want to spend time with him.” I leaned forward, pushing my elbows into the table, giving her my best sell. I had a painful feeling that this had to happen and that I couldn’t do it without her. “You can do it, Hazel. You can find something that brings out the teen aspect, but that’s about the savior/father aspect too. It has to be very specific.”
“It would have to be artsy. Highbrow,” Hazel replied after a long pause. She was coming around.
“Right,” I said, surprisingly excited. Sure, this movie was going to be about me saving my dad’s career, but it really would be good for me to branch out. Despite the long-term benefits, being a Disney girl was already getting weird. I didn’t like how much responsibility I had with the kids who followed me and who wrote me fan letters and who spilled their life stories. You’re supposed to love your fans, but I couldn’t help but think that mine were delusional. Did they really think they were friends with me? And why did they scream when they saw me? Why did they have to be so awkward and tearful and make everything so uncomfortable?
“We’d have to find something quirky. Because you know the Academy doesn’t ever nominate teen movies.”
“Forget the Academy, Hazel. We want good reviews,” I said. “This is to pump up his ego.”
“Right, darling. Of course—you’re right. Let me see what I can do.”
25.
And that’s how Hazel found Stars Everywhere, about a young girl who goes to live with her single dad at the Chateau Marmont, high up in the Hollywood Hills. He’s a successful stage actor who’s in town for a movie, and his daughter wants to get to know him better. They bond and hang out with the oddballs staying at the hotel like they are. She gets a new perspective on life and a renewed vision of her dad.
I willed myself into believing it would be a perfect transition for my dad (and why wouldn’t it?), who had gotten back from rehab happier than I’d ever seen him. The three months did him good. “I promise you, Echo—things are going to be different,” he said that first night. “My priorities are all gonna change. It’s going to be me and you. I’ve been feeling sorry for myself, self-medicating, being destructive. That’s not going to happen anymore.” He squeezed me tight, and I could smell a patchouli scent on him that he said a guy from rehab gave him to “center” himself. I felt so proud of him, so hopeful. He was back to his old self, and I felt like his daughter again. I didn’t know anything about addicts then. I didn’t know moments like these were impermanent. That this fleeting good behavior, that magical time when he put me on a pedestal, was something I’d always be attracted to when it came to men.
Hazel and his publicist got him a cover story in one of the tabloids focusing on his relationship with me. “I JUST WANT TO GET BETTER FOR ECHO,” the headline read. Hearts melted across the country.
We went for these nightly sunset bike rides through Venice Beach—earnest father-daughter moments were part of his redemption tour. One night, I told him that I was worried about my career. He signaled me to pull over. The two of us sat on the beach together, looking out at the waves crashing into the sand. Surfers bobbed on the horizon. The skaters clanged on metal railings behind us.
“Talk to me, Echo.”
“I hate the Disney movies,” I said, which wasn’t entirely true. (I hated Pollyanna, as I’ve made very clear. But I loved Holly and the Hound.) “I want them to give me something that actual teenagers will watch. Something everyone else will take seriously.”
“Okay. Did you talk to Hazel? She can start looking at new directors.”
“It’s not that,” I said. “I want to do an adult movie. I need another star to back me up. You know what I mean? Someone who could be the anchor of the movie and really come in strong. Someone that people love—”
A smile tugged at his mouth. “I see where you’re going with this.”
“You do?”
“You want me to be in a movie with you.”
I was trying to be sly here. I didn’t want to seem like I felt sorry for him or show how excited I was that he was biting. I turned it on.
“I don’t want it to seem like I’m using you,” I said. “I know you’re a huge star. I know you don’t exactly have time for something stupid like this.”
“I’ll consider it. No promises,” he said.
“I understand, Daddy.”
“You really want me to be in a movie with you, huh, kid?”
“I missed you when you were doing Matthew, Matthew. I missed you when you were in…” He didn’t like the word rehab. “Mom is all over the place. You’re the person I want to spend time with. You’re the person I want to be with.”
“Please don’t talk about Matthew, Matthew,” he said, running his hands through his hair. He hadn’t cut it the whole time he was in rehab, and he looked like one of those wild surfers. He slung his arm around me and gave me a kiss on the head. He told me he’d talk to Hazel and see if she could find us something.
There were no paparazzi photos of that moment, and that was just fine with me.
Goldie
• • •
26.
I woke up Monday morning to a barrage of voice mails from Hazel Cahn’s assistant telling me that they would file a lawsuit if I published the interview. I deleted all of them and spent the day studying the borrowed Stars Everywhere script. (I didn’t want to call it stolen, exactly, because maybe I’d return it. I could put it on the library steps, wear a hoodie and sunglasses like I was dropping a baby off at a firehouse.) I turned on the local morning news show, Good Day L.A. After an update from the “meteorologist,” a thin blonde woman with tight jeans and a halter top, one of the anchors announced that the NYPD was doing an investigation into Echo’s disappearance. The rest of the segment devolved into a spirited debate about whether she had joined a cult.
