Page 72 of Hollywood, Ending

The hotel itself apparently provided the setting for an old movie about Paris, and my room has many closets and two bedrooms from back in the day when people would move into hotel rooms for months on end. But I’ve hardly been in the room—just to change and shower. I’m tired and take a sip of espresso after each interview.

After press, they drive us in the three black Mercedes to the Eiffel Tower, where Juniper and I get out to take some pictures. Matthew shows up just after us, and so we get some trio shots. “My kids,” he says joyfully as he gets out of his car and puts his arms around us. At one point he leans his head onto my shoulder, which I can tell will become the shot that the publicists blast out to all the European media.

Back at the hotel, the Dutch interviewer—an attractive young man wearing a black suit—meets me for coffee. “You must be tired,” he says, and I acknowledge that I am, and then he says, “Warhol was fascinated by consumerism and industrial design. You must also feel like you are commodifying art.” I haven’t made this connection before, but it’s true we’re trying to sell something deep through superficial interviews. “Sure,” I say. “Warhol loved business. He loved selling things. He said business was the highest form of art. And making a movie…it’s art. Promoting a movie…is business.”

“Do you find the commodification of self uncomfortable? Warhol never seemed to.”

I stumble through an answer as best I can, saying that I’m not commodifying myself, only talking about my process.

“But your love for Juniper, your openness about abuse, your—how do you say in English—placing this all on the table, this is very un-Warhol. The public never knew Warhol’s lovers when he was alive. Never knew Warhol’s fears. He was actually very protective of his own privacy, despite having a public life. You’re not. Why?”

“I would say I’m just less successful at protecting it, maybe,” I tell him. “Or that I live in a different era with different expectations.” I think about Matthew—how even he talked about his father’s death on TV.

The interviewer keeps asking questions—smart questions—about Warhol and me, about celebrity and privacy. I’m both impressed and a little scared, but Ellen is with us and doesn’t jump in, so I assume I’m doing fine. When, after forty-five minutes, Ellen says, “We’re at time so last question please,” the young man tells me, “I think the film is extraordinary, and you steal every scene. This is a silly question, but how do you inhabit the character so fully?”

“Instead of making me into him, I made him into me,” I say.

“A dangerous game,” the interviewer replies. “Thank you for your time.”

_____

Ellen and I take a tiny elevator up to my room and she says, “You handled that really well. Some of these Europeans are a bit intellectual for my taste, but I’m sure the piece will come out fine.” I reach in my pocket and pull out a stick of gum. “You’ve got thirty minutes to change, then we’re off to the premiere.”

I open the door to my room, half hoping that Juniper is there, but of course she isn’t. Instead, a hair and makeup person is. I like getting my makeup done; it’s rare that a stranger touches your face with kindness, and this stranger with spiky hair and fake lashes is an attractive one, which helps. As I get my hair done, I text Juniper: Any chance I can see you for three seconds before we do this thing?

And she responds, HMU should be done momentarily. I’m in 251.

Her room is on the same floor as mine, so when they’re done with me, I get dressed in a black Prada suit and walk down the hall to her room. I ring the doorbell—there’s a doorbell—and she answers. She’s wearing a black velvet dress with a plunging neckline. “Holy hell,” I say.

“I told you that you’d know when I dressed up for you.” I close the door behind her and kiss her immediately. “Lipstick,” she whispers into my mouth, and I tell her I don’t care and we can fix it later. We kiss for a while, me pressed against the wall and her pressed against me. Eventually, she pulls away and says, “I like your body when it is with my body. It is so quite new a thing.”

“Original?” I ask.

“E. E. Cummings,” she says, and I laugh.

“Remember when you told me at the table read that anxiety is the disease of freedom? I think about that a lot.”

“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom,” she says.

“Oh, I heard it wrong. Well, I like my way better. It’s the disease of freedom.”

“Whatever it is, we’re about to mainline it,” she says.

_____

We head down to the hotel lobby together, where Ellen has freshened up into a little black dress and Katie is wearing something similar. Matthew’s team is huddled off in a different area until Matthew comes down wearing a tuxedo with a bow tie. “Don’t you look dapper?” I say, and Matthew responds, “You’re glowing, kid. Glowing.”

I can already hear the people outside, but I’m not ready for just how many of them there are surrounding our cars. Juniper starts taking selfies as the crescendo of noise rises, and I take a couple too, grabbing people’s phones so I can angle the selfie how I like it. Then Matthew emerges from the hotel and there’s a physical shift in the universe as people press past us and toward him. “Matthew, Matthew!” people shout in their French accents, and I can feel myself being pushed until bodyguards emerge and create a path for Matthew to reach his car. Juniper and I sneak into the car behind him with Ellen and Katie crammed in with us, and there are people staring through the window at us, pressing their hands and noses to the car window to see past the tinted glass. The cars have to drive slowly to avoid hitting anyone, but finally we’re out on the road and Juniper says, “That was weird,” and Ellen says, “The premiere is apparently packed, so take a breath while you can.”

11

The cheering begins as we drive around the block to the red carpet that’s been laid out. Juniper and I emerge, and I can hear people shouting my name, so I try to look and wave at the folks calling to me, but there are so many people. They’re pressed against a barricade, and cops are stationed every few feet to make sure the barricades don’t fall. Juniper walks over and starts taking selfies with fans, and I do the same for a while, and someone shouts, “I love you Kai Laramie,” so I shout back, “I love you too,” which I guess I kind of do. Movies need fans, and I’m grateful that we have so many for this one. I’ve gotten almost accustomed to the sound when Matthew arrives behind us, gets out of the car with his bodyguards, and the cacophony really begins, with people screaming for pictures and autographs. Matthew just waves and shouts, “I love you, Paris! Je t’aime! Je t’aime!”

I make my way to the red carpet with the step-and-repeat behind me featuring the movie’s logo. I stand there in my suit as a dozen photographers shout at me to look this way and now here and chin down please. I don’t know what to do with my hands. After a minute, Juniper shows up and we take some pictures together, and then I make way for her to do her solo shots. Ellen brings me back to the carpet when Matthew arrives, and he’s got his arm around both Juniper and me and without breaking his smile says, “Just let ’em turn you into an object.”

Farther down the carpet, cameras are set up to do interviews. It’s hard to tell what anyone is saying to me in the interviews because of their accents and the noise behind us, but I struggle through. Ellen’s behind me, just off camera. I think about how Ellen’s dress is meant to make her disappear into the background, while my suit is made to pop. An interviewer asks me how I’m finding Paris and I say, “It’s lovely. I want to move here,” even though all I’ve seen is the Eiffel Tower and the insides of hotel rooms. I take a step down the carpet and another interviewer is there and asks, “Juniper just said she loves you. Do you also love her?”

Juniper jumps in then, her arms around me, and says, “Yeah, Kai, do you?” I’m surprised by her presence on my back. Touch without warning always makes me anxious. I’m looking at the interviewer, and then at the camera lens, and then back at the interviewer. “I am a little overwhelmed right now.”