Chapter 26

The next couple of weeks turned out to be rather more eventful than I was expecting. Oh, they started off with our relationship continuing to build steadily, but then we took quite the sudden jump forward. I’ll get on to that in a moment.

Saturday, Mel was working camera with Judy on a ‘normal’ commercial TV advertising shoot – Judy is fully aware that her income from making porn is at the whim of the studios and their fickle money men, so she takes most any kind of film-making commission, to keep her work steady and her crew busy. She’s even written and made some soft-porn TV mini-series for adult viewers – and sometimes also issued hardcore versions under a different title. She’s a busy lady and aims to stay that way.

Mel was thinking that her ‘Mel Jorgensen’ entry on IMDb could do with some updating to make it more current, so any crew credits for that shoot – and any other non-pornographic work – would go under her real name, in case sometime in the future she needed to distance herself from the Atlanta Starr persona but still get work in the movie industry.

My girlfriend’s absence gave me a day for household chores around my yard once I’d done the grocery and deli run. Simple routine late spring chores preparing for summer. Nothing mentally taxing, just steady manual labor like trimming bushes and cleaning debris out of the guttering. Actually, quite relaxing. Max thoroughly enjoyed having me out there to pick up and throw his ball and dog-toy; it wasn’t the most efficient way to work, but he had fun. I kept my phone by me in case Mel was able to call; it wasn’t until three o’clock that it vibrated in my pocket, her telling me that she’d be over in an hour or so.

Half past four, Max confirmed that our guests had arrived out front. He took Kara and Tara out the back to show off all his hard work in tidying the yard...

Mel took a quick shower and then joined me in the kitchen where I was finishing off the marinade process. I poured her a glass of wine and asked her how the day had gone. She chuckled, “Better than expected. It was one of those message service centers where they deal with your customer’s calls for you, and they wanted to use their own staff to tell you how much inconvenience they could save you. Normally it’s awful, everyone reckons it’s their big chance to get some air time and acts up for the camera, but this time most of them were ordinary folk doing their job and proud of it. A couple fluffed their lines, and we had to redo some when a phone rang elsewhere in the office, but otherwise it all worked out. We got some good stuff in the can; the people came across well as friendly and efficient. Judy reckons we can get six variants, easy, so it’s a series, not just one ad endlessly repeated until everybody hates it.”

The meal over, we cleaned up, did the night time routine for the dogs, and headed for bed. We had some catching up to do. We didn’t quite make up for five days without, but we certainly made inroads on the backlog. And we banked another one during our morning shower.

My girlfriend was impressed with my yard-tending skills and suggested that maybe her place could benefit? Like I was going to refuse?

We’d been invited over to Lucas and Maya’s place for Sunday lunch. They live out at Porter Ranch, nestled in the hills of the northwest San Fernando Valley, just north of the 118 freeway. With the quieter weekend traffic, only twenty minutes from my place. It would be good to get to know Mel’s agent and his wife better; they had been important to her these last few years. It reminded me that I probably ought to get back in touch with some of my friends, who I’d totally neglected for the past few months.

Porter Ranch is a strange place; a relatively recent development. Essentially it’s built around a country club private 18-hole golf course, and most every home has its own backyard pool, even though they’re on relatively small plots for the price tag. It’s what they call a ‘masterplanned’ community, and from what I’d heard, it’s a great place to bring up kids, with high-performing schools and a safe environment. It’s also one of the more expensive non-Hollywood neighborhoods in Los Angeles; the homes are all luxury specifications, and you’re looking at eight hundred thousand bucks as a minimum, plus hefty community association dues. That might just explain the safe environment. You’ve got to have a six-figure household net income to even consider living there.

Porter Ranch is almost entirely two story homes – in quite the variety of styles – and the winding streets were a surprise after the grid system I’m used to. Rather different from the Chatsworth and Woodland Hills neighborhoods where Mel and I lived; they have grown up naturally as communities over the years, so possess stores, coffee shops, medical offices and so on, all jumbled together as they happened. Not so Porter Ranch. Okay, we saw walkers, joggers, runners, cyclists and skate-boarders, but they were doing it for exercise, not to actually get anywhere. You want groceries there, you either have them delivered, or you get the car out.

We found the house and were immediately made very welcome. Maya introduced me to their two kids, Maria, a really cute brown-haired girl of eleven who Lucas quickly admitted was gonna be a heartbreaker, and a boy of nine, Martin. They were polite kids, even if the first thing they asked was “Will you play chicken with us in the pool?”

It was sweet the way the two kids led us to the guest suite, and kept me talking in the hallway outside while Mel changed into her bikini, and then they swapped us around so I could don my swim shorts in private. Mel gave me a companionable kiss on the cheek when we were reunited, to make up for the ‘help’ she would have given me if we’d gotten changed together.

And then we played chicken with the kids. It helps that Mel is so tall; with Maria on her shoulders it was fairly matched. We called it an honorable draw at five duckings each – I deliberately stumbled to even things out a little when Martin and I were three-one up, and his older and stronger sister quickly made up another point for the ladies team. Then the kids showed us how well they could swim underwater between our legs; I watched Mel as they were doing this, and could tell she was just loving the interaction with the young ones. I hope Abby and Ben are such great fun to be with when they reach that age.

Despite being with hosts I hardly knew, the whole afternoon was totally enjoyable. Once we were out of the pool with a glass of wine in hand, Lucas and Mel chatted knowledgeably about the stock markets until Maya called them on talking business. We discussed plans for the upcoming Memorial Day weekend – out in California it doesn’t quite have the ‘official start of summer’ connotations it does in colder States who actually endure a cold winter – and Mel made them laugh as she said we were considering not leaving the bedroom for forty-eight hours. It was as well that the little ears were once again splashing in the pool at the time, because I blushed.

Maya called the kids for lunch; we ate out on their deck. From the sounds of conversation and laughter drifting over the fences and bushes, many of the neighbors were doing exactly the same. Afterwards, the kids went inside to play computer games for an hour while their meal digested, and Lucas poured us all another glass.

“So, Mike, what did you think of the shoot last weekend? Interesting?”

I chuckled, “Fascinating. Absolutely eye-opening. I’d never have guessed how much effort went into it. I thought everybody did a great job. One heck of a location, though. Incredible place!”

All three of them grinned at my enthusiasm. “You were expecting some cramped studio or sleazy hotel suite?”

I looked at Mel for permission; she helped me out and explained exactly whose place Judy had used for the shoot, and how we’d gotten entry. That raised a huge belly laugh from both of them. “I guess those photos won’t get into the celebrity gossip magazines? Maybe we’ll buy the full vid from Judy so we can take a peek at the décor!”

A hilarious discussion followed about the two A-listers and their continuing well-documented marital strife; Lucas claiming that it was vital that a talent agent was abreast of the latest rumor; Maya being more honest and admitting a huge love of tittle-tattle; one of her friends hosts a celebrity rumor mill blog and was making a good living off the hits on her advertisements. I shan’t repeat the conversation here; most of the speculation was scurrilous and very likely actionable, but a whole lot of fun. It was probably just as well the kids emerged from the house demanding another game in the pool; nothing is so gross that you can’t find someone in Hollywood doing it, but never in a million years could I have imagined some of the alleged ‘events’ that Maya was describing. Probably just as well I’d never be anywhere near being invited to those kind of parties...

Oh, and Maya DID promise not to breathe a word of how the mansion was being rented out without the knowledge of its warring owners; she’d had to work hard for a living, and she was most definitely on the side of the housekeeper, rather than the over-entitled duo who’d been so insensitive as not to ensure their staff kept getting paid while they squabbled...

Maria and Martin were impressive kids. They both seemed more confident for their age than I remembered being; I guess having your own in-ground pool and good schools helped. They were certainly getting a great start in life; it was a little weird to remember that the porn industry had paid for their lifestyle. I’d have to ask their parents sometime how they were intending to tackle any explanations that might be required – when I’d Googled Lucas the search results had left me in no doubt that his talent agency specialized in the adult industry. When the kids were old enough to understand the terminology, they’d also know for sure how their dad earned a living.

We took our leave about six; Maya offered us supper but we politely declined, citing three hungry dogs back at my place. Lucas slipped me his card as he thanked me for putting up with the kids. I smiled and told him that it had been an absolute pleasure – and it had been – and that we hoped to return the hospitality.

Monday afternoon, during a break in the office, I recounted to Helga some of the more extreme celebrity rumors Maya had shared. She laughed so loud that one of the other secretaries came in to check on her!

Tuesday morning, Mel called to tell me that there was a big screen showing of Charles Lang’s 1960 “The Magnificent Seven” that evening, and did I want to see it? Of course I did; I mentioned it to Helga, and she and Clifford came along too. We hit a taco place afterwards for supper; our friends were old enough to remember a time when every film was acetate on reels and a circle appeared on the screen a fixed time before the second circle signaled the projectionist to switch on the other projector for the next reel. The sound track on the aged 35mm film hadn’t done any great favors for Elmer Bernstein’s iconic score and main theme, but it still sounded a whole lot more impressive on cinema speakers rather than my home TV. It was a fun evening.

It was a comparatively quiet week at work; no sudden crises, no disciplinary cases. In other words, a good week. Mel was working for Judy every day editing and doing some helping out with scriptwriting; she was having a great time. She admitted over supper Thursday that there was a heck of a lot more job satisfaction behind the camera once you got beyond being a mere grunt or gofer.

“You ever think of becoming a talent agent, maybe joining Lucas’ team?”

She laughed, “Yeah, for the money, but not for the stress. Lucas employs people to do the hard work, cold calling the studios, chasing leads, firing off press releases and social media, but most of them don’t last. You have to possess a certain coldness to be able to deal with it as just business, and I’ve been on the receiving end...” she giggled at her Freudian slip, “it’s too personal for me, too emotional. I know what it’s like to sit at home day after day, calling to see if there is any work, being told no, and then being over-the-top grateful when you are called in. No, not for me. I’d want to give everybody a gig, and you just can’t do that. Oh, and I’d want to fire some of the prima-donna assholes, and he probably wouldn’t let me do that because of the money they bring in to the agency.”