It was a script he had written when he was nineteen and had never gone back to do a rewrite on it. He made this clear to the studio execs, and they said they’d give him time to do a fresh draft. The time they gave him turned out to be two days. They rushed production, cast a relatively unknown actor for the lead, and the movie tanked upon release. It was one of the worst opening weekends for a highly anticipated summer blockbuster in the studio’s history.
“I was at a beach party in Santa Monica, and the stuff was everywhere. I was drunk and had hit a bong a few times, and then I tried coke for the first time. Before I knew it, that’s all I was doing. Staying up for days on end, missing important phone calls and meetings, lashing out at people — verbally, not physically — and I wasn’t myself. Carl and Anthony took me to a rehab center. I checked in willingly, by the way.”
“My God, Max. I had no idea.”
He huffed out a little laugh. “Yeah, almost nobody does.”
“Your mom?”
He put his head back on the seat. “No, I lied and told her I was on business for a while and that I’d be out of the country. She bought it. I was in rehab for 90 days. That first night was the loneliest night of my life. I stayed up visualizing my entire life being wiped away, everything I had worked so hard for.”
I lowered my head so our faces were close to each other. “You saved Krystal’s life like Anthony and Carl saved yours. Don’t you see that?”
“I just did what I could.”
SIX
Getting to know Monica and Loralei was good for me. It was nice to have some girlfriends and feel like there was more to my life than work and home. Not that either of those aspects of my new life with Max were lacking in any way. It’s just that sometimes you need space even from the things you value most.
What I didn’t plan on, however, was the revelation that occurred one day while the three of us were having lunch in Beverly Hills.
We were halfway through our meal when Monica asked about the new production company. I told her how hard Max was working, and she said, “He’s always been a workaholic as long as I’ve known him. But, trust me, I’ve never seen him happier, and it’s not just about the company. I can’t imagine Max ever being giddy about something, but you’ve almost made him that way.”
It was such a sweet compliment, especially coming from someone who had known him for years. I started to thank her, but Loralei spoke first.
“I agree. Even happier than when he was with Ty, and I never thought I’d see that.”
Monica looked at Loralei, then immediately noticed the quizzical expression on my face, and she probably saw me swallow hard, too.
“Oh, sorry,” Loralei said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No.” I cleared my throat and reached for my drink, desperately needing to wash away the sudden dryness in my mouth and throat. I’d never felt so jealous in my life. And Max had never mentioned anyone named Ty. “I don’t know who that is.”
The two of them looked at each other, as if they were engaged in some kind of telepathic rock-paper-scissors decision over which one should tell me about her.
Loralei said, “Tyler Morgan. She lived with Max for a year.”
“Just over ten months,” Monica added.
Loralei looked at Monica. “Close enough.” She looked back at me. “Anyway, they were pretty serious. But Max didn’t know she had a secret life going on.”
My stomach sank and I felt like I was going to lose everything I’d just eaten. I tried to keep a stoic look on my face, though. I didn’t want to give them any reason to stop telling the story.
“She was an up-and-coming actress,” Loralei said. “She hadn’t been in anything big yet, but her name was tossed around town for several projects by major directors. And one of those was Max.”
“But it never happened. She was heavily into drugs,” Monica said.
“I don’t know how she hid it from Max all that time,” Loralei said. “Or how she hid it from us. Nobody noticed a thing. Until the end…”
The end. Those words were so ominous, I feared the worst. That somehow Max had caught her using, or she’d been arrested, or simply bolted and left Max with a broken heart.
“It all happened so fast,” Loralei continued, “everyone was in shock. Definitely not as much as Max, but…she OD’d one night outside a club in LA. Max was on a location shoot in south Florida.”
The waiter came by, dropped off the check, and Monica grabbed it. “So I get the call. I’m still not sure why that happened. But Carl and I went to the hospital and were given the news. Carl called Max and he flew home overnight.”
“Jesus,” was all I could manage, as I looked away from them and watched a droplet of condensation slide down my glass.
“I’ve never heard him say a word about it since,” Monica said.
Loralei’s expression agreed with Monica. “That’s probably why he never told you.”
Yeah, I thought. That could be why. But this was an aspect of Max’s life I wanted to know about. Not just because it was another girl he had loved, but I wondered if he was really, truly over her, and what, if anything, all of it had to do with his need to protect me.
. . . . .
After lunch, alone in my car, I Googled Tyler Morgan. I didn’t want to do that at the table in front of Loralei and Monica. I just wanted the topic to go away at that moment, and it did, but I was still immensely curious about her.
I could only find a few pictures. I immediately started to compare myself to her. She was taller than me, and had lighter hair. Her face had angular features, while mine were softer. In short, we looked nothing alike, and I found some relief in that.
I got to the office and found Max sitting on the couch. Papers were strewn everywhere — next to him, on the table, on the floor — but all in neat stacks, no mess. I’d seen it before. He was in script deconstruction mode, a process he always did that involved actually physically taking a script apart and playing around with rearranging scenes. He had done it a few times with screenwriting software, but gave that up, saying this method made him think better.
He looked up as I stepped into his office. “I thought you were spending the day with the ladies.”
I closed the door behind me, freezing in place as I stared at him.
He moved the papers off his lap and stood. “What’s wrong, Liv?” He could always read my face in a microsecond.