Read Online Confessions of a Hollywood Star by Dyan Sheldon - Free Book Online

audience smile and laugh and forget their woes. So I put myself in a cheerful, positive frame of mind and resolved to forget about the movie for at least one night.
    Sam picked me up after work in his dad’s van (you can barely fit people in his Karmann Ghia, never mind a bicycle).
    We went to Triolo’s for pizza (even though it’s miles out of town in the middle of nowhere) because Sam fixes Mr Triolo’s car and Mr Triolo loves him. We always get a salad or dessert on the house.
    “Well if you ask me it’s pretty astonishingly ironic that I’m the one who heard about the movie first and Carla’s the one who gets to be in it,” I was saying as we reached Triolo’s.
    “Twenty.” Sam sighed. “That’s the twentieth time you’ve mentioned either the movie or the Santini since we left the store.” He pulled into a space near the entrance. “I don’t know what you’re so het up about. I thought the Cep-Santini War was over. I thought you had nothing but contempt for Tinsel Town.”
    It’s astounding how photographic everyone’s memory is when it comes to something I said.
    “I’m not het up,” I informed him indignantly. “All I said was that I think it’s grossly unfair that Carla not only gets everything she wants, but things she doesn’t want too. And that I should’ve known better than to try to get anywhere asking minions. It’s like asking the prop person to tell you how to interpret your lines.”
    Sam turned off the ignition and looked at me. “OK, you’re not het up – but since you’ve just spent the whole ride over talking about Carla and this dumb movie, do you think we could have a moratorium on all conversation involving them – at least till after we’ve eaten?”
    I said, “Of course.” It’s not like I’ve got an obsessive personality.
    Most of the light in Triolo’s comes from candles stuck in wine bottles, which makes it very atmospheric, but pretty dark too. We sat at the front near the window so we could see what we were eating.
    It’d be as hard to have a bad time with Sam as it would be to climb Everest with towels on your feet, so it was easy enough to stick with the moratorium. In fact, for over an hour I forgot that things like Carla Santini and Hollywood movies existed. When we were ready for dessert, Mr Triolo himself came to take our order. It’s another sad fact of life that everyone has an ulterior motive, and pizza men are no exception. Mr Triolo came himself not just because he likes us, but because he wanted to know what Sam thought the new noise in his car might be. Much as I love Sam, I can’t say that I share his passion for the inner workings of the automobile. So while they were discussing all the things that might make Mr Triolo’s car sound as though it was about to implode, I let my eyes wander round the room. The walls are decorated with old photographs of generations of Triolos (Mr Triolo’s parents on their wedding day; Mr Triolo as a child in front of an ancient hovel in the Old Country; Mr Triolo’s grandfather standing in a field with a dog).
    I was thinking that the reason Mr Triolo’s pizza was so good was obviously because he came from solid peasant stock and marinara sauce flowed through his veins with the blood, when Mr Triolo must’ve noticed I was going into a trance and suddenly said, “Hey, Lola. You’ll be interested in this. Guess who that is at the back table?”
    My gaze fell on the table tucked into a dark corner at the rear of the restaurant (any further and it would’ve been outside). There was a couple sitting at it. He had his back to me and she was wearing a floppy hat, so it was hard to see her face. They were leaning towards each other, talking intensely. From what I could see of her mouth they were probably arguing.
    I shrugged. “I give up. Who is it?”
    “Oh go on…” It just shows how adding a little excitement to the most prosaic lives (by filming a movie in their town, for instance) can change people.