The Hollywood Guy Read Online Free Page B

likes to pick out accents, but hers is unidentifiable, yet something about her is vaguely familiar, or maybe, at sixty-three on the edge of geezerhood, everyone reminds him of someone. “I have a deluxe with a Jacuzzi and a deck overlooking the stream.”
    “That’s some stream.”
    “A couple of days it will settle down.”
    “How much?”
    “Two-fifty, Sunday through Thursday, three hundred, Friday/Saturday.”
    “What about those up there?” She points to the smaller units across the parking lot on the upper tier.
    “Cheaper, one-fifty, two hundred.”
    “And for a week?”
    “Five times one-fifty plus two times….”
    “Two hundred is one thousand one hundred and fifty dollars. I can multiply. How about seven hundred flat?”
    “Those units have small kitchens.”
    “I don’t need a kitchen.”
    Pete’s former self liked to haggle, it was part of the way things worked. Pete’s present incarnation doesn’t waste time making deals.
    “I really can’t afford more.” She sounds like she means it.
    Pete, the softie, hands her a pen. “Sign in. Complimentary coffee and home made muffins every morning. One small thing, if you would refrain from wearing that Red Sox cap during your stay, it would be much appreciated.”
    “That would be an abrogation of my right to free speech, don’t you think?” Cleo Johnson from Marshalltown, Iowa, registers and pays cash for a week in advance. He puts her in Unit 15, adjacent to the main house. She’s traveling light with a small canvas bag and a laptop.
    Once upon a time, when Pete met a woman, he had a tendency to rate their attributes on a scale from one to ten - tits, legs, ass, smile and personality, Samantha had been a nine, Heidi, wife number two was an eight, Barbara, who he was married to for twenty-two years, would have been a ten but she discouraged this crude form of Bronx objectivism, so he dropped the behavior thus refraining from rating Unit 15.
    Pete is a creature of habit and routine and where he eats is how he orients himself. In NYC there were hero places, pizza stands, delis and cafeterias, all substantial fare. In LA he had an endless array of salads to choose from in the hip bistros and cafés he frequented. In Woodstock everything is home made. He loves the Cuban pressed panini at O9, where he tries to read his newspaper but occasionally ends up sharing a table with Edith Evans, the vivacious realtor that handled the Streamside sale. At Maria’s, where the denizens go, he feasts on inexpensive garlicky vegetables and homemade pesto ravioli. He often stops for a fresh fruit shake at Sunfrost, taking the time to listen to the bearded counterperson’s latest poem.
    Today he drives down the hill to where he feels the most kinship, Lori’s, located among a string of commercial spaces fronting Rt. 212 that includes the Walk-in Doctor, a hair salon, copy shop and wooden kazoo maker. Lori’s baked goods are a constant temptation. Pete’s cell phone rings as he pulls into a parking spot. He wouldn’t carry it, but doesn’t want to be perceived as technologically challenged or unreachable.
    It’s his friend Bobby who became famous playing an LAPD detective in
Nasty
, a TV series that ran for seven seasons and made them both rich. Pete created the character; his friend lived it, solving crimes with a sarcastic sense of humor and a way with women. The audience loved the rascal.
    “Yo, Pete.”
    “Bobby. Long time.”
    “I miss you man. Life isn’t the same with you gone. And you’re not even dead.”
    “Bobby, you know where I live. It’s been three years, visit why don’t you?”
    “I thought you’d be back by now. Don’t you miss your old buddies?”
    The truth is Pete misses them all, even Barbara who finally threw him out and especially Bobby who always made him laugh. “That’s not the point.”
    “Pete, listen up. I’ve been cast in a new pilot, great part, chief of detectives in a small city, maybe Seattle or Portland. I play