her go, jealous in spite of himself.
“That guitar of yours is a piss,” Tito said, his eyes falling on Mitch’s Stratocaster. “Play me something.”
“Kind of tired right now, Tito. What is it you want?”
“To talk.”
“Okay, sure.” Mitch sat on the edge of his loveseat, keeping the coffee table between them. He’d made that himself by bolting a discarded wooden storm window onto a leaky old rowboat. He wasvery proud of his coffee table. “But how did you get here?” he asked, snugging the ice pack against his jaw.
“What, you think because I’m Chicano I don’t know how to use a damned phone book?”
“Of course not. I didn’t see a car parked at the gate, that’s all.”
“I swam out. My ride’s back at the town beach.”
Tito’s hair was indeed wet, Mitch now noticed, as were the yellow nylon shorts that he was wearing. The orange-and-blue T-shirt he was wearing was dry. It was one of Mitch’s T-shirts. In fact, it was Mitch’s treasured and exceedingly threadbare New York Mets 1986 World Series T-shirt. He’d owned that shirt since he was in high school. And Tito had gone and helped himself right to it.
“That wasn’t very smart of you,” Mitch told him. “People have drowned trying to swim out here-the river currents can be treacherous. That’s how the island got its name. Back before they built the causeway they used a little ferry boat, and it capsized and a Peck daughter washed out to sea.” Mitch stared at the young actor, wondering what it would be like to be so handsome. Everyone in the world wanted to look like Tito Molina-and yet his unparalleled good looks hadn’t brought him anything even remotely close to happiness. “It would have been better if you’d buzzed me. I’d have raised the gate for you.”
“How could you do that, man? You weren’t here.”
“I was at the beach club. I thought you’d be there, too. I thought we’d have a chance to talk then.”
Tito didn’t respond. Just poured himself some more of Mitch’s scotch, his hand wavering unsteadily.
Mitch abruptly rose and marched into the kitchen for his emergency stash-the family-sized squeeze bottle of Hershey’s chocolate syrup that he kept hidden under the sink behind the laundry detergent and furniture polish, away from Des’s disapproving eyes.
“What are you doing in there?” Tito called to him.
Mitch returned with the syrup and sat. “Just getting comfortable,” he replied, squirting a generous shot of it onto his tongue.
“You have really disgusting personal habits, man,” Tito observed, curling his lip.
“Hey, you pick your remedy, I’ll pick mine.”
“Fair enough,” the actor conceded. “I hear you’re hooked up with the trooper lady.”
“So what?”
“So nothing. I’m envious, that’s all.”
“You’re married to the sexiest woman in America and you envy me?”
“Totally. Yours is the real deal. The way that she took charge of our situation today. Charged right in, no fear…” Tito gazed out the window, his knee jiggling nervously. “That was so cool.”
“Esme said you’d be at the beach club tonight.”
“She shouldn’t have. I told her I wouldn’t go.” He drank some more scotch, his finely sculpted features tightening. “She’s my Miss America, know what I’m saying? All she needs is the damned crown and that… what’s that thing they wear across their boobies, says where they come from?”
“A sash?”
Tito nodded. “Right. But she doesn’t listen to me when I tell her things. I’d never go near a place like that. It’s filled with dead men walking. I start hanging at their damned beach club with them then I’m not me anymore, know what I’m saying?”
“Yes, I think I do.”
“Okay, what did you mean by that?” Tito demanded suddenly.
Mitch shook his head at him, perplexed. The man was an absolute master at keeping people off-balance. “By what?”
“This afternoon, you said I was better than this. What did you mean?”
“It doesn’t exactly require a translation.”
Tito gazed at him searchingly. “I’m just a poor dumb beaner, jack. I need one, okay?”
Tito Molina sure needed something. He seemed to be consumed by inner disquiet. Mitch just didn’t know what it was he needed, or why he seemed to feel he needed it from him.
Mitch settled back on the loveseat with his syrup bottle, listening to the foghorn. “I was there on opening night when you were in Salesman. I saw it happen, Tito. I saw you blow Malkovich right off of that stage. You’re the real deal. You have the talent and looks and pure unadulterated star quality to do whatever you want. They can’t stop you. And that’s rare. One, maybe two actors in a generation have what you’ve got. Newman had it. Redford had it. Right now, there’s you and there’s only you. For me, it’s as if you’re holding a fortune right in the palm of your hand and instead of investing it wisely you’re pissing it away on crap like Dark Star, and I wish like hell you wouldn’t.”
Tito threw down another hit of scotch, shuddering. “Sometimes it’s like a trade-off. You’ve got to do that stuff so they’ll let you do what you really want.”
“I understand that,” Mitch said. “But what is it that you really want to do?”
“Man, I don’t know,” he replied, staring gloomily down into his glass.
“I don’t believe that. You know exactly what you want to do.”
Tito peered up at him suspiciously. “Okay, so maybe I do. What I want… I want to make a movie about my father. It would be, like, a way to understand where I come from, know what I’m saying? See, he was just this really angry, screwed-up juicehead and he died-”
“In a bar fight, I know.”
“I’d play him myself, see. And Esme would play my crazy mother. I’ve written the script. Most of it, anyway. And I want to direct it myself, too, which means I’d have to raise the money myself, which my agent totally hates. But that’s okay, because I don’t think I’ll be straight with myself until I do this. I need to do this.” He glanced at Mitch uncertainly. “You’re a smart guy. You know about things. Word up, what do you think?”
Mitch stared back at him for a moment. Now he knew why Tito Molina was here, what he wanted. Tito was an actor. He wanted Mitch to direct him. “I think you should do it.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely, because you’re passionate about it. You should always work on whatever you’re most passionate about. Otherwise you’re just another meat sack, wasting your time, wasting your life…” Mitch applied more syrup to his tongue. “Unless you can’t afford to do it, that is.”
“Hell yes, I can afford it. They gave me twenty mil for Dark Star. That’s my going rate now. I’m in the club, man. But, see, my agent wants me and Esme to do this romantic comedy together, Puppy Love.”
“I’ll probably be sorry I asked you this, but what’s it about?”
“I play a young veterinarian from the wrong side of the tracks,” Tito replied woodenly. “She’s a high-class breeder of champion basset hounds. We meet. We fall in love. We fall out of love. We-”
“Say no more. Please.” It sounded like a feel-good sapfest, the kind where exhibitors ought to post a sign at the box office reading Diabetics Enter at Own Risk. “Do you like the script?”
“No, I hate it. It’s just this bunch of cute, fake moments, strung together like beads. Totally Hollywood, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh, I know exactly what you mean.”
“But it’s a go project. The studio’s behind it.”
“And Esme?”
“She’ll do it if I will. But I don’t know, man. I feel like…” Tito ran a hand over his face, distraught. “I feel like I don’t have any real say in what happens. Like I’m not an actual person, just a character in a movie that somebody else is creating. None of it’s real. I’m not real. Esme’s not real. Esme and me, Chrissie and me.. .”
“What about Chrissie and you?” Mitch asked, frowning.
“Nothing, man. Forget that. Would you read the pages I’ve written?” he asked Mitch nervously.
“I’d be honored,” replied Mitch, who found himself discovering the same thing about Tito that Dodge had. Mitch liked the guy. He didn’t expect to, but he did. There was genuine boyish innocence to him that came through
