Short story by Liliana Isella.

“Fredda. Come la sua tomba.”
For the last ten minutes. Over and over. Sexier and sexier.
Cold. As his tomb. That’s what it means.

Really?!? Who’s the idiot who wrote this line? Who’s the marketing big shot who bought this shit? Who’s the dummy who’s gonna drink it?

I was picked for the Italian version of this commercial. It’s a new beer. A light one. She is cheering on the tomb of her ex. Cheating ex? I suppose so. Don’t really know.
Well, there’s not much to know anyways. It’s just the beer, the tomb and me.
High heels, red lips and allusive nonsense.

Thank God, it’s done. The hipster teddy bears on the other side of the cameras give me the thumbs up.
As I close the door behind, Melanie reminds me that we’ll be finished in six days. Five after Halloween.

9000 Sunset Boulevard. Los Angeles from the top floor.
I wait for the elevator and can’t wait for the rest to come.
You get this two star town, you get the five star world.

The sliding doors ring. I stare into the hollow they disclose for me.
Him. Him. Him him him.
James. The million dollar pen. The million dollar liar.
The hero. The coward. The father.
The addict. The husband. The Husband.

I drive a few blocks down. Up and down this boulevard of the moon sun. This kingdom of the rock’n’roll nights. This skyless freedom each day harder to dream about.

I turn left into the Starbucks little lot. So little there’s no space.
Well, I’ll park in one of the Hollywood TV’s. I’m Hollywood enough to not be towed, after all.

I sit outside with my latte. The little patio is right across from James’ hotel.
Room 505.
He tried to convince me. On the phone. Last night.
Should I. Should I not. Should I. Should I not.

I was never able to forget her.
Lilly. Lilly. Lilly Lilly Lilly.
James’ muse, his violated Juliet, his million dollar angel.
I desperately fell in love with her in his first book. I missed her to death in the second. Ever after, she’s been following me around.

I take a sip and wonder if she approves James’ wife. His kids. His Manhattan installation.
Probably not. Not really. Schools, meetings, travels, The Hamptons, family, reunions. She chose not to choose those words.
She chose badass. She chose love. She chose sweet boy.
She chose bye.
Her wrists. A cut. Bye.
Bye sweet boy, bye….

Here. Now. She is.
Lilly.
Long black hair, pale soft skin, big blue eyes.
Full red lips. Immaculate heart. Invincible will.

Second, third, fifth floor.
The Sunset Tower.
The golden doors. The ancient walls. The seductive palms.
James. There, he is.

I just look. Look and hold. My latte.
Look and don’t turn.
Don’t. Turn. To her.

I whisper I want to love him.
I want to love him the way she couldn’t.
Love him. Hold him. Heal him.

She grabs my wrist. Empties my hands. Takes my life.
Red. My beats. Into her soul.
Big. Blue. Soul.

-Liliana. Lilly. Lillian… whatever.
I choke. The guy laughs.
-What a sublime, unique name.
-Well… it’s not that unique, around here. Believe me….
-Oh, in Hollywood, you can never be.
Tattoos all over, black nails and a brand new BMW by the patio’s fence.
-Is this your latte, Liliana?
-Ha… sorry. I don’t know how it got that far.
He places it back on my table and sits down.
-Do you often talk by yourself, Lillian?
Laugh. I do.
-I was just… rehearsing. Let’s say.
-Oh, another actress….
-Kind of. Not really. I mean… commercials, so far. Beers, tombs… stuff like that.
Laugh. He does.
Stand up. I do.
-Ok… gotta go…. Happy Halloween, ok?
Three steps.
To James’ tower.
To the other side.
-Lilly….
Stop. Turn. My latte.
-Please don’t leave your lips behind….
His black nails.The white lid. My red lipstick.
-Oh, thank y….
The cup to his chest. He pulls it.
-Don’t leave your reason behind either, Liliana. An unreasonably haunting smile sublimed by an unreasonably beautiful name – too much, to become just unreasonable.

I slowly reach my hand out.
His tattoo jungle, the hot paper, our mirroring Ray-Bans.

Full red lips. Immaculate heart. Invincible will.

Story by Liliana Isella.

Photo by Nic Adler.

Short story by Elizabeth Dunphey.

Goodbye, the kiss off, written on her rich girl blue stationary with the silver hearts.
Easter Horowitz looked like a Zappa girl, a tall JAP-y Zizmore girl, with a prized closet of size seven Jimmy Choos and long black hair.
Snow White, he had called her, on their first date, in Boston.
They were in Cambridge, walking in their red matching rugby sweaters and bantering, as if it was Love Story. He bought her a coffee and quoted Keats: “a thing of beauty is a joy forever . . . .”

The stripping happened after he left her for his grad student, Wendy Flannigan, all of twenty six. Wendy was bright, competent, sandy haired, and funny. She used to type his reports for him, and then one night, during a thunderstorm the power went out.  When it returned, he found her before him in a state of adorable disarray and he kissed her bare shoulder.

You could count on Charlie’s for the lookers, they said.
 Monday night, he went to see Easter dance.
Charlie’s was a beaten exotic dance joint, in South Jersey. The soundtrack: Bruce Springsteen, Marvin Gaye, Radiohead, “Fool to Cry”, “Wild Horses” and “Angie.” It was aching music that always made you think of what you could never have.
The walls were solid gold mirrors. Red velvet benches stained with beer. It reminded him of a basement, some school boy’s dream of what women were like. Some of the girls were rather beautiful, in their homecoming queen way, and it depressed him to see how far women had fallen.

And then his wife came onstage, the prettiest woman in the room.
She had a move, it was “the toss.” She tossed back that raven mane, and gave a big smile to the strange men, who sat with loosened legs.
Philip knew her well, he knew her smile was totally fake. It pained him to watch her this way. He took out a forty and deposited it in the yellow bikini string of the thin blonde who was perched before him, smiling vacuously. The whole place made him sick. He got up to leave, alone, again.

That’s why he wanted to protect Dacey. She was his only daughter.
She was an exceedingly beautiful girl, not just cute or pretty, but superlatively pretty, like her mother, a head-turner with skin like brown butter and ebony hair. Her stumbling block was talking to people other than her protective father.
Dacey was the one who could see through all his professorial bullshit. He often gazed at the brilliant girls in his class, with their heads over their mythology books. He thought to himself, this very intelligent girl may be Dacey in ten years.

“Hey, Knockout,” he whispered, and Dacey looked up from her artwork that night. She was frowning. He tried not to laugh at the expression. Yet, being a sweet girl at root, she did not hurt him back, and her face broke into a small toothed smile.
He gazed at that jet black hair. Fine and perfect. It was her mother’s hair, which fell below her Indian brown collarbone; she’d given Dacey something at least. Silk. She looked like her mother Easter, he decided, studying her in the lamplight. She was growing into something regal and important. But those eyes were different. Easter’s eyes were blue, robin’s egg in some lights; Dacey’s were the dusk brown of roasted nuts. Those eyes would knock some boy out of town someday, he thought proudly – and with a little paternal jealousy.

His family never liked Easter. One, they were Brahmin snobs, tracing their lineage to the Mayflower, a hook nosed clan with the wintry eyes, the proper dishware patterns, and a family seal. Number two, Easter was a flake. A Buddhist.
There she sat at their Christmas table, the year 1987, crossing and uncrossing her long legs at the ancient mahogany table with the tasteful Swarovski chandelier glittering. Easter ran a sweaty hand over her dangly earrings – a nervous gesture (that charmed Philip at the time). She had long nails too, which his bossy sister meanly commented upon.
Easter drank a lot of Merlot wine, and flirted with his tow haired brother Neil. She was just totally uncomfortable with their Gentile ways. She was from the Texas gutter, they said to him – with that gypsy hair and dark skin, from her Cherokee ancestry.  The parents Clyde and Candy intuited something awful, but Philip was blind and he only knew that he loved her, in that moment.

“I’m reading Dosteovsky for Russian lit.” Wendy said softly, one night, making room for him on the couch. “You should read the line up. I can’t pronounce any of the names. I should have taken an Irish class.”
“You are Irish. That would be predictable.” Wendy wrapped an arm around him, and they began to kiss. He was tangled in her embrace, her short sensible gold hair, the scent of dime store Mary Kay perfume. But, he never judged her cheap perfume, it struck him as wholesome, and he knew she was saving for a car.
Then he heard the rigid click clacking of heels, and he was face to face with Easter, with her tanned hand in Dacey’s. It was a touching portrait, he admitted, and his gut did the same slow burn of nostalgia for Easter. The two dark haired girls, Cher and her half breed Pocahontas. Around Easter’s neck was a brilliant ruby necklace, which heaved above her sleeveless red Marc Jacobs dress. She had not bosom at all, which was odd for a stripper. It leant her a kind of fragility though.

“Out. Easter.” – yelped Philip, straightening his shirt, in a panic.
“A mother is a goddam mother and I will sue you,” hissed Easter, glancing at Wendy with a catty look.
Easter’s eyes were something else. So beautiful, so small though, and venemous as a cat. A spooky look, thought Philip, and he felt a glimmer of fear, for the first time in his life.

They went to court. Philip had a better lawyer, but Easter was the victor.
As Philip looked across the room, Easter was dressed soberly. Black dress jacket and a diamond bracelet. She was driving an Arab’s Jag too. She cleaned up, he thought, grimly.

The court offered him weekend visits.
Dacey ran across the room to hug him. They had this minute at least. Dacey wrapped her olive arms tight around his neck. He wanted to capture this moment and he could feel it fading and dying and going away.
He thought of the time he had told her the Greek myth of Midas. He was a professor, he told those kinds of stories. In his opinion, Easter was King Midas.
He knew what would happen. Dacey would grow up. She would remain gloriously beautiful and be even more so. She would get boyfriends, and bring them home to her place. Tatoos, cell phones, texting, myspace, and boys. She would shop at the mall and grow brittle and shallow as an American teenager girl does.

In the light of the setting sun, Easter reminded him of Cher – glamourous, chain smoking, and over-sexed. He knew by nightfall, the ponytail she wore today would have fallen free. Men would cheer her on, in the dark lights, and she would pick one special man to spend the night with. She always did pick one guy, and they weren’t always rich. What she craved was comfort. She liked the physicality of the male.

He found himself staring at her longer than he had wanted to, puzzling over her resemblance to his Dacey.
Easter Horowitz was the first to walk away, taking the court steps two at time, in her tall, Gucci heels. He thought about the funny part, how he had known every detail of her, her hair and her nose, that perfect Roman nose that could have been on a coin one hundred years before. He lit a Marlboro, and paused, day dreaming about the good old days, living in the past that would never come again.

He looked up and his Wendy waved from the car. Her smile was totally transcendent. Her crooked teeth, the freckles, the blonde hair. He thought of the ending of La Dolce Vita. She was something innocent, at least.
He waved back, even if it meant leaving the best thing that had ever happened to him. You had to know when to fold them, went the song. You had to know when to go, and so finally, with the tear on his threadbare seersucker lawyer sleeve, he had left his Easter.
Goodbye, he thought to himself, Easter Horowitz.  I will remember you every day of my life.  I will remember you even when you forget me.

As he walked to the car, he found himself walking quicker, then running, fleeing for his life, running like a deadbeat professor who lost custody and seduced his grad student. He knew what the world saw, and he knew what he was – Easter’s creep ex and nothing more. He was running for his life, but he hoped he was finally going somewhere.

Story by Elizabeth Dunphey.

Short story by Sue Callender.

The nape of her neck expended tears of anxieties and fears.
Recalling love had and love lost – not so appealing, and yet so enticing.
Dalliances craved to the core of pleasure – few and far between.

Her pensamiento turned to him – the boy next door. She once had a dream in which he beguiled her out of her clothes, and she came (in actuality).
Nothing really happened, ‘twas solely the act of perhaps, the chance of maybe, the mere sound of yes.

He had come over to work on their yard a few times; her flat mates said they knew him from school. And every time he would pull out his grandeur shears – skin so smooth, hair so fine, a countenance of soiled dreams entrapped in perfection.
All she could do was grasp her notebook and coffee whilst she sat on the big beautiful cyclical bay window, her foot dangling.

Her corazon went a flame, when her pensamiento turned to him.
Her sentimiento could only be conveyed as the time of the butterflies.
But, their rustling flaps angered her.
Love did not reside within her, anymore.

All too real – imprecations of past existences have brought her here. To this place of sullied Nirvana. Cobain-ing through life, the misery felt so right. The happiness felt so raw, so transient, so self-important.
She hated that happiness. And it was more clear than the crystal that resides in the tomb of Great Love:  Happiness hated her as well.
And this actualization paralyzed her, breath heavy and oscillating against the big beautiful bay window.
A dream deferred.

Story by Sue Callender.

Photo: Girl and Butterfly.

Short story by Jon Dambacher.

He justifies the older black and white headshots by dropping trade paper quotes about such and such casting director, “…prefers black’n white because they’re more classic.”

He shot photos of himself in the bathroom when he first got to town but now is too lazy to drop the weight while eating a salad with the dressing on the side, which he pours on.

The Whole Foods vegan cookies and sugar-free brownies are his favorite.
He sits in his apartment scrolling through the online casting calls.
Soon he starts flipping through the local celebrity gossip pages more and more. He used to scoff at them when out to lunch with a girlfriend by saying, “Did you see what Monica Reed did at Razor Blades last night?”
“Oh, god,” she’d grunt before chewing into her soyrizo breakfast burrito, “What’d she do?”
“Well….”
But, he’s slowly become apart of it.

In another conversation the girlfriend asks, “You did theatre in New York. Do you think theatre is dead?”
Moments like these are the closest thing he’s ever going to get to being interviewed. Moments like these keep him alive.
Before answering he leans back into the café booth, darts his eyebrow muscles to really develop a response, “Um, no, I don’t think it’s dead, I just think…”
These talks will be the last fragment of genuine happiness.

The hand-delivered trade papers start pilling up on the driveway at 5am.
The casting websites are all minimized at the bottom of his computer screen to be looked at this weekend.
Celebrity news is flipped through zombie-like while he’s at the store waiting to be asked to decide between paper or plastic for his frozen pizza. On a much smaller scale, this question is also treated as part of the extended interview. Considering he’s a role model for Americans everywhere he wants to send a good message, “Ah, you know what, I don’t need a bag. Save a tree.”

He goes to sleep early and wakes up late.
He’s the most famous person living in his apartment building. Everyone invites him to their courtyard birthday barbeques.  Everyone removes their ear-buds when they’re in the laundry room together to say, “Hey.”
They’re all casual about it, which he really appreciates.
Word got out about him being a connected industry guy after he was leaving self-addressed Warner Bros. postcards in the communal junk mail bin.
Manila envelopes which contained Screen Actors Guild magazine subscription information began to stick out further than all the other trash. If ever a package came, either the Superman themed remote control or the Planet Hollywood t-shirt from eBay, it stayed on the doorstep of Room 3 for days before someone finally mentioned it when sliding quarters into the dryer, “Hey, I grabbed a package for you that came. It was left for a while out in the hall. I think you were out of town or something. I’ll bring it right now.”
“Oh,” he says, shrugging his shoulders ever so delicately, “…yeah, I was. Got sent to Europe for this thing.”
It feels so good. “Thanks for grabbing it, though.”
“No worries,” she says, shrugging her shoulders with simulated comfort. “I know you’re busy.”
He chuckles.
She nods, “Oh, I understand. Believe me.” She begins sharing, “With this new deal at work I’m….” And he stops listening.

When she finally leaves him there, alone in the laundry room, he stacks quarters into fours, creating small towers, calculating each dollar to the amount of his load.

His job keeps his mind there in the entertainment world, as he’s waiting tables off the Walk of Fame under the feet of Hollywood Boulevard.
Every morning as he steps into work he’s joining his fellow cast members. “Hi, welcome to the World Famous Fab-Fifties joint.  Our special today is the James Dean burger with Marilyn fries. With our World Famous Shakes you’ve got some options: Bing and Bob, strawberry banana, or do a solid and get the peanut butter chocolate which is the Bella and Boris.”
There is great satisfaction that floods his face when he gets a younger group of people and uneducated table who ask, “Who is the Bing and Bob” or “Bella and Boris milkshake named after?”
He read his lines so cleverly and never misses a cue: “They’re legends.”

Collecting his few dollar tips he smokes cheap cigarettes out back watching the Star Waggons lining the street.
This is a reminder to lose those thirty pounds for updated headshots. He sees those new headshots being taped up to quark boards inside the wagons of the costumer’s trailer; lines of outfits with his headshot copied above the collar; his latest headshot next to his many wigs in the makeup trailer.
Every foot under Hollywood, having come from near and far, has lined up – all faces looking inward – to get a glimpse of him emerging from his trailer, walking into the camera’s focus as someone asks him, please, to do what he is known best for all around the world:  singer/songwriter, actor, writer/director/producer, author, entrepreneur, and social media consultant.

The black and white headshot falls to the carpet of the trailer floor turning to dust.
The cardboard cutout wilts to ash, blowing away in the smog up over the Forest Lawn Mountains.
He flicks his cigarette into the street, turns his back to the sun and returns to drop off Table 53’s tuna melt and fries with a side of ranch.

Story by Jon Dambacher.

Photo by Unknown Author.