Imperial Bedrooms

"Just stay out of it," Blair answers softly. "All you need to do is stay out of it."

"Why?"

"Because you'll only make it worse."

I let her kiss me on the lips but there are statues watching us, and lights from the fountains, and behind us the moon is reflected in the horizon of the sea.

"I hear stories about you," Blair says. "I don't want to believe them."

I open the door to the apartment. The lights are off and there's a white rectangle floating low above the couch: a phone glowing in the darkness, illuminating Rip's face. Too drunk to panic I reach for the wall and the room slowly fills with a dim light. Rip waits for me to say something, lounging on the couch as if this is where he's always belonged, an open bottle of tequila in the background. Finally he mentions something about an awards show he was at and, almost as an afterthought, asks me where I've been.

"What are you doing here?" I ask. "How did you get in?"

"I have some friends in the building," Rip says, explaining something supposedly very simple. "Let's take a ride."

"Why?"

"Because your apartment probably isn't" - he squints up at me - "secure."

In the limousine Rip shows me e-mails that were received at Rain's allamericangirlUSA account. There are four of them and I read each one of them on Rip's iPhone in the limo as we cruise along a deserted Mulholland, an old Warren Zevon song hovering in the air-conditioned darkness. At first I'm not even sure what I'm looking at but in the third e-mail I've supposedly written that I will kill that f**ker - a reference to Rain's "boyfriend" Julian - and the e-mails become maps that need to be redesigned in order to be properly followed, but they're accurate on certain points and have a secret and purposeful strategy to them, though other details about Rain and me don't track, things that have nothing to do with us: the references to kabbalah, comments about a musical number on a recent awards show that I've never seen, Hugh Jackman singing an ironic version of "On the Sunny Side of the Street," my interest in the signs of the zodiac - all of them mistakes in the specifics of our relationship. I keep rereading this e-mail and wondering who wrote these things - clues that are supposed to be followed, an idea that is supposed to lead somewhere - until I realize: It doesn't matter, everything leads to me, I called this upon myself.

"Read the next one, please." Rip reaches over and skips to the next e-mail as casually as if he's flipping through a brochure. "Interesting reference about you and the missing bitch roommate."

In the fourth e-mail I supposedly wrote and I'll do to Julian what I've already done to Amanda Flew.

"How did you get these?" I ask, my hands clasped around the iPhone.

"Please" is all Rip says.

"I didn't write these, Rip."

"Maybe you did," Rip says. "Maybe you didn't." He pauses. "Maybe she did. But it's been verified that they were all sent from one of your e-mail accounts."

I keep skimming from one e-mail and then back to another.

"I'll kill that f**ker," Rip murmurs. "Doesn't sound like you, but who knows? ... I mean, you can be a cold dude sometimes, but ... these are actually rather heartfelt and sad." He reads from one of them: "But this time there was an explosion and my feelings as a man cannot be adjusted ... " He starts laughing.

"Why are you showing these to me?" I ask. "I didn't write them."

"Because they could potentially incriminate you."

I back away from Rip, unable to mask my loathing. "What movie do you think you're in?"

"Maybe one of the crappy ones you've written," Rip says, not laughing anymore. "Well, then, who wrote them, Clay?" he asks in a forced and playful voice as if he already knew the answer.

"Maybe she wrote them to herself," I mutter in the darkness.

"Or maybe ... somebody else wrote them," Rip says. "Maybe somebody who doesn't like you?" I don't say anything.

"Barry warned you about her, huh?" Rip asks.

"Barry?" I murmur, staring into the iPhone. "What?"

"Woolf," Rip says. "Your life coach." He pauses. "The one on Sawtelle." He turns to me. "He warned you about her." He pauses again. "And you didn't listen."

"What if I told you I don't care one way or another?"

"Well, then I'd be very worried for you."