Two Truths and a Lie: Drinking With Celebrities
can you spot the fanfic?
One day, in the midst of a painful break-up and existential breakdown, I found myself in Terminal 7 at Los Angeles International Airport. It was a place I’d been many, many times before. But this time, I was only passing through. I sidled up to the bar of a steakhouse that I don’t think is there anymore, and I ordered a glass of white wine. I had a few hours to kill.
I think we can all agree that being on an airplane sucks. But I’ve always had a thing for airport bars—the stupidly overpriced drinks; humorless efficiency; shameless drinking at eight a.m. They feel designed specifically to remove us from our everyday lives and identities; to render us all equal and nameless and waiting. For a (relatively) brief moment in time, we all want and are paying attention to and are annoyed by the same things.
I’ve met the most interesting people at airport bars, including a well-known TV actress and director with whom I spent an entire afternoon, drinking white wine in a now-defunct steakhouse and trading stories. I recognized her voice before I saw her sitting next to me. (I have a thing with voices; I forget faces all the time.) I don’t remember what caused her to turn and notice me—one of us was likely in the other’s way, moving a bag or cell phone or bent knee over—but we were soon deep in conversation, sharing the sorts of intimate details shared by women who don’t know one another. I knew immediately that her life was very different from mine—for one thing, she’s famous; she’s also a bit older than me—and this allowed for an easy honesty, neither of us caring whether the other really cared. I complained about the ex-boyfriend who was still inexplicably around and she in turn shared the stressors of being a bicoastal single working mom, rendering my problems juvenile. In many ways, she was living the sort of life I’d envisioned for myself; the life I’d wanted. It was a surreal, Sliding Doors-esque experience.
Oddly enough, she seemed just as interested in my circumstances. She wanted to know what prompted me to quit Hollywood; why I’d chosen to move to Colorado. She’d never been there, or to many of the non-coastal states. “Is Denver just, like, a total shit hole or what?” She asked. I laughed. I still do when I think of it.
She gave me advice—nothing earth shattering, but what I needed to hear: cut ties with the guy once and for all, and move on. And I did. I like to think she’d be proud of me, but she probably doesn’t remember meeting me at all. She’s not sporadically reminded of me, seeing my face or name on a screen.
It’s a lingering side effect of working in The Industry, these strange semi-parasocial relationships. I spent many years on the periphery of fame, interacting with people whose mere presence turns an ordinary event into something unforgettable—to the other person, at least. I’ll sometimes wonder which celebrities would remember me, if I ran into them on the street—which actors I spent full days working with on set; which high-profile regulars from my restaurant days. I gasp, delighted or aggrieved, when someone I’ve met in real life enters the frame. My husband jokingly refers to them as my old friends or boyfriends (“Did you see your boyfriend’s in that? Oh, look—your old friend.”) The joke being that they have no idea who I am.
Years earlier, when I still lived in LA, I worked for a time at a Korean BBQ place in a changing neighborhood. It was the Great Recession, and we had an all-night happy hour—which, I was constantly explaining to my managers, meant those were just the prices. The restaurant was generally a shit show, but I liked my coworkers. We once received a Yelp review that angrily referred to us as “proof that in LA, employees are only hired for their looks.” We celebrated.
On the all-night happy hour menu was a specialty mojito that the bartenders hated for its prep work. I started each shift by picking mint leaves from stems, to do them a favor but also because I liked the task. I found it meditative, and I loved the smell; the way it stayed in my nail beds all night. At the end of my shift, I’d order one of the drinks that “I helped make” and tease the bartenders when they complained.
“It’s the muddling,” they said.
“It’s good for your arms.”
“What’s wrong with my arms? Dude on Yelp said I look good.”
It wasn’t a particularly hip restaurant, but its close proximity to Sony Studios drew the occasional celebrity. One night, a guy sitting at the bar looked vaguely familiar. I pointed him out to another waitress, who rightly identified him as someone more famous for his drug-addled tantrums than his acting career. He was a former child star; a Disney darling. He was also drunk, and by the time I clocked out for the night and removed my apron, my bartender friends were debating whether or not to cut him off.
“I’m not drinking anymore,” he’d declare. “After this next one, I mean.”
I strategically chose a barstool a few down from his.
“Hey,” he said, noticing me, pointing with his chin. “What’s your favorite drink here? From the cocktail list.”
“The mojito,” I said without hesitation. One of the bartenders shot me a stern look and I smiled sweetly.
The guy clapped his hands, once and loud. “I haven’t tried that one yet. Let’s do it. You want one?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Barkeep,” he demanded. “Two mojitos, please.”
While we drank, he told me about a pilot he was waiting to hear back on; one studio already passed. The recent writer’s strike had left in its wake the shiny new era of reality TV. “It’s all fucking trash,” he groaned. “Nobody cares about art anymore.”
When we finished our drinks, one of the bartenders offered to call him a cab. For a moment, we all thought he was going to put up a fight but instead he just sighed.
Six or seven years later, I was watching a show at home and caught a trailer for an unscripted competition show—one of the ones where they pit celebrities against one another to win a prize—and did a double-take. I had to google his name to be sure it was him.
Earlier still, I sat in a wine bar in Santa Monica. The friend I was meeting was running late, and I began chatting with the man beside me—also drinking alone, also waiting for someone. Because we were in a wine bar, we talked about wine. I admitted that I was still learning, but curious.
“What do you like?” He asked.
“That’s what I’m still learning.”
The restaurant where I worked at the time specialized in tequila, but they also had a sizable wine list that I carefully made my way through. That restaurant’s where I developed my palate, memorizing the differences between New World and Old World; cold climate vs warm; how one’s origins can predict its outcomes despite outside interference. I believe we’re all a bit beholden to where we’re from, even as we improve with age.
“Have you seen the movie Sideways?” The guy asked. “It’s about wine.”
“Oh,” I said. “Yeah. I saw the first half.”
He furrowed his brow. “Why didn’t you finish it?”
I tried to remember. “It was on TV so I was watching while waiting for my ride. They came, and I guess I forgot to go back and watch the rest.”
My answer made the man visibly uncomfortable. He shifted in his seat and cleared his throat.
“It sounds like you didn’t really like it,” he finally said.
I shrugged, discouraging his unease to expand and settle. “It was okay.”
A silence fell between us and stayed, even as the room around us filled with sound—the clink and clatter of dishes; diners greeting one another; servers greeting them. Slowly, slowly, our bodies turned away from one another. I sipped my wine—this time red, I’m pretty sure—until my friend showed up and asked if I wanted to get a table.
“Yeah,” I said quickly.
As she spoke with the hostess, I paid my tab and gathered my things. When I glanced in the direction of the guy next to me, he lifted his glass in a cordial salute.
“I wrote it,” he said as I stood from my seat.
“Sorry?”
His voice was sullen, his features stone. “I wrote the movie.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” I said.
He rolled his eyes and looked away—childish manners for a man twice my age. I’ve since looked up the film and know there are multiple writers listed. I don’t know which one he was. I forget faces all the time.
Sharing this as a follow-up to my last piece, and this because I never tire of the “mother vs artist” conversation. A fascinating interview with Brittney Griner, and fantastic portraits of a young Bob Dylan. A colorful home tour. The coolest kit homes. This affordable housing experiment in The Netherlands is weirdly charming, as are these landscapes made of recycled jeans. A quick hack to help you identify art movements. My ideal dinner party would be this meets this, with veggies as vases. This method for cutting mangoes has me shook. A useful round-up of travel-related Reddit threads. Chelsea Bieker speaks with Miranda July. Thrilled that the co-author of my favorite gardening book just joined Substack. I’ve been trying this trick to fall asleep easier, and am cautiously optimistic that it could actually work.
Lastly, last week, my husband and I saw Challengers in the theater and spent the drive home animatedly dissecting every detail (How did they shoot that scene?? The symbolism behind the wind storm!) It’s been a while since a film’s made me feel so alive and inspired. I highly recommend it.
You informing the restaurant that those are just the prices had me LOLzing.
Also, same about Challengers. I was buzzzzzzzing 🐝