HUGH GRANT IN MY SHOES
Prowling The Streets Of Beverly Hills
Haresh Shah
The media had field days following Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill star, Hugh Grant’s tryst with Divine Brown, on the night of June 27, 1995. And it wasn’t only the tabloid press but also mainstream media and the network talk shows like Late Night With Jay Leno and Larry King Live couldn’t well ignore their LAPD mug shots splattered all over the printed pages and on the television screens. On his Late Night Show, Jay Leno came right out and asked: what the hell were you thinking?Grant’s answer: I think, you know, in life what’s a good thing to do and what’s a bad thing, and I did a bad thing…and there you have it. His whole body twisting and turning this way and that, the boyish Grant squirmed in his hot seat as if run over by an eighteen wheeler. But he kept his sense of humor and got the roaring applause of approval from Leno’s enthusiastic audience.
On Larry King Live, he elaborated: I could accept some of the things that people have explained, ‘stress,’ ‘pressure,’ ‘loneliness’ — that that was the reason. But that would be false. Psychoanalysis is more of an American syndrome. In the end you have to come clean and say ‘I did something dishonorable, shabby and goatish.
Fair enough. I couldn’t help but admire his candidness instead of hiding behind some psychological mumbo jumbo. Especially also because he had so much to lose. His budding career. His stunningly beautiful model/actress girlfriend Elizabeth Hurley. He faced up to the fact that he had picked up a prostitute off the street in Beverly Hills and was caught by a Los Angeles police receiving oral sex in his BMW. And I couldn’t help but think that nineteen years earlier, it could have been me in my Buick also in Beverly Hills. Uncaught.
After an animated dinner with Levi (Raimund le Viseur) and the two photographers accompanying him – Steve and Ron and drinks before and after the dinner at Beverly Wilshire’s Blvd Lounge, feeling mellow, we decide to call it a day. Levi offers to walk me back to my car and see again my Buick Skylark – what they all called my lastwagen – a truck, in Munich. I still have a hundred mile long drive back home to Santa Barbara. Leaving him with Steve and Ron in the passage between the two wings of the hotel, I run over to men’s room before starting my journey. When I return, I see them surrounding a good looking young woman.
‘Well, would you like me to call up a couple of my girlfriends and we have a party?’ I heard the girl saying. The guys hustle for a while and then chickened out, decided to return to their rooms. It still hasn’t occurred to me that she could be anything else but a hooker. Attractive with a petite figure she looks just like an ordinary girl. Sweet and somewhat confused at Steve and Ron disappearing. I would have liked to talk to her some more, but Levi still lingers little distance away, waiting to walk me to my car.
‘I will be right back.’ I don’t know what makes me say to her as I walk toward Levi to bid him good night. Instead I let him walk me to my car, making a smart comment about the girl being eine nutte – a hooker.
‚Klarafall‘ of course, he hastens. I am parked close by on a side street. We talk some more before I get into the car. Levi waits until I turn around and then starts walking back to the hotel. I see the girl still waiting on the steps of the back plaza and then begin walking towards my car. Levi and her cross paths half way. I stop and pull up closer to the curb. Levi sees me getting out of the car, breaks his stride a bit and then slowly returns to the hotel.
‘What’s your name?’ I ask.
‘Sharon, and yours?’
‘Haresh.’
‘Harish? That’s a neat name.’
‘Thanks.’ She has mispronounced it like everybody else, but has come pretty close the first time.
‘Whatever happened to your friends. I thought they wanted to party?’
‘Well, I thought so too. But all of us are sort of tired, I guess!’
‘Would you like to have one all by yourself?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘You know?’
She doesn’t quite finish the sentence. In spite of my comment to Levi about her being a whore, this is the first time it occurs to me that she really was one, and I didn’t know for a moment what to say or do.
‘I’ll buy a drink.’
‘Alright.’ She slips her hand into the loop of my right arm and we start walking back to the hotel. She hesitates a bit in front of the revolving door and turns sideway to look at me.
‘Don’t you just want to go home and party instead?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think I can afford you.’
‘Yes, you can!’
‘Not everyone coming out of Beverly Wilshire is rich. I am just a student.’
‘So am I.’
‘Where do you go to school?’
‘UCLA, and you?’
‘I go to UCSB in Santa Barbara.’ I bluff. And I can tell she did too.
‘How much can you afford?’ She changes the subject abruptly.
‘Not much.’
‘Do you have a girlfriend?’
‘No, I don’t.’ I would have liked to say ‘yes,’ but lies don’t come easy to me.
After a stretch of beautiful relationships, I am going through a very dry period in my life. It’s almost been a year since Debbie broke up with me, and since then I haven’t had a woman in my life I could hold close to. I am deep in my novel and it doesn’t bother me quite as much. Writing a chapter a day usually exhausts me by the time the sun goes down beyond the Devreaux Point in the western horizon. And the few good friends that I have, keep me afloat during this period of me having been de-womanized.
But standing in front of Sharon has thrown off my inner chemical balance. I have never in my life been with a whore, and neither do I aspire to be with one now. I am basically a romantic type, needing gentle intimacy and closeness. Time to look into each other’s eyes, lean over her face and experience tender touching and caressing, create that mellow span – and above all have a feeling of the two people’s mutual need to be together – even if it’s for one single night.
I look back at Sharon. I still can’t see anything about her that comes even in the slightest close to her being a whore. She practically has no makeup on her face, not even bit of mascara over her eye lids. Her skin is baby smooth, devoid of any blemishes. Her hair looks clean and smells freshly washed. Her blouse is modest and covers her breasts. She isn’t even wearing the customary knee high boots that is synonymous with ladies of the night around the world. The kind they would make Julia Roberts wear fifteen years later in her role in Pretty Woman. If not for her miniskirt, she doesn’t look any different than a beautiful girl next door that us men fantasize about.
As I am taking her in, I am transposed back to Chicago. My friend Sandra and I are sitting at the bar of Ricardo’s. We haven’t seen each other for a while and we have a lot to catch up. As usual, she tells me about her amorous encounters – which she has many. Sandy is such an incredible magnet to men all over – and she loves them like no other woman I know. She is always heart broken or is the breaker of the heart. I am glad, we’re just friends. During the course of the evening, out of nowhere she comes out and says:
‘You won’t believe this, but from this very spot on the bar, I picked up a john last night and let him take me home.’
‘You mean?’
‘Yeah. I had always wondered what it would feel like to turn a trick!’
Now I have known about Sandy’s many impulsive adventures and her having brought home all sorts of males of the species, but never before she had ever mentioned a john.
‘He was good looking,’ she says with an impish smile on her face, ‘and I needed the money.’ Then she goes on philosophizing about how every woman at one time or another in her life thinks of an option of doing just that. Most of my girlfriends have fantasized about it. I guess, it confirms something deeper inside us.
‘Don’t worry. I don’t think I would ever make a habit of it.’ She concludes as an after thought.
Could be that Sharon is telling the truth and she is really a student and in need of money? The thought crosses my mind.
‘Let’s walk.’ She says and takes me by the arm. She obviously doesn’t care to stand in front of the revolving door and looking conspicuous. Neither do I. I obediently follow her to the steps, and suddenly stop.
‘Listen, you tell me how much you cost and I’ll tell you if I can afford you.’ She ignores my question and gently pulls me behind her.
‘Let’s sit in your car and talk.’ So we do.
‘That’s a nice jacket.’ She compliments. ‘And a nice car too.’ I thank her for the compliments and wonder whether she believes me being a student wearing a $200.- velvet jacket and owning a shiny, almost new Buick Skylark.
‘I don’t think I can afford more than twenty dollars.’ I divulge. Thinking she would probably push me away and exit the car in a hurry.
‘Okay, let’s go and make beautiful love.’
I turn on the ignition.
‘Where do you live?’
‘In Santa Barbara.’
‘Oh yes, you said that earlier, didn’t you? In that case, go straight ahead and turn right at the light.’
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