When Molly went to Paris that spring I put her in touch with Brigitte. They met for lunch in Le Marais and, according to Molly's postcard, sung my praises. What sort of praises I have no idea. When Molly returned to LA she abruptly broke it off between us.
My work in film led to a six-month gig building a miniature of Stonehenge on a giant property in the Hollywood Hills. It was soul-cleansing, satisfying work, the studying of Neolithic history, the digging of ditches, the hoisting of ten-foot-tall stones with a crane.
The owner of the property, a billionaire (a non-disclosure agreement forbids me to say anything more), put me up in one of his "spare" homes, a beachfront cottage on the northern end of Malibu. I went to AA meetings in Point Dume, NA meetings in Santa Monica. On weekends I rode my mountain bike in Sycamore Canyon.
One cool November afternoon a black limousine climbed the steep driveway and pulled up a few feet from where my crew and I were working. The driver stepped out and opened the door. Out poured first a tinny, work-in-progress version of Madonna's "Like A Version" from the stereo, and then Madonna herself. She wore black Converse All-Stars, black fishnets, raggedy high-cut jeans shorts, a lacy black bra, a faded black Ramones T-shirt, and about a dozen crucifixes around her neck. Her wrists were wrapped in black bangles and her hair had that mussy JGF (Just Got Fucked) look. She had some sort of hickey on the side of her face.
She introduced herself, said she was a friend of __________'s. She glanced over the site. "I saw the real Stonehenge for the first time just last month," she said. From behind her ear she pulled out a joint. She lit it, took a slow, deep drag, and passed it to me.
It was only after three or four hits that I realized I'd just ended 22 months of sobriety.