Flavor of the Month

by Olivia Goldsmith

  “Oh, my God. Gidget goes to work in a factory. She never had any draw. Aunt Robbie, these women have no glamour. They aren’t anything. I’ve got to get a film. A major one.”

  “Mary Tyler Moore.”

  “Oh, fine. What has she done? Ordinary Movie? If Redford hadn’t directed it, it would have died like a dog. No. No TV!” Lila was beginning to lose her patience. “Come on, Robbie. I want to be like my mother was. I want to be bigger than my mother was. You know exactly what I mean.”

  José returned with their drinks and a bowl of macadamia nuts. “Well, we’re jumping ahead of ourselves, Lila. You’ve got to have an agent first,” Robbie said, popping a handful of nuts into his mouth.

  “Who do you suggest, Robbie? One of your little friends? First assistant to the first assistant of something? Spare me, Robbie. I’m thinking bigger than that.”

  “All your thinking hasn’t done you shit, has it, honey? It’s time to stop thinking and start doing. I happen to know just the man for you, and he’s a big thinker, just what you want.”

  Lila paused, then said, “Wait. I know what you’re going to say.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Yes, I do. Don’t suggest Ara. He’s my mother’s agent, he’s a hundred and four, and he has the breath of a sick dog. Plus, he’ll never see me because Theresa wouldn’t stand for it. Anyway, he’s got a foot in the grave.”

  “I swear, it’s morbid how paranoid you are about your mother. If she were so goddamn powerful, don’t you think she would have scared up a part for herself by now? She’s not going to stop you. And Ara is only eighty-one, and if he has one foot in the grave, then the other foot is firmly planted on Hollywood and Vine. Ara Sagarian is so well connected that he’ll be getting work for his people even after he’s dead.”

  “But I hate him,” Lila said.

  “Of course you do,” Robbie said with exaggerated patience. “He’s an agent. But he’s handled Jimmy Stewart, Frank Sinatra, Joan Crawford, and your mother, of course. And he still has lots of biggies. Hagman and Michael Keaton, I think. Lots of others.”

  “Oh. J.R. and Batbore. Now I’m impressed.”

  “Well, laugh if you want to, but Ara Sagarian is very big on television these days. Says it’s what the studios were like in the forties. And I don’t see anything else on your horizon. Miss Thing. I can get you in. Then you just charm him.”

  “Well, maybe I could go talk to him,” Lila conceded. Then she laughed. “Should I just walk in and tell him I want a starring role in something? That I won’t take television, but that I really want to be a movie star?” Even though she was the daughter of Theresa O’Donnell, the old man wasn’t going to be exactly thrilled at another Beverly Hills brat knocking on his door. Still, if he would see her…Lila hated to admit it, but Robbie might have something here. And if Robbie could guarantee getting her in…Ara was big. The biggest contact Robbie had suggested so far. “You’re certain he’ll see me? I mean, not just a courtesy call.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” Robbie said. “Ara’s my godfather in the gay Hollywood mafia. He’d do anything for me. If you agree. I’ll talk to him, just feel him out.” Robbie leaned over the arm of his chaise and looked into Lila’s eyes. “Just say you’re willing to do some TV and I’ll make the call.”

  Lila sipped her lemonade, then said, “Okay, Robbie, but only a miniseries and a starring role, even if it is my first shot out of the box. No crappy sitcom, no guest shots. I mean it.”

  “Jesus, Miss Thing! Aren’t we the choosy one?” Robbie said, and rolled his eyes.

  “Hi,” Lila heard Ken call as he walked toward them from the garage. “I’m slaving under hot klieg lights all day, and you two are out here taking it easy?”

  Robbie looked at his watch. “I didn’t realize it was so late, Ward,” Robbie said in his best June Cleaver voice. “It was just that the Beaver here was giving me trouble. Maybe you two can talk!” He turned and sashayed toward the house again, and was about to yell out for José when he saw the little man coming toward them, a frozen margarita for Ken on a silver tray before him. Robbie waddled back to his chaise.

  “Well, it’s about time, Maria. Ken, sit here and have a drinky.” Robbie pulled up his fat legs to make room for Ken at the foot of the chaise.

  “So what were you two up to?” Ken asked, after taking a sip of the iced drink.

  Lila smiled at him. “I’ve been getting skin cancer and some career advice from my auntie, here,” she said. “Both unwelcome.”

  “He usually gives good advice. Not very good head, but good advice.”

  “Oooh! Aren’t you a little kiss-and-tell!” Robbie cried, and the two began to bicker.

  Meanwhile, Lila decided. She would see Ara. After all, what did she have to lose? “Okay, Robbie,” she said. “Set it up. But no assistant shit. With Ara. Himself.”

  21

  Mary Jane gave herself a budget: nine hundred calories and nine dollars a day for food for the next three months. She spent the first two days of her new regime in bed, mostly sleeping, but once her exhaustion began to pass she knew that would never work. Home, in bed, was where she ate. She had to be out. She needed the exercise to drop the weight. And she had to lose the weight before she made another appointment with Dr. Moore or Miss Hennessey, his dragon lady. She needed some results to show him.

  So on Wednesday, exactly two weeks after her grandmother’s funeral, she bundled into her old dun-colored down coat and trundled heavily out the door, after a breakfast of one poached egg, two pieces of (dry) melba toast, and a small glass of tomato juice. It was a cool March day, but at least there isn’t a cutting wind, she thought, and began walking east. West Fifty-fourth Street wasn’t beautiful at any time of day, but it was particularly unlovely in the morning. Eleventh Avenue was still streaming with trucks, a few patches of filthy snow, covered completely in black soot, and littered with dog droppings, making nasty detours for pedestrians. She walked over to Tenth, past the dank tenement houses, then Ninth, with its bodegas and liquor stores, past the piles of restaurant garbage, to Eighth Avenue, and then over to Broadway. Christ, it was even worse here, she thought. The guys in straight business suits rushed by, clutching attachés, their faces grim, their eyes averted from the tawdry posters outside the grind houses and porno-book shops. Mary Jane wasn’t sure who depressed her more: the civilians in their commuter ruts or the degenerates already clustering at the shop gates, waiting to get their sex fix for the morning. Jesus, imagine a porn-film audience at 9:00 A.M.! Who were those guys? She shuddered and headed south, moving quickly because she didn’t want to find out.

  She was getting cold, so she stopped at Seventh Avenue and Thirty-eighth Street, the heart of the fashion industry, for a cup of coffee—using up a dollar of her precious hoard, but at least not adding any calories. There was a tabloid newspaper at the counter that some garmento had left behind, and she thumbed through it. The usual stabbings, shootings, and child abuse. She turned to the gossip columns. They contained the typical mix of New York theatrical, society, and Hollywood names. Shirley MacLaine was apparently writing yet another book on yet one more of her past lives, while her brother was making the most of this one by sleeping with yet another starlet.

  Then she saw it. “Crystal Plenum loves her work so much that she’s taking it home with her. Rewrites have started on the script of Jack and Jill and Compromise, a real hot property. Apparently so is Sam Shields, the director. Crystal and Shields have been seen at Spago, Mr. Chow’s, and were even making nice over breakfast at the Polo Lounge.”

  She felt herself flush, then go cold. She was afraid for a moment that she would fall off the stool at the counter. She felt dizzy, as if she’d been spinning on it as she had when she was a child. It was strange, she thought, as she threw the dollar and assorted change on the counter and stumbled out onto the street. He was my life for more than three years, and now he’s gone. She looked at her watch. Right this minute he’s probably lying in bed, a
sleep beside Crystal Plenum, who’s got my part. She didn’t know which hurt more, that the woman had her role, her precious role as Jill, or that she had Sam.

  She cried all through the garment center, down to Twenty-fourth Street. She kept walking, and finally paused long enough to go the bathroom and wash her face in the ladies’ room at the Chelsea Hotel. The hip, tatty place which artists and writers had been checking in and out of for decades was grim as ever. “Well,” she told herself, looking into the old, cracked mirror over the sink, “if Dr. Moore won’t take your case, or the plan doesn’t work, you can always come back here to the Roach Motel. Perfect for a successful suicide.” She wouldn’t be the first. It was the only thought that comforted her.

  She walked down Seventh Avenue to Eighth Street, stopped in a used-book store, and browsed distractedly for an hour. She would learn not to think of Sam; she’d train herself starting now. She wandered over to Hudson Street. Then she had half a cantaloupe at a Greek joint (no cottage cheese—only forty calories, but an outrageous $3.50) and made her way down the Avenue of the Americas to Houston Street. There the marquee over Film Forum attracted her. It was a Mai Von Trilling double feature—both of which she had seen countless times before. Still, she loved those German movies of the early thirties, and Mai was surely one of the most beautiful actresses of all time. Mary Jane lined up along with the other losers who make up the crowd for the first show at art theaters. Still, for six bucks she’d buy four hours of forgetfulness, see some real acting, then walk all the way home and chew on some salad before she hit the sheets. And she wouldn’t let herself think about Sam.

  So her pattern was set: out of the house by nine, walking for almost eight hours, with a movie break and a cup of coffee (black) when absolutely necessary. She didn’t call anyone, didn’t return any calls, not even Molly’s. After a week, she disconnected her answering machine. She found two kids to take the apartment, sold off her stuff, and found a cheap place to stay on East Nineteenth Street. But they wouldn’t take cats. So she made one last visit to Molly, with the cashmere jacket in one hand and Midnight howling in his travel box. Oddly enough, it was giving up Midnight that made her more lonely than anything else.

  Mary Jane walked, hungry, up and down Manhattan, without the courage to weigh herself, or to read another newspaper. Her room was grim. No place to hang out. She avoided mirrors and haunted public libraries, bookstores, and the shops with theater and film memorabilia. She splurged and bought a few cheap stills, black-and-white glossies of the faces she’d loved on the luminous screen. Could I get Jeanne Moreau’s mouth? Garbo’s chin? Mai Von Trilling’s nose? Cheekbones like Hepburn—either Katharine or Audrey. She wasn’t particular. But mainly she walked. And when she was too tired to walk anymore, she rested at Grand Central Station, or Penn Station, or any one of the lesser hotel lobbies—temporary homes of the displaced person in Manhattan.

  As she walked, memories came back to her. Memories of her grandmother, of Scuderstown, of nursing school. But mostly she remembered Sam. Whole conversations they had had. The night they got locked out of her apartment. The day he cast her as Jill. The surprise birthday party she threw for him. The way he made love to her. Sometimes she walked with tears running down her cheeks. Luckily, it was New York, and no one even noticed.

  And she discovered something: if you only had one purpose, it wasn’t so hard to achieve it. When she had to cinch her jeans in three notches on her belt, she decided to call the Hennessey witch at Dr. Moore’s. She’d show him the photos she’d collected, she’d get weighed by Yenta, his nurse. But had she lost enough? she wondered. Would it prove her commitment? Would he take her really seriously?

  When she called, Miss Hennessey was cool, but without argument she made the appointment for a week later. For six days, Mary Jane really starved herself. Would he not see her again, not move her on for more X-rays if she hadn’t shown enough willpower and commitment? She showed up almost an hour early, and paced the hospital lobby. At last, she had the courage to take the elevator up.

  Stripped to a hospital gown, she stood barefoot on the scale while the nurse weighed her. Miss Hennessey fumbled, looked at Mary Jane’s chart, and then moved the weights again.

  “Can this be right?” she asked Mary Jane. “In seven weeks, you’ve lost twenty-one and a half pounds?”

  “Have I?” Mary Jane said, and wondered if it would be enough.

  When Mary Jane passed Miss Hennessey’s desk and entered Dr. Moore’s office, she felt as if she might pass out. By now he’d seen the preliminary X-rays. What if he told her that he couldn’t give her the results she wanted? What if Dr. Moore said it was possible but chancy? Would she risk it? And what if he simply said he could do it? What then? She was determined to move forward, but she was, she had to admit, petrified.

  Dr. Moore was standing before a light screen, looking at cranial X-rays. He looked up as she came in, and gestured at the pictures. “The face is endlessly fascinating,” he said. “When I was looking for a surgical specialty, I had every intention of becoming a cardiac surgeon. It was where the hottest, smartest surgeons gravitated. But I found out there was a glut of them, and that I’d probably wind up practicing in Idaho. Then I was stuck, because, aside from the heart, I couldn’t think of an area where I could make a living but that would never get boring. Until I talked to a plastic surgeon, and I was hooked.” He looked back at the X-rays.

  “Are those mine?” she asked. He nodded.

  “Come over and take a look.”

  She moved to his side, surprised to find she was taller than he was. Wordlessly, she looked at the dark shadows on the film. She could not bear to have to ask him again, to form the words, to beg. As if he could read her mind, he answered without taking his eyes off the screen.

  “Yes, I think I can make you beautiful. You’re one of the lucky ones. For you, all it will take is time and money. Of course, there are no guarantees, and I need you to understand that and the extensiveness and risks of the program I’d outline.”

  She nodded, feeling as if she hadn’t enough breath to speak. She was immensely grateful, not only for his answer but for the privacy that his averted face gave her. He was very close to her. He smelled of disinfectant soap and a very slight underscent—was it vanilla?

  “I’d propose that we’d begin by working on the skeletal alterations: the bony superorbital ridge, which would have to be shaved down; the cheekbones, which require implantations; and the work on your chin to bring about a better proportion and relationship to the facial planes themselves.” As he spoke, he touched the X-rays of her jutting brow and her cheeks, and moved his hands finally to her chin. Only then did he look at her, and she nodded her agreement. She still couldn’t speak. “The skeletal work would take six months to a year, depending on your rate of recovery. Then we would move on to the soft-tissue work.”

  “What’s that?” she managed to croak.

  “The movement and realignment of your skin on your new skeletal frame. Blepharoplasty, for one thing, though I would propose only a modified eye-lift. You don’t have bags under your eyes, just some sagging on top. We only need to melt the fat that is deposited above, at your eyelids, and we can do that with a procedure I invented. I’ll insert a needle here”—he touched her eyelid very gently, but she winced—“and heat it, melting the fat away. That will give you a very clean, well-defined upper eyelid. And almost no incision, so no visible scars.”

  He touched her neck, gently fingering the skin. “We’ll need liposuction here, and then we’ll do a fairly aggressive lift. I’m not talking about simply stretching the facial skin, but actually separating the skin from the fascia all the way down to about here”—he moved his hand to her breast bone—“then peeling it back, pulling it taut, and excising the excess before reattaching it.”

  “That leaves scars,” she said.

  “None that you will see. I reattach the skin above the hairline, into the scalp, so that natural hair growth will cover almost all of i
t.”

  “Then you’ll have to shave my head?” she asked, horrified. Her thick mane of hair was the only naturally beautiful thing about her. Sam had loved her hair.

  “No. We succeed in sterilizing it. I’ve never had infections at the scalp.”

  He moved to his desk and indicated a chair. “I’m glad you’ve already done so well on the weight reduction. It demonstrates to me not only the resilience of your tissue but also your motivation.” He peered at her. She tried not to squirm under his gaze, wondering what imperfect feature he was assessing. But at the same time she felt grateful, and also close to him in a strange way. Finally, here was one man from whom she had nothing to hide.

  Once again, as if he could read her thoughts as well as her bone structure, he spoke. “You know, there is a great intimacy in a project like this. In a way, it is a mutual seduction, and then a marriage. We will work together: a great deal will depend on your tissue, your ability to communicate what you want, to follow a regimen, and to heal; the rest will depend on me and my talent. Facial surgery is a gift. Beyond technique, there has to be a vision, and an ability to see the possibilities. And for me to do my best work, I have to be in love with the project.”

  “And are you?” she asked. Outside, the rain was pouring down, and the only noises were the heavy dripping at an outside eave and the humming vibration of the frame of the light board against the clip that held her X-ray.

  “Yes,” he said, and she felt a tightness in her chest. “It’s a challenging, fascinating project.” He came closer to her, very close. “Have you ever smoked?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Now you never will. Also, no sun. None at all. Never. Sunscreen at all times.”

  She looked out at the freezing rain and the overcast day. “At all times, doctor?”

  He smiled. “Well, not at night. Also, no alcohol.”

  “Not even wine?”

  “Not even beer. Well, let me put it this way: I know you will, so be very moderate. It’s not good for your skin. I can see you’ve lost weight, and the sun has done little damage to you so far.”