Flavor of the Month

by Olivia Goldsmith

  She wished she could have a friend like Neil. Pete had been kind, but they’d had so little in common. He was still friendly, but not a friend. Sharleen had been friendly, but Sharleen was too limited. Jahne realized she was lonely. Jahne missed the fun of Neil’s sharp rants, of the heart-to-hearts she’d had with Molly, the deep conversations she and Sam had shared.

  Of course, the thrill of the show’s coming together was fun. But her life, aside from work, was nonexistent. Now that she was getting into the rhythm of it, putting out the show was becoming, if not easy, at least routine for Jahne. She looked good on the screen, even in close-ups. She’d tested her face for still photography back in New York, but stills and film were completely different; one was a cool medium, the other hot. She agonized over it. It was the lights that had scared her the most at first. She hadn’t thought about it until she was under them. Television lighting was brighter than theater lighting. It shone on every pore, making them look cavernous if the skin were not made up properly. Onstage, lighting was more highlighting and spotlighting. And there were no close-ups, no dense light. On the television soundstage, however, its purpose seemed to be to bring the sun right onto the set. Jahne would sometimes walk under the lights and know, just know, that what were tiny, hairline scars in the lighting at home in her bedroom turned here into deep, red gashes. Hester’s scarlet letter. But it wouldn’t be an “A.” Perhaps “F” for fake. Or “I” for impostor. She would hold her breath as the cameramen did run-throughs, waiting for the inevitable cry of discovery. That they never came didn’t lessen Jahne’s vigilance. Even if there was nothing she could do about the lighting except submit to it.

  Makeup, however, was one area where she could exercise some control. Her concerns for her makeup went beyond a professional’s concern for perfection. For Jahne, it had become an obsession. She had made a point of becoming friendly with the makeup guy. Both agreed that the Flanders stuff didn’t hold up. He smuggled in MAC and some stuff of his own, despite the contract. And since he would stand back every day and look at her face as if he had created the Mona Lisa, Jahne was more relaxed with that part of her preparation for the camera.

  But all in all, going before the camera on this show wasn’t the exciting opportunity Jahne had at first believed it would be. Marty DiGennaro was directing. She had assumed that meant the show would be above average in every way—camera work, writing, costumes. Unfortunately for Jahne, she became too painfully aware how limited a director’s control could be. The writing seemed to her atrocious. A team of writers created dialogue like a “David Mamet-does-Huey-Dewey-and-Louie.” It was stunted, unbalanced, hard to develop timing with. She started a sentence and Sharleen interrupted, only to have Lila finish it. So much for art, Jahne had thought after their first script run-through. Well, maybe on the air, finished, it would work.

  Meanwhile, the persona of the three characters on the show seemed to have flowed over to the set itself. Jahne was perceived as the smart one, Lila the sexy one, and Sharleen the dumb one. They were being forced to play their roles in real life. Jahne knew she was smart. Or, more accurately, experienced. Because of her perceived age, it came across as smart. And Lila was sexy. Not sexual, really, Jahne could tell. But sexy. And there was poor Sharleen. She wasn’t dumb, exactly. Just never exposed to much. And the mistake that the jaded almost always made was that “ignorant” meant stupid. Jahne was sure that that was not the case with Sharleen.

  But of the three of them, it was Lila who was smart enough to have ingratiated herself with Marty. Now that she’d seen the first six shows, Jahne could see that Lila had somehow managed to get more close-ups, better lines. And “smart” Jahne was looking less and less directly into the camera, and getting fewer and fewer lines. Of course, all the lines were crap, but still. She laughed to herself. She was reminded of the joke about the two old women who met in the lobby of a Catskills hotel after dinner. The first woman said, “The food is terrible.” The second woman added, “Yes, and the portions are so small.” So Jahne’s portion of bad lines was decreasing. Silly as they were, she admitted she would have liked to have more.

  None of it was what she had imagined. It was only when Jahne was with Mai Von Trilling that she was able to feel she was really in show business. During the long waits on the set, she spent hours talking to Mai, hearing the stories of her life. And her loves. Jahne never tired of listening, and Mai seemed to take as much pleasure in telling them. Mai was a survivor of the earliest days of Hollywood.

  Now Jahne was in Wardrobe, working on next week’s costumes, hanging on Mai’s every word. She looked down at Mai, who was managing to tuck a seam, hold her beer glass, talk, and keep the spare pins in her mouth, all at the same time. “So I left him, my dear. Vat else vas I to do? He vould alvays be jealous of my success. It vas poisoning him. After a time, he vould no longer haff luffed me anyvay.”

  “But you loved him?” Jahne asked.

  “Huff course. He vas the vun great luff I had. For he truly luffed me. Not the image on the scrin. Alvays I could see the others, later on, seeing not me, but my image from the scrin. Or, vat vas verse, comparing me to it. You know. You vill see it. ‘Oh, she’s not as tall as I thought. Her teeth are not as good. She is thinner, smaller. Not as much as I thought.’” Mai laughed, but there was no humor in it.

  It seemed so cruel, watching this wrinkled old woman as she knelt at the hem, remembering her glory years, how she’d been one of the world’s first screen idols and how even then she had not been beautiful enough. What was it like now, when no one looked at her, at least not as a woman? When she couldn’t trade on her face, or her body? And she had been stunning. One of the most beautiful. What was it like for her now? Jahne had neither the courage nor cruelty to ask. She looked down again to see Mai staring up at her.

  “You are a strange one,” Mai said. “Your eyes are too old for your face.” She took the last pin out of her mouth and thrust it hard through the tough denim fabric. Jahne felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Could this old woman see through her? “You are alvays thinkink,” Mai said. “As if you are in danger. But vat does such a pretty girl have to think about? I never thought until I vas forty.”

  “Just a habit.” Jahne smiled at her as she stepped off the little platform before the mirror.

  “No. You are strange.”

  “How?” Jahne tried to sound casual. But she was frightened. Did she give herself away?

  “Vell, you let me say somesink like that. This is unusual. And you come here, not make me come to you…”

  “But this is a favor you’re doing for me! It was the least I could do.”

  “Silly girl. A favor for the star is a pleasure. It is money in the bank, a paid insurance premium, my dear.”

  “What kind of insurance?” Jahne asked, confused.

  “Unemployment insurance,” Mai said, and laughed as she stood up, slowly and stiffly. “Now, vith luck, you von’t let me get fired.”

  “Oh, Mai! No one would do that! Bob loves you. You’re fabulous.”

  “Fabulous today, unemployed tomorrow.” Mai shrugged. She looked into the three-way mirror before them at Jahne’s reflection. “You like?” she asked.

  Jahne looked. Mai was miraculous. She had taken apart the jeans that the costume designer had provided and restructured them completely. Before, despite all the diet and surgery, Jahne simply wasn’t as slim as the other two girls. Well, she was shorter and older. Now her stomach was flat as a pancake. “Oh, Mai. They’re fabulous. Really. How did you do it?”

  “A few tricks. A Lycra panel in the front, behind the fly. And those side seams. Reinforced that vay, they von’t vrinkle to show a bulge at the saddlebags. But no sittink in these. For these, standink scenes only. And use a slant board to rest in. I am vorking on a pair for the motorcycle shots. For sittink only. They’ll have a bigger seat, but still make your legs longer, thinner-looking.”

  “A sitting pair of pants and a standing one? It’s so unfair!” Jahne
laughed. “Women at home don’t have you.”

  “No, and they vill never understand vy their jeans don’t fit like yours.” Mai smiled. “The magic of Hollywood,” she said, and shrugged as she began to pick up the shears, snippets of cloth, and stray pins from off the floor.

  “No, here. Let me do that,” Jahne said, and began to help the old woman. Mai looked at her again.

  “You see? This is strange. To be pickink up. Not just for a new star. Many are polite at first. No, but for a natural beauty like you it is very odd. And you took it as a compliment before ven I said you vere pretty. Beautiful girls don’t like to be called that. Just like pretty girls don’t like to be called ‘attractive.’ It is beneath them.” She looked at Jahne appraisingly. “Maybe you vere blind as a child?” she asked. Then she laughed. “Ach, now you see how I could be fired. I think too much, too.” She looked down at her empty glass. “That vas good beer. For me, good beer is better than champagne. Vich is just as vell, since I hafn’t got a champagne purse. You vould like another glass?” she asked Jahne.

  Jahne wanted to, but she couldn’t afford the calories, not with tomorrow’s shoot. “I’d better not,” she said reluctantly.

  “Some vater, then?” Mai said, as if reading her mind.

  “Yes. I’d like that,” Jahne said, and smiled.

  “Then sit down. But first, first take off those pants.”

  When Jahne got home that evening, exhausted by the ten hours of filming at the dusty San Clemente location, she was so tired she could barely lift her arms to the mailbox at the gate to her drive. There was never much waiting there anyway. No packages from home, no cards from friends. Every now and then, a letter from Dr. Moore or a drawing from Raoul. She hoped the boy liked the roller blades and paint set she’d sent. Well, that was why she stopped now, tired as she was. It might not be much, but it was all that she had for a private life.

  That was by her choice, she reminded herself grimly. But she admitted to herself that she missed Neil, her New York friends, the quick meetings in Greek coffee shops, the cheap pasta dinners. Most of all, she still missed Sam. More than anything, she still missed beautiful, brilliant Sam. But she reminded herself, for the hundredth time, how badly all that had ended.

  Would all this, too, end badly? she wondered. What if the series didn’t do well? What if it faded quickly once this early fanfare died down? What if it faded slowly, and for three seasons she was stuck in television hell—a show that ranked sixty-seven in the Nielsens and was neither popular nor canceled? Would she then be an actress who wasn’t ever going to get choice roles? A Meredith Baxter-Birney—a good actress who graduated from ingenue only to be Michael J. Fox’s mom and, when she was lucky, to have the disease of the week in a minor TV movie? An Elinor Donahue, who outgrew Father Knows Best to grow into a brief stint on The Andy Griffith Show, then played Felix’s girlfriend on The Odd Couple, and finally wound up as Chris Elliott’s mom on Get a Life. Had Elinor Donahue wanted a serious acting career? Had she had great expectations?

  Sometimes, with her new face, her new body, her new life, Jahne seemed to herself invincible—all this was a bold gamble she’d taken and won. And other times—times like now—it seemed as if it might only be another false promise. Just as Jack and Jill and Sam had been. Her stomach tightened with fear. She was too old and too tired to try again.

  God, she was morbid! It came from the unknowns in her life right now, and from being so much alone and tired. Well, she couldn’t control the unknowns, and she was too tired and frightened to make friends at the moment. Her work exhausted her, and “playing” Jahne Moore was a constant drain. She had a correspondence with her surgeon, was pleasantly friendly with the crew on the set, spoke to Mai, but other than that had to marshal her energy to manage to survive her long days.

  With a sigh, she pulled out the little door of the mailbox and emptied its contents onto the seat of the newly leased racing-green Mazda Miata. It was the usual, she thought, disappointed. No letter from Dr. Moore. A couple of bills, two catalogues, and some circulars addressed to “Occupant.” But there was also a large cream-colored pasteboard envelope. And it was addressed to her, written in black ink in an Italianate hand. Postmarked L.A. If it was advertising the opening of a new boutique, it was a very expensive one, she thought.

  Once through the gates and into the bungalow, she dropped her script, the catalogues, and junk mail onto a chair and opened the big envelope.

  April Irons

  requests

  the very great pleasure

  of your company

  Tuesday, sunset

  Drinks and dinner

  Above the address, scrawled in an unfamiliar handwriting, it said, “Love to see you. Bring a friend. April.”

  April? April Irons? The most powerful woman in Hollywood was sending her invitations and signing them herself? Love to see you? She, Jahne Moore, was invited by a complete stranger—albeit a famous one—and the stranger would “love to see her”?

  Jahne shrugged. Well, this was Hollywood, after all, and she was living a fairy tale. Hadn’t she just wished she weren’t so alone? Her wish was granted: she had an invitation to the ball. But now that Cinderella knew about the party, where would she find a fairy godmother to supply the gown, the glass slippers, the carriage, and, most important, the prince?

  The idea of appearing as Jahne Moore, up-and-coming, young, beautiful actress, in front of all of social Hollywood was more than daunting. She had hated the party at Ara Sagarian’s. But didn’t she need to get out, meet people, build a life? She felt herself break into a sweat. Who would talk to her? What would she talk about? Who would care? And what would she wear? She had to smile at that. Well, she could ask Mai how to dress—maybe even borrow something through Bob at Wardrobe. Or go shopping—shopping with Mai! That was it. And after all, it wouldn’t be Loehmann’s budget dresses, and she was no size sixteen anymore. It could, actually, be fun! But how to behave? And who to bring?

  There was Pete, but they’d broken up, and anyway she couldn’t imagine Pete talking to April Irons. How embarrassing. They’d both look stupid. God, she’d hate that.

  Well, she’d call Sy Ortis. He’d probably know what to do about “a friend.” And he’d be pleased that she had such an important event to go to. He was always pushing her to “be seen.” Hell, for all she knew, maybe he had set it up.

  Jahne ran a bath, poured herself a glass of Beaujolais, and turned down the rheostat (even in the bathroom!) so the lights were low. Ah, the warm water felt delicious! She set the pasteboard invitation on the tile surround propped against a bottle of shampoo, sipped her wine, and stared at it. This was, perhaps, the real beginning for her.

  “First of all, what do you wanna go to April Irons’ for anyway? She’s a world-class bitch.”

  “I want to go. Should I go alone?”

  “Madre di Dios! Forget it. I’ll set you up with someone appropriate.”

  “A blind date? I hate blind dates.”

  “Jahne. This is Hollywood. Only Stevie Wonder has blind dates. Do you think Michael Jackson and Madonna went to the Oscars together because they were dating? I’ll set you up with someone, for business, that can do your career some good. At least someone who won’t humiliate you.”

  Jahne sighed. “All right,” she agreed.

  Getting the dress was easy. Mai brought three things over; they picked one, and it was a knockout: a long, blue-black silk taffeta that started at her cleavage and then fell in perfect, clinging waves to the floor.

  “So, it is beginning for you,” Mai said with satisfaction.

  “I’m so frightened I could die,” Jahne admitted. “What if no one talks to me, or if I say something stupid or…”

  “Ccht! Cht!” Mai made a clicking noise with her tongue and teeth. “Men vill alvays talk to you—vell, for the next ten years or so, anyvay. Und you should vorry about findink somevun who doesn’t talk stupid, not vorry about vat you say. You are doomed to be bored a lot more than
you vill be borink. See if I am not right.”

  Sy sat at his desk, his feet up on the credenza. More trouble. Jahne Moore troubled him. And Jahne Moore and April Irons were double trouble. Sy would not say he hated women: not women like his mother or his wife, who knew their place. Sy only hated pushy women. Like Jahne. And April herself. So, what if he escorted Jahne Moore to April’s dinner party? That would piss Miss Irons off. It would start any relationship between them on the wrong foot. And he could keep an eye on both of them—excellent plan. Sy smiled and put down his inhaler.

  But perhaps he could go one better. He still had to get Michael McLain to agree to let Ricky’s name be billed alone over the title. The bet he had made with Michael was stupid. He’d regretted it immediately. Then Michael had informed him he’d already bedded Sharleen. Putana. Clients were nothing but trouble. But now maybe he could kill two birds with one rock. He would let Michael McLain take Jahne. That woman was not so easy as Sharleen. And after Michael struck out, he, Sy, could negotiate the Ricky Dunn deal.

  Sy lifted up the phone and smiled.

  Jahne was nervous, but, even so, she couldn’t help taking in the scene before her. “I’m here, and I’ll never forget this,” she told herself. She was on the threshold, looking in. Michael McLain stood beside her, his arm locked around hers. The house was perfect—totally elegant in its simplicity, a big English Tudor. The huge double front doors opened into a reception gallery that was big enough to hold an L.A. Rams game, Jahne thought to herself. The sunken living room was an expanse of ivory upholstery and dark wood antiques, and candles—hundreds of them—illuminated the room. Beyond it, the dining room was inviting, the table draped with gleaming ivory linen napery and tall candelabra. Ivory orchids in moss-covered pots were everywhere. Some plants were six feet high. There was enough room for a hundred people, Jahne thought. But this party was intimate, with only a dozen guests.