Flavor of the Month

by Olivia Goldsmith

  “Kevin Lear’s here,” Michael said, after he waved to the handsome actor across the room. “He’s with his latest fiancée, Phoebe Van Gelder.”

  “And Crystal Plenum is also right up front,” Jahne said, nodding her head in the actress’s direction. Her stomach did a little dance as she saw the woman who had played Jill.

  “Do you know them? Want me to introduce you?”

  Jahne shook her head no casually, making an effort not to show discomfort. She wouldn’t mind meeting Kevin Lear, but she definitely did not want to meet Crystal Plenum. I have a successful career of my own, she reminded herself, but she still felt cheated.

  “This club is the lowest rung on the comedy-club-circuit ladder,” Michael was explaining to Jahne. “Only the really new kids work here. The ones without any following, no experience. After a while, they get to work other clubs, but here they have to be willing to work as waiters, too, and in return, they can get the mike two or three times during the night. I like to look in here a couple of times a month. Usually the routines aren’t very good, and I’ve seen people booed right off the stage. But every now and then, you find a real comer. There’s a crazy guy who does a real mean monologue. Mean, but funny.”

  Jahne had been through it all dozens of times, back in New York with Neil. She just smiled, and sat through two painfully unfunny routines, noticing that it was getting late. Talking with Michael had been fun, but just sitting through this was hardly bearable. The audience seemed to be there as much for the comics’ humiliation as for entertainment. Perhaps that was the entertainment. But these guys were so bad, she ached for them.

  Once again, Michael seemed perfectly attuned to her mood. “There’s one more scheduled; then we can go. He’s the one people are talking about, the one I brought you to see.”

  The emcee—one of the waiters, actually—came up to the stage to announce the next performer. Even though the emcee must have said his name, it wasn’t until Jahne saw him bounding across the floor and jumping up on the stage that it hit her.

  Neil. Neil Morelli! Jahne tried to make sense of it, but Neil was already beginning his routine. Oh, my God! Neil in a bottom-of-the-food-chain L.A. club like this! And as a waiter! A waiter who has to wait until the last spot to get up and perform. Yet, despite her horror, she began to tune in to his routine.

  Neil was already talking, his delivery even faster, if possible, than it had been back in New York. “A couple of celebrities here tonight.” Neil cupped his hand over his eyes and squinted out into the darkness. “Kevin Lear, ladies and gentlemen. I’ve had the pleasure of waiting on him this evening. Thanks for the buck, Kevin. Now, if my mother lived in L.A., I could afford to call her.”

  The audience laughed, but Jahne felt frozen. Neil looked around the room, then stopped suddenly, as if overcome with surprise. “Oh, my God, it’s Michael McLain. And—get this—he’s with a starlet! That’s right, who would ever believe it? He’s here with the costar of Three for the Road, Jahne Moore.” Jahne wasn’t prepared, in her shock at finding Neil in this place, to be identified as Jahne Moore. It took her a couple of seconds and a tug from Michael to stand up; then she quickly sank back into her seat, her legs shaking. “Everyone knows about Michael’s interest in riding. Motorcycles, that is.” Mild titters from the audience. Jahne felt numb. Neil working the audience? Stupid smutty jokes? It wasn’t his style.

  “Okay, did I miss anyone?” Neil paused. “Any Fondas here? No? How about any Coppolas? They’re everywhere. Are you sure? Look around you, folks. Be very sure, because I have something very important to say, but first I have to be certain these people are not here.” He was almost whispering into the mike, his voice urgent.

  “Any Carradines? Bridgeses? Amazes? Okay, lastly, is Tori Spelling in the audience?” When no one responded, Neil began to speak in a different tone, slightly louder but more conspiratorial. “Someone watch the door and let me know if any of those people come in.” Neil looked around the room for a few minutes, then let his eyes stop at Jahne. He looked thinner than ever—gaunt, almost—and his eyes had a paranoid gleam.

  “Miss Moore, forgive me, but what did your father do?”

  Jahne felt her skin turn to ice. “My father worked for the government.”

  “A diplomat?”

  “No, he was in the army,” she lied.

  Neil laughed at that. “Just wanted to make sure. Not like your costar Lila Kyle, right? Her mother is Theresa O’Donnell, and her father was Kerry Kyle. Now, tell me, Miss Moore, exactly how hard did Lila Kyle have to work to get her part? Did she have to work as hard as you? Do you suppose the fact that your father was in the army, and Lila’s father was a swashbuckling matinee idol, made any difference to the producers of your show? No, no, don’t answer, I don’t mean to put you on the spot.” Neil started working the other side of the room. “Oh, coincidentally, Lila Kyle went to the Westlake School with Tori Spelling. About a hundred in the entire student body. Let’s see,” Neil said, pretending he was trying to figure something out. “In my high school, Evander Childs back in the Bronx, there were four hundred graduates my year, and not one, not one, got on a major television show. Isn’t that hard to believe? What a bunch of losers, huh? And Westlake produces two. Must have a great curriculum, huh? Plus, it don’t hurt that all the girls’ mummies and daddies own the Industry,” Neil said, and shook his head. There was some laughter. “You see, folks, it’s becoming clearer every day that the only way to make it in this business is to be a member of a show-business family, a dynasty.” He looked wild; nasty and bitter and intense. He went through the old New York routine Jahne had heard, but there was more. And it was all meaner.

  Jahne couldn’t take her eyes off him.

  “I’m not talking about the brother-and-sister acts. Like Penny Marshall and Garry Marshall, and Randy and Dennis Quaid.” By now Neil was talking louder and louder. Yelling, almost. “No, siblings helping siblings, that’s okay. Hey, I help out my sister, Brenda. But what I resent,” Neil began to scream, “what I resent is Tori fucking Spelling just fucking happening to get the lead on that TV show. The show that her father just happens to produce. And what’s the show about, boys and girls? It’s about a rich Beverly Hills brat in high school. Now, that’s not really acting, is it, Tori?” The audience laughed. “She’s going to be the next Sigourney Weaver. What, you don’t know?” Neil asked, looking at the audience, surprised. “Yeah, Sigourney’s father was a network heavy. You didn’t know that? How the fuck did you think she got her jobs? Sigourney’s what I call a Hidden. They’re the ones whose family connections aren’t easily known, the way the Sheens and the Fondas are. I just heard that Seymore LeVine, Bob LeVine’s son—you know, the guy’s the head of International Studios—was just made an associate producer. How many people here know what the fuck an associate producer does? I’ll tell you what Fred Allen said: ‘An associate producer is the only person in Hollywood who would associate with a producer.’”

  The rest of Neil’s routine was pretty much as Jahne remembered it from back in New York, except it had become sharper, harder, more nasty and desperate. Oh, Neil, she thought, what has happened to you? He’d always been extreme, but now he was scary.

  “But blood is thicker than talent,” he was saying. “I stole that line from someone else. But, what the fuck, these bastards are stealing my parts.” Neil was winding down. “You know the only people in this town who have made it on their own? The car thieves and the whores.”

  Finally, it was over, blessedly over. But before he walked off, Neil did his usual call for the formation of an antinepotism league, with the purpose of going out and killing all the Toris and Lilas in the business. Jahne felt sick. “Can we go home, Michael?” she asked, her voice small.

  Back in the car, she felt sicker—almost dizzy. Neil seemed vicious and mad—like a dog that’s been beaten. A terrible feeling of loneliness flooded her again. “I guess you didn’t like it,” Michael said as they drove down La Cienega. “I’m sorry. May
be this will make it up to you.”

  He pulled the Rolls over to the side of the street and reached into the glove box, withdrawing a wrapped present. He extended his hand. “For you.” Jahne took a moment to collect herself, then, looking up at Michael, took the present and unwrapped it. Michael sat still in his seat next to her while she did. She snapped open the black velvet box. She paused for a moment, then reached into the satin lining and took out the necklace. It was three gold stars, with a diamond in the center one, all hanging from a gossamer gold chain.

  “It’s very beautiful,” she said. “How can I accept this, Michael?”

  “Simple,” he said, taking the necklace from her hand and fastening it around her throat. He looked at her face. “You just did.”

  Jahne was touched. At this moment, when she had felt so alone, so bereft, he had offered this gift of kindness, of generosity. She had never received an expensive present from a man before. Never owned a diamond, although now she could afford to buy one. All the emptiness she had been feeling earlier that day, all the horror at Neil’s demise, seemed to loosen in her. Her eyes filled with tears, and the pain washed away in an instant. This man, how could he have touched me so? she thought.

  But he had. Touched her, and made her happy.

  “The star speaks for itself, Jahne. You’re on your way, big-time. One day, when you’re way up there, will you think of me, and this night, and touch the star around your neck? I hope so.”

  And all at once she was flooded with such gratitude, such pleasure in his warmth, his approval. They went back to his place. He ran a bath, helped bathe her as if she were a very young child. It was as if he knew how needy, how upset she had been. Then he wrapped her in a towel and carried her into his bedroom. Michael lifted her, lightly and easily, as if all her weight were nothing—she was, as the old clichéd song lyric went, “a feather in his arms.”

  And making love was such a release. She didn’t think, she only responded. After the kissing and the back rub, after she felt hot and hungry for him, he held her by her shoulders above him, suspending her effortlessly. He teased her, lowering her face to kiss her and then pushing her away. Then, at last, he placed her on his dick, pushed her down, and lifted her, over and over, again making it effortless, making it fun.

  He made her feel light, and small, and feminine. He moved her with grace and strength and skill. “Thank you,” she murmured. “Thank you.” She felt the necklace circling her throat. She moaned with pleasure. It didn’t take long for her to come.

  Afterward, as she lay beside him, she wondered at his stamina and asked, “How do you do that?”

  “It takes a lot of push-ups, but it makes them all worthwhile,” Michael said, grinning.

  “It reminds me of that old biblical question: ‘How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?’” She giggled.

  “Hey—that’s no pin!” he protested.

  “Well, I’m no angel,” she told him, and moved to cover his mouth with her own. Her blood hummed in her ears. Which was just as well, because it kept her from hearing the tiny whir of the concealed video camera.

  8

  While Neil Morelli was unwinding after his monologue and Jahne slept in Michael’s arms, Sam Shields paced back and forth across the speckled tile floor of his office. Surrounding him were dozens of sheets of balled-up, discarded pages. He wasn’t making any goddamned progress with the script. Maybe because it was a dated, hopeless melodrama, or maybe because he was a dated, hopeless melodramatic screenwriter, but, for whatever reason, it wasn’t coming together. And while Hollywood had seduced him, there was still enough of the old Sam left to believe passionately that the story mattered, that the characters had to make sense, and that the unities should be followed.

  He ran his fingers from his forehead down through his tangle of hair, which had come undone from the lacing that he used to pony-tail it. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror that hung on the back of his office door. He looked like a madman. Well, he was a madman. Cinéma vérité. He went back to the desk and peered at the screen of his laptop word processor. God, it was worse than he’d thought! Still, he printed it out to see it in black and white. Jesus! It was even worse on paper! He crushed the page and threw it down among the flotsam and jetsam already at his feet.

  He was choking. Like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who could make any kind of action shot but could rarely sink a basket from the foul line when the crowd was watching. Too much pressure. But who was watching him? Sam had found it easier to be brave when he’d had almost nothing to lose. Now he was no longer a neophyte director with a low-budget first offer. Now he was Sam Shields, the successful director of Jack and Jill, and instead of it bolstering his confidence, he felt that he had something to risk.

  How could it be that he had never noticed the number of danger points that stood in his path to continued success? If April didn’t like the script, he was done for. If Bob LeVine didn’t green light it, he’d be done for. If they went into production and he fell behind budget, or if April didn’t like the dailies, he was done for. And if he managed to finish the script, cast the movie, get it shot on budget, and released, but the audience didn’t come to it, he was done for. So many chances to fail, and such a slim hope for success—no wonder he wasn’t sleeping.

  He thought of his father’s words of advice, “Don’t fuck this up for yourself.” Well, Dad, I’m trying not to. But you and Mom didn’t seem to give me a base of confidence to work from. Couldn’t you have picked some up for me on one of your trips to the liquor store?

  Sam kicked viciously at the tide of discarded paper around him. He had better clean all this up, because, worst of all, he had to put a good face on everything. This was Hollywood. Never admit that you are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. And never, ever, admit that you’re afraid. On the evenings he saw April, he exhausted himself with fake passion and fake assurances to her that things were going well. If only he could level with her, talk through his problems and fears, he might be able to move forward, but April was no Mary Jane Moran.

  Sam sighed, and thought of the days when Mary Jane would listen while he poured out all his insecurities and problems. She knew when to help with suggestions and when simply to listen and let him work things out on his own. Perhaps the work he did with her had come out so well because of her collaboration.

  Collaboration? Well, that was going too far. His work belonged to him. She had merely been a good listener.

  He knew what he needed. He needed the relaxation of a sexual relationship where he wasn’t always on the line. He thought of the lunch with Jahne Moore. That was something he’d like to try on for size. She seemed to Sam to be more than just a pretty girl. He had thought about her a lot. She seemed to draw him to her, as if her warmth were a magnet and he a mere iron filing. She seemed so young, so fresh. And she had that hunger, that actor’s need to perform, that so excited him. He felt that she would be a good listener. Well, he’d push April again to get the girl to audition.

  Now he needed a good listener. He needed to throw his ideas at somebody who would neither belittle his suggestions nor cheapen them. Because Sam was saddled with a project that was, he saw now, a dog. How do you take a dated but revered classic film and update it to something relevant and real without turning off the old audience, while attracting the new?

  He threw himself onto the lumpy sofa. There was a story line buried in the script that still made sense: the successful man who watches his woman surpass him as his sun sets. Themes of rivalry, jealousy, and love. But how the hell do you dramatize it?

  Sam jumped up and began his pacing. There was a meeting to start on storyboards at the end of the week, and he was not going to hand in this piece of shit. With a sigh that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than his liver, Sam sat down at the desk. “Come on, get with it,” he said aloud. “Don’t fuck this up for yourself.”

  9

  They were running late tonight on the 3/4 location, and no one was in a good humor.
Oddly enough, the early success of the show had not made the set more relaxed and jovial, as success usually did. Instead, it seemed ever more tense. I had heard about nothing but trouble, and I had three crew people who fed me the dirt. I was there just to get a bit of color for the Vanity Fair piece. Now they were trying to get a complicated Steadicam shot in the can. Some poor bastard cameraman was rigged up with this ninety-pound monster, following the three co-stars down the stairs of the building that was doubling for the scene of the Chicago convention center. It was, as they say, a tough act to follow—the three costars had such specific marks to hit that their progress down the steps was almost choreographed, while the camera operator skipped backward in front of them.

  This was the sixth take. The problem was that Lila kept hogging the shot. It reminded me of the old rumor that, during the filming of Wizard of Oz, both the Lion and the Tin Man kept crowding Dorothy off the yellow brick road. Poor little Judy. Now Sharleen kept blowing her lines. In addition, they were losing the light. And if that wasn’t enough, everyone—from the crafts-services staff to the Flanders Cosmetics representative—wanted to leave and go home. But Marty had to get this shot—this great, fluid shot—right.

  “Okay, let’s take it from the top,” Marty said, and tried to smile as he indicated the top of the steps. The Steadicam guy once again climbed up, slowly, with his extra burden, uncomplaining. After all, he was a specialist, paid by the hour. What did he care? Marty had thirty-five thousand dollars sunk into this sequence already—he’d have their faces, their hair, their breasts floating down the stairs, the violence of the convention behind them. Soft against hard. Two minutes on the screen. Maybe only ninety seconds. And already thirty-five thousand bucks.