“But you didn’t buy hardly anything.” Jahne had seen lots of things, but she felt most comfortable when Mai dressed her. In fact, she had an appointment with Mai this afternoon for a fitting.
“Well, mostly I like Donna Karan. Anyway, there’s nothing I need.”
“Jahne Moore, when did shoppin’ have to do with what you need? Even when I was dirt poor, I knew that. We just used to look over the Sears catalogue and dream on what we wanted.”
“Well, I don’t want much. And I feel like all this clothing and makeup is so confusing. It seems like I never have the right things. You need the right dress shoes, the right casual shoes, the right sports shoes. And they have to be the right color for the dress or the skirt or the slacks or the shorts or the gown. And then you need the right sweater or wrap or jacket. And the belt and the purse, and that’s not mentioning jewelry or makeup. Don’t wear salmon lipstick with pink earrings. I don’t know what I’d do without Mai. She’s a pro. God, it gets me confused.”
“You, too?” Sharleen sounded shocked. “But you always look so great.”
“Do I?” Jahne asked, surprised. She knew she owed it to Mai. “I just keep it real simple,” she told Sharleen.
“Well, Lila isn’t simple. She does it every day, and she does it perfectly. How do you think she does it?”
“Maybe it’s in her genes.”
“But she don’t hardly wear jeans.”
“No. I mean genetics. Maybe she gets it from her mother. After all, her mom was a movie star, so maybe Theresa O’Donnell taught her some tricks.”
“Did your mom teach you any?”
Jahne winced. “No. She died in a car accident when I was very young.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. My mom left home when I was nine, but I’m so happy for those years and all she taught me.” For a moment, Sharleen paused, and Jahne thought again that Sharleen was upset about something. Well, it must be hard to have a mother run out on you, Jahne thought. Maybe worse than having a mother die.
“My mom taught me a little poem. ‘I desire to leave Elmira!’” Jahne smiled at the vague memory.
“What’s Elmira?”
“A really dreary town in upstate New York. I grew up there with my grandmother.”
“Well, I guess you listened to your momma, though.” Sharleen turned and surveyed the glitzy restaurant, which was decorated as an Italian spa, complete with trompe l’oeil pool on the ceiling and crumbling pillars along one wall. The gaily striped chairs and awnings indoors sparkled, as did all the cerulean-blue china and glassware on the marble table. “This,” Sharleen said, “sure ain’t Elmira.” They both laughed.
When the waiter returned with their drinks, they both ordered salads. After he nodded conspiratorially and left, Sharleen turned to Jahne.
“Kin I ask you a question?”
“You surely can,” Jahne said, and Sharleen giggled.
“Do you worry about how you look? I mean, Lila is so beautiful and all, but seems as like she worries a heap about it.”
Jahne almost laughed out loud.
“Sure, I worry.”
“You do, too?”
Jahne took a deep breath. “Wait a minute? You mean you worry, Sharleen? But you’re gorgeous. I mean, I can understand worrying about what you wear, or makeup, or something, but you’re perfect—your skin, your hair, your eyes. Everything. Sharleen, you’re absolutely gorgeous.”
The color rose in Sharleen’s perfect face. “Oh, no. I ain’t—I mean I’m not—nowhere as pretty as you or Lila. I mean, the two of you is about as beautiful as movie stars. I just look nice.”
Jahne stared. Then a wave of a kind of sick horror hit her. Here they were, by luck, by genetics, and by surgery, maybe the three loveliest and most desirable women in the country, perhaps the world, and two of the three, at least, didn’t even believe in their own beauty. For her, of course, there was the contrived nature of her looks. But Sharleen was clearly a natural beauty and had always been, yet she, too, felt imperfect. And, in a moment of almost frightening clarity, Jahne bet that Lila, perhaps the most beautiful of all, was the most insecure. Out of nowhere, tears flooded her eyes.
“What is it?” Sharleen asked, her voice full of concern.
Jahne made a noise, nearly a groan. “Oh, it’s just so very sad. If you don’t think you’re pretty, and if I don’t think I’m pretty, how do those poor women in America watching us feel?”
“Pretty bad, I guess. If they care.”
“Oh, Sharleen, every woman cares. They make us care.”
“Jahne, do you feel bad about them makeup ads? All them tricks and mirrors and lights?”
Jahne nodded. She thought of poor Mary Jane Moran. “It doesn’t do what it promises, does it? It doesn’t make any of us beautiful, unless we already are.”
They were silent for a while. Jahne looked over at her companion. She realized how much she really liked her. She’d miss her over the hiatus. “How is the album coming?” she asked kindly.
“Well, everyone thinks I kin sing ’ceptin’ me. I guess it’s okay. At least it’s almost done, and then I’m takin’ a long rest. Me an’ Dean is going to get us a truck and go up to Yellowstone, or maybe Montana. Take the dogs, and the FBI, too, I guess. What about you?”
“I’m thinking of doing that movie.”
“Workin’ on your vacation?” Sharleen could hardly believe it. “Mr. Ortis wanted me to do a movie, but I said, ‘Heck no!’ Ain’t you dog tired?”
“Yes, but I really want to do this movie.”
“Boy, with a movie and a TV show, then you’ll really be famous.”
Jahne laughed. “I don’t think we could get more famous than this. But if the movie works, maybe I won’t come back to Three for the Road.”
Sharleen’s face dropped. “Not really! Oh, Jahne, you wouldn’t just leave me alone with Lila? She’d eat me up.”
“Oh, come on. You’ve got to get tougher than that. Just tell her to fuck off.”
Sharleen blushed and giggled. “Oh, I could never do that.”
“Sure you could. Try it now. Practice on me.”
“But it’s not religious.”
“Sharleen, where in the Bible does it say, ‘Thou shalt not use the word “fuck”’?”
Sharleen giggled again. “I don’t know. Nowheres, I guess. It’s just that nice girls didn’t…”
“Sharleen, nice girls were all doing it but not saying it. So just stop being a girl altogether. Practice now. You’re a woman. Tell Lila to fuck off.”
Sharleen looked at Jahne, thought for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, I’ll try, but I don’t know if I can.”
“Try it.”
Sharleen pursed her lovely, soft pink lips. She took a deep breath through her perfect nose. “Okay.” She paused. “Eff you.”
“Oh, come on! That was pathetic. Tell the nasty piece of work to fuck off.”
“All right,” she paused. “Lila, you just…” Her voice was sweet as ever.
“Come on. Be angry. She’s so awful to you. And to me. And the crew. And she makes Marty be mean, too. Come on, Sharleen. Don’t be such a little wimp!”
“Oh, fuck off!” Sharleen burst out.
The people at the next table turned to look at them. Sharleen’s face grew rosy, and she covered her cheeks with her hands.
“Bravo!” Jahne told her. “You’ve broken the ‘eff’ barrier. Now you can live in Hollywood.”
After lunch with Sharleen, Jahne dismissed La Brecque’s guard and drove over to Mai’s apartment on Cahuenga to discuss an outfit for tomorrow. It was easy to slip in—there was no gated security, just a pleasant but shabby U-shaped two-story stucco apartment building with dark-green shutters. She knocked at Mai’s door.
Mai was wearing all white—as she almost always did. White, or the same silver-gray as her hair. Today she had on a sweatshirt made of some kind of stretch terrycloth, with a strip of it wrapping up her head in an impromptu turban. Her face lit as she greeted Jahne.
“So, you are vell? You look so.”
“Yes,” Jahne said, and realized she was. It seemed that, perhaps, at last, the loneliness was lifting. She’d enjoyed her lunch with Sharleen, and she had a feeling that she’d enjoy this time with Mai. She was making friends. And she had her lunch with Sam to look forward to.
“Sit down,” Mai said, indicating a chair. Jahne, who’d been here before, wondered at the apartment. It was only three big rooms, but all three were immaculate, and painted white from floor to ceiling. All the furniture—not that there was much—was slipcovered in white cotton. There was a lot of sunlight filtered through the green-black shutters, and, other than one large fern in a white tub, no decor at all: nothing hung on the walls, no knick-knacks on the table. But somehow, with the sunshine and shadow, with the cleanliness and the whiteness, the rooms seemed filled, not empty.
“This place is so…original, Mai. Like you.”
Mai shrugged, and took two glasses out of a cabinet. “Ven you are young, you are original. Ven old, you are only veird. But this suits me. I love color and paintings and objects. But now I look at them in museums. It is a relief to have so little to care for.” She poured half a beer into one glass and was about to fill the second.
“None for me,” Jahne reminded her. “I have to lose weight, not gain it.”
Mai sighed and brought out a bottle of spring water. “For tvelve years, I ate the same dinner every night: a small steak and a salad vith no dressing. Think of all those meals I missed! If you vant diet help, call Nikki Haskell. She is Liz Taylor’s guru.” She looked up at Jahne. “So, is it vorth it, being famous?”
Jahne sat on the sofa and put down the glass of water. “Not if this is all there is,” she told Mai.
“Vat more do you vant? You are famous und vill be very rich, und you are young and healthy.”
“I never wanted fame, and the money wasn’t the main thing. I wanted, I still want, to make films—to be in good films and do good work in them. To build up a body of work, something I can be proud of.”
Mai shrugged. “You may be too famous for that now,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Jahne asked. She felt a moment of panic, a flutter against her rib cage.
“A famous and beautiful voman becomes a…a special kind of force. You cannot do normal things. You do not have normal friends. You are a target of many. You are loved by strangers, but you sometimes have no friends. And often, just as you adjust to being a goddess, you are finished, or they are finished with you. Think of how many are chosen and burn bright, but only burn out: so many new girls, so many girls of the moment, so many. But think of how few vimmen have lasting careers. Can you name five, even? Five who have built up a body of vork?”
“Yes. Of course. Susan Sarandon.”
Mai nodded. “Who else?”
“Meryl Streep.”
“Of course. But vat has she done lately? Und who else?”
“There are women who have done it.”
“Yes. But, as hard as it is to become famous, it is a hundred times harder to stay so. To stay ‘hot.’ Use this time vell, Jahne. It may not last for long.”
22
Jahne had asked Mai for help in dressing for her lunch date with Sam. “I want to be casual, but also look really good.” She giggled. She’d finally signed the contract for Birth and, despite Sy Ortis, she felt as if she were five years old and on her way to a birthday party. “You understand, Mai. Understated devastation.”
“Of course.” Mai had smiled. “Like you just threw on your clothes and took no trouble, when you have really vorked on yourself for hours. That is the trick. The study of naturalness. But, my dear, haven’t you already gotten this part?”
“Yes, but…”
“But maybe there is another part you are auditioning for? Is that it?”
Jahne just laughed. “What do you think? Slacks or a skirt? Slacks look more casual, but I can show more leg with a skirt.”
“Vere are you lunching?”
“Over at the Getty Museum.”
Mai made a face. “Vell, he is maybe cultured, but has bad taste in food.” She regarded Jahne for a moment. “I think maybe a low-cut tank top vith a matching long jacket. Quvilted silk for the jacket. Lined. Blue lining. Black jacket, and the blouse in the blue of the linink.”
“Really? But I’d feel too dressed up in a jacket.”
“Not if you vore it with jeans,” Mai told her. “Perfect, no?”
“Perfect, yes. But could you get it done in time?”
“Ven is this lunch?”
“Tomorrow,” Jahne admitted guiltily.
Mai had laughed. “Who am I to hold up progress? But I’ll have to leave right now to shop for fabric.”
“Yes, of course.”
Sometimes Jahne wondered if Mai tried so hard to please her because she had saved Mai’s job when Lila had gone ballistic and tried to fire her. Or because Mai needed the extra income. Or because Jahne had secured her a job on the Birth of a Star project. Or because Jahne was the star. Would Mai pretend to like me if she didn’t really? Jahne wondered. But Mai never seemed to show any special fondness for Sharleen, or, of course, for Lila. Yet they could be helpful to her career.
I have to believe she really does like me, and if it means another movie job for her, or some money on the side, or someone to stand up for her when Lila goes nuts or Bob is abusive, so what? Isn’t that what friends are for? Jahne asked herself. I have to be sure not to ask for too much, and not to take her for granted or underpay her.
Still, it made Jahne a little uncomfortable to think that the woman she was closest to was paid to be with her. She pushed the thought from her mind. Instead, she tried to imagine the quilted silk jacket. She’d be gorgeous in it. Sam, always sensitive to such things, would be impressed.
Everything in Los Angeles was different from New York. Even the museums, Jahne thought with a laugh.
The Getty was located just off the Pacific Coast Highway. And, believe it or not, you had to call ahead to make a reservation. Not to see the collection, but to park your car! So-o-o L.A.! She laughed to herself.
Of course, she hadn’t known that until the parking-garage attendant asked her for her reservation number. She thought he was joking. But then he explained how the museum had been built by J. Paul Getty in a residential neighborhood, and the neighbors in Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, Los Flores, and Topanga had enough muscle to ensure that no one would park on their streets.
Luckily, the guard recognized her and made an exception. “We always keep a few spots for celebrities, Miss Moore,” he told her confidentially. She hated to take advantage, but she was so pumped up for her lunch with Sam that she simply thanked the guard and parked.
A narrow staircase led up to a wide garden carved out of the cliff face. And there, in a perfect Hollywood style, was a faux Pompeian villa, complete with not only Doric but Ionic and Corinthian columns. Typical Hollywood: If one was good, why not have all three? Authenticity be damned. Blazing bright wall murals, complete with more columns, this time trompe l’oeil, lined the porches of the two colonnades which enclosed the Peristyle Garden, the center of which sported a gigantic turquoise pool. Jahne put on her sunglasses to avoid squinting at the bright reflection. She wandered down the South Porch, gliding over the inlaid-marble floor. The Tea House was in the West Garden, and before she went to it she stopped in the ladies’ to check herself out and calm herself down.
She was alone there. She smiled at her reflection. Mai’s jacket fit like a supple skin, and the blouse showed just the right amount of cleavage. She took out the pink Flanders Cosmetics lipstick that she wore and carefully reapplied it. She had spent fifty minutes on her eye makeup: carefully lining her lids with a subtle blue-black and then building layer upon layer of matching mascara. She wore matching contact lenses and only a smudge of eye shadow, buried in the crease at the outer edges of her eyes. But it did the job. When she took off her sunglasses, her eyes looked
enormous. She knew she was beautiful, and, smiling at herself, she felt confident. If Sam came on to her at lunch, she could handle it. And she was certain that he would be mesmerized.
He rose as he saw her crossing the formal garden. The Tea House itself was casual. She took the chair opposite his, pleased that it was in the shade.
“Quite a venue,” she said.
“Do you know much about art?” he asked.
“Oh, I know my Jan van Huysums from my Jan Vermeers,” she said airily.
“Speaking of van Huysums, they have two here.”
“I’ll look forward to seeing them.” She smiled sweetly.
They ordered iced teas and salads. Sam congratulated her again on the Emmy nomination, and they talked desultorily. She had a chance to really look at him.
He hadn’t changed much. If anything, he was a little thinner. His dark hair was pulled back, but the pony tail had been trimmed to a discreet George Washington. He was tanned, though, and his brown hand, lying beside hers on the table, looked beautiful, lean and long and sensitive as ever.
He caught her eye and looked down to the table, too. But he noticed her hand, and picked it up in his own.
“You’re so cold!” he exclaimed.
“So many men have said that,” Jahne intoned, “but I thought with you, with you it would be different.”
He stared at her for a moment, recognizing the dialogue from Jack and Jill, and then she laughed, and then he did, too. His teeth, always good, white and strong, looked better than ever against his tan. The sinews in his throat moved as he swallowed the last of his laughter.
“I was blown away by your screen test,” he said. “It was…novel. But more. It was intelligent. And heartfelt.” She felt herself start to blush. She murmured her thanks. “I must have watched it a hundred times. And it was uncanny. You reminded me of someone. I’m not sure. It was so evocative.”
She had to change the subject. “I look forward to playing Judy. So, how’s the script coming?” she asked. She wondered again, for a moment, if Sy could be right. He might be a chauvinist pig, but he did know the business.
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