“Okay. Get me out of this piece of shit and I’ll do the Dunn thing.”
“Too late. Eastwood signed on.”
“Goddamn it, Sy! You better take care of this. Find a solution. I mean it.”
“Is that a threat, Michael? A threat that you’ll leave the agency? That you’ll fire me?”
“You got that right. And if you don’t like it, Sy, you know where the door is.”
Sy had been waiting for Michael to say this. Michael always said it at the end of one of his tirades. Usually Sy would just switch to another tack, wait for another time. But not today.
Sy put down his fork, swallowed the last of the veal piccata, wiped his mouth with the oversized linen napkin, and looked across the restaurant table at Michael. “It’s been a pleasure, Michael. Sorry it couldn’t have worked out between us, but I respect your judgment.” Sy pushed back his chair and stood up.
Michael looked up at Sy, his eyes wide. “What? Where are you going?” Michael still had a forkful of food dangling in the air, halfway toward his mouth.
“The door. I finally figured out how to get there, after all these years of you telling me I knew where it was.” Sy motioned with his hand. “So, muchas gracias for firing me, Michael. It saves my having to quit. And adios, amigo!”
27
When Jahne received the revised Birth of a Star script, messengered to her at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, she was disappointed to find no note from Sam included. What did you expect? she asked herself crankily. A marriage proposal?
She was cranky. She’d spent the day in the seemingly endless round of upkeep and grooming appointments that filled so much of her spare time: first a facial, then three hours at Antonio’s, having the gray covered and streaking the black and blue and other shaded highlights into her hair. That was always a trial, because of the face-lift scars buried in her hair. Viendra looked at them, looked at her, and winked. She tipped him a hundred bucks and hoped he’d keep his mouth shut. Every time. Then two grueling hours with Arna, her trainer, who didn’t believe he’d really worked you unless you were doing dry heaves by the end of it. Even now her legs were shaking. And she still had to change, do a quick interview with Melinda Bargreen, a journalist from Seattle, and then look for a place to live: at $480 a day, the hotel was a high price to pay for security.
She got through the interview, and then spent three exhausting hours touring with Roxanne Greely, house broker to the stars. She came back to the hotel exhausted and depressed. Roxanne had explained that she might be able to find something for $750,000, but that anything nice was over two million! Jahne knew that the world out here was nuts, but this proved it.
It wasn’t until that evening, back at the Beverly Wilshire, that she got to relax. She ran a bath, a rare luxury. Brewster Moore had cautioned her that more than three minutes of immersion in water was injurious to the dermal layers, but tonight she didn’t care. She threw in a generous handful of Flanders bath salts (another Brewster no-no) and slipped, with a sigh, into the huge, deep, sparkling tub. Then she opened the Birth of a Star script and started to read.
She was on page 37 when the tub-side phone trilled. She reached for it, wondering if she could be electrocuted by a phone call. She could just see the headlines: “CARA DIES IN BATHTUB TRAGEDY.” The National Enquirer would have a field day.
She picked up the phone.
“What do you think?” Sam’s voice asked.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, she answered, “I’m only up to page thirty-seven, but I like what I’ve read so far. That opening is visually brilliant.”
“Goes along with the rest of me,” he said. “How about a drink?”
“Tonight? Sorry, I’m bushed. I’ve spent the whole evening looking for a place to live. I’m looking forward to crawling into bed with your script.”
“Lucky script. So, did you find a place?”
“I saw something I could maybe lease in Bel Air. Expensive, and it’s a bit pretentious, but La Brecque tells me it’s secure as Fort Knox.”
“So, how ’bout dinner tomorrow night?”
Dinner instead of lunch. This was an upgrade.
“I can’t make it until Thursday,” she purred. “And not until about nine,” she told him. Then she regretted it. She was still playing too easy, making the same mistake Mary Jane used to make. She should have just told him no.
“Fine. I’ll pick you up at the hotel.” Why was she doing this? she wondered. It was ridiculous. If you wanted to work with Sam, you are, she told herself fiercely. That does not include visits to art museums and dinners alone.
Or would they be alone? It hadn’t occurred to her to ask. But maybe this was to be a working dinner. She and April and Sam and God knows who else. Michael Douglas? Paul Newman?
Jahne was up to the second act of the new Birth of a Star script when she got to the love scene.
FADE UP with a POP DISSOLVE
[James]
PULL BACK to reveal James, his face a mask of desire
Judy, you know how I feel, don’t you?
[Judy]
PULL BACK. Judy in bed, holding sheet.
Yes. I think I do.
[James]
WIDER
But show me how you feel.
[Judy]
I feel bared before you. Like this…
[Slowly, she slips out of her robe. She is awkward with love. Under it, she has on only a plain man’s pajama top. She slips it off and stands revealed before him, naked and in a state of grace.]
[James]
FOLLOW his eyes
You’re so beautiful!
A nude scene! And from there, on pages 50 and 51, they make love. Well, of course Judy and James were lovers, but in the first version she’d read it was not as explicit as it was now. Jahne read now and groaned. “Close-up. He cups her breast. Long shot—his hand moving from her ankle to her knee, from there to her thigh.”
Oh, God! She should have known! She felt herself break into a sweat. She was too upset to judge whether or not it was a good scene, or justified. All she knew was that she couldn’t do it. Not with her body. Not with her scars.
Well, she’d talk to Sam. She’d get him to change it. He’d have to. She’d insist.
Certainly she wasn’t the first actress to resist nudity. Many actresses did. They were embarrassed by nudity, or felt exploited. No women wanted to do it, except for the few exhibitionists. Well, it was not in her contract, and she wouldn’t do it.
She read the rest of the script numbly. She couldn’t judge it, couldn’t be intelligent. She just prepared for her battle Thursday night.
Thursday came quickly. The restaurant was a hip L.A. version of a sushi bar—very white walls, black tables and chairs, and a long black counter with the sushi chefs on one side, diners on the other. As if in unspoken agreement, most of the patrons wore either black or white clothes. They were a mixed bag: some young, dressed almost sloppy-casual, and others, older, who looked like Industry suits in their linen Armanis. The place was crowded, and the tables were close together, the noise level high. Along the walls, shadow silhouettes were painted: a ponytailed man holding chopsticks, a woman with a hat on. They were clever and disconcerting: at one table a small, birdlike woman appeared to be casting the painted shadow of a big man with an Afro.
In case Jahne had any question of the hipness of the place, Sam pointed out Barry Diller, a small bald guy who sat with an entourage of young men. “Past chairman of Fox,” Sam told her. “Just up and quit one day. People say he got tired of the game. Now he’s into home shopping.”
They were taken to a table by Yoshi, the owner, who welcomed Sam by name. There was a stir, the usual moment when the conversation silenced as she entered a room; then the buzz continued, a little louder than before. Fame. She wondered if she would ever get used to it.
Sam ordered saki, but she only tasted from the tiny black pottery cup she was offered. She played with the cup nervously. She didn’t care
for saki, but she loved Japanese beer. And a beer would calm her down right now. Too bad it was as fattening as American beer. Well, she’d call Nikki in the morning.
She looked up from the menu to see Sam staring at her.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“You remind me of someone,” he said, and continued staring.
She stopped breathing, and then reminded herself that she had to take another breath. “Really?” she managed to ask, and lowered her head, letting a black wing of hair fall forward.
“No,” he said. “Don’t do that.” He reached across the table and brushed back the hair. “Let me look at you.” She surveyed him from under her eyelashes, everything stilled for what might have been half a minute but felt like hours. Now he sees, she thought. At last, he’ll know me. And what will happen?
“I know!” he said triumphantly. “The young Vivien Leigh!”
She breathed again. But her body felt loose, as if she’d been working out too hard all day. She was frightened. Frightened and weak and fascinated.
“So, what did you think of the script? I’m dying to know.”
“Well…” She’d have to talk about the nude scenes.
“You hate it. God, you hate it!”
“No. No. I just…I have some reservations.”
“Look. It hasn’t been easy, updating this. I mean, essentially it’s the story of a sadistic man and a masochistic woman—old-fashioned melodrama.”
“Is that old-fashioned? I think it’s pretty current.”
“Oh. The old ‘Women Who Love Too Much’ and ‘Men Who Make Hitler Look Good’ scenario. Well, I didn’t want to write some codependency screenplay.”
“Look, I don’t think that’s the problem. It’s…” she paused.
“You’re killing me. First Michael McLain, then you.”
“Michael McLain? What about him?”
“He complained, too. Says he doesn’t want to be typecast as a degenerate fucked-out star. So why did he take the part?”
“Michael?” Jahne asked. What was Sam talking about?
“Well, yes, Michael McLain. He’s costarring with you. Didn’t April tell you?”
“Tell me? Last I heard, you were considering Paul Newman for the part.”
“Oh, no, not really.” Sam lowered his voice to a throaty whisper. “April wanted Michael, I wanted Newman. So she gave me you, and I gave her McLain.” Sam paused, then asked, “You are excited about working with Michael, aren’t you? He’s perfect for the part of James. It seems that the two of you are already close. I thought you’d be jumping with joy.”
Well, of course. He had seen her with Michael. He thought they were still an item. Maybe that was why he wasn’t being more aggressive with her personally. One thing she knew about Sam was that he didn’t like to compete with another man to get a woman.
Should she tell him that she and Michael were—well, estranged? That the way was open for him? And that she didn’t want to work with Michael—didn’t even want to see him?
But it was none of his business, or if it was, he’d find out for himself. This time, she wasn’t going to grovel or pave the way.
But, God, what would it be like if she had to work with Michael? And if she had to watch Sam nuzzle April Irons right in front of her? She wasn’t sure she could take it. Jahne caught herself. Well, if it wasn’t definite, there was a chance it wouldn’t happen. She would have to hope not. “I’m just so surprised, so…overcome. Me working with you and with Michael McLain! It’s like a dream come true. I’m delighted, Sam, and really very honored.”
He seemed not to notice how shaken she really was. Well, she reminded herself, when he was wrapped up in a project, he never did notice anything else.
“But listen. We do have a problem. I can’t do the sex scenes,” she blurted. “I can’t.”
He stopped, smiled, and looked at her. Then he laughed. “Is that all this is about?” he asked. “The nude scenes?”
“I don’t consider that ‘all,’” she said stiffly.
“Oh, look, if you don’t want to strip, we get you a body double. No problem. I can fake the frontal shot. Cut from your face to her body. No problem.”
“Why have it at all? Why show it?”
“It’s a love story.”
“But it’s not a sex story.”
“Oh, come on. Basic Instinct. Damage. Modern times. A necessity.”
“But it isn’t necessary to show a nude Michael McLain. Isn’t that modern?”
“I’d guess it was late-middle-aged,” Sam smirked. “But you ought to know.”
“You know what I mean. Why is it necessary?”
“Oh, you know the answers as well as I do. Because men like to see it. Because women don’t mind. Because men don’t like to see nude males…”
“Why not?”
Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. Ask Neil Jordan. Don’t want themselves compared to someone else. Are afraid of their own homosexual feelings. Or feel degraded by the sight…”
“What if women feel degraded by all the female nudity? And no matching male?”
“Oh, come on. I didn’t invent the world. This is the way it is. A naked female is beautiful. A naked male is offensive.”
“I think it goes deeper than that,” she said. “I think it’s a way to control women. To show them how perfect they are supposed to be. To use their bodies to sell something—a product, a film, an idea. And to teach them to sell themselves, the way you want me to.”
He reached his hand out to her and covered hers with his. She pulled away.
“I can see you like me, Jahnie. You don’t want to, but you do.”
“Of course I like you. You’re my director.”
“No, I don’t mean that you like me professionally. I mean you like me. And I’m very impressed with you. You have integrity. You’re a very unusual woman. Not just beautiful, but really focused, really intelligent. And we can work this out. I understand your concerns. But like me. Work with me. Trust me.”
She looked into his long, tanned, and handsome face. He was still the best-looking man she’d ever known. And the blend of his intelligence, his drive, and his “Hey, I’m one of the good guys” attitude was as seductive as ever. She felt herself blush, and glanced down at the tabletop. She couldn’t help noticing his lap. Was that sashimi in his pocket, or was he really glad to see her? She looked away. Despite the restaurant noise, she could hear him breathing, and she could hear her own breathing as well. God, if just for an hour they could lie down together and comfort one another, be truly together even if only for a little while.
He reached for her hand again, and this time she let him hold it. “I’ll protect you,” he said. “Just let me in. Let me try. I’m a good director. I love my actors, Jahne. Trust me.”
“I’ll try,” she promised.
28
Sharleen had the maid service make a special trip to clean the house for Momma’s arrival. Now it was spotless, except for the boxes that Sharleen had bid on for Dobe. Just what is he going to do with all of these left shoes? she wondered for about the thousandth time. Could he be coming up with another scam like he did with the gas tablets? Dobe, you better not be makin’ me store somethin’ that’s against the law, Sharleen thought to herself. Just what would she say to Momma when she got here and saw all these cartons? If Momma ever did get here.
Sharleen sat in the big living room, flipping through a catalogue and out of the corner of her eye watching Dean playing with the dogs. Then her eyes flicked to her watch once again. Sharleen had arranged for a car to pick up Momma and bring her here at seven. It was almost eight o’clock. The food had already arrived and was getting cold. An hour late; Sharleen was worried. Tonight, Dean was going to see Momma for the first time. Sharleen didn’t want anything to go wrong.
But so much had already gone wrong: Flora Lee had taken the money to move, but she hadn’t moved—she was still in the bad place in East Los Angeles. And they’d made two dates
for her to come over, and both times she hadn’t come at ail. Then, the next day, she’d called Sharleen and cried, telling her she was too ashamed to see her baby.
Dean had been upset.
Now Dean broke into her thoughts. “Do you think Momma will know me?”
Before Sharleen could answer, the security guard at the gate buzzed and admitted Flora Lee’s car. Thank the Lord! “Of course she will,” Sharleen reassured him. Together, they opened the front door and stepped outside, standing on the top step as the car pulled into the driveway. Flora Lee got out and, with the driver’s help, was able to steady herself on her feet. Flora Lee looked up and saw Sharleen and squealed, then began to run up the stairs to her, her arms open. “My little girl,” she said, as if she hadn’t seen Sharleen since Lamson. Then she slipped. Sharleen reached out and broke her fall. Flora Lee righted herself as if nothing had happened. Sharleen’s heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. Flora Lee had been drinking. That’s why she was late.
“Now, where’s my little baby boy?” she yelled, as she walked unsteadily into the house, straight past Dean. He followed her. “I’m right here, Momma,” he said to the woman who was moving around the living room in a crooked line. She turned to him and flung her arms out.
Dean took an involuntary step backward.
Sharleen watched Dean as he looked his momma up and down. Then she took a look at Flora Lee’s attempts to make herself look special for this reunion. They had made her look ridiculous. Especially ridiculous to Dean, a boy who was only six when he’d last seen his momma. Flora Lee’s hair was fairly neat, but way too yellow. The lime-green dress had too many flounces at the neck and shoulders. There was way too much jewelry, and Sharleen could smell the perfume all the way over on this side of the room. And the shiny yellow high-heel shoes didn’t help her studied attempts to walk normally.
Flora Lee was all over Dean before Sharleen could say anything. “My little boy, my baby.” Flora Lee had her arms around Dean’s shoulders, and her face on his neck, crying. “You got so big I didn’t know you! Momma’s home, baby. Momma’s home.”
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