Flavor of the Month

by Olivia Goldsmith

  Sam began to shake his head. “I don’t know, April. It’s just not coming together.”

  “Well, make it come together,” she snapped, forcing herself not to speak through clenched teeth. “If I had been getting the dailies, I might have been able to help you sooner.” And saved us all time and money, for chrissakes. “Why haven’t you been sending me the dailies?”

  Sam put his intense look on, the artistic-fucking-New York-theater-turned-Hollywood-director look that she was beginning to despise. They forget that this is a business. The movie business. It’s not art. It’s money. “Jahne’s not coming across on the screen. I’ve been working with her—really hard—and she puts out a lot of energy, but…”

  April dropped the sympathetic-ear shit. “I already know she puts out. If you can get her to do that, then, goddamn it, get her to come across.”

  “April, don’t think I don’t have total commitment to this project. Jahne and I…”

  “Let’s get this straight. I’m your producer, no matter how well we fuck. Do you get that? I’m your boss, and right now I don’t give a shit what you do with your dick except when it interferes with my money. Your spot in bed can be filled with just a phone call. So don’t talk to me about total commitment. You know, when Barbet Schroeder’s movie was about to go into turnaround at Cannon, he showed up at his boss’s office and threatened to cut off a finger with a jigsaw. They let him continue. Are you that committed? Me, I’d help you cut off body parts, and not just fingers. As your boss, I’m telling you that your job and your future can be taken care of that easily too. So don’t get confused. You’re working now. For me.” She allowed her voice to return to normal. “Why are you three weeks behind schedule and two point six over budget?”

  “Mostly the weather. We haven’t had sun in seven days. I was hoping we’d get some sun this afternoon, but it doesn’t look like it.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then…” Sam shrugged his shoulders.

  April felt like choking him. He had no plan B? Why had she let him talk her into filming this on location? “You wanted to play God, so you became a movie director. But this isn’t a stage, Mr. Off Broadway. This is the movies—the great outdoors. So, when you can’t shoot outside, shoot interiors. Christ, do I have to tell you everything? Okay, make sun. You have fucking kliegs on, and you’re not even shooting. You’re over budget and you’re going to tell me about sunlight?”

  “Wait, it’s not only that. Michael’s been giving me a lot of shit. He’s playing temperamental.”

  “You’re fucking his snatch. What the hell do you expect?”

  “Jahne and I…”

  “I told you, I don’t give a fuck. Except it’s costing me money. Now, what’s the holdup on shooting this beach scene? It’s James and Judy walking on the beach together, the next-to-last scene in the movie. What’s the problem?”

  “Michael is only five four.”

  “So was Alan Ladd. So what?”

  “But Jahne is five six. Plus heels. Plus hair.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Well, we needed time to come up with a solution that would allow us to shoot long shots front and rear. We finally got it. We had a ramp built the length of the beach. I think it’s going to work.”

  “I’ll go you one better, Sam. It had fucking better work, because all you’ve got is tomorrow.” She pointed to the door, dismissing him. “I’ll be here at six in the morning, rain or fucking shine, Sam.” She paused, turned to him, and looked him in the eye. “Oh, and Sam: another thing. You had best show up in my hotel room tonight. I don’t care if you can’t get it up, but I won’t be left looking as if you prefer some television starlet to me.”

  On the way back to the hotel, she laid her head on the cushioned headrest. Another migraine. The doctor said it was stress-related. Fucking shmuck. Life is stress-related. She wondered for the millionth time why she hadn’t picked Bo Goldman for the project right after he came off Scent of a Woman. She had barely got into the hotel room when the phone began ringing.

  “April, I heard you were on the set, but you didn’t come to see me.” It was Michael. This one was hurt Michael. Well, you didn’t come to see me, she thought. And I sign the checks. Instead, she just sighed.

  “I have a lot on my mind, Michael. And a major migraine. I had to get back here and lie down.”

  “Migraine? I know an ancient Chinese cure for migraines. Want me to come over and show it to you?” His voice was syrupy.

  “This is a forty-million-dollar headache, Michael. I don’t think the ancient Chinese had a cure for anything that expensive. I’ll see you on the set in the morning. That’s six A.M., Michael. We’re doing that scene, sun or no sun.” She thought of the six million bucks he was getting for this and gritted her teeth again.

  “Of course I’ll be there. I’ve been there every day, ready, willing, and able.” His voice dropped, sexy. “But, hey, April, this is Michael. I can cure anything. And I happen to be free tonight.”

  “You’ve never been free,” she said, and hung up.

  The next morning, April was on the set before Michael, Sam, or Jahne. She spoke to the lighting director, who then pulled in more lights, and had reflector boards positioned around the beach. Sam was the first one on the set. “I see you’ve taken to directing?” he said.

  “You sound surprised, Sam. As if it’s a rare talent or something.” She turned to him before he could respond. “Let me put it straight to you. You’re not doing your job, so someone’s got to do it. Either you do what I tell you today, or I’m going to get someone who will. Do you understand me?” He paled, nodded, and began to walk away.

  “And, Sam,” she said, still not finished with him. “What’s with Jahne and all that makeup on her legs? Is she trying to cover leprosy, for chrissakes?” She saw Sam look over at Jahne’s trailer, where the actress was walking toward them, her leg makeup thicker by inches than the rest of the body makeup.

  “She’s nervous about this scene. She wants to look right, so I gave her permission to do the makeup her way. I think it calls for it.”

  “I hope you’re right, Sam. That one’s a judgment call. And you’re being paid for your judgment. I just hope that’s not your dick talking.”

  Michael was walking quickly toward them, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his robe. April braced herself, but she was in no mood for his bullshit today. If he didn’t like getting turned down last night, fuck him.

  “What’s the look for, Michael? You’ve got a face like a man who’s found out he has something that can’t be cured.” Let him start off on the defensive, she thought.

  Michael ignored her, and walked up to Sam. “What the fuck is that?” he asked, indicating the length of wooden boards running along the beach. “Is that a fucking ramp?”

  “Yes, Michael. It’s the best way we could compensate for Jahne’s excessive height.” April could see Sam sweat. Pussy. He’d never manage Michael that way.

  “I’m not walking on any fucking ramp. You can forget about it.”

  “We got the lighting just right, the crew and cast is ready to go. I want this scene shot today, Michael. We’ve lost too much time on it as it is.” April had moved to stand next to Sam in front of Michael.

  “Fuck you,” Michael said, turning his attention to her for the first time today. “I’m the one that’s carrying this dog on my back. And I’m not going to lose my dignity by subjecting myself to walking on any fucking ramp.”

  April had a movie to make, and investors, and a forty-million-dollar budget that was getting out of hand. “But, Michael, how do we do the long shots?”

  He took a couple of steps back toward his trailer, then turned and looked at them. “Dig the bitch a trench!”

  47

  Jahne sat in her trailer, waiting to be called for the next take, writing to Dr. Moore. Because, after all, she had no one else to explain anything to. Mai’s death had hit her harder than she could have imagined it would. She wasn�
�t sleeping, and the resulting bags and swollenness were making photography a nightmare. And her almost constant crying wasn’t helping.

  I know you’re going to think that you told me so, but even if you did…

  She paused. She had everything she’d ever wanted. A great career and the man she loved. But did she? It was still hard for her to believe that she had Sam now, again. That he loved her, held her, wanted her. She still felt his hands run over her body, caressing it. His mouth against hers, on her neck, her breasts, her shoulders, her belly and lower, even lower.

  He loves me, but it doesn’t feel like I’m there. Or maybe it’s more that he’s not. When he touches my face, it’s not my face. Well, what I mean is, of course it’s my face, but it’s not the face I had before, when he didn’t love me.

  In a way, it felt as if each caress were a blow. Each time Sam stroked her face, he might as well have slapped it. Each time he traced her profile with a loving finger and marveled at her perfection, she trembled under his hand as if he wielded a weapon. How could it be? she asked herself over and over. He is what I want. He is what I always wanted, and now I have him. At last, I am loved.

  But, somehow, some part of her couldn’t take the love he so openly offered. It was clear to her that Sam adored her. She saw, firsthand now, what she used to observe other women receiving. She remembered her New York friends Chuck and Molly, and how Chuck had been almost sick with love for Mol. She thought of all the pretty girls, the actresses and dancers she had known, and their ardent lovers, men who followed their women with hungry eyes, who seemed drawn to them like pins to a magnet, doting. And she remembered her envy, and how bitter it felt to know that she would never be in their sorority, that she had never inspired, and would never inspire, that kind of passion.

  She thought, then, of Neil. Mary Jane’s one conquest. Yet his desire had shamed her—even sickened her, in a way. She felt that he had only loved her out of desperation and loneliness. He had so few other options that being “chosen” by Neil had felt to her like a condemnation, not a compliment. It was official acceptance into the Losers’ Society. It was admitting that not only were you unlovely but you accepted the fact and would lie to yourself as you settled for another such as yourself, another awkward, funny-looking, unlovely person. Your lie would be that you truly loved one another, but the truth was that you had run out of choices, time, and hope.

  But was that perception true? Or had it come from her own self-hate? Hadn’t Neil been the man who truly knew her, who really approved of her? Who accepted her true self? She had been the snob, she had been the one afraid of a plain mate.

  She had escaped that fate, she told herself fiercely. Mary Jane, that unlovely lump of a woman, was dead, and Jahne Moore should now lie beautifully, gracefully, beside her handsome, lanky, successful lover and luxuriate in his caresses. She was one of life’s winners now, and if she had had to purchase the spoils, they still belonged to her, the victor. The past was dead, the present could be delightful, and the future even more promising. Why did it all feel so empty? She just had to get over Mai’s death and her own morbid attitudes.

  There was no doubt in her mind that she was having a breakdown of some sort. Too bad she couldn’t do it in the privacy of her own home. Now over two hundred people depended on her mood, her looks, how she’d slept the night before. This morning, Jerry, in desperation, had daubed Preparation H under her eyes to reduce the swelling. Every one of her pores was discussed, like NASA scientists studied moon craters. And Sam depended on her ability to concentrate, to emote. But she couldn’t do it, for chrissake. She seemed almost paralyzed, split into two or more selves. Was this schizophrenia? Or, for a person who had been, still was, two people, was it normal? And what was any normal person’s reaction to the pressures she was under?

  Each night, when Sam made love to her, she’d cry. At first, he was touched, and tears came into his own eyes. But it had been over a week now, and her tears continued. Lovemaking, the only thing she had found comfort and release in, had become a nightmare of tears.

  And Michael was making each take an absolute nightmare. It was becoming almost impossible to stand on her mark beside him, let alone act as if she worshipped him. She despised him. She’d never seen a man be so petty about a rejection. Of course, she reminded herself, she’d never had the luxury of rejecting a handsome man before. But his nastiness was way out of proportion. After all, it was he who had deceived her, he who had not told her about Sharleen, or Lila. Why should he hate her? He’d cheated on her, dropped her, and insulted her. Why had he been surprised by her slap?

  Well, whatever his reason for hating her, he did, and it was scary. He did small things to trip her up, odd line readings that threw her off her cue, movements that prevented her from hitting her mark. And now that she was so fragile; now, since Mai’s death, he was even more heartless. This morning, he had called her a “puffball,” alluding to her swollen face.

  But the scariest thing of all was this feeling she’d get with Sam. When he looked at her, when he’d reach out and stroke her. She’d look at his face—the very look she had longed for, that look of adoration, of love—and she’d feel…jealous. Then the tears would begin. It was crazy. She’d feel jealous of Sam’s feelings for her, Jahne. Because now that she, Jahne, had his love, she still wanted it for Mary Jane.

  God, it was crazy. Had Mai’s death unleased all this, or was it the pressure of the shoot, or was it the affair itself? Oh, God, whatever it was, it wouldn’t let her sleep at night, wouldn’t let her relax. It left her so tired that she could barely concentrate.

  Jerry, her makeup man, was sitting in the alcove by the mirror, smoking a cigarette and waiting to do what he could for her. She put down the pen and picked up another Mounds bar. She had begun to have a craving for candy: this after almost four years of going without any desserts or sugar. But the craving was irresistible. Each bite seemed a comfort. Until, of course, she tried to struggle into one of the costumes that Mai had worked so hard on and found the zipper stuck. She knew she’d gained at least five pounds. It shouldn’t matter—it wouldn’t matter in normal life—but the camera was merciless, and every bulge, even the smallest, would show.

  Mai had worked so hard on each piece, perfecting the lines of every one, camouflaging the tiniest imperfections. Now, Jahne realized, she was ruining Mai’s last work. Was she doing it because she was angry at Mai for dying? Or because she was so desperate for comfort? Whatever the reason, she was driving both Wardrobe and herself crazy.

  She finished the last bit of the Mounds bar and licked the dark chocolate off her fingers. She picked up the letter to Brewster again.

  I’ve been so tempted to tell Sam everything, but I don’t know that it would improve anything for me, and it might make things worse. I suppose what I want is not a change in Sam’s present behavior but a change in his past. I want him to have loved me then like he loves me now.

  Too bad you couldn’t do surgery on the inside of me as successfully as you did on the outside.

  Oh, it was impossible! Jahne crumpled up the letter, threw it in the wastebasket along with the envelope from Dr. Moore’s last note. She’d write to him later, when it made more sense, when she made more sense.

  There was a knock from outside the trailer. “They’re ready, Miss Moore,” Joel’s annoying little voice called. Jahne walked out to Jerry.

  “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille,” she told him grimly.

  Minos Paige stood outside the trailer. He was wearing a dark-blue jumpsuit. Over the left-hand pocket it read “Cinema Sanitation” in orange chain stitch. He waited until Jahne Moore was called to the shoot, then knocked politely on the trailer door. “Sanitation,” he said. “Can I vacuum up now?”

  The makeup guy let him in. Minos carefully began to Hoover down the rug, then wiped all the visible surfaces of the trailer. The silly-ass makeup pouf sat there the whole time. So Minos just emptied the wastepaper basket into his big plastic garbage bag and
walked out the door.

  Later, in the van, he had the time to go through the rumpled tissues, the candy wrappers, the unpleasant flotsam and distasteful jetsam, until he found the gold: the envelope, postmarked New York, return address Dr. Brewster Moore.

  48

  Lila snapped up the phone on the first ring. For the new season of 3/4, she had not only snagged the lead, she had a new trailer with three phone lines. Phones that, unfortunately, never stopped ringing.

  “Miss Kyle, I’m sorry to bother you, but you got a visitor out here.” It was Security, at the front gate of the lot.

  She waited. “And I’m supposed to guess who it is, right?”

  “Oh, no, ma’am…It’s Minos Paige…I woulda gone through your secretary, only the guy says I should call you direct. Seeing as how I seen him around before, I figured it was all right. I mean, he ain’t no fan or wacko, you know? He says he got business…”

  “Send him to me,” she said, and slammed down the phone. She held her hand on it for a moment, trying not to get too excited. Paige knew not to come to the studio unless he had something really big. Otherwise, he was to send his reports to her at home. Lila sat down at the vanity table and began to brush her hair—long, slow strokes. She started to braid it, changed her mind, and disentangled it again, then resumed the methodical brushing.

  “Yes,” she said to the knock on the door, and turned to face it when Minos walked in. He waved a manila envelope in his hand, and smiled. “It took you long enough,” she said.

  Minos dropped his hand and the smile. “It’s only been a little over a month, Miss Kyle.”

  “I mean from the front gate. What did you do, go on the studio tour?” She held out her hand for the envelope, but Minos turned and sat down without being asked, holding the envelope on his lap. Okay, we’re going to play some games now, Lila thought. She was in no mood, but thought again of the possible contents and smiled. Officially, she would be judged for the Emmy by last season’s performances, but she knew everyone would see the new show before voting. And now, if there was some juicy stuff to take some of the shine off the other two…“It’s been a very long day, Mr. Paige. You must forgive me. Would you care for something to drink? Coffee? Perrier?”