Flavor of the Month

by Olivia Goldsmith

  She looked around her at the lofty, darkening room. It was like a tomb, and she hated it. Perhaps La Brecque and his people had vetted it, perhaps there was an alarm system and a patrol to check on her, but she felt like a target here, exposed and alone. Without Sam, she hated to be in the house. She passed by the dining room, saw the set table. By now the salad had wilted on the plates, and the ragout would be vile. She shivered and climbed up onto the sofa, wrapping herself in the throw that draped its back. Time seemed to crawl by. It must be past one. He hadn’t called. Perhaps he simply wouldn’t show up. Perhaps she’d never hear from him again. Like with Michael McLain. After all, the movie was finished, except for some looping. Maybe she was no longer necessary.

  When she heard him at the security gate, she knew her anger was mixed pathetically with relief. Then there was the sound of his car on the gravel, his footsteps on the walk, his key in the lock. She sat, motionless, and listened as he called out her name softly and walked down the hall. He must have checked the bedroom, then the kitchen. At last, he stood in the archway to the living room, where she could see him.

  “Oh, here you are. I’m sorry it went so long,” Sam said as he walked into the room. He seemed haggard, the circles under his eyes darker than ever. “We just had a lot we had to go over.” He looked at Jahne and he winced. “Why are you sitting in the dark? You’re angry, aren’t you?”

  “You’re hours late, you didn’t call, and you ask me if I’m angry?”

  “I’m sorry, babe. I forgot to call from the office, and then the goddamned car phone wouldn’t work. It just kept cutting out. I figured by then that I’d be here in a little while anyway.”

  “There are pay phones.”

  “Oh, Christ, Jahne! In L.A. no one but a junkie uses a pay phone! Give me a break. I’m really getting crushed out there! I have a lot on my mind. I admit it was rude and thoughtless, and I’m sorry, but it’s not like we were going out or anything.”

  She stood up. “No, we weren’t going out. We were just going to have dinner and make love. Nothing worth telephoning home about. And now dinner is ruined.”

  “Oh, that’s all right. I had a quick bite with April.” She saw him wince again as he realized that what he had said would worsen her mood. He sighed. “Jahne, you don’t seem to understand the pressure I’m under. It’s not going to be easy to finish this movie the way we both want it to be finished. I have to stay on good terms with April. We simply had a lot to talk over, a lot of planning to do.”

  “What else did you do with April?” she asked. “Let’s just get the cards laid out on the table. You’re not playing solitaire, you know. This is at least a two-person game. Or is it a ménage à trois?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Jahne. April is the producer. Don’t you understand that?”

  “Don’t you understand that I’m not stupid and I’m not blind? This time, I won’t close my eyes while you humiliate me in front of…” She stopped and turned away from him, biting her tongue. Sam had never humiliated Jahne Moore, she reminded herself. He had humiliated Mary Jane Moran. She strode across the wide, empty floor to the window, staring out into the darkness. She felt him come up from behind her. She didn’t turn to him.

  “When have I ever lied to you?” he asked, his voice husky with hurt. “When did I ever humiliate you?”

  She wheeled to look at him. “Don’t tell me that you haven’t slept with April Irons.”

  “Jahne, I told you. That was long ago.”

  “I want the details. When did it begin?”

  “On my first trip out here. She was trying to buy Jack and Jill, and I was holding out because I wanted to direct it.”

  On his first trip out to L.A., she thought. He was sleeping with Mary Jane—with me!—in New York, and April Irons in L.A. She remembered his apologetic phone calls to her in that dingy New York walk-up. Had he called her from April’s bed?

  “Well, it seems you didn’t hold out for long.”

  “It was a complicated situation, Jahne. I wanted to sell the play, but I also wanted to direct it and get a part in it for a friend. I had never negotiated for those stakes. I won a couple of hands, and I lost one. We sealed the deal in bed. It was all very heady. You know, the limos, the palm trees, the ass-kissing. Feeling that for the first time in your life you’re at the very center of the universe. For once, I was sought after; for once, I had the power. I don’t know. Maybe I thought an affair would give me some leverage. It didn’t.”

  All that time he was commuting, she thought. Comforting me, fucking April Irons. Commiserating with me, but sealing his deal in bed with her. Using jet lag as an excuse not to make love. And at the time I blamed myself. She felt her face flush. She wanted to slap him, to hit his face over and over and over. But how could she ever explain?

  “Get out,” she whispered. “Get out right now.”

  53

  April spent most of two days and three nights watching all of the film. Calling it a bomb would be polite. If she had the choice between releasing Birth of a Star or Hudson Hawk, she’d go with the Willis movie. After all, he had a mother who would pay to see it. Both Jahne Moore’s and Michael McLain’s parents were dead. And so would she be, if something wasn’t radically altered.

  For a moment, only a moment, she thought of the great pleasure it would give Bob LeVine to fire her. She threatened him and his job security. He’d love to return her to the subworld of indy producers. She shivered. Christ, it did sound like the title of a horror movie.

  Well, the hours of shit that she’d been watching was a horror all right. Michael’s performance was angry, even when it shouldn’t have been. And Jahne Moore was simply another beautiful face. She read her lines intelligently, but, somehow, the two together made nothing happen.

  The film kept running, but April closed her tired eyes. She rubbed the lids, careful not to stretch the skin further. She’d had an eye job only two years ago, and didn’t want to go through another for at least five more. In the darkness, with her eyes closed, she could hear both the dialogue and Seymore’s snores.

  Actually, the dialogue sounded pretty good, she thought. Then she opened her eyes, saw another take, and closed them again. But once again, the dialogue sounded good. It sounded…hot. Well, anger was as good a sexual fuel as any, and there had been plenty of anger on the set. Too bad they’d been filming a love story instead of a Schwarzenegger vehicle. What she needed was Mankiewicz to doctor this up. To keep the heat. Too bad he was dead.

  She stopped, held herself absolutely still. What was it that Mankiewicz had said? Something about the first guy who found a way to show fucking on the screen would become a billionaire. Or was it Goldwyn? Well, it didn’t matter. She kept her eyes closed and simply listened. And then the idea came, slipping in as if it had always been there. The little chill that accompanied it, the thrill, the metallic taste in her mouth. Yess!

  Carefully, like tonguing a very sore tooth, she felt her way around it. There was risk. But they had always seen this film as a way to contemporize a great old love story. Well, they just hadn’t gone far enough! This was the nineties, for God’s sake. It was time. Let’s show the world a tender love story—a violent, tragic one—and let’s show the lovers on the screen. Not porno actors, but stars you knew, stars you loved, real stars making love on the screen. Not a slap and a tickle, a quick frontal shot, but the real thing. Okay, a little soft focus here and there, but let’s give the people what they want. Let’s have every woman in the audience wet, every man stiff as a board. And so what if Michael was getting old? They’d use a body double, they’d fake it, they’d cut and intercut.

  And she thought they could get both audiences: the young ones that would go to a movie half a dozen times, and the aging boomers. Yes. Kids, gonads pulsating, would take their dates. Twice. After all, Jahne Moore was their biggest wet dream. While the boomers would feel nostalgia. The women had made Michael a teen idol twenty years ago, and the men had watched him as a role model and had grown o
ld with him. There was life in the old dog yet. And, by extension, in them. They’d eat this up. And everyone would go home and rip one off. Then, later, what would it do in home-video release? Oh, my God! What wouldn’t it do?

  It all worked. It sounded great! Of course, it required a certain amount of daring. Not since Last Tango in Paris had a major star done sex. Even Michael Douglas in Basic Instinct had held back more than a little. But McLain was desperate. And afraid he was losing it. It would have stud appeal. April knew she could sell it to him.

  It was Jahne Moore who might prove a problem. April smiled. The body-double clause that had cost her so much legal time and effort! Sy Ortis’ stupid clause! It would allow her to cut and splice anything she wanted to. Why, she could have the body double dress like a chicken and bark like a dog if she wanted. And if the close-ups showed Jahne Moore’s face, well, that was the magic of Hollywood. Of course, it might upset Miss Moore, or Sy Ortis, or Marty DiGennaro. Maybe it would lose the bitch her Flanders Cosmetics contract. It might even upset Sam to see what looked like his girl spread-eagled on the screen. Good thing she, April, had retained final cut. Sam could take it or walk, she couldn’t care less. Her smile broadened as she stood up.

  “Gentlemen,” she said, “I have an idea.”

  54

  After she threw him out, two days without Sam, two nights alone, were more than Jahne could bear. She walked through her days, an automaton, and sat up for the nights. What had he done to her, and what had she done to him? She got a copy of Great Expectations and read again about the mad Miss Havisham and her heart-cold ward Estella. Then she lay in bed and sobbed. Who had she avenged? What had she proved? How and why had she done this to herself? At last, hopeless, she called him on Friday, and he asked her to come over to his place on Saturday night.

  They spent the evening together, making love as if they’d been separated for years, not days.

  She agreed that she’d been irrational, that what was in the past was over, and that she believed him when he told her there was nothing between him and April. She went to sleep in his arms, the only way she could sleep now without waking with nightmares, always of the past.

  But, like a crusty scab, the past was something she could not stop herself from picking away at.

  Now, this sunny Sunday morning, Sam lay stretched across his living-room sofa. He looked exhausted. She knew postproduction was not going smoothly. Still, they would have this quiet time together.

  Sam put his hand into his pocket and held it out toward her. “I have something for you,” he said, and when she saw the glittering in his hand she thought, for a moment, of Michael McLain’s gift. But this was no diamond. It was a key, Sam’s key.

  “For you,” he said. “Mi casa, su casa.”

  She took it. “Does this mean we’re pinned?’ she asked, and laughed to hide the depth of her feelings.

  “Do kids still use that expression?” He was reading the L.A. Times and sipping fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice that he had picked up at Mrs. Gooch’s. As usual, he had opened first to the sports section. She watched him as he scanned the columns looking for his basketball fix. Jahne clutched the key. He had never given his key to Mary Jane. She stared at him. He must have felt her gaze, because he looked up. Another tribute that only an exquisite woman would receive from Sam: he’d even interrupt his fanatical sports-fan pursuits for her.

  “You know how I know that I’ll never be a real Angelino?” he asked. She shook her head. “Because I could never, ever love the Lakers.” He turned back to the sports pages. “You’d think, with all the displaced New Yorkers out here, they’d give better coverage to the Knicks,” he grumbled. He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Did I tell you that you look better in my sweats than any woman I’ve ever known?”

  Demurely, she tucked her legs up under herself and pulled the stretched-out gray shirtfront over her knees. “And have a lot of women modeled your sweats?” she asked. She tried to sound casual, and succeeded, but she cursed herself for asking.

  “I’ve had my share.” Sam smiled, looking over the scores. Don’t start, she told herself. But she felt the wave of curiosity and rage grow. Where had he spent the last few nights? In whose bed?

  “Sam, how many women have you really loved?” she asked.

  He looked up from the paper. “Uh-oh. Is this going to be an ‘I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours’? Because I don’t play that game, Jahne. And if we did, I’d win, because I’m a lot older than you are.” He paused and looked her over appreciatively. “Although I imagine there was a long and distinguished line of high school boys who broke their hearts over you. Not that I want to hear about any of them. After all, I’m more than a decade past my sexual peak.”

  “Not that I could tell.”

  “Ah, you bring out the best in me.” He went back to the scores.

  She should read the arts section, take a look at the book reviews, and give it up. Just leave it alone, she told herself, but she couldn’t. It was as if all those years of unspoken jealousy, all those horrible years as Mary Jane, when she lived on crumbs and closed her eyes to everything she couldn’t bear to see, couldn’t afford to see, were spilling out now. “I don’t want to hear about your conquests. I just want to know who you loved.”

  He frowned, lowering the newspaper. “Now, at last, you’re sounding your age.” He put down the sports section, got up, and came to her, seating himself on the arm of the big chair she was in. “What do you want to know that for?” he asked her, his voice gentle. “Isn’t it enough to know that I love you? Jahne, I’m working so hard to make you look good in the movie. I’m championing you. Don’t you know how I feel?”

  “You were married,” she said. It sounded like an accusation, even to herself.

  He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Yes, I was married. I thought I loved her at the time, but now I realize that we were both too young to know who we were, let alone who we loved.”

  What was she looking for? she asked herself. She didn’t know, but she couldn’t stop. “How old were you?”

  “Oh, about your age,” he laughed. “But you have your head on a lot firmer than I ever did.” He reached over and stroked her hair. Then he put a hand on both sides of her face, turning her head gently back and forth. “Yep, this head is definitely on firmly.”

  But this wasn’t enough. She had to know. She had to hear it. “If you didn’t love your wife, who did you love?” she went on, relentlessly.

  “Jahne, there are questions I’ve never asked you. I felt you didn’t want to talk about them. That was all right with me. Can’t you feel the same?”

  “You mean my scars?” she asked. “That’s different. They have nothing to do with you. But who you love, how you love, does have to do with me.”

  Sam stood up, turned away, and reached for his glass of juice. He took a swallow, then wiped his mouth with the back of his long, graceful hand. She thought he was ignoring her question, closing the subject, and she felt both irritation and relief. Then he spoke. “I once loved a woman named Nora. She was crazy, I was crazy, but I did love her.”

  Jahne felt her heart begin to beat harder. Was that it, then? Had he never loved Mary Jane? “Did she love you?”

  “Who knows?” He shrugged. “She said she did, but she left me for the producer of my first play. I guess she figured producers cast more often than playwrights.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “She was right.”

  She couldn’t smile at the joke. “Who else?” she asked. Please, God, she prayed silently, please, God, let him say he loved Mary Jane.

  “I loved a woman in New York. Another actress.”

  Thank you, God. Oh, thank you. But then it occurred to her that it might not be Mary Jane he was thinking of. It could have been anyone. Bethanie Lake, for all she knew. Jahne felt her heart flutter, then beat even harder. “What was her name?”

  “It’s not important now.” He got off the sofa arm and knelt on the floor in front of her, putting his two hands on her
shoulders. He looked deeply into her eyes. “I can honestly say that I never loved anyone the way I love you. No contest. Nothing even close. I feel blessed to touch you.” He moved his hands up to her cheeks and lifted her face to his. “Do you believe me?”

  So, there it was. The Lord had given, and the Lord had taken away. If he had loved Mary Jane, he was negating it now, even as he told her that he loved her. Tears filled Jahne’s eyes.

  “Oh, Jahnie, don’t cry. I knew I shouldn’t have played your stupid twenty questions! I swear that I’ve forgotten every one of them. They don’t matter. There’s only you.” He drew her from the chair and circled her with his arms, rocking her as if she were a child. “There’s only you,” he said.

  Jahne stood on the set of 3/4 with all the lights turned on her, Marty and the crew all staring, the cameras rolling. “Perfect,” Marty was saying. “You are perfect.” But then it was Sam’s voice coming from the darkness behind the light. “Perfect,” he said clearly. She was naked, but she stood there proudly, admired by all of them.

  Then, “Are you crazy?” Lila shrieked. “Look at those scars! Look at them!” And as they looked, Jahne could feel the scars growing red, glowing. Then, in her shame and horror, she felt her breasts begin to sag, her thighs to bulge, her stomach to hang, her ass to droop, and the men, Lila, and the audience all began to laugh. Neil was there beside her, dressed as a magician. “Ta-da!” he chortled, as he waved a magic wand. “Before and after. After and before.”

  Jahne woke from the nightmare in a sweat.

  Sam slept beside her, but Jahne was terrified. Her breath came in gasps, but Sam didn’t awaken. Quietly, so as not to disturb him, she got out of bed, left the room, and went into the cold white marble bathroom. It was enormous, vaster even than the one at the Beverly Wilshire, with a big Jacuzzi, built-in makeup drawers, recessed lights, an enclosed toilet, and a bidet. Jahne shivered in its coldness.