Flavor of the Month

by Olivia Goldsmith

  Yet a small doubt had entered her mind. She’d done it to grab a chance, a last chance to succeed on her own terms: to act, to pursue her career, her craft, her calling. Or had she?

  Lying in bed, sleepless night after night, she was tortured by the idea. Had she done all this to get Sam back? Or to get back at Sam? Both ideas appalled her. She’d never imagined herself so needy, or so angry, that she’d go that far for either love or revenge. But maybe she had.

  She roamed the big, empty house at night, lights off. The rooms felt empty, so empty. Tomblike. Oh, she could play Aida, bricked into the grave alone. That was how abandoned she felt. But abandoned by whom?

  Over and over, she felt herself drawn to the mirrors in her dressing room. There, at the marble counters that were pristine and cold as a mortuary table, she stared at her own face, at the face she had bought. A face Sam said he had loved.

  The face had given her power—power over Pete, and power enough to get the Melrose Playhouse part, power to be selected by Marty, power to entrance Sam. But what real kind of power was it, the power that these lips, this nose, the line of this jaw had given?

  It was only clear to Jahne how very powerless she was after the breakup with Sam and the resumption of 3/4. It was clear that things had changed on the set. What little weight her opinion had earlier carried was now completely usurped by the new closeness between Lila and Marty and the ill will her absence for the beginning of the season had bred. As far as Birth went, since the scene with Sam, Jahne had clearly been cut out of the editing process. It wasn’t only that her calls were not returned and her services no longer needed; Jahne Moore couldn’t even seem to get a screening of her own film. It was incredible. The International offices informed her that both April Irons and Sam Shields were unavailable: both were out of the country. She called Seymore LeVine and got the same stonewalling, tried Sam’s number at his house. No answer, no matter what time of day or night she called. She left no message. What was the use? It was all out of her control.

  Lila, on the other hand, appeared to be in complete control. Jahne’s part was even stupider (and smaller) than before, while Lila stole almost every scene, got every punch line and every close-up. Sharleen walked through her part humbly, but Jahne found it humiliating. And Sy Ortis was no help. No help at all.

  “What can I tell you?” he wheezed into the phone. “You made your bed. Marty doesn’t appreciate ingratitude. You screwed him with Birth, now he screws you. What can I tell you?”

  “You can tell me how I can get a screening of Birth of a Star, for God sake!” Jahne snapped. “I don’t have a clue to what’s happening.”

  “You’re not alone. Apparently it’s in big trouble.” His voice was heavy with satisfaction; his silent “I told you so” hung in the air. A part of Jahne knew that he was right, had been right all along, but for all the wrong reasons. I’ll fire him, she thought, but the idea of getting a new agent when Birth bombed frightened her. No one but a hungry bum would want to pick her up then, and if Sy was also a bum, he was at least a well-connected, powerful bum.

  “I guess you were right, Sy. Meanwhile, try and get me a screening,” was all she said before she hung up the phone.

  Jahne felt as if she were falling apart. For once, she didn’t have to worry about her diet: she couldn’t eat. Slipping into her jeans, the ones Mai had sewn for her, she found they gapped at her waist. There were hollows beneath her cheekbones, and darkness under her eyes. And still she hadn’t heard from Sam, had seen nothing of Birth.

  On the set, Pete approached her one afternoon. “Are you okay?” he asked. They hadn’t spoken in months, except for “hello” and “good night.” She looked up at him from her folding canvas chair; he was as young and simple and straight as he’d always been. I must really look bad if he’s noticed, she thought.

  “Not so great.” She tried to smile, but it didn’t work well.

  “Can I do anything to help?” he asked. She had to turn her head away from the kindness.

  “No. But thanks.” She watched as he started to walk away, and then it occurred to her. “Pete. Wait. Isn’t your dad a projectionist?” she asked. He nodded. “Do you think he could get me a screening?”

  You might say that Jahne Moore walked into the screening room for Birth of a Star a virgin. Two hours and ten minutes later, both her eyes and her cherry had been popped. She watched herself—or someone cut and pasted to appear to be her—fucked half a dozen times in as many positions and costumes by a younger, slimmer Michael McLain. She watched what appeared to be her right breast, ten feet wide on the screen, squeezed by his hands in close-up. She watched what appeared to be her nipples inflate, watched his lips surround them, watched her own face in close-up react to the sensation. She watched as she appeared to kneel to take it doggy style, her perfect ass a heart-shaped invitation. She watched as a leg—supposedly her leg—reached up around Michael’s neck and caressed his cheek, only to be joined by her other, first framing his face with her calves, then opening wide as a protractor to accommodate him. She saw the sheen of sweat on her arms, her back, her thighs, the dampness on a perfect curl of what was represented as her pubic hair.

  She sat beside Pete in the private screening room and she saw the film that Birth of a Star had become. It broke all the boundaries between “popular entertainment” and “soft porn.” And it wasn’t soft at all. It was a film that she had not made, yet her face was up there, the illusion of her body was there for everyone to see: to see and watch her being made love to, watch her achieve orgasm, watch her be violated. Watch her capitulate. How had it happened? she wondered. How had it happened to her?

  She felt actually dizzy. The beauty of Laslo’s photography, the lush music, the perfect settings, all of it cushioned this violation. But a violation it was. How had they even managed to do it? It certainly wasn’t either her own scarred body or Michael’s aging one up there. What tricks had April and Laslo and Sam resorted to?

  Pete shifted uncomfortably in the seat beside her. He cleared his throat. Once he whispered, “God!” Then he was silent. She wondered if he had an erection. She didn’t want to know.

  Then a small thrill of horror passed over her, like an exquisite chill. How many men would get a hard-on from this? How many men would jerk off to her image? How many strangers would fuck her in their minds, in the privacy of their own homes? One of La Brecque’s warnings sounded in her ears: “You can’t seem accessible. It’s the accessible ones who get killed.” Well, how accessible was a woman who was publicly fucked? And how would she get any respect in the community? How would she ever graduate to real acting jobs, the kind she craved? How would she even show her face? How had this happened?

  She thought Sam had loved her. But this, this was not love. This was rage, betrayal, and rape. She stared at the moving images on the screen.

  At last the horror ended. The credits rolled as Michael’s character walked into the waves. Pete’s father must have flicked on the lights from the control booth. Pete looked over at her, blinking in the glare.

  Jahne stood up, reached for the arm of the chair, and vomited onto the vacant velvet seat before her.

  “So what do you want to do?” Howard Taft asked Jahne. Howard was the best entertainment lawyer in L.A., and the most expensive.

  “Sue them. Stop them. Get the film burned.”

  “Fine. So what do you really want to do?”

  “Sue them. Stop them. Get the film burned.”

  “Miss Moore—Jahne—that’s all well and good, and I know all about artistic differences, but we’re talking International Studios here. We’re talking April Irons. We’re talking Bob LeVine. We’re not talking about people who roll over nicely when hit with an injunction. Not that we could even get an injunction.”

  “Why not? They…”

  “Your contract clearly states that…”

  “But I didn’t know they would do this. Don’t I have a right to control my own face, my body…?”

  “
Not according to your contract. You requested the body double. You insisted on secrecy and no credit for the body double. They’re doing that. You can’t sue them for keeping to your contract.”

  “But then who should I sue?”

  “Your agent, I would say. But not if you want to work again.” Howard took off his steel-rimmed glasses, removed a spotless white handkerchief from his breast pocket, and began to wipe the lenses carefully, his kind gray eyes watching her all the time. “Listen, I’d love to take your money. And there might be some, some…softening of the final cut that I could wangle, but a suit, I promise you, would be costly, and disastrous to your career…”

  “Fuck my career.”

  He paused, shocked. And there was very little that shocked a Hollywood attorney. He licked his lips, clasped his hands together on his perfectly clear desk. “Well, I can see you feel strongly now, but later your feelings may change. This suit would be longer and more costly than Cliff Robertson’s. Worse than Art Buchwald’s. The studios cannot afford to give up their right to use your image. You clearly signed the body-double agreement. And suing on this would end your options…”

  “I don’t need those kinds of options.”

  “…and would ultimately accomplish nothing. April Irons and a squad of bankers put fifty million dollars into this film, and you cannot stop it from…”

  Tears rose in Jahne’s eyes. The feeling of powerlessness that she had been trying to deny again swept over her, draining her energy, leaving her weak and helpless. She began to cry. “Then there’s nothing I can do?” she whispered.

  “Here,” Howard said, extending his hand, his immaculate handkerchief still in it. “You can wipe your nose.”

  When Jahne left Howard Taft’s office, she was too enraged to go home, too angry to stand still. She felt if she didn’t keep moving she might hit something or break something, or even explode. Perhaps she had no legal options, but she had personal ones. She got in her car and began driving.

  She was breathing hard by the time she reached the canyon road. She snorted at herself. L.A. makes you soft, she thought, but she felt anything but. She felt harder than she had in her life, hard as steel, as a diamond, and just as ready to cut. If he was here in L.A., she’d find Sam. If he wasn’t, she’d…She pulled into his driveway.

  She found Sam’s key, buried deep in her bag. Why did women, why did she, shlepp around so much crap? Makeup, hairbrush, comb, mirror. The burden of being a woman. She tried, quietly, to fit the key in the lock, but her hands shook. She took a deep breath, steadied herself, and, with both hands, managed to slide in the key, turn it, and open the door.

  He was there, thank God, and he appeared to be alone. Not that she gave a rat’s ass. He could be going down on April Irons while Crystal Plenum was giving him head and she wouldn’t care. Not anymore. He was alone, though, lying on the sofa, a washcloth over his eyes, a script lying open on his chest. Some fresh hell of a movie for some new woman he would ruin.

  “You lousy piece of shit!” Jahne screamed.

  He jumped up from the sofa, threw the script or whatever it was he was reading aside. “Jesus! Oh, Jesus, Jahne. Mary Jane. Oh, Jesus. You frightened me! Listen, I know what you’re going to say…” He was breathing like he’d run a marathon. Good. She’d scared him. Fine. She wanted him scared.

  “No, you don’t, you lying cocksucker.”

  “Hey.” He stood there, breathing hard, his hands extended in a palm-down, Buddha-calming-the-waters gesture. “No need for…”

  “Don’t you dare tell me what there’s a need for or how to behave. You’re a lying bastard.”

  “You’re the one who lied! I…”

  “I’ve seen it.”

  He had the grace to pause for a moment. She watched as he tried to slow his breathing. Old actor’s trick. Fuck him and his tricks. “Jahne, I had no choice. The film hadn’t come together. I’d failed April. I failed you. This was the only way to get to roll the dice again. And it works, Jahne—Mary Jane—” He fumbled for a moment. “Once you get over your, your…”

  “Disgust?”

  “Surprise. Once you get over your surprise, you’ll see it works. The way I directed you…”

  “Directed me? You pimped me. You pimped me as if I were a twenty-dollar whore. Now don’t insult my intelligence by telling me I’m going to like it! And it wasn’t me you were directing. I wasn’t informed or involved with any of this. It was a couple of body doubles, Michael McLain, and a tube of K-Y Jelly!”

  “What good would it have done to ask you? You wouldn’t have agreed. And we were not exactly in the negotiating mode.”

  “We aren’t in that mode now, either.”

  She had to pause for a moment as she felt her anger drain out of her. She dropped her bag to the floor and, in her weakness, would have sat down. But she didn’t want to be weak in front of him. She wanted to be strong, angry, and scary. She narrowed her eyes and lowered her voice. She began to walk toward him, and was gratified to see him back away. “You betrayed me, and, like a fool, I blamed myself. The first time, back in New York, I thought, if I’d been prettier, or kinder, or sexier, or more understanding, you wouldn’t have run off with Bethanie, sold my part to the highest bidder, and never even bothered to speak to me again.” She had circled him around the sofa. He continued to back away. “I blamed myself! But what’s your excuse now? Now I am prettier and kinder and sexier. So what the fuck reason have you got for betraying me this time? You know I wanted to be a serious actress. You know how important this picture was to me, to my career…”

  Sam’s back was against the adobe wall of the fireplace. “Always you!” he yelled. “Always you and what you want, how you’re hurt, how you feel, what’s important for your career. What about me? I thought you loved me. But you never even told me who you were. You tricked me into loving you, and it was my career on the line here. Think I’d get a shot at a lot more pictures if fifty million bucks went down the toilet on this one? Did you think about how I felt? I had to save the picture. And I have.”

  “But at what cost, Sam?” She stared at him. Surely he’d admit what he had done.

  “Look, Last Tango in Paris didn’t hurt Brando’s career.”

  Oh, God. He was hopeless. “No.” She laughed bitterly. “Men gain status by fucking women on the screen. But how did Maria Schneider do? Didn’t she wind up a suicide?” She turned, picked up her bag, and started to walk away, down the hall to the door.

  “I love you, Jahne. I wanted to marry you.”

  She stopped, her heart pounding. Then, slowly, she turned around.

  “Well, this is a great time to tell me, and a great way for me to find out. Why does your proposal sound like a weapon?”

  “Oh, don’t give me any holier-than-thou shit, please. If your face wasn’t like a blank billboard on the screen, I wouldn’t’ve had to do this. Christ, I worked with what you had, limited as it was.”

  “So, it is all my fault.”

  “‘Fault’ is a word for children.”

  “I’m hearing ‘fault’ from you. And I’m not hearing an apology, or remorse, or even any guilt. Only that what you did was okay, was necessary. You’re comfortable? You’re glad you did this to me?”

  It was the only moment when he paused. He had been looking at her, his eyes angry, opaque, and direct, but now, for the first time, he looked down, turning his head toward the bedroom, but not seeing the bed they had once shared. Then he looked back.

  “I didn’t betray you,” he said. “I never told anyone about your scars.”

  “Well, congratulations,” she told him, threw his key on the floor, and walked out.

  Jahne stood there in the harsh sunlight outside Sam’s stupid fake Santa Fe–adobe house and realized she had no place to go, no one to talk to, no one to tell about this horror.

  If only Mai were alive. If only she could go to Mai’s and have a glass of beer and cry and laugh with her. She got into the car and began to drive, accelerating unti
l she was doing seventy on the canyon road. Where could she go? Who could she go to? She knew that the mausoleum she now called home was impossible. She would die if she went home.

  There was only one place left. She drove east, toward the Valley. After forty minutes, she pulled up to the gate, and the security guard recognized her. He greeted her, then buzzed the house while Jahne sat in the car and waited. Please, God. Please, let her be home, she prayed. The guard hung up the phone and told Jahne that Sharleen would meet her at the door.

  Jahne drove up the driveway. Sharleen called out a greeting as she walked toward Jahne’s car. She leaned onto the car door, smiling. “Well, hi there. Good to see you.”

  Jahne burst into tears, tears so violent she had to put her head down on the steering wheel, clutching the wheel tightly with both hands, just to keep from falling completely apart.

  Sharleen was at Jahne’s window. “Why, Jahne, honey. What’s happened?” Sharleen opened the car door for Jahne, but Jahne couldn’t move. “Come on, honey,” Sharleen said, gently tugging at Jahne’s hands on the wheel. “Get out of that car and come inside.”

  But Jahne, at least for the moment, could only clutch the steering wheel, sit there, and shake and cry.

  4

  The bedroom was filled with sunlight when Jahne opened her eyes. It had been two, no, three days now that she had been staying quietly here at Sharleen’s. Bless Sharleen’s heart, and bless her boyfriend’s heart, too, Jahne thought. Dean might not be real bright, but he was sweet as could be. It was relaxing just to sit beside him.

  Sharleen had called Marty and the Three for the Road production manager for Jahne and reported Jahne sick. Then Sharleen had a doctor come in, “jest to make it look kosher.” She left for work each day without even waking Jahne, who felt she could sleep for a month. It wasn’t until about ten that Dean would knock timidly on the door each morning and bring in a glass of fresh juice and a cup of steaming coffee. After Jahne had drunk both, he’d bring the dogs in—Jahne laughed when she met Cara and the other namesakes, but she liked the golden retriever best.