Flavor of the Month

by Olivia Goldsmith

  “I don’t have no favorites,” Dean told her. “It wouldn’t be right. They could tell, you know.” Then he lowered his voice. “If I did have a favorite, it would be Oprah, my friend’s Lab. But that’s only right, ’cause I knew her the longest.”

  After her juice, Dean would help Jahne establish herself under a tree in the garden, and he’d spend the rest of the morning working on the grounds, weeding the enormous vegetable garden, playing with the dogs, mowing the lawn on a tiny tractor, pruning back some fruit trees. Jahne just sat back on the lawn chair, at first too tired to read, too tired to think, too tired even to be sad.

  The abundance of the garden reminded her of the van Huysums at the Getty. Abundance. But real and natural in season. She shook her head. Her life so far had been the opposite: the meagerness of New York, the waste of her life in the theater, the emptiness of her success out here in L.A. All of it had been a fruitless search for something she could not find: love, and warmth, and abundance.

  She’d made a botch of it, there was no doubt. She’d picked a man to love who had no love to return. A shallow, selfish man. She’d abandoned her friends, she’d pursued the dictates of her own ego and vanity, and it had given her so little in return. Her face on magazine covers. Her image on a flickering TV screen. Money. Fame. But she’d never been to Europe, she’d never had a baby, she’d never ridden a horse, she couldn’t speak another language. She’d never skied, or camped out in a wilderness, or taken a cruise, or gone to college. And she’d helped no one, not even herself.

  God had given her talent, and Brewster Moore had given her beauty, and hadn’t she been almost as blind and selfish as Sam Shields, wasting her gifts?

  Sam. The thought of him was enough to make her cry, or laugh. Sam had never understood her, never truly tried. Both as Mary Jane and as Jahne, she had ignored that. He had taken comfort from her nurturing, he had been titillated by her beauty, but he had never known her. What had he given? A few words of praise. A hug. A caress. Crumbs. And she, always a fool, had accepted crumbs and thought they were a banquet.

  Now, under the tree in Dean’s garden, she had a horrible, chilling thought. Hadn’t she, somehow, planned it all—the surgery, the success, the reunion with Sam—all in the hopes that he, alone of everyone—would see through her new flesh to her old heart, recognize her love, recognize and heal her? She thought again of the Bible, where the euphemism for sex was “knowing.” “And Abraham went with the woman and he ‘knew’ her.” Sam had never known her at all. And wasn’t that what she craved?

  She understood his temptations now: ambition overcame his morality and judgment. Well, hadn’t it overcome her own? She had wanted Sam, and agreed to make a bad movie to get him. And she had felt triumph at achieving her ambition: in luring Sam into her bed. At possessing him, the way a spider must gloat over its mummified prey. How often had she gloated over his sheet-wrapped form, sleeping in her bed? But had she known Sam? Clearly not.

  A goal achieved is only admirable if it’s a worthy goal. Who had said that to her? Mai? Brewster? Neil? Molly? Only the people who had a sense of values, who knew the difference between empty, selfish vanity and real achievement. But did she know the difference? It didn’t appear that she did. She couldn’t simply call herself a victim. She had been a willing victim, the wood that threw itself into the fire. She’d given Sam warmth and it had consumed her, leaving nothing but ashes.

  Sam had betrayed her, April Irons had manipulated her, Sy Ortis used her, Monica Flanders exploited her, but hadn’t she allowed it? She’d used her beauty, flaunted it for money in the Flanders ads, used it to get work on a questionable show like 3/4, and agreed to bare it—or let another woman do it for her—in Birth. She’d sold herself like a commodity, so could she blame others for doing the same?

  Jahne lay under the tree and thought difficult thoughts.

  At noon, Dean came to interrupt her. They would have lunch together. Dean would bring in the salad fixings from the perfect rows of baby lettuce, tiny radishes, sugar peas, and miniature carrots. Jahne washed them and he’d chop them up, one day adding tuna and the next day pasta. Then they sat out on the patio and ate, drinking two or three fresh lemonades along with their meal. Yesterday Dean had turned to her and smiled. “It’s nice to have someone to eat lunch with,” he said.

  “It is.”

  “Guess you eat with Sharleen most days.”

  “No. Usually I eat alone in my trailer. I can’t afford to eat much. I used to eat with…” She swallowed. “…an old lady friend of mine, but she died.” Poor, dear Mai. Jahne missed her so.

  “So how come you don’t eat with Sharleen now?”

  “Oh, we get too busy. Or we don’t eat at the same time, because we’re in different shots. Or she has other work. Or I do.” Or because I’ve been a condescending snob who didn’t know who my friends were, Jahne told herself.

  “You like your work?”

  “No.”

  “That’s bad. It’s really bad if you don’t like your work. I worry ’cause I don’t think Sharleen likes her job, neither. And I think it’s too hard.”

  “Well, they pay us a lot of money, so it should be hard, I guess.”

  Dean shrugged. “I don’t think you should do it if it’s too hard and you don’t like it. I think that’s probably why you’re sad.”

  “You’re probably right,” Jahne told him.

  The first night she was there, Jahne found herself waking from a horrible dream, Sharleen beside her, gently shaking her arm. “Git up, honey, it’s just a nightmare, it ain’t real.”

  Jahne gasped for air. What had it been? The knives again? Or was it the one where she was on the set, naked, with the crew and the cast laughing and laughing and laughing? She pulled air into her lungs and felt her heart pushing against her chest. It felt as if it might tear out of her.

  “It’s okay, honey. It’s okay,” Sharleen crooned. Grateful, Jahne reached for her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “You need your sleep. I’m sorry I woke you.”

  “Want a glass of water? Or maybe I should get you some warm milk? When Dean has bad dreams, I make him some milk.”

  “No, just stay with me.” Jahne felt as if she were five years old. She clung to Sharleen’s hand, to Sharleen’s warmth, as if she might drown or freeze without it. She shivered under the bedclothes. She couldn’t bear to feel this lonely anymore. It was too big a burden to bear, having nobody know you at all. “Sharleen,” she said, “can I tell you something?”

  Sharleen sat on the side of the bed and patted Jahne’s hand. “You surely can,” she said. And then Jahne poured out the whole sorry story about Sam and New York and Jack and Jill and Brewster and Pete and Mai and Michael and Birth and all of it. Sometimes she cried, and other times she could hardly bear to whisper it, but at last she finished.

  Sharleen held her hand all through. She still did, and now she patted it. “Why, you poor child. I think you must be even more lonely than I am.” And Sharleen bent toward Jahne, gathering her up in her arms. “You poor, poor child,” she crooned, and rocked her friend until Jahne, at last, fell asleep.

  Jahne felt better after that. She spent the morning with Dean and the afternoon alone in her room, avoiding the strong sun. But, though she felt better, she couldn’t avoid her thoughts. She couldn’t help replaying over and over again the images she had seen of herself flashing on the screen. And she replayed her relationship with Sam. All of it, from that first spring in New York when he cast her in Jack and Jill to the grimy winter he left her, to their time together on location. All of it.

  And, while she was at it, she looked at the rest of her life. It didn’t make sense, and now she was determined to figure out why. She’d accomplished what she had wanted to: she’d gone from a woman no one remembered to a girl impossible to forget, and she had all the money she needed, plus a lot more fame than she wanted.

  But in the last three years, with few exceptions, she hadn’t met anyone that s
he wanted to know. Now Mai was dead, Raoul was back home in South America, and Dr. Moore had his life in New York. She was totally alone, and, except for Sharleen and Dean, there was no one here she trusted, no one to be kind to her. And, in days or weeks, she’d become notorious. Maybe Sharleen and Dean would want nothing to do with her when this monstrous pornographic picture came out. Surely even unflappable Brewster would be shocked and disgusted, as she was.

  She was relieved when Dean knocked on her door at the end of his day. In the evenings, the two of them made dinner and waited for Sharleen. Then they watched a video, or the two women talked while Dean watched a tape of The Andy Griffith Show. It was simple, and routine, and warm. Jahne began to rest, really to relax for the first time in longer than she could remember. It was like going home, home to a home she had never known.

  And slowly, slowly, Jahne began to feel a little more human, as if maybe she could go back and face her life. Maybe.

  But on Thursday evening, when Sharleen turned to her as they sat side by side on the sofa and said, “I think you better come back soon,” tears unexpectedly filled Jahne’s eyes. Suddenly she felt as if this place, this time, was the only bit of peace there was.

  “Oh, honey. Don’t cry. It’s jest that Marty is shootin’ so much around you, and he was already kinda mad about your takin’ so long on the film…Well, and you know Lila. She don’t miss a moment to blame you or me when anything goes wrong. When I blew a line today you know what she asked?” Jahne shook her head. “She asked how come blondes can’t make frozen orange juice. Because the can says ‘concentrate.’” They both laughed. Then Sharleen sighed, “And Sy’s callin’ me three or four times a day.”

  Jahne took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a bother.”

  “Hey, no bother at all. Me and Dean like havin’ you. You’re like family. Why don’t you stay on with us instead of goin’ home? We can go in to work together.”

  “Yeah! Why don’t you stay, Jahne? It would be great havin’ two sisters, even if I can’t have lunch with you no more. But, then, Sharleen can,” Dean said.

  “Oh, could I? Just for a little while longer, until Birth of a Star opens? So I can weather that storm?”

  “Well, of course you can!” Sharleen told her. “And who knows? Maybe it won’t be as bad as it seemed.” She smiled. “Anyway, nothin’ worse can happen to either of us!”

  She was wrong.

  The security phone rang, and Sharleen answered it. Both Jahne and Dean were out in the back, playing with the dogs.

  “Security gate. There’s a visitor here without an appointment. Should I send him up?”

  “No. I’ll speak to him.”

  “Is Jahne Moore there?” a man’s voice asked.

  “Who is this?” she asked.

  “Tell her Sam Shields is outside.”

  Sharleen bristled. “I don’t think she wants to see you,” Sharleen told him.

  “Who is this?” he asked.

  “A friend of Jahne’s. A true friend,” Sharleen said.

  “Look, I’m in no mood for theatrics. Or moralizing. It took me a long time to track her down. I want to see her.”

  “Look, yourself. I know how you treated Jahne, and I know the kind of man you are. Why, I’ve had men like you after me since I was eleven years old. Men who only cared about the outside, about how I looked, not who I was. You don’t deserve a girl like Jahne.”

  “Look, she’s going to want to see me. Go ask her.”

  Reluctantly, Sharleen put the phone down and went out to the yard. Jahne was running across the lawn, holding a rawhide bone, the three dogs chasing after her. Dean stood in the sunlight, laughing. “Jahne,” Sharleen called. “Jahne.” Her friend looked up. “There’s someone here to see you.”

  Jahne squinted into the sun. She walked toward Sharleen. “Who is it?” she asked.

  “It’s Sam.”

  Jahne stopped. Sharleen looked deep into her eyes. Would she succumb? Would she fall again? Sharleen looked at her without saying a word. For a moment, the two of them stared at one another, silent. Then Jahne spoke.

  “Tell him to go away,” she told her friend.

  Later that night, Jahne wrote to Dr. Moore.

  I can’t remember ever feeling as dependent as I do now. Not even on you, during that long, hard time in the hospital. Like Blanche DuBois, I am reduced to depending on the kindness of strangers. And I am afraid that even they and you will judge me harshly when you see that awful film I’ve made.

  I know it’s a lot to ask, but if you could take some time off, could you come out for a visit? I’d come to N.Y. but I’m already in a lot of trouble on the set. I’ll understand if you refuse, but I’d love to see you.

  It was only after she had finished the letter and sealed it that she remembered something odd Dean had said that evening when he welcomed her to stay: something about how it would be great to have two sisters.

  Had he said “sisters”? she wondered as she turned off the lamp. How strange. And then she fell asleep.

  5

  Skin Flick Hits Big

  DESPITE OR BECAUSE OF ITS GRAPHIC SEX, “BIRTH” REVIVAL BREAKS BOX OFFICE RECORDS.

  In a stunning exception to the old Hollywood rule that “dirt doesn’t pay,” the Michael McLain-Jahne Moore remake of “Birth of a Star” has drawn not only critical praise but also hordes of ticket buyers. An unexpected audience of aging baby boomers, mixed with the teen and young-adult market hot for a romance flick with no holds barred, has exceeded all expectations…

  —Daily Variety

  Lila crumpled the trade bible and threw it across the room. Damn! She picked up the L.A. Times.

  “THE SEXIEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD!” screamed the banner headline across the top of the entertainment section. There wasn’t even an interview to go along with pages of pictures of Jahne Moore, just the usual PR blather. The bitch was so smug she wasn’t even doing publicity!

  Somehow, in her mind, the success of Jahne Moore in Birth completely negated Lila. It was like she was back to square one. Despite its rating as an adult picture, it had opened to record box office and was now number two, with a good chance at being number one. It had done thirteen million last weekend. Worse, everyone was talking about it. How it had broken nearly every taboo, yet was also commercial. It brought every jealousy crashing back down around Lila’s head. Just when she thought she had the Emmy in the little black velvet bag, tied up with gold braided tassel, this…this insult had to happen to her. It wasn’t fair. Something had to be done.

  She looked at another crumpled bit of newspaper. There, buried on a back page, was the announcement that should have been at the front of the whole damn newspaper:

  DIRECTOR AND STAR ANNOUNCE UPCOMING NUPTIALS

  Jesus, against all her better judgment, just to keep up with Jahne’s newsworthiness, she’d told Marty yes, and this was the publicity it received? Aunt Robbie said he could guarantee great coverage. Well, buried on page 24 of the L.A. Times and getting a paragraph in Milestones was not coverage. It was a fucking insult. After all, she was Hollywood royalty. She was Kerry Kyle’s daughter. And the daughter of the Puppet Mistress, who, for all her faults, at least had been a star.

  The phone rang. Lila rarely answered it, letting the service do her screening, but she was expecting Marty’s call. She lifted the receiver.

  “Are you crazy?” the voice rasped. “Are you completely fucking crazy?”

  Lila considered, for a moment, hanging up on her mother, but the power of the Puppet Mistress held her on the line. “Shut up,” she managed.

  “I just read the Times. You can’t get away with this, Lila. You’ve gone too far.”

  “Just shut up. I can do what I want. And when I need your opinion, I’ll send you a ballot.”

  “Lila, this you can’t do. Marty DiGennaro isn’t Kevin. It will ruin us both.”

  “Shut up! I gave you the goddamn show, didn’t I? It airs next week. Now, keep the fuck away from me. Th
at was our deal. Leave me alone, or I swear I’ll get Marty to cancel the program.” Lila was almost spitting with rage. She wished she could kill Theresa, once and for all.

  “Lila, listen to me. You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time…”

  “Yeah, but I can’t fool Mom. Right? Well, fuck you, Mom. Fuck you and Aunt Robbie and Kevin and Candy and Skinny and Estrella and all of you. You didn’t worry about that twenty years ago, did you? Don’t bother to worry about it now. I warn you: leave me alone!” She slammed the phone down onto the receiver. It took less than a moment for it to ring again. Lila snorted and looked away. It would be a cold day in Malibu before she answered it again. She stood up, shaking with anger. First Marty nags her into saying yes, then Jahne’s movie is a hit, the season premiere is overshadowed, and her engagement gets no coverage. Now this!

  She had to win that Emmy, and she had to show the Puppet Mistress once and for all that she, Lila Kyle, was not to be fucked with. She stood there, breathing hard, almost dizzy with rage, and considered her options. It was time for a no-holds-barred attack on all of them. She didn’t need anyone but Marty. And she would marry him. She would.

  She looked down at her hands to find they were shaking. She felt murderous. And then she thought of the box. The “birthday present” peace offering that Robbie had brought. It still lay on the table, waiting for her. She smiled grimly, turned around, and went into the kitchen. She scrabbled through the utility drawers for a sharp knife. A very sharp knife.