Flavor of the Month

by Olivia Goldsmith

  She lifted the intercom. “Brewster Moore. Are you expecting him?” the voice asked. She shook her head to clear it. How had Brewster called on her security phone? “Yes,” she mumbled, and hung on. Or should she hang up? Were they patching him through?

  The doorbell rang. She reached for her robe and barely managed to struggle into it without dropping the phone. But Brewster didn’t come onto the line. The doorbell rang again. “One minute,” she yelled, but she knew that whoever it was couldn’t hear. Could she put the phone down? Should she hang up? Would she lose Brewster’s call?

  She left the phone on the bed and tried to run to the door. But the pills affected her balance. She ran into the side of the night table and nearly fell. “I’m coming,” she yelled, righted herself, and managed to get across the living room, down the gallery, and to the enormous front door. She threw it open.

  Brewster Moore stood on the doorstep, a suitcase in his left hand, his raincoat bunched over his right arm. Brewster. Brewster was right there.

  “Aren’t you in Honduras?” she asked.

  He stepped into the foyer. “Aren’t you in trouble?” he asked, and then he dropped his things and they hugged one another.

  Later that day, after she had bathed, after Brewster had fed her lunch, after he had helped her wash her hair and she’d picked out a dress and managed to pull herself together—after all that, they sat side by side in the limo. “There is no way,” Jahne said to Dr. Moore, “that I could face any of this tonight without you. Thank you for coming all this way, just to take me to the awards and the party. If you couldn’t make it, I wouldn’t be going.”

  “You’ll excuse me, Jahne, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. You don’t know this, but there are a lot of people—men as well as women—who are going to be very nervous when they see me tonight. You won’t believe who’s been calling me in New York, since my name came out connected with you. Now that you’ve been ‘outed,’ everyone’s afraid.”

  Jahne looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you really think you’re my only celebrity client? You weren’t a celebrity then, of course. But, Jahne, I’ve spent years doing corrections of other surgeons’ mistakes for some very rich, very famous people. It wouldn’t have been ethical of me to have gone into it with you when we first developed our professional relationship. Or even now. But everyone will be afraid that I’m out here to do a book deal, or TV, or to somehow go public.” He took a sip of the white wine he had poured. “And, considering what these bastards have done to you, and said about me, well, it’s a very tempting idea. Do you know I’ve been approached—just in the last forty-eight hours—by Laura Richie, and every publisher in the English-speaking world, just to tell all? They’re offering obscene amounts of money. Tempting, real tempting. The money would pay for the work on a lot of kids like Raoul. They’ll be coming to you, too—don’t be surprised.”

  “Ha! I’ll never talk to another bloodsucking journalist as long as I live. I wish I could just run away. Start over somewhere.” She laughed at herself. “Does that sound familiar?”

  “Yes, but it doesn’t sound so stupid. Maybe you should do just that. Go back to New York.” He reached out and took her hand with his own. His hand was small, but warm and surprisingly comforting. She gripped it tightly.

  “What for? To act? That’s a laugh! Now the gape factor is high enough for me to star in some Broadway revival—people would come to stare and see if they could spot the scars. Might as well join a carnival sideshow. No, New York theater is over—for good, I’m afraid. But I’ll worry about my career dilemma later, when I have more time. Now I’d rather appreciate the moment—having you here.” Jahne managed a smile. “But right now I have to face all those beautiful barracudas.”

  Dr. Moore laughed. “Some of whom once were ugly barracudas, before they came to me,” he pointed out. “So what? And don’t you think you’re showing a lot of class and a certain je ne sais quoi by showing up with your surgeon? Sort of sticking it in their eye.”

  Jahne laughed at that. “But no one knows that about them, and now everyone knows everything about me. My age, my previous and present weight—they’ve seen my ‘before’ pictures, interviewed girls I went to high school with, dragged out the affairs I had with Pete and Michael McLain. I’m humiliated.”

  “Well, I’m no psychiatrist, but by now I think I know something about people. When they see who you’re with tonight, they’re going to treat you like Princess Diana. Before her scandals. Make no mistake, I know details of people’s lives that make your puny little problems look like a pimple against their cancerous growths. And if it gets too bad for you, if you get the last-minute heeby-jeebies and don’t want to get out of the limousine, I’m fully prepared to show you some of the pictures I brought along with me from New York. From my files. I know, it’s unprofessional, but I hate hypocrites. Jahne, as I tell all my patients, it’s only going to hurt a bit, then it’s over.”

  Lila stretched her arms above her head, her legs flexed down the length of the satin sheets, then reached to her face and removed the eyeshades. She winced as she opened her eyes to the harsh afternoon light. That was the bitch of a Malibu house—the harsh west light. Too much sun, even with the curtains drawn. Lila rang for the maid, had her bring fresh-squeezed orange juice, and slowly—very slowly—open the curtains. She didn’t need any other help. As always, Lila would tend to her own toilette.

  She lay motionless, sipping the iced juice intermittently, trying to figure out how she really felt about the night that lay ahead. The Emmy was this close. She could feel its heft in her hand, the coldness of the metal against her warm palm. Right now, squiggling her toes between the sheets, she felt delighted, as if she were Cinderella that first morning she’d awakened in the palace. After all, Marty was a prince in Hollywood, and she a princess. Their wedding and new movie together would mark the start of their reign.

  Lila shifted a little in bed. Of course there would be a lot of risks, but they were worth it. She’d already told Marty that she insisted on her own room, her own bed, and privacy. Yet, if her antics could keep him satisfied, he had nothing to complain about.

  And if she didn’t marry Marty, what was there for her?

  A chill wind blew in off the Pacific, turning her skin to gooseflesh. She felt the good mood begin to bleed away, as it did whenever she thought of marriage, but she refused to let it. She would be happy.

  Lila knew there was a lot to do, but for the next few minutes she wasn’t going to do anything but gloat about the waiting prize she would receive tonight, and what she would say in her acceptance speech. Maybe she would mention her costars, just for spite. She laughed.

  Then the phone trilled by her bedside. She cursed the interruption, but answered anyway. “Yes,” she simply said, her usual telephone greeting.

  “Lila, darling, I’m so glad I caught you in.” It was me. “Laura Richie here. I hope I didn’t disturb you, but I wanted to be the very first to congratulate you on the Emmy. No one deserves it more.”

  “Thank you, Laura. I’ll always remember you for this. Congratulating me for something I haven’t won yet. Now, that shows real confidence.”

  I laughed. “Nonsense, darling, what are friends for? Anyhow, it’s in the bag. Why, anyone with half a brain knows you are a shoo-in. Everyone, my dear, is saying so. And I do mean everyone.” I was trying to get enough stuff to write tomorrow’s column in advance. Tricky, because sometimes you have to tell a secret or get caught in a lie, but necessary when you have to be in three places at once.

  “Laura, you’ll have to excuse me, I must run. They’re screaming for me downstairs. Photographers, Network publicity people. The house is simply teeming. Of course, I won’t tell them a thing. I’ll save every detail just for you. After all, you’re my oldest and dearest friend in Hollywood.”

  Lila slung the manure just the way her mother did. “I’m not so old, dearie, but thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said. “D
o you know who’s presenting the award?”

  “No. Do you?”

  I ignored her. ‘Are you going with Marty?”

  “Of course.”

  “And have you two set a date?”

  “Not yet, but you’ll be the first to know.”

  It was the last time I ever spoke to Lila Kyle.

  8

  Michael McLain lay on the lounge at his pool, applying yet another layer of sun block. How to achieve that perfect color of brown masculine health without destroying his skin’s elasticity forever? Such a riddle. He hated to have to resort to bronzer, so he paid particular attention to the sun on his face today, changing his face’s position every fifteen minutes to make sure the tan came out perfectly even.

  Ara’s party tonight would be both pleasure and torture—sort of like fucking a woman who had an exquisite body but an ordinary face. Which, in fact, was what he would be doing in a little while. His date tonight was, after all, Adrienne.

  Birth of a Star had given him the boost that he had been needing for a while. It would prolong his life. He’d done it again! Still, he wasn’t stupid or naïve. While it was by no means his swan song, he realized that this was the top of the crop of the older man parts he would be offered. He could see Stewart Granger-type made-for-TV-movie roles looming in his future, and he was not about to end his exceptional acting career playing old but-still-attractive John Forsythe roles. Not Michael McLain.

  No, it was time to move his public image to a whole new level. He liked being on the A list and wanted to stay there forever, the way Greg Peck and Jimmy Stewart had. So it was time, at last, for the inevitable. What was the one thing newsworthy Michael McLain had never done with a woman?

  Marry one.

  After all, it was the nineties. A time of family values. Hadn’t Adrienne told him she’d missed a period? No D&C this time. He’d marry her. Have the baby. Be a dad. What a way to spend his sixth decade.

  He shifted his face in the sun and stopped the smile from making dangerously aging wrinkles. Yes. Right after the Emmys, he’d leak the info that Adrienne was the body in Birth. After she had a smidgen of facial work. Then announce that he was going to marry her. Wouldn’t that make headlines?

  Theresa O’Donnell walked out of the shower and wrapped a bath sheet around her sagging body. She couldn’t be bothered putting on a robe. She was tired, and her evening’s work had not even begun. She walked into the dressing room and picked up the Lycra bodysuit that Estrella had laid out for her. It was specially made for her in Paris and worked like a whole-body girdle. She powdered herself down and began the arduous task of wiggling into it, a sausage struggling into its casing.

  At last she finished and, exhausted, sat down at her mirrored vanity table. She very nearly groaned as she looked at the wreck that stared back at her. Vanity table, indeed! It was a holy crucifixion to look at the ruin that had been her face. The Loveliest Girl in the World! Well, once she had been.

  Where once she had a chin she now had several. And the hollows under her eyes had long ago turned to bags. Well, she’d turned into a bag. Her hair, never her strongest suit, was thinner than ever. Forty years of coloring and perms had had their way. She snatched up a wig cap and stuffed the straggling gray ends into it, fastening the skintight nylon to her head by viciously stabbing in hairpins.

  She began to coat her sallow skin with the Estée Lauder base she used. She daubed the natural sea sponge across the wrinkles on her forehead, the puffiness that had become her nose.

  “Ah. Transformation time,” Kevin said as he walked in with two glasses of gin. He looked over her shoulder into the mirror. There were no longer any secrets from Kevin. Now he was bitter because she was going to the Emmys and Ara’s party with Robbie and not him. Because she’d be on TV presenting the Best Actress award while he was left home watching. She took the glass from his hand, drank it down, and picked up the makeup sponge again.

  “Can I get you a trowel?” he asked.

  “Very clever. I told you, I’m not speaking to you until you return Candy and Skinny.”

  “I don’t have them. But I think I know where they are.”

  Aunt Robbie arrived at Theresa’s at four. “Where is she?” he asked Kevin, who nodded up the stairs to Theresa’s bedroom, then shrugged his shoulders. “Has she had anything to drink yet?” he asked.

  “I don’t know and I don’t give a shit.”

  Robbie moved to the stairs. At Theresa’s door, he stopped to knock, but, knowing he wasn’t going to get an answer, opened the door and walked in.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said to no one in particular. The room was in shambles. Even with the curtains drawn, the dim light showed piles of clothes heaped everywhere, the bed stripped of linen, a stained yellow pile on the floor, and a bloated, whitened heap of a human being stretched out full-length, as if dead, across the sill of the bathroom door. She was naked, and dirty, and her gray hair had the coated, greasy look of a street-woman’s. This is what becomes of a legend most often, he thought. Robbie wouldn’t let himself feel the sadness that throbbed in his chest. There was too much work to be done.

  Robbie pulled back the curtains, and the room sprang into light. Theresa groaned and turned her head.

  Robbie pulled Theresa off the floor. He called to Estrella. The maid arrived and gasped. “Grab her black dress and iron it. Meanwhile, find a pair of her long white gloves, and shoes.” Estrella began to sort through the debris, mumbling to herself. Robbie called out to her, “And thanks, Estrella. She’s lucky to have you.”

  “And you, too, Mr. Robbie. No one else would come to take her to a party anymore. You a good friend.”

  “I have no friends,” Theresa cried. “No one cares about me.”

  “Goddamn it, Theresa! Pull yourself together!” Robbie grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “You’ve got an appearance.”

  “No. Not anymore. They’ll find out. They’ll all find out.” She mumbled. Robbie wondered what the hell she was going on about.

  “Theresa, you’ve got to sober up, and you’ve got to go. If you don’t show up, you’re finished forever. This is live net. We are going tonight. You and I. Goddamn it, Theresa, I want to go to this party.”

  “But, Robbie,” Theresa began to cry. “I can’t go. I’d be humiliated.”

  “Not if you’re sober you won’t.”

  “But Lila will be there,” Theresa wailed. “With an Emmy.” Theresa stopped crying and looked around. “She’ll kill me, Robbie,” she whispered.

  “Ridiculous! When has Lila or anybody scared you?”

  “She was such a lovely baby, wasn’t she? Kerry could never have raised a son. I didn’t want a son. A daughter was just right.”

  “Certainly. Perfect. Now, start to get ready for your hairdresser.”

  “But she’ll kill me. Like she killed Candy and Skinny.” She was wailing now.

  Robbie had listened to the rambling, but didn’t try to make much sense of it. Until she mentioned the dummies. He felt a tug of guilt. Well, it had been necessary to get this truce signed. Still, what was she talking about? The dummies were gone.

  “What are you talking about, Theresa?” The star shrank into the middle of the big bed, and Robbie wasn’t sure if she was shaking from alcohol withdrawal or fear.

  “I did the right thing, didn’t I, Robbie? I raised a girl. A lovely girl. Only now she hates me. I should never have done it to her,” Theresa whispered.

  “What?” Robbie asked.

  “The way I raised her. Then hating her because she was so young, so beautiful. And that ghastly episode I shot with her. She hates me for that. She wants to kill me. Like she killed Candy and Skinny. She killed my other babies.”

  “Theresa, what are you talking about?”

  Slowly, as if each movement was painful, Theresa crawled to the edge of the bed, then got off it, fell to her knees, and began to scrabble about under it. Neither Robbie nor Miss Wholley had had time to evacuate the horrors under there,
and God knew the last time Estrella had tried.

  But instead of empty bottles, or old mateless shoes, Theresa pulled out a long white box. A coffin, really. Then another. Two actual coffins, perhaps for children’s burials. Robbie shivered and saw that Theresa was shivering, too. Whimpering, she flipped open the lids.

  Robbie looked inside. Skinny had been decapitated, her head chopped to kindling. Candy had been defaced by a thousand vicious stab wounds. Both dummies were nude, their bodies smeared with paint, or maybe someone’s blood. And each of them had perfect little sets of male genitalia nailed to the appropriate parts on their torsos.

  Neil Morelli had not received an invitation to Ara’s party. No surprise. But he had been surprised to hear from Roger after so long a silence. And to speak to him over the television set, not the car radio, as he usually did. He, Neil, was getting closer to the center of things. Neil was very glad Roger had called. He needed to ask him so much, needed to know so much. And, with failure and humiliation weighing on him like a ton of bricks, Neil knew Roger would understand—and help. Neil now knew who was to blame for his failure—all those who traded on their celebrity names and family connections.

  He had at first been hesitant to tell Roger about whose ultimate responsibility all this humiliation was, of his plan to go to the Emmys, get into them somehow. But Roger had been so kind, so, well, fatherly, he began to tell him everything, and, to Neil’s great relief and surprise, Roger not only agreed with Neil’s appraisal, but approved of Neil’s plan, and gave him exact instructions on how to carry it out. In fact, it was Roger who told him about the theater manager who did the hiring of the ushers for the Emmy show. Neil had run off and applied for the job for the evening of the Emmys—for tonight—and gotten it, even though he’d had to lie and swear that he had a tuxedo. It was Roger’s doing that he got the job, Neil was convinced, of course. Roger must have spoken to the manager on his behalf.