by Susan Isaacs
“Oh, dear, I’m all fluttery,” Winifred said. She hadn’t noticed the man at all. “It all seems so strange.”
“Well, you’ve seen me in every play I’ve ever been in. Even the clinkers.”
“But this is different, Nicholas. This is the movies.”
Jane, seated on his other side, was beyond the flutters. She was staring ahead, mesmerized by the darkened screen. She looked stunned or in shock, as though she’d just learned for the first time that he’d made a movie and she was about to see it.
His father sat on the other side of Jane, thus well insulated from Winifred. There had been an awkward moment when the four of them had met outside the screening room. James and Winifred had greeted each other with the restraint of strangers meeting at a funeral and then had looked to Nicholas for guidance as to what to do next. Nicholas motioned his father into the row of seats and, after a split second’s indecision, propelled Jane in after him.
His father looked like what he was: a handsome, aging corporate lawyer. His gray hair was clipped short and combed neatly; his three-piece gray pinstripe suit fit perfectly. But James Cobleigh was behaving like a nervous corporate lawyer. He kept swiveling his head, looking at the walls and ceiling of the screening room as if they were superb examples of baroque architecture instead of plain flat walls and ceilings. Nicholas couldn’t decide if the cause was his son’s impending screen debut or his wife’s presence. (James and Winifred had lived apart nearly eight years. They’d seen each other only at Thomas’s and Olivia’s weddings and at the christenings of their grandchildren. Neither had ever bothered to seek a divorce.)
The screening room darkened. It was weird, not like watching a commercial he’d made on TV at home with Jane. This was going to be a real performance. The coffee he’d had a couple of hours before sloshed in his stomach; he felt slightly queasy. This was so distant, so public, so awesome. The camera moved lovingly over a long street of Victorian houses, and the credits rolled. His mother grabbed his forearm as his name came on the screen. NICHOLAS COBLEIGH. All capitals. It was weird to be sitting in an audience waiting for his own entrance.
And then it began. A tracking shot following Julie Spahr and David Whitman, running down the street, laughing, bending to grab handfuls of dandelion puffs from between the cracks in the sidewalk, blowing fine sprays of fluff at each other; then a closeup of them kissing, the sun catching the fluff twinkling against Julie Spahr’s auburn hair. A scene with a group of artists. Then Spahr asleep, curled up on a furry rug, Whitman, his eyes filled with love, looking at her from his drafting table. The movie could have been in Swedish for all he comprehended of the dialogue. It was weird. None of it fit together. He tapped Jane’s shoulder. “Shhh,” she whispered.
Then there he was. In a blue oxford shirt, top button opened, tie loose, his hair hanging down onto his forehead. He stood, walked around his desk, and greeted Whitman and Spahr. “Glad you could make it,” he said. He sat on the edge of his desk and the camera cut to Whitman, then moved back to get Spahr. Suddenly he was on the screen again. A reaction shot. He was nodding as Whitman spoke. Nicholas stared at himself. He couldn’t believe it. He was so handsome.
After the big fund-raising banquet scene there he was again, in black tie, in a men’s room accepting the surreptitiously handed envelope—his bribe—slipping it into his inside pocket. The audience gasped. They were actually surprised.
Later with Whitman in the mayor’s office on a weekend, both of them dressed casually: Whitman in rough corduroys and a scratchy-looking red shirt, himself in jeans so well cut they looked custom-made and a white turtleneck; the camera caught the contrast between textures, the rough red wool and the soft, rich white cashmere. They leaned over blueprints and sipped cans of beer. Whitman looked intense and genuine. Nicholas watched himself closely; he was a real prick, covering his boredom with a mechanical smile. He rested his can of beer on the blueprint. His contempt of the beverage and the project came through in that one gesture. There had been over twenty takes on that scene. Whitman had insisted on real beer for authenticity, and they’d drunk can after can. Nicholas had staggered back to his dressing room; Whitman had to be guided off the set.
The movie continued. He looked at Jane. Her eyes darted, following the action, but her breathing was deep and slow, the way it was in the middle of the night.
And at last, the end. There he was, standing behind Julie Spahr, pulling back her head. There was so much power in that scene. Really. Maybe not. Maybe blown up larger than life anything seemed momentous. But he could actually feel the power of his own performance: the cruelty, the triumph, the evil, and, finally, the deadness in that handsome face that, incredibly, was his.
And then it was over. People stood, stretched their arms. The lights were raised. His mother was speaking. Jane squeezed his hand. Her grip was strong, but when the lights came on full her face was as close to pale as he’d ever seen it. His father had a silly, sideways smile and patted his shoulder over and over.
It was as if he were still in the movie. The three of them were talking but he couldn’t fathom the dialogue. He couldn’t read their expressions. He couldn’t tell if it was pride or embarrassment or politeness. He wished he were by himself.
For a second he was. Jane and his parents were pushed aside. He was alone. Then the audience seemed to implode against him. “Brilliant!” “Holy shit, baby! Bravura performance!” “Nick! First rate!” “Excuse me, I’m Mindy, Mr. Rosenthal’s assistant, and—” “A dream! A veritable dream!” “Mr. Cobleigh! Mr. Cobleigh!”
Maybe this was traditional. Hugs, handshakes, backslaps. Then they’d leave the building and say to each other, “Not bad,” “So-so,” “C-plus.”
He finally got away, although taking the head of publicity with him; the man’s arm was too tight around his shoulder to shake off. He found his parents and Jane at the reception desk outside the screening room. They stared at him, all three of them. He introduced them to the publicist, who beamed at them and boomed, “Wasn’t that TNT? Wasn’t it? You must be dying!” Then he turned to Nicholas. “First thing tomorrow. Nine A.M. Major meeting, Nick. I mean, big guns. A-bombs. Is nine okay for you?” Nicholas nodded. “Not nine. Don’t kill yourself getting here. Ten. How about ten?” The man finally let go of his shoulder and hurried toward the elevator.
The four of them stood where they were, wooden. Finally Jane moved forward. Tentatively, as though afraid he might make a cutting remark, she came up to him.
“Well?” he said.
“Extraordinary.” Her clear, straight voice had a knot in it.
“Really?”
“Really.” Her eyes were misty. He put his arms around her.
“Nick,” his father said. James seemed flustered. He kept smoothing the side of his hair with his hand. Finally he said, “Well done.”
Nicholas turned to his mother.
“I hated you!” Winifred burst out. She was clutching her handbag against her chest. “Him, I mean. I hated him! I kept telling myself, that terrible man is really a nice man and he’s Nicholas. But what a cad! And so handsome! Nicholas, all I could think about was when you were born. I woke up and they handed me this sweet, tiny thing all wrapped up in a little blue blanket and you opened your eyes and they were the same eyes as on that screen. Nicholas—”
“What is it?”
“You’re a very good actor.”
“Thank you.” He was still holding Jane. Her head was resting against his. He couldn’t tell if she was still so wrought up.
“Only—” his mother continued.
“Only what?” he asked.
“Nicholas, how in the world could you have let them force you to kiss that dreadful, cheap girl?”
20
Giving added weight to the seriousness of her condition was the arrival in London of her brother, Rhodes Heissenhuber, an investment consultant from Cincinnati. Mr. Heissenhuber, who had been vacationing in the Greek islands, conceded to reporters that he had bee
n told by his brother-in-law, Nicholas Cobleigh, that his sister’s condition was “quite serious.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“It must feel a little like being the pope,” Jane said. She attacked a giant block of chocolate with a large knife, and small chunks of it dropped off onto the wooden chopping table.
“What do you mean?” Nicholas asked.
“Everyone wants an audience with you. Probably better than the pope, because what can he do? Give a blessing?”
“That’s more than I can do.”
He watched her scrape the knife along the table, gathering pieces of chocolate into a mound. Then she went back to the block. Here she was, making chocolate ice cream for fifty people. He’d offered to have the party catered. Jane, he’d said, don’t knock yourself out. Do you have any idea what that would cost? she’d demanded. We can afford it, he’d told her. His last two films had done so well they could do pretty much anything they wanted. She could sit back and watch a kitchen full of cooks prepare a party for five hundred. Five thousand. But she really didn’t want to hear that.
“The world is divided into two kinds of people,” she said.
“The good and the bad.”
“No.”
“Chocolate people and vanilla people.”
“No. Nick, listen to me and while you’re listening get me the big double boiler from the bottom pull-out drawer. There are two kinds of people. Not today. Today is all good people. But the others. The ones who want to talk to you so they can tell their friends, ‘Well, just the other day I was up at Nick Cobleigh’s farm and he said he really wants to do a science-fiction film and play an android who falls in love with a beautiful scientist.’”
“Don’t make fun of that script. Some poor writer spent months—years—working on that thing.”
“They should shoot him and put him out of his misery. And then there’s the other half who don’t want to talk to you. Who only want to look at you with their mouths hanging open and then go upstairs and try to sneak into our bathroom to see what’s in the medicine cabinet. Why do they want to know? That’s what bothers me. Why in the great scheme of things is it important if Nicholas Cobleigh uses a roll-on or a stick deodorant or if your shaving brush looks mangy? It looks mangy, by the way. I ordered you two new ones, one for here and one for your travel kit.”
Nicholas put the pot on the table beside the block of chocolate, took the knife from Jane’s hand and put it down, and put his arms around her.
“You owe me a kiss,” he said. She looked fabulous. He loved her casual like this, in bleached-out jeans and a red T-shirt that buttoned up the front with tiny red buttons. Every time she stabbed the chocolate her breasts quivered. She kissed him softly on the lips. He put a hand behind her neck and pulled her close. He put the other hand under her shirt and rubbed her back. Her skin was still perfect. Velvet. He kissed her harder, until she opened her mouth, then ran his tongue over hers. He tasted chocolate. She’d been cheating. She was supposed to be on another of her diets, losing the same few pounds she’d been putting on and taking off for the last few years. He could never tell the difference and told her so, which annoyed her. What do you mean, you can’t tell? she’d said. I’m at my rock-bottom weight. Look at my waist. It looked like the same waist she’d always had, a little bigger since the two children.
She took his lower lip between her teeth and bit down gently. She’d obviously been reading one of those how-to sex books. The last time he’d come home—he’d been on location for three and a half months making a Western in Wyoming—they’d gotten into bed the first night and he’d gone for her, a little roughly after those months of celibacy. (During the filming, he’d flown home every other weekend, but the combination of saddle sores, jet lag, and exhaustion from making amends to the girls for his absence had taken its toll; he’d been able to make love only a few perfunctory times.) That first night had been so awkward. He ripped her nightgown and was apologizing at the same time he was grabbing at her. Nick, she’d said. Nick! He tried to cool down. Is there anything special you’d like? she’d asked. He must have looked at her as if she were crazy because she’d quickly explained: any special sex thing? If you’d rather do it some other way. I mean, oral sex, or if there’s anything else…. She tried to distract him to cover her embarrassment, climbing on top and straddling him, her hair falling forward, spilling over his shoulders. She ran her hands up his arms and over his shoulders, kneading his muscles with the pads of her thumbs.
The gesture caught him off guard, a blow all the more stunning because it was unanticipated. And so false. This wasn’t Jane. Worse, the gesture was the one his co-star in Jenny and Joe had used in their big, steamy sex scene; the director had showed her what to do, kneeling beside her near the edge of a swimming pool while Nicholas lay belly-up in the grass, the two of them leaning over him, four thumbs rubbing away at his muscles until his arms were streaked with red and they’d had to send him back to makeup. You know you can ask me to do anything, she’d said.
He’d had to blink, otherwise tears would have come to his eyes. She was afraid of losing him. So afraid that she’d probably ordered a stack of books and studied them: How to Keep Your Man or some stupid thing like that; Behind the Bedroom Door; Feel Free; Do It the New Way. He held her tight. I love you, he’d told her. You don’t need tricks. But Nick, please, if you want something. Then I’ll let you know, Jane. Still, he couldn’t blame her. He guessed he’d be reading sex manuals if their positions were reversed.
The year before, 1970, after Jenny and Joe, his second film, was released, when she would still leave the farm, go places with him, they’d driven into New York. It had been a disaster. Two girls in a convertible had spotted him and followed them all the way from Connecticut down to the Bronx, driving alongside them, sideswiping them several times, once nearly driving him off the road, all the time waving, throwing kisses at him. When they finally turned off, he looked at Jane. Her eyes were shut. Her hands were clasped tight in her lap, but not so tight he could not see they were shaking.
They’d gone to a cocktail party given by the chairman of the board of one of the major studios. It was in a spectacular penthouse, all white with minimalist furniture and what looked like a brilliant collection of abstract expressionist art. He’d had one minute to savor it. Then people started to surround him, asking him the same questions over and over. How does it feel to be nominated as best actor? What are you doing next? How do you feel about being a male sex idol? An overnight sensation? A waiter came around with a tray of little meat balls and he’d taken one, but then he’d had to answer somebody with his mouth full. The minute he answered one person’s question, it was someone else’s turn. There even seemed to be an etiquette to talking to him. Two minutes and then the person would back off, giving someone else a chance. They would not leave him alone. People elbowed other people aside to stand next to him. They stood closer than was necessary, examining whatever part of him was at their eye level. For what? To check the quality of his suit? To look for blemishes? To see if his teeth were capped?
Jane had been pushed away after thirty seconds. Unfortunately, she had been pushed into a corner near where two women were discussing him. “You slept with Nicholas Cobleigh?” one asked the other. “What do you think?” “How was he?” “What do you think?” “God, that body! That swimming scene! I almost died. Are you still seeing him?” “Of course.”
Listen, he’d said when they’d left, wiping her eyes with his hand, I don’t do that. You know I don’t, and if you’re going to believe that shit—it is shit, damn it—then we’re in trouble. Believe me. Trust me. You have to because it’s not going to get better.
From the party they went to his father’s apartment. What should have been a five-minute crosstown walk took more than half an hour. People stopped him for autographs, to deliver critiques of Urban Affairs and Jenny and Joe. This was Manhattan, where people were supposed to be born unimpressible. Oooh! girls shrieked. It’s hi
m! The more subtle poked each other with elbows, pointed him out with their heads.
In his father’s building a woman had gotten onto the elevator with them, a nearly middle-aged woman wearing the kind of baggy camp shorts and cotton blouse that Vicky would wear. But these were obviously meant to be fashionable; she tugged at the hem of her shorts, trying to get a little more flare. She glanced quickly at Jane’s clothes—a black cotton dress and pearls—and even more quickly looked away, bored. Then she happened to look at Nicholas. “It’s not. It can’t be!” she announced. The elevator door closed. “I don’t believe it! It’s you! I’m here with you alone on the elevator.” He glanced up. The floor indicator showed they were at the ninth floor. His father lived on the twenty-third. “Oh, I don’t believe it, your eyes really are that color! What is it, aqua? Turquoise? It’s just beyond comprehension, being here with you! If it wasn’t you, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?” He held onto Jane’s hand and didn’t say a word. “Wouldn’t you? Well, you could at least answer me, for chrissake!”
A delicious morning breeze blew through the kitchen, chilly, a little moist, absolutely fresh, a New England June breeze. Everyone trying to get him to move to California kept telling him, Once you get spoiled by the climate, you’ll never be able to live back East again. But they’d made themselves forget this sweet breeze. You couldn’t remember it and not long for it.
Nicholas kissed the lobe of Jane’s ear, then her neck. “You smell like lemons right here,” he said.
“Lemonade. Seventy-five lemons. I hope it’s enough.” She sighed and breathed, “Oh, God.”
“What’s wrong?”