by Alex Witchel
I could see why Kathy Sinclair was so amenable to these assignments. But even she would have had a hard time dragging out this trip. Idina Lhasa was no star. She was a beautiful hiccup in time who would make this movie and disappear. Then every ten years or so, People magazine would track her down for a “Where are they now?” story. She would still have a pretty face, even though (tsk, tsk) she had let her figure go. She would also have had a few husbands, bastards all, and a few children who had taught her the meaning of life. But at this moment, with her figure and face about to be featured on screens around the world, nothing was more important than discovering whether it was papaya or mango she preferred for her breakfast, or how she drank ten glasses of water a day—but only water from a spring in the west of Samoa.
I walked through the airy lobby, dotted with palm trees, and headed out toward the pool. Most people had escaped the midday sun, though one hardy couple lay on chaise longues drinking tequila sunrises and slathering each other with suntan lotion. I went to the café and found a table, but no waiter appeared, and when a mariachi band arrived to sing “Feliz Navidad,” I fled.
From the dark cool of my room I ordered a chef’s salad (the only thing Mexican on the menu was salsa and chips). After lunch I fell promptly asleep, waking in time to shower before dinner. I looked at myself in the mirror a good, long while before finally smacking both sides of my face. “Be where you are,” I said out loud. “Have an experience. Get on with it.”
It was nearing six o’clock now, so I finished drying my hair, got together a notebook and some pens, reviewed the list of questions I had made on the plane, and presented myself in the lobby on time.
No one was there. After a few minutes, the concierge approached me. “Señorita Berlin?” he said. “Señorita Lhasa is running late. Won’t you have a seat in the bar and wait for her?”
I sat and sipped a glass of white wine, and was surprised to find that I felt genuinely relaxed. The early-evening light was a soft slate blue, and everyone around me looked tanned and rested. I made the wine last—I did have to work, after all.
The concierge appeared again. “Señorita Lhasa wonders if you might meet her at Las Brisas, where she is staying,” he said. “She is so tired from the shooting, it would be easier for her.”
What a pain in the ass she was turning out to be. I smiled; by all means.
I got into a cab and within minutes was sitting at an outdoor bar at Las Brisas, watching the breeze make ripples in the pool. This time I sipped club soda while a concierge was dispatched to ask my indulgence in waiting. At eight-thirty, Idina Lhasa finally appeared, with her manager. Idina was an absolute knockout, with dark hair, limpid eyes, full lips, and the type of body that makes people want to sculpt or paint—voluptuous, not vulgar. She wore a white Lycra halter dress that would have revealed the tiniest imperfection, had there been one. Her skin was tanned, but not too much, and it seemed to have the texture of velvet. Compared to this girl, Carla Jones was a beauty-pageant wannabe.
At dinner, Idina answered her questions dutifully with, as Susie had predicted, regular prompting from her manager, a frumpy middle-aged woman. This girl seemed to be her most successful client, to whom she was obviously hanging on for dear life. She had that hounded look of someone who has struggled and scraped and discovered, now that she had hit the big time, that it was too big for her. She was behaving badly—snapping her fingers for the waiter and talking too loudly—but Idina didn’t seem to notice. She said her piece like a well-rehearsed schoolgirl: She was so very lucky to have won this role. The producers were like parents to her. Yes, her leading man was so handsome, so sexy. She was thrilled.
After fifteen minutes I had what I needed, so I began making up more questions, which Idina politely answered. I liked this. You could ask anything and the person was obliged to respond. I immediately knew when she was lying: She would unknowingly reveal herself by turning to her manager, who would look down and nudge her under the table to reassure her. From these exchanges I was able to surmise that Idina had never graduated from high school, didn’t know who or where her father was, and was sleeping with one of the guys financing the picture. And although she claimed to have been born and raised in the British West Indies, she seemed to know an awful lot about Worcester, Massachusetts.
But the truth wasn’t the point, after all. The point was that Idina Lhasa would look drop-dead fabulous in next summer’s fashions, and when the film opened she would be an instant icon for men, a pyre of hopelessness for women.
By nine-fifteen she began yawning. “Idina has an early call,” the manager proclaimed as if on cue. We stood and shook hands, but as Idina turned to waft her way to bed, a group of people appeared, including Charles Buckley, the star of the movie. An Englishman and, reputedly, a fine stage actor, he had had a few roles in British films, but this was his big Hollywood break. I studied him. Tall, thin, angular face. Not an ounce of sex about him.
“Ah, cara,” he crooned when he saw Idina, taking her hand and kissing it with a flourish. “Oh, Charles,” she giggled, leaning on the r forever; by the time she was done, he had his arm around her waist and was leading her outside. The manager quickly asserted herself.
“Charles, Idina is in the middle of an interview,” she said in her officious tone. “You can’t take her out there.”
“Oh, really,” he said, barely concealing his contempt. He turned to me, taking in my notebook and pen. “Where are you from?” he demanded.
“Jolie!” I said.
“Ah.” He cupped his hands around Idina’s face. “Jolie, très jolie,” he murmured, kissing her mouth. She didn’t resist, but she didn’t exactly reciprocate either. Her face stayed absolutely still and expressionless as he buzzed his nose and lips around it.
“Come, Jolie!” Charles Buckley barked in my direction. “We are going outside.”
I looked at the manager, who now had a sickly smile on her face and her mouth firmly shut, because in addition to Buckley and the crew, one of the producers had arrived and she had lost what little clout she had.
“Cognac!” Charles Buckley commanded, seemingly to no one, and we followed him up a path to a stone terrace and an open evening sky surrounded by the dark outlines of hills. A waiter appeared with a tray of glasses, enough for everyone. I put down my notebook and took one, my eyes adjusting to the light. The lounge furniture was lushly padded, and tiny candles blinked on the tables. The scent of grilled meat was in the air. People talked quietly to one another, while a few of the men ran their eyes over me and bided their time.
Charles Buckley, having finished his cognac in a single gulp, picked up another and suddenly started reciting from King Lear. The more he spoke, the louder he got, and he didn’t seem to notice when Idina’s manager finally spirited her starlet off to bed. I sat and listened to him, his white shirt now open across his bony chest, while I tasted my drink and breathed the air and congratulated myself on being clever enough to have ended up in Acapulco with a movie star.
But the fact was, he was a drunk movie star, and he was slurring. He scoped me sideways every now and then, which left me unfazed, because like most British men he seemed gay to me, whether he actually was or not. American guys have asses that look like asses in their worn-out blue jeans, with their broad backs and sneakers. British guys have asses that look like grapes in those narrow, shiny pants, with their filmy shirts and shoes with lifts. They look like dirty hookers.
Lear was on his fourth cognac—that I counted, at least—when someone started to applaud in the hope of bringing the performance to a close. As the star droned on, the other men invited me to a disco, but I politely demurred and left Mr. Buckley, mid-passage, with the producer, who had switched to beer and was now leaning back dejectedly in his chair, watching everyone else leave. Who says a producer does nothing?
The location was amazing, a house without any external walls that had been built into the side of a mountain. It had its own helipad, an enormous pool, and rooms fil
led with fancy furniture and chandeliers. A drug dealer owned it, whispered some of the crew. When I asked a production manager about the walls, he admitted that there were temporary ones that could be put up in case of a storm, but that otherwise security was not a problem. The other men laughed. Maybe it was Mafia.
To get details for my story, I spent an hour going through the house, top to bottom. At around eleven, Charles Buckley came out of his trailer, his face pasty in the brilliant sunshine. He looked like hell. There was no sign of Idina, though I saw her costumes being prepared.
At noon, I went back to the hotel and ordered another chef’s salad from room service. I had been in Acapulco twenty-four hours, and my work was done. Kathy Sinclair was running a real racket.
I called the airport. There was a plane out at four, and another at seven; neither was filled. I said I’d call back.
I decided to go down to the pool again and find a shady spot to lie in. Looking around, I noticed one of the men from the night before. Clean-cut, attractive. I had assumed that last night’s gang were all part of the crew, but since he wasn’t on the set, he must have been a civilian. He smiled and waved as he walked toward me.
“Hi,” he said. “I think we met last night. I’m Andy.”
“I’m Sandy,” I said.
Together we said, “We rhyme.” And laughed.
“You’re writing about Idina, aren’t you?” he asked.
I nodded. “Aren’t you working on the film?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m the on-site doctor. But this afternoon, I’m off.”
“I didn’t even know there was a job like that, but I guess it makes sense.”
He smiled. “It does. I work with a company that sends doctors to locations in case anything happens. So it’s a nice break for me.”
He went on about his practice, which was based in Florida, and in no time at all he had segued to insurance, a topic captivating to all doctors.
“Are you here for the week?” he asked.
I found myself shaking my head. “No, just till tomorrow, I think,” I said. “Short trip.”
He looked disappointed. “Oh, that’s too bad,” he said. “There are going to be a lot of parties for New Year’s. It would be fun if you stayed.”
I looked at his hands. Very clean. No wedding band. But what did that mean? He probably had a wife at home who boasted to all her friends about her husband’s glamorous job.
“Are you married?” he asked abruptly.
“No,” I said, taken aback. “Are you?”
“Well, separated,” he said.
“ ‘Well, separated’ because you’re here and she’s there?” I asked lightly, and he actually laughed.
“Something like that.” He slipped his sunglasses into his shirt pocket. “So, stay and have some fun with me,” he added, leaning in a little closer.
I smiled. For some reason he didn’t put me off. Maybe he really was separated. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe it was entirely possible for me to speak to a man without the specter of the Bloomingdale’s china department hovering nearby.
“If you’ll come for a drive with me,” he said, “I can show you some wonderful places.”
I found myself agreeing. Had I lost my mind? One part of me was stamping its foot, warning me off; the other part was sighing with relief, counseling, “It could be worse. He could be a radiologist.”
A woman from the hotel staff approached. “Dr. D’Amico?” she said. “There’s a phone call for you.”
At least he’s not a Jewish doctor, I thought as he went inside. Only half a cliché.
Why shouldn’t I stay an extra day?, I reasoned, gathering my things together. Eighty degrees and sunny, not to mention all expenses paid—this was certainly an improvement on my Paul schedule. I met Andy in the lobby, where he stood near the desk, waiting. We drove through town and along the water, and then he said he wanted to visit a friend who lived nearby, someone from the film who had rented a house. He pulled into the driveway of a nice-looking split-level—modest, nothing like the film set.
Andy rang the bell, and when no one answered we walked around back and tried the door, which was unlocked. I followed him inside, and he turned and kissed me and I kissed him back as if I had been waiting my entire life for this moment. Here he was, the man of my dreams, a cheating Italian doctor from Florida.
I hardly noticed the interior of the house. It had white walls and expensive-looking framed pictures—but, really, I was sick of noticing things. What did it matter whose house it was? Or how it looked? Why did my life require constant narration?
I felt my shirt going up over my head, and could that possibly have been my hand unzipping his pants? You’ve lost your mind, I thought as we fell onto a bed with a leopard-print spread.
“Um,” I began, and “I know,” he said, and there was a condom at the ready, and then I forbade myself from thinking and eagerly entered the swirl of sweat and moaning. When I finally noticed shadows in a corner of the room, I looked at my watch. It was after five.
“The crew is having cocktails at the set,” he said. “Do you want to come?”
“Sure,” I answered, retracing the path from the door to pick up my clothes. We went back to the drug dealer’s house, where the day’s shooting had ended and people milled around the pool drinking beers and jumping in with all their clothes on. I fell into the scene, enjoying the easy camaraderie offered to anyone on a movie set, chatting and drinking, laughing at stories of Charles Buckley refusing to come out of his trailer because he didn’t like the smell of his hair spray.
From there, we moved on as a herd to one of the nearby hotels, where there was a big buffet and more drinking at a poolside bar. This time people took their clothes off before jumping in, but instead of joining them, I took the doctor back to my hotel.
He was on call on the set the next morning and left my room at six. “Come out for lunch today,” he said, kissing me goodbye.
“Okay,” I answered, marveling at the fact that I had spent the last day having sex with a total stranger and hadn’t yet died of syphilis.
But after we had lunch, I decided it was time to leave. It seemed that Mrs. Doctor, who didn’t know she was separated, had left a phone message with the happy news that her mother could stay with the kids after all, and she was arriving that very evening to ring in the New Year’s weekend. I booked myself onto the four p.m. flight, and Andy very nicely drove me to the airport. He would probably pick her up after he dropped me off.
He asked for my number, for the next time he was in New York. I wrote down the extension of Jolie!’s accessories closet and kissed him goodbye. Then I checked my bag, fastened my seat belt, and passed out. The next thing I felt was the bump of wheels as we landed in New York. I started to laugh. I couldn’t wait to tell Paul.
#52 The Frog Who Could Fly
by Sandra Berlin
Once there was a young Prince, who played every day by the pond near his castle. It was there he met a frog who he knew was a Girl Frog because she had very long eyelashes and painted her webbed toes pink. The Prince would call out to the Girl Frog every day, and she would leap across the lily pads to sit beside him and tell him stories, for, as an only child, he was a lonely Prince and pined for friends and company. She was lonely too, for the Frog Prince whom she was to wed had recently leapt to another pond—and another and another, though that’s another story—and so she sat each day with the young human Prince and told him stories to his heart’s content.
One day, though, when the Prince called to the Girl Frog, she did not leap across the lily pads, and he had to search to the far side of the pond to find her. “What’s wrong, Girl Frog?” the young Prince asked.
She blinked a large tear, which clung to her eyelashes. “Oh, it’s Christmas and my Frog Prince left me,” she said. “All my life I looked forward to marrying him and living happily ever after. And now that he’s gone, I will have to stay here in this pond forever. And though you are my friend,
young Prince, you will soon grow up and leave me too, and here I will sit, alone.”
The young Prince considered the Girl Frog’s plight and said, “My good friend, I will put a spell upon you so that you will turn into a bird, and you may fly around the world to see what you’re missing.”
He waved his hand, and the Girl Frog turned into a beautiful white bird who soared through the heavens, straight to the pond where her Frog Prince had fled. “Where is he?” she cried, and the other birds pointed to a locked door that said MEMBERS ONLY. “He’s in there,” they said. “And he almost never comes out.”
Well, the Girl Frog waited a few more days until, finally, she said, “You know, I don’t have to do this anymore. I can fly right out of here. I’m not a Girl Frog anymore. I’m now a beautiful white bird.”
So she spread her wings and flew to Acapulco and got some sun and then came home to her own pond to report her adventures to the young Prince. But alas! She had been gone so long that the young Prince had grown up and gone away, just as she had known he would.
But he’d left behind a note: “Dear Girl Frog,” it read, “I hope you have enjoyed seeing the world and that you’ve forgotten the foolishness of the Frog Prince. Before I left I renewed the spell, so if you want to remain a beautiful white bird forever, you can. And if you ever get depressed over the holidays, just make a schedule and stick to it.”
Well, she never had to. She flew the world over, a beautiful white bird with pink webbed toes (the spell wasn’t quite perfect, having been cast long-distance), but rather than moan about it, the bird realized she could swim as well as fly. Now she could go anywhere.
The End
9
I called Paul repeatedly to fill him in on my Mexican romance, but I couldn’t seem to reach him. I tried several times over the weekend, but he hadn’t returned from seeing Marie. By the time Monday arrived and I had done my due diligence at a New Year’s Eve party and a New Year’s Day open house and the office had reopened, I still hadn’t heard from him.