“What’s the hook? What makes it funny?”
“Didn’t you ever see Art Linkletter? I’ve got a list of questions worked out. You ask ’em, then wait for the answers, then react.”
“Like what kind of questions?”
She picked up a notepad and scanned it. “Like, ‘What kind of bird is a Dan Quayle?’ ”
Elliot chuckled. “Not bad.”
“Good. Let’s get back to work.”
“I can remember when Saturdays were fun.”
“It’s hell being a genius, I know.”
He cut his eyes at her. “Testy bitch. Excuse me while I go to the kitchen.”
“The percolator’s full. Bring another cup of coffee, please.”
“You bet.”
He was gone for a long time, and when he returned he began pacing the room and talking excitedly about the interview idea. Amy looked up wearily. “What did you do—drink the whole pot of coffee? And you forgot mine?”
He laughed with a high, brittle sound that set off a warning in her brain. She straightened, scrutinizing him. She felt the pulse throbbing in her throat. “Elliot, did you snort some coffee up your nose?”
He halted and stared at her, nostrils flaring, his whole body stiff with defense. The sudden switch from laughter to fury stunned her. He jabbed a finger at her. “I am tired of your goddamn overbearing attitude.” His voice rose to shout. “I’m not hurting anybody! I need all the energy I can get!
“How much coke are you using, Elliot? How often?”
“I’ve got it under control! Stop grilling me! Stop it! Stop it!” He grabbed a pottery vase from the dresser and slung it at the wall beside the bed. Amy covered her face as shards of pottery struck her.
There was a sharp pain in her hand. Shaking, she looked at the bloody cut on one knuckle. Her horrified gaze rose to Elliot’s. He stood at the foot of the bed with his mouth open. He tried to speak, had trouble, and shook his head.
Nausea welled up in her stomach. Her teeth chattering, she whispered, “If you ever do something like that again, I’ll leave you.”
“If you do, I’ll kill myself.”
While she stared at him in shock, he crawled across the bed to her. Tears pooled in his eyes. He took her injured hand and licked the blood from it. She sat there numbly, watching. “You need h-help. Elliot, you’ve got to talk to a doctor.”
“No!” He gulped for breath. “I need you. I need the coke, too, but just until things get back to normal. I swear.” He buried his head in her lap and wrapped both arms around her. Sobs convulsed his shoulders. “Don’t leave me. I’m so tired. I’m so afraid of fucking everything up. Please, baby, please. Try to understand.”
The caretaker in her was a compulsive mistress. Pity and concern overcame anger. She had to help him, because nobody else could. Amy stroked his head and crooned to him, crying as she did.
The Laffeteria was a second-rate comedy club in West Hollywood, but it was one of Amy’s favorites. She’d spent hours in every major comedy club in the country, watching Elliot work, then sitting with him and studying other comics, but there was something comforting about this tiny place.
She sat at a corner table by herself, enjoying the womblike darkness, a pad and pen in front of her, a glass of mineral water growing tepid as she concentrated on her job, which was to scout the Tuesday-night showcase of female comics.
Thank God the writers’ strike was over. She was glad for this new duty, glad to get away from Elliot and his sneaky habits that concealed nothing about his problem and depressed them both.
She propped her chin on one hand and watched as the emcee introduced a stout young woman who popped gum and told jokes stolen from Roseanne Barr. The audience, happy and unsuspecting, liked her and applauded heartily at the end of her five-minute routine. Amy noted her name and slashed a black line across it.
The next woman was a wispy little black doll who made obscene comments about everything from her large breasts to the width of her vagina. She mixed in a few bitter jokes about race that had the audience squirming with discomfort, though people laughed from the shock effect. Amy crossed her name off the list, too.
Everybody needed a persona, a hook, something that made them memorable. Like Roseanne and her domestic goddess bit, or Judy Tenuta, punk-princess. Each woman who got up on stage at the Laffeteria tried to be unique. Few were.
Amy found herself drawing thick, angry blocks over the names on her list. The irony of the comedy boom was that there were hundreds of clubs now, all across the country, and they were begging for comics. Even the most mediocre of tonight’s performers was probably making fifty thousand dollars a year telling bad or stolen jokes to audiences in the boondocks.
I could do better than that. Frowning, she drew jagged doodles on the pad. So why don’t you try it? Dread mingled with excitement in her chest, as if she were standing on a high dive, wanting to leap but petrified. She pictured herself getting up on stage and staring blank-faced at an audience while her knees knocked and words suffocated in her throat. No way.
Tonight there was only one comic worth watching. Her name was Angela Poulos, and she told whimsical anecdotes about her Greek family. Nothing hilarious, but charming. The laughs were solid and the material clean enough to go straight to television without much work.
Toting her pad and a couple of business cards that proclaimed her the associate producer of Thornton After Hours, Amy went backstage to a communal dressing room hung with bare light bulbs and smelling of cosmetics and fear.
A dozen women eyed her warily as she entered. She went to Angela and introduced herself. You got talent, kid. Call me tomorrow. I want you to come down to the studio and audition for my boss. Amy smiled grimly. She felt as if she needed a fat cigar and a fedora. Angela Poulos began to hyperventilate with excitement. “Of course I’ll do it. Oh, thank you, thank you, I gotta call my folks, this is incredible, I think I’m going to faint.”
Smiling though she felt depressed and envious, Amy made her way back through the hovering crowd. One of the comics, a spike-haired type whose act consisted of playing a saxophone in between telling jokes about oral sex, grabbed Amy by one arm.
Ambition was stamped on the comic’s face in hard lines. She looked desperate. “What’d you think of my act?”
“It’s got potential. But it’s not right for our show. It might work on one of the pay-cable channels, though.”
“Hey, I could fix it any way you want. Did you think it was funny enough, huh?”
Amy hesitated, trying to think of a diplomatic response. “I can only tell you what works for Thornton After Hours. We look for acts that appeal to a wide audience. Some comics aren’t mainstream enough.”
“Who are you to tell me that I’m not funny, huh?”
“I didn’t say you weren’t—”
“Are you a comic?”
“No, but I—”
“What the hell do you know about what’s funny? You come in here in your pink Donna Reed suit with your raspy little down-home voice and you think you know what’s cool. Bullshit. Who did you screw to get your job?”
“Not anyone very important, or I’d be someplace nicer tonight, gettin’ a better class of insult.”
“Have you ever done any stand-up work?”
“No, but—”
“You ever write any comedy for anybody?”
She ground her teeth. Elliot’s secret. “No.”
“To hell with you, then!” The comic jabbed a finger at herself. “I’ve been doing stand-up for five years! I’ve played business conventions where men threw ice cubes at me! I’ve had club owners cancel my gig because I wouldn’t screw ’em! I’ve emceed male-strip shows! I’ve done singing telegrams when I was so broke that I was sleeping in my car at night because I didn’t have any place else to go! I’ve suffered to get where I am, and I’m sick of candy-asses like you deciding whether I’m funny or not! You haven’t suffered! You haven’t—”
Amy shoved the woman agai
nst a locker. “I know what’s funny and I know what stinks. You stink. I’ve seen dozens like you, male and female, tellin’ jokes you steal from each other between gigs at some club stuck in the back of a shopping center in Podunk, U.S.A. You think you’re in show business ‘cause you’ve got fifteen minutes of material that makes a livin’ for you. You don’t know squat about the traditions, and you don’t want to work hard enough to be an original. And don’t tell me I don’t know my job. I spent my whole life learnin’ my job.”
The comic gawked at her, face flushing deep red, chest heaving. Amy walked away while she was still in that speechless condition. In the parking lot she leaned against her car and took deep breaths of L.A.’s musty night air.
Despite her convictions, she felt like a coward. No matter how much she knew about the business, she didn’t have the guts to get up on a stage.
“Where are we going?” she asked Elliot as he tugged her up the steps of the small private jet he’d chartered.
“I’ve told you a dozen times, baby, it’s a surprise vacation. We’ve earned it. Now relax and quit asking questions.”
There was a bouquet of white roses on one of the jet’s plush seats, champagne and caviar in a refrigerator, crystal glasses, damask napkins, and fine china. When the jet reached its cruising altitude Elliot poured the champagne. “To us,” he toasted, clinking his glass to hers.
Amy watched him over the fluted rim. He had kidnapped her from her Saturday-morning swim, then presented her with a packed suitcase and a pearl-gray silk organza dress that took her breath away. He was clothed in a beautiful silk suit of soft gray, with a white tie. He had hummed merrily while she put on the new dress and fixed her hair and makeup.
And now here she sat, bewildered, wary, and sipping Dom Pérignon.
“Did I pick a good vintage?” he asked, downing his third glass.
“I think so, but I don’t know as much about champagne as I do about wine.”
“My classy little red-neck peach.” He laughed.
“You think it’s funny that I taught myself how to pick a good wine?”
“No, baby, I think it’s charming. I just wonder how many people who come out of the hills of Georgia speak French and know how to pick a good wine and like to read Sartre.”
“About as many as want to, I guess. Watch it, boy, your Yankee prejudice is showing.”
“I’m just proud of you. Proud to be with you.”
His exuberance worried her. She looked out a window at a summer sky full of white clouds and tried not to brood. Less than an hour later the plane began to descend.
“Viva Las Vegas,” Elliot said, watching her for a reaction.
She looked at him askance. “You told me once that Las Vegas was only good for Shriners’ conventions.”
He laughed. “I changed my mind.”
A white limousine met them at the plane, and soon they were traveling down open highway. Nevada desert whipped by the car window. Amy clutched the roses in her lap and studied Elliot’s Cheshire-cat smile. “Look,” he said eventually, pointing out the window at the neon oasis rising to meet the highway. “Glitter City.”
She was speechless with intrigue as they drove down the strip. “It looks just like it did in Ocean’s Eleven! I can almost see Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack. Hey, there’s Peter Lawford.”
“He croaked.”
“I know that. Use your imagination, grinch.” She twisted to face Elliot. “Where are we going? The Sands? The MGM Grand? Caesar’s Palace?”
“Nah. You’ll see.”
The limo purred down side streets. Amy grabbed Elliot by the tie. “Where?” she demanded. “This is a threat.”
He laughed. “There. Right there. Look.”
She swiveled and gazed eagerly out the window. Her heart stopped. The Elvis Wedding Chapel. It glowed with white neon. The windows had pink shutters with little gold guitars on them. The walkway to the street was lined with people in garden-party finery—frothy sundresses and big hats on the women, pastel suits on the men. They were people she knew: Elliot’s business manager and agent, people from the staff of Thornton After Hours, friends of hers and Elliot’s, most of them from show business, some of them bonafide Big Names. And just a few feet from the curb stood Mary Beth, impeccable in a tailored suit of peach silk, her eyes hidden by black sunglasses, her mouth set in a hard line.
The limousine stopped by the walk. Amy hoped the tinted window kept the crowd from seeing her face. She felt like a fish that had just been hooked. Trapped. Frantic. On the steps of the chapel stood an Elvis imitator in a white sequined jumpsuit. The minister, she presumed.
“I promised you a wedding after the writers’ strike,” Elliot reminded her. “What do you think, baby?”
“I can’t. I can’t.” She dropped the roses on the floor and took his hands. Shaking her head desperately, she struggled for calm. “I can’t marry you.”
“Huh? Why not? I got all the paperwork set up. I took care of everything so that this could be a surprise. What the hell?”
“Oh, Elliot, how could you do this to me, when it’s been months since we even talked about getting married?”
“You’ve always worn my ring.” The color rose in his face. His moods were treacherous these days; she held his hands tightly and tried to smile. “Elliot, I won’t leave you, but I won’t marry you, either.”
“Why?”
“We have problems. You’re a drug addict. You need help, but you won’t admit it.”
“You don’t love me anymore.”
“Would I stay with you if I didn’t love you?”
The chauffeur opened her door. People outside cheered and whistled. A muscle twitched beside Elliot’s mouth. He spoke between gritted teeth. “Get out of the car. We’re going through with this.”
“No. Elliot, please. Don’t get upset. I’ll still be with you. I’ll still take care of you.”
“Ma’am?” the chauffeur said, extending a hand.
“Don’t do this to me, baby,” Elliot warned. “You’ve changed. I don’t understand. Don’t get cold on me.”
“I’m just learning to be realistic. I can’t marry you.”
“Sugar?” Mary Beth’s honeyed voice interrupted the tension. She stuck her head in the car and looked from Elliot to Amy. “I hope y’all are having fun in here, but Elvis is getting a little antsy.” Amy could tell from the careful tone of her voice that Mary Beth knew trouble when she saw it. “How do you like Elliot’s surprise wedding, sugar?”
“Get in the car,” Amy ordered. “And shut the door.”
“Hmmm. I suspected as much.”
“If she gets in the car I’m getting out,” Elliot said.
Amy reached for him. “No.”
“We’re finished!” He slung her hands away. “I don’t need you! I never needed you!” Shoving the opposite door open, he leapt out and yelled to the waiting crowd, “You want to hear something funny? She won’t marry me! But I paid for the fucking limo, so I’m the one who’s going on the honeymoon!”
Amy made a horrified sound as he reached inside the car and snatched her by both arms. He dragged her out the door, and she landed hard on the street. “Have fun,” he told her, then stepped over her and got back in the car. She jerked her feet aside as he slammed the door. There was a commotion and then Mary Beth’s indignant curse. Amy heard the other door slam.
The chauffeur ran to the driver’s side. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but Mr. Thornton gives the orders.”
He threw himself into the front seat. The car roared away. It had all happened in a few seconds. Suddenly Amy was staring across empty pavement at Mary Beth, who was pushing herself up from the curb. The people behind her looked as if they’d just been caught in a vice raid and wanted to evaporate, they were so humiliated.
The moment of shock passed and people ran toward her, hands outstretched. She hurriedly got up, brushing grime from her dress, trembling, feeling sick to her stomach but bitterly determined. She had hidden be
hind her self-doubt long enough. She was on her own, now, and she didn’t want a hand up, from anyone.
Marie returned to their bedroom one year after her transformation into a spiritual being in search of purity. Sebastien had become so accustomed to his solitary nights that when she glided in, a coarse muslin robe belted loosely around her body, always reminding him of a novitiate from a nunnery, he almost resented the intrusion.
Almost. It was true that some needs were basic, simple, and selfish, and the coldness within him had grown so much in the past year that he no longer cared whether there was any emotional intimacy between them. She knelt on the bed beside him, her black hair framing a face that had grown thinner from her vegetarian diet.
“It is time to try again,” she whispered. She clasped her hands in her lap and regarded him with placid eyes. She seemed no more than a quiet stranger, waiting to be serviced.
She would get her wish, for now. Sebastien tossed a file of paperwork onto the nightstand. He did not tell her so, but he believed that this pregnancy would be as futile as the others. After six years of miscarriages, it was time to stop trying. If she lost this baby, he would explain to her that he no longer wanted children. He was burned out, with no resources left to confront the grief of each disappointment. And he couldn’t shake the morbid sense of being cursed.
“Could we begin trying again tonight?” she repeated, watching him closely.
Without answering he got up and removed his robe and pajama bottoms. She draped her robe over the bed’s ornate foot rail and continued to sit like a supplicant waiting to be blessed. Her wistfulness twisted something dark inside him—he didn’t hate her, he felt sorry for her, sorry for them both.
But sentiment would not get the job done. Sentiment must be pushed aside for lust. The sight of her firm, olive-skinned body was all that his months of celibacy needed to create the blindness of desire. He knelt on the bed in front of her, watching her gaze drop approvingly to his rigid penis. He cupped her chin in his hand for a moment and studied the anticipation in her face. She breathed quickly, her lips parted. She tilted her head and let her gaze move to his mouth.
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