by Karen Karbo
“Great.”
“I meant it as a compliment,” she said. “You look really hip instead of like a Crosby, Stills and Nash groupie.”
Mouse glowered. The Pink Fiend advised her: You’re just nervous about the screening. Mimi means well. After all who set up this thing for you in the first place? You’re just jealous because she looks so terrific and you look like a piece of dried fruit with hair.
Mouse said nothing. Sniffy Voyeur appeared at the doorway, his big black nostrils working the smells in the bathroom. He hobbled over to Mouse and laid his pointy nose on the toilet seat between her legs. She scratched his head, worrying again that they hadn’t been able to afford to get a new print of The New Stanley struck before the screening.
“Did Tony tell you about their meeting with V.J. Parchman?” Mimi asked.
“You mean Vince Parchman? He was supposed to be in Kenya teaching tribal mothers how to give basic medical care to their kids. He took the children to the movies – some for the first time – and told them they could make that magic, plus be richer than the richest tribesman. He got them to spend what little money they had on a screenwriting class. Some of the parents thought he was teaching a literacy class and sold cattle to pay for it.”
“Not that you would’ve gotten any info out of Tony anyway. Ralph won’t even tell me what they’re doing. He’s gotten really superstitious. I think it was all those years blabbing everyone’s ear off about Girls on Gaza, then having nothing happen. It’s bad luck to talk about what you have in the works.”
“I’m just glad Tony is seeing about work,” Mouse said. “He really likes his leisure.”
“That’s how I am: a sensualist who likes relaxing.”
Mouse rolled her eyes at Sniffy. His old brown eyes were milky with cataracts. His breath smelled like canned tuna. In her entire life Mouse could count the times on one hand when she had ever seen Mimi relax. “How old is ol’ Sniffy Voyeur? He must be, God, what, six –”
“– fifteen,” said Mimi. “Ivan and I got him three weeks after we were married.”
“Then he’s sixteen,” said Mouse.
“He’s fifteen,” said Mimi.
“Anyway, he’s old. Aren’t you, old guy?” She rubbed the top of his head with her knuckles. He drooled happily.
“He’s not old,” said Mimi. “He’s just, he’s a mature dog.”
“Fifteen is old for a dog,” said Mouse.
“Not that old.”
“What about his tumor?”
“It’s not a tumor,” cried Mimi. “God, you’re so gloom and doom. It could be a tumor but it’s probably like some hormonal thing. Get off Sniffy’s case. Come here, Sniffer, come here!” Mimi slapped her thigh.
Sniffy dropped his head onto Mouse’s knee and wagged his body, gazing up at her through his cataracts. Whatever was wrong with him, he was always starving, even after he’d just eaten. Once Mouse had left a peppermint in the pocket of one of her T-shirts. Sniffy had chewed through her suitcase, clawed through all her things just to get to it. The vet said his brain was telling him he was always starving, even though he wasn’t. Just like the American consumer, Mouse thought.
“Sniff! Come!” He reluctantly left Mouse for Mimi. “This stupid dog. He’s just like me, always falling for people who don’t like him.”
‘’I like him.”
“You said he had a tumor. Don’t listen to her, Sniffy.”
10.
IN VENICE, THE NIGHT WAS HEAVY WITH THE SWEET, briny smell of salt air and sewage. There was a life-size crèche on the weedy lawn next to the Venice Documentary Consortium. The three wise men huddled in adoration over a manger brimming with scraps of 35mm film. Taped over the closed snout of one of the plaster donkeys was a hand-lettered sign: AFRICAN MOVIS, then an arrow pointing to an open door leading downstairs.
When Mimi and Mouse got there, E. Bomarito was standing at the bottom of the stairs with a roll of mimeographed programs he’d typed up himself on an old manual typewriter, the kind with leaping e’s and clotted o’s.
“Got that card table you wanted. Abbey Rents. Twenty-seven fifty.”
He fished the receipt from a greasy pouch he wore around his neck, “How ya like my nativity scene?”
“About the best you could say is that it redefines Christmas,” said Mouse, snapping out the legs of the card table.
Shirl and Auntie Barb were the first to arrive, They staked out two seats at the end of the back row. Shirl was agitated. She kept dragging off her turban to scratch her head. Her hair had grown out. It was salt-and-pepper, half an inch long, the prickly texture of Astroturf. Mouse opened a bottle of Chablis with a multipurpose implement on her Swiss Army Knife and brought Shirl and Auntie Barb each a glass dotted with floating crumbs of cork.
“Mousie Mouse, when is this thing going to start!” Shirl cried. She took the wine eagerly with shaking, spotted hands.
“We met with that corrupt L.A. lawyer person today,” said Auntie Barb accusingly, as though Mouse had suggested him. She wet her lips daintily with the wine.
The corrupt L.A. lawyer in question was Mr. Edmonton, the attorney who was bringing the suit, on Shirl’s behalf, against Gateau on Melrose and the manufacturer of the ceiling fan. He had been eating at Gateau at the time of the accident; when Shirl came to at the hospital and asked for her purse she found his card, raised black ink on thick creamy stock, tucked into one of the side pockets. A note in his own hand said, “Give me a call when you feel better!”
Called him she had and, in her opinion, he had been insufferably rude. He wanted her business and now he had slighted her. He was a partner at a big downtown law firm, the kind with pastel-colored walls and matching art. He ushered her and Auntie Barb in, inquired after Shirl’s health, produced two cups of instant coffee that burned the inside of Shirl’s mouth, then passed her on to a surly paralegal with the fattest knees she had ever seen.
“Only God should see knees like that. She was all decked out in a leather mini. Mutton dressed as lamb.”
The fat-kneed paralegal grilled Shirl mercilessly for an hour and a half. She wanted to know about every head injury Shirl had ever had in her entire life! She wanted to know what happened the evening of the accident.
Shirl had tried to explain. “Part of the reason I’m suing is ’cause I don’t know what happened. I can’t remember. Here I was all ready to scoop up a white chocolate dumpling with strawberry sauce, then BOOM!, I’m in a strange bed with tubes coming outta my nose, a strange man at the end of my bed pinching my toes and asking me if I feel.”
Now, she told the paralegal, she had to write down everything. She’d start a new découpage project, then forget how many coats of shellac she’d put on. She’d go find a piece of paper to make a note to herself, but by the time she found one she’d have forgotten why she needed it in the first place. She had headaches. She wanted to eat glazed doughnuts. The only thing that kept her from going insane was helping her daughter plan her wedding.
“Don’t say that, Mom, please,” said Mouse. After the meeting with Nita Katz and her horrible moment at the Academy Library, Mouse had been trying to think of a way to postpone the wedding.
“It’s true,” said Auntie Barb.
“What about your découpage?” said Mouse.
She surreptitiously glanced over at the door. People were arriving. Mimi’s friends from her book group were here. Tony had finally turned up with Ralph. Three strangers wandered in. She felt relieved. It would be a real screening after all. Not just a tedious event to which family came because they had to, and friends came so you’d owe them one when they needed bodies at some art opening or baby shower. The strangers were glum, edgy, dressed in black. Mouse couldn’t care less. Maybe they read the free listing in the L.A. Weekly. Maybe they were actual members of the Venice Documentary Consortium. Mouse had sort of assumed there had been only one member, the odoriferous E. Bomarito.
“Oh, honey, I’m keeping you from your party,” sighed Shirl.
“No. Go on. I’m listening.”
“Your eyeballs are drifting all over the place,” said Auntie Barb. “Everyone here does that. They pretend they’re listening but all the while they’re looking around for somebody more interesting. In Oregon people look you in the eye.”
“The instant I told that girl with the knees that you were getting married I could see the jealousy sprout up in her eyes. Then she said, ‘You said earlier that it was white chocolate dumplings in strawberry sauce. Which was it? Strawberry or raspberry?!’” Shirl burst into loud tears.
“Oh Mom, it’s all right.” Mouse patted her shoulder. “She was just trying to do her job.”
“I want to sue the bejesus out of those cocksuckers.”
“Mom.”
“She doesn’t know what she says anymore,” said Auntie Barb. “If this had happened in Oregon, the lawyers would be more courteous. It’s the constant sun here that makes them sadistic. In Portland, it’s only seventy-five cents to park downtown for two hours. You should see the city in autumn.”
“Great, Auntie Barb.”
“Don’t be facetious. That’s the other thing the sun does, makes people facetious. In Oregon people are courteous and kind.”
Mimi manned the “box office.” Poor Mouse, she thought, stuck in the quicksand of Shirl’s complaints about Mr. Edmonton. Mimi supposed she should go and rescue her, but she had already heard the entire story over the phone. Anyway, if Mouse couldn’t extricate herself from Shirl and enjoy her fifteen minutes of fame, that was her problem.
“Hi guys!” Mimi waved Sather and Darryl on through. Ralph was parking the car.
Sather, eyes bulging and haggard, was talking about some recent grueling job that made working in a sweatshop sound like getting paid to do nothing.
“– it’s Thursday, and I’m still there –”
“– he went in on Monday morning –” said Darryl. “This is the Bataan Death Edit.”
“– I go in Monday morning. I asked the supervisor, is it going to go late tonight? And the supervisor goes oohwahaha! He’s got a laugh like that, oohwahaha! You’ve obviously never been on this show before –”
“– which brings up the question, does the film industry make people deranged or are the deranged naturally attracted to the film industry?”
“By Thursday, by Thursday, I’ve been in the same room with the same six guys, and we’ve been eating nothing but takeout deli, and no one’s had a decent shit for days – sorry, Mimi – and I’m rolling through trying to find the right take of this car up and by, but there are about seventeen takes, and they all sound alike, and I have to keep rolling through –”
“– he has to keep rolling through because he keeps falling asleep over the reels!”
“– and the supervisor is standing in the middle of the room – the guy is really demented, I’m telling you – yelling, ‘Thank God for the Union, boys! We’ve just gone into Quadruple Platinum Overtime! We’re making more than the fucking star!’”
“– but who ever has time to spend it?” asked Darryl.
“– who ever has time to go to the bank!” said Mimi.
“I made twelve thousand dollars in four days,” said Sather, “then I left the check in my coat pocket, which I left on a seat in a movie theater in Westwood.”
“The glamorous and sexy film business,” said Darryl, gargling his wine for emphasis.
“Tony and Ralph think it’s glamorous and sexy,” said Mimi as Ralph stumbled in. She bumped him with her hip. “They just had their big meeting with V.J. Parchman.”
“How’d it go today?” asked Sather.
“Let’s just say I’m not overwhelmed with depression.”
“This calls for a celebration, then.”
“I’ll tell you how it went,” said Mimi. “V.J. had his phone calls held, then broke down and took one of them; he took notes, but also doodled. His eyes glazed over, but only twice. He loved the script, but doesn’t have the money to option something right now, even though his deal’s with a multibillion-dollar conglomerate. Am I close?”
This was how all those meetings went. V.J. probably had a hundred of them a month, ninety-nine of them went nowhere. Like a sighting of Big Foot, no one ever knew anyone who actually had the one-out-of-a-hundred meeting that went Somewhere, so there is no way of knowing what that meeting was like. Once, in a frenzy of frustration, Ralph showed Mimi his collected datebooks. He had been to six hundred seventeen meetings that went nowhere in the last ten years. She couldn’t figure out whether that made him a saint or a fool. Never face the facts. Who said that? Some famous actress.
“You are such a smart aleck,” said Ralph, pulling Mimi to him and giving her a fierce bite on the earlobe.
“I’m psychic,” said Mimi.
“It was actually better than we expected,” said Ralph, “which is to say it was only a moderate waste of time and we were not overtly humiliated.”
“Yippee, plan your Oscar speech.”
E. Bomarito left his post at the door and began herding people toward the folding chairs.
“How you doing, girls?” asked Mimi, stopping by to see if Shirl and Auntie Barb needed anything. “Can you see all right?” She glanced up, waved to Carole, who had just staggered in, a load of new scripts weighing down her beatup leather purse.
“Are you waving at Ivan?” asked Shirl. She craned her head around painfully.
“Ivan? Esparza?”
“I invited him.”
“My Ivan? You invited my Ivan?”
“Phone number’s right in the book,” said Auntie Barb. “You never think to look in the book anymore. Even in Portland no one’s listed.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to invite him? I have his number. You didn’t need to go and look it up. I have it.”
Mimi did not like this kind of surprise. For one thing she would have worn something that made her stomach look flatter, not what she had on, a big shirt belted at the waist. She hadn’t seen Ivan in maybe six years. He had always complimented her on her flat stomach. She also wasn’t keen on his presuming she had anything to do with this really, when you got down to it, very depressing screening. Ivan had had stuff at the LAFI, at big places in New York and Chicago. He had won an Oscar, even if it was just for documentary. Then there was the Mouse situation. She would think Mimi invited him to steal her thunder.
Mimi stood up from where she knelt beside Shirl’s folding chair. She would tell Mouse it was Shirl. Shirl had invited him. They would share a moment of sisterly closeness and hope. They would remember how, before the accident, Shirl loved a practical joke. They would say, see, she’s okay! She’s still at it! Creating havoc for her own amusement. Inviting Ivan Esparza to the screening!
E. Bomarito strode to the front of the room. The show was beginning. There was no time to talk to Mouse, also no sign of Ivan. It occurred to Mimi that maybe the joke was on her, maybe Shirl was just teasing. Maybe Shirl didn’t know what she was saying, as Auntie Barb suggested. Mimi decided it was a wait-and-see situation. She found a seat in the back.
“In this age of meaningless and tawdry Hollywood product, the Venice Documentary Consortium is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and practice of documentary film in all its forms,” intoned E. Bomarito, stroking his mustache.
Ralph and Tony sat next to each other at the end of the first row. Listening to E. Bomarito, Tony realized, not for the first time, that he was simply not a documentary filmmaker. He had made documentaries, yes, but he had always known he was destined for greater things, for making movies with “bulk” that people would stand in line to buy overpriced tickets to see. He just did not have the Calling, like Mouse and this E. Bomarito. In a past life, he wasn’t a member of a religious sect whose main occupation was building monuments to God that no one would ever see, the building of which killed off the believers in the process.
His twinge of remorse was easily cured by thoughts of his new career in f
eature films. Ralph was pessimistic, but it seemed more of a habit than anything else. He grumbled and griped, but hadn’t he spent two and a half hours after the meeting with V.J. thinking of ways to make their perfect script more perfect? Also, if Ralph thought it was so bloody futile, then why was he heartened when, moments ago, V.J. Parchman blew in?
Of course they’d invited V.J., and of course he’d said he would come, but both Tony and Ralph had assumed it was merely good manners on both sides. They had both assumed that V.J. had better things to do than drive across town in rush-hour traffic to sit in a dank and dirty basement watching 16mm documentaries on obscure African subjects. But no! Here he was, in multipocketed khaki safari pants and vest, yelping that he wouldn’t miss it for the world.
“My Africa!” he said, crooking his arm around Tony’s shoulder, inhaling deeply, like a coffee baron enjoying the olfactory beauty of his Ngong Hills plantation. “Tony, old boy, you did invite Michael Brass tonight, didn’t you?”
“Michael Brass?”
“You have been in the bush for ages. Michael Brass! He’s got four of the five top shows on the telly. Rumor is he makes one-point-five, one-point-seven-five per week just in residuals.”
“That’s million,” said Ralph.
“He’s head of a brilliant environmental group, Stars Against Ivory. It’s a quite powerful organization, really a much more together group than the Rain Forest people. Anyone can get into that – it’s the bloody McDonald’s of political causes. SAI is quite exclusive. They don’t take just any bleeding-heart liberal. I thought certainly he’d pop by.”
“I invited Michael,” lied Mimi, bless her heart. She’d overheard the conversation and slid up to V.J., proffering a little plastic glass of wine, leaning into his homely face as though he were just the man she’d been waiting for. “Michael works with us at Talent and Artists. I’m Mimi FitzHenry.” She slid her warm hand into his. “He said he’d try to make it, though I think we’re just going to do something private with him.”
“Something private?”
“A private screening. “Mimi laughed. “By the way, I really liked Fatal Red Kill.”