by Karen Karbo
Those in the know had dressed down. Mouse had no idea there were so many varieties of flannel shirts available in California. Flannel shirts, chinos, moccasins. Hollywood Goes to New England. They murmured about the usual things – money, deals, day care – in tight clusters. They were sanguine, self-congratulatory. Their well-kept faces shone with piety. They were rich. They were saving the world. They wore natural fibers. They swilled Perrier. They knew enough to stash their showy evening wear when partying with the eccentric Mr. and Mrs. Brass.
There were, however, a few touching bits of L.A. flash: a girl Mouse recognized as an up-and-coming rock singer wore a black-suede fringed jacket, a diamond swinging at the end of each piece of fringe. She looked almost as uncomfortable as Mouse.
Mouse turned to point her out to Tony but was rendered speechless by the sight of a grinning pockfaced man approaching them, arms extended, dressed like a citified Kenyan in longhi skirt, white cotton shirt, embroidered skullcap, and brown plastic sandals. This man was white, and called Tony and Mouse by their first names.
“Jambo! Karibu!” he crowed.
“Is that –” whispered Mouse into Tony’s shoulder.
“V.J., old sport, good to see you,” said Tony, clapping him on the arm.
“V.J.,” said Ralph. They shook hands as though they hadn’t seen each other in a decade. Ralph introduced Elaine.
“Vince?” said Mouse.
“Va-va-va-voom. You’re sure a different kettle of fish from the scrawny girl I knew in Nairobe.” He planted a wine-sodden kiss on her cheek. “It’s terrific you could make it. There are people you need to meet.”
They were dragged from stockbrokers discussing the pitfalls of investing in movies beneath an array of copper pots in the kitchen to a congregation of Tanzanians in Kaunda suits, the light-colored, collarless, short-sleeved suits favored by Heads of State, warming themselves in front of the massive fireplace. Mouse felt like a popular car being touted by an overzealous salesman.
“Meet Tony Cheatham, an old mate from Nairobi. His wife, Mouse. We lived together in Nairobe. I was over there doing the Peace Corps thing.”
“Meet Tony and Mouse, old pals from Nairobe. We were tight with the elephants.”
“This is Tony Cheatham from Nairobe, old pal of mine. This man knows elephants; he saw the atrocities firsthand.”
“Tony and Mouse Cheatham, from Nairobe. These two were there for the elephants. They worked with the Kenyan Wildlife Department. Mouse, you made a doc on the situation, didn’t you?”
Ralph and Elaine, who had never been to Nairobe, were ignored. They stood silently beside Tony and Mouse, grins pinned between their cheeks. Mouse stood with her arms clamped to her sides, more concerned with keeping her dress up than with the bald lies issuing from the sociopathic mouth of V.J. Parchman. She loathed him then, she loathed him now. It wasn’t worth the effort to point out that she and Tony were not yet married, nor were they “old friends” of his, nor were they tight with the elephants, nor did they witness any atrocities. She looked down. A gap yawned between her dress and her bra. She could see her shoes.
“‘If the elephant vanished, the loss to human laughter, wonder, and tenderness would be a calamity,’” said Tony.
“Brilliant,” breathed a young woman with no pores and teeth as white as the bone china Mouse had just registered for at Bullock’s. She was the daughter of a studio head, chattering with a gang of heirs and heiresses to corporate millions, all in their early twenties.
“V. S. Pritchett,” said Tony. “Wish I could take credit for it.”
“Do,” said the woman. “No one’s ever heard of V.J. Parchman anyway.”
V.J. looked stricken.
Mouse laughed. Tony glared down at her. That was really not on, humiliating V.J., who was their bloody ticket to success, or at least off the lumpy futon on her sister’s dining room floor. And the way she watched him, her lip all but curling in distaste. He did wish V.J. would stop introducing them as husband and wife, at least in front of Mouse. He loosened his tie. Seeing that Mouse’s wineglass was empty, he drained his and thrust it at her. “Dear poppet, see if you can drum us up another glass, would you?”
“Love to.” She took his glass. Any excuse to get away. When she was just out of view, she set them down on a pitted-oak side table. On the table was a large arrangement of fresh flowers, flanked by a collection of weather-beaten duck decoys and a handwoven basket in which snuggled half a dozen remote-control units. Mouse picked one up. On the back, written on white paper tape, it said, Jacuzzi/Pool. The other remotes were similarly marked: TV, Children’s TV, Stereo, Children’s Stereo, Children’s Jacuzzi, Tennis Court.
There was a commotion at the front door. Mouse turned around. Through craning necks she saw what appeared to be a gang of Africans in full tribal regalia. With them she glimpsed a television actor famous for both his looks and astounding lack of talent, and through a chink in the crowd, the lens of a 16mm camera, much like the one being used to shoot Wedding March. Someone was filming the arrival of the African delegation.
That someone should be her! The simple sight of that lens was a life vest thrown to a girl who only now realized she was overboard. She hauled up her dress, stepped out of her impossibly high heels. She became The Mouse, working her way across the room under arms held high in a toast, through intimate conversations, over footstools and baskets and Godawful pieces of priceless folk art. ’Scuse me, ’scuse me, ’scuse me. She knew it wasn’t the News; the News had gone to video. Maybe they needed a grip, a gaffer, a production assistant. ’Scuse me, ’scuse me. She imagined herself holding the boom, moving the lights, fetching coffee, anything but staying glued to Tony’s surly side, smiling and nodding, nodding and smiling.
Michael Brass, wedged between the Africans and the actor, was being interviewed, the mike hanging above his head from the end of the boom. He explained in patient tones the necessity for a global coalition to ban the import of ivory. He stressed the importance of the cooperation of government visionaries such as our friends here from Gabon. He advocated confiscation of illegal ivory and harsh prison terms for poachers.
The camera chirred. The spools of tape on the Nagra turned. Mouse was mesmerized. She wanted nothing more than to get in on the act. She could offer to run to the bathroom for a towel to blot the shine from the bridge of Michael Brass’s pallid nose. He finished his statement. The Africans reiterated what he had just said in clipped, elegant English. The actor reiterated what the Africans said in ungrammatical English studded with ums, ers, ahs, you knows. Michael Brass drew his forefinger across his neck. Cut.
The sound man snapped off the Nagra, pulled in the boom. His back was to Mouse. He was short, a dirty blond, skin the color of caramel. Black T-shirt, faded jeans, tennis shoes. He looked approachable. He had about him that familiar tilting-at-windmills-documentary-filmmaker air.
Mouse scooted around a couple trading notes on which hot producer was behind saving the whales, which studio head was into protecting the rain forest. In the split second between Mouse opening her mouth and speaking, the sound man turned around. “Just the person I wanted to see,” said Ivan, not a jot of surprise in his agate eyes.
“What are you doing here?” Mouse was sure he could hear the blood rocketing through her veins. She laughed somewhat hysterically.
“What does it look like?” He slipped an arm around her, rubbed her bare back with his warm, dry palm. She hated this proprietary air of his, also that she liked the feel of his hands on her. She frantically scanned the room for Tony, sure he was lurking about behind the Cape Cod equivalent of a potted palm, steam spewing from his ears, eyes spinning in fury.
“Good news. A network news magazine, L.A. Today, is interested in profiling us. We represent the new breed of independent documentary filmmakers. They want to come on the set of Wedding March.”
“Great.” Just get me out of here, she thought. She dropped her shoes on the floor, fed her feet in awkwardly. Ivan held her
elbow to prevent her from losing her balance. She pulled away, falling off her heel.
“I would like to have them at the wedding shower.”
“Fine, fine. Excuse me, will you excuse me? I’ve got to – the ladies’ room –”
“I can tell them the shower is all right. You don’t need to check with Tony?”
“It’s fine! I said it was fine, didn’t I?”
“See you in the morning, then. Ten o’clock.” The next day Mouse was being fitted for her wedding dress. “Wear something dark, something to represent the empty, searching, and ultimately existential state of the single adult in our society.”
“That’s a lot to expect from a turtleneck,” said Mouse.
He enlisted his flawless teeth in an appreciative smile. “You are funny. Also, beautiful.”
At that moment, Tooty Brass scurried up with a plateful of artfully arranged delicacies from the buffet. “Ivan, I thought, well, in case you’re hungry.” She addressed the plate nervously. “I thought, some caviar, I know how you like the red, then here’s some of that pâté. Do you like pâté? You do like pâté?
“Tooty, have you met Mouse FitzHenry?”
“Oh!” Tooty’s head snapped up. Her overbite adjusted itself into the requisite warm and welcoming smile. She smoothed her blond bob, nervous as a rattler crossing a firing range in broad daylight. “Of course, Arnold’s wife!”
“Tony’s wife, or soon to be. Mouse and I have known each other since college,” said Ivan. “We are making a film together.”
“Of course!” said Tooty. “How wonderful!”
“Excuse me,” said Mouse. She stumbled off in search of a bathroom. She attributed Tooty’s weird jitters to the normal pressure of being a hostess, coupled with feeding the crew of a documentary. Rooms unfolded into rooms. Guest rooms with brass beds painted white to protect them from the sea air. A study lined with first editions, Winslow Homer watercolors cheaply framed, hung at nonchalant angles. Two rail-thin women with swingy shoulder-length blond hair leaned against a wall in a small hallway, their arms folded across their nubby hand-knit crewneck sweaters.
“Is this the bathroom line?” Mouse asked.
Their glances flickered over her. One of them nodded curtly.
“– this is actually three beach houses connected. They had three neighboring houses on the Cape dismantled and shipped across country, board by board.”
“I love it,” said the other woman.
“The walls were painted thirteen times, then wall-papered, then they scraped it off. There’s something je ne sais quoi about a wall that’s had wallpaper scraped off. Gives it such a real feel. And the floors, have you noticed they’re not even? They had them ripped up and relaid off kilter. Tooty didn’t like them flat. That was too California, she said, flat and perfect. Not dilapidated enough.”
“Michael and Tooty are so courageous,” the other woman said, shaking her head in wonder. “So … authentic.”
“Someone said when they finished the remodeling, Michael and Tooty were in France for a few months so they flew her parents out from Boston just to hang out, give it that lived-in feel. Her mother baked and her father smoked his pipe in front of the fire. I don’t think they slept here, though. Tooty didn’t want it that lived-in. Leaving that old-people smell on everything.”
“The mildew is a nice touch, though.”
“I love the mildew.”
“Excuse me,” Mouse said, “are you sure there’s someone in there?”
“I hope not,” said the same woman, who nodded. “It’s a closet. Then to her friend, “All the closets are lined with a special kind of cedar planking you can only find in Shaker farmhouses.”
Meantime, V.J. and Tony had moved on to hard liquor. Ralph and Elaine drifted off to talk to a producer friend of Ralph’s who claimed he knew someone who might be interested in Girls on Gaza.
V.J. introduced Tony to several wonderful girls. Even though they were the small, big-breasted variety Tony liked, they beamed up at him idiotically, their pretty eyes less intelligent than those of that smelly dog of Mimi’s, rendering them utterly undesirable. In a far corner of his mind Tony was beginning to wonder what the devil happened to Mouse, although he was relieved he didn’t have to worry about her embarrassing him in front of V.J. She had undoubtedly found some Ghanian national to chat up, or perhaps a coven of brides-to-be with whom to compare wedding notes. He smiled to himself. Enjoy your exalted prenuptial status while you can, my dear.
One of the bartenders, a fellow Brit, had slipped Tony a bottle of scotch, which Tony had adroitly hidden on a window ledge behind an antique weather vane in the shape of a schooner.
He had seen that business with Ivan. The dumb girl kept forgetting how tall he was. He had seen her, standing there coyly, those black-velvet fuck-me pumps dangling from her hand, Ivan’s paws all over her, whispering in her ear. Perhaps they’d just come from a frolic on the beach, a tryst under the deck, a romp among the elephants. He threw down a slug of scotch. He was a morose, irritable drunk, and because he was, he punished himself by getting drunker, thereby more morose, more irritable.
Besides the upcoming auction and African dance demonstration, the elephants were the main attraction of the fundraiser. There were two of them, male and female, kept in a large pen on the beach. Michael Brass had purchased them from Zimbabwe, and after tonight was donating them to the San Diego Zoo. Two Latino zookeepers in safari suits kept watch over them in the moonlight. Michael Brass encouraged everyone to go out and stroke their tusks. Tony imagined Mouse had been out there stroking Ivan’s tusk! A pang of self-pity and desire shot through his long bones. She didn’t know how lucky she was to have him! He was tall, he was smart, he was English. Well, he would find himself someone willing, someone appreciative. But willing, appreciative girls bored him. Mouse was the one who interested him. He sighed, drained his glass again. He was doomed to be a cuckold. He refilled V.J.’s glass.
“Nobody drinks anymore, you notice?” said V.J. “We do because we’re Kenyans. I’m a Kenyan in spirit. Do I look like a Kenyan to you? In spirit? I got this in Nairobe.” He fingered the fabric of his longhi. “Best days of my life. People there don’t worry about, for example, frequent-flyer programs. I fly all over the goddamn country, they never record it, so I have to go and rustle up the goddamn ticket and copy it and send it to some mysterious fucking PO box and then it takes them nine months to credit my account, you know what I mean?” Under the influence of the scotch, V.J. had lost his Kenyan accent.
“Hmm,” said Tony.
“It’s modern life. I’m not saying people should be hungry, you know I’m not saying that. But hunger is a real thing. You’re worried you’re not going to have enough food. It makes sense. But we have food, so all that energy gets spent worrying about not having our frequent-flyer account credited.”
“Hmm,” said Tony.
“The richest man and the poorest man has the same amount of worry in him. This is what I learned, from Africa and from Hollywood. The richest man, the poorest man, same amount of worry. But the rich man, his worry goes for useless, stupid things. Food is a thing, shelter is a thing, disease is a thing, clothing is a thing. Frequent-flyer programs are not a thing. It makes your soul feel like a used condom tossed out a car window, worrying about your frequent-flyer program. But what am I supposed to do, not worry? Lose all those miles?” V.J. pulled off his skullcap and mopped his forehead miserably. “Don’t get me wrong. I love Hollywood.”
“Speaking of which,” said Tony, “I’ve taken the liberty of dropping the wedding scene. The Tony character and the Mouse character don’t get married in the end.”
“The wedding scene?”
“In the script.”
“Great. Whatever.”
Tony got the distinct impression that V.J. wasn’t sure what he was talking about. He rubbed his upper lip nervously. “Thought you were sort of partial to that scene. Happy ending, all that.”
“You and Ralph
are the artists, old boy. I’m just the facilitator. You want to put in a wedding scene –”
“– I’ve taken it out. The one we’ve had from the first draft. Actually, it was never true anyway. Took a bit of poetic license. It’s the only part of the whole story that was fabricated, I assure you. Mouse and I, we’re actually not even married. In the new ending he finds out she’s been cheating on him and leaves Africa altogether.”
“Terrif. Look, here’s someone from the documentary.” V.J. looked past him, his philosophical ramblings a part of the distant past.
“I’ll have the new draft on your desk Monday, if that’s all right.”
“Maybe they’ll want to do an interview, two mates from Nairobe.”
Tony turned to see Ivan Esparza making his way toward them through the crowd. He slid the bottle back behind the weather vane, slouched against the wall.
“Tony, good to see you, man.”
Tony ignored Ivan’s outstretched hand. “Ivan Esparza, V.J. Parchman.”
“Where are you from?” asked Ivan, staring at V.J.’s hairy bowlegs as they shook hands.
V.J. laughed bitterly. “Pasadena.”
“We’re old friends from Nairobi, V.J. and I. He’s producing a script of mine, provided we get a go from the studio.”
“They say it’s a fantastic place.”
“The studio? We like it.”
“Nairobi. Mouse loved it there.”
“Ah. Mouse.”
“How is your nose? I hope she has talked to you about shooting your sequences.”
Shooting his sequences, indeed! Tony would like nothing better than to take out a row of this jerk’s teeth, but the thought of it made his nose throb. Besides, the New Tony was above that sort of behavior.
“How’s it going? Shooting with Mouse?”