by Karen Karbo
A sob escaped from Tooty’s throat.
“Think of it like Benazir Bhutto and Mr. Bhutto,” said Mouse.
“What are you talking about? Ivan, what is she talking about?” Tooty dabbed at her eyes with her fingers.
Ivan got up and went to where Tooty sat across the tiny table. She wrapped her arms around his thighs, buried her face in his groin. Ivan stroked her head. Mouse dropped a dollop of invisible mashed potatoes on her tongue and stuck it out at them. Ivan caught her. He smiled his slouching half-smile and winked. Mimi was wrong. Ivan didn’t have the soul of a felon; he had the soul of Lucifer. He was recording all of this.
24
IN APRIL THE CITY SUFFERED A HEAT WAVE SO FIERCE people thought spray deodorant had finally done in the ozone layer. It was a hundred and four degrees at noon, at midnight, eighty-five. The evening news opened with the latest weather report, bumped from its normal back-of-the-bus position after sports. Records were broken in both humidity and bad air quality. The favorite excuse of the optimistic, “at least it’s a dry heat,” expired on damp lips. Smog sealed sweat into people’s pores, then laid on a coat of grit for good measure. Even at the beach and high up in the Hollywood Hills it seemed as if the earth had abandoned its orbit, leaving Los Angeles stranded under its own foul, toast-tinted sky.
Mimi walked through the parking lot of Valley College, the first chapter of her blockbuster in a manila folder under her arm. Already the folder was turning to mush where she gripped it in her sweaty hand. Her blond curls were sticky with melted setting gel. She passed three boys on bikes peddling lazily between parked cars, gouging the doors with keys from their bicycle locks. She thought she should tell them to stop, threaten to call the cops, but she was too hot and nervous to speak.
The chapter was the product of Mimi’s recent great revelation, which, like most great revelations, had been inspired by nothing and everything. It occurred at work, in the ladies’ room, the day after Mouse dropped the bomb about Ralph and Elaine, while Mimi was purging her lunch: bacon-bleu cheeseburger, steak fries, mocha milk shake, wedge of Kahlua cheese cake, bag of Sugar Babies.
It was not just Mouse’s news about Elaine’s pregnancy that had done it. Nor was it Ralph’s using her “sweet cheeks” slip-up at Bibliothèques as an excuse to snub her, saving him from having to tell her they were finished. Nor was it that after Ralph had snubbed her, he hadn’t had the guts to call to see why she’d missed three weeks of How to Write a Blockbuster, like a good instructor should. Nor was it that after all this he then had the nerve to phone late one night, skunk drunk at a baseball game, asking would she be up later. Could he just stop by? He missed her, he said, missed the fun they used to have. What fun? He complained, she listened, they screwed, roll credits.
It was not just that Alyssia, her fellow drudge, bee-stung lips, twenty years old, Yale grad, was promoted to assistant. Nor that Alyssia now had a real office with a real chair and had to answer the phones only when the secretary was away from her desk. Nor that until the new secretary was hired, Mimi would slave for both Solly and Alyssia’s boss, Thaddeus Herman.
It was not that she was thirty-six going on thirty-seven and still had to rely on money from her mother to help pay her bills.
It was not that her little sister was getting married.
It was all of these things coupled with what had happened that very morning. Mimi had kitchen duty that week, which meant sprinting between her desk and the kitchen, making sure the glasses and coffee cups left on the counter all morning long by the agents and assistants were rinsed, dried, put away in their proper places. The president of Talent and Artists had a fetish for a clean kitchen, and more than one drudge had lost her job when too many cups were allowed to pile up in the sink.
All four of Solly’s lines were ringing at once. Mimi tore from the kitchen to her desk, wiping her hands on her skirt.
“SollyStein’soffice … He’s out at a meeting, may I leave word?”
“SollyStein’soffice … Mom, hi, it’s a madhouse here lemme call you back.”
“SollyStein’soffice.”
“Bob Hope calling for Solly, please.”
“Solly’s out at a meeting, may I leave word?”
“Please, He can reach me at home after seven.”
‘’I’ll tell him.”
She hung up.
She stared at the poster over her desk. Bob Hope! Her salvation! Bob Hope! Her ace in the hole! Bob Hope had called her office! She had him right there on the phone, right there on the other end of the line. And she had done nothing.
After she finished disposing of her burger, fries, shake, cheesecake, and Sugar Babies, she brushed her teeth. Bob Hope right there on the line. She had done nothing. She was all show and no go. She spat into the sink, wiped her mouth with a scratchy paper towel. She had done nothing. She was almost thirty-seven years old. If she didn’t do something soon, she would be an old lady, bent over some public john in a dress that looked like upholstery, ridding her shriveled self of a box of chocolate-covered cherries or some other old-lady candy. Her hair would be short and brown by then, if not gray. Miniskirts would be ancient history. She would be single, childless. She would have done nothing.
She started her blockbuster that night after work. It was all she could think to do. If she hustled she could get the first chapter done by the last night of class, the same night as Mouse and Tony’s shower up at the Big House.
When she got to class Ralph was at the front of the room, deep in conversation with Lex Waldorf, their special guest for the evening. Mimi had forgotten about the long-promised special guest. Lex was a New York literary agent who specialized in blockbusters. He had a full head of graying black hair, a slim waist, a gold watch. He was easily thirty-five, if not thirty. She thought she heard Ralph pitching him Girls on Gaza.
Ralph introduced Lex, reeled off the mountainous sums he was famous for wrangling out of publishers. Lex would entertain questions after the break. He sat on the sidelines in one of the orange plastic chairs, occasionally taking a call on his portable phone.
In the meantime, Ralph wondered, did anyone have any new material? He sat on the edge of a graffiti-scarred table at the front of the classroom, swinging his legs. The sweat ran down the sides of his face, darkened the armpits of his Hawaiian shirt, the band of his baseball cap. He took no special notice of Mimi. She was grateful. If he had been the teeniest bit decent she would have lost her nerve. She raised her hand.
“Well, well, well,” said Ralph. “We thought you’d flaked out on us.”
“I didn’t have time to make copies for the class. So I thought I’d just read.”
Ralph made a point of looking at his watch. “I presume you don’t have too much.”
“Enough,” she said, handing him his copy.
“We’re all ears,” sighed Ralph.
“It was a crystal clear blue Los Angeles day when Rolf Hollandaise got into his gray metallic Mercedes Coupe with CD player and two cellular phones (in case his passenger, usually the long-legged blond fiber artist with the big bazooms, also the most powerful talent agent in the city, Mina FitzHugh, also needed to call someone powerful and famous) and roared merrily out of the driveway of his twenty-five-thousand-square-feet multimillion-dollar Beverly Hills estate with twelve bedrooms, each done in a different Ralph Lauren motif, and a bowling alley in the basement.
“Rolf was neither tall nor short, fat nor thin, blond nor brunette, handsome nor ugly, but every woman who ever met him harbored a deep and burning lust for him the instant she laid eyes on him. In fact, Rolf looked not so much like a talented, powerful, and famous film director, but a three-day-old baby. Even so, he had mesmerizing aquamarine eyes that drove women with big tits mad.
“Rolf was headed that bright crisp sunny day to meet Mina for a Talk. She was the one who had asked for it, begged for it, moaned for it. The last time they made burning and fantastic love while Mina, with her smooth long legs and blond shiny hair, was handcu
ffed to her six-thousand-dollar antique brass bed made up with Laura Ashley no-iron two-hundred-thread-count sheets of beautiful hundred-percent cotton, and wearing an ET mask, she had rasped hoarsely, ‘Rolf, please, we need to talk.’
“Rolf Hollandaise did not like to talk. Talking, about anything, reminded him of his dark and dirty secret, of which he was so ashamed. It reminded of his poverty, his musty one-room apartment filled with nothing but – just to think of it made his smooth yet manly complexion blush crimson red – books. Yes, books. For before Rolf skyrocketed to fame and fortune he had been the lowest of the low, an adjunct professor of English. Rolf would rather have a barium enema than a Talk. He would rather flash his mesmerizing aquamarine eyes. He would rather have a passionate and wild affair with a firm-flanked thirty-two-D-cup blond or make a sensational and magnificent box office smash. Talk was what had queered it with his wife, Ellen Hollandaise.
“When he had met Ellen she was a blond with knockers the size of cantaloupes and mute from having witnessed a burglar, who had broken into her eleven-thousand-square-feet multimillion-dollar Holmby Hills estate, accidentally drop her mother’s dazzling diamond and ruby collection down the sewer gate just outside the driveway while making his escape. In other words, Ellen had been perfect. Then she let her sensational flowing blond hair return to its blecchy natural brunette, stopped her weekly silicone injections, and, through the help of five-days-a-week one-hundred-fifty-dollar-an-hour therapy, learned to speak. Now she was one of the most famous talk-show radio hosts in the city.
“Mina FitzHugh’s office was in the penthouse of the most beautiful skyscraper on Sunset Boulevard. It overlooked all of Los Angeles, all the way to the peaceful blue Pacific Ocean. Her office was decorated in peach, with black leather furnishings from Conran’s, four Andy Warhols on the wall. She made her multimillion-dollar deals from a huge and magnificent leather chair behind a thirteen-thousand-dollar oak desk. Mina was not only a talented talent agent and fiber artist, she also had a monster trust fund. She would never have to work another day in her life if she didn’t want to.
“‘Mr. Hollandaise is here,’ said Solly Seinberg humbly. Solly Seinberg was Mina’s secretary and occasional love slave. He was five foot six, weighed two hundred fourteen pounds, and had brown hair and brown eyes. He sat outside her office on a tiny steno chair that did nothing to support his wide toaster butt. He was miserable from the moment he walked in at nine-thirty every morning until he left at seven o’clock every night, and would have it no other way. For Solly Seinberg adored Mina and would gladly suffer anything just to be near her and her perky bazoombas.
“‘Send him in,’ commanded Mina, eager with lively anticipation.
“Rolf strode in, wearing his seventeen-hundred-dollar lizard skin cowboy boots and tight Calvin Klein jeans that made it look like he packed a bucket of golf balls between his legs. She looked up at him and was lost in his mesmerizing aquamarine eyes. Could she do it? Yes, she could. Even though she was a luscious blond with a cute turned-up nose, cornflower-blue eyes, and a sensational body (39-23-35), she was made of steel. Rolf could not get away with this. Even if he was the most talented, the most powerful, the most famous director in Hollywood. Even if his latest movie, Speculum!, was making them both millions. For yes, Mina FitzHugh was also Rolf’s agent. She could make him or break him with a sweep of her elegantly manicured hand.
“I ran into your wife,’ purred Mina gruffly. ‘At the Beverly Center.’
“‘Grrrrr,’ grumbled Rolf sexily. He came around behind Mina’s chair and laid a suntanned hand upon her Evan Picone silk shirt-covered boob. ‘Let’s not talk about her.’
“‘She’s pregnant,’ Mina barked angrily. ‘You said you weren’t sleeping together.’
“‘Honey, oh baby,’ added Rolf, fumbling lustily with her top button. They had had many juicy adventures right here in Mina’s palatial office on the genuine Tibetan wool carpet handwoven of high-quality five-ply yarn, and Rolf was looking forward to one today. Maybe Solly with the big doughy tush would join them.
“‘Rolf,’ she yelled crossly but not unsexily.
“‘Yes?’ Solly Seinberg poked his head in.
“‘Not you. Hold my calls. Call Dustin Hoffman and cancel my lunch.’
“‘Of course,’ mumbled Solly humbly, slinking away.
“‘Weren’t you seeing Hoffman about Girls on Gaza?’ Rolf inquired seriously. He sat down across from her. No mind-boggling and luscious sex until this talk was over, Rolf realized glumly. Girls on Gaza was his most precious and magnificent project, a musical about a troupe of Las Vegas dancers stuck in the Green Zone. But even though he was the most powerful, the most famous, the richest director in Hollywood, no one would touch it. It was a stinkerooni.
“‘I’m not seeing anyone on your behalf until you tell me what is going on. She was buying out Baby Guess? when I saw her. She had just spent over a thousand dollars on crocheted hats. You said you weren’t sleeping with her. You said you were getting a divorce.’
“Rolf paled handsomely. He’d thought Ellen was pregnant. He’d caught her throwing up four times last week, once in the ninety-five-dollar-an-ounce Beluga caviar at a brunch they’d given for the Reagans. Also, on their seven-thousand-dollar Arts and Crafts-style sofa, which you used to be able to pick up at any Pasadena antique shop for a song until Barbra Streisand started collecting it. ‘I am getting a divorce,’ he lied easily. ‘We just haven’t firmed up the details yet.’
“‘Ellen said you were thrilled about the baby.’
“‘Ellen is a lying bitch,’ he breathed furiously, ‘and … and a brunette.’
“How can you say that about the mother of your child? You are true sleazoid. I’m calling every executive, every producer, every director, every story editor, every secretary in this town and telling them that Girls on Gaza is the most overreaching, the most hopeless, the most pedantic and silly piece of crap ever written, and that you are a worthless, overrated hack. That if I were them I wouldn’t let you direct traffic, much less a forty-five-million-dollar musical set in Beirut. And I’ll get Solly on it too. You think just because he’s an assistant he doesn’t have any power, but he’ll spread the word, too. He talks to more people than I do. He’ll let everyone know the truth about you. That you’re a beast to work with. That you go over budget. That you’re a closet smart person. You’ll never work in this town again .…’
The room was bursting with horrified silence. What is this? they wondered. Had this girl gone mad? Had she really been having an affair with Mr. Holladay? Was his wife really pregnant?
She has. She has. She is.
Mimi didn’t care if Ralph never spoke to her again. She’d given up trying to be modern and liberal, at least with men. She agreed with Rolf Hollandaise: talk was a waste.
She had never had a better time in school, except the student-faculty softball game in sixth grade, where she struck out Mrs. Sword, who’d written on Mimi’s report card under Comments that she would not be surprised if Mimi was knocked up before she got to high school.
She stared up at Ralph innocently. The table squeaked as he swung his legs. He gripped the edge beside his knees, the color gone from his knuckles.
Lex Waldorf stopped taking phone calls.
There was the usual minute of self-conscious silence, while people battled with themselves over whether they should be the first to speak. Ralph, who usually ended up demanding, “Well, people?” to get the discussion started, said nothing.
“I would like to know, how is Solly Seinberg her love slave. You don’t really go into that,” said Poor Peg. “The ET mask was really a nice touch, though.”
“And how you say he looks like a baby, then you say he has a manly complexion,” said someone else. “Which is he, baby or man?”
“Good question,” said Mimi.
“What’s this fiber artist business?” asked one long-faced guy with two missing fingers and an East Coast accent. “It’s a rather abstruse notion. An
d we never see any of her work.”
“If you can use abstruse in a sentence I don’t know what you’re doing trying to write blockbusters,” said Mimi. She heard a rich, unfamiliar laugh from the other side of the room. Lex Waldorf. Glancing nervously in his direction, she was stunned to see him give her the thumbs-up sign.
Ralph swung his legs. Up and down they went, like some demented person on a swing. His baby eyes were flat with rage. His lips bloodless and gray, like two dead fingers.
Mimi saw that the class was not about to let on. They were going to behave like a group of Vacation Bible Schoolers on an outing at the beach, ignoring the couple having intercourse on the towel next to them. They were going to pretend this was just your everyday blockbuster.
They weren’t going to giggle, they weren’t going to say “Yo, Rolf, I mean Ralph, hubba hubba, what a guy.” And Ralph, a prick, but no dummy, figured this out.
“The writing is serviceable,” he said, “but I question the execution.”
I’ll execute you, Mimi thought.
“I also have trouble with the section where Rolf promises Mina he would no longer sleep with his wife,” he said, patting the top of the clean white pages of manuscript. “No man would actually say that. Mina might have read that into something he said, but she has no right to be angry with him for having a child with his own wife.”
“He said it,” Mimi said. “Mina is a literalist with a photographic memory, like my sister, who I patterned her after.”
“Whom you patterned her after. Anyway, in the future, when you write about male characters, try to put yourself in a man’s place. Think. If you were married to an intelligent, stable woman, and were having sex on the side with some amusing twit, would you make that kind of rash statement?”
“Mina is not an amusing twit,” Mimi cried. “She’s a fiber artist and talent agent.”
“Just answer my question. Isn’t it preposterous for a man to promise some twit he won’t sleep with his own wife?”