At some point, when telling the tale of a bad marriage, a common practice is to recount some of the good times and then gracefully segue into platitudes about busy lives and best friends who drifted apart but who will still be friends forever. Cass didn’t do that. She told Micah about the crushing humiliation and despair that had plunged her into a pit with no bottom. She also admitted that she had loved her career more than she had ever loved her husband, and he had known it. So in a sense, she had been a cheater, too—just not quite in the same league.
On several occasions Micah opened little exit doors in the conversation to give Cass the opportunity to quit. Cass ignored them. She told Micah the whole truth. She told him things that you only tell a mother—or a guy with a cardigan sweater and a fancy degree hanging on the wall. That’s the kind of power Micah had over her.
Up until the very end, the night had been great. It had started out as a selfish distraction for Cass, and it turned into an unexpected human connection. And who knew what else it might have eventually turned into. But then one of those difficult life-lesson moments popped up, and it happened to be a lesson that Cass hadn’t yet learned. That night the lesson sank in but only after the damage had been done. She learned that there’s a certain responsibility attached to the kind of raw honesty that she and Micah had shared. It’s a responsibility, a trust really, that both parties will protect the deeply personal vulnerabilities that make that kind of honesty possible in the first place. Unfortunately, Cass and her temper violated that trust in the worst way.
The problem started after one of the servers came up to their table and said, “Please forgive me, Miss Moreaux; I don’t mean to be rude, but I have to tell you that when you went on that show, I got really pissed—uh…no offense, Mr. Bailey.” Micah smiled graciously, and the server continued: “I felt like you had sold us out…actors, that is…but after the way you stood up for us in the bar a few weeks ago, I changed my mind. We actually have someone to fight for us now. I’m proud of what you’re doing, and I’m proud to be an actor. OK, that’s it. I just had to tell you.”
She started to leave, but Cass quickly grabbed her hand and said, “Can I ask your name?”
“Almita Deleone.”
“Can I ask you a question, Almita?”
“Yes,” said Almita, nervously.
“What do you think about the feud between me and Brandi?”
“Truthfully, I hope you guys become friends. I know Brandi says things that get her into trouble, but I still hope you become friends. This business is hard enough anyway. Why make it harder with stuff like that?”
“Thank you, Almita. You’ve been very helpful.” After Almita left, Cass turned to Micah and said, “The only problem is Brandi won’t talk to me.”
“How come?” asked Micah.
“I don’t know…she thinks I blacklisted her.”
“Why does she think that?” asked Micah.
“Because she went ape-shit political a few years ago, and I refused to work with her,” said Cass.
“And she got fired,” said Micah.
“Yes.”
Micah looked down at the dessert menu, and Cass wondered if it might not be more of an evasive maneuver than an interest in a hot-fudge brownie. “So what do you think?” asked Cass.
“I think it happened a long time ago, and what’s done is done,” said Micah.
“OK…it happened a long time ago. Now tell me what you think.”
“Cass, you’ve had a rough day. Why not talk about this later?”
“All right, now you’re starting to make me mad,” said Cass.
“OK. I’m just wondering what you would have done if you had liked her politics.”
“Nobody likes her politics! She’s a terrorist with two sticks of dynamite up her ass! And I stood up to her. I stood up for what is right.”
“The substance of Brandi’s politics has absolutely nothing to do with the question of a blacklist,” said Micah. “What matters is whether or not she got punished because of those politics. Look at Joseph McCarthy. He fought against communism, and that’s not such a bad thing, but he still got it completely wrong.”
“Are you comparing me to Joseph McCarthy?” asked Cass.
“You’re missing the point,” said Micah.
“Obviously. What exactly is your point?”
“I’ll say it again. What would you have done if you had liked her politics?” asked Micah.
Cass didn’t say anything, but it didn’t matter because they both knew the answer.
In a calm, quiet voice Micah said, “That’s the essence of a blacklist. Someone doesn’t believe what we want them to believe so we take away their job. And when it comes from someone with power, the results can be devastating. I’m sorry, Cass, but if I didn’t tell you the truth, what kind of friend would I be?”
“Yeah, well, you and truth have a funny kind of relationship, Micah. The only truth you’re interested in is the kind that fits into a narrow little box. Everything else is a lie! And let me ask you this. Where exactly does all the StarBash bullshit fit into this truthful world of yours? Every week you tell fifty million people that actors are less than human and deserve to be treated like shit! Did it ever occur to you that just maybe we are nothing more than the people from your beloved Main Street, USA? We’re good and bad, strong and weak, rich and poor. But for some reason you’ve decided that we don’t fit into that perfect little box of yours!”
“Yes, you might be from Main Street, but not all of Main Street is welcome in Hollywood. That’s one of the main points of the show. But you’re right, Cass. That whole bit is off base. I was trying to be funny. I thought it was just a joke.”
“That’s the problem. You’re so caught up in your little mommy complex and your hatred for Lenora, you can’t tell the difference between what’s funny and what’s not.” Before these stinging words had left Cass’s mouth, she knew she had gone too far.
Micah’s face turned red, and he said, “I’m not your enemy, Cass. We might not always agree, but I’m not your enemy.” Then he got up and left and never came back.
Chapter twelve
Micah slouched in a chair by the bay window in Lenora’s front parlor. He stared at a half-full tumbler of whiskey that rested on the coffee table next to him. He didn’t feel sociable, but he didn’t feel like drinking alone, either. He needed mindless, chirping bodies who knew how to keep their distance. Lenora and her actor friends filled the bill. They sat at a card table across the room.
“What’s with the Boy Scout and the booze?” asked one of the ladies in a whisper that Micah easily heard.
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s working on his single-malt merit badge,” said Lenora.
The ladies laughed. Micah looked up. They looked down at their cards.
None of the ladies came close to Lenora’s stature. And neither had any of the others that had been a part of the group over the years. Lenora carefully chose the planets that orbited her star. And if they didn’t properly reflect her glory, they got the boot.
Micah also chose his friends carefully. He didn’t like sharp tongues. It had been an acquired preference, developed over the last twenty-five years while he worked with the sharpest tongue in Hollywood. He liked debate and sarcasm and repartee because those activities possessed an innate forward-looking quality to them; like a great rally in tennis, you keep hoping the next verbal shot will make it over the net and the rally will continue. When words are respectfully used in this manner, issues can be settled, and great ideas can be cultivated. When words are used as weapons, on the other hand, everything stops, and all that’s left is a crater. Ironically, on several occasions Micah had seen Cass purposefully moderate her speech when many others in the same situation would have resorted to verbal carpet-bombing. It had been one of the things he liked about Cass. Now he didn’t know what to think.
His own actions with Cass that night also confused him. He’d never bee
n the type to bail over a few ruffled feathers. He and Lenora used to stand toe to toe for twenty or thirty minutes at a time. While everyone else on set had died at the mere sight of their historic confrontations, Micah treated it like just another day at the office. Obviously, Cass had hit a sore spot on him.
“You know, Lenora, if you get bored with your toy, I wouldn’t mind borrowing him for a while,” said one of the ladies.
“Take him, please, but I have to warn you, he’s got a mouth on him,” said Lenora.
“I don’t mind. Jerome hasn’t said a word in ten years. It would be a nice change.”
Micah downed the drink and poured himself another.
***
Cass didn’t need a moment of self-contemplation. She knew exactly what had happened. Micah, a man that she had come to respect, had told her the truth, and she didn’t want to hear it. Big-mouth Brandi Bonacore had always been easy to ignore and posed no threat at all. Honest, reasonable Micah Bailey, on the other hand, posed a threat to everything Cass had been saying for the last three years. So Cass went nuclear. She shattered the mirror rather than look honestly at the person it reflected.
She sent Micah an apology before even leaving the restaurant. He answered right back but not in the way she had hoped he would. He asked a simple question about the argument that had led up to her cruel outburst but didn’t say a word about the outburst itself. Then he signed off with a lukewarm cliché about friendship. He didn’t reveal any resentment or hurt feelings. If anything, the message had the sound of a Dear Jane letter to it, like Micah had taken a step back. Cass couldn’t say that she blamed him.
And the question he asked, gentle as usual, hit home like a warhead. He said, “You obviously love Hollywood very much, which means you want only the best for it. Let me ask you this question: Will Hollywood be a better place if people like Brandi are banned from participation?”
As soon as Cass read the question, three words popped into her head: whole human experience. And she knew the answer. It all boiled down to those three words, words that represented the noblest contribution that Hollywood had ever or would ever make to the world: its relentless pursuit of the whole human experience. Like painting the Golden Gate Bridge, the pursuit of this prize never ended because the human experience never stopped changing, but that didn’t matter in the least. The pursuit itself was the prize. And it belonged to everyone, paid out every time we went to the movies and got carried away because we saw some part of ourselves in that movie. And the reason we saw ourselves was because we are part of the human experience that Hollywood had faithfully captured and added to its dynamic catalog. Hollywood also benefited from this endeavor because it meant that instead of just a handful of potential stories to tell, it had millions, including the story of you, of me, and of the villager half a world away who lived a fascinating existence that would never be shared if not for Hollywood’s honorable passion.
But how could Hollywood ever hope to capture the whole human experience if it pretended that vast segments of the human experience didn’t even exist? Such myopic exclusion didn’t amount to anything “whole.” It amounted to a skewed sampling that insidiously chipped away, little by little, at the humanity that made movies so magical. If left uncorrected, eventually every production ran the risk of at least a slight taint, not necessarily because of malice but simply because it had been generated from a system that had replaced the whole human experience with an ideological imposter. The results might be artistic but wouldn’t be pure, just as propaganda can be artistic but will always be tilted in a way that favors ideology over purity.
Cass saw it clearer than ever. Hollywood needed the Brandi Bonacores of the world. It needed Walter the prickly bar manager and Elmer the backwoods skinflint. It needed sophisticates and potato farmers, intellectuals and factory workers, bog hoppers and subway riders. It needed everyone.
Unfortunately, this sanitary, philosophical revelation contained an ugly omission that now stared at Cass like a mugger: it didn’t address the very gritty issue of her guilt, a guilt about which she no longer had any doubt. She had destroyed Brandi’s life. And she had done it just because she didn’t like what Brandi believed. This knowledge hit Cass like a slug in the gut. She didn’t know where to even begin coming to terms with it.
It had been a difficult last few days and much of the difficulty had been of Cass’s own making. She had honestly begun to wonder if she even still had the ability to make a single right decision.
***
Micah stood unsteadily at the door and knocked. Lenora answered from the other side and told him to put the tray on the coffee table. Micah wobbled forward and deposited it in its usual spot, but not before spilling half the drink. He giggled and wiped away the evidence. The sound of Lenora pounding away on her computer keyboard echoed from the nearby office. Focused, determined, and always pounding. Unless she got interrupted. Micah poked his head into the doorway and called out her name. She didn’t answer. He called her name again. This time she said, “What?”
“Please pardon my phraseology,” slurred Micah, “but will you kindly tell me exactly what floats your boat? And please keep it short as I do not believe I shall be standing in the very near future. Thank you.”
Lenora’s head slumped forward, and she let out a frustrated sigh. She swiveled around, removed her reading glasses, and said, “This is what happens when you drink too much.”
“Specifa…specifa…specifically, I need to know what you care about…besides the museum,” said Micah.
“I see,” said Lenora, with a frown. She continued: “Micah, if you waste all your time thinking about the things you can’t have, you’ll never get the things you can have. You’re a successful man. Isn’t that worth something to you?”
“Thank you. I’ve been told that a successful man is better than an unsuccessful man but nevertheless, madam, I do not believe you have answered the question,” said Micah with a prosecutorial flourish.
“You know the answer,” said Lenora. “It has never changed, and it never will. I care about my next project. And the one after that. And the one after that. Everything else is a distraction.”
“Even a successful man?” asked Micah.
Lenora looked Micah dead in the eyes and said, “It depends on whether he’s part of the project or not.”
“I rest my case, Your Honor,” said Micah. He then navigated his way out of the spinning room.
***
The next morning Micah informed Lenora that StarBash had finished its run; there would not be a season five because he planned to kill it. Lenora simply shrugged and said that maybe Micah had been right all along. With the opening of the museum, maybe it didn’t make sense to spread themselves too thin. Then she told him that she had booked him a flight to Florida to check out the 1926 Hudson from The Grapes of Wrath, if he didn’t mind.
The Hudson sounded great…until he thought about it for maybe one second. Since when did Lenora care at all about the car museum? And when did she ever, in all her regimented discipline, leave money on the table? The ratings for StarBash still hadn’t peaked. That cow still had piles of cash left in her, and Lenora had just shrugged. And, finally, why hadn’t she exploded and let loose with the famous ranting, threatening Lenora Danmore diatribe? The whole conversation didn’t make sense.
Chapter thirteen
On Tuesday morning, June 3, the day before the StarBash grand finale, the intercom buzzed in Lenora’s office on the second floor of the museum. The voice in the box informed Lenora that the guard at the front gate had detained a private detective who said he had an appointment to see Cassandra Moreaux.
Lenora had been expecting something like this. She said, “Let him pass.”
She then took the elevator down to a special exhibit. While the presence of a private detective snooping around the ranch might not have sounded like the best news, it had at least given Lenora a warning and an opportunity to select the battleground w
here the first skirmish with Cassandra Moreaux would soon play out.
***
After a visit that lasted less than five minutes, Cass said goodbye to the detective, closed the trailer door, and stared at the envelope he had left behind. It said, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Record/Information Dissemination Section. The detective had already seen the contents of the envelope and had insisted on hand delivering them to her. He didn’t feel comfortable mailing them and especially not emailing them.
Cass had been in this spot three times before, and it had always ended with failure and a dead end. She told herself not to let the detective’s ominous behavior get her hopes up, but it didn’t work. This time had to be different, she just knew it. She pulled the contents from the envelope and found a copy of her original FOIA request along with a case report from 1952 that included copies of an original, handwritten form and two pages of typed notes. This was definitely different from the other times. This was something. It looked like Cass had finally figured out the secret password: Karolina Anna Wojtkowiak.
She eased into the swivel chair by the front door and began reading.
***
While Lenora waited, she surveyed the progress on her latest interactive creation. A single overhead work light illuminated the set, which stood about half-complete. The clipboard in her hand contained a long fix-it list for the crew that would be in later that day. Lenora quickly scribbled out another item for the list. The emergency exit, which she had purposely left ajar, suddenly opened, and bright light spilled into the exhibit. A dark silhouette flowed in with the floating particles of dust and light. The door closed, the blinding light subsided, and the silhouette gained an identity. It was Cassandra Moreaux, right on time.
Death of a Movie Star Page 11