“An attitude, nothing more. At least nothing I know about. It’s as if they … shared … something nobody knows about. I must be certifiable, unbalanced, ready to be removed by little men in white to even dignify it by bringing it up. What’s more, it’s none of my fucking business.”
“You take the high road, I’ll take the low road,” Dolly said, almost bouncing as she leaned forward in eager interest. “Gigi and Spider? Well, it wouldn’t be impossible, would it? He’s a man, she’s a woman, that gives them something to work on right there.”
“Dolly, you’re disgusting.”
“I’m realistic, and realistic is often disgusting. He’s free, she’s free, she’s his type, he’s every woman’s type—”
“What do you mean, ‘she’s his type’?”
Dolly looked at Billy as if she were simple-minded.
“Red hair, green eyes, small bones, slightly pixified, full of adorable impertinence—like Valentine.”
“But Gigi dyes her hair!” Billy cried in outrage.
“Right, like I’m not a natural blonde, so how can I be thought of as one of the all-time ultimate blondes from here to Tibet?”
“ ‘Like Valentine,’ ” Billy said slowly. “It never occurred to me. Valentine was unique—so French …”
“Half-Irish, like Gigi, if you’re going to count country of origin. Gigi’s mother was Irish and so was Valentine’s father. Irish genes are potent stuff.”
“Dolly? Do you really see a resemblance?”
“Enough of one for his subconscious to latch onto it,” Dolly replied.
“That bloody, bloody subconscious stuff again, I’ve never been any good at it,” Billy said ferociously. “It’s done nothing but get me into trouble all my life. Nobody really knows what goes on in there, how it works, it could be just a lot of imagination! The whole thing should be abolished!”
“Even you, Billy hon, can’t do anything about it.”
“Well, as I said, it’s none of my business.”
“Of course not,” Dolly agreed. “Just because Gigi’s something sort of like, but not exactly like, your own kid, and Spider, well, he’s your business partner, for one thing, and he’s the best male friend you’ve ever had, and you’ve been working closely together for longer than I’ve known either of you—”
“Dolly, you’ve made your point. Get off it!”
“Okay.” She’d get off it, Dolly thought, but she hadn’t made her point. She hadn’t come close. Billy was even worse than she’d realized at the subconscious stuff.
Was her father listening to her at all, Gigi wondered, or was he just responding to her words automatically, according to his notion of how a man should behave with a daughter? Vito’s responses, all through dinner, had been intelligent and comprehending as she told him details of her own work and described the rapid progress that was being made on the catalog, but there hadn’t been one instant in which she’d been able to see an unmistakable flicker of real concentration or interest behind his eyes. He was listening, she decided, but with half a brain, certainly not well enough to conceal from her that he was deeply worried. And with him, what else was there to worry about but the film business?
The two of them had met for one other dinner like this in the last few months, now that they were both back in California, and Vito had not been entirely there for that one either. He talked a good game, Gigi thought, as she considered him closely over her coffee cup, and he looked a good game, he’d retained his physical authority, with that flashing commander-in-chief aura she remembered so well from every rare childhood encounter. Right now, if he had happened to be talking business, no one would be able to discern that he was uneasy and preoccupied, Gigi decided, but as she rattled on, keeping him up to date on Sasha’s wedding plans, his attention wandered and he let his guard down far enough for her to see that all was far from well with him.
She felt curiously protective of her father, Gigi realized, watching his preoccupation. He didn’t deserve it, that was for damn sure, and there was no reason for her to have much feeling for a man who had taken almost no interest in her life, but nevertheless protective was the only word she could find to describe her emotions. She wished she could do something to help him with whatever was bothering him, but when she questioned him, he assured her that getting Fair Play into a studio schedule was no more than the usual hassle it always had been on every film he’d ever produced.
As she observed Vito so essentially detached and remote, in spite of his approximation of a paternal figure, Gigi was seized by an irresistible impulse to talk about Zach Nevsky to the one person she was sure wouldn’t take an interest in him. Sasha and she avoided the subject by tacit agreement, and Billy knew nothing about him. But talking to Vito right now would be like talking to an echo chamber.
“In New York I met some theater people,” she said, as a pause developed in the wedding conversation.
“Anybody I know?”
“Nick De Salvo?”
“He’s not a theater person, he’s a movie actor. From what I’ve seen of him on film, that guy’s going all the way,” Vito said.
“Nick happened to be in New York because he was playing Hamlet Off Broadway for Sasha’s brother, Zach Nevsky.” As she said Zach’s name, Gigi felt a trembling awareness of stepping into a forbidden zone, a perilous place where she could only come to grief, yet there was a terrible sweetness of surrender in just uttering his name that she couldn’t deny herself in spite of what Zach had done to her.
“I read the reviews. Amazing coverage for a practically nonprofit venture like Off Broadway. I guess having Nick De Salvo in it accounted for its being such a giant success,” Vito responded judiciously. “How did you get mixed up with those wide-eyed idealists? Through Sasha?”
“Exactly. Do you really think that they’re just naïve idealists? Isn’t there a future for a director like Zach? Every review gave him the credit, they all called him extraordinary, they all mentioned his vision and daring.” Gigi tried to speak dispassionately, despite the thumping of her heart. “The consensus was that Zach’s far and away the most exciting and innovative of the young new theater directors—at least that’s what they said—I’m no judge.”
“Look, Gigi, this Zach Nevsky can be all of those things and more, but what good will it do him? Off Broadway? Come on, use your head. It’s hopeless financially, and getting more hopeless every year. Unless he’s making movies, he’s never going to find a big enough audience to make an impact.”
“But couldn’t Zach be another Joseph Papp? I know that’s what Sasha is hoping for, that one day Zach Nevsky will mean as much to theater as Papp does.”
“There’s only room for one Papp,” Vito pronounced. “How well did you get to know De Salvo?”
“Not well, but he was awfully sweet. I met him that weekend I broke my leg. He’s Zach’s oldest friend.”
“If he’s a friend, he should tell Zach Nevsky to leave Off Broadway and come on out here and learn the difference between a grip and a gaffer,” Vito said indifferently, not hearing Gigi’s sudden, oddly irrelevant little sigh.
He’d been kept dangling by Arvey since before Christmas, Vito thought as he talked to Gigi, and now it was April, four months later. They were no closer to an agreement than they’d been at any time, and yet their negotiations had not yet broken down. If another studio in town had been interested, he’d have taken the project away from Arvey immediately, but everyone had passed on Fair Play.
Vito had met with the heads of all the studios and each one of them had assured him that they personally had taken the time to read the coverage of Fair Play that had come in from their readers. The notion that they might have actually read the original material themselves was something so out of the question that it never entered their minds or Vito’s expectations. Their readers’ opinions were based on a three- or four-sentence “log line” summary of the plot, several pages of detailed analysis of the story, a character breakdown, and a final recomm
endation.
The recommendations had all been variations on the same theme: the book was a gem, a rare treat, a joy to read, its bestseller status was entirely understandable. But as a film? Commercially? No. It had too many negatives. It was not recommended. There was nothing in it, absolutely nothing, that would appeal to the young audience that kept them in business. As far as the adult audience was concerned, from whom unexpected support could come when a movie was made that appealed to them, not again. A qualified but definite no. Too risky. Far from a sure thing. The two main characters were just a shade too British, too completely embedded in the British class structure, not people who belonged in a contemporary Noel Coward romp on one hand, nor as powerfully wrong for each other as those in Sunday, Bloody Sunday, on the other. No, regretfully, no.
Only Curt Arvey hadn’t turned him down. Only Curt Arvey could see the potential in the project, but he wanted Vito to make the film at the unrealizably low price of seven million dollars. “You brought in Mirrors at two million two, Vito, seven million is more than three times that,” Arvey said stubbornly, not willing to give in an inch on the fact that every single cost of making a film had gone up enormously in the last four years. He discounted entirely the indisputable record that Vito had worked a one-time-only miracle in obtaining the cut-rate services of a great scriptwriter, a superb director and a legendary cameraman for Mirrors by collecting on long-due favors and giving away chunks of his share of the profits. Most important of all, Vito had not used a single star in his Oscar-winning picture. To make Fair Play work, two stars were vital. There was no reasonable or even rational chance that Vito could pull it off with unknown actors; eleven million dollars was the minimum the picture had to cost. With no room for error. And at that it would still be a low-budget picture for 1982.
He had not used his last card, Vito thought, he had not asked Susan to help him. They were locked in the grip of a passion so complicated, so grave, so far beyond anything that either of them had expected in the beginning, that it transcended Vito’s grasp. Susan and he were equally matched; every time they met she fought him to a draw and left him more in her thrall than ever. Yet she never refused any of his demands, never said enough. They wanted each other endlessly. The more they had each other, the more they craved. But their connection had turned into something that was no longer only sexual. It now involved Vito in his deepest sense of himself, in his very identity. He was sure of only one thing; if he asked Susan for help, whether she gave it to him or not, their merciless, miraculous, absolutely necessary adventure would end and he would forever think of himself as a defeated man. His back was to the wall, he was living on credit and a loan from Fifi Hill.
“Gigi,” he said, taking a difficult breath, “there’s something you could do for me … you asked me about Fair Play earlier. I haven’t wanted to tell you what the problem is, but in fact Curt Arvey is being completely unreasonable about the budget. We’re only four million dollars apart, but it might as well be forty. Susan Arvey owns stock in Arvey’s studio. That means that she’s more than just his wife, she has real power. As it happens, Billy is probably the only woman in this town who has influence with Susan. I know how close you and Billy are. If … if Billy could put in a good word with Susan, if she could say how much she thinks of the project, it might move things along.”
“I could certainly try,” Gigi said slowly. “The worst that could happen is that she’d say no.”
“I know I have no right to ask you …”
“Don’t say that,” Gigi protested. “It’s not a big deal. I’m glad you asked. I know Billy’s read the book and I know she loved it. I’m having lunch with her on Sunday, the day after tomorrow, and I’ll speak to her then. I just don’t know … well, I have no idea if … I mean, what Billy would be willing to do for you.”
“Thank you, Gigi,” Vito said, smiling. “I appreciate it.”
It’s not a question of what she’s willing to do for me, he thought, it’s what she’s willing to do for you.
“Do you remember the first time we ate here, four years ago?” Billy asked Gigi as they sat at the table on the terrace. “I’ll never forget how amazed you were that people lived like this.”
“I managed to get used to it,” Gigi said reflectively, vividly remembering her first impressions of that day, yet unable to fit herself into an ever dimmer, almost unrecognizable mental picture she had of the girl to whom it had all happened. “Still, every time I’m back, I’m stunned all over again. The gardens … they’re so wonderful with all the roses starting to bloom.”
“I know—it’s frustrating just seeing them in the morning as I go to the office. I’ve started to get up an hour earlier so I have time to wander around and notice what’s happening—by the time I get home it’s too dark. I’m missing this whole springtime, but it’s my own fault, I listened to Spider Elliott. I should know by now that he can talk me into anything.”
“Billy? You’re not sorry about doing the catalog? You’re not having second thoughts, are you?” Gigi asked. “We’re far past the point of no return now.”
“No, not second thoughts. I just didn’t realize how all-consuming it would be, how exciting, how … almost frightening. A store, even a number of stores, was bite-sized, essentially known territory, something I was sure I could handle, but this is different.” Billy shook her head ruefully. She looked too thin, Gigi thought, tense, even nervous, although Billy had made an effort to look relaxed, wearing white linen trousers and an oversized white turtleneck from which her dark, casually curly head rose on her long neck in the offhandedly queenly manner she always presented to the world.
“The catalog means going public such a different way than a store,” Billy continued. “It reflects its creators, puts their taste on the line. Last night I woke up at three. I’d had a nightmare that the whole thing flopped and I was a laughingstock. Laughingstock. I’ve been haunted all my life by that possibility. Naturally I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I read till morning.”
“I wake up in a cold sweat,” Gigi said, “wondering if anybody is going to buy antique lingerie from my copy and sketches—how do I even know if sketches will work when the rest of the catalog is photos?”
“Do you stay up all night the way I do?”
“I tell myself that if it doesn’t work, I can always go back to cooking,” Gigi admitted. “I try to remember very complicated French recipes, and by the time I get to the fifth or sixth ingredient, I’m dead to the world.”
“I wonder if Spider suffers from middle-of-the-night catalog anxiety attacks?” Billy asked.
“I don’t know, he’s never mentioned it.”
“Then I guess that means he doesn’t. That’s typical. ‘Who, me, worry?’ ” Billy said astringently.
“Maybe he’s just as worked up as we are, but won’t admit it. After all, I’m not the final authority on Spider.”
“As a matter of fact, Gigi, I rather think you are,” Billy said, her tone evenly pitched on the clear borderline between a joke and an unimportant speculation.
“What makes you say that?” Gigi asked, struck by Billy’s strange words. She suddenly shifted in her chair so that she faced Billy directly, her hair swinging away from her face with the abruptness of her motion, her pointed, startled eyebrows lifted so far that they were hidden in her bangs. Every feature in the perfect oval of her face, from her straight little nose to her full upper lip, seemed to echo the question in her green eyes.
“Oh, Gigi …” Billy shrugged her shoulders indifferently, carefully moving the saltcellar and pepper mill around on the yellow linen tablecloth, as if overcome with a search for perfect symmetry.
“ ‘Oh, Gigi,’ what?” Gigi queried sharply, pursuing the remark. “Billy, what on earth makes you think I’m the final authority on Spider?”
“Well, you work so closely with him, copy and layout are totally tied together,” Billy said, backpedaling quickly. “If he were having doubts, he’d tell you about them.”
“Why me? You and he are the investors in Scruples Two, I’m just a hired hand, except for my royalties on the antique lingerie. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. But you two have worked together for years, you’d certainly be the one he’d talk to.”
Billy hesitated, so slightly that it was barely visible. “Well, I see what you mean … but,” she insisted, “that’s not necessarily the case.”
“I don’t understand,” Gigi said bluntly, struck by Billy’s persistence.
“It’s not important.”
“It is to me,” Gigi insisted.
“Gigi … really, I’m sorry I said anything.”
“Well, you did. And I can’t let it lie there,” Gigi said defiantly.
“It’s nothing …” Billy said airily, speaking with a dismissive, smiling voice, but unable to further evade the subject that had haunted her for weeks, the subject she hadn’t been able to keep from mentioning. “Really nothing … I’ve simply noticed that you and Spider have a kind of … friendliness or understanding or relationship or whatever—that isn’t exactly … invisible. There’s some kind of intimacy, a bond between you and Spider.… something … new … and, well, who knows?… it could be something, oh, you know … something meaningful.” Billy stopped abruptly, aware that the forced lightness had been flattened out of her voice. She flashed a quick, unconvincing smile at the pepper mill, unable to look at Gigi’s face.
Gigi moved awkwardly in her chair and took an abrupt bite of a cookie. An uncomfortable silence grew between them, and yet neither of them moved to break it.
“I didn’t realize that it showed,” Gigi said finally. “There is something new, yes, but unless you call simple friendship meaningful, it’s not meaningful.”
“I do call simple friendship meaningful. There’s too little of it in the world not to be. But between a man and a woman—oh, forget a man and a woman, Gigi, between you and Spider, I don’t think for a second that friendship could possibly be ‘simple.’ ”
“Why not?” Gigi asked mildly, springing up from her chair and walking toward the stone balustrade that separated the terrace from a bed of yellow roses. She gazed out at the far acres of trees, without seeming to see them, waiting for Billy’s answer. When it didn’t come, she-walked back to the table as if she were returning from a far greater distance than a few feet. Hot red spots had ignited on each of her cheeks. Billy’s eyes were looking at her in an inexorable question that refused to accept her forced, uncharacteristic blandness.
Scruples Two Page 52