by Robert Cort
The soldiers faced the tower, removed their caps, and sang a spirited “Happy Birthday.” AJ broke into a broad grin. It was his sixty-second, but the only one who knew . . . this was his daughter’s doing. A group of soldiers with real weapons fired a twenty-one-gun salute. It was a perfect antidote to AJ’s bunker mentality. He thanked everyone and waved farewell to his “troops.”
“. . . And as the third regular feature each week I plan a segment called ‘To Grandma’s House We Go’ in which I visit with a grandmother who immigrated to America. We’ll make one of her secret recipes from the old country, together with her granddaughter.” Steph paused to peruse her stack of three-by-five cards. “I think that about does it.”
“I would say.” Joe Lanaman popped his tongue into the side of his cheek. “The Food Network’s only on the air fourteen hours a day.”
She blushed. “I’ve never pitched a television program before, but my husband said I should make sure it didn’t seemed like a whim. Too many courses, huh?”
“Not at all. Mrs. Jastrow—”
“Stephanie, please.”
“Do you have a name for the show?”
“Taste Buds.”
“Have you thought about how much time this would require? The hours and effort can be punishing.”
Steph had mulled that question in her mind since flaming out from fatigue in the kitchen. Sixty-three was as good an age as any to call it quits, so she’d sold the Siamese Cat and Ole to Restaurant Associates. But she rarely talked to Ricky or her grandchildren, Jess was a workaholic, and the idea of taking up golf or going back to school had proved more theoretical than practical. Soon Steph was sleeping past nine, gossiping on the phone, surfing the Internet, and feeling irrelevant.
One morning she’d put a video camera on its tripod and taped herself making matzoh balls from scratch. AJ had claimed that the fifteen minutes proved Steph had a TV personality. “I’m prepared for the commitment,” she assured Lanaman.
“Then I’ll put you together with one of our producers and go to pilot. If it works, we’ll have you on the air in the fall.”
CHAPTER 48
AJ co-existed with marketing research, but the numbers he’d just heard were too appalling to swallow. “Twenty-seven percent of all moviegoers under the age of twenty-five have never heard of Abraham Lincoln,” Andy Faddiman reported. “Another twelve percent claim to have heard of him but didn’t know he was president of the United States.”
“No fucking way.”
Andy brandished the glossy green cover of a report by the National Research Group. “Read it and weep. Even adults over thirty have trouble identifying who fought in the Civil War or when Lincoln became president.”
“The man’s on the penny. How can people not know?”
“No one uses pennies anymore.” Faddiman ceremonially dropped the document on the conference room table. After a quarter century of kissing the asses of ego-inflated filmmakers, convincing overpaid stars to appear on Leno, and appealing to the lowest common denominator, he had little hair or patience left. “When they showed stills of Michael Douglas in a stovepipe hat, people thought our film was a goof, like Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. We face a humongous marketing problem.”
How the hell had the nation succumbed to this stupidity? AJ blamed the cowards who ran the public schools—they had given in to kids’ demands for “relevance.” That was why audiences accepted the mediocrity of today’s movies—they had no basis for comparison because they were ignorant of the classics. But now wasn’t the time or place to indulge his outrage. Instead, AJ mustered a measure of indifference, tossing the book aside. “I memorized the Gettysburg Address at the age of twelve. I guess that today’s twelve-year-old would look it up in a phone book.”
His line drew a stony stare from Andy and a collective “I told you so” from the other members of the longest-running executive cast in Hollywood. His daughter had counseled against the film, Shelly had sought to cut the budget by ten million dollars, and Pete had proposed sharing half the risk with a cofinancier. In each case AJ had overridden the advice.
Jess stepped to his defense. “We’ve had tough movies before.”
“ ‘Tough’ is all we’ve got these days.”
Andy’s were fighting words to the woman responsible for mounting the production slate. “If you’ve got a problem with what we make, then say it,” Jessica shot back. “But spare us your wiseass asides.”
“Well, my dear, I do have a problem. Where the hell are our action films? Where’s our sci-fi? We need franchises with presold titles, not another Meryl Streep movie that costs ten million dollars more than it should.”
That zinger engaged Shelly. “We made The Widow on a budget a lot tighter than your ass, Faddiman.”
“Excuse me, I wasn’t talking to you.” He lectured Jess. “Our comedies are either too dumb or not dumb enough.”
“Insult to Injury was as funny as any movie in the past year. But you scheduled it against Liar, Liar. Get your department in order before you attack mine.”
“Can’t we all get along?”
Andy laughed derisively at Pete Leventhal. “Thank you, Rodney King.”
This is what happens, AJ decided, when people take hits in their 401(k)s. Over the years J2 executives had received a hefty portion of their compensation in stock options rather than salary or bonus. At the market’s peak they’d become paper millionaires, but with the recent dive in the price, they’d suffered in comparison to their counterparts at other studios, whose portfolios had soared with the bull market. It wasn’t only pocketbooks that hurt. Faddiman’s lover of seven years had just left him for a hunk on Baywatch. Jessica was mooning about the void in her romantic life. Leventhal’s son had barely survived a brain tumor.
“Pete’s right,” AJ interrupted. “We are not going to turn on each other in a crisis. Lincoln’s in the can. And regardless of the research, I predict it will be the entertainment event for next Christmas.” His colleagues listened to his pep talk, then raced back to their offices to check J2’s closing price.
AJ drove down Michael Eisner’s private driveway like a burglar making his getaway. Dinner with the chairman of Walt Disney and his key executives hadn’t agreed with Steph or him. “I’m sorry for putting you through that.”
His wife massaged her temples. “Does Michael talk about anything other than business?”
“Never.”
“And the one-upmanship . . . my God.”
“Substitute Rupert Murdoch, you get the same meal. That’s the fanatical focus you need to build an empire.” AJ shook his head. “I remember when Eisner had a passion for movies. Now they’re a profit center. Intellectually, I understand, but emotionally. . . . I must be suffering from a case of arrested development.”
“Don’t get over it.” She touched his hand. “We’re so lucky we spent our careers in ‘happy’ businesses.”
“Huh?”
“Theaters and restaurants—they’re both places people go to have a good time. Can you imagine being an undertaker, or even a doctor or a lawyer?”
“Everyone you encounter is dead, dying, or fucked.” AJ felt his eyes mist. Tonight he’d caught his reflection in an antique mirror. Even in the flattering light, the years were turning him into the antique. He peered over the edge of Mulholland Drive to hide his frailty from Steph. When he looked back, her eyes were closed. She loved to sleep when he drove. However many days, months, or years were left, they’d better enjoy them now.
CHAPTER 49
From the eighteenth floor of J2’s Century City offices Jessica enjoyed an eighteen-hole view of Los Angeles Country Club. Actually, Dad enjoyed it—he could look at the manicured fairways for hours. To her, they were just acres of lawn. Two foursomes had putted out on the sixth green while Holly Ballsky pitched a story about a man and woman who meet at a dog park when their identical poodles get mixed up. Scrunched in a plush easy chair, Jess chewed intently on the pencil she used to take notes.
“I like the idea, but it’s predictable. The audience is so saturated with romantic comedies they get ahead of the characters, which means they’ll only come if there’s a fantastic marquee.”
“My agent says Julia Roberts loves animals,” Holly offered. “And so does Harrison Ford.”
Writers could be amazingly naive. “They’re both booked for the next two years. And we don’t want to be in the business of begging two stars to take twenty million dollars apiece. Our goal is to develop scripts that are so original we can make them even if we don’t get perfect casting.”
“Oh.”
Jess was a sucker for a forlorn writer. “But you’re truly funny, so how about a crazy variation of your idea? Instead of another boy-meets-girl movie, let’s do Upstairs, Downstairs—from the dogs’ point of view.”
Holly stopped packing up her belongings. “You mean the dogs talk to each other?”
“Absolutely. They know all the romantic aches and pains of their masters, and in the process of trying to solve them—”
“The poodles fall for each other.”
They continued finishing each other’s sentences and were plotting the big beats of the three acts when the Amtel on Jessica’s coffee table leaped to life and the message from her assistant typed across the screen like a hot stock quote. “Pat Shanti on 08 . . . wants to know if you’re ready to go shopping.” Her train of thought derailed in a crush of anticipation, and she hustled Holly out like the last customer at closing time. “Come back at the end of the week and if we’re both still excited, I’ll run it by my dad and move ahead.” Jess closed her door, checked her makeup, then punched the blinking button.
A week after their encounter in Cannes, Patrick had e-mailed a greeting, which was all the encouragement Jess needed. She flew to the tulip market in Rotterdam, where they spent a randy weekend. Postcards and letters followed, stamped from the likes of Samarkand, Shanghai, and Ouagadougou. A framed photo on the edge of her desk was her favorite keepsake. Against the black lava landscape of an island off the coast of Iceland, white stones spelled out a twenty-foot “jess.” Patrick knelt to the side of the second s with one hand on his heart, the other outstretched. She liked the corny affection—and loved the talent. He had shot the picture on time delay, but its composition and lighting were stunning. Witness the puffs of steam from the still-active volcano that seemed to erupt from the j, creating the dot on the lowercase letter.
The brilliance of his work was in the details: Jess knew this because she obsessed over almost every picture Patrick had published. It was immaterial if her man had a fat wallet or powerful position, but he couldn’t be mediocre. Just last year Jessica had dated a UCLA film-school professor who was cute, lovable, and treated her like a princess. But just as she was imagining marriage, he gave her the galleys of the book he had written on the movies of Howard Hawkes—two-hundred-page proof that he was a hack without an original idea. They broke up a week later.
“Where are you? How are you?” Jess blurted into the phone.
“Japan. I’m fine, if you like someone who smells like a tuna.” Patrick was photographing the Royin, where the top sushi chefs in Tokyo journeyed each morning to compete for the fattiest toro. “If you’re interested, I can stop over in Los Angeles tomorrow on my way back to New York.”
“I’ll pick you up at the airport.” You’ll never leave, she told herself.
After making the arrangements, Jess was too antsy to work, so she headed down to her dad’s office to kill time and tell him she was taking a long weekend. He was in conference with Leventhal and Henry Borkin, their investment banker. Jess flopped into an easy chair, sensing that she was the only one in a good mood.
“Someone’s quietly acquiring a significant block of J-Squared stock,” Pete explained.
“How do we know?”
Borkin played with his handlebar mustache. “My team noticed some suspicious trading patterns. There’s unusually high volume, always occurring when the quote slips a few eighths. Then the buyer backs off so as not to drive the price up too much.”
“And this means . . . ?”
Her father finished a perfect practice swing with a seven-iron. “It means that someone is trying to take over J-Squared.”
“I don’t think we should assume there’s a bad guy,” Pete countered.
“Of course there is. Do you honestly think some pension fund woke up and decided we’re a good investment?”
“We are.” Jess and Pete spoke in unison.
“I wish Wall Street agreed with you,” her father noted sadly. “Hell, I wish I agreed with you. For the next two quarters we’re in the red. If Lincoln succeeds, we’ll have an okay year, but if it fails . . . disaster. No one’s buying our stock to clip coupons. My guess is Disney’s after us.”
Borkin shook his head. “I think it’s Polygram. They’ve gone as far as they can in the record business. Acquiring J-Squared instantly makes them a player in the movies. The only thing discouraging them till now was your high stock price.”
“If you’re right, I wind up working for a paranoid French CEO of a penny-pinching Dutch conglomerate with a thuggish South African chairman. No thank you. Henry, you and your firm need to turn over every rock until we find out who’s got his hand in our pockets. Then we’re going to cut it off at the wrist.”
Jess sighed. When Dad went to war, no one got any business done.
Two hundred fans of Megan O’Connor’s packed Book Soup on Sunset to hear her read passages from The Main Line, a tale of heroin addiction among wealthy Philadelphians. She looked like a stunning off-Broadway actress in black leggings and a gray cashmere sweater, her hair savagely pulled back from its roots. At the edge of the crowd AJ leaned precariously against the towering self-help section. His invitation had included a scrawled note about how much his attendance would mean to her. It was irresistible because the former lovers hadn’t set eyes on each other since Megan had slammed out of his house—and the movie business—a dozen years ago.
Like her three previous books, this newest novel exposed the sordid fantasies and agendas of its pampered characters. It had already garnered critical acclaim and a low toehold on the New York Times bestseller list. When she hit her last period, people barraged her with books to autograph. AJ was slipping off when Megan’s publicist came over to escort him to the front of the line.
“Hello, AJ.”
“Hello, Megan. It was good . . . to hear your voice. I’d forgotten how stirring it can be.”
“Eleven years?”
It seemed as impossible as this meeting. “Time’s been kind to you.”
“Would you have dinner with me tonight? Eight-thirty, my suite at the Peninsula?”
She probably wanted advice on how to get bigger bucks for the sale of her books to the movies. He felt the impatient crowd pressing behind him. Refusing would require a longer explanation than it was worth. “Sure. It’ll be good to catch up.”
To kill time before dinner he walked to the AMC multiplex to check how the trailer on Lincoln was playing. The weeknight audience watched politely but the trailer generated none of the whispering and frenzy that greeted Titanic’s coming attractions. With a budget as splashy as the ocean liner itself, Jim Cameron’s epic appeared to be the Christmas blockbuster that AJ hoped for—and desperately needed. Expectations were everything. Take dinner—after the way Megan had dumped him, he thrilled at the prospect of rejecting whatever she might want.
When the door to the suite opened, her hair had fallen free to her shoulders. She was barefoot. A person had replaced a performer. Room service delivered a selection of his favorite appetizers, but how had she guessed his new preference for cosmopolitans? AJ slathered beluga on brown bread with a dollop of sour cream. The poor publisher who reimbursed her expenses was in for sticker shock. “You were a triumph tonight. I would have bought the book without the dinner.”
“I enjoy these tours. They’re my only interaction with the world. After this it’s back to the Poc
onos and the blank page.”
“Eschewing the world for your art—Thoreau would have approved.”
“I hardly think so. I have a hot tub, a microwave, and a killer stereo system.” She settled on the sofa, sipping Courvoisier while he finished his snack. “Does The Main Line have potential as a film?”
“Any drama is an endangered species in Hollywood if its audience is postpubescent.”
“So I shouldn’t expect an offer from J-Squared?”
“We’re not classy enough. Didn’t you once call us commercial hacks?”
She laughed ruefully, like a woman seeing a snapshot of herself in seventies clothing. “I was a handful in those days—but I did hate that comedy spot. Maybe time has changed both of us. I saw the coming attractions for Lincoln and thought it looked very classy . . . and quite moving.”
“Thank you. Why am I here?” He scored first, cutting off her trivia at the pass.
“I don’t like my writing these days.”
“No one else agrees.”
Megan dismissed his compliment. “I seduce the critics. They mistake my meanness for . . . The New Yorker calls it ‘furious energy.’ But it’s getting old.” She hugged a throw pillow. “It’s been a long time since I loved anyone . . . and it’s showing in my work.”
Too late he remembered that she was a writer, poised with plot twists and armed with wistful words. “You’re not intimating that I was the last?”
“No, the best.”
“I don’t have a clue what to say, Megan.”
“I’m the one who has something to say. I’m sorry, so sorry, for hurting you and spiting myself. You terrified me . . . your intensity, your acceptance of my craziness. I was too young and scared.”