Hot Properties

by Rafael Yglesias

  Chico fell apart at the sight of the body. He frantically tried to cut him down, talking inarticulately, unable to keep the ladder steady, pulling desperately at the shoes, until he finally collapsed, alternately screaming and weeping on the couch.

  Patty’s first thought was to look for the collar and magazines. She was going to destroy them if they were present. She didn’t know why, but even if David had left them behind, she assumed he would want her to. She couldn’t find them. Then she phoned the police. She felt nothing. Not even surprise. She was shocked. But somehow it made sense. In the cab, Chico had talked about the situation with the Gott story in incoherent snatches. Obviously he and David were vulnerable, and in her talk with David on the phone she had heard how truly scared and alone he must have been for a long time.

  I’m sorry, she said to his body. She held Chico’s head in her lap while he sobbed, hiding from the sight, and spoke in the still emptiness of her mind: I’m sorry, David. She looked at the huge abstract yellow painting, no tears, unafraid, and apologized. She waited for her own tears to flow. But sitting in the loft with the great Chico, this great man whom David had worked so hard to please, weeping like a child in her lap, she understood. The joke life had played on David was both too horrible and too funny to live through. I’m sorry I didn’t try harder, David, she said silently.

  Betty nursed her and the magazine protected her through the cleanup that followed over the next few weeks. Although David’s suicide was a marvelous side-bar to the whole episode, as though finally acknowledging there was a brotherhood of the press, almost everybody kept a distant, even dignified distance from that aspect of the story. The gossip was furious, an item or two did appear in the real rags, but an unknown journalist’s idealistic suicide was dull compared to the field day they could have with the old man and his killer.

  Her parents came to town for a few days. Betty convinced her to see a psychiatrist at least for a while. To the doctor she told the fact of David’s sexual secret, a secret made even more frustrating for her by the fact that she didn’t know its extent or importance in his life. The more she talked about him, the more the realization that she had lived with him and known precious little about him horrified her. Not because of what it implied, the desperate lonely sorrow he must have lived with, but because of what it meant about her. The therapy consoled her, forgave her, explained to her, but the fear that she was incapable of loving anyone without the distorting prism of her self-absorption keeping her a stranger to the secrets of his soul stayed with her.

  Her novel came out. Of course it didn’t sell. But it got great reviews. Paula Kramer didn’t write about it in her devastating piece on Fred, but she did review it for the Times Book Review, hailing Patty as providing a remarkable combination of humor and tragedy, a writer who “is too intelligent to rely on the dogmas of feminism, but rather manages to remind us of the real effects sexism has on our lives, to feel, to understand with our hearts and not our minds.”

  Gelb tried to phone right after the tragic news, but Betty, on Patty’s instructions, told him not to call again, and he obeyed. She made it. Without him. And without David.

  Although in her eyes the fog of mystery and sorrow from David’s death obscured her docking in the literary port, all who knew her soon thought of Patty Lane as a brilliant talent whose ultimate success was only a matter of time. The tragic story of her lover only added to the fascination with which she was now regarded. She carried alone, in her weary heart, what she knew of the sad story. Now that the world believed she had no secrets, she possessed the first true secret of her life—a keepsake and a punishment, she believed, for completing the lonely journey of creation.

  CHAPTER 18

  On the fifty-second week that Fred Tatter’s The Locker Room appeared on the New York Times bestseller list (it had sunk from the number-one position recently, but was still in the top five), his agent held a party to celebrate the one-year anniversary. Bart didn’t stint on the cost—after all, Fred was a client whose earnings exceeded a million dollars a year.

  Most of the publishing industry was invited, along with dozens of writers, as well as movie and television people— The Locker Room was scheduled to be a mini-series the next fall, and Fred’s new novel, although still unfinished, had been optioned for a feature film. Even enemies such as Paula Kramer, who had burned Fred on the interview, were asked. (The way Paula had suckered Fred, Bart explained to people, into a confessional that The Locker Room consisted of an account of cheating on Marion was that she pretended intimacy and then betrayed confidences, probably irritated that Fred didn’t make a pass at her.) More significant than these invitations to the people who had attempted to slow the juggernaut of The Locker Room was the fact that they all accepted—gladly. It became the publishing party of the season. Not to be invited was shameful.

  The caterers used all five floors of Bart’s town house elegantly—two of the large rooms were finished for the party, providing a windfall of tax write-offs for Bart. Fred and Marion, at Bart’s request, arrived early and were installed in an upper bedroom which had been made the control center for the disc jockey selecting the music for the dancing on the third floor. Several of the Hollywood people who were involved on the mini-series and the planned film of Fred’s second book had not yet met him and Bart wanted them to chat intimately before the crush of the party.

  Marion sat near the electronic boards, sipping champagne, and watched the disc jockey prepare. She had long since become bored with the slavish attention paid to Fred. She no longer simmered with quiet rage at the curious first looks she got from people when being introduced. The television people, she thought, seemed to look particularly snide on meeting her—no doubt thinking of the amusing fact that plump, round-faced, mousy-haired Marion was being played by Farah Fawcett in the mini-series. Go ahead, laugh, she answered them silently. I’ll console myself in my million-dollar co-op. Most women just get heartache from their husbands fucking around, she once told her shrink. At least I get furs.

  Fred had them laughing in moments, the nervous eager-to-please hooting that seemed to be a reflex since he had become a favorite of the talk shows. The media had fallen in love with his unpretentious joking about publishing and his engaging guffaws at his self-deprecating stories. A recent carping piece on him in Town magazine called Fred the first stand-up-comic novelist. Marion was sick of the standards of his repertoire by now—his embarrassing moments before he made it: spilling coffee on himself before an important meeting; stepping on Pete Rose’s foot minutes before a World Series game; meeting Isaac Bashevis Singer at a writers’ conference, becoming confused, and complimenting him on writing Portnoy’s Complaint (Marion suspected he had made that one up for Johnny Carson); and then the sudden switch to an earnest but humble discussion of his new book’s themes.

  “It’s about a strong woman,” Fred said to the rapt Hollywood crowd. “Not just because she’s an athlete—and great in bed,” he added with a guffaw that triggered a round of laughs from the movie and television people. “With both sexes!” he added when their chuckles waned, triggering a new explosion. Then he slapped himself playfully. “I’ve gotta be serious. No, not just ’cause of that, not just ’cause she challenges the sports establishment, but ’cause she’s a kid from the wrong side of the tracks, playing tennis, the rich people’s game.”

  “It’s got everything,” the producer who had optioned the novel said.

  “It’s a female Rocky,” another said.

  “But more serious,” the producer said. “Much more serious.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Fred said with a broad wink. “I’m thinking of writing half the book in German.”

  Ha, ha, Marion said to herself while the rest split their sides, outdoing each other in showing enjoyment.

  Downstairs, they could hear that the party had begun in earnest, and started to move. The movie producer of the new book, Jim Foxx, took Fred by the elbow as they approached the stairs and pulled him aside, practicall
y knocking Marion to the floor. “I’m sorry,” he said, and then continued to Fred in a whisper: “I’m thinking of Tony Winters to do the adaptation.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Fred said with woozy surprise. He’s already tipsy, Marion noted.

  “He wrote a terrific movie for me.”

  “Yeah, with Bill Garth, right?” Fred asked.

  “Oh, that’s right,” Foxx said, pretending he had just remembered. “Tony said you two are good friends.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Fred said with a gleam in his eye. “Well, you know, in the last year, a lot of people have suddenly become my good friends.”

  Foxx laughed hard—but nervously. “Of course, of course. Isn’t the world terrible? But he’s a good writer.”

  “Yeah, he’s good,” Fred said with a tone of critical omniscience. “But in his plays he’s never really put it all together. Someday he’ll have a big smash.” Fred started down the stairs. He looked back at Marion and smiled. “Though Betty’s probably getting tired of waiting, right?” He guffawed and moved toward the noise of the crowd.

  At the sight of him, they applauded good-naturedly. A few shouted mocking toasts, but many stared at him with glistening, fascinated eyes, as though trying to decode the mysterious formula that had made him a star.

  In the rear of the front room, smiling but not applauding, stood Patty Lane. To the publishing people she was a familiar sight and provoked much gossip. She wore a black silk men’s shirt, just covering the tops of her naked thighs. The buttons were open halfway down her chest, so that anyone standing at an angle to her could thoroughly view the sheer black bra she was wearing. Her escort was Raul Sabas, the Broadway musical-comedy star whose obvious effeminacy and open admission of homosexuality had led to a ceaseless flow of gossip that he was in fact experimenting with women. Raul was dressed in an identical silk shirt (though he wore black leather pants with it), also open halfway down his chest, and he and Patty seemed very chummy, Raul’s arm often gathering her for a delighted squeeze at one of her witticisms. Their presence together intensified the talk about them, but the five or six people in the room who were “really in the know” about the mysterious Patty Lane (her status as a cult author was growing daily due to the surprisingly strong sales of the quality-paperback edition of her first novel) whispered to others the current rumor that Sabas was a beard—in fact, they suspected she was flirting with lesbianism.

  Standing with this unusual couple was Tony Winters, tan from another long trip to Los Angeles, wearing jeans, polo shirt, and a blue satin windbreaker with the title of his forthcoming movie on the back. Leaning on him wearily was his wife, Betty, looking, by contrast with her husband and friends, absurdly conventional and out of sync, dressed in a demure enormous maternity dress that visually inflated her fifth month of pregnancy to eight-month proportions. Betty, the ones “in the know” explained, had quit her job, intending to devote herself to raising the child, and that was the reason Patty Lane’s new contract wasn’t with Garlands. Betty cited her husband’s frequent absences in LA as the reason she felt her baby would need a nonworking mother, but those “in the know” mumbled that the couple’s move to the West Coast was only a matter of time.

  This foursome huddled together while Fred made his way through the crowd, greeting people boisterously, pumping hands like an electioneering politician. Something Tony said caused his group to burst out laughing, a quartet abruptly playing a different sheet of music from the room’s orchestra.

  “What’s so funny?” Fred called out, following the curious glances of people around him toward the two couples. “Hey, Patty! You look great.” The crowd parted for him to walk up. “Tony, Betty, how are you? Raul Sabas!” Fred said, putting his hand out enthusiastically. “I love your work.”

  “Thanks. Don’t you love our matching outfits?” Sabas asked, putting an arm around Patty and posing like a chorus girl.

  “We’re twins,” Patty said with the unsmiling but sly expression that had replaced, during the last year, her formerly eager, wondering style.

  “Where’s Marion?” Betty asked.

  “Marion!” Fred shouted like a vulgar situation-comedy character calling for his wife to bring him a beer. People laughed and parted to reveal a somewhat flushed and bedraggled Marion, stuck at the other end of the room, having been cut off by the congratulatory press of the party. Fred didn’t wait for her arrival to continue. He waved his glass at Tony. “I was just talking about you.”

  Tony nodded. “Yes?”

  “My movie producer, Jim Foxx, is here—”

  “Yeah, I saw him.” Tony smiled. “He produced Concussion.”

  “Is that your movie?” Fred asked.

  “Right,” Tony said, and turned his back to show the title sewn on the back of his jacket. “In a theater near you this summer.”

  “Hey!” Fred said, and nudged Marion, who had just then arrived at his side. A little of her champagne was jostled out of the glass. “I should get one like that for The Locker Room, don’t you think?”

  “Fred, you spilled my wine.”

  Fred glanced down at the floor. His eyes widened with delighted surprise. “This is right near the spot where I spilled coffee before meeting with Bart!”

  Tony nodded solemnly. “So it’s a tradition.”

  Raul Sabas laughed. “You told that story on Carson. It was a scream.”

  “Oh, Fred’s a hoot,” Patty said, her pale white face glowing out of the dark black of her outfit, her eyes glistening, but her expression flat.

  “Anyway,” Fred continued to Tony, taking a hearty slug to drain his glass, “he said you’re interested in adapting my next novel.”

  “I am?” Tony looked aloof and surprised.

  “Uh-oh!” Fred covered his mouth. “Maybe it’s a secret.” He smiled at Betty. “Anyway, you won’t have to worry about baby’s new clothes.”

  “Fred!” Bart called from the other end of the room, gesturing for him to join him.

  “Oops! Gotta greet people.” Fred said, and left them, taking Marion’s hand, dragging her with him.

  “I’ll talk to you later,” Marion said to Betty before the crowd swallowed her.

  Tony looked at Patty and rolled his eyes. She smiled slyly. “Don’t we all just love our Freddy?”

  “I think he’s cute!” Raul Sabas exclaimed. “Just like a corn muffin! I’d love to butter him all over.”

  “Oh, cut it out, Raul,” Tony said. “You’re with us. You can be yourself. Button your shirt, have a beer, and talk baseball.”

  Raul roared and put out his long arm, touching Tony on the shoulder with the tip of his index finger, as though knighting him.

  Betty groaned. “I have to pee again.”

  “My God,” Tony said.

  “Shut up,” Patty said. “It’s your fault.”

  Betty moved toward the crowd, saying, “If I don’t come back soon. I’ll be asleep in a bedroom.”

  Patty turned her back to the crowd, edged near to Tony, and said in a low voice: “Stop being so crabby with her.”

  Tony stared down Patty’s shirt at her breasts, making no attempt to disguise his look. “Conventional ethics from you? I’m supposed to sit home with a ballooning wife making soufflés while you go to literary soirees and fuck everything in sight?”

  “Excuse me,” Raul Sabas said, only he wasn’t speaking with mock flamboyance, but genuine irritation. “For your information, she isn’t sleeping with anyone.”

  Patty smiled at Raul. “Thanks for clearing that up, Raul.”

  “I was only kidding, Raul,” Tony answered. “I know all about her vow of celibacy. I’m married to her best friend, remember?”

  “It’s not a vow, Tony,” Patty answered, frowning.

  “You should be writing for the theater,” Raul said to Tony, still angry. “Hollywood’s turning you into a humorless vulgarian.”

  “Tony is writ—” Patty began to Raul.

  “Quiet!” Tony said sharply, and then spoke in a rush. �
�Don’t knock being a humorless vulgarian. Look what it’s done for Fred.” He looked down Patty’s shirt again.

  Patty began to button it. “Be nice to her, Tony, or I’ll cut your balls off.”

  Like you did with David, Tony thought to himself. He turned away, searching for the bar. He was going to get drunk. “I’m going to get a drink,” he said, and moved away bumping into an elegantly dressed man.

  “Excuse me,” the man said. He was Brian Stoppard. Paula Kramer’s husband.

  Paula moved around them both to greet Patty with breathless enthusiasm: “You’re not going to believe what Fred said to me at the door! He forgave me for my piece. He said he knows what it’s like for free-lance magazine writers—to be noticed, they have to do hatchet jobs.”

  “Freddy the dope,” Patty mumbled with a sly smile. He’s right, she thought to herself. “It’s good to see you. Paula.”

  “I’m Brian Stoppard,” Paula’s lawyer husband said, putting his hand out to Raul Sabas.

  “Hello!” Raul said in a vaguely mocking way. “Raul Sabas.”

  “Oh, I know,” Brian said in a neutral tone. “I’m a great fan of yours.”

  “Well, I don’t have to worry,” Paula continued. “Brian’s going to get my revenge for me. Freddy made the mistake of asking Brian if he wanted to play in his high-stakes poker game.”

  “Are you a good poker player?” Patty asked Brian.

  “Good!” Paula answered for him. She scanned the room. “Soon this will all be ours!”

  At the rear of the room, Tony got himself a Scotch at the bar and sipped it, watching Fred greet admirers. Jim Foxx waved to him and walked over. “Where’s Betty?” he asked.

  “Peeing.”

  “Ah, I remember what it’s like. When’s she due?”

  “February.”

  Foxx nodded. “Did you talk to Fred about doing the adaptation?”