The Fame Game

by Rona Jaffe

  She read a few magazines because they were piling up, and finally she began to read some of Libra’s books. She liked history the best because she didn’t have to relate it to anything in her life. It was another world. Libra had put reruns of all Mad Daddy’s old shows on television, so she stopped watching TV early and began to get more sleep. The pills were wonderful. She tried not to think too much. The pills made her so stoned before she fell asleep that one night she wandered into the den and turned on Mad Daddy’s midnight show. It made her hysterical and she took a bottle of Scotch and a glass and went wandering off along the beach by herself, drinking and sobbing, until she was lost.

  She found herself in front of a house where a party was going on. People were running around the beach and in and out of the lighted house. A man saw her.

  “Hey,” he said. “Come join the party.”

  “Why not?”

  She looked terrible: no make-up (she never wore any here) and all teary and red-eyed, wearing her nightgown, but she went in anyway. Everyone seemed young and tanned and pretty. They were wearing far-out clothes, and nobody seemed to notice or care that she was wearing a nightgown. They thought it was just a hippie dress. She got some ice for the Scotch she had brought, found some cigarettes, and sat on the couch, trying to focus her eyes. Some men spoke to her and she smiled, trying not to act too stoned. There was loud music, and people were dancing. Someone asked her to dance and she refused, afraid she would get sick. She got up to find more ice and suddenly there was Dick Devere, on his way from another room, looking very tan and happy.

  “Gerry!” He smiled with delight. “I didn’t know you were in California. How long have you been here?”

  “A little over five weeks, I think.”

  He put his arm around her. Was this Dick, whom she’d once loved? She hardly knew. “How are you, Gerry?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “I’m so happy. Everything is going so well for me. My film is going to be wonderful. I’ve been investing in the stock market, and I’ve made a bundle of money. I have a stock for you to buy, it’s great …”

  She drew away from him. He didn’t know anything about what had happened to her, and if he did he wouldn’t care. He went on babbling about his stock and how rich he was going to be. “I’ve bought a house in the Hills, and I have a Japanese houseboy,” he went on. “I’ve always wanted a Japanese houseboy. I’m so happy. This is my year!”

  “Good,” she said absently, but he had already rushed away, leaving her standing there.

  “That is a nightgown, isn’t it?” someone said. She turned and saw a boy, not a bad-looking boy, just a boy. Some movie actor, she couldn’t place him. She nodded. “Why don’t you take it off?”

  She moved away from him, into another room, which turned out to be the bedroom. The lights were dim in there, and she could see couples lying on the floor, and five people on the large bed. She thought at first they had all passed out; then she realized they were having sex, all of them, in pairs and groups. There was something singularly detached and dreamlike about their actions, not entirely the result of her foggy state—it was they who were out of it, not her. Naked, they looked like strange fish underwater, perhaps octopi. Music came from a speaker on the wall. A uniformed maid came in with food and drinks, passing among the bodies as if there was nothing unusual about it. An arm reached from the tangle on the bed and took a glass from the maid.

  She had run away to find a desert island and she had found it; right here, except none of them seemed to know it. Entwined, making occasional faint slurping and moaning sounds, they were as far away from each other as any shipwrecked person alone. It was odd how little it affected her, when only a year ago she had been shocked to discover Lizzie Libra going off into a bedroom at a party with Zak Maynard. But that had been people she knew … that had at least been two people who knew the other was alive.

  The boy from the living room came up to her and kissed her on the ear. She recoiled, but he had his arm around her. She let him kiss her mouth, wondering if she would like it. It had been so long since she had felt a human touch, and she was so lonely … She felt nauseous and pulled away from him. He had little eyes, like a pig. He was nothing; just a body, a body that could die any minute. This room was more filled with death than the nightmare of her mind had been these past weeks, and these people were alive!

  “Hey!” he said. He was drunk, or drugged, or both, and he was holding her nightgown. She heard it rip as she ran from him into the lighted living room, but she was still wearing it, it was just torn. He ran after her. “Hey!”

  “You ripped my dress,” Gerry said.

  “Nightgown.”

  “It’s a dress. Go away.”

  Another boy came up to her, trying to grab her, and she ran away from them into the bathroom. Three men were in there, standing in front of the large marble sink, fully dressed. They were so occupied with what they were doing that they didn’t notice her. All three had their pants open and their penises out on the edge of the sink, measuring themselves and marking off the length with an eyebrow pencil. One man was short and he had to stand on his toes to get his equipment on the sink. The second man she recognized instinctively from his reflection in the mirror as another of those faceless super-beauties who roam the Sunset Strip waiting to be discovered as an overnight movie star. The third man was Dick Devere.

  “I win,” Dick said. “By nearly an inch, and it’s not even fully hard yet.” He began stroking himself.

  “Let me do that,” the would-be-star said, and got down on his knees in front of Dick and took it in his mouth. Dick looked down and watched in bliss, his legs spread apart and his arms folded over his chest like the Jolly Green Giant.

  Gerry stared at them, feeling that it was all totally unreal. The scene was like something from a dirty fresco in Pompeii—this couldn’t be the man she had loved, the super-romantic who broke so many girls’ hearts … But it was, it was Dick Devere. And all she felt was a little bit sick and a little bit sorry for him because now she suspected that no matter how much he had made those girls suffer, he was going to suffer even more for the rest of his life. She fled.

  She ran out of the house, and when she was safely away she wandered the rest of the way home walking in the cold surf. The sounds and music faded away behind her. The other houses were quiet and dark, the way houses should be. The black sky over the ocean was filled with stars and a few lovely night clouds. Oh, Mad Daddy, Mad Daddy, where were you? Were you a star up there? She prayed to believe it was so. She would pick a star and it would be him, watching over her forever.

  When she saw her house in the distance she was glad to see it. It seemed like her house now, a peaceful haven. It wasn’t lonely or frightening any more. The star shone serenely overhead. When she got to the house she wanted to write another poem, about the star, but she was too dizzy, so she fell into bed and was asleep instantly.

  “What day is it?” she asked the housekeeper the next morning.

  “May twenty-third.”

  “May?” She’d been there longer than she’d thought. She tried to think of something to say to the housekeeper, to keep her there for a moment more. “How do you like working for Mr. Libra?”

  “It’s a job. Is the egg all right? Too soft?”

  “No, it’s fine. How long have you worked for him?”

  “Since my husband died.”

  “When was that?”

  “Oh, six years ago next December.”

  It was hard to think of conversation after so long, and the woman evidently wasn’t eager to talk. “I guess it’s boring here all alone,” Gerry said.

  “No. I have friends.”

  “I don’t know much about him,” Gerry said.

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Libra.”

  The housekeeper smiled. She was a plump middle-aged woman. “I don’t know much about him either, and I’ve known him all my life.”

  “You have?”

  “Oh, didn’t you kn
ow? I’m his sister.”

  “His sister?” She sounded so dumb, just repeating everything.

  “Sam takes care of his family,” the housekeeper said. Gerry couldn’t decide if the woman sounded bitter or proud.

  “He takes care of me, too,” Gerry said. “That was nice of him, wasn’t it?”

  “Who knows what’s nice and what’s guilt?”

  “I’m not his girl friend, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Who said girl friend? People can feel guilty about some people and be nice to other people to make up for it.” The woman shrugged.

  “Who does he feel guilty about?”

  “Don’t ask me. I don’t run around in his circles. Believe me, I wouldn’t live in New York if you paid me. I lived a beautiful life for twenty-two years with the same man, I have two married daughters, I don’t hang around with show people. Who knows what he does in New York?”

  Who, indeed? Gerry thought.

  The housekeeper took the breakfast tray. “Why don’t you take the car and go for a ride? It’s not good for a young girl to stay cooped up here day after day. Go ahead, I don’t need it. It’s not good to sit and think all the time; it makes you morbid. Go sightsee a little. California is beautiful.” She left the room, humming: a woman who had done her good deed for the day by dispensing advice, and therefore had made the world a little bit brighter. I bet he would pay her not to live in New York, Gerry thought. He does!

  She dressed and took Libra’s car, which she had never driven, and drove down the Pacific Coast Highway, looking for the supermarket the housekeeper (no, it was Libra’s sister, she’d have to start thinking of her as his sister now, but it was impossible: they were so unalike), the housekeeper always went to. It must be in the other direction. She found a piece of beach with kids surfing, and she went to sit there, watching them. They looked happy, and they made her feel happy just watching them, even though none of them noticed her. They must think she was an older woman. She bought a hot dog and a Coke and ate them on the beach. What a bore the beach was! Why hadn’t she realized it before? She was so tan she looked like Silky. She couldn’t get any darker, so why roast? She’d never much liked swimming, except to cool off. She wouldn’t dream of surfing—you could drown or get a tooth knocked out. I sound like Libra, she thought, and laughed. She realized she missed Libra. She wondered who he had hired in her place, and if the girl was as good as she was. She wondered if he missed her.

  That night Vincent called, collect.

  “I told you not to call,” Gerry said.

  “It’s collect. I miss you. What are you doing?”

  “Nothing. Resting.”

  “Is it boring?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Well, it’s boring here,” Vincent said. “I got the air conditioner fixed because it broke again. We had a hot day. The man said this is the last time he can fix it and you’d better get another.”

  What do I need another for? Gerry thought. I’m never coming home. “What else is new?” she said.

  “I got some pictures taken. I’m sending you one. I met this writer, he’s gay, his name is Mr. Emerald, and he says they’re making a movie of one of his books and he wants me to read for the boy. It’s sort of an effeminate boy, like me.”

  “You’re not to read for any effeminate boys!” Gerry said. “Do you want to blow your whole career before you even start? I don’t want you to come out until you’re hatched. Next year, next year, when you’ve finished growing up, I’m going to make you a sex symbol. I don’t want you identified with any fruits.”

  “Well, Gerry, I can’t do anything without you,” Vincent said, pathetically but not whining. “I don’t know what to do unless you’re here to tell me. I need you.”

  “You just stay there and do what I told you. Tell him you can’t read for the part. Promise me.”

  “All right. But he says I’d be perfect.”

  “How many effeminate-boy parts do you think there are in the movies?” she said, angry. “One? Two? Do you want to work or not?”

  “Of course I want to.”

  “Then you’ll wait. You can play plenty of college boys—next year. Maybe even this winter. Send me that picture.”

  “Okay. I’ll mail it tomorrow. When are you coining home? I miss you.”

  “You’d better say good-bye—this is costing Mr. Libra a lot of money. Thanks for calling. I’ll write to you.”

  “Good-bye,” Vincent said sadly.

  “Good-bye. I miss you too, you silly thing. You know I do. Be good. Send me the picture.”

  She hung up. The hell with him. She wasn’t his mother. She was through with the business. She made herself a big Scotch and soda and went into the projection room. There was an old movie she remembered seeing one night and she wanted to run it again. It would be great as a remake, updated a little. The lead would be perfect for Vincent. A pretty, rather shallow, innocent-looking college boy who turned out to be a psychopathic killer. Who would ever suspect Vincent with his sweet face and soft voice? Perfect offbeat casting … next year, of course. Not that she would ever get involved in any project like that, or any project at all, for that matter, ever again. She was through.

  The next few days passed in a boring haze of sun, naps, her poems (they were worse than terrible! she decided, and really getting juvenile because she seemed to have run out of ideas), and half-hearted dips in the ocean. She felt as though her brain had become baked by the sun. It was hard to think of anything. Libra’s books bored her. Magazines bored her. She’d seen all the films in Libra’s film library at least twice. It was getting hot in California now, and she took long drugged naps. She was running out of tranquillizers and sleeping pills and decided to try to get along without them. She was becoming a vegetable anyway, with no one but that grouchy woman to talk to. She watched the neighbors on either side, and they seemed very domestic, with children and children’s friends, barbecues on their front lawns … very dull. She asked the housekeeper how to get to the supermarket and discovered there was a shopping center. She drove there.

  There was a stationery store, so she stopped in and bought a copy of Variety. The newspapers were boring, what with all the fuss about the forthcoming elections and the conventions. It would be good to read about something else for a change. There was also a beauty parlor, so she went in and had her hair trimmed, the sun-bleached ends snipped off.

  “Your hair is sick,” the man said.

  “Sick?”

  “Sick from the sun. You must have a conditioning treatment. Your hair is human too, you mustn’t make it sick.”

  Shades of Mr. Nelson. What had ever happened to Mr. Nelson?

  “I’ve never seen you here before,” the man said, slathering some ill-smelling goo on her hair. “Do you live around here?”

  Where did she live? “I’m visiting,” she said.

  “Now the heating cap. I’ve never seen such terrible sick hair. I will make it well.”

  Now he sounded like Ingrid the Lady Barber-Doctor. What had happened to Ingrid? Probably still giving poor Libra his shots.

  “Oh, Variety. Are you in show business?”

  “No.”

  “Your husband?”

  “This isn’t a wedding ring,” Gerry said. Her heart turned over and she covered Mad Daddy’s forget-me-not ring with her other hand. Still … where was the sharp pain she had become accustomed to every time she looked at the ring? Gone. A dull ache, which would always be there, but the terrible stabbing pain was gone. She opened Variety so the man would go away.

  She told him not to bother setting her hair, and just let it dry straight. She thought she looked dowdy. She was getting hopeless. But who was here to see her? After the beauty parlor she went to the liquor store and looked around, but she was tired of Scotch. Scotch was medicine, for pain. She hated the taste. She bought two bottles of champagne.

  When she got back to the house the housekeeper said there had been a long-distance call from New Yo
rk. Oh God, Vincent again, Gerry thought. But it wasn’t Vincent; it was Silky.

  “How are you?” Gerry said.

  “Fine. How are you?”

  “Okay …”

  “I’ll tell you why I called,” Silky said. “Libra says you’re still working for him, even though you say you’re not, so I just thought you’d like to know I’ve quit him.”

  “When? Why? Where are you going?”

  “Oh, all the agencies are after me—I’ll decide after I’ve talked to a few of them. I only quit old Libra today.” She sounded much different, surer of herself, even though she still had the same soft voice.

  “What happened?”

  “Well, you know, Gerry, I’m just sick and tired of the way that man treats me. He’s never for one minute treated me as if I’m a human being. Even my wedding … well, that was nice of him and we’re grateful, but it was really like I’m something he owns that he was showing off, something he created. He doesn’t think I have any brains at all. He thinks I’m dumb. If I didn’t have talent in the first place, I don’t care how hard he would have pushed me … well, that’s water over the bridge. Anyway, Bobby and I have gotten very interested in politics. It’s our country after all—we’re the people under twenty-five, it’s up to us to do something to make it better. That’s what I tried to explain to Mr. Libra. I just wanted to endorse McCarthy, that’s all. Somebody asked me, because I’m a name, so I said sure. I was going to sing at a rally to raise money. Everybody’s doing it for somebody. Well, Libra went crazy. He was so mad he was running around screaming and yelling, like he always does but worse, and he said I don’t belong in politics, that a star can’t have opinions, that I’m too stupid to have opinions, that I have no right … all that crap. And all of a sudden I just got fed up with him. I wasn’t afraid of him any more. I realized he only makes me unhappy and I can’t work with him any more. So I quit.”

  “Wow.”

  “What do you think?”