THE PRESIDENT IS COMING TO LUNCH

by Nan

“I think I’d feel pretty damn good. All things considered.”

  Moina kissed her gently on the lips. “Is everyone looking at us?”

  “Nobody in this room cares about a couple of old dykes. Actually, I think they’re lookin’ at the grasshoppers.”

  Moina put her hand atop Fay’s drink. Slowly, without losing eye contact, she lowered her middle finger into the green liquid and rubbed the inside of the glass.

  Fay whispered, “Slut.” She took Moina’s hand. “What the hell am I goin’ to do without you?” Fay was actually going to do fine on the royalties from her book. Unwittingly, Moina had given her the ending she needed to dig her heels into the bestseller list. Not that she wasn’t going to miss Moina once she was dead. But there would be a lot less wear and tear not having her around when the book was published.

  Without waiting to be invited, Hots sat down. “Would you mind telling me what’s going on here?”

  Moina sipped her drink slowly. “Harold, I have decided how I wish to die.”

  He rolled his eyes and muttered, “Let’s hope it’s fast.”

  “I want peonies, a string quartet, and Vivaldi.” She turned quickly. “What did you say?”

  “Aside from heartburn, you’re giving me one hell of a conflict of interest.”

  Moina was angry. “What are you talking about?”

  Hots looked across the room at Ashanti. “Little Miss Pickaninny has shifted gears. She just x’ed out her prenuptial agreement with Bill Perry. She’s decided it would be more profitable to sue you for palimony.”

  Fay sat back and laughed. Perhaps the last chapter hadn’t been written yet.

  * * *

  Rikki was bored. She picked up The Last Cowboy and turned to page one. A moment later she stopped reading. “Johnny, what’s this about?”

  “It’s about a princess with a beautiful ass. The most beautiful ass in the kingdom.”

  Rikki flipped through the pages and slammed the script shut. “I don’t want to do The Last Cowboy!”

  Janos looked across the room at Cal. “That’s not our problem. The Last Cowboy doesn’t want to do you.”

  Rikki punched Janos in the arm with every word. “You said you were going to get back at him!”

  Mary Borden walked over to the table and sat down. “Rikki, I love your earrings.” Without giving her a chance to reply, Mary waved the note Janos had sent to her. “You haven’t even read Before Dawn.”

  “I once bought a Gutenberg Bible. I didn’t read that either.”

  “But there’s nothing in it for Rikki,” Mary said.

  “There was nothing in the Gutenberg. They still took my money.”

  Mary smiled. “Taking money is my specialty.”

  Janos snapped his fingers. Rikki, like Pavlov’s accountant, reached into her purse for the checkbook and handed it to him. “A year’s option for fifteen,” he said. “Second year for ten, two percent of net, and if you twist my arm, whoever wrote the cockamamie book can do the first draft of the screenplay before I throw him off and hire Bo Goldman.”

  Mary was angry. She hated having to deal with people like Janos. Not that she expected everyone to be a David Brown. “Don’t be ridiculous,” Mary said. “I’m not at all sure I’d consider an option. And if I did, it certainly wouldn’t be for fifteen.”

  “How much did Junior offer?” he asked.

  “Nothing yet.”

  “He’s over there. Ask him.”

  “What do you expect me to do? Hold an auction in the aisle?”

  “Good idea!” Janos waved Stu over as he scribbled a note. “Give this to him.”

  “I won’t be bulldozed,” Mary said.

  “The offer you have is zero. I am offering fifteen.”

  “Fifteen is not enough.”

  “Fifteen is more than zero. Are you going to walk away from fifteen?”

  Mary glared at him. “Yes! Janos, what do you want?”

  He smiled. “I want only what I’m entitled to. Everything.”

  Junior came to the table. “Hi,” he said, holding the note. “I don’t understand this.”

  Mary smiled at Junior. “Janos wants to option the book.”

  Junior was astonished. “Why? There’s no part in it for Rikki.”

  “He just offered me fifteen and he wants to close the deal.”

  “Are you kidding? You know I’ll give you more than fifteen.”

  “When?” Janos asked. He tore a check from the book and held it out to Mary.

  Junior laughed. “Excuse me, Janos, but this book is not the usual soft porn you buy for Rikki.”

  “Of course not! You think I pay fifteen thousand dollars for that dreck?”

  Rikki sneered at Junior and held proudly to Janos’s arm. “You think he’s dumb?”

  Junior glanced back at his table. Cal had left. He was sitting with Senior and Liza. Damn. It was his own fault. Senior had warned him that even if your mother was dying in the screening room next door, you never left a star alone.

  Janos waved the check in Mary’s face. “You can go back to your publisher and tell him you have a movie option. You can go to the book clubs and tell them this book, whatever its name is . . .”

  “Before Dawn,” Mary said.

  “Whatever, has been optioned as a major motion picture. You can tell the paperback houses . . .”

  “I know how to conduct business,” Mary said.

  “Or, you can tell the author, whatever his name is, that you turned down my option. You can tell him you pissed away the thirty thousand I was going to give him for a first draft screenplay. And you should also tell him that you turned down his chance to have a piña colada by the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel.”

  Junior leaned over and kissed Mary on the cheek. “A few days. Once I pitch it to the studio we’ll make a big announcement.”

  “Why wait?” Janos asked. “All you have to do is offer her more. Offer her sixteen. Go ahead. I swear to you. You write out a check for sixteen, it’s yours.” Janos sat back and folded his arms. “Junior, you spend sixteen at Bijan in one morning, just on your underwear.” Janos waited. “Surely you believe in this wonderful book as much as you believe in your underwear?” Janos leaned forward and whispered, “Steal it from me!”

  Mary pushed away the table and stood up. “Sorry, Janos. You are not the seller. I am. And I’m not ready to sell. When I am, I’ll let you know. And it won’t be for fifteen or sixteen. I’m telling you right now I wouldn’t take a penny less than fifty for an option.”

  Janos stopped smiling. He held up the check for Mary to see. It had been made out for fifty thousand dollars. “Deal!”

  The indieprods sat bolt upright, each hidden behind a menu. After a long silence, the female said, “I hope she doesn’t order barbecued foie gras with grilled radicchio. You see what that costs?”

  The male, with a large silver hoop in his ear, said, “Times four, yet.”

  The female leaned around her menu. “Don’t be stupid, Raggedy Andy. Only if she orders something under ten bucks, do you order what she does, thereby complimenting Meryl on her fine taste. If she orders above ten . . .”

  He put down his menu. “I’ll order the grilled goat cheese on radicchio, thereby bonding with her in a shared love for red lettuce?”

  “Don’t you dare! This is supposed to be a power lunch. You can’t exude power if you eat lettuce.”

  The male stared angrily at her. “Oh, yeah? What if I order bull’s balls on lettuce?”

  “Irving Thalberg did not eat lettuce.”

  “I bet he did! I bet he loved lettuce and I bet Norma Shearer made it for him all the time.” He put a hand to his chest and spoke in a mock falsetto. “Irving, darling, shall I throw another head of lettuce on the grill for you?”

  “Irving Thalberg could afford to eat Jell-O and Animal Crackers if he wanted. But we can’t. We have to order tough. Raw. No sprigs of parsley. No relish. And for God’s sake, if you ever want to see your name on the screen at a Loe
w’s Sixplex, no dessert!”

  The male rolled his eyes. “Hello, Hollywood! Goodbye, crème brulée!”

  The female kicked him under the table as Libby approached. “Guess what?”

  Libby shrugged. “They found a Japanese soldier in the play department at William Morris.”

  The male tugged at her hand. “Be serious. Think actress. Initials M.S. Has costarred with Redford, Nicholson, and Hoffman.” He beat his fists in the air. “Is absolutely dying to do our picture. Loves the script. Will be here tomorrow!”

  Libby sat down. “Tomorrow?”

  “It’s just like you said!” the female squealed. “Tomorrow the lunch!”

  Libby liked the indieprods. They were so crazy about the movie business. A throwback to the days when people who made movies really loved them. “Tomorrow?” she repeated.

  “You’ve just got to have a table for us,” the male said.

  Libby needed a moment to think. “What bank did you rob to finance this caper?”

  The female smiled. “First National Mother.”

  “Well, then,” Libby said, “this calls for a bottle of bubbly on the house.” She grabbed hold of Stu. “A bottle of our best Perrier!”

  The male looked worried. “You do have a table for us?”

  “But not just any table,” the female pleaded.

  The indieprods glanced nervously at each other. “Our whole lives depend on it,” they said.

  Libby stared at them. Her eyes filled with tears. “Don’t be ridiculous! How can your whole life depend upon someone coming to lunch tomorrow?”

  Stu was in the back. On the phone. He had just dialed Fay’s number. “It’s me, Miss Fox,” he whispered. “I’ve got two biggies for you. Table 83’s expecting Meryl Streep tomorrow. And Mr. Vatsl just beat out Singer Junior on Before Dawn, from what I hear, a very hot new book.”

  Junior stood at the urinal in the men’s room. He didn’t bother to unzip his pants. He didn’t have to pee. He just needed a place to stand.

  There was no sense going back to his table. By now the news that Janos had optioned the book would be all over the restaurant. He’d never even get Cal back to finish lunch. No doubt Senior was regaling Cal with his plans for Liza in Dorothy—The Woman. Junior knew the pitch so well he could do it himself. Fade in on a clip of Judy singing “Over the Rainbow.” Match dissolve to Liza singing at Auntie Em’s funeral. Jesus. Someone came in to pee.

  Junior unzipped his pants and took hold of his penis. The man stood in front of the other urinal. He unzipped and nodded at Junior. Not that they knew one another or that he was trying to pick Junior up. It was simply a nod of acknowledgment. Congratulations on being successful enough to pee at one of New York’s most chic pissoirs. If the men ever got to know one another, they probably could have traded names of the same brokerage firms, tailors, limo services, and wines. They might even have slept with the same women.

  The man was peeing loudly. With great force. Junior stared at the wall in front of him, ashamed that he wasn’t making any noise. The guy must think he was a fag. Men who peed side by side could trust one another. Like men who fought side by side. The few moments during which two men peed together was as bonding as years of prep school. But one man not peeing was an even more deafening silence than one hand clapping.

  Junior continued staring at the wall. The man shook his penis as though he were Gorbachev and his penis were Malcolm Forbes. “You know,” Junior began, hoping to recoup his image, “ever since they sold The New Yorker, nothing has been the same.”

  The man washed his hands meticulously. As he dried them, he turned to Junior and said, “If you want to know what’s killing the economy, it’s everybody going private.”

  The man left. Junior stood there holding his penis, wondering why he’d always felt uncomfortable calling his penis his cock. Senior called it his thing. Well, calling it his penis was at least better than calling it his thing. And who knows, perhaps someday Junior would have a son and his son would call his penis his cock and then the economy would be strong again.

  Without saying a word, Libby slid onto the banquette next to Phyllis. She reached for Phyllis’s water goblet and emptied it into Donald’s water goblet. Then she poured half of Phyllis’s wine into the empty goblet and drank it in one gulp.

  Donald and Phyllis were astonished. They had never seen Libby drink at lunch.

  Libby reached for Donald’s plate. He had eaten only half his trout, almost none of the candied orange rice, and hadn’t touched the freshly grated horseradish. She took Phyllis’s knife and fork. With great concentration, Libby cut a small piece of trout and ate it. “I’ll never forget the night you slipped and fell outside the Villa Capri. You were on your way to a preview of Funny Girl. Your date carried you inside. You were going to sue the owners for every penny they had.” She pushed the plate away.

  Donald looked at Phyllis and shrugged his shoulders.

  “We hadn’t seen each other since Washington,” Libby said. She reached for Phyllis’s salmon tartare and put it in front of her. Without looking up, she began to eat. “You promised to bring everyone back after the show. I hadn’t seen any of the kids in years.”

  Phyllis looked at Donald and shrugged her shoulders.

  “I waited until midnight,” Libby said, pouring herself half of Donald’s wine. “I was heartbroken when you didn’t show up. But just as I got into bed, I heard singing in the street. You brought the entire chorus with you. When I opened the door, they all shouted, ‘Hello, gorgeous!’ ”

  Phyllis took the glass from Libby’s hand. “Hello, gorgeous?” she said, trying to rouse her.

  “You’ll never know what I went through to convince Mr. Pagano to have an after-theater menu. He let me keep the place open until 2 A.M.”

  “The hell he did!” Phyllis added. “I kept it open until 2 A.M.”

  “The hell you did!” Libby grabbed her glass back. “I was the one who brought the gypsies north. I promised they could eat now and pay later. I brought actors and writers! And writers begat directors and directors begat producers and producers . . .”

  “And good friend Phyllis,” Phyllis said, “begat actors and writers who could also write checks.”

  “After Mr. Pagano died, Cal offered me money to buy the Villa Capri.” Libby smiled to herself. “But I couldn’t let him do that. Fortunately, good friend Phyllis was already on her second millionaire.” Libby had finished her wine. She turned to Phyllis. “You know something else? Cal and I are not getting married.”

  “Oh, darling.”

  “Not ever!” Libby said. “I will most likely never have sex again. Not to mention love.”

  Phyllis groaned. “For God’s sake, don’t mention love.”

  Libby shrugged. “I hear it’s sweeping the country. Even my chef is in love.” She saw the horror in Phyllis’s eyes. “Oh, not with me! With the checkroom girl!”

  Phyllis reached out for Donald. He took her hand.

  “Well,” Libby said, getting up, “I don’t want you to think this hasn’t been wonderful, but I’ve got to go back to work.”

  There was a long silence after Libby left. Without moving, Phyllis said flatly, “I suppose this is what they mean by nuclear winter.”

  George, the waiter, stopped at the table. “Mrs. Elgin, is anything wrong?”

  Phyllis handed him the salmon tartare. “Take this back into the kitchen, George. Give it to the chef. Please quote me exactly. Tell him it made me sick to my stomach. Tell him I said it tasted like something he found in the checkroom.” George nodded and left. Phyllis stubbed out her cigarette very slowly. “It was the best of lunches, it was the worst of lunches . . .”

  Stu brought Rikki a plate of French fried potatoes and a Cherry Coke. It was her favorite meal. But she did little more than pick at it as she stared at Cal laughing with Liza Minnelli. “It doesn’t look to me like we got back at him, Johnny.”

  “I stopped the deal, didn’t I?”

  “Yes.�
��

  “So we got back at him.”

  “But Johnny, what are you going to do with that dumb book? You heard what they said. They said there was nothing in it for me. You paid fifty thousand bucks for a dumb book with nothing in it for me.”

  “Who said I paid fifty? All I did was write a check for fifty.”

  “They said it was a book about Germans, Johnny. Why would anybody write a whole book about Germans?”

  “I gave her a check. It means nothing until I sign a contract. But first they have to send me a deal memo. And who says I have to like the deal memo they send me. Never mind until the lawyers kvetch out a contract. By the time I get through with the deal memo, they’ll be begging me to take back my check. And you know what? I’m such a nice guy, I’ll take it back. So, it will have cost me nothing to stop Cal from making a deal with Junior.”

  Rikki nodded. “Just like the toilet paper from the Pierre. It’s always free for you to wipe your ass, isn’t it?” Janos laughed but Rikki couldn’t take her eyes from Liza. “I wish I was her, Johnny.”

  “What are you talking about? She’s got her mother’s figure.”

  “She’s got excitement, Johnny. Look at Cal’s face. Look at how he’s listening to her. You never listen to me that way.”

  “What the hell do you say worth listening to?”

  “She’s bigger than life, Johnny. It’s as though all hell broke loose inside her. She’s beautiful.”

  “So now you’re an expert on beauty?”

  “No, Johnny. I’m an expert on hell.”

  Libby sat down next to Horton. She handed him the reservations book. Anders looked up from making notes on his schedule and nodded. He had already seen the book, checking for security risks. Horton was more elitist. He was looking for people whose presence might offend or embarrass the President. Libby still didn’t know what Birnbaum was looking for. Or why he had the nerve to think he was going to find it in her eyes.

  Horton poised a well-manicured finger and began to check the names for Thursday. Libby watched his finger move across the page, half-expecting it to scrawl MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN. Every few names, he stopped to compare his list against her list as though she were being graded. There was no way to tell from his face whether she would pass or fail. “You get a lot of the same people every day.”