by Nan
While the waiters shouted and picked up their orders, she stared into the mirror at the reflection of her accuser and judge. It occurred to Libby that “reflection” was the only way to describe Birnbaum since he was no longer a real person. She was surprised the other agents hadn’t noticed that the “pod” version of Birnbaum barely resembled the original. Libby sighed. Was she guilty of that, too? By trusting the one person she thought she could trust, Libby had become a body snatcher.
Surprisingly, her anxiety wasn’t confined to what the truth would do to Steven and Cal. She was also worried about what was going to happen to her. There had to be a name for it. The opposite of a victimless crime. A noncriminal event that produced nothing but victims. Libby smiled. It was called Life.
Maxie nudged her as he placed his drink orders. “If you ask me, Junior’s doing a number on those kids. They’ve been telling us about their big lunch with Meryl all week and now he’s taking over.”
As though the children of Egypt had been slain before her eyes, Libby turned from the bar. “The hell he is!” Infused by the adrenaline previously reserved for Birnbaum, her feet barely touched the carpet as she went into enzyme alert.
Libby grabbed hold of Stu and whispered, “Play along.” As she neared the table, she stretched out her arms. “Not again!” Libby grabbed hold of the male. “I don’t care how many deals you’ve got going, you simply have to sit down.” She looked at Meryl and smiled. “Child prodigies! He was here the other day with Milos and Vanessa and I couldn’t keep him from hopping all over the place. Stu! Get us another chair.”
As Junior turned to Libby and smiled, the female picked up immediately. “He embarrasses me wherever we go.”
Libby kissed the male. “Junior’s no dope. If Mr. Ants-in-His-Pants didn’t have Paramount in his back pocket, Junior wouldn’t be chasing him around.” She patted Junior on the shoulder. “Yes, sir. We all know what you’re up to.”
The busboy brought out a chair and while the male caught his breath, Libby winked at Meryl. “Let me squeeze in,” she said. “It’s been such a long time. Tell me everything.”
Sam shrugged. “It’s the same old story. There’s a script that’s been floating around for years.”
Junior was getting nervous. He had to jump back in. “And I suggested Meryl the minute I finished reading The Last Cowboy.”
“The what?” Libby asked.
“The Last Cowboy,” Meryl said. “Have you heard of it?”
Libby sat back. Yes, she had heard of it. She began to laugh, imagining Janos’s face when he heard the news.
“Thank you,” Phyllis said as Taylor held the door open. She said it as though Taylor held the door open every day.
“Thanks.” Donald followed, looking somewhat pale. His eyes darted around the vestibule taking note of all the security personnel. “Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea,” he whispered.
“Nonsense,” she growled between clenched teeth. “It’s lunch as usual.”
“It doesn’t look very usual to me.”
“Donald, you don’t really think all this is because of you?”
“Ma’am?” Roth held up the magnetometer.
“Piacere,” Phyllis said cheerily. She opened her purse and held it out for him. Roth reached in for the small .22 caliber pistol. “Yes, I know,” Phyllis laughed, “it would barely crease the hide of a Gucci salesgirl. But it’s enormously helpful Off-Broadway.” As Roth took the purse, Phyllis leaned close. “Who’s here, darling? Michael Jackson?”
Roth smiled. “The President is coming to lunch.”
“The President!” Phyllis looked at Donald, her expression changing from surprise to annoyance. “Why didn’t Libby tell me?” She shook her head, waiting impatiently as Roth checked her gun permit. “You know, Donald, sometimes I wonder what friends are for.”
“Phyllis, I don’t know what the hell to say to Libby.”
“You don’t have a thing to worry about, my darling. She’s bound to be so involved with the President she won’t remember her own name, much less your shitty-shitty-bang-bang.” As Phyllis turned toward the dining room, Steven came back up the steps. Ignoring the disbelief in his eyes, she smiled broadly. “Good afternoon, Steven. I’m starving!”
Steven caught Donald’s eye for a moment and then looked quickly at the reservations book. He wasn’t ready to face Donald. He ran his finger down the page, realizing that he hadn’t taken their names off the list. It had never occurred to him they would show up. Steven shook his head as he pretended to be checking the book. “Elgin? Elgin? Elgin?”
Libby couldn’t stop laughing. The indieprods, like The Little Match Girl and Tiny Tim, sat close, hands clutched nervously beneath the table. Meryl and Sam looked at each other and shrugged. Junior was getting angry. No one knew why Libby was laughing.
“Do I have a last cowboy for you!” she said, drying the corners of her eyes. “You know, sometimes I think that if I hadn’t opened this restaurant, the only movies that would get made are Rambo VII and Halloween 23.” She took Meryl’s hand. “There’s only one person who can play that part and he’ll be here any minute.”
Meryl suddenly understood. “We were talking about Cal. He’s perfect.”
The male cleared his throat. “You see, Junior? I told you we were right about Cal.”
Libby winked proudly at the male and turned toward the desk looking for Cal. She noticed that Birnbaum had his back to the room. He was facing the door. So was Steven. Libby stood up. “I must be seeing things.” She left the table quickly.
Phyllis opened her arms wide as Libby approached. “Darling, look at you! Sheer pink perfection! Tell her, Donald. She never believes me. She thinks I say things just because I’m her best friend. She trusts you.”
In her heart, Libby still did. Her emotions were notoriously out of sync with her brain. What Libby wanted most of all was to sit down with Phyllis and Donald and have them comfort her while she told them about all the terrible things that Phyllis and Donald had done.
“Get out!” Libby said.
Phyllis grabbed her arm. “Darling, I’m so glad you finally brought it up. I’ve been dying to clear the air. Let me explain. Cal . . .”
“Cal?” Libby shook her head. “You think I’m upset about Cal? He can take care of himself.”
“Voilà!” Phyllis said. “My point precisely.”
“It’s what you did to Steven. I’ll never forgive you for that.”
“Oh, darling, don’t be a crankypuss. After all these years you’re not going to let a little misunderstanding come between us and lunch?” Phyllis put her arms around Libby.
Libby held tight. “God help me,” she whispered, “I wasn’t ready to lose you.”
Phyllis rolled her eyes. “But you haven’t lost me, darling. I’m right here!”
Libby stepped back. She pulled Donald’s handkerchief from his breast pocket and blew her nose. “Steven, get rid of this garbage!”
Donald turned quickly to the door. “I told you it was a mistake to come!”
“C’est la vie,” Phyllis said, taking his arm and pausing just long enough to grab the handkerchief back from Libby. “But you know what they say. It is better to have lunched and lost than never to have lunched at all.”
Libby walked backward down the steps, and bumped into Phil Donahue’s table. “I’m sorry,” she said, pretending to brush a few crumbs from the cloth.
“Are you all right?” Phil asked.
“Why? You want to do a show on all right?”
He smiled. “No. I want to do a show on why the hell it costs so much to have lunch these days.”
Before the Elgins left, Steven grabbed hold of Phyllis. “No one has to know what really happened.”
Phyllis smiled meanly. “The check is in the mail.”
“I don’t want money,” he said.
“In other words, this is really going to cost me.”
“No,” Steven said. “It’s going to cost me. I’ve decide
d to be noble.”
“Splendid, darling.” Phyllis lit a cigarette. “What time will you be jumping?”
“Even if Cal knew the truth,” Steven said, “he wouldn’t press charges. He’s too ashamed of me.”
Phyllis blew a stream of smoke into his face and smiled. “We all are, Steven.”
Donald was nearly unable to control himself. “I insist we leave.”
“Shut up, Donald.” Phyllis pushed him away. “Steven, tell me what you want. The suspense is killing you.”
“I want you to produce the play. I want my father in New York so he can be with Libby.”
Phyllis fluttered her eyelids. “I suppose next you’re jetting off to feed tandoori chicken and mint chutney to the lepers.”
“If you ever tell anyone about this,” Steven said, “I swear I’ll sing louder than Pavarotti.”
Phyllis shrugged. “I’d hold up ordering the crown of thorns if I were you. No matter what you call it, it’s still blackmail.” She dropped her cigarette to the carpet, not bothering to put it out. She snapped angrily at Taylor. “Give me my gun!”
Donald was furious. “Don’t let Steven pressure you, Phyllis. It’s too demeaning.”
“For whom? Is it more demeaning than everyone knowing I’m married to the Queen of Wall Street? My sweetheart,” she said, patting his cheek and smiling wickedly. “If truth be told, your shooting Cal makes for great box office.”
“My sweetheart,” he said softly. “If truth be told, I was aiming at you.”
While Libby was still reeling from her close encounter with Phyllis, Junior took her arm and headed toward the dining room.
“I can’t,” she protested. “The President is going to be here any minute!”
“You can see the door from my table.” Junior guided Libby into a seat. Wanda, who was just finishing her salad, looked up as Junior lifted her plate, took her fork and grabbed her hand. He led her across the aisle to Fay’s table. “Fay, I want you to meet Wanda.” Without waiting for Fay’s response, he put down the plate and fork, knowing Wanda would sit.
“I can see why you want to make a Nazi movie,” Libby said as Junior came back to the table.
“Forget the Nazi movie. That was yesterday. I did a lot of stupid things yesterday. That’s what I like about the picture business. You can be stupid one day and a genius the next.”
“Okay, genius. The meter is running.”
He leaned closer and spoke softly. “Everybody and his brother passed on that script. Now that Meryl is interested, suddenly it’s got legs. But I’m the one who can make it walk. I can make it run.”
“The kids stay.”
“Why? Why the hell are they so important to you?”
Libby put a hand to her forehead. “I’m old-fashioned. I like happy endings. That’s the trouble with the picture business today. Nobody rides off into the sunset. Boy doesn’t get girl anymore.”
“And everybody says it’s producer’s wives who are a pain in the neck.”
“I’m not his wife.”
“Ex-wife. Same thing.”
“That’s what I used to think. But it’s not.” She reached for his hand. “You still don’t understand about endings.”
He pulled away from her. “This is my deal.”
“Not without those kids.”
“This isn’t a business for kids.”
“It was their picture.”
“It was their script. It’s my picture. They’ll be carded as associates for the dog work. If they have a good agent, they’ll make a profit on expenses.”
Libby smiled. “They’ve just hired the best agent in the business. Now you listen to me and you listen hard. We both know you want Cal more than you don’t want those kids. They’re going to come out of this as producers. I don’t care what title you give yourself. And Cal’s going to come out of this with six. Plus the same percentages Meryl gets. The same perks.”
Junior sat back and shook his head. “What about you? What do you get out of all this?”
“Nothing. I’m just balancing the books.” Libby had promised Cal six million dollars if she didn’t marry him.
“You don’t see Mimi Sheraton anywhere, do you?” Harriet whispered, reaching for the butter.
J moved the dish away. “It was one thing to be oral-compulsive at Vassar, but no one thought you’d make a career out of it.”
“Is she here or not?”
“Don’t be so paranoid, Harriet.” J sipped her margarita. “It’s my day to relax. Idle rich enjoys idle. No, she’s not here.” J smiled, adding, “But there are still some empty tables.”
While J idled, Harriet shifted into reverse. Truffle Pot Pie, instead of “the latest rip-off,” would be discovered as a daring culinary sleight-of-hand. Witty. Provocative. Redolent with something or other. And Libby’s would be revealed as her favorite haunt, la corrida of the power elite, where everyone lunched in the sun and loved it. Harriet Moss tasted front page, and even if she had to tell the truth to get it, nothing was going to stop her. It was one hell of a comment on the current state of journalism, but then again, she never pretended to be Walter Cronkite.
Harriet reached for the dish, stuck the tip of her knife into the butter and caught a sliver on the edge. She tasted it. “Lucky for them, it’s real butter.”
J began to laugh. “You’ve just never grown up. The Moss who still wants to be a Rolling Stone. I can recall you wearing sweats and jeans long before they became South Shore. Then you wrote a novel no one read and a cookbook no one used. You entered the Great American Screenplay Contest and lost. Nothing but failure after dismal failure. And then, rather than give up and marry money, you took arms against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Knowing you could never be as splendid a writer as Gael Greene, you became bitter, obnoxious and filled with loathing.”
Harriet shook a finger in J’s face. “Before I forget, don’t believe everything you hear about the meatloaf at Mortimer’s.”
“Oh, Harriet. How I envy you.”
By the time Junior came back to his corner after Round Two, he had finessed himself in as Executive Producer. He had guaranteed not only financing, but Cal. As far as Junior was concerned, neither Cal nor the Bank of America would be crazy enough to pass on a piece of a Streep/Dennis Christmas pie. The only thing he had to figure out was how to get a copy of the screenplay. He had never read it.
Junior was heading across the aisle to pick up Wanda when he saw Ashanti at his table. “What the hell do you want?” he asked.
She was squirting lemon onto a plate of raw oysters. “I’m desperate. Bill Perry went back to his wife.”
“I don’t care. Fuck off.”
Ashanti swallowed an oyster in a single gulp. “Junior, will you marry me?”
He sat down. “Yes.”
“Would you like an oyster?”
“I hate oysters.”
“One man’s merde is another man’s poisson.” Ashanti looked at him for the first time. “Forgive me. I must remember you’re too dumb to appreciate puns.”
“And what must I do?”
“You must make up with Senior.”
“Are you crazy?”
“I don’t want you disinherited.”
“I’m already disinherited.”
“Then we’re going to get you reinherited. I want that money.”
“You think he’s going to be overjoyed when he finds out I’m marrying you?”
Ashanti put down her fork. “Why don’t you just call a spade a spade? I am fully aware that you are marrying out of your race. But I, for all intents and purposes, darling, am marrying out of the species. Not that I’m complaining. If man were afraid to cross frontiers, he’d never have discovered Canada.”
Junior took her hand. “I don’t need Senior’s money.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Do you know what it’s going to cost me to redecorate?”
“Redecorate?”
“Surely you don’t expect me to live in a ho
use where art is defined as a painting by Elke Sommer.”
He smiled. “You’re incredible. Ravishing. Greedy. Heartless. Frigid. Just like my mother.”
The waiter brought a phone to the table. “I have a call for you, sir.”
Junior shrugged. “Must be the KKK.” He picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
It was Senior. Shouting. “I wanted you to be the first to know. I just bought that cockamamie German book from Janos. It’s mine! So any ideas you had about ever getting it back, you could forget. Forever!”
“Listen, you old fart, I don’t give a damn about that book. I’m producing The Last Cowboy with Meryl Streep and Cal Dennis.”
“Big deal! Just you remember one thing! I was the first producer to drop the option on that picture. Years ago!”
Junior shrugged. There was no way to get through. “I’m getting married, Pop.” He pointed to Ashanti.
Senior nodded. “Does she do windows?”
“I’d like you to meet her.”
“I’ll meet her when I do Porgy and Bess.”
“You’ll like her.”
“I don’t like you. Why should I like her?”
“Pop . . .”
“Pop! All of a sudden the weasel goes Pop.”
“I’d like you to be at my wedding.”
There was a pause. “I’m very busy.”
“How about lunch?” Junior asked.
“Maybe that could be arranged.”
“How soon can we do it?”
“I don’t know. Have your people get in touch with my people.”
In all the years she had been lunching at Libby’s, Fay couldn’t remember anyone actually ordering dessert. Certainly not anyone with a body like Wanda’s.
“No thanks,” Fay said as Wanda held out a plate of chocolate-covered raspberries.
“Mmm,” Wanda said, closing her eyes in ecstasy.
Fay smiled. “Oh, I know just where I’m goin’ to take you tonight, sweetie.”
Wanda looked at Fay, then lowered her eyes as though she had been animated by Disney.
“I know a place,” Fay said softly, “where they serve the best damn grasshoppers in the city.” She saw a sudden look of horror on Wanda’s face and began to laugh. “Honey, it’s the name of a drink. I can see I’ve got my work cut out for me.” Fay pressed the blinking button on her phone and picked up the receiver.