An American Love Story

by Rona Jaffe

  “There’s a wonderful actor I want for Charles,” Thalia went on. “I think we can get him. Gary Nell. He has the perfect nerdy quality for Charles.”

  “But Charles isn’t a nerd!” Susan blurted out. Never mind being the sergeant. “He’s an attractive, popular, all-American boy. That’s the point—how can a person like him come so under the thrall of a crazy girl like Meredith.”

  “Because he’s a nerd,” Thalia said implacably.

  “Who’s Gary Nell?” Clay asked pleasantly.

  “You remember him,” Susan said. “He was in Mudsuckers. The one with the funny teeth. He’s at least thirty.” Then she remembered Clay had never seen Mudsuckers. Not only did he not watch television but he refused to go to the movies. But he must have seen the promo photos on billboards and in the newspapers.

  “He doesn’t look thirty,” Thalia said. “He looks much younger.”

  “Charles Sheridan is a real person,” Susan said. “The case had a lot of publicity. Everyone knows what he looks like. Gary Nell is the opposite of Charles Sheridan. The actor who has the right quality is Mark Gaskett.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “We have some tape on him,” Clay said. “You could look at it.”

  “Oh, no, I remember who he is now,” Thalia said. “A highly overrated heartthrob.”

  They seemed at an impasse and went on to discuss other things. Susan kept quiet while Clay and Thalia talked about hiring guest stars to do cameos. There were no questions about the script and Thalia and Clay thanked Susan, which she realized was her order to leave, so she did. She did not, however, intend to give up her position on the casting.

  She kept after Clay about the unsuitability of Gary Nell until he gave in. The fact was he respected her opinion and he knew she was right, especially after she made him watch a portion of tape.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll get Mark Gaskett if his agent doesn’t want too much money.”

  Clay was always worried about finances. He kept saying it was impossible to make a two-hour TV movie for the two million dollars the network was giving him and be able to make a profit for Sun West too, and said he would be lucky if it didn’t cost him money. He told her he could make it up in foreign distribution, but that would take a long time, and he was constantly on the phone. Susan loved his wheeling and dealing and thought he was brilliant.

  In the middle of all this excitement there was more: Dana was going to marry Henri Goujon. It was his fourth marriage and her first; she was forty and he was fifty-eight. She didn’t look it; he did. They were going to have a small wedding in the garden at the Bel-Air Hotel, for only family and close friends, and Dana insisted on wearing a long white gown with a train and a veil. In a way she thought of her wedding as another role and her dress as a costume. Susan was to be the maid of honor. Luckily Dana had allowed her to choose a dress she would be able to wear again in real life.

  Clay had been invited but he refused to go. “I’m in the middle of production,” he said. “And I hate weddings.” To them he merely said he was too busy.

  “Tell him I’m hurt,” Dana told Susan.

  “He really is swamped,” Susan said.

  “He could take off one afternoon.”

  “He’s a nervous workaholic, what can I tell you?”

  “Well,” Dana said, “I think he’s afraid to come to my wedding because it will make him feel guilty about not marrying you.”

  “You really do?” Susan said, surprised.

  “Sure. His daughter is out of college, he can’t use that as an excuse anymore. What is he going to do, wait till the grandchildren die?” Susan laughed. “I’m glad you’re so good-natured about it,” Dana said. “I told Goujon if he didn’t propose I would leave and he’d have to take care of himself. The next morning he put an engagement ring in my granola. I nearly swallowed it.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “Well, it was a fake diamond. We went for the real one after breakfast. You see, he does have a romantic soul. It just took a little push.”

  “Seriously … why are you marrying that dreadful man?”

  “I’m tired,” Dana said. “I’m fucking tired and I’m tired fucking. I’m so tired of fighting to survive. I want some stability in my life. And, God help me, I love the guy.”

  They looked at each other for a long moment. “Clay has financial problems,” Susan said. “Don’t tell anybody.”

  “You think Goujon’s three alimonies aren’t financial problems?” Dana said. “But we have our beautiful house on the beach in Malibu and we’re going to live in it happily ever after. Unless there’s an earthquake.”

  “You have mellowed.”

  “I’m a bride.”

  The day of Dana’s wedding Susan was so excited she washed her hair with creme rinse instead of shampoo and had to do it all over again. Carefully and subtly made up she looked at herself in the mirror. The expensive greenish designer dress she and Dana had picked had been on sale because it was a hard color to wear, but she could carry it because of the pink in her skin, and it brought out her green eyes. Her auburn mane had darkened a little but it still had no gray in it. Clay had been coloring his hair for a long time now, and it was flecked with silver and gold. He said he had to do it for his profession, that if you seemed old you were out. She wondered whether she should start to put something on hers. But she would always be eleven years younger than he, and she liked that. That morning before he left for the office she had asked him what he thought about her starting to color her hair, and he had chuckled. “You’re a very young monkey,” he had said, and kissed her. She wished he were coming to the wedding; she didn’t like going alone.

  The Bel-Air Hotel was set in the middle of a peaceful garden paradise. Below the small footbridge was a lake where swans floated. Coyotes come down from the hills at night and eat them, Susan thought. It was something Meredith would have said. No matter where she was or what she was doing, a part of her always thought of The Romeo and Juliet Murder and the characters she had become so immersed in. Swans are pretty, but frightening too; their necks are like snakes. Meredith would have said that, too.

  There was a canopy of flowers set up on the lawn, with rows of chairs in front of it. Music was playing softly. It was a beautiful day, warm but not hot, not a cloud in the deep blue sky. Guests were standing around drinking glasses of champagne brought by uniformed waiters. Susan drank one, waiting for her cue. The ceremony was to be totally unreligious, performed by a judge. There were Dana’s parents, happy their daughter was being married at last. Susan could see Dana’s beauty in her mother’s features, and wondered if she thought Henri Goujon was an odd choice. She probably just thought he was mature and successful.

  It began. Dana came down the aisle, startlingly radiant, glowing. Even Goujon seemed moved by his wedding; he actually beamed. Susan was touched. She and Dana had known each other almost twenty years, they had shared so much. She hoped Dana would be as happy as she was.

  Then Dana handed her the bridal bouquet in order to receive her ring and Susan found herself pretending it was her own. Clay should have been here. But that was the way he was.…

  She was always saying that was the way it was. She was always accepting. Perhaps that was why they had been together so long.

  At the reception Susan couldn’t eat; she was anxious to be away. It seemed to last forever, and she couldn’t be rude. She wanted to get back to the office to see if she had missed anything, to go on with her work. When Dana and Goujon went zipping away, in a white Rolls-Royce convertible he had rented for the occasion instead of a limousine, Dana grinned mischievously and tossed her the flowers. Susan went directly to the office and left them in her car.

  “How was the wedding?” Penny asked.

  “Fine.”

  Clay was in a production meeting, and when it was over Susan went into his office. “How was the wedding?” he asked.

  “Fine.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t like
it. I was smart not to go.”

  “I liked it. It was lovely.” She was both glad to see him and annoyed at him.

  “You look so pretty and dressed up I’m going to have to take you somewhere nice for dinner tonight.”

  “Oh, good. What’s new, anything?”

  “Thalia and I found a wonderful girl to play Meredith,” Clay said. “Her name is … oh, I forgot, what’s that girl’s name, Penny?” he called. “The one we auditioned today.”

  “Danielle Chedere,” Penny called back from her cubicle.

  “You found someone without me?” Susan said.

  “Well, you know we were desperate. Thalia is very high on this girl. She’s very pretty, and a good actress.” He handed Susan an eight-by-ten glossy. The only resemblance between Danielle Chedere and Meredith Perry was that both were blond. Meredith had been delicate and beautiful, Danielle was heavy-faced, strong-looking, almost plain. And she was much too old. “She gave a great reading,” Clay said.

  “Why couldn’t you have waited?” Susan asked.

  “You weren’t here. We have a deadline.”

  “Why does Thalia like her so much?”

  “Thalia says she’s sexy,” Clay said.

  “That must have been some magical reading. What is she, French? Does she have an accent?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Do you think she’s sexy?” Susan asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Shit.”

  They signed her and Susan tried to make the best of it. She was sure she knew what had happened: Danielle was still unknown and therefore not expensive, Thalia wanted to create a star. Thalia thought in the simplest terms: if Charles was “the victim of her will” then he was a nerd, if Meredith controlled him then she was dominating, sexy (or Thalia’s conception of same), and strong. Maybe the reading had been different. She would wait and see. But a few nights later, watching television, she saw Danielle Chedere in a small guest shot on a series. She looked fat, tired, and thirty.

  “Clay!” Susan shrieked.

  He came running. “What?”

  “There’s Danielle Chedere!”

  He looked for a few moments. “I hope she doesn’t look like that,” he said. His tone was rueful amusement at what he had done.

  “Oh, I’m sure it’s just bad makeup,” Susan said. Now that the mistake had been made she wanted to keep up his spirits.

  They started to film the following Monday morning. Susan drove to the set with Clay. “I have to warn you about the food,” he said. “It’s all over the place, and it looks good, and we can easily gain weight. The other thing is, remember that Thalia is the general. If you want to tell her something, take her aside when she’s free. Never talk to her in front of the others; it undermines her authority.”

  “Okay.”

  Susan looked at the call sheet. They were starting with a very simple scene outside the local college hangout, where Meredith and some friends were on their way to try to meet boys. Susan watched them shoot it, standing respectfully at a distance. It was hard to hear the lines. Suddenly Danielle turned around and said: “I don’t want to meet anybody. I’m going home,” and ran away. That line belonged in another scene. And just as suddenly, Clay sprinted over to where Thalia was standing, a thin figure in black, and pulled her off to whisper in her ear. His face was deadly pale.

  “We’re going to shoot again,” Thalia called to the actors. She huddled with them. This time Danielle went into the building with the others. Clay came back to stand with Susan. His face was no longer pale; now it was flushed with anger.

  “Thalia’s not prepared,” he said very quietly. “We’re in trouble. We have a director who doesn’t prepare. Do you know why I ran up there to talk to her?”

  “Why?”

  “Because in the next scene they’re all in the bar and even though Meredith is reluctant she meets Charles and their relationship begins. They can’t meet if she ran away. Thalia didn’t even know that. She thought it would give the scene more action if Meredith said the line here and left. We’re shooting out of sequence and the director didn’t even remember the scene this one leads to.”

  “My God,” Susan said.

  “I’m going to have to watch her,” Clay said grimly.

  They shot four more scenes and broke for lunch. Thalia was extremely fast, and Susan could see why she always brought her projects in ahead of time. After lunch they began to shoot one of the most difficult scenes in the picture, a fight between Meredith and Charles, in which he had a great many complicated lines. It was an unusual choice for the first day of filming. In the story the characters were already deep into their love affair, but in actual fact the actors hadn’t played together yet, and hardly knew each other. It would be hard for any actor to do his best work under the circumstances.

  Mark Gaskett was nervous; he was stiff and stumbled over his lines. That upset him and he got worse. Thalia looked inscrutable. She didn’t make the slightest effort to help him or to give him direction, she just stood there licking her finger and rubbing a tiny food spot from lunch off her black silk shirt. “That’s a wrap,” she said finally. Susan’s heart sank.

  They waited for the next setup. “I told you he was no good,” Thalia said to Susan and Clay. “He has no talent. You should have taken Gary Nell. Mark Gaskett is just another pretty face. In a few years he’ll be nobody.”

  “Won’t you try to show him how to do the scene?” Susan asked.

  “He can’t do the scene,” Thalia said smugly, and walked away.

  That night Susan had difficulty sleeping. She thought if she could just have a talk with Mark he would be more comfortable in the part. She felt confident about that. Beside her, Clay wasn’t asleep either. “Clay? May I tell Mark a little bit about the character?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Go to sleep. We have to be up at five.”

  The next morning she went into Mark’s dressing room. “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi.”

  “Did you ever have a girlfriend who made you so mixed up you didn’t know what to do?”

  He grinned. “Several.”

  “Well, Charles feels that way about Meredith. Sometimes he says things to her he would never dare say to any of his friends because he’s entirely into her mind world. Eventually she makes him go so far he doesn’t even know what he’s doing, but he does it. Did you ever feel that way?”

  He nodded. “Yep.”

  “Well,” Susan said, “that’s the relationship. You remember how some people thought he wanted to get rid of her because it was the only way he could get away from her.”

  “That’s why they thought it was murder!”

  “That was one theory. And you remember the other was that she wanted to die and he couldn’t deny her anything.”

  “Like euthanasia,” he said.

  “Sort of. And eventually the judge decided he was actually under her spell.”

  “Some of those sluts really bend your mind,” Mark said.

  Susan winced at the word slut but went on in the same calm, sympathetic voice. “You’re ambivalent,” she said. “Use it. That’s the quality that got him into trouble.”

  Mark nodded, looking pleased. “Yeah,” he said. “Thanks.”

  When they shot the next scene his performance was much more fluid, more interesting. He was already comfortable with Danielle, but when he looked at her Susan could see some other girl from his past in his eyes. It wouldn’t have killed Thalia to take five minutes with him, Susan thought; but then, Thalia doesn’t know what ambivalent is.

  The days were long. From the very beginning they seemed a combination of quick crises and boring waiting around. There was indeed the dangerous food: coffee and all kinds of pastries, rolls and bagels at dawn, then if they weren’t having lunch until one there were big platters of sandwiches at eleven, then the vast hot and cold buffet lunch, then in the afternoon fruit, yogurt, candy bars, cookies and cake, peanut butter and jam and cheese to make more sandw
iches, juices and sodas, and of course the endless coffee to keep everyone awake and give Susan heartburn. At lunch they sat at long tables and Thalia regaled everyone with stories about her glorious past in television. Mark and Danielle never seemed to get enough of this, but some of the older people, hearing a story for the third time, quietly left.

  And Danielle ate. She ate at meals and she ate between meals. She made peanut butter and banana sandwiches on bagels at three in the afternoon. She kept candy bars in her dressing room. She was always at the hot table for seconds, piling up her plate. Soon the pleats at the top of her pants began to open up, but what was more difficult to hide was what was happening to her face.

  Susan was allowed to go to the dailies every evening, and there on the large screen it was quickly apparent that Danielle had jowls. Thalia blamed the makeup woman, who cried. Thalia apologized. Afterward she directed all of Danielle’s scenes from below, with Danielle holding her head up like a seal. It made her look slightly demented. But no matter what Danielle did, in Thalia’s eyes she could do no wrong.

  The two of them began to change the lines. At six in the morning Danielle would be sitting in the makeup chair marking up the script, and by the time Thalia started to shoot everything was different. At night Thalia and Danielle often had dinner together, and changed the lines then. No one knew what to expect in the morning, and Clay was getting angrier every day. He started coming to the set before anyone else so he could keep control, and Susan watched the lines she had so carefully polished for so long being paraphrased into some strange semblance of cinema verité.

  She told herself that the film had its own reality, that the actors had to do whatever they could with what she now realized were their limitations, and that even if different from her premise at least the relationship between Charles and Meredith would have its own veracity. She wondered why Danielle had so much influence over Thalia, who apparently thought she was brilliant. Could they be lovers? People could be anything in Hollywood, but Susan strongly doubted it. The answer seemed to be something surprising but obvious: Thalia only wanted to be liked. Clay glared at her, she resented Mark, and she didn’t feel Susan belonged there; so who were her friends? To who else could she be the mentor?