An Inconvenient Woman

by Dominick Dunne

  “Mrs. Mendelson is expecting me,” said the man. He spoke with an English accent.

  “Indeed, Lord St. Vincent,” said Dudley.

  Philip Quennell and Lord St. Vincent looked at each other as they passed. Dudley did not introduce them.

  “I can’t understand it,” said Flo. “People are interested, very interested in my book. There is great excitement. And then, suddenly, those very same people are no longer interested. We’re never going to sell my book.”

  “You are entirely too quick to be defeated. You don’t seem to understand how strong a position you are in, Flo,” replied Cyril.

  She shook her head. “I’m not in a strong position. There are forces working that have nothing to do with us.”

  “You dramatize.”

  “They’re no longer interested because the person to whom they have to present the idea has already been gotten to by someone,” said Flo.

  “Oh, come on. Who has such power?”

  “Friends of Pauline.”

  “What sort of friends?”

  “One of the former Presidents who has dinner in her house.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  The initial enthusiasm in publishing circles that Joel Zircon reported for Flo March’s book, Jules’s Mistress, seemed to abate overnight. Publishing companies that as recently as a week earlier had claimed they were ready to make a deal, once the first chapter and the outline were turned in—which they assured Joel was only a formality—were now difficult to get on the telephone.

  “It’s been a long fucking time since someone didn’t return my telephone calls,” complained Joel Zircon to Mona Berg, when they were having lunch. Joel had been given a promotion in the Berg Agency. “I can’t understand it.”

  Mona, ever practical, had an instant solution. “Go the miniseries route,” she suggested.

  “Meaning?”

  “You take your first chapter, and your outline, and you go to the networks, and say, ‘I have here the first chapter and the outline of Jules’s Mistress, Miss Flo March’s book, which all the publishing companies are snapping at my heels for, but I have decided to skip that step and come straight to you while the story is still hot, hot, hot.’ ”

  “Yeah?”

  “Then you start teasing them a little. Drop the big names. Jules Mendelson. Pauline Mendelson. All those Washington people. And bank presidents. And cabinet ministers. You’ll have them eating right out of your hand.”

  “Former cabinet ministers.”

  “All right, all right. Former cabinet ministers. Don’t get picky with me when I’m doing your creative work for you.”

  “Sorry. Go on.”

  “Use words like billionaire, and high society, and mansion when you describe it. They always like that.”

  “Great idea, Mona. You’re the best in the business.”

  “I know,” said Mona.

  “Something’s gone off,” said Joel.

  “Meaning?”

  “They’re not going to do the miniseries.”

  “I thought you said they were going to buy it.”

  “They changed their mind.”

  “Why?”

  “They said mistress stories are not commercial.”

  Flo pulled the covers up over her and turned toward the wall. “Somebody got to them,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said. Somebody got to them.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “You don’t know these people the way I do.”

  Joel tried the other two networks. There was enthusiasm at the lower echelons, followed by rejection when the idea was presented at the highest levels of programming.

  “I must be losing my touch,” said Joel to Cyril. “I thought if anything was sure-fire, this was it. I mean, it has all the elements.”

  “I have an idea,” said Cyril.

  “What’s that?”

  “Get Flo an appearance on the Amos Swank show. Have her tell her story to late-night America. Beautiful young girl with a story to tell can’t get it published because the powerful of the country are conspiring against her.”

  “I’d stay up late to look at that.”

  “So would most of the country.”

  “Is Flo up to that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She don’t look so steady to me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s falling apart again.”

  “Don’t worry about Flo. I’ll get her in shape.”

  There was great excitement when the date was set for Flo to appear on “After Midnight,” the Amos Swank show. She began to pull herself together again. She went each morning to the log cabin to attend the AA meetings. On the advice of Philip Quennell, she did not raise her hand and discuss her life anymore at the meetings.

  “People know who you are now. They talk about you. They’re not supposed to, but some of them do,” said Philip. He did not tell her he suspected that Rose Cliveden had repeated everything she had said to either Pauline or Sims Lord. He only said, “Don’t go out for coffee with Rose C.”

  “Why not?”

  “She’s a talker.”

  “But she was so nice to me.”

  She went to a gym and began to work out. She went back to Pooky to get her hair done, and to Blanchette to get her nails done. She brought Pooky back to her house with her to help her decide what she should wear on the night of her appearance. She had not been able to afford new clothes since Jules died, but Pooky assured her that the Chanels in her wardrobe were classics and timeless. He took the one they picked out for her to wear on the Amos Swank show to a dressmaker friend of his in the San Fernando Valley and had it shortened to the latest length. “Wear the sapphire-and-diamond ring,” he said. “That’s all. Don’t wear the canary diamond earrings.”

  “You’re a pal, Pooky,” she said.

  Cyril took on the job of coaching her. He brought her video tapes of Amos Swank interviewing other celebrities to study. “Sit like this,” he would say. Or, “Don’t use that expression.” Or, “If you talk about Lonny Edge, make sure you say porn star.”

  “I’m not going to talk about Lonny Edge, Cyril.”

  Flo was frightened.

  A call to Mona Berg from Freddie Galavant, who had once been an ambassador and was a close friend of people in high places, warned her that if her agency represented the book or miniseries of the whore Flo March, the IRS would never give her a moment’s peace again. Mona called Joel Zircon into her office and said, “Drop it.”

  “But I almost have a deal.”

  “Drop it,” repeated Mona.

  Joel dropped it.

  Because Dom Belcanto, the ballad singer, was the main guest on the Amos Swank show that night, Arnie Zwillman gave up his nightly card game to stay home with Adrienne Basquette and watch his great friend. “I never miss one of Dom’s appearances,” he said to Adrienne. It was not until the opening credits, when all the guests were billboarded, that he realized that Flo March, “the girl who wrote the book that everyone is afraid to publish,” as Amos Swank himself described her, was to be the final guest on the show, after Dom Belcanto, who was plugging his new album, My Cigarette Burns Me.

  “That fucking broad’s a loose cannon,” said Arnie to Adrienne.

  Pauline Mendelson, who led a busy life, almost never watched television, except for the news, and certainly never watched the Amos Swank show. “I never know who any of those people are,” she used to say to Jules, about the roster of guests on the show, who were mostly the leads in television series she had never seen, or comics from Las Vegas, where she had never been. But she was to be the chairperson of a benefit for the Blind Children’s Home of Los Angeles, which she agreed to do before Jules’s death, and Dom Belcanto, who did “marvelous things” for charity, as his publicist was quick to point out, had agreed to sing at the dinner at the Century Plaza. So that night she watched, as she h
ad to meet Dom the next day to discuss the benefit.

  Flo had met that afternoon with the researcher from the Amos Swank show, who had been most sympathetic with her story and assured her that her segment, although it was to be the last one of the show, could be the most popular, except for Dom Belcanto’s.

  “You mean that I won’t get to talk with Amos Swank until we go on the air?” asked Flo. “Even get to meet him?”

  “That’s right,” said Laurette. “Amos feels it’s better for the spontaneity of the show when you meet on the air for the first time.”

  “How will he know what to ask me if we don’t talk first?”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” said Laurette. “I’ve read Cyril Rathbone’s piece in Mulholland, and I’ve read your first chapter, and the outline. Dynamite. Really dynamite. We talk through your story, you and I, and then I go and talk it through with Amos, and decide what parts are the most interesting, and then I write the questions, and they’re put on the teleprompter,” said Laurette.

  “That’s how they do it? Really?”

  “And there’ll be a large audience tonight because of Dom Belcanto. The whole country will be watching, believe me. What a draw that guy is,” she said.

  “I don’t want to talk about Mr. Mendelson’s stepson,” said Flo.

  “No, no, no, not to worry,” said the researcher.

  “Do me a favor, Cyril. Wait outside somewhere. You make me nervous,” said Flo. She was in the chair in the makeup room.

  “I just wanted to stress about the letter that Jules wrote you leaving you the million dollars,” said Cyril. “Did you give them the Xerox of it, so they can show it on the monitor?”

  “Please, Cyril. I went through everything with Laurette this afternoon. She has the letter.”

  The makeup artist, Jess, placed Kleenex all around the collar of her Chanel blouse so that the pancake wouldn’t come off and cause a stain. The makeup artist admired her hair. “I never saw such beautiful hair,” he said.

  “Thank you,” said Flo. “Everyone’s so nice here. I can’t get over it.”

  “We’ve been together a long time here on the show. It’s really like a family,” said Jess.

  “Do you think I should kiss Amos on both cheeks when I make my entrance?” Flo asked.

  “How well do you know Amos?”

  “I’ve never met him,” said Flo.

  “No, I wouldn’t kiss him then.”

  “That’s what I thought. I saw Roseanne kiss him when she went on, so I thought I’d ask,” said Flo.

  Flo was very nervous as the time approached, but she was also very excited. She had always wanted to be in show business. She loved being in the makeup room, having Jess work on her. She loved sitting in the green room talking with the other guests who were going to be on the show. She wished she had pursued her career in show business. She used to want to be no more than the second lead in a situation comedy, but she felt now that she could do more important roles. It occurred to her that maybe this appearance could lead to some acting jobs. She thought about getting new pictures taken. And an agent. She would need an agent. Maybe Joel Zircon would handle her as an actress as well as an author.

  “Miss March?”

  “Yes?” She looked up to see a page in a dark blue uniform. “Is it time to go on the set? I’m so nervous.”

  “Would you come with me, Miss March?” said the page.

  “Thank you.”

  “Mr. Marcuzzi would like to see you in his office,” said the page.

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Marcuzzi. The executive producer.”

  “Oh, my,” said Flo.

  “He’s in the West Building. On the fifteenth floor.”

  “Is there enough time before I go on?”

  “There must be. He runs the show.”

  She followed the page through the corridors leading from the studios in the East Building to the executive offices in the West Building. The page stepped aside as she got into the elevator and then pushed the button for the fifteenth floor.

  When the elevator doors opened, Flo got out. Cyril Rathbone was standing there. He stared at her.

  “Cyril, are you supposed to see Mr. Marcuzzi too?” asked Flo.

  “They canceled the segment,” said Cyril.

  “What?” she gasped.

  “You heard me.”

  “I don’t believe it. Laurette spent two hours at my house this afternoon. We went over everything. They just did my makeup.”

  “And then they canceled you,” said Cyril.

  “But Mr. Marcuzzi wants to see me.”

  “He wants to see you to tell you you’re not going on, that’s why he wants to see you. Do you know what he said? He said, ‘Amos don’t like guests who write books. He don’t read books. He likes big stars, like Dom Belcanto, or girls with big tits, like Roseanne, or animal acts.’ You don’t need to hear it twice,” said Cyril. The annoyance in his voice was with her for her failure rather than the failure of the Amos Swank show.

  Flo felt faint. Beneath her theatrical makeup, she had become ashen-faced. She felt that if she couldn’t sit down, she was going to fall down. Opposite the elevator bank were three windows with deep sills. She walked over to one of the windows and leaned against the sill. “Somebody made a call again,” she said. She spoke more to herself than to him. She stared out the window. Her face revealed an awareness of the hopelessness of her situation. She was deep in thought at what had just befallen her, but there was no aid from Cyril for her distress. To Cyril, she had become an unimportant person, and therefore her thoughts were unimportant thoughts.

  She looked down, out the open window. Fifteen floors below, the traffic on Ventura Boulevard raced by. She leaned slightly out the window and stared down. Thoughts of her mother filled her head, moving from welfare hotel to welfare hotel with all her worldly possessions in torn shopping bags.

  In that instant Cyril saw the possibilities of the thought that was forming in Flo’s mind. He resisted his initial impulse to reach out and grab her. “I was there. I tried to stop her,” he would say to the police. “I screamed, ‘Don’t, Flo! Don’t!’ But she eluded me.”

  “Jump,” said Cyril behind her, in a low voice. “Go ahead, Flo. Do it.”

  Flo slowly turned her head to him, and their eyes met. He looked eager and excited, and was breathing heavily. “It’s all over for you,” he said, talking rapidly, in a low but urgent voice. “You have nothing to live for. Jules is gone. In the long run, he forgot about you. You’re broke. You’re never going to have any money again. No one wants to see you. No one wants to know you. Do it. Jump, Flo. It’ll be all over the papers. It will be a sensation. People will remember you for years, Flo. Death can be a beautiful experience. Go on, Flo. Go on.”

  Flo stared at him, transfixed. He nodded at her. She looked back at the street below and knelt on the windowsill with one leg, still looking down. She then raised her other leg to the sill. Perched now, she stared down. The traffic on Ventura Boulevard raced below her, the headlights and taillights mesmerizing her. She leaned out farther on the ledge.

  “Go on,” whispered Cyril, from behind her. “Do it.” He repeated and repeated the words as if he were arriving at an orgasm, and she, his submissive accomplice, obliged in the act as she moved farther and farther out on the ledge. She raised her arms.

  At that moment the elevator stopped on their floor, announced by a bell and the opening of the door. “Going down,” called out a passenger from inside.

  The spell was broken. Flo leapt backward onto the floor. Pale, almost fainting, she stared up at Cyril Rathbone and slowly pulled herself away from him, with fear in her eyes, like a dog that had been whipped by its master. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She tried to raise herself from the floor, but her legs were too weak to rise.

  “Going down,” called out the voice from the elevator again, and the door started to close.

  “Hold it!” screamed Flo. She half rose to her feet an
d ran into the elevator. Cyril followed her. Inside, a janitor with a trolley of cleaning utensils nodded to them. Flo held on to the railing of the elevator for balance. Cyril began to speak to Flo, but she turned away from him. With shaking hands, she wiped the tears from her face and, in an automatic gesture, unscrewed her lip gloss and ran the stick over her lips without looking into a mirror. The elevator descended in silence.

  “I’ll get the car,” said Cyril when they got out.

  Flo shook her head. “Never mind. I’ll get a taxi,” she replied.

  “No, no, darling Flo. Don’t be silly.” His voice had returned to its florid tonality, as if what had just happened between them had not happened.

  “Yes.” She leaned against the wall, exhausted.

  “Would you like me to get you a glass of water?” he asked, nervously.

  “Why did you do that to me?” She barked out the sentence at him, as if it were one word.

  “It was a joke, Flo. I was kidding. You know I didn’t mean it.”

  She stared at him. “That’s some joke, Cyril. That’s really funny. Amos Swank could have gotten a lot of mileage out of that bit of comic business.” She walked away from him.

  “Flo,” he called after her.

  She stopped and turned toward him. “Stay away from me, Cyril,” she said. She pointed her finger at him for emphasis, and repeated, “Stay away.”

  • • •

  The Iranian taxi driver from Valley Cab kept looking at her in his rearview mirror. She looked familiar to him. He thought she might be a television star from one of the series at the studio where he had picked her up, but he couldn’t remember which one. She gave him her address on Azelia Way off Coldwater Canyon, in Beverly Hills. The address had a familiar ring to him. He looked at her in the mirror again, but she was deep in thought. He watched her as she opened her bag and took out her wallet. She kept looking at the meter and then looking down at the money in her hands, probably counting to see if she had enough.

  “Driver,” she said, “when you get to Sunset and Coldwater, you can let me out. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”