The script is called The Life of Chester A. Arthur, a phony title given the film to deter anyone looking for Dagmar’s latest project. It’s a three-beer script, because there are so many alternate scenes. Some of them are sketches that might as well be labeled TO BE FILLED IN LATER. But taken as a whole it’s impressive.
The writing is good, for one thing. Incisive, clear-cut, unambiguous. Considering the complexity of the whole project, it’s remarkably free of confusion.
And—more importantly for me—Roheen is in practically every scene. I’m central, I have some very smart lines to say, and there’s no way I’m not going to love this part.
Roheen turns out not to be an alien, or an angel. He’s human, more or less. He’s just a human from another dimension, or a parallel world. He’s a kind of anthropologist, on our world doing research with his team.
Except that it turns out there’s another group of visitors to our world, people called the Steene from yet another parallel dimension, and they’re hostile to Roheen’s crowd. So they kill Roheen’s companions and close the Tellurian Gate that he was planning on using to return to his home world.
So then it’s off to the next gate, with the Steene hit team in pursuit. And when the Steene close that gate, it’s on to the next, and the next.
Fortunately Roheen makes friends with a highly networked juvenile who has online friends in all the various territories Roheen needs to pass through. The kids are webbed in ways that the bad guys can only envy, and they hand off Roheen from one to another using methods both ingenious and courageous.
And as Roheen progresses, he changes. At the beginning he’s a little cold, a little clinical—he’s a scientist after all—and he’s also afraid of being killed at any moment. Later, he develops a deep gratitude to the kids who help him, and then he realizes that he can help them, and help the Earth. He makes major sacrifices in order to do this. The transformation from scientist to otherworldly angel is, for an actor, very interesting.
It’s so unlike anything I know from real life.
Turn your palms out. Show me your instep.
My guess is that it’s more complicated than that.
I’m thinking about all this when Tessa calls and asks if I want to go to dinner. She’s got only a few days before she has to head out for Namibia.
Hey, I think, this means I’m no longer a loser! My cooties are no longer catching.
I suggest sushi.
EXT. JOEY’S HOME—DAY
Here we are at Joey’s house. Not the one up Parmenter Canyon where he lived with Timmi, but his newer, bigger place in Bel Air Heights, some kind of French chateau built back in the 1930s, made of ochre-colored sandstone with a gray slate mansard roof and multiple chimneys.
It’s Old Hollywood. Ronald Coleman once took a shit here, or something. I’m surprised it hasn’t been demolished and replaced with a forty-room monstrosity.
Joey da Nova is playing host to everyone on the production with a lavish party two days prior to the first day of filming. Caterers in pale blue uniforms tend to grilled meats on the patio. Bottles of wine stand in rows on crisp white linen tablecloths. A group of people cluster around the Steinway in the drawing room, singing show tunes, and young women in tuxedos distribute drinks and canapés.
There’s security at the door—bullet-headed young men in neat navy blazers—collecting phones and anything else that might have a camera in it. Joey—or Dagmar—intends that no unflattering photos from this party will appear in tabloids or on websites.
It’s a laughable idea. There are so many ways to sneak cameras into a private gathering like this that you can almost guarantee that if anybody has their screaming celebrity meltdown in public, video will appear on the entertainment news the next day.
Trust me on this. You could ask Melody Chastain, after the video appeared that showed her kicking the dog.
I’m following my contractual agreements and drinking Sprite. I’m not terribly fond of Sprite in truth, but it’s clear, and it looks like it could have vodka in it, and I’m drinking it to make Dagmar nervous. But she hasn’t arrived yet, so the effect is wasted.
I wander out by the pool, which is full of children. Among them are two of the kid actors who are going to be working with me.
I’ve been spending as much time as possible with the kids. I’m trying to develop a rapport with all of them, and it’s not as easy as I hoped. I don’t particularly know how to talk to children. The fact that I had no childhood of my own probably isn’t helping.
So I end up spending time watching them interact with each other. Which is fine.
It turns out that while I was doing my training for Celebrity Pitfighter, talent searches were going on all over the world. The kids are from everywhere—India, China, South Africa, Chile, and Germany. Despite the diversity of their backgrounds, the kids have certain things in common. They’re all between twelve and fifteen, and they’re bright, attractive, smart, and charismatic. Because the parts require good English skills, they’re all well educated. They’re all from the elites in their own countries, and probably because of that they have a kind of glossy international affect—they’re fairly at ease with foreigners, and with each other.
I adjust a poolside umbrella to provide me with some shade, and sit in a lawn chair and watch the kids in the pool. They’re getting to know each other and having a good time.
They are so screwed, I think. They’re young and hopeful and talented. Some of them may become big stars, and they’ll all have dreams, and in time their dreams will be blasted apart, and their hearts will be broken and they’ll feel like has-beens for the rest of their lives.
It’s the process. It’s inevitable. And it’s not even as if I can tell them that this is going to happen, because they won’t believe me.
I’m thinking about all this when a pair of thin legs appear by my chair, and I look up to see Nataliya Hogan, pouting in a bikini.
Nataliya is attractive, for a mutant. Her lips are too plump and her gray eyes are too big and her face is too long and her nose is too bumpy and too pointy. But somehow it all works, it’s all strangely alluring. Her face is actually beautiful, if in much the same otherworldly way that an Afghan wolfhound is beautiful.
Her long graceful head, however, is placed on an anorexic Hollywood body. You can count her ribs. Her elbows are knobs on matchstick arms that look as if they belonged on an Auschwitz survivor. The AriPop swimsuit conceals breasts and hips that belong on a thirteen-year-old.
If there’s one thing our business teaches young girls, it’s how to upchuck your dinner into Tupperware and hide it under your bed. We could rename our town Bulimia City. And Nataliya Hogan is one of Bulimia City’s willing victims.
Hollywood selects for certain physical traits in actresses: very tall, and ten to twenty pounds underweight. You meet one woman like that and you don’t think much about it, but you see a whole crowd of them gathered in one place, like here at Joey’s party, and you could be forgiven for thinking that a spacecraft from the Planet of the Supermodels had landed, and the invasion was under way.
It’s not a physical type that particularly attracts me. I like women with breasts and hips. But casting directors never seem to take my preferences into account, and so Nataliya’s type remains the standard by which others are judged.
Nataliya sulks as she looks at the pool, probably because she hoped to be the only person in it, so that she could bob around in her bikini and be the center of attraction. Instead there are all these foreign kids in the water.
“Who are they?” she asks.
“Your costars,” I say. “Your costars’ brothers and sisters. And the children of people who will be working on the picture.”
She shakes her head. “I wonder if they’ll leave.”
“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “People will still admire your swimsuit even if you don’t get it wet.”
Nataliya accepts this without any consciousness of irony. She looks down at me and blinks
.
“I’ve met you before,” she says. “You were at Timmi’s funeral.”
My nerves give a little jump. Timmi’s funeral is something I try not to think about.
“Yes,” I say. “I was.”
Her brows furrow. “What’s your name again?”
I sigh inwardly. “Sean Makin.”
Something clicks in her head, and all of a sudden I have her full attention as she realizes that I’m the star of her next picture. With great insight she realizes that I’m useful to her.
“I’m sorry!” she says. “I didn’t recognize you!”
Never mind that I’m one of the most recognizable faces in Greater Los Angeles. “That’s all right,” I say.
“I think we have a couple scenes together,” she says. She draws a chair up next to mine and sits. It’s the first time she’s ever voluntarily spoken to me.
I wouldn’t want to give the impression Nataliya is stupid. She isn’t, and people who do as well as she in this business generally have considerable intelligence, even if sometimes it’s narrowly focused. In her case, her narcissism is so massive that it’s swallowed up all her brains, like a black hole, and left only her ambition behind.
Much as I dislike her, I have to admit that her casting in the film has been inspired. She plays Colleen, the ditzy au pair who is supposed to be looking after Emil, the D.C.-based German diplomat’s son who helps Roheen navigate the dangers of the American capital. Colleen is always texting her friends, oblivious of anything important in the house, and never notices that Roheen moves into the house she shares with Emil’s family. Nataliya’s otherworldly affect fits the character like a fine kidskin glove, another tribute to Joey’s uncanny skill at casting.
Joey likes to burnish the minor characters in his films, as I found to my gratitude when I played small parts in Sunlight and Shadow and Never the Reaper, and I suspect he prodded Dagmar into shining up the role of Colleen so that it would suit Nataliya’s gifts.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about my part,” Nataliya says.
“It’s a perfect gem,” I tell her.
She pouts a little. “I think it can be developed more,” she says. “I mean, I think there’s a crisis going on in Colleen’s life.”
“Really?”
“Yes. She’s always texting, she’s trying to get people on the phone, but there’s never any response.” She widens her gray eyes and gazes at me with a kind of wonder, as if she’s awakened to a new, magical, musical, Disney sort of day. “I think she’s really tragic.”
Laughter bubbles up my spine and threatens to burst out my nose. I can imagine the look that would cross Nataliya’s face if that happens, and that’s even more funny. I feel the mirth building in me like steam in a boiler. I pinch myself on the thigh to keep my mirth at bay, and then I clench my teeth with pain.
“What do you think is happening with her?” I say. Tears sting my eyes and I blink them away as fast as I can.
“Maybe she’s been dumped by her boyfriend,” Nataliya says. “Maybe she’s pregnant. Maybe both.” Her eyes get even bigger, and she gives a little gasp of awe at her own insight. “She works for a diplomat, right?” she says. “Maybe she’s a spy. Maybe she’s trying to get important information out to, I don’t know, prevent terrorism or something.”
She’d spent years playing a singing spy, maybe old plots are still thumping around inside her head.
“I think the spy story’s too big for this movie,” I say.
“The script could be changed,” she says. “There could be rewrites.” She leans closer, lifts her face to mine. “You don’t think you could talk to the writer?”
“I don’t know her that well,” I say. I don’t plan ever to know Dagmar well enough to advise her to rewrite the movie so it’s about someone’s character other than mine.
The pout again. “I tried talking to Joey. He said the part’s already perfect, and that I’ll be perfect in it.”
I look at her. “I won’t disagree.”
She pauses a moment to preen. I feel inspiration descending on me like a ray from Heaven.
“Tell you what,” I said. “I’m not very good at talking to people about these sorts of things. But I’d be happy to present Dagmar with an actual proposal.”
She looks at me and makes what I believe is called a moue.
“What do you mean, a proposal.” She says the word as if she’d never heard it before.
“A formal proposal, you know,” I say. “In writing, with all of your reasoning laid out. Graphics, even. A whole package.”
She blinks as she considers this. I’ve just presented her with a whole new way of viewing her problem.
“Do you think that would work?” she asks.
“Dagmar is a word person,” I say. “Words have a good chance of convincing her. Email me the proposal, and I’ll print it and make sure Dagmar gets it.”
And Joey will get a copy, I think. And Jaydee. And a whole lot of my other friends. We’ll gather together on cold nights around the fire, and we’ll read aloud from Nataliya Hogan’s masterwork explaining why the whole film should be rewritten so she can be a secret agent and maybe have a few musical numbers, and then we’ll laugh so hard we’ll forget to breathe.
One of Nataliya’s posse turns up, a blond girl who’s dressed in a less revealing version of Nataliya’s bikini. Nataliya surrounds herself with people who are convinced that she’s as important as she thinks she is, and who dress just like her, only not quite as well. I don’t know where she finds them. The new arrival looks down at me and wrinkles her nose.
“Who’s this?” she asks.
I sip my Sprite. “I’m the star of Nataliya’s new picture,” I say. “Who are you?”
“I—” She sort of flutters all over as she realizes she’s made a gaffe. She takes a step behind Nataliya, as if for protection. “I’m Soren,” she says.
“Pleased to meet you, Soren,” I say. I’d like to think that my voice is cool and ominous, like that of a Mafia don quietly filing information away on someone who needs to have her wings, and probably the rest of her, clipped.
Soren looks at Nataliya. “Amber wants to talk to you. About the reception at the Huntingdon.”
Nataliya looks at me. “I’ve got to go,” she says.
I point a finger at her. “Don’t forget to send the proposal,” I say.
She nods at me and leaves. I stand up and wander off to the bar to get my Sprite refilled. When I come back I see Dagmar walk out onto the patio with her crew, Richard in his black clothes and white Converse sneaks, Ismet in gray slacks and a pressed long-sleeved sports shirt, and a big blond man in a light blue Lacoste retro polo shirt and soft washed denim. I recognize him as Helmuth, the man I know from my clubbing days. He’s put on about twenty pounds since I last saw him.
I wander over, shake hands, smile, rattle my ice cubes. Dagmar, in stretch pants and a worn tee drawn tight over her pregnant belly, looks as if she has been dressed by Walmart. Dagmar looks at my Sprite with suspicion but doesn’t comment. Helmuth recognizes me and reminisces about some night at the Got Real? with some girls I don’t remember. I have the feeling that he’s probably confusing me with someone else.
I tell Dagmar that I feel energized and ready to start on Monday. She tells me that she’s glad to hear it.
“I’m glad one of my actors is ready,” she says. “I’ve got to find a replacement for Torey Richardson.”
Torey’s the actor who’s playing Arrick, the commander of the evil Steene. I know him slightly, but I haven’t seen him on the set because I’m in only one scene with him, and that’s at the end of the picture. When he’s shooting, I’m at home, or training with Master Pak.
“What happened?” I ask.
“He went parasailing yesterday, landed wrong, and broke both legs.”
“Jesus!”
She gives me a hard-eyed look. “You better not break any bones in that Celebrity Pitfucker show.”
“From your lips
to God’s ears.” I glance around the party. “Is Deeptimoy Srivastava going to be here?” I ask.
She’s surprised, but handles it well.
“He’s in the Persian Gulf somewhere,” she says. “Supervising one of his foundations.” She tilts her head back and looks up at me.
“How do you know I’m working with him?”
“I saw you together the day I auditioned.” I lift my gaze to take in the whole scene poolside, the actors and crew, the caterers in their white uniforms, the kids in the pool…
“Is he financing all this?” I ask.
Dagmar grins. “Joey is.”
“I mean the whole project.”
Dagmar shrugs. “It’s pushing the technology. Sri is all about pushing the technology.”
She and her crew stroll away without having quite answered my question. I get my Sprite topped up at the bar and stroll over to the buffet to get some lovely grilled prawns with corn salsa. I find some shade beneath an awning and eat the prawns and watch the party. Jaydee Martin walks up to me and gives me a hug. She’s wearing an oversized orange tropical shirt and has a glass in one hand and a bottle of Sailor Jerry rum in the other.
“Here,” she says. “Have some love.” She pours rum into my Sprite, overfilling and splashing onto my wrist. I repress the impulse to give a guilty start and dart glances in all directions.
“Could you look over my shoulder,” I say, “and see if Dagmar’s watching us?”
Jaydee lofts herself onto her toes to peer onto the patio. “She sure is,” she says.
I make a point of ostentatiously pouring my drink into a nearby planter. The ficus seems none the worse. Jaydee is puzzled.
“What was that about?” she asks.
I tell her. Her blue eyes open wide in exasperation. “You can’t drink?” she says.
“Not only that,” I explain, “I can’t have sex with underage girls.”
She waves her glass and laughs. “What in hell is this world coming to?”
An idea crosses my mind. “Hey,” I say, “I want to give you some money.”
I put down my plate and dig into my pocket. I give Jaydee a hundred bucks.
The Fourth Wall Page 13