“He works at the UCLA Student Store, and that should be dignified enough for two.”
Desmond Cordiner’s manicured hand waved away her protest. “I admire loyalty, Alicia, but have you ever considered the marriage from his point of view?”
“All the time.”
“Then you must realize that Barry would rather be doing a jail term than living in a maid’s room.”
“We have our own place out back.”
He eyed her again. “You really are a knockout,” he said. “A bit exotic, although I wouldn’t for a minute believe there’s anything Latino about you.”
“My name is Lopez!” she protested.
“Let’s try Hollister,” he said with a wry smile. “So you see, I could have been far less pleasant yesterday. Or does Barry know you’re a fifteen-year-old bastard who worked in the fields when you were six—or was it five?”
She gripped the paper bag closer, as if it were a shield from the naked truth.
“Don’t look so surprised,” he said. “A private investigator easily uncovers that kind of thing.”
“So what?” she blurted out. “At least I never ran errands for cheap whores.”
His eyes turned that icy black as he peered at her. “Barry told you that? How the hell does Barry know? Even Tim never knew.”
That Hap had entrusted her with so closely held a secret shocked her. “Nobody told me,” she evaded. “I made a stab in the dark.”
Desmond Cordiner continued to stare at her. She looked away first.
“I’ll kill you if you tell anyone,” he said quietly.
The threat did not sound like hyperbole—Desmond Cordiner would know where to hire a hit man.
“We’ll both keep quiet,” she said.
She expected him to attack her for this audacity, but instead he leaned forward as if they were two merchants discussing business. “How would you like to be an extra?” he asked.
“Extra?” She frowned, momentarily incapable of grasping his meaning.
“You know what an extra is,” he said impatiently. “The money’s pretty fair, and I’ll make sure you get enough work at Magnum so you and Barry can manage. I hire hundreds of extras a day. You might as well be one of them.”
An extra. . . . She bit her full lower lip. Being an extra meant she would be up there on the screen. “Barry won’t let me do it,” she said finally.
“I’ve known Barry since he was two hours old—I know how his mind works. It’s killing him to live in that bug-eyed woman’s house, married to the housemaid.”
“He’s very upset about the way his parents treated me and the things you said yesterday. He’ll never let me take a thing from the family.”
“Believe me, you won’t have the slightest connection with the family.” Desmond Cordiner’s tone was cold and flat. “I’m not offering a relationship, I’m offering work.”
“Barry’s very proud, he hates favors. There’s no way he’ll allow me to accept your help.”
“Try him,” Desmond Cordiner said, rising to his feet and walking to the front door.
8
As the day passed, Alicia’s head pounded and she became increasingly tense. She was realizing that for the first time in her life she was being offered what Juanita had called the real breaks. What could be more of a break than a chance to be in movies? Her headache spread to the back of her neck as she attempted to think up ways of presenting Desmond Cordiner’s offer in its most alluring light to her proudly defiant husband. This was Dr. Young’s night to work late and it was after ten before she locked the back door behind her. She was wild with impatience to talk to Barry.
He lay on the mattress, a long pad of yellow lined paper propped on his thighs as he scribbled—he was writing three essays on some book for the college newspaper.
Not looking up, he said, “Talk to you later, hon. The narrative flow’s coming.”
Her planned cajolements vanished. Sitting next to him on the bed, she blurted out, “Your uncle was here.”
Barry’s ballpoint dropped, clattering onto the floorboards. “Uncle Desmond?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
Her voice rushing and childishly pitched, she reported the visit, omitting the exchange of secrets. “It wasn’t anything like yesterday. He was quite nice, actually. Barry, uhh, I’ve been sort of thinking. Do you think it’s really dumb? I mean, could I be an extra?”
“There’s no creativity or skill involved,” he said in a dismissive tone. “Extras aren’t expected to be actors.”
“Then you aren’t against the idea?”
“It’s up to you.”
The hundreds of arguments she had fretted into existence spun away. “You wouldn’t mind?”
“I just told you,” he snapped. “It’s strictly your decision.”
She could tell by the way he didn’t look at her but bent down to retrieve his pen that he hoped her decision would be affirmative.
• • •
The following morning Alicia called Magnum Pictures. Desmond Cordiner’s executive secretary said her boss was tied up in a conference, but she’d been alerted to take a message.
Alicia said, “Will you please tell him that his, uhh, nephew’s wife wants to accept the offer he made yesterday.”
• • •
On Monday, one week to a day after Desmond Cordiner’s visit, the Barry Cordiners moved into a furnished bachelor apartment in a run-down section of West Hollywood. Barry counted out the first and last month’s rent from Alicia’s savings, then the couple drove to the nearby Van Vliet’s supermarket. When the checker returned their change, Alicia fingered the two worn dollar bills and the coins. This was all they had. The precariousness of their finances didn’t appear to faze Barry, normally a worry wart about money. He helped her stow the groceries in the old-fashioned, built-in refrigerator, he laughed when she discovered the oven of the ancient, high-legged stove didn’t work, he peered into every shelf of the kitchenette and bathroom.
After they ate their hamburgers, he suggested they open up the couch.
He hadn’t made love to her since the night before Newport. (Alicia took the avoidance personally; however, the infrequency of their conjugal relations had no connection to her appeal. Barry’s sex drive, never high, had been perilously drained by their ugly, odiferous room.)
Finishing, he followed his pattern of falling instantly asleep. Alicia got up to use the foam, which she now left out on the sink ledge—Barry was delighted about what he called double insurance. Her bruised breasts seemed oddly huge; her pelvis felt engorged. Her body appeared to be awaiting something further. With a sigh, she decided that she wasn’t any good at being a wife.
• • •
Three days crept by. Desmond Cordiner hadn’t contacted her since his visit to the Youngs’, and now she nursed dark doubts. Had she misinterpreted his offer? Had he really intended to help her become an extra? Or was it possible that the secretary had neglected to tell him of her call? Maybe he’d mislaid her note with their new address? Or changed his mind? Her worst and most persistent fear was that he’d concocted a monstrous game to punish her for not accepting his bribe. Desmond Cordiner was too complicated and too powerful for her to figure. All she knew for certain was that unless something happened soon, it would be back to seeking employment in the Help Wanted, Domestic ads, which would mean the demise of her marriage—she had not realized the full force of Barry’s aversion to living in the cottage until they had moved here.
On the fourth morning after Barry left for UCLA she was too jittery to even turn the bed back into a couch. Sitting on the rumpled blanket, she drank another cup of stale coffee. She jumped, nearly gagging on the hot brew, as a rap sounded on the screen door.
A tall Oriental boy wearing cut-off jeans called out that he was a Magnum messenger. She signed for a large manila envelope with the Magnum leopard’s head logo in the left-hand corner.
Opening it with fumbling fingers, she found a Scre
en Extras Guild membership card made out to Alicia Lopez, and a creased, extremely authentic looking Texas birth certificate for Alicia Elena Lopez, dated July 2, 1941. Clipped to the IDs was a handwritten memo. You are not permitted to use the name Cordiner. It was not signed, but she knew the spiky, near illegible sentence had been scrawled by Desmond Cordiner. Later the note would both infuriate and desolate her, but now, giddy with relief, she crumpled it into the plastic garbage can under the sink.
There was also a typed letter explaining that Alicia Lopez had been registered for preferential treatment at Magnum. She should call Central Casting immediately. There was a job for her. At the bottom, in lieu of a signature, were the words: Dictated but not read by Desmond Cordiner.
They could not afford a telephone and Alicia trotted the long block to Santa Monica Boulevard, using the Standard station’s pay phone.
The number given in the letter rang fifteen times before an unpleasant voice snapped, “Central Casting.”
“Do you have a job listed for Alicia Lopez?”
“Nothing,” snarled the voice.
“But there’s supposed to be. Maybe at Magnum Pictures.”
A long pause. “Here it is, Lopes.” The name was pronounced as a single syllable. “Why didn’t you say Lopes? You’re in Paris Lovers. Report to Magnum at eight tomorrow, Stage Fourteen.”
“What shall I wear?”
“Street clothes.” The phone went dead.
• • •
At seven thirty Barry was edging along the slow left lane of traffic on Gower. Alicia, who had never seen a studio, peered through the morning haze at a high, block-long stucco wall painted a nondescript shade of mustard yellow. Barry braked at the open gates through which cars were streaming. High overhead on the wrought-iron arch was worked a leopard’s head and an intaglio of Gothic lettering: MAGNUM PICTURES.
“See you here at five thirty,” he said, leaning over to peck her on the cheek.
“Wish me luck?”
“Hon, I’ve told you again and again not to agonize. You’ll simply be a body in the background.”
The cars behind them were honking persistently and Alicia jumped out. She watched the De Soto disappear around the corner of Sunset. Drawing a breath, she started toward the iron arch. Then she noticed a turnstile beside a window. Neatly painted above the window were the words: EXTRAS REPORT HERE.
A full-cheeked old man sat behind the grille. “What’s your name, sweetheard?” He hit a d, not a t on the end.
“I’m Alicia Lopez, working on Paris Lovers.”
“Lopez?” He consulted his clipboard. “Yup, here you are.” He smiled and handed her a voucher.
She read the slip of paper. “Where’s Stage Fourteen?”
He waved at a pretty, pouty-mouthed driver who was vaguely recognizable, then turned back to Alicia. “First day, huhh? Those big buildings are called sound stages. Walk straight ahead past two of them, turn to your left and go two more. The third on your right is Stage Fourteen. And, sweetheard, break a leg—that means good luck.”
She gave him a blazing smile of gratitude and went through the turnstile onto the lot. Hurrying past the huge buildings, she went up a half dozen cement steps. Pushing open a heavy metal door, she gasped.
She appeared to be in some high, endless subterranean cavern. In the distance to her left was one brilliant splash of light. As she went toward it she saw a canvas backdrop of a city skyline. In front were fake grass, fake bushes to hide the ugly wood crates in which real trees grew, and a small carousel. Around this gaudily lit pseudo park were maybe a hundred people, mostly casually clad men and a handful of women. A foursome of propmen carried park benches, two electricians walked along overhead scaffolding, but nobody else appeared to have a job. Alicia peered at men drinking coffee, men reading the trades, men laughing and chatting, trying to figure whom to report to. She spotted a gray-haired, motherly-looking woman knitting.
Approaching her, Alicia said politely, “Excuse me, but where do the extras go?”
“Shit! Now I’ve dropped a stitch.” She glared up at Alicia. “You’re an extra?”
“Yes.”
“Then where’s your makeup?”
Alicia, who had spent nearly an hour at dawn in front of the bathroom mirror putting on what she presumed would be enough makeup for any camera, realized that the face thrust belligerently forward was coated with orange pancake, while long false lashes quivered above the glinting little eyes.
“Think you’re a star, huhh? Think you’ll be given your own makeup woman? Well, let me tell you—the rest of us are ready to earn our money when we get here.” The woman viciously dug her long steel needle into red yarn.
Alicia backed away. She spotted a little girl sitting on a stool. Entirely covered by a voluminous pink cape, the child held her face tilted upward, eyes closed, as a redheaded makeup woman patted an enormous powder brush on the small nose.
As the child trotted away, Alicia went over. Swallowing hard, she asked, “Uhh, could I please borrow some of your stuff?”
“New, ehh?” said the makeup woman amiably. “C’mon, sit down, I’ll give you a lesson.”
A few minutes later, as Alicia’s mouth was being painted, a masculine voice shouted, “Okay, you guys, get over here!”
“That’s the assistant director calling for a run-through of you extras,” said the kindly makeup woman.
As Alicia got to her feet, she sucked in her breath.
Standing by a complicated-looking boom mounted with a camera was Hap. In his clean white shirt with the sleeves rolled up he looked improbably strong and handsome.
“Hap,” she called softly.
He turned. “Alicia! What are you doing here?”
“I’m an extra. You’re a surprise yourself.”
“Meet the second assistant cameraman,” he said.
Now she remembered Barry telling her that both Maxim and Hap worked at Magnum, while PD had a job in the contracts department at Paramount—the point of his story had been that he and Beth were the only two of the cousins with more than a year of college. She also recollected that in Newport Maxim had made a remark about Hap’s goal of becoming a director.
“Hap,” called the man behind the camera. “We need more film.”
“Right away,” Hap called. He said to Alicia, “You better get on the set, but what about lunch?”
“Wonderful,” she said and ran.
Twenty or so extras were gathered around the assistant director, a thin, nervous man wearing a gray suit. She was assigned to move along the park path left to right. Her knees locked and she fell. They went through it again. This time the assistant director advised her to slow it down, she wasn’t running the hundred-meter dash.
Then Hap was in front of the camera, closing a clapper chalked with words that he called aloud. “Scene twenty-six. Take one.”
The camera bugged her hideously. Her ankles wobbled above her good patent shoes. This time when she stumbled, the entire crew was in on it.
• • •
“My first day on the job,” she said with a nervous snicker, “and I’m about to be blacklisted from the entire motion picture industry.”
“Why?” Hap asked. “I looked through the lens at you and you photograph sensationally—of course, the secret of making it as an extra is to stay away from the cameras. If you show up in the rushes—that’s the day’s exposed film, which get looked at every night—you won’t be called for other scenes.”
She filed away the information. “There’s so much to learn,” she sighed. “But you saw me fall all over myself.”
Thoughtfully Hap pulled the saran wrapping off the two chef’s salads he had just set down. Alicia had been expecting a glamorous studio dining room, but they were in a cafeteria with linoleum floors and undecorated walls. The chipped Formica tables were jammed. Some people were made up like her, and a few had on Western costumes, but there were also painters in smudged coveralls, elderly women who looked like they wer
e secretaries but were script girls, and grips and electricians.
Hap asked, “What do you think about when we’re shooting?”
“Getting to the other side of the set—what else?”
“Maybe this is a girl enjoying the sunshine and thinking about her boyfriend?”
“Mmm,” she said, nodding. “You’ll be a really good director.”
He smiled. “Now tell me how you got the job.”
“Your father.”
Hap tore off the end of his French roll, buttering it. “But when he left Newport, I smelled the brimstone.”
“He stopped burning.”
Hap smiled again.
• • •
That afternoon, when she passed in front of the camera, she sauntered slowly, imagining herself a girl dreaming of her lover.
It was not quite four thirty when the director called out, “Print it!”
It was too late to start another setup, so cast and crew were dismissed.
The hot kliegs around and above the set were doused, people gathered up their possessions, farewells and footsteps echoed in the murkiness. Alicia, having an hour to kill before Barry picked her up, sat on a folding chair in the shadows.
“Ever see that black-haired extra before?” a nearby masculine voice inquired.
“The one who tripped? Nope. And I’d sure as hell remember. She oozes it, doesn’t she?”
“That she does. The sweetest little ass—and those big jugs. How’d you like to—”
Her face was hot as the voices faded, yet she couldn’t help smiling.
“Alicia?”
She jumped, then said, “Hi, Hap.”
“What’re you doing here?”
“Barry’s not coming for me until five thirty.”
“I’ll drop you off. Just give him a buzz.”
“Uhh, we don’t have a phone.”
“Then come on, we’ll have coffee.”
“Hap, the makeup woman, Madge, she told me there’s a place up on Sunset where they sell professional makeup—”
“Gower Cosmetics,” he said. “Be glad to drive you over there.”
They were back at the gate before Barry drove up. As Hap opened the car door for her, he said, “Hey, Barry, since Alicia and I’ll be on the same film for five or six days, I might as well give her a ride home and save you the trip. Your place is right on my way.”
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