Glamourpuss
Page 22
“God, I love it here,” Trevor said. “Mexico, I mean. It’s a black velvet painting come to life. How’re the fish tacos?”
“Pretty weird. The salsa and drinks make up for it, though.”
“I have this overwhelming desire to tear that tank top off and ravish you under the parrot cage.”
I mock-gasped. It had been a few days since his last playful streak. “I’ll have to ask you to restrain yourself. You know, the jails down here… not a pretty thought.”
“Yeah… they’d love to get their hands on you and that big blonde penis of yours. They’d ream you six ways to sabado noche.” He ran an experienced tongue over his lips, lustfully clutching a pec.
“Trevor — what’s gotten into you tonight?”
“I dunno.” Then: “We’re lucky, aren’t we?” I nodded. He whipped out his platinum card. “Let’s blow this dive.”
We tottered onto the festive streets, drunk enough to put ourselves at risk of abduction by bloodthirsty black-magic cultists on the prowl for human sacrifices, but this was Love Boat Land, and the worst thing that happened here was diarrhea… and we’d even avoided that. The Mexican moon beamed down at us, looking for all the world like a precisely rounded scoop of vanilla ice cream suspended in the invigoratingly starry sky. We ambled in the general direction of our seaside hideaway, but were distracted by a gaudy old movie theater with a blazing marquee advertising Basic Instinct in Spanish.
We bought tickets and creaked up red-carpeted stairs to the balcony, where we found a couple of seats on the end, behind three Vallartans in curlers and housecoats whose nonstop giggly chatter during even the most mildly torrid scenes was slightly less entertaining than the deliciously lurid film. Not that we cared. Trevor discreetly slipped an arm around my waist and shoved one of his big hands into the pocket of my shorts. During the twat-flash interrogation scene, he squealed “Tengo frio, tengo frio!” then kissed my ear and neck until he cracked up and a couple of the women in front of us turned around, eliciting a “Senoritas, por favor!” from an admonishing Trevor.
“I love you,” he said to me, after I stopped laughing.
“I love you, too.” Maybe it wasn’t an all-encompassing, breath-halting force of nature, but maybe holding out for another love like that would be the stupidest, most hurtful thing I could do to myself. What Nick had evoked in me, the scary, exhilarating sensual feeling of swirling boatless through the rapids of a warm yet powerful river — wasn’t it possible that it could never again exist outside the transient, deciduous garden of First Love?
I had to enjoy what was here and real and now. Which was a midnight romp in the surf after we got back from the movies, with Trevor yelling “Jellyfish!” and attacking me, pulling off both our bathing suits so we had to run naked back to our ground floor beachfront terrace. We torpedoed into bed still wet and didn’t sleep for two hours. I woke up in the middle of the night, cold and disoriented. I felt like I shouldn’t be alone, but for some reason I was, and it didn’t make sense until Trevor emerged from the bathroom and slipped back into bed.
We took separate flights out of Mexico: Trevor to Seattle on a modeling gig for Guess (he’d kissed and made up with his print agent, at least until Dino & Muffin made it to the fall schedule), me to Burbank. I shuttled home to the Hollywood hills and cordlessly returned calls while unpacking. Every single person — Allison Slater Lang, my parents, even my maid — had a machine pick up. I took a hot shower and planned to hit the sheets early, looking forward to a leisurely weekend alone. Whole Foods-shopping with a Discman, a few chapters of The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, maybe a spa day with sauna, skin treatments and a 90-minute massage — the world was my oyster.
But first… the mail. I’d received an invitation to the Daytime Emmys in New York. Actually, an invitation to pay an outrageous ticket price, then sit through a black-tie circle-jerk in which I wasn’t even nominated for Outstanding Younger Actor in a Drama. (I hadn’t been on the show enough during 1992 to realistically qualify.) Hearts Crossing had received a total of four nods — three technical and Brent Bingham for Best Lead Actor… that latter pretty much invalidating the existence of the Television Academy.
I stuffed the Emmy crap back into its glitzy, gold-lettered envelope and tossed it, turning to the packet from the studio containing next week’s scripts, including the three I was in. I picked up Tuesday’s episode and skimmed the synopsis, the two-page scene breakdown prepared by college interns who were paid absolutely nothing and not even allowed to touch the bagels and cream cheese laid out every morning for the crew.
Simon was breaking up with Jane, and not a moment too soon, if you asked me. Before I went to Mexico, Simon had copied the computer file containing the sex-potency drug formula, then introduced a virus into Jane’s hard drive, ruining it. Now he was blaming Jane for the “disaster” and using her “idiotic carelessness, you dripping snatch” (the last three words my suggested punch-up) as a pretext to banish her from his life, while now possessing the secret formula Jane had worked so hard on, as well as an experimental batch of the stuff he’d stolen from her lab, ready to unleash on the unsuspecting residents of Harts Crossing (many of whom were already sex-crazed, so this would prove interesting, especially from the network censor’s viewpoint).
This was a busy episode. I had four scenes in Simon’s Office at the newspaper with Anna Ford, but I got to bark awful things at the ignorant slut so it was okay. Then it was over to Allie’s Alley, as we called the inexplicably long set that served as Natalie’s Living Room, for a fun fight in which she told me I had to move out. It couldn’t be too much of a surprise for Simon, or the viewers — I’d been blackmailing her since Thanksgiving, not to mention destroying her romance with Sean by framing him for Cyrinda’s attempted murder. After all, a girl can only take so much. I was also in the last scene of the show:
ACT VI
SCENE THREE
SIMON’S BEDROOM — DAY (Simon, Moving Guy [U/5])
My blood froze as I read the synopsis: SIMON instructs a sexy young MOVING GUY to pack up his belongings. When the MOVING GUY strips off his shirt, SIMON displays distinct interest. Tension builds as SIMON chats up MOVING GUY, then embraces him for an O.C. kiss.
This was a lame joke. That had to be it. Some wise-ass in the production office tacked it on to the end of my synopsis as a prank. I turned to the end of the script. Omifuckingod. There it was:
SIMON
(MOVING CLOSER) I’ve seen you around, haven’t I?
MOVING GUY
It’s possible…
SIMON
I doubt I’d forget.
THEY ARE STANDING FACE TO FACE, EYE CONTACT SMOLDERING — IT’S A DANGEROUS, UNSETTLING MOMENT. WITH SLOW DELIBERATION, SIMON RUNS HIS FINGERS ACROSS THE MOVER’S MUSCULAR CHEST…
MOVING GUY
Go for it.
THEY LOCK INTO A STEAMY EMBRACE, THEN COLLAPSE ONTO THE BED, EYES CLOSED IN ANTICIPATION OF AN OFFSCREEN KISS. FADE OUT. END OF ACT VI.
Nobody would go to the trouble of writing a phony three-page scene for my benefit. This was real. I started reading the script from the beginning with glazed, horrified fascination, automatically saying Simon’s lines to myself in character. The phone rang and I jumped, almost tossing the script into the air.
“Hello?”
“Alex! Thank Christ you’re back. It’s Allie Lang.”
“Hi. Have you seen Tuesday’s script?”
“Yes! That’s why I called you like, days ago. Don’t you ever beep in?”
“No… I mean, Linda’s assistant had my number in Mexico, and so did my agent. Anyway… Allie, what the fuck?”
“Simon’s gay, that’s what. It was all everybody could talk about last week.”
“And what are they saying?”
“That it’s ridiculous! Not to mention personally offensive, to you, me, Phalita… anyone with a brain. For sheer stupidity, this bea
ts the time they sent that eight-year-old brat to boarding school and she came back five weeks later as Nori Ann Marshall.”
“Look, Allie. I need to call Jerry Reynolds and see what he has to say.”
“Fine. But try to stay calm. You’re great, and whatever they fart out and call writing, you’re always gonna be better.”
“Thanks.”
“You have fun in Mexico?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t tell me you were in some lush paradise all by yourself…”
“I’m not telling you that.”
“Okay…” She trailed off like I was being weird, which I’m sure I was.
“I’ll bring you a picture of him on Tuesday.”
“You better! Bye, honey.”
I located my Hearts Crossing phone sheet (wouldn’t Juliana Butts give her left tit for a peek at this, I thought randomly) and dialed Jerry’s Marina del Rey condo. On the first ring: “Hello?”
“Jerry? This is Alexander Young.”
Stuttering: “Uh… h-h-hi, Alex. Back from your, um, t-trip?”
“Yes, I just got in actually… and started to look over my scripts. And I haven’t been able to get past Tuesday’s episode. Do you know the one I’m talking about?”
“Oh. Yes. Simon and…”
“Why is this happening, Jerry?”
“Alex — we’ve been wanting to — hold on, let me turn off the computer.” He was writing soap opera scripts on Friday night? Good lord. “Okay, um… you see, a g-gay storyline is something we’ve been wanting to try for, uh, quite a while, and we also weren’t that happy with the Jane-Simon romance… the viewers aren’t buying into it…”
“What do you mean?”
“The letters we’re getting indicate it seems really, uh — false?”
“Well, it is. He’s using her for the secret formula… right?”
“Yes. And no. See, we like to leave our options open about — a relationship. But sometimes the chemistry isn’t right, you know? The viewers aren’t…” He gulped in agony.
I had to be careful. He was the co-executive producer as well as head writer and shared control of my fate. Screw that — he was a wimp. “So what you’re saying, Jerry,” I interjected into the awkward silence, “is that nobody sees me playing heterosexual anymore. It’s beyond my range.”
“No! Alex, that’s — it’s not…” Of course it was. “It’s just a new bizarre twist. Not that being gay is bizarre… I’m writing the Simon projection right now. I really think it’ll be fun.” Yeah. Like an Amy Grant concert. “I hope you’re not mad, Alex.” He sounded frightened.
“So… what is going to happen, plot-wise?” I asked.
“Oh. Well, you know, I can’t really say yet… it’s just…”
“Thanks, Jerry. See you Tuesday.” I hung up.
By the end of the week, Simon had relocated to an outrageously faggy apartment that seemed to have been transplanted whole from a Conran’s Habitat Showroom. I thought the plaster Greek busts were an especially creative touch. I couldn’t wait to see what they’d come up with for my as-yet-off-camera bedroom. Maybe some tasteful Mapplethorpe prints from The Black Book, and a wrought-iron bed equipped with wrist and ankle shackles.
I complained bitterly to Connie at lunch that Friday at Johnny Rockets. “There’s absolutely zilch-o we can do, hon. They write it, you act it. That street’s one-way, you know that. Jesus, have these fries always been so chunky?”
“I don’t suppose I have any outs in that contract… to stall for time?” I wondered limply, unsheathing my chicken-burger.
“Please. You can request a week off in six months. Otherwise, you’re chained to that show for two and a half more years. And don’t go getting fired,” she added, smacking the ass-end of a ketchup bottle. “I got bills to pay.”
This made me smile — slightly. “Connie, be honest. What’s this going to do to my career?” It sounded pathetic, but that’s what agents get paid for.
“Sweetie-pie… being on a soap is way more hazardous to an actor than playing gay. Who works more, William Hurt or Stephen Nichols?”
“Who’s Stephen Nichols?”
“There ya go.”
“I’m a little worried about the double-whammy effect,” I told her. “Wouldn’t you be?”
“Listen to me. You… are fuckin’ fabulous. Just keep it up. Stay easy to work with. Linda Rabiner and Reese Jacobs adore you, the both of ‘em. They think you're a doll. They say so every time we speak. You know who they hate, don’t you? What’s his face… Brett Butthole. The stories I hear….” She wadded up a napkin and shoved it at her mouth. “Fuck, my lipstick.”
“Sorry. Forgot mine,” I cracked.
She laughed. “You’re going to be totally okay. Just try not to get cunty.”
“It ain’t gonna be easy,” I snapped back. That she was able to joke about it made me believe she was right.
“All bullshit aside,” she said, leaning in closer, “you can handle this. I have no doubt.”
Trevor had doubts. He didn’t freak out when I told him Simon would soon be daytime’s most prominent TV homo, but I felt our relationship cool a degree or two. I couldn’t expect him to be happy about it, but it seemed paranoid and insulting that we suddenly only went to movies at really off, empty-theater showtimes. And restricted our dining out to restaurants where they could’ve handed out flashlights with the menus.
Contrary to what he’d always said, Trevor was more insecure about his career than ever in the wake of Dino & Muffin. No one would know the series’ fate until the six episodes they’d taped began to air in early summer, and in the meantime he was climbing the walls… and with his gravity boots, the ceiling, too. He dumped the small agency that put him on Dino and signed with ICM, did a guest-star shot on a trendy detective pilot in which he played a promiscuous artist (quite a stretch) who meets a bloody end, and then was unreasonably crushed when, after two callbacks, he wasn’t cast in a Disney adventure about Yukon sled-dogs, which, I reassured him, was a piece of shit, and a surefire future PETA protest-magnet. “I really need you tonight,” he told me, before requesting a “real” massage and falling asleep eight minutes later.
A few days before my first queer episode aired, Soap Opera magazine ran a little item in their gossip column: “Rumor has it a major gay storyline will start at any moment on HC… all we can say is a current regular character will be revealed to have homoerotic tendencies the likes of which have never been seen on a sudser! Without mentioning names, our money’s on a certain young super villain of recent tabloid fame…” Those bitchy hacks. I’d never speak to them again — unless I really needed the publicity.
The day before the show was on, I called my mom and told her. It made me feel so awful, like I was admitting the consequences of some shameful, irresponsible behavior. She was sweet and supportive, as always, which in a way made it even worse. Neither one of us brought up my grandparents. I suppose she’d come up with something to tell both sets. It completely sucked that their enjoyment of Hearts Crossing would be irrevocably tainted less than 24 hours from now.
I didn't have the energy to ease my relatives into my special new stardom. As soon as I pulled that hardbodied Italian-American moving guy out of the frame and onto Natalie’s guest bed, the Hearts Crossing phones started ringing and didn’t stop for days. Viewers were shocked, outraged, delighted and titillated in various combinations, as my avalanche of mail indicated. Connie talked to Linda Rabiner and Jerry and relayed to me that they were “pleased” with the “interest level and intensity” of the public reaction to the “new twist.” Soap Opera Weekly and Soap Opera Update were pretty damn interested, too, and prepared headline-grabbing but lightweight pieces on the minuscule history of gays and lesbians in daytime drama. I had Connie decline their requests to interview me; my “schedule absolutely did not permit.” I had nothing
good to say on the matter. The orientation flipflop was stupid and my homosexual private life certainly had no parallels with that of the murderous, power-crazed manipulator I portrayed (though Barney might have disagreed), but bad-mouthing the show’s scripts and character development would be a guaranteed reduction of my weekly salary from around three grand to zero. My new phone number had luckily remained airtight, so Edge and that other local journalistic potpourri of gay news, views and BDSM escort ads, Frontiers, had to filter their repeated demands to interview me through Connie, in pitbull mode… again, my schedule would absolutely not permit.
Trevor and I rarely discussed my show — it upset him — which helped me maintain a precarious imaginary shell to keep reality out so I could fool myself those first few weeks into thinking I could just go to the studio, play my part, come home and ignore what anyone said or thought about it. Sara called me to say the rag that outed me was currently running a dishy nugget about Simon’s new improved sexual orientation along with a smaller-size reprint of the notorious kiss-pix. “But if it’s any consolation, a lovely profile of you written by someone very special goes to press tomorrow.” I’d completely forgotten about the Paseo del Rio article. I begged her to massage it a little, so that I at least teased the fruity fandango flaming from every Texas TV at 2:00 p.m. five times a week. “Otherwise, we’ll look like twin douchebags.”
“You and Simon?” she retorted crisply, before promising to give it a teeny reality-tweak as soon as we got off the phone. “I’m going to have it framed and drop it by your mom and dad’s.”
“You don’t have to do that…”
“I want to. I think it’ll make them happy. Your mother called to invite me to dinner and I want to bring it with me.”