Shadow of the Dolls

by Jacqueline Susann

  “Such as.”

  “Never mind, what’s the point.”

  “Try me.”

  “Why should I bother.”

  “You aren’t even giving me a chance,” Anne said.

  “Okay. Okay. Alice’s cousin is a photographer, and he came over and took all these pictures of us, and mine came out really good. He said I could even be a model.”

  Anne felt a catch in her throat. “What kind of pictures?”

  “See what I mean!” Jenn screamed. “Just pictures! Just regular pictures!” She got out her knapsack and pulled out a manila envelope. “Take a look if you want.” She ran to her bed and pulled the divider shut. That was one of the nice things about a loft, Anne thought: there weren’t any doors to slam.

  Anne spread out the photographs across the table. They were eight-by-tens, four of them, two in color, two in black and white. Jenn was wearing full makeup—foundation, contouring, powder, and glossy lipstick. Her eyes were rimmed with kohl, and her brows had been filled in and brushed upward. Her long, light brown hair was teased up at the crown and lit from above to emphasize the dark blond streaks that came in every summer.

  In the first black-and-white photograph, she was shot in profile from the shoulders up, her eyes closed, her hair blown back by an unseen fan. Around her long neck was a strand of borrowed pearls. She looked elegant and mysterious, a debutante with a naughty secret.

  In the next black-and-white picture, she was wearing what Anne guessed was one of Alice’s mother’s ball gowns. The dark velvet dress was cut tight on top and full below. Jenn was barefoot, laughing, her head tilted slightly back, a pair of four-inch heels in her left hand. She looked like a woman who had stayed up all night and was still ready for fun.

  In the third photograph, Jenn was wearing a blue-and-green flannel shirt unbuttoned all the way down to her jeans, and nothing underneath. She had her hands on her hips, and her feet were planted a foot apart. She looked strong and defiant, like a woman who knew how to get exactly what she wanted and whom she wanted to get it from.

  It was the final photograph that unnerved Anne most of all. It was a close-up of Jenn, from her bare shoulders up. She was wearing just a hint of pink lipstick, and a few freckles showed through her makeup. Her mouth was slightly open, and she stared straight into the camera. There was no story behind this photograph, no character being played. She was just a beautiful woman, full of sex.

  Anne poured herself another glass of wine. There was Anne’s pretty nose, her fine jaw. There were Lyon’s hungry eyes, his full mouth. Anne could not bring herself to make the connection between twelve-year-old Jenn and the creature in the photographs. How could her sweet little girl look so knowing? How did her pretty little princess manage to look so full of mischief? How could a girl who had never been kissed, who didn’t even need a bra, come across as a beautiful temptress?

  She found Jenn in bed, the covers pulled all the way up to her neck.

  “They’re beautiful pictures, darling,” Anne said. “You’re beautiful. But you’re too young.”

  “Lots of girls my age do modeling. And it’s good money.”

  “Oh, honey. You’re just not old enough yet.”

  “When will I be old enough?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Next year?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Anne took a Valium and got into bed. Soon it would be Jenn’s turn. She should be thrilled for her daughter, but she was only depressed … because maybe that meant her own turn was over … because it made her feel all of her thirty-seven years.

  Just as she was falling asleep, the downstairs buzzer rang.

  It was Gretchen. Her left eye was swollen, and there were bruises on her hands.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, fighting back a sob. “My right hand’s all fucked up and I had trouble finding my key.”

  “My God, what happened,” Anne said.

  “He waited for me to get off my shift,” Gretchen sobbed. “I’ve never seen him so angry … I thought he was going to kill me. One of the waiters came out just in time and scared him off.” There were red marks on her neck, and the back of her shirt was torn.

  Anne made them a pot of tea.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Gretchen said.

  “We can worry about it tomorrow,” said Anne. “I know you’re sick of me saying it, but you need to find a lawyer and get out of this marriage.” She gave Gretchen a Xanax and sent her to bed. She sat in a rocking chair, reading magazines; when she was sure Gretchen had fallen asleep, she took another Valium and got back under the covers.

  “Mom? Are you awake?”

  “Jenn? Sweetie, it’s almost three in the morning. You have school tomorrow.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Oh sweetie, it’s safe here. Nothing bad is going to happen, I promise.”

  “Can I stay with you tonight?”

  “Of course, darling. Go get your pillow.” Anne moved to the side of the bed and pulled back the covers for Jenn. She listened to her daughter breathe in the dark.

  “Mom? I’m sorry about before. I didn’t mean to fight.”

  “I’m sorry, too. Come over here and let me give you a hug.” Anne opened her arms, and they curled up like spoons.

  “I can’t sleep. Can I have a pill, too?”

  “You’re too young, sweetie.”

  “Can I have a half? Alice’s mother lets her have a half.”

  “You can fall asleep without a pill. Let’s close our eyes now.”

  On Friday Anne wore her new shoes and her new trench coat and got to the office at nine sharp. Her secretary handed her a stack of pink message slips. The meeting with the network had been canceled at the last minute.

  “Did they say why it was canceled?” Anne asked.

  “Nope, just that they were sorry and they would call back next week.”

  Anne dialed Jamie, but he wasn’t in. She read the newspaper, returned some phone calls, looked at next week’s guest list, but she couldn’t concentrate.

  Finally, he came storming into her office. His face was red, and his voice was shaking.

  “Where the fuck were you!” he shouted. “Where the fuck were you!”

  “What do you mean? I was right here.”

  “We had a fucking meeting! You knew we had a meeting!”

  “But I thought they canceled it,” said Anne, handing him the message slip.

  “Why would they cancel?”

  “I don’t know, I tried to call you, you weren’t here.”

  “Because I was there!” Jamie shouted. “Jesus Christ.”

  “You could have called.”

  “By the time we figured out you were missing-in-action it was too fucking late. Better I tell them you were run over by a bus than that you were sitting at your desk doing who knows what. You know how hard it is to get ten minutes with these guys?” He looked at the message slip. “Who took this message?”

  “Reception.”

  “And did anyone call back to confirm the cancellation?”

  “To confirm the cancellation? She calls back to confirm appointments, but who calls back to confirm a cancellation?”

  “Oh, Anne, what am I going to do with you? Do you realize what’s happened here? Do you see there’s no telephone number on this message slip? Anyone could have called and left this message. Anyone who didn’t want you to show up. You blew it.”

  “How was I supposed to know?” Anne said.

  “Everyone knows this stuff, this is basic stuff. This is television, for Christ’s sake. You can pretty much assume at any given time there are twelve people waiting to stick a knife in your back. Only twelve, if you’re lucky.”

  “But who?”

  “But who, but who,” he mimicked. “Gee, I don’t know. How about someone who doesn’t want their show to be canceled. Or someone who wants this job as badly as you do, and is willing to do whatever it takes to get it. You need a list? You want me to make you a l
ist?”

  “No thanks, I get your point.”

  He sat down, rested his elbows on her desk, and rubbed his forehead. “It was humiliating, waiting there.”

  “I can call them. I’ll find a way to explain it. I’ll call them next week.”

  “By next week they’ll have signed someone else. You think I want to work in cable my whole life? You want to work in cable your whole life? Maybe this is enough for you, but it isn’t enough for me. This rinky-dink show on a rinky-dink channel.”

  “Thanks a lot.” She sighed. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “There isn’t anything to say. This is a fucking mess is what it is. I’m watching my whole life go down the tubes here.”

  “Jamie. Come on. The ratings are great. You’re looking at ad revenue—”

  “I’m looking at bupkis! Nada! Zilch! Oh, excuse me, I forgot to tell you. They’re selling the channel, to some company out in fucking Wyoming. They were just waiting for the ratings to come in so they could jack up the price. You know what that means? New management. New budgets. New everything.”

  “You knew about this,” Anne said. “And you didn’t tell me.”

  “I didn’t think I’d have to tell you! I thought we could get out before the deal went through.”

  Anne went home early and called her agency.

  “So that’s the whole story,” she said. She could hear Trip Gregory lighting a cigarette on the other end of the line. “What should I do?”

  “Let me make a few calls,” Trip said. “Maybe I can set something up for next week.”

  “Great, I’ll tell Jamie.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “But it’s his show.”

  “Anne, you’re the one they’re interested in, not Jamie. You wouldn’t be in this mess if he had kept his mouth shut. Jamie Walters may be a nice guy, but he’s a loser, and he’ll always be a loser. You want to work in cable your whole life?”

  “That’s the second time today someone has said that to me.”

  “Give me one week. Promise me you’ll sit tight for one week. And don’t say a word about this to anyone.”

  Four days later, Trip and Anne went to lunch with the producer of the nine A.M. show and the head of programming at the International Broadcasting Corporation affiliate.

  “Morning Talk may have ratings trouble, but rumors of its early death are greatly exaggerated,” the producer said. “We just have a little personnel problem. Which is where you come in.”

  “We love Charlie, everyone loves Charlie, he’s not the problem,” said the man from IBC. Charles Brady had come up through the news ranks—first radio, then nightly news—and at age sixty was practically an American institution. “Women love him, men trust him. We want to keep Charlie in this time slot. But the chemistry …” He lifted an eyebrow. “I take it you’ve watched the show? What do you think?”

  “I haven’t really noticed anything wrong,” Anne said, leaning back.

  “Sometimes he looks uncomfortable,” Trip said, leaning forward. He tapped Anne’s knee under the table. “Not terribly uncomfortable, just a little … I’m not sure of the right word. Impatient?”

  Both men smiled. “Well, he’s on camera for an hour every day with a woman who … well, I’m not sure how to say this.”

  “She isn’t really up to Charlie’s level,” said the first producer.

  “She isn’t really that smart,” said the second.

  “She’s a little too show-biz for nine A.M.”

  “I don’t even think she reads the paper on a daily basis.”

  “The audience can see Charlie wince when she mispronounces words.”

  “And that giggle.”

  “And the hairdos.”

  “She can be a little abrasive. She’s wonderful, we’re not saying she isn’t wonderful.”

  “She just isn’t wonderful in the right way.”

  Trip tapped Anne’s knee again. “And Anne …”

  “We think she might be wonderful in just the right way.” He turned to Anne. “Charlie wants to meet you. It wouldn’t really be an audition, it would be more like a conversation.”

  “In front of a camera, of course.”

  “Just our secret, of course.”

  “Assuming you’re interested, of course.”

  “Of course she’s interested,” Trip said.

  “And this Jamie Walters business, you understand that there really isn’t any room for him at the network, of course.”

  “That’s obvious,” Trip said. “It’s all perfectly obvious. What do you think, Annie?”

  She looked at her twenty-dollar omelet and laid down her fork. “Well. Charles Brady. I remember watching him on the IBC news during the Kennedy assassination. He’s practically an American institution.”

  The men laughed. “We’ll get it set up, then.”

  Trip walked her to the subway station at 51st Street. “This is it, Anne, this is your big chance.”

  “But what about Jamie? I thought they wanted to pick up the show.”

  “This is even better. Charles Brady!”

  “But what do I tell Jamie?”

  “You don’t tell him anything. I’ll take care of Jamie.”

  “It doesn’t feel right, after everything he’s done for me.”

  “Listen, Anne, Jamie hasn’t done anything for you. You did it all yourself. He was just the lucky bastard who was able to pick you up for cheap when your chips were down, and he had a nice ride, but it’s time for you to move on. This is the way it works.”

  “But they called Jamie about picking up the whole show. That’s how this all started.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “Because that’s what Jamie told you?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know? How do you really know?”

  “I trust Jamie.”

  “Anne, you have to get over this trust business. How do you know they weren’t interested in you, and just you, from the beginning? Why trust Jamie? Do you think he tells you everything? Did he tell you the channel was about to be sold?”

  “That’s different.”

  “Jamie Walters is like all the rest of them. He’s out for Jamie Walters, and everyone else comes second, including you. If things were reversed, he wouldn’t think twice about showing you the door. This is your chance. Repeat after me: This is my chance.”

  “This is my chance,” Anne said softly.

  “Again, please, with feeling.”

  “This is my chance,” she said, and then louder: “This is my chance.”

  “There you go.”

  “Ugh, it hurts my brain to think this way,” said Anne.

  “Which is why you have me. You leave everything to me.”

  She felt a rush of warm air come up from the subway and heard the rumble of a train entering the station. She hurried down the stairs, feeling for her token as she went. She made it through just before the doors started to close.

  There was one seat left, and she took it. At Grand Central Station, the conductor announced that the train would be making only express stops for the rest of the trip downtown. When they left the station, the lights went out, and Anne held her purse tight against her lap.

  From the dark train, through dirty windows, she watched the tunnel walls speed by, a blur of concrete and metal and faded graffiti. The rhythm of the old tracks beat a measure of four. This is my chance, this is my chance, this is my chance. The train raced downtown, and sooner than expected, here she was, almost home again.

  By the second week of January, the deal was done. The show had been renamed Morning Talk with Charles Brady, and Anne was scheduled to start in early March. The station sent over boxes of videotapes for her to watch, and lined up eight two-hour sessions with a performance coach. “You’re perfect,” they told her, “but this is live television, so you’re going to have to learn some tricks of the trade.”

  Jenn was going out to v
isit Lyon during her week-long school break, so Anne would have plenty of time to get up to speed. She made appointments with a hairdresser, a manicurist, a facialist, and a real estate agent. With her new salary, a real apartment was at last within reach. Jenn and Gretchen had already begun circling ads in the newspaper, mostly on the far side of Second Avenue, a neighborhood that was close to Jenn’s school but not too expensive.

  Lyon telephoned two days before Jenn was scheduled to fly out to Los Angeles.

  “Bad news,” he said. “Things are a mess on the set.” He was representing an actress who was starring in a film about a truckdriver’s wife who wins the lottery. Her guitar-playing boyfriend had just dumped her for the model who had starred in one of his band’s videos. The actress had taken to showing up late and picking fights with the director.

  “I’m there from dawn to dusk,” Lyon said. “I don’t see how I can take Jenn right now.”

  “Lyon, you can’t,” Anne said. “You can’t do this.”

  “Easter will be here soon enough, she can come at Easter.”

  “You haven’t seen Jenn since August. She’s thirteen now, Lyon, do you have any idea what an angry thirteen-year-old is like?”

  “Anne, I don’t get home some nights until after eight. What is she going to do all day?”

  “That’s your problem.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Did you know her friend Alice’s parents are taking a group of girls to Aspen for the week, and I told Jenn she couldn’t go because of this California trip? Do you know what’s going to happen if I tell her the trip is off?”

  “Maybe it isn’t too late for her to go to Aspen.”

  “Oh, please.” Anne looked up to find Jenn standing in the doorway. She was wearing a pair of sunglasses that Lyon had sent at Christmas and was trying on a blue-and-white-striped sundress she had bought just for the trip.

  “I just can’t, Anne. I just can’t right now.”

  “You can and you will. Jenn is right here, I’m going to put her on the line.”

  “Anne, wait—”

  “Daddy? Hi, Daddy. I’m wearing my new sunglasses. They are so cool.”

  “Hi, gorgeous. I bet you look fabulous in them.”