The Boys in the Mail Room: A Novel

by Iris Rainer Dart

  "Well, it's nice that you stopped by, Colleen," David told her.

  "How have you been?" she asked him. Small talk.

  "Fine. Just fine. You know, your boy Dougie could win himself an Oscar," he said.

  "He's not my boy."

  "Pardon?" He heard her. He just wanted to make sure.

  "We broke up."

  "Oh. Sorry."

  "Don't be. He's an actor. They're all fucked up."

  "And actresses?"

  "Look, I'm not really serious about acting," she said. "I just do it every now and then because it falls into my lap." Her lap. David was trying to be cool. But, Jesus.

  "I want to fuck you," she said.

  David held on to the desk.

  "I wanted to fuck you when we were in Phoenix," she added. "But I was afraid to say anything because I was with Doug."

  "I'm married," David said.

  "So?"

  David wanted to be able to laugh and be cute about it, but this broad was serious. And he was starting to feel pretty serious, too. One time after Allyn moved in. He only cheated one time. The time that he fucked Beau Daniels. And that was business. And awful. And he felt guilty. But after he was married. Nothing. Straight as an arrow. Even though Allyn was tired a lot now when he wanted her, and sometimes they'd get into bed at night and talk about business until they both were sleepy, and it was never as hot as it had been because it was so familiar. Straight. Oh, man. He was really rationalizing like crazy. And he knew it.

  "Do you want to fuck me?" Colleen asked.

  "Uh . . . yes."

  "How 'bout for lunch?" she said. "I live in Hollywood."

  "I have a lunch meeting," he said. Asshole. This gorgeous cunt is begging for it and you have a lunch meeting? Cancel the fucking meeting. Too late. She was getting up to leave.

  "Uh. . . how about seven o'clock tonight?" he asked.

  "Great."

  Relief. She wasn't uptight about it. She already had her address and phone number written on a piece of paper which she placed on the desk in front of him.

  "See you." A smile. Allyn. He was feeling guilty already. Colleen left. David dialed the phone.

  "Hemisphere Studios."

  "Allyn Grant, please."

  "One moment."

  "Allyn Grant's office."

  "This is David Kane."

  "Oh, yes, Mr. Kane. She's on another line, but I'll tell her it's you."

  "Thank you."

  "David. Hi. I just talked to Mike Medavoy. He wants to read my script."

  "Great."

  "I saw your ad in Variety. It looked wonderful."

  "Mmmm."

  "I have meetings till about seven or eight tonight," she said. "How 'bout you?"

  "Me, too."

  "You okay?" she asked.

  "I'm fine."

  "Good. I've got to run. I have to be at La Serre at one."

  "Right. See you later."

  David's lunch meeting was with a writing team who had sent him a script about an aging Western matinee idol. They thought it would be a perfect vehicle for Rue. David read it. It was. But maybe too much on the nose. Too true. Rue was great in Ride, as the trade papers called the movie, but the receding hairline and the belly he was getting showed, and after the first screening Rue was nervous and drinking and finally snarling at David and saying that now he understood why Chuck Larson didn't want him to do Wild Ride. That Larson was smart enough to know it was wrong. And instead he'd left Larson to be with David, who was just a fucking punk. And it was the biggest mistake of his career. David had sat silently through the whole tirade. Not sure if maybe Rue wasn't right. That maybe Rue had looked foolish. That maybe the picture wasn't any good. That he, too, might be on his way out of the business once it was released. Laughed out of the business. Then the reviews came out.

  "Rue McMillan's performance contained an authority never seen before in his work. McMillan was always a star. Now he is an actor."

  "Rue McMillan has bridged the gap between horse operas and high art."

  "A fine piece of work, beautiful to look at and profound to remember. Rue McMillan is outstanding."

  Now David had Rue in the palm of his hand. And he knew he had to move fast to pick the next project for him while he was still—Colleen. Jesus, she was brazen. I want to fuck you. He had to stop thinking about it.

  "Why don't you just leave the script lying around somewhere where Rue will pick it up and read it?" one or the writers was asking. "And don't tell him we want him for the old cowboy."

  David smiled. "I'll think of something."

  When the writers left, David began to feel uneasy. First he thought it might be his impending date, and the guilt he was feeling. But it was more than that. Bigger. These kinds of feelings were probably why everyone he knew was "in therapy," as they called it. Yes. To learn how to identify those vague unnerving feelings. Fuck it. They weren't vague. This was about Allyn and the marriage. He didn't want to be married. He never did. It had gotten away from him. Gone too far. He had hated being alone. And she seemed to want him so much. And now they were married and most of the time he was still lonely anyway. He picked up the phone and dialed.

  "Hello."

  "Colleen. It's David Kane."

  "You've changed your mind," she said.

  "Right," he told her. "Family business. But another time. Okay?"

  "You bet," she said.

  He was about to hang up.

  "David," Colleen said. "I really want you. I watched you out there on that location every day. You ran the whole show and I thought you were fantastic. I'm really turned on to you."

  "Well, thanks, Colleen," he said. "Thanks a lot."

  * * *

  The cleaning lady was still at the apartment when David arrived. She came to work for them three days a week.

  "Afternoon, Mr. Kane."

  "Polly," he nodded.

  He sat in the living room and tried to read while Polly bumped around in the kitchen. He was getting more and more upset. He never could forgive Allyn for staying in her job at Hemisphere even after she knew that Greenfield considered David an enemy. Yes, she had stopped going to the Greenfields' parties, and she no longer needed or asked for advice from Julia, but she had gratefully accepted her appointment by Greenfield to the position of head of television development, and still had a great deal of contact with him. And at parties when people would ask her about Greenfield, she would say, "He's a wonderful man," and David would have to leave the room so his anger at her wouldn't show. And one night he called her on it.

  "Allyn," he said. "Harold Greenfield is the one who fired me from Hemisphere because his friend, his hot-shot banker son-of-a-bitch friend asked him to—just so I wouldn't be around. And you call him a wonderful man?"

  "David," she said. "Those are your problems with Greenfield. Not mine."

  Disloyal. Hard. She didn't understand how overwhelming the whole thing was. About Wolfson and Marlene. Marlene would have said, "What? That man did that to you? I'll never even look in his direction again."

  But not Allyn. Too ambitious for herself.

  Polly left and David made himself a drink. He was hungry and nervous. Colleen. She praised him the way Allyn used to. The way Marlene used to. He sat alone in the kitchen for a while. Thinking about Marlene. When night fell he moved into the living room and sat there without turning the light on, the way he had done so often after Marlene's death.

  Allyn's key was in the door.

  "David?"

  "Mmmm."

  The darkness surprised her.

  "What is it? Why are you sitting in the dark?"

  He didn't answer.

  "David?" Allyn said again.

  Finally he spoke. "I want you to quit your job," he said.

  "What?" Allyn switched the light on.

  "I don't want you to work ever again." He didn't look at her. He looked straight ahead. "I want you to be at home with me. For me. I want all your time. And all your attention and I
don't want to share you with your work."

  "That's impossible, David," she said quietly. "And it's wrong of you to ask it."

  "It's not wrong," he said. "It's what I have to have."

  "Then I'd better pack my things and go," she said, and walked to the bedroom.

  David turned the television on. All in the Family. Edith Bunker was telling Gloria the facts of life and she was worried and trying very hard to tell it right. The audience was laughing. By the time All in the Family was over, Allyn was standing by the front door with a large suitcase in one hand and her briefcase in the other. She put the suitcase down for a moment.

  "Lawyers and all that, I guess," she said.

  "I guess."

  Allyn opened the door, then turned to look at him.

  "David," she said. "I guess this doesn't matter much now, but I'm pregnant."

  It was a lie. She was lying to make him change his mind.

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes."

  "Then why did you say no it was impossible when I said you had to quit your job? You can't work if you're pregnant."

  "Of course I can. Plenty of women do. Marcie Carsey at ABC did it beautifully, and—"

  "Not my wife."

  "David, you've got some strange archaic idea about what marriage is, and I can't live up to it. I'm leaving. I'll get an abortion." She turned to go.

  "No."

  "David."

  David jumped to his feet.

  "You're not getting any goddamned abortion."

  "David, I'll go to a nice safe hospital where they do them fast and easily. I don't want to have a baby now. Not with you feeling this way. I'm not going to abort myself the way your mother did, so I won't die."

  He hated the scorn he heard in her voice for Marlene. Marlene. For a moment she'd forgotten.

  "No!" he shouted. "No abortions! No!"

  He grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard. "No goddamned abortions." Harder.

  "David, stop it."

  "I love you," he said, "and I won't let you die." Allyn was afraid.

  "David, no—"

  Again. Shaking harder.

  She dropped to the ground to get away from him, and when he looked down at her, sitting in a terrified heap on the floor, he realized what he had done.

  "Allyn," David said, barely able to speak. Her mouth was open, and her hands were holding her face. She looked at him with fear and pain in her eyes.

  "Oh, my God. Oh, Christ. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please, please forgive me. I'm sorry," he said.

  Allyn didn't speak.

  "Stay with me, Allyn, and have our baby," he begged. "Please. I swear to God I'll treat you good from now on. Better. I promise. I'll never hurt you. Please. I want you and our baby. Please."

  Allyn didn't answer him with words. Instead, she stood and walked into the bathroom, and washed her face. Then she went into the kitchen and cooked dinner.

  forty-two

  The minute the screening of the pilot was over and the lights came up, everyone in the room crowded around Mickey.

  "Great!"

  "Loved it!"

  "Big hit!"

  "You were so funny!"

  "Mickey, you're fabulous."

  Network executives. Friends of the producer. The rest of the cast. It felt so good.

  And now Mickey was having lunch in the commissary with Danny Kohler. He wanted to pinch Danny Kohler just to be sure the gorgeous glorious son of a bitch was real. Kohler was famous for discovering and making giant careers for some of the biggest names in television. He had three shows on the air now. Three. More than anyone else. "A major supplier," the trades called him. And there he was. Across the table. Talking about the network's reaction to Mickey Ashman.

  "If the first show drove them crazy, wait till they see the next two," Kohler said. He was a cute man with lots of gray hair and a bushy gray mustache, and he was wearing a yellow jogging suit. Yellow was his favorite color. His lucky color. So everything in his life was yellow. The walls of his office, the Kohler Company T-shirts, the script binders for his shows, his cars.

  "They loved you so much," Kohler said, "and they laughed so hard they couldn't see straight."

  More, Mickey thought. Say it some more. Oh, yeah.

  "We're gonna take the night," Kohler said grinning. "We've got the best time slot, and I guarantee you we'll run away with the night. You're gonna be a star. Are you gonna give Betty Day ten percent?" he joked.

  Mickey laughed. "I guess I'll have to."

  "Your agent's adorable," Kohler went on. "I've known Miltie since I was a kid. I was a singer, you know." Mickey didn't know. Mickey didn't care. He just listened and smiled. This was the best moment of his life so far.

  "Miltie made sure I put a fancy dressing room for you in the deal and top billing. You know, lots of people laugh at him just because he's old, they think he's senile. Bullshit. He knows everything. He knew enough to sign you, and he made you a good fucking deal, too. You happy with it?"

  "Yeah," Mickey said. "Sure, I'm happy."

  Happy was hardly the word. Five thousand a show. Thirteen shows. On the air. If the show was picked up he'd get an increase the second season to seven thousand a show, with "appropriate raises annually," as Miltie explained it to him. And Mickey was the star. He couldn't quite believe it, but this time there was no mistaking it. The show was called Hey, Richey! It was about a guy who owned a drugstore where a bunch of neighborhood kids hung out. The guy gave the kids advice and became the good parent to them that they weren't getting in their ghetto homes. Richey. That was Mickey. He had all the jokes and all the wisdom in the script. And the five young guys were foils for him.

  The word was already out, around the industry, that the first three shows had been taped and were dynamite. Good stories. Good writing. Good jokes. Good casting. And that Ashman guy is so incredibly funny. He does a bit where he's making a banana split and talking to a gorgeous doll who's sitting at the counter. And it's like Chaplin. The timing is exquisite. That's what they were saying. Like Chaplin or Woody Allen. And the comments were getting back to Mickey. Through his agent. And through Jackie Levitz, and people in his workshop, too. In the trades there was a blurb—"Danny Kohler, famous for never making a mistake in the discovering new talent department, has picked another winner. Mickey Ashman as Richey on Kohler's new sitcom Hey, Richey!"

  TV Guide called Mickey at home. They wanted to do an article on the making of a hit show. And since Kohler was involved, they were reasonably sure Hey, Richey! would be a hit. Mickey was working with Kohler's publicist. They were mapping out a plan for the fall season. Milt Stiener was trying to get commitments for Mickey to do guest shots on some fall variety shows. It was a big-time career push. Mickey couldn't believe it.

  Every morning he would get into his new MG, leave his house in the Valley, and drive to work. Most of the time he'd get there before the others, and he would study his lines, either sitting at the counter of the soda fountain on the set or sitting on the sofa opposite the dressing table in his dressing room. His dressing room. Mickey still couldn't get used to it. He'd walk around the room and run his hand across the formica dressing table that was his, and look into the mirror that was his, and walk into the little bathroom that was his, shaking his head. It was true. It had happened. It was worth everything. The classes he had taken, the classes he had taught, the years of terrible auditions, even the job at the waterbed store. Once, this week, just for the hell of it, Mickey decided to try to make a list of his biggest problems and the worst thing he could think of was that the shower head at his house was broken. Boy, oh boy, life was good.

  Tonight at the taping of the fourth show, thanks to special permission from the network, because children under twelve were usually prohibited from attendance at the tapings, some of Mickey's students were coming to watch. Betty Day and her little daughter Nina were meeting the others at the Beverly Hills Academy at five, and they were all coming to the studio together. Mickey smiled to
himself thinking about how they would look. Adam and Dawn and Jeff, and Betty said she'd try to reach little Lucy Hill.

  Mickey sailed through the rehearsal. There was a still photographer from People magazine. The first episode of Hey, Richey! would be airing in six weeks, and the magazine wanted to be ready with a story when it did. When Mickey was in his dressing room getting made up, the door opened and Jackie Levitz came in. Levitz had been at every taping. Supportive. Encouraging. "That was a great moment, Ash," he'd say about some scene or other.

  "How do you feel, kid?" he asked. Mickey knew the old comic was proud of him, but envious, too.

  The makeup man powdered Mickey. "There you go," he said and left. Today Mickey had some news for Levitz.

  "Jackie," Mickey said. "I talked to Danny Kohler about you today."

  "Yeah?" Jackie said, lighting up. "I met Danny Kohler. He's a nice guy."

  "I told him I think my character of Richey ought to have an uncle. They should write one in. A guy who comes to work at the soda fountain with him. You know. There could be lots of stories about how Richey and the uncle have different ideas about how to treat the street kids and stuff, and I told him that I wanted the part of the uncle to be played by you."

  Jackie Levitz didn't know how to react. It was a feeling Mickey had had many times himself.

  "So . . . uh, what did Kohler say?" Levitz asked guardedly.

  "He said yes. He's seen your work. He loves the idea and he loves you. He's calling your agent on Monday."

  "No kiddin'?"

  "No kiddin'."

  The sweet little guy Jackie Levitz threw his arms around Mickey's neck.

  "No kiddin'?" he asked again. When he looked at Mickey, Mickey saw Jackie was trying to control his tears.

  "I'll go find Kohler right now if you want," Mickey said. "And let him tell you."

  "No. Oh, no. That's not necessary. I'm just—I'm so glad. A good part. Richey's uncle. Oh, wait till I tell the class. But I won't tell 'em till after the deal's made. Hey, thanks a million."

  There was a knock.

  "They're ready for you, Mickey," the stage manager said.

  "Knock 'em dead, kid," Jackie Levitz said. "You're the best. I'll see you later."