Michael's Secrets

by Milton Stern

  “Hey, Sharon, how are you?” Michael said with no emotion.

  “More importantly, how are you? I read about the show being cancelled,” Sharon said.

  Michael lit another cigarette, not caring about smoking inside. “Yeah, yesterday was a tough day, too. Dr. Sylvia Rose and Aunt Clara died.”

  “Oh my God! Michael, I’m so sorry. Were they in an accident?” she asked with alarm.

  “Who?” he asked confused at her question.

  “Sylvia and Aunt Clara?” She asked. “Were they in an accident?”

  “No no. Sylvia died during her eighty-fifth birthday party. She blew out the candles, had a heart attack and fell face first into her cake,” he told her.

  Sharon started to laugh.

  “It’s not funny, Sharon,” he said with annoyance.

  “Michael, you of all people should see the humor in this,” she said with a giggle.

  Michael smiled and chuckled a bit as he thought about Sylvia’s face covered in frosting for the Chevra Kadisha to clean up when preparing her body for burial.

  “What happened to Aunt Clara?” Sharon asked.

  “I came home and found her in her favorite chair, dead. I buried her in the back yard,” he answered as tears streamed down his face again.

  “How old was she?”

  “She was sixteen. She led a good life. What a month. Show cancelled, good friend dead, dog dead.”

  “Well, they say things happen in threes,” she said almost optimistically.

  “Good, then that means you don’t have bad news,” he said, hoping for the best as he puffed on the cigarette.

  “Actually, I do have some news.”

  “Sharon, please, I cannot take any more news,” he pleaded.

  “No. I have good news,” Sharon assured him. “I just sold the movie rights to my latest book, and I had my lawyer put it in the contract that I get to pick my co-writer for the screenplay. Isn’t that exciting?”

  “Sharon, that is great news!” Michael said excited at her success and hearing something good for a change.

  “But, here’s the best part,” she began. “I picked you!”

  “What?” he asked, startled.

  “That’s right. I picked you. I think the producer already called your agent. That alta cocker is still your agent, right?” she asked.

  “You mean Sid?” he asked. “Of course he is. But, Sharon, do you really want to move back to Hollywood?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Sharon said sounding too giddy for a fifty-year-old. “You, my dear, are moving to D.C.”

  “I am? What makes you think I’m moving to D.C.?” he said in protest.

  “Michael, what’ve you got holding you there? It will only be for a year. You can rent your house, and live here while we work together. The book takes place in D.C., so they will most probably do most of the filming here, also,” she said, obviously with her mind made up.

  “I see you have it all figured out,” he said as he lit another cigarette.

  “I do. My friend, Eric Sagman, has an apartment in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood near the zoo that he can sublet to you for up to a year while he goes on assignment in Brazil. It’ll be fun. Didn’t you spend your summers in D.C. with your grandmother?” she asked, with the excitement never leaving her voice.

  “You don’t forget anything, do you, Sharon? But D.C.? I don’t know,” he said, still doubting if he wanted to schlep cross-country to work on a screenplay.

  “Michael, give it some thought. You don’t have to be here until next week. It’ll be fun!” she said.

  “OK, Sharon, I’ll think about,” Michael said. “Next week?”

  “And, Michael, I’m really sorry about Aunt Clara. I know how much she meant to you. Talk to you later, bye,” and she hung up.

  “Goodbye,” Michael said, wondering if she heard him and hung up the phone.

  Michael decided to take a shower as he was still wearing the clothes from last night. He stripped down, revealing a body sculpted from years of working out, even with the paunch he was carrying at the time due to his love of sweets, but with the television season just ending, it would allow him to finally resume a normal workout schedule. He stepped into the shower, and the hot water felt good, and he lingered for quite a while as he thought about moving to D.C. for a year. He stepped out of the shower, dried off and put on some shorts and nothing else.

  As he sat down at his desk, he noticed Sam’s headshot sitting there where he had left it when he found Aunt Clara just a few hours earlier. Michael thought Sam certainly took a great picture with his dark features, and he was certain Sam was Mediterranean. He turned the picture over to scan his resume. Sam Jacobs was thirty years old. Sam Jacobs? he thought. He’s Jewish – good looking and Jewish. Fifty years ago, he would have had to change his name. Michael decided he would advise him to remove his age from his resume though. Sam had been the “man on the street” in this drama, “man in Pathmark” in that drama and various men in the crowd on other low-rated cable shows. He had graduated from the University of Alabama and grew up in Mobile. Michael thought Sam must have worked hard to get rid of his Southern accent as he had himself, although Michael had been told that when he chanted in Hebrew at synagogue he had a Southern accent. He wondered if Sam did. He thought about calling Sam’s number, but he had been through too much in the previous twenty-four hours to be much fun. He called Sid instead, knowing he would be in his office this early on a Monday morning, working the phones and finding work for his cadre of writers and the few actors he still represented.

  “This is Sid,” he said, answering his own phone. He respected Sid because he wasn’t pretentious and was very old school in his work ethic. He always answered his own phone and worked as hard as he did when he started as an agent half a century earlier even though he was now in his eighties.

  “Sid, it’s Michael.”

  “Michael, I was going to call you,” he said excitedly.

  “Did Sharon Gorman’s producer call you?” Michael asked.

  “Yesterday, but I was going to ask what all the commotion was at Sylvia’s last night. I arrived late to the party, and they wouldn’t let anyone up the driveway. What happened?”

  Michael was surprised as Sid knew everything that was going on in town.

  “You don’t know?” Michael asked. “Sylvia blew out the candles on her cake, had a heart attack, fell face first into the frosting, and died.”

  “That was what I heard, but I thought it was a joke,” he said. “Leave it to that old broad to go out with a bang, or shall I say a splat,” he said laughing.

  “It’s true, Sid,” Michael said annoyed at another odd reaction to Sylvia’s death.

  “I dated her in the fifties; did I ever tell you that?” Sid asked.

  “No.”

  “Michael, between you and me, and never tell my wife this, but Sylvia was the best lay I ever had,” Sid said, and Michael could picture him smiling on the other end.

  “Thanks for sharing, Sid,” he said while shaking his head.

  “Michael, I’m sorry to hear about Aunt Clara. I know how attached you were to that dog,” he said.

  “Thanks, Sid,” Michael said confused that Sid did not know about Sylvia but heard about Aunt Clara. “How the hell did you hear about my dog?”

  “Helen Epstein told me,” he said. Helen Epstein was Michael’s next door neighbor. She was at least a hundred and nosy as the day she was born. She had been a silent film actress, acted in a few talkies and then became somewhat of a big wig at RKO before retiring.

  “How the hell did Helen know?” Michael asked, knowing the answer.

  “She saw you burying a box late last night and figured it must be your dog. She may be older than God, but she still has her wits,” Sid said.

  Helen actually called Michael’s agent to tell him his dog died; how strange.

  “Santa Monica really is a small town. Why did Helen call you?” Michael asked.

  “Helen calls me
every morning to find out the latest gossip in town,” he replied.

  “Sid, should I go to D.C. and help Sharon out with this screenplay? What’s in it for me?” Michael asked.

  “They made an offer I think you should take,” Sid said, getting back to business.

  “How much?” Michael asked.

  “Well, it isn’t as much as I would have wanted, but they are offering a piece of the profits,” he said, not quite answering Michael’s question.

  Michael was good with money, having saved quite a bit over the years from his salary on Los Angeles Live and living modestly in a town filled with excess. He earned $400,000 for Birthright plus a good-sized portion of the profits, but this was Sharon’s book, so he didn’t expect the same kind of deal.

  “How much, Sid?” Michael asked again.

  “Keep in mind, Michael, that I can get you three percent of the film, so don’t be disappointed,” Sid said, still avoiding the answer.

  Michael was getting frustrated. “Sid, answer my question. How much?”

  “$150,000,” he said with no emotion.

  “Are you serious?” Michael asked with disappointment. “After taxes, I will be lucky to take home $70,000. For one year’s work, that’s crazy.”

  “Michael, take it. It’ll keep your name in the spotlight and your head above water, while I get you some more work. If Birthright is as good as they say it will be, after it’s released you won’t need to look for work again as long as you live,” Sid said trying to reassure him.

  Michael couldn’t believe it. He made over $75,000 an episode on Los Angeles Live. This was an insult. “Sid, forget it,” he said.

  “Michael, look. You’re a television comedy writer with one screenplay under your belt. And, keep in mind, Birthright won’t be released until next year. Once it’s a success, then you can demand anything you want, but until you have proven yourself in film, you can’t make big demands.”

  Big demands? Michael thought. Michael never made demands. His contracts stated his salary and a portion of the profits. He never asked for green M&Ms, special cheeses and only certain brands of bottled water. What demands? Michael just wanted to be paid what he was worth – for a change. “Get me $250,000 and four percent of the movie, and I’ll think about it,” he said as flatly as possible.

  “Let me make a couple of calls, Michael, will you be home today?” he asked, as if expecting Michael would refuse the initial offer.

  “Yes, or you can reach me on my cell. Bye, Sid.” Michael said as he hung up. Move to Washington for $150,000, Michael was not that desperate.

  Michael puttered around checking e-mails and doing laundry and realized he was at a loss for a routine without Aunt Clara around. At around ten, there was a knock on his front door. He looked through the window and saw it was Helen Epstein. He opened the door and invited her in, but she said she only had a minute. At close to a one-hundred, she was still in good shape. Her few strands of white hair were teased, and she wore pearls in her ears and a white sweater and slacks. Michael always marveled at her lipstick as it was drawn to mimic what must have been her lip-line fifty years ago into a bow-tie shape like many of the MGM actresses during the golden age of film. She didn’t wear glasses and still drove her Lincoln all over town.

  “Michael, I’m so sorry about Aunt Clara,” Helen said as she took his hand. “If you need a companion, Hecuba just gave birth to a litter of kittens.”

  Michael thought it was so cliché, an old woman in a house full of cats. “Thank you so much, Helen, but I’m allergic to cats. I do appreciate it, though, but I’m not ready for another pet as it has not even been twenty-four hours,” he told her.

  She held his hand for a few seconds then said goodbye.

  After he closed the door, the phone rang. It was Sid. “OK, Michael, this is what they are willing to do,” he began.

  “Go ahead,” Michael said, knowing he worked his magic.

  “$220,000 and three percent,” Sid said. Michael didn’t want to appear happy, so he took a quiet breath and paused for a minute. “Michael, I can’t get any more,” Sid said.

  “OK, Sid, I guess that’ll have to do. Tell them yes. But, Sid, I’m not happy about this,” Michael said, trying to sound as diva-like as possible, but he knew that Sid knew him better than anyone.

  “Whatever you say, Michael. I’ll have them send the contracts to you this afternoon, and you can bring them by later,” Sid said with relief in his voice. Michael had yet to turn down a deal Sid had secured and figured this was not the time to start.

  “Sid, since I’m doing this, I need a favor from you,” Michael said.

  “Anything, kid, you’re my best client,” he assured him.

  “There’s this actor I met. He’s good looking, and, Sid, I think you can find him some work. His name is Sam Jacobs. I’ll drop off his headshot and resume at your office this afternoon with the signed contracts. Do a favor for a member of the tribe,” Michael said.

  “First, we’ll need to change his name,” Sid said. “And second, did you fuck him and owe him a favor?”

  “It’s 2005, you don’t need to change his name, and no, Sid, I didn’t fuck him,” Michael told him. “He parked my car last night. But if you find him some work, I’ll fuck him and film it for you.”

  “Nothing would make me happier, Michael,” Sid said as he hung up. He knew Sid needed a young actor to represent as Michael was the youngest client Sid had left.

  Later that afternoon, after the courier dropped off the contracts, Michael ran some errands and delivered the signed documents with Sam’s picture and resume. Sid liked the kid’s looks and promised to give him a call. One thing Michael knew about Sid was that if he said he was going to do something, he did it. Michael also knew that if this kid had a brain, he would sign Sid on as his agent. Upon returning home, Michael’s cell phone rang with a number he did not recognize.

  “Hello.”

  “Mr. Bern?”

  “Yes, this is Michael Bern.”

  “This is Sam. Remember, the valet from last night?”

  “Oh yeah. Listen, you owe me a clutch,” Michael said jokingly.

  “No, I’m so sorry. What does it cost? I’ll pay for it,” Sam said as he started to panic.

  “Calm down, kid, I was kidding.”

  “Oh,” he replied.

  “What’s up?” Michael asked.

  “Mr. Bern, I was wondering if maybe, oh … if you would … are you available to have dinner some time to discuss my career?” Sam stammered.

  “I’ll tell you what, Sam,” Michael began, wondering if he should tell him he gave his information to Sid, “I’m leaving for Washington in a couple of weeks to work for a year. So, I’m going to be pretty busy the next few days, how about we get together, oh I don’t know … tonight?” Michael thought that would confuse him.

  “You’re busy, but you want to get together tonight?” he asked.

  “Yes, no time like the present. See if I don’t see you tonight, I may never get to sit down with you to discuss your career. But, Sam, I have to ask you a question?” Michael asked.

  “Sure, Mr. Bern,” he said.

  “Do you know what I do for a living?”

  “Yeah, you’re a writer. It said so on your card, and I read about you in the trades,” Sam said almost proudly.

  “OK, because I don’t know much about getting a break for an actor. But let’s see what we can come up with,” Michael said.

  “Where should we meet?” Sam asked.

  “Meet me at Anna’s Italian on Pico at eight. Do you know where that is?” Michael asked.

  “I do, I almost got a job there,” he said.

  “Well, I worked there when I first moved here in 1985. I’ll see you at eight,” Michael said.

  “Oh, Mr. Bern?” Sam asked.

  “Yes, and will you please call me Michael?” he said.

  “Yes, Michael, did you get my headshot? I left it in your glove compartment.”

  “Sam, y
ou shouldn’t leave those in glove compartments. You don’t know what kind of weirdo you’ll meet in Hollywood. See you at eight,” Michael said before hanging up.

  Michael then took a six-hour nap when he realized he had not slept since the day before.

  He arrived at Anna’s Italian a few minutes before eight, wearing black slacks and a gray shirt, and he saw that Sam was already seated at a table waiting for him. He was more handsome than the night before, wearing a yellow shirt and jeans that hugged his slim but muscular frame quite well. Michael was impressed when Sam stood up to shake his hand, and he had a good grip.

  Sonia, the two-hundred pound head waitress who moved faster than anyone on the floor, walked over to their table to take a drink order. Michael ordered a bottle of Chianti, knowing he would hardly finish a glass, just to see if Sam was a lush or a light weight, though Sam didn’t argue about getting a bottle of wine for the two of them.

  The wine arrived, and Sonia poured each a glass before taking their order. They both ordered the manicotti with a side order of garlic bread and decided to split a Caesar salad.

  He likes the same foods as I. He’s handsome, well-mannered and Jewish. He even has good table manners and chews with his mouth closed. If only he were ten years older, Michael thought to himself. “So, you wanted to talk about your career,” Michael said.

  Sam swallowed a bite full of salad before speaking. “Yes, I gave myself five years, and my time here is almost up before I go back to Mobile. I’ve only managed to get roles as an extra. I can’t even find an agent.”

  “To get an agent, you need an acting job, and to get an acting job, you need an agent,” Michael said, echoing the old saying about breaking into show business.

  “I did get a call today from a Sid Goldman, but he sounds like an old guy, and I don’t know how he got my name,” Sam said.

  “Really, Sid Goldman called you?” Michael asked trying to sound surprised.