by Karen Karbo
“No, actually. Sorry –”
“– I just wondered –”
“– say, you’ve been in this business for some time, let me get your thoughts on this.” Tony leaned toward her as though he was including her in some dark secret.
“I’ve heard it all,” she said.
“This is supposed to be a true-life story, which is what V.J. found intriguing in the first place. After all the rewrites it’s virtually unrecognizable, but he still insists on calling it a true story, insists on using the names of the real people involved. Ralph says we can cheat it by saying ‘freely adapted from a true story,’ but it’s gone so far afield now …”
Tony had startling eyes, one bluer than the other. Mimi only now realized this. Ocean eyes. Nice smell, too. Cheap shampoo, the kind that always smells better than it works, a tinge of musky sweat.
“What’s truth, Tony?” She fluffed her blond bangs with the tips of her fingers, cocked her head. “I mean really. It’s just one more high concept.”
“That’s just fashionable cynicism.”
“Wait to argue until after you’ve gotten paid.”
Tony laughed, his head dropping between his shoulders. He took his chopsticks out of their paper envelope, then folded the envelope into a little square. “I was just a bit troubled by the ethics of it. I don’t want to queer the project. I’m sure it will all come right in the end, but …”
Ethics? You are so cute, she thought. The waitress glided up with Tony’s beer and took their order. Mimi ordered a beer too. She could blow this meal, no problem. The ladies’ room was way in the back, far from the dining room and the kitchen.
“I’m not against getting paid,” said Tony. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t go in for suffering for art. Mouse and I can’t impose on you forever. I’d like to set us up somewhere nice before the wedding. Probably sounds a bit corny to you, but I would like to provide a nice place for her. She needs a home base. She may seem happy as a lark living out of a rucksack, sacrificing everything for her work, but …” He looked down, scratched a fleck of dried food off the rim of his plate with his thumbnail. “Well, just this morning she went out to pick out her china pattern. It’s bloody touching, isn’t it?”
“It just goes to show you,” said Mimi.
“She’s become interested in the wedding in a way I’d never imagined. It says volumes about her complexity, about her as a woman. Don’t you think?”
“Volumes. My own sister. I can’t believe it. It’s probably no secret that – not that she didn’t want to marry you, she always wanted to marry you – but a wedding is, well she’s kind of cheap, I guess that’s no surprise either, and practical, plus she’s sort of one of those hippie chicks, under the skin. She doesn’t know how to have a good time. Not like me, I know how to have a good time. In fact, that’s one of my main problems.” What did she just say? She had no idea She kept stabbing at the same pulverized mass of glass noodles. “Anyway,” she added brightly.
“I like to think her change of heart has to do with my putting my foot down. About that ridiculous thing she had up with your ex-husband. Sometimes she just needs to be said no to. Please don’t tell her I said that.”
“Don’t worry. I am so good at secrets. I have friends, they tell me secrets and then they assume after a while that I’ve told, but I haven’t, so we’re sitting in a restaurant and one’ll say, she’ll go, ‘When I had my abortion,’ or something, and everyone’ll be so shocked, and then she’ll, the friend, she’ll be shocked, she’ll say, ‘Mimi, I thought you would have told!’ I never tell.”
Tony’s blondish eyebrows knit together in a polite but nevertheless “what in the hell are you talking about?” way. Mimi thought, It has happened, I’m a babbling schizoid.
He laid his chopsticks beside his plate. “Say, where’s the pay phone here? Mouse and I were thinking about taking in a matinee this afternoon.”
Mimi nodded toward the door. The pay phone was next to a cigarette machine. She watched Tony stride away, watched him squeeze between a waitress serving bowls of white rice from an immense platter and the edge of the pool. One little bump of the waitress’s bum and he’d be swimming. He looked into the pool, did a double take, saw the coins glimmering at the bottom, fished for a penny, tossed it in.
There was no reason to think he’d check the messages. He would get the machine, realize Mouse wasn’t home and hang up. Mimi imagined he’d have a fleeting sweet thought of his Mouse caressing linens in some department store for Our New Home, or laying her finger thoughtfully along the cleft in her beloved chin wondering whether to go with stainless steel or silver-plated flatware.
It’d be better if she was just having an affair with Ivan. An affair people understood. An affair you could blame on hormones, on wicked Mother Nature. But no hormones urged you to make a documentary. Not even greed could you blame. Dementia fuels the documentary filmmaker. Look at Ivan, look at Mouse.
Mimi carefully devoured the peanuts from her Kung Pao chicken. If Tony did check the messages, there was no reason to think he would recognize Ivan’s voice. And even if he did recognize Ivan’s voice … he was leaning against the wall, looking up at the ceiling, curling the black phone cord around his finger.
The answering machine. Mimi’s voice, chipper and breathless. “Hi! If you’re looking for Mimi, Mouse, or Carole this is the place. We’re screening our calls, so don’t hang up. If we don’t pick up, get a clue. No, not really, someone will get back to you ASAP. Thanks!”
The machine was something Mimi bought one day on an impulse. She thought her old machine was unreliable. This was when she first began with Ralph. She was sure he was calling but the machine wasn’t recording. This new machine rang four times if there were no messages. It rang two if there were messages. If you wanted to hear the messages, after the recording and the beep, you punched in a two-digit code – hers was 22 – and the messages played themselves back to you.
From across the room Mimi saw him punch 22, then wait. It occurred to Mimi that while Tony was too well-bred to throw a fit in Thai Melody, he might stomp out, leaving her with the bill. This was a problem. Even though she had invited him, she thought he would pick up the tab.
She slid out of the booth, not sure what she was going to say to him. She reached him just as he slammed the receiver into its cradle.
He stared at the phone, his big hand resting on the receiver, knuckles white under tea-colored freckles. Mimi stared up at his shoulder blades, at the strawberry-blond hair curling over his collar. He picked the receiver up and slammed it down again, then strode out the door.
Mimi followed, wringing her hands. He stood in the middle of the sidewalk, fists on his hips, staring at the lunchtime traffic inching by. He would not look at her. He chewed on his bottom lip. Through clenched teeth he said, “Do tell me what in the bloody fuck is going on.”
“I told her this was a stupid thing to do. You think she ever listens to me? It’s been like this our whole lives! She thinks I don’t know anything. I’m just Mimi the airhead. I said it was a dumb idea from the start. She is so, I don’t know what you saw in her in the first place, she’s weird, Tony.”
“Just tell me.”
“I thought you knew. Ralph knew. I told Ralph, I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. I thought he must have told you, you guys are together so much –”
“– she’s doing it. With him.”
“I know how you feel. Betrayed, right? It’s the behind-the-back feature that’s so awful. But listen, if you ever see any of the footage, even though I’m in that scene with the lingerie, I did not want to have anything to do with it.”
“There’s a lingerie scene?” he asked numbly.
“No! I mean there is, but it’s tiny. It’s not even lingerie. It’s shopping. It’s like, it’s no different than buying light bulbs or something.”
“They’re fucking, aren’t they?”
“Whoa – what? No, no, Tony, Tony, it’s just a movie �
��”
“– she is one dead bitch –”
“Tony! It’s just a dumb movie! It’s not even a movie, it’s a documentary. Tell her you don’t want to do it. You’re the groom. How can there be a wedding without a groom?”
“Exactly,” he said through clenched teeth.
20
MOUSE LOOKED FORWARD TO THE STARS AGAINST IVORY fundraiser, to be held Saturday night at the Malibu home of television producer Michael Brass, the friend of Vince Parchman’s. She hadn’t been to Malibu in twenty years.
She hadn’t gone out with Tony in weeks. With the exception of the callow Vince, she expected the people there would be interesting: millionaires with consciences, environmental activists, eccentric Africanists, foreigners, actors. It would be the Los Angeles version of the embassy shindigs they used to crash in Nairobi. The evening was $10,000 a couple, but Michael Brass had invited Tony and Mouse to be his guests because they had “hands-on” knowledge of Africa. This, according to Vince, who had wangled the invitation.
“That’s so exciting,” Mimi said. “It’ll be all those famous Cause-of-the-Minute types. I remember when I went to a fundraiser for, it was either to save spotted owls or Soviet Jews, something, at Milton Grossman’s. It was a jillion dollars a plate, but I got to go because Milton was a big client of Solly’s. I think he also had a thing for me.”
In the past week Mimi had been, if not wonderful, then tolerable. She and Mouse had stayed up talking until one-thirty one night comparing memories of Fitzy. They had gone to the movies. See, The Pink Fiend advised Mouse, she loves you. She only wants the best for you. You are too judgmental. You want everyone to be just like you. When they’re not, you blame them.
Mimi had asked Mouse twice how things were going with Tony. It was very un-Mimi-like, bringing up a subject that was not just the warm-up act for her monologues on her favorite topic, herself. How was Tony behaving now that the wedding was drawing near? she wondered. Had Mouse talked to him about Wedding March yet? Mimi really thought she should, before he began to suspect. Did he act as though he suspected? Mimi had had lunch with him and he seemed a little suspicious. Sometimes Mimi worried that he would pick up the phone when Ivan called. No, said Mouse, Tony was fine. Preoccupied, maybe, a tad aloof, maybe, but this she attributed to his screenplay and his broken nose. Mimi and Tony had lunch together? Really? This was the first Mouse had heard of it.
Although Mimi had been to more fundraisers (bigger fundraisers, hipper fundraisers, more exclusive fundraisers), this was still in her opinion a great opportunity for Mouse to meet some important people who might one day want to fund one of her documentaries. “The main thing is, you’ve got to get yourself a beaded ensemble. Michael Brass is Mr. Mega Bucks. There’s a place in West Hollywood where you can rent jillion-dollar dresses by the night. You should check it out.”
Mouse took her advice. She went out and picked out a royal-blue strapless silk organza evening dress designed by someone who catered to First Ladies. She also rented black lace stockings and black velvet high heels. The heels were a little big, but otherwise everything was perfect. She picked out the entire outfit herself. It came with a little black embroidered clutch and a necklace of cubic zirconia. Mouse was very proud of herself.
In the car, on the way to Malibu, she had a moment where she felt a little like they were bound for the prom. It was the fullness of the dress, the way it swished when she walked. “I feel like I should have a wrist corsage,” she said.
Tony was silent. He drove with his elbow on the window ledge, his cheek propped on the butt of his hand. He’d sprung for a black, double-breasted suit, which he wore with a black shirt and his lizard-skin cowboy boots.
“You look like a cowboy gangster.”
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“Meaning that’s what you look like. The boots and all.”
Tony tossed a glance over his shoulder, sped across three lanes, exiting at an off-ramp in Santa Monica.
“Is this some new shortcut to Malibu?” asked Mouse.
“We’re picking up Ralph.”
“Ralph?”
“I’m sure I told you.” He was sure he hadn’t. She could be secretive, so could he. He refused to be humiliated this time. All that sturm and drang in Nairobi. It must have been the Uncle Nigel factor or some tropical virus that set him off. Inspecting her panties, reading her diary, begging and threatening. God! He cringed just thinking about it. What a dumb sod. He dug into himself and pulled out the infamous British reserve. Mouse would not soon realize how furious he was.
Ralph did not live in Santa Monica. Mouse was confused. They stopped in front of a pink stucco apartment building with the lanai arms scrawled up the side in gold relief. Tony double-parked, unfolded himself from the driver’s seat and, taking the steps two at a time, disappeared behind the black wrought-iron security gate. Mouse tipped her hips off the seat, reaching under her armpits to pull up the top of her dress. She had not noticed it in the store, but the bust was a little large and kept slipping down to reveal no small amount of cleavage and the lacy trim of her black strapless bra. She wondered, suddenly, how she would get through the evening, with Tony in the worst of his latest foul moods and a dress conspiring with gravity to embarrass her.
“Mouse, hello!” A rap on the window. A woman with waist-length ash-brown hair whom she didn’t immediately recognize. The door to the backseat sprung open. The woman slid in. “I’m Elaine, we met at Bibliothèques the night you arrived.” She stuck her narrow white hand over the headrest. “Great dress.”
“Right,” said Mouse, doubt plain in her voice.
“Ralph’s wife,” said Elaine.
“Right, right,” said Mouse. She rolled her lips inside her mouth. She’d obviously missed something very major. She thought Elaine was Ralph’s ex-wife. She had thought Ralph was Mimi’s boyfriend.
As they drove up the coast, Ralph told them about Michael Brass. He was meat and potatoes, said Ralph. This was the conventional wisdom. He was unpretentious and honest. His yes meant yes, his no meant no and his let’s have lunch meant let’s have lunch. To everyone’s knowledge, he had never said let’s do lunch in his entire upstanding life. He was considered a True Original, even though his TV shows would insult the intelligence of a ferret. He was also the richest man this side of the Rockies.
Brake lights winked on, cars slowed. The right lane was closed for several miles due to a mud slide. The line of traffic filed past a half-circle of blinding pink flares sizzling on the asphalt, illuminating a mound of earth as high as a house. The slide had apparently come unglued from the bluff during a recent rain. Mouse, nose to the window, craned her neck to see the matching house-sized craters in the side of the bluff but saw only a blank, apparently intact, café au lait-colored wall rising up from the road. Where had the mud come from? Did Mimi know Mouse and Tony were double-dating with Ralph and his ex-wife, who was now introducing herself as his wife? She must, thought Mouse, just as she thought there must be a vast crater up there she just couldn’t see.
The dress was a mistake. Mouse saw that the instant Michael Brass opened the door. The house was on the beach, a low, rambling, wood-shingled house indigenous not to California but Massachusetts. Michael Brass was as plain as his house, narrow-shouldered and drained. He was balding and sported a wispy vandyke. He was V.I. Lenin gone Maine woodsman, in a red Ragg sweater, chinos, and a pair of calf-high rubber hunting shoes.
“Come in,” he said.
Mouse blushed from the tops of her too-exposed light-brown breasts to the tips of her too-arranged dark-brown hair. She held her forearms to her sides and tried to schooch up her dress, a dumb, reflexive attempt to help her look as though she was not outfitted for the Miss America evening-gown competition.
She was desperate to trade a humiliated glance with Tony, but he had nothing to be humiliated about. He could get away with it. He was a gorgeous English cowboy-gangster. Ralph wore a dark sports coat and tie, both of which could be removed
. Elaine wore a plain black chemise and black flats, fit for any occasion. Mouse stumbled over the threshold in her too-big black velvet pumps. She looked like an idiot.
“How sweet! Throwbacks to the Reagan era! Come in, come in. I’m Tooty Brass.” Inches taller and years younger than her husband, Tooty was an outdoorsy blond with a friendly overbite. She wore a light-blue corduroy shirt-dress and penny loafers.
“I’m Ralph Holladay and this is –” began Ralph.
“– we’re so glad you could come! If you’ll come this way someone will get you some Perrier. We have alcohol, too, if you like. I’m having this catered. I usually don’t believe in catering, but I felt this time. It’s such a critical issue. The ivory. We’re against furs, too. You don’t have any furs, do you?” she asked Mouse.
“No,” cried Mouse. “This isn’t even my dress.”
“Lucky you,” said Tooty, hooking one hand through Tony’s arm, the other through Mouse’s. Mouse felt a tear of perspiration rolling down the inside of her arm. She held her breath, sure she was dripping all over the cuff of Tooty’s salt-of-the-earth shirt-dress.
The house was huge, rooms folding out into rooms, but simple to the point of homeliness, with battered, tilting white pine floors and yellowing walls that cried out for a coat of paint. The decor ran to beatup wicker and wooden furniture, blue and white knotted throw rugs, framed eighteenth-century pen-and-ink drawings of whales and shells. A ratty Amish quilt was tossed over the back of an overstuffed sofa. Both priceless antiques, Mouse imagined.
“Nice place,” she whispered to Elaine, still unsure whether she was consorting with the enemy.
“Little too ostentatiously mismatched for my taste,” said Elaine.
There were a hundred people there, maybe more. The house was overheated. A fire crackled in the huge fireplace. Long tables of food stretched discreetly along the walls, one featuring every known variety of caviar, heaped into earthenware pots.
Mouse was relieved to see that a few other women were hideously overdressed. Most seemed to be the wives of wealthy scions of undoubtedly ill-gotten Third World fortunes, heavy-lidded women with lurid red lips whose gaudy jewelry was out of place here at Hyannis Port West but who couldn’t care less. They chattered among themselves in their native tongues.
