Jessica wasn’t aware of the sounds she was making, tearing at those excruciating memories, but they were audible enough to wake Todd, who, seeing her pain and knowing exactly what was torturing her, reached out and took her out of her dark thoughts and into his arms.
“I was there again, in that month, destroying my sister.”
“Jess, what can I do to help you?”
“Nothing. Nobody can. I’m going to lose you, Todd. And I so deserve to.” She wept.
“You’ll never lose me,” Todd said. “I’m not going to let that happen.”
But he, too, had his tortures. Starting with that first wild month, torn in a million directions, he’d been filled with shame and misery and passion, and one other torture he remembered too well: every day thinking he had lost her.
I’m always there first, inside the diner, each time certain Jessica won’t show. But then she does, and I watch with relief and excitement as her white Ford sends up a dry cloud of dirt in the parking area. I can see into the car, see her leaning over for a last-minute check in the rearview mirror, fluffing her hair once quickly, then opening the door.
Then comes the best part: the moment before she slides out. First come her feet spiking the air, flip-flops dangling, then the long, naked legs—naked because her skirt, short to begin with, has pulled up around her bottom in the slide out. Last is her slim body and beautiful face. I memorize every move of the ritual and each one thumps a separate beat somewhere in my chest.
I lose sight of her when she walks around to the door and see her again only when she’s inside the diner. That first sight without the dirty windows separating us is raw, sending a rush of heat to my head.
Never once does she look like Elizabeth to me.
It doesn’t matter that we made love only that first night. Each time we see each other after that is the equivalent of making love again, so powerful is our connection.
“I love you, Todd,” Jessica said, and held on to him tightly, burying herself in his body. She’d lost him once and it was nearly unbearable, though she had done it herself. But then that time, caught in the throes of that terrible month, drowning in the agony of guilt, there had been no choice. Even the day she saw A. J. Morgan’s car in the parking lot outside the diner. She gasped and though she had already pulled in, she swooped around without slowing down, hung a U and drove out.
But instead of leaving, getting out of there, her chance to get out of everything, she drove around the block. Twice. On the third time, A.J.’s car was gone.
Daily, I like beg myself to do it, to end it, and finally I just shut my eyes and do it. That’s when all the passion turns vicious. It is the only way for me to break away and to eradicate some of my guilt.
I tell him it was a terrible mistake, which is true, and that I don’t love him, never loved him. In fact, now despise him. Which is not true.
He tells me the same, and I believe him.
Not three days after that last meeting, we have a scare. Elizabeth is with me at the bookstore, picking up some textbooks for her psychology course, when we run into Todd and Winston. As usual, Winston is being his goofy self, hopping up on the ladder, pulling erotic titles down from the shelves, and suggesting he read them to me.
“That reminds me, I’m gonna need Thursday night…” he says to Todd in a fake confidential voice, “… alone.”
“No good, man. I have that physics final Friday,” Todd says.
Winston climbs down from the ladder and hands the books to Elizabeth, who starts to put them back on the shelf.
“Come on. Wasn’t I nice to you a few weeks ago?” Winston gives Todd a kind of leering smile. “Remember, San Diego?”
Elizabeth is busy with the books, her back to Winston and not really listening, but the reference to San Diego grabs my attention.
“You probably didn’t even know that I got back Saturday night.” Looking at Elizabeth, he says, “I knocked, but you guys were very busy.”
At that point, I like deflect the action, quickly handing a book to Elizabeth, who automatically takes it and turns to find a place for it on the shelf.
“I had to crash at Bruce’s pad that night. And man, he wasn’t happy. You owe him one. Me, too.”
“What are you talking—” Then it hits Todd what night Winston is referring to, and his face freezes.
I catch his change of expression and know my own face is like registering the same shock. Winston, who is momentarily confused, sees Todd’s expression, then mine, and to my amazement, he seems to read it right immediately. All the while, Elizabeth is busy trying to squeeze a fat edition of Havelock Ellis back onto the shelf.
It is only the strange silence that makes her turn around.
“Huh? What’s up? Something wrong?”
Strangely, it’s Winston, the insensitive clown, who so saves the moment for us by doing a really funny bit about mistaking his girlfriend for her dog. He like tells it so fabulously that Elizabeth practically falls off the ladder, and even Todd and I can’t help laughing despite the horror of the situation. Rescued just in time, but too late for their friendship.
When someone knows a terrible secret about you, and you can’t in good conscience kill them, you get them out of your life. And that’s exactly what Todd does that very day. With some clichéd excuse about like needing his own space, Todd moves out and finds an apartment on the other side of town.
Time passes and only a few people notice that the relationship between the best friends has dissolved. Of course, I’m one of them. Elizabeth like sort of notices and I hear her ask Todd a few times where Winston is, but he always has some reasonable-sounding excuse. She even mentions it to me a couple of times, but I say I don’t know anything.
After awhile Winston’s absence becomes as natural as his presence had been and for us, the ex-lovers, the betrayers, senior year, like the longest year of our lives, crawls on toward the relief of graduation.
5
New York
Even on pain of losing the best opportunity she’d had, it still took two days for Elizabeth to work up the courage to come back to the theater. Her return was inauspicious, to say the least; dressed in black, she slipped in, keeping her back against the wall and taking advantage of the darkness. She found a seat on an aisle twenty rows back in the orchestra, well away from the clot of the hierarchy, i.e., producers, director, and, of course, the monster playwright.
During that first week of rehearsals Elizabeth became an unnoticed fixture sitting quietly, silently actually, in the back. She spoke to no one.
Without the warmth and bubble of an audience, the atmosphere in the darkened theater was grim. Its rows of empty seats were outlined only by the dim work lights from the stage, which gave no cheer. Nor was there any cheer from its only occupants: the unfriendly, clannish producers, the angry writer, or the kinglike director. Onstage, nervous actors bumping into new lines lent an unmistakable air of desperation.
No theater magic here. And if there was any hint of the legendary passion, it was not obvious.
Even though Elizabeth had been writing about theater for eight months and seen lots of shows, this empty theater with its unique population made her realize that she had been looking in from the outside. Now she was inside, and even though she wasn’t in the line of fire, she felt nervous and edgy. Everyone was edgy.
By the end of the first week of rehearsals, Elizabeth had mastered the uniform: sneakers, jeans, and a heavy black sweatshirt she could throw over her black T-shirt as soon as she got into the empty theater that, no matter how hot it was outside, never felt above fifty.
She thought it strange that no one else seemed bothered by the constant sharp draft of air-conditioning; these were not people who held back complaints. She’d heard the actors, desperate though they were for the work, stop everything to whine about minor inconveniences like a dressing-room bulb that wasn’t bright enough or a dripping faucet. Ultimately, no matter their age or how valid their complaints, they were inf
antilized by the director, whom they were encouraged to call Bob but treat like Mr. Ross, and nothing changed.
Except when Mr. Ross himself complained, and he never held back. That’s when everyone listened. It was rare that he wasn’t quietly disappointed, so quiet as to be almost martyred. In the pecking order, he, Bob Ross, was the top, and everyone else stepped gingerly, more than a little careful not to be the cause of his unhappiness. Even the producers cowered under his rule. This show business was nothing like the song. It was scary.
Needless to say, Elizabeth, tucked away in her hiding place, was almost faint at the prospect of being noticed by either the director or, as she thought of him now, the shithead writer, who was no slouch when it came to projecting his own air of discontent.
One couldn’t be certain whether director or writer would come out on top since they hadn’t clashed yet, but it was coming. Elizabeth could see from the hunch of Connolly’s shoulders that he was strung tight and crouched to spring.
Elizabeth wasn’t about to risk the chance that he might spring at her. She hadn’t renewed her request for an interview; she had decided she would just be an observer and write what she wanted. If her subject, Mr. Connolly, didn’t like it, too bad; he shouldn’t have been so rude. All she wanted was an interview. What an asshole.
She’d started off on his side; he was a young, first-time playwright, big chance and all that. At least before he turned around and she saw that face. The shock of the resemblance to Todd was like a whack in the stomach.
That very first day, when the casting session was over, she’d just sat there in a sweat and stared.
Connolly had twisted around to see her. “What?” he’d said in an impatient tone, more comment than question.
He’d waited a couple of seconds, and when she didn’t answer, shrugged and left.
Bala Trent, the nice producer, had tried to make some excuses, but when Elizabeth still didn’t respond, she just smiled and said, “Y’all come back tomorrow and you can have a nice long chat with Will. All right, sugar?”
Elizabeth finally managed to nod and form something like a smile before she picked up her papers, hurried up the aisle, and ran out the door. She didn’t stop running until she got to Seventh Avenue. Instead of going to the office she went straight home.
That night she rehearsed how she would tell David, her editor, that she didn’t want to do the interview. Then she decided she did, and then she didn’t, and by morning she understood she was being ridiculous. The interview was a plum, something she could maybe work into a monthly column. She’d have to be really dumb to give up this chance because Will Connolly looked a little like her ex-boyfriend.
It was probably just the bad lights in the theater. She was definitely doing the interview. That was it.
But all that week, it got worse. Even though she kept her distance she couldn’t miss the resemblance to Todd. It was striking; he even had the same brown hair. At least he didn’t do that awful sweeping-it-back thing, but it was straight, and if it were a little longer it would fall over his eyes. And then he might push it back and she didn’t know how she would handle that.
At the theater, Elizabeth had developed a routine of disappearing just before they called a lunch break. She perfected an exit using the side door into an alley; from there she’d shoot down the street across Seventh and Broadway and up to a small coffee shop on Fifty-second Street a little too far out of the way for anyone from the cast to go.
As she did on all the other days, she’d wait until everyone else was back before slipping into the theater and sliding into her seat.
Today, she was a couple of minutes late, and they had already started working on an early scene where the young James Boswell tries to sell himself as a biographer to Samuel Johnson, who has no interest at all in having his biography written. He has too many things to hide.
“No!” Will Connolly, the playwright, stood and spoke directly to the actor. “There’s no way Johnson’s angry. He’s only playing with Boswell. You are the great Samuel Johnson. With your words and wit, you’re over-armed; there’s no need for anger.”
Everything stopped. Elizabeth could feel the shock in the room, but she didn’t know where it was coming from. It seemed like an insightful criticism.
Obviously the actor knew what was wrong. He panicked and looked to Ross, the director, for help.
Bob Ross didn’t move.
Everyone was looking at the playwright. Will Connolly felt the message and sat down. But he didn’t slink; he sat down with resolve, alert for an attack, without his natural slouch of remove.
Ross walked up to the stage manager, who leaned down at the edge of the stage to hear the director.
The stage manager turned to the cast behind him. “Take ten, everyone.”
A major faux pas had been committed, but Elizabeth couldn’t imagine what it was.
The cast moved reluctantly offstage, unhappy to miss what surely would be an interesting contretemps.
To say that the producers fled would be overstating it, but they did get up almost instantly and move out and up the aisle without a word.
Normally, Elizabeth would have slipped out, but she was baffled and sensed this was an important part of the story that she had to know. She was, after all, a journalist.
Sorta.
Besides, if she slunk down a little lower in her seat, and with the cooperation of the dim lights, no one would see her.
“Hey, Will.” Elizabeth heard Ross, but she couldn’t see him well enough to catch the expression on his face.
But Will could, and it obviously wasn’t warm. It wasn’t even the usual disappointment. It was almost hostile. Something was wrong. Being a novice, he didn’t know what it was, but he did know it was his fault.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“It’s probably better to check with me first if you have any problems with the actors. Then, if I think it has merit, I’ll deal with it.”
“I’m not going to sit here and watch him do it wrong.”
“It’s better my way,” Ross said softly, almost kindly.
“Last time I checked, I was the writer,” Will said, falling right into Ross’s trap.
“And I’m the director.” Ross didn’t wait for Will’s response. Gathering up his papers, he started up the steps to the stage. On the last step he turned to Will. “You might want to check that with Bala before you come back.”
“Thanks. I will,” Will said to an empty stage. Ross had already disappeared into the wings. Will added to no one, “Asshole!”
In a fury, Will swept up his script and charged up the aisle out of the theater. If he saw Elizabeth as he passed, he gave no indication.
Elizabeth waited a couple of minutes to give Will a chance to be gone, got up, and walked out into the lobby. Rich Meaninfeld, an assistant stage manager, was there.
“What was that about?” Elizabeth asked him.
“It’s an unwritten rule: Only the director talks to the actors. If a producer or a writer has something to say, he’s got to send Ross a note. If Ross thinks it’s valid, he talks to the actor himself.”
“That seems like a long way around. I mean, Connolly is the writer.”
“Yeah, but that’s the way it is.”
“So what’s going to happen?”
“Bala or somebody will talk to Will. And then it won’t happen again.”
“I don’t know; Connolly is pretty strong.”
“So are Sondheim and Herman and Mamet.…”
“Mamet sends notes?”
“Right.”
This was the real theater, not her little spring break experience. And it could be hard. Even brutal.
“So when is this going to happen? The talking-to?” she asked.
“Pretty soon.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Maybe in the bar across the street. Don’t worry; they’ll find him.”
“Thanks. See ya!” And out she went, straight to the Wicked Tea
pot, the Irish bar facing the theater, happily enjoying the warmth of about twenty seconds of sunshine before she was back in another dim, chilly place.
Connolly was there. At the bar, in front of an empty martini glass, which rested next to a full one. Quietly, Elizabeth took a seat a couple stools over from him. His head was down, studying the script on his lap, his fingers pushing the pages, fast and angry. If he looked up he would see her in the mirror behind the bottles, but he didn’t, not even when he took great gulps of the second martini.
Now he was making notes, scrawling words over pages. Elizabeth could see from his hand motions that he was making lots of exclamation marks, punctuating the script with dots that hit almost hard enough to break a pen point or at least tear the page. He was obviously furious.
The bartender, a young Irishman who was so incredibly handsome that Elizabeth almost forgot why she was there, asked for her order in that soft, gentle-on-the-ears Irish accent.
“A dirty martini,” she said.
“On the rocks?”
“No, straight up.”
He hesitated for that nanosecond that spoke of more than bartending interest. But gorgeous as he was, he wasn’t Elizabeth’s type. Now Jessica … she’d have gone nuts for him. No matter who he was with, she’d have scooped him up in a minute. She always had a thing for dark hair and blue eyes. Black Irish, she called them.
In fact, the bartender was undeniably the best-looking man Elizabeth had seen in New York. Movie-star material, probably an aspiring actor. It looked like all waiters and waitresses in New York really were out-of-work actors.
Elizabeth remembered a cartoon of a couple sitting in a restaurant in New York: The man wants to call the waiter, who is across the room. He lifts his hand and calls out, “Actor! Actor!”
Elizabeth watched the bartender pour a healthy portion of Stolichnaya vodka and just the tiniest splash of olive juice into a glass of ice and stir, eyes fixed on her all the while, mixing the drink by feel. Even without the alcohol, she was beginning to cheer up, though he was definitely wasting his time on her.
Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later Page 6
