Angels All Over Town

by Luanne Rice

  In America, where everyone recognizes movie and television stars, only the cognoscenti know the faces of directors. But everyone at the Crillon knew Emile Balfour. His bodyguard parted a path through the crowd for us. I had the impression of men in black tie and women in evening garb. Orchestra music. There was a ball at the hotel that night. We stepped quickly, blinking at the flashbulbs. When we were safely in the black limousine, Emile leaned close to me, smiling his famous down-turned smile, and said, “Tomorrow all the newspapers will be asking, ‘Who is she?’” He looked pleased.

  I laughed gaily. This was going to be fun. I felt as though I had already passed my audition and was living the life of a Balfour leading lady. Through the car’s tinted windows the lighted fountains of the Place de la Concorde looked dim and green. We spun down the grand boulevards into the heart of Paris. “You know,” Emile said, pointing at another fountain, “if you want to impress someone, you pay the city some money, and they will turn on the fountain at a certain time. You synchronize your watches. Then you take your lady to the fountain, which is dry, and you say, ‘Our love is so deep, it makes rivers flow, fountains bubble…,’ and the water suddenly goes on, all lit up like magic. Then she will do anything for you.”

  I laughed. What a charmer. A traffic jam caught us on a dark one-way street. Bums lurched toward the car from darkened doorways, but Emile was unperturbed. He looked impatiently at his watch, then tapped the glass partition and gestured for the driver to turn down an alleyway. We weaved through the slum, rousing bums who slept on grates and in front of building vents. But the driver never blew his horn; Emile told me it was against the laws of Paris to blow a car horn. The entire time, he spoke without facing me. Finally he glanced in my direction and said, “So, you won an award.”

  I read his expression, watching for disdain. I had hoped he wouldn’t mention the show. It embarrassed me to discuss my soap opera with France’s great director. “Yes, I did,” I said. “We give our viewers what they seem to want.”

  “Really? What is that?”

  “We make them laugh, make them cry, and make them wait.”

  “It amazes me that a man like Chance Schutz would condescend to an audience like that. It really is an insult.”

  I felt heat spreading up my neck, into my face. I looked out the car window.

  “I mean, I’m always telling Chance, ‘Get out of that stuff.’ He’s too talented to waste himself on crap. Your show has an appeal, certainly, of a campish sort. But apart from that…”

  The driver stopped in front of a building. A line wound from the front door around the block. People pressed close to our car, to see who would emerge.

  “Now, get ready,” Emile said, ducking his head and hurtling out of the car the instant our driver opened the door. I followed, and when I looked up we were in a darkened palace, with a rock beat pounding in our ears and a thousand men in black tie greeting us, leading us to the preferred table, bearing a complimentary (or perhaps Emile’s customary) bottle of champagne, while those who were not prominent enough lounged glumly in the ground-floor waiting room and craned their necks to see who passed. I knew that crowd: in New York I had gone to Area, to Kamikaze, to Limelight, and watched the famous be whisked by like prize cattle. Occasionally I was among them.

  Emile waved the waiter away and opened the bottle of champagne himself. Very indolent, his cigarette dangling off his lower lip, the smoke curling into his eyelashes and making him squint, he twisted the bottle around the cork and allowed a thin stream to cascade onto the table. He poured the wine. A waiter arrived instantly with a white linen cloth and swabbed the puddle. Emile watched, then leaned back and surveyed the room. “To art,” he said, raising the delicate flute.

  “To art,” I said, surprising myself by thinking of Beyond the Bridge.

  Emile had the sharp bone structure and boyish expression of a French sailor. He wore a heavy chronometer on his wrist, an accessory that looked fantastically incongruous beside the trim cuffs of his dinner jacket. His tousled brown hair looked windblown, but I had smelled the lacquer sitting close to him in the car. When he reached the end of his filterless cigarette, he jabbed it with a gold toothpick and brought it to his sensual lips. “Okay,” he said. “What were we saying about Chance Schutz? Oh yes—that he had better find a new baby.”

  “Baby?”

  “Baby. Project. Get the hell out of soap operas. He sent me several tapes of your show, by the way. You are a good actress. You’ve got spark and talent. That’s why I want to try you out. I think you will work.”

  A couple danced close to our table, and a bodyguard materialized out of nowhere to prod them away. I watched with indifference, as if it happened to me every day. “Can you tell me about the movie?”

  “It is about a woman alone. Has no one. She lives on the wild shore. Yet she is lovely. What has happened to her? Who has she loved? What did that love do to her? The movie unfolds into her story. It is a compelling script. Flashbacks leading to a new love in the present. Confrontations. But still abstract, like The Listener. Totally different than anything I have done before—I’ll give you a script before you leave Paris.”

  “Are you shooting it here?”

  “No. I’m shooting my current picture here. Parts of it. I don’t like setting a film in the city. I need the ambiguities of nature, the message. The symbolism.”

  “Yes, I know.” I thought of the black zone of shore. I knew precisely what he meant; it was one of the reasons I felt drawn to his work. My eyes sharp with the recognition of a kindred spirit, I smiled at him, but his eyes were scanning the crowd. My father had taught me to never look around a room, trying to see who was there. Let them look for me. I had thought that a man like Emile Balfour would have learned the same lesson. “Where will you shoot the new picture?”

  “Corsica. Very wild, desolate.” A quick glance. “You could live for four months without the distractions of a city?”

  “Of course.”

  “I wonder about Chance Schutz’s great interest in you. Are you lovers?”

  I blushed, even though everyone knows how direct the French are about adultery. “No, we’re not. I’m a close friend of his and Billy’s. How do you know him?”

  “He produced one of my early films. Many years ago, before I was known.”

  I hadn’t known that. I thought of Chance and wondered how many young artists he had taken under his wing. He had transformed me from a drama student into one of America’s favorite soap stars. Because of Chance I was drinking champagne with Emile Balfour at Palace. I felt terribly guilty for being ashamed of the show, and I straightened my spine, determined to act proud.

  Emile looked vaguely bored; he gazed through the room at the writhing dancers, the dark tables around the perimeter, the waiters stationed like extra police at a parade. At his glance the waiters started toward our table, but Emile shook his head impatiently, and they stopped in their tracks. Statues.

  A tuxedoed man approached us, and no one stopped him. By Emile’s expression I could see that this was the person he had been looking for. A slur of French, and then Emile motioned for him to sit down. Emile’s manner toward me changed drastically. Suddenly he was pressed beside me, one finger tracing the back of my hand on the table, his warm breath on the back of my ear.

  “Arnaud, meet Una Cavan. The American actress.” He said “the American actress” as if I were in a class with Meryl Streep.

  “Enchanté,” Arnaud said, grinning broadly. He had a shiny bald head and wore round wire glasses. “So delighted to make your acquaintance. Perhaps you will give me le scoop?” He whipped out a small cassette recorder, placed it on the table, and switched it on. For several seconds there was silence. Emile leaned over and gave me a long kiss, his tongue entering my mouth, his hand passing across my breasts.

  “You ready?” he asked into my mouth.

  By the time I had recovered from the kiss and divined that Arnaud was a reporter, Emile had started talking.


  “I am trying to persuade Una to accept a role in my next film. As you know, it will be shot on Corsica, and that is all I can say. Una is used to the bright lights of New York. Can such a woman last on Corsica? She needs a lot of action, this one.” He kissed the top of my ear. A photographer darted around our table. Arnaud smiled unctuously.

  I sat there, growing stiff. What was he doing? I continued to smile for the camera. I could not move; I was the Petrified Forest of rage. I thought of Sam, having dinner alone at the Ninigret Inn. At that precise moment he was probably hunched over a plate of steamed cod, reading an Agatha Christie paperback. Emile kissed my neck, and I flinched.

  “What is your best work, Una?” Arnaud asked.

  Before I could reply, Emile said, “No doubt about that. She is a cult figure on Beyond the Bridge. It is a daytime serial. Of a very different sort.”

  A cult figure? Somehow I had never thought of my fans as a cult. I could not believe Emile’s approach—first call soap operas “crap” and tear down the people who work in them, then hype them up for the media and make them seem fashionable, cultish. I smiled weakly at Arnaud and the photographer, afraid of showing my true feelings. If I showed them how angry I felt, I would displease Emile, and I was not practiced in displeasing men. Emile began to speak in French. For fifteen minutes I stared at his gargantuan watch, willing the interview to end. Suddenly, without a word to me, Emile touched my hand and stood. He rushed toward the door, leaving me to run after him. On the way past our waiter, he signed his name to the bill.

  In the back seat of the car, he faced me. His expression was blank. “I am sorry. I can see that you are upset. Aren’t you used to interviews?”

  “Not…that kind,” I said in the strongest way I could. I could have said, “No, I’m not, you asshole.” Instead, I shrugged and looked apologetic, because I did not want to offend the man. He had too much power over my future for me to slug him. Emile reached around, patting my cheek tenderly. He turned my face toward his.

  “Una, I am very sorry. But you understand publicity, don’t you? How reporters must be manipulated, how situations must be made to appear a certain way? You are watched by millions of American women, a market that I would very much like to reach with my films. You are my entrée to that market.”

  Wasn’t that sort of the same as being a doormat? I thought. Emile’s voice was cool and soothing. If I had heard it about an hour earlier, I would not be in this state now. I stared at him, squinting with anger. Emile immediately turned away, fishing a cigarette from a leather pocket on the car door, and lit it.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, as soon as I was able to speak.

  “That is all right,” Emile replied, benevolent and forgiving. Why the hell was I apologizing when he was the rude one? My mind was full of righteous indignation, but my voice was full of contrition. At that instant I hated Emile Balfour. Tomorrow some Paris paper would report that we were having a romance, and I hated him.

  The driver drove down a narrow street, barely wide enough for the car. He stopped in front of a tiny bistro with a carved gold snail above the door. Without waiting for the driver, Emile opened the door and we stepped out. An old man, his dress shirt and black tie covered by a starched white apron, greeted us without appearing to recognize Emile. He led us through a narrow room to a dark wood booth. There were no cushions. Emile and I sat opposite each other, illuminated by the green shaded lamp hanging overhead. Kitchen noises clattered a few feet away, and the odor of garlic was omnipresent. My stomach growled loudly.

  “They have the best lamb in Paris,” Emile said. “Allow me to order for us?”

  I nodded, feeling sodden. How could I have expected to dazzle Emile Balfour and become a movie star? What a charade! When the waiter had uncorked a bottle of red wine and taken our order to the chef, Emile settled back against the booth and told me a story about his latest movie. How he was shooting right on schedule, how the leading man drank too much every night but so far had been sober on the set, how Emile would see that the actor never found another job if he screwed up the film. I listened, letting amusement alternate with sympathy on my face. Emile looked pleased, like someone who knew that he was fabulously handsome and famous and had somehow managed to make an hysterical woman calm down before she raised the roof.

  The waiter brought our dinner: grilled lamb with rosemary, flageolets, baby carrots, and fried shoestring potatoes. Emile chewed some food, then went on with his stories. Occasionally his eyes would flick charmingly, meeting mine, but mainly they roamed the room. I continued to nod at him, but I was thinking: with men it always came down to the same thing. I wanted things from them, and I would compromise myself to get them. With my father I had wished for devotion. I had agreed to overlook his nights at the Blue Danube as a means of exerting emotional blackmail. I will forgive you if you love me. I will be a Good Girl if you love me. With Emile I wanted a starring role, and I was, by sitting in that restaurant, allowing him to use me as a publicity stunt. I would pretend to be his new lover if he would give me a job. Suddenly a terrible thought struck me: what if he really expected me to be his new lover? My father had always warned me about guys like him. What would I do, how would I react, when he made the pass? Would I go willingly, trying to not think of Sam? Perhaps I had just discovered why Lily and Margo had found true love and I had not; with men, they were not constantly patting their pockets for currency with which to barter.

  After dinner we drove to the Crillon. Emile and I sat quietly in the limousine’s vast back seat while revelers passed by, peering into the black windows, trying to see through their own reflections. Some of them brought their faces so close to the glass, their noses touched and left imprints. I sat upright, watching the faces, waiting for Emile to touch me. The faces appeared quizzical, like faces observed through a one-way mirror in a department store dressing room or a police lineup. As Delilah, I had seen a lineup. About two years ago Delilah had been raped by a champion golfer, during Mooreland’s annual benefit tournament. Beck and her father had flanked her while she sat in a small room at the Mooreland police station, watching the men parade onto the stage, standing before the height lines, their heads resembling musical notes on a staff. The men had faced the window, which must have looked to them like a mirror, because some of them had crouched, peering into the glass, smoothing their hair and moustaches. The perpetrator had a bushy blond moustache. Delilah had identified him, but he ended up beating the charge because he always played in the same foursome as the judge.

  “So, now you have seen something of Paris,” Emile said, smiling warmly.

  “Yes. Thank you so much.” I was stiff, waiting for him to say, “Now let’s go upstairs,” but he only smiled. He sat at his end of the long leather seat, wedged into the corner.

  “I imagine your tour will be arduous, but perhaps it will be pleasant, knowing that you will soon return to Paris. You can come to my studio and read for me. Of course I say ‘read,’ but for an actress of your abilities, that might be insulting.”

  “I’ve never acted in a movie.”

  “No, that is true, and although I trust Chance’s judgment when he tells me you are capable, I have investors who must see for themselves. Don’t worry; they are money men, not artists. They will see a little show, give us the money, and that will be that.”

  “That will be that?” Was he telling me that the audition was just a formality, that the part was mine for the asking? I felt a slight surge of adrenaline, and held on to the seat.

  But Emile shook his head and smiled wryly. In the dim light, his face looked very young. “Well, I am afraid we must do a little test. As you say, movies are different from television. I like to improvise in my work, to give the picture more creative range, so perhaps we will see how you improvise.”

  I love to improvise. “Fine,” I said. Now that business was concluded, he would touch me. Perhaps he would slip his hand around the back of my neck, pulling my face into his lap. Right here, with all the voyeurs o
utside. But instead he tapped the glass partition behind the driver’s head, and the driver sprang out of the car. He opened my door and leaned inside, waiting for instructions.

  “Walk Mademoiselle Cavan to the elevator,” Emile commanded. Almost as an afterthought, he reached for my hand and kissed it.

  “A bientôt,” he said.

  “Good night,” I said, backing away from the car, waving at him until the driver slammed the door and left me staring at my own reflection in the black glass.

  Chapter 13

  Shouldn’t a grand tour of Europe be electrifying? Especially when one has just fallen in love? I had expected it to be. I had expected to fly through the cities with my eyes wide open, taking in the richness so I could write to Sam about it. I had planned to stand before the little pond in the Tuileries and watch the children sail their model sailboats and describe the bright hulls, the fluttering of the cotton sails, the music of the children’s language, in long letters. The barges puffing along the Seine. Breakfast alfresco beneath gray-and-white umbrellas at the Crillon. But in Paris I had developed narcolepsy. How could I write long letters to Sam when I kept falling asleep? From the moment Emile Balfour had dropped me at the hotel, I could not keep my eyes open. I had slept until noon the next day, had barely stayed awake through breakfast with Jason, had fallen asleep, upright, in the limousine on the way to the airport. Emile had sent the script to me by messenger, but I had no will to read it.

  On the plane to Zaventem, I slept. In the cab, driving southwest to Brussels (a city I had never visited), I slept. We finally reached the Ste. Claire, a tiny hotel adjacent to the Grand’ Place. I rested my elbow on the grimy mahogany front desk while Jason checked in, and I fought to stay awake. Only a few minutes, and then I’ll be alone in my room, I told myself, listening to Jason’s voice rise in anger and not caring why.