Domestic Arrangements

by Norma Klein

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I had about twenty minutes before it was time to board the plane so I sat down and opened it up to the article. I was scared, my hands were shaking and I kept getting two pages stuck together. This is what it said:

  The New York critics have lost their hearts to her, co-star Felix Propper thinks she “can do anything; it’s almost scary,” Twentieth Century Fox is beside themselves at the prospect of her appearing in their new $9-million-budgeted musical, “Lo,” based on Vladimir Nabokov’s 1958 controversial novel, “Lolita.” But fame, thus far, seems to have left Rusty (née Tatiana) Engelberg, 14, totally unchanged. “I’m not even sure if I want to be an actress,” says Rusty, nicknamed for her mane of radiant red hair which has critics running to their dictionaries for appropriate adjectives. “I might want to be a doctor—you know, that kind that delivers babies.”

  Rusty grew up with show business very much in her blood. Her mother, stunning six-foot Amanda Tobias, gained renown in the 60s as the girl in the zebra-skin suit who purred infectiously on TV screens about an underarm deodorant. Kentucky-born Amanda, 39, a stalwart of CBS’s “The Way We Are Now,” claims to have no difficulty accepting her younger daughter’s sudden catapult into fame. “Rusty deserves everything that’s happened to her,” she says, beaming proudly at her nubile offspring. “She has enormous natural grace, talent. She did things in Domestic Arrangements that I couldn’t do now, God help her.”

  “But Daddy wasn’t sure I ought to be in the movie,” Rusty confides. “He wasn’t sure it was serious enough . . . and he wasn’t that happy about the scene . . . you know, the one with the hair dryer.” Daddy is director Lionel Engelberg, 50, Emmy Award winner for his unrelenting portrait of a cancer victim, “Death Rites,” former professor of Drama at Yale (where he met Amanda, who enrolled in his class and wrote up an interview with him for the school paper; his childless marriage to the former Dora Cartwright was “crumbling”), and onetime theater critic for the prestigious literary quarterly, “The Hudson Review.” “It’s important to all of us that Tatiana not be exploited in any way,” he insists. “She has a natural talent that I’d like to see nurtured and tended to.” Plans are afoot for Rusty to appear as Ariel in a summer production of “The Tempest” at The Long Wharf. Will being directed by her father faze the young star? “I think it’ll be fun,” Rusty confides. “Daddy’s going to coach me on the poetry part.”

  The only member of the family (“We’re just a typical New York family,” says Amanda) who seems to take a somewhat jaundiced view of Rusty’s stardom is older sister Cordelia, a third-year student at Riverdale. “Let’s face it,” says Cordelia, named, as was her sister, after a literary heroine, “‘Domestic Arrangements’ isn’t exactly ‘Hamlet.’” Cordelia, who wants to be the first Jewish woman president, says she found her sister’s semi-nude scene “gross.” “I wish she’d acted under another name so people wouldn’t know it was my sister.”

  What appears to have caused the most controversy about Rusty’s first starring role is not just the R rating or even “Time” magazine’s accusation of the film as being “soft-core porn dressed up as radical-chic satire.” It is an unusual combination of physical delicacy and sensuality that Rusty projects. She is, in the eyes of many parents, their daughter, caught somewhere between paper dolls and the pill. “She’s the heroine of ‘The Glass Menagerie’ crossed with Candy,” says Charles O’Hara, the director of the film. “Rusty has a tentativeness, a softness that I hoped would eradicate any aura of sleaziness in a very complicated, demanding role. Samantha is a catalyst. Everyone in the family reacts to her out of their own frustrations and desires. Yet, she, in her true and compelling innocence, is, in a sense, untouched.”

  Whether that innocence can be preserved as Rusty moves on into the upper-middle-class New York world of teenage sex and drugs, as well as the Hollywood scene, is a question that concerns many people. One of them is clearly Rusty’s erstwhile boyfriend and would-be film director, Joshua Lasker. Joshua, 16, son of prominent divorce attorney Patrick Lasker, is evidently dismayed at what is happening to his former girl friend. “He thinks she’s going to be spoiled,” one of his school friends reports. “I guess she dumped him for some older guy. He’s really taken it hard.” Rusty and Joshua met in the spring of 1980 when he took some color photographs of her in a Japanese kimono for a school photography contest. The photos, showing a more demure side of the then thirteen-year-old actress, were reproduced in the school newspaper. “He said he had some of her in the nude,” a friend reports, “but I guess he isn’t showing them to anybody.” “Playboy”?

  Rusty is generally close-mouthed about the relationship, admitting only that she now considers herself “too young for sex.” Characterizing their relationship as “fairly intense,” she admits that the diaphragm her parents purchased for her was never actually used. “But I definitely believe people my age can be in love,” she insists. Her father is more wary. “This is a difficult time for girls Tatiana’s age,” he says. “Peer pressure forces them into relationships they aren’t emotionally prepared to handle.” Citing statistics that only 20% of teenage girls are having orgasms, Engelberg deplores what he calls “premature sexual activity which robs young people of the real joys of childhood and adolescence.” Cordelia, who is currently dating Joshua Lasker’s older brother, lute-maker Neil, a bearded high school drop-out, says her father’s statistics are far from accurate.

  Rusty herself seems unperturbed by any possible negative effects “Domestic Arrangements” might have on her peers. Characterizing her own parents’ marriage as “extremely happy,” she seems secure in her own world and admits that the elegant 3-story dollhouse her father built for her when she was a child is still used in idle moments. “I don’t think the movie was dirty, not at all. I wasn’t even naked and my hair covered me practically altogether.”

  The possibility that people will confuse her with the character she plays disturbs Rusty. “We’re totally different people,” she vehemently asserts. Her best friend at school, Sheila Montgomery, agrees. “Rusty’s not the type who’d flirt with someone’s boyfriend or try to steal him away. She’s a completely straightforward, open person.” “If anything,” adds Amanda Engelberg, “Rusty is too naive for her age. That wide-eyed ‘I’ll tell you anything you want to know’ bit is no act. She’s never had any reason not to trust people. I hope she never will.”

  It’s precisely that quality of wide-eyed innocence which producers Gregory Sampson and James Liss hope to capitalize on in their “Lolita” remake, which should go before the cameras this summer. “Lo is supposed to be a preadolescent,” Sampson states. “On the verge of blooming. We’re not looking for a typical 80s teenager who’s done it all and is jaded at sixteen. We want someone with a certain poignancy, a wet-behind-the-ears look. We think Tatiana will be perfect.”

  Rusty is less confident. “I’m not blond like Lolita is supposed to be,” she says, with a worried frown. “And I can’t really sing that well.” When it’s pointed out that her voice could be dubbed, Rusty looks apprehensive. “Wouldn’t that be cheating?” she wonders. As for the book itself, although she hasn’t read it, Rusty has some doubts about that, too. “I guess it’s hard to imagine someone my age actually, well, liking someone that old.” She looks pensive. Then with a shy glance at her father who is in the kitchen fixing supper, she adds, “Could you not put that in about being old? I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.”

  I was so intent on reading the article, I didn’t even notice that people were boarding the plane already. Then I happened to look up and rushed to get on line. Columbia was flying me back first class again, which means you get these really comfortable seats that are almost like couches. I had a seat near the window. I was glad. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone.

  I felt so weird! Being on the cover, especially. Mike Nadler and Trudy never said they were thinking of putting me on the cover. They called back a couple of times after the interview t
o check some facts, but they never said anything about that. They made me sound so dumb and awful! It’s odd. They didn’t misquote me or anything, but it just came out differently the way they put it. And saying I never used my diaphragm! I guess Daddy’ll be glad about that. I wonder what made them think I never used it. It’s true I never said I did and I told them about throwing it out, but I’d had it almost a month before I did that.

  And how did they find out about Joshua? Deel swore to me she wouldn’t tell! And interviewing his friends and all. Did he really tell someone I “dumped” him for another older guy? I don’t think Joshua would’ve said that. He might have said he was scared I was going to, or something. And how could he have told people about those nude photos! How awful! Maybe I better burn them when I get home. What if Playboy really wants to use them? That really would be gross.

  But I’m glad in a way that I’d broken up with Joshua when the article was written. He would just hate it if they’d come around and tried to interview him . . . or maybe they did. But wouldn’t he have told me? Oh, I hope Mom and Daddy think it’s okay. Mom should like it. They called her “stunning.” And they gave all those quotes from Daddy. He really does believe all those things. I don’t think it was such a bad article. I only wish they hadn’t put me on the cover. In fact, when the stewardess came to bring me dinner—I wasn’t really that hungry—she did a kind of double take and said, “Aren’t you Rusty Engelberg?”

  I nodded.

  She called one of the other stewardesses over and said, “I told you it was her.”

  The other one, who was tall with long, straight brown hair, said, “Why, honey, you’re as cute as can be! Just like your photo. You must be so proud!”

  “I didn’t even know about it till today,” I said. I tried to speak quietly because the man sitting next to me was listening.

  “They didn’t even tell you? Well, goodness, how about that?”

  I was glad when they had to move on to serve other people their dinner. The man next to me was about Daddy’s age. He said he hadn’t seen Domestic Arrangements, but he’d heard about it. “My stepdaughter loved it,” he said.

  “I wish they hadn’t put me on the cover of People,” I said. I decided to eat just the fruit salad.

  “Why? Isn’t that good exposure for your career?”

  “I don’t want a career that much,” I said. “Not that kind. . . .

  I just want to be a doctor.”

  “Then you’ll be one,” he said. “All it takes is a strong mind. Don’t let anyone tell you what to do. You decide for yourself.”

  “Does that seem dumb to you?” I asked. “Not taking advantage of something like this?” I told him how I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be in Lolita.

  “My dear, the only dumb thing in life is doing things because other people expect it of you. I didn’t find that out till I was forty-five. You do what you want.”

  “Well,” I said, munching on the cottage cheese. “I’m going to try.”

  Mom, Daddy and Deel all met me at the airport. I hugged them. “Did you see People?” I said.

  “Oh, you saw it already,” Deel said. “We wanted to surprise you.”

  “I bought it out there. Did you know it was going to be on the cover?”

  “Not till the day before yesterday,” Mom said.

  “Did you like it?” I asked anxiously. “Did you think it came out okay?”

  Daddy had a funny look on his face.

  “You really said all those things,” I reminded him.

  “I thought they did a marvelous job,” Mom exclaimed. “I loved it.”

  “How come they said you never used your diaphragm?” Deel said. “Did you tell them that?”

  “Uh uh.”

  Deel touched her chest and declaimed, “‘I’m too young for sex . . . but I believe in love.’”

  “I thought Tatiana handled that part of the interview very well,” Daddy said.

  “Sure . . . she just lied through her teeth, that’s all.”

  “I do believe in love,” I said.

  “Well, if you’re too young for sex, how come you’re doing it?” Deel countered.

  “Cordelia, it’s perfectly natural to have ambivalent feelings,” Daddy said. “I think it’s very courageous of Tat to acknowledge that.”

  “Sure, just like she plays with her dollhouse all the time,” Deel said.

  “I didn’t tell them I played with it all the time,” I said. “I said I still played with it sometimes.”

  “They made you sound like some kind of baby,” Deel said contemptuously. “Wide-eyed innocence, my ass.”

  “Daddy, will you make her stop?” I wailed.

  “Cordelia, Tati has just returned from a long hard week. The idea was to take her out to a nice restaurant and relax. Can you get into the spirit of that or do you want to go home?”

  “I’m in the spirit,” Deel grunted.

  But somehow the “spirit of it” wasn’t that great. We went to this quite fancy place called Café des Artistes, which is on the West Side. The waiter said, “And what will you have, Rusty?” I mean, can you imagine? Someone I don’t even know, that I never even met, just a waiter, calling me by my nickname!

  “Is this going to happen all the time?” I asked.

  “Well, it may . . .” Daddy said.

  “Why don’t they ask you at least if you want to be on the cover?” I said suddenly. “Lots of people would probably want to. Why do they have to pick on me?”

  “Mike said the editor just fell in love with the photos Trudy took,” Mom said. “They’d scheduled someone else, but he said he couldn’t resist it.”

  When I fell asleep that night, I had a terrible nightmare. I dreamt I had this stuff on my skin like rust and they couldn’t figure out how to get rid of it. Joshua didn’t want to see me, I was all covered with scales like a lizard, and when I looked in the mirror I was all orange. They wanted to give me away to a zoo! I woke up in the middle of the night all drenched in sweat, like I had a fever. I looked in the mirror. I wasn’t all orange. I was the same as usual.

  But in school it was awful. The boys kept teasing me all day long. Even some of the teachers commented on it, or made remarks. But the worst was just walking down the street or going into a store. People would say “Hi” to me like they knew me. The first couple of times I thought it was people I really did know, but it never was. “Hey, Rusty, is your boyfriend going to sell those photos to Playboy?” some boy yelled. “Tell him I’d like to see them.”

  One little boy, around eight, came up to me at the bus stop and said, “I love you,” and then walked away! When I walked into the Pizza Place with Shellie, the woman behind the counter, Flo, said, “Hey there, Lolita! How goes it?”

  “Her name’s Rusty,” Shellie snapped. “And leave her alone.”

  Flo came over and said she was sorry, she hadn’t meant to be rude, she was just so proud that she knew me. “I told all my friends,” she said in this really excited way. “They couldn’t believe it. I said, ‘She comes in here almost every day. She gets the same thing every day. A slice, orange soda. She’s just a quiet, sweet little girl,’ I told them. Not spoiled at all. Just as pretty as her picture. Prettier, I said. ‘You should see that hair,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t believe it.’”

  When I walked out of the store, I put the hood of my coat up and zipped it tight so my hair wouldn’t show. I never wear it that way, but I felt like I couldn’t stand it if one more person recognized me. “Shellie, listen,” I said. “Would you do something for me . . . it’s going to sound really weird.”

  “What?” Shellie said.

  I told her my plan. I’d been thinking about it all day actually, off and on. “I want to cut my hair,” I said in a whisper, “and dye it blond.”

  “What?” Shellie looked horrified.

  The reason I picked Shellie to tell wasn’t just that I can trust her, but she cuts her sister’s hair. Her mother got this book on how to do it and she’s r
eally good. “I’m going to do it,” I said, “whether you help me or not.”

  “What for?”

  “I hate everybody recognizing me!” I said fiercely. “I just hate it.”

  “How much do you want to cut off?” she asked anxiously.

  “All of it!”

  “You mean, you’ll be bald, like that lady in Star Trek?”

  “No! I just mean short . . . like Georgia Witt.” She’s a girl in our math class who has hair in a kind of gamin style with bangs. “Like your sister.”

  “So, why dye it too?” Shellie asked. “You’re going to look like a completely different person.”

  “I know,” I said. “That’s the whole idea.”

  Shellie sighed. “Well, I’ll help you if you really think you want to . . . but think it over real well, okay?”

  “Okay . . . I thought we could do it Friday night . . . at your house,” I said. I know Shellie’s mother and stepfather go to the movies every Friday night.

  “I just can’t imagine you blond,” Shellie said, looking at me carefully. “How about that movie? You said they told you red hair was perfect.”

  “I don’t think I want to be in the movie,” I said.

  “Even for a hundred thousand dollars?” Shellie looked amazed.

  “Yeah . . . I mean, what’s money? Big deal.”

  “Think of all the stuff you could buy!”

  “I know . . . but I just . . . I just don’t feel like it.”

  Shellie reached over and squeezed my hand. “I understand,” she said.

  When I got home, I felt a little better. I don’t think anyone will recognize me on the street with short blond hair. And it’s only four more days. I can just wear my hood up all the time till then. While I was sitting in my room thinking about it, wondering how I’d look as a blonde, Joshua called.

  “Where were you?” I said. I’d almost forgotten I was mad at him with all the stuff about the cover.

  “I was at Andover, visiting Pam. Didn’t Beryl tell you? I told her to. I left a message.”