Lucky Stars

by Jane Heller

  “She’s always been insufferable, Maura. Now she’ll be impossible.”

  And she was. On Leno, she sat on the couch next to the band members of U2, barking at Bono to get a haircut and grilling him about being nice to his mother. On Regis, she was asked to mug for the camera, wag her finger at the audience, and say the last line from her commercial, the one that ended “make no bones about it,” because, according to Reeege, it was becoming the popular culture equivalent of “Wassuuuup!” And on Oprah, while she shared the spotlight with other women who found success late in life (her fellow guests included novelist Belva Plain and Missouri Senator Jean Carnahan), she was heralded as someone who ventured into a world in which she never imagined she’d find herself and discovered she was more than up to the challenge. She talked about my father and how much she missed him; about me and how my leaving the nest took its toll on her; and about her newfound visibility as an actress and consumer advocate and how she felt productive for the first time in years. By the end of the show, there wasn’t a dry eye in the audience, including mine.

  It was the power of those television appearances that put the name Helen Reiser on everyone’s lips. She had leapt into the public consciousness, become the flavor of the month. School-age kids were “doing” her, imitating her grouchy fine “Make no bones about it.” Magazines were knocking themselves out to interview her, even those with demographics more appropriate for an interview with, say, me. And—this was the final straw—the movie people were calling.

  “Woody wants me for his next picture,” she said one night at Chadwick’s, the Beverly Hills eatery owned by Harrison Ford’s son Ben. The place was much too pricey for me, but Mom was treating. She was a big spender now and enjoyed frequenting all the celebrity hangouts, enjoyed soaking up the attention. Cameron Diaz stopped by her table one night and Robert Wagner stopped by her table the next night and Shaquille O’Neal stopped by her table the night after that (she didn’t know who he was, but she was thrilled when he bent down and kissed her hand). She took to being fawned over in a way I’d never anticipated. For years she’d branded Hollywood as the land of moral turpitude, but now she was clearly in its thrall.

  “Woody Allen wants you to be in his movie?” I said, trying not to choke on my lamb shanks. It had always been my dream to be in one of his movies. I know, I was supposed to get over myself and be happy for her. The stumbling block was the suddenness of her stardom, the randomness of it On one hand, it gave me hope that if she could become a hit so easily, I could, too; that if she could go from complaining about a tuna fish bone to winning the hearts of Americans, anything was possible for me. On the other hand, it confirmed how unlikely it was that I’d ever go further in the business; that success in Hollywood was all about being the new face in town (even if the new face was sixty-six) and not about having talent. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so confused about my path, so conflicted about my goal. Was it realistic for me to continue to plug away at my chosen profession? Or was my mother’s overnight success a wake-up call telling me to find a new career?

  “That’s right. His people called my people,” she said. “We’re in discussions.”

  “Your people?”

  “Yes. Arnold, Karen, and Jeanine.”

  “Who’s Jeanine?” I knew that Arnold was her agent and Karen was her manager, but I hadn’t heard this Jeanine person mentioned before. The entourage was growing.

  “Jeanine’s my publicist. Arnold and Karen didn’t think Corbin could handle the avalanche of media requests I’m generating.”

  “But he got you on three national TV shows.”

  “I know, dear, and he’s fine for the Fin’s-related appearances, but my reach is broader than that now. I’ve become—well, I hate to sound immodest—an icon.” You see? I wasn’t overreacting when I’d told Maura my mother would be impossible. An icon, she called herself. No one in their right mind calls themselves that. Not unless they’ve started believing their own press releases. Fame is a slippery slope, no question about it, but I just didn’t figure my no-nonsense, straight-talking mother to be seduced by it. It occurred to me, as I sat there listening to her yammer about taking a meeting with this one and granting an interview to that one, that we really had switched places, she and I. It was my turn to look after her, I realized. Yes, it was up to me to make sure that fame wasn’t the only thing she was seduced by.

  twelve

  “I guess you’ve forgotten your own daughter,” I said to my mother’s answering machine, since it had been days since she and I had connected. “Or am I supposed to go through Jeanine to get to you?”

  Actually, my mother hadn’t forgotten me at all. It just felt that way. She had tried to call me several times, but we never managed to make contact other than to engage in a frustrating game of phone tag. She was so busy now, was on such a crazy schedule, that I worried about her health. And so I kept leaving messages for her that went like this: “Are you getting enough sleep?” “Are you taking your vitamins?” “Are you drinking your Meta-mucil?” Sound familiar? Yes, I was nagging her, the same way she used to nag me, and my excuse was the precise excuse she’d always fallen back on: I cared.

  I mean, how would I know if she was all right? I may have been her daughter, but I hadn’t seen her in weeks. Not in person, anyway. The last time I’d caught a glimpse of her was on Hollywood Squares (she sat in the center square). Shortly thereafter, she’d flown to New York to shoot a small part in Woody Allen’s movie, then participated in a segment on Good Morning America, during which different celebrities cooked their favorite dishes with Diane Sawyer. (Mom made tuna noodle casserole using canned Fin’s premium solid white albacore.) Her fame was spectacular, her presence felt everywhere. In one week alone, she was a clue in TV Guide’s crossword puzzle, mentioned in Maureen Dowd’s op-ed piece in The New York Times, and photographed by Annie Leibovitz for a Vanity Fair spread entitled “Women Who Rule.” Oh, and Tim Russert invoked her name on Meet the Press after a politician wagged his finger in response to some policy question and said, “Make no bones about it.”

  Yes, the circus surrounding my mother was breathtaking in its scope, and turned my life upside down. Not only did I feel dwarfed by all the attention she was getting—both personally and professionally—but I just plain missed my mommy.

  Yup, you read that right. I missed her pestering, missed her showing up and rearranging my kitchen, missed her sticking her nose into my business. I never would have thought it possible, but I yearned for the good/bad old days when I cringed at the mere sound of her voice.

  Of course, there was one moderately amusing aspect to having a newly famous mother. Suddenly, people were nicer to me. For example, Cameron, the manager at Cornucopia!, had begun to treat me less like her cleaning lady and more like the lady of the house. I nearly fainted when she instructed another member of the sales staff, a woman whose mother wasn’t famous, to vacuum the store every night so I wouldn’t have to anymore. And there was Mickey, my agent, who saw an opportunity to cash in on the Helen Reiser phenomenon and put the word out to all the big casting directors that I was her daughter. “Maybe you can get back in the game now,” he offered, instead of his usual: “You gotta let the dust settle for a few years.” And finally there was Ethan, the Welsh hairdresser with whom Maura had fixed me up months before, the one who’d fled after my mother had barged in on us that night. Out of the blue, he called and asked me out. As with our first date, we went to dinner and came back to my place and kissed wildly on my sofa—until we were interrupted yet again.

  “Was that the phone?” I asked, pulling away from Ethan, who was breathing heavily and quite flushed.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” he said and proceeded to draw me back into his embrace.

  “Yes. It is the phone,” I said, pulling away again.

  “Let your machine pick it up,” he said, drawing me closer again.

  “But it might be my mother,” I said. “I need to talk to her.”

 
; Ethan practically shoved me off the sofa. “If it’s your mother, you should get it,” he said. “She could be calling from some celebrity party. Maybe she wants us to join her.”

  While Ethan preened, in the hope of mixing and mingling with the A-list, I answered the phone, but it was not my mother calling. It was a wrong number.

  “Why don’t you ring her up then, Stacey?” he suggested. “Maybe she’d like to join us tonight. We could meet her someplace, have a nightcap, just the three of us.”

  Funny you didn’t want her around before, I thought, hating Ethan suddenly and showing him the door.

  Feeling empty and rather melodramatic, I plunked myself back down on the sofa and balled my body into the fetal position. No, I did not suck my thumb, but that’s certainly the mood I was in. As I said, I missed my mother. I wanted her back the way she was. Not, I realized then, because I was jealous of her success, but because I needed her love. That’s the weird thing about mothers: no matter how much they get on your nerves, they’re the ones who love you when no one else does.

  I had just come home from having my first mammogram—the technician who was squishing my breasts confessed that she, too, had dreams of going into acting—when I noticed I had a couple of messages on my answering machine.

  The first was from my mother, who apologized profusely for being out of touch but promised we’d have dinner as soon as she was back from Cleveland, where she was throwing out the first pitch at the Indians’ baseball game.

  The second was from—no. It wasn’t possible. Absolutely not possible.

  I hit the play button again to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

  “Hello, Stacey,” said a sonorous male voice. ‘This is Jack Rawlins, the host of Good Morning, Hollywood. I hope you don’t mind my calling you directly instead of going through your agent or publicist—the manager at Cornucopia! was kind enough to give me your home number, in case you were wondering—but ever since you waited on me at the store that day and forced me to confront the harsh words I used in connection with your performance in Pet Peeve, I’ve had terrible pangs of guilt. Truly, I have. I’d appreciate the opportunity to make amends, Stacey. In person, preferably. I realize that you must have less than fond thoughts of me, but I’d relish the chance to apologize for any damage to your career. I’m learning that I don’t review films in a vacuum; that there are living, breathing people behind them and that they get hurt by what I say. So please give me a call back and let’s schedule a meeting. I promise you I can be a fairly decent guy when I work at it.”

  The message ended with Jack Rawlins leaving me his direct line at the office. As if I’d ever use it.

  “What do you mean you’re not calling him back?” Maura demanded later that night while we were scarfing down pizza at her place. She’d had a date with a seventy-year-old TV producer, but he’d died earlier in the week, so the date was canceled.

  “Why should I?” I said. “The guy’s a nightmare. You heard what he told a television audience about me.”

  “But he’s sorry. He wants to apologize to you in person. You must have made quite an impression on him at the store that day.”

  “All I did was throw his review right back in his face. If he feels guilty, so be it.”

  “Obviously, he feels guilty or he wouldn’t have tracked you down. This could be an incredible opportunity for you, so don’t blow it.”

  “An incredible opportunity? To sit there and listen to him pontificate about what a swell guy he really is? Please.”

  “Listen, Stacey, let’s say he is a jerk and a snake and a creep, and, other than being great to look at, he has virtually no redeeming qualities. Still, he’s a powerful man in the movie business. Becoming his acquaintance— particularly now that he owes you a favor—wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen to you. So you despise him. So what. Use him. Use his guilt. Use his clout. You’ve been waiting for a break for months now, waiting for something to put you back on the fast track. Well, maybe Jack Rawlins’s phone call is that something.”

  I smiled at her, at how she never ceased to amaze me with her positive spin on life. And she didn’t even take Zoloft.

  “So I should call him back,” I said warily.

  “Of course you should. Have lunch with him or a drink with him. Just get together with him and see what comes of it. Maybe he’ll mention you to some studio executives. Maybe he’ll engineer some meetings for you. Maybe he’ll do neither of those things, but you won’t know unless you call him.”

  I took her advice and phoned Jack Rawlins the next morning. I did not reach the Great One himself. I spoke to Kyle, his assistant, who was far less off-putting than his boss.

  “Hey, Stacey. Jack said to ask you which of these dates are convenient for you.” He rattled off several days and times. “He also said I should be very nice to you, which leads me to believe he’s added you to the list of people who dream about punching him out?”

  I laughed in spite of myself. “He gave me a rotten review and I’m still smarting from it, I must admit.”

  “Sorry about that,” said Kyle. “I’ve worked for Jack for two years now, and I’ve learned the drill: he serves up the reviews and I smooth things over with the reviewees—or try to.”

  “You play good cop to his bad cop, you mean.”

  “Yup, only Jack’s not the bad cop you think he is. Really. Underneath the I-can’t-get-over-myself façade beats a heart of gold.”

  I said I’d keep that in mind but wasn’t buying it for a second. Jack Rawlins was a self-serving son of a— I stopped myself, remembering that I had an agenda in meeting with him. I was hoping to use him to resuscitate my career.

  “So you’re free for drinks with Jack at the Four Seasons next Tuesday?” said Kyle.

  I took a deep breath. “That would be fine,” I said.

  thirteen

  The bar at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills is a lively spot where industry folk mix with wannabes, and nobody makes eye contact with the person they’re with because they’re too busy checking out everybody else. It’s a scene, in other words, and I spent as much time preparing for it as I would for an audition. I labored over my makeup and fixed my hair in an elaborate half-up/half-down ’do, and I wore a very tight, very short black skirt with an equally clinging black turtleneck and high, skinny-heeled black sandals. (If you want to get noticed at the Four Seasons, you have to go with either a slutty look or a filthy rich look. Since I was low on funds, I went slutty.) My goal was to appear as different from my wholesome receptionist role in Pet Peeve as possible, in order that Jack Rawlins could see my versatility and pass the word along to his big-shot friends.

  Okay, so where are you, you pompous ass, I thought, scanning the room and not finding him.

  I glanced at my watch. I was right on time.

  Oh, I get it, I said to myself as I continued to peruse the place. You’re the power guy so you’re gonna keep me waiting, is that it? Well, guess again, because I’m only hanging around for ten minutes, tops, and then I’m outta here.

  Tough talk, I know, especially from someone who really needed this meeting to happen, but the very idea of Jack Rawlins, just the image of that arrogant windbag with his florid sentences and preppy wardrobe, got me going.

  Another tour around the room. And another. No Rawlins, the bastard. If this was his way of apologizing, I was unimpressed.

  I did one more sweep of the room, was about to storm out of there, when I spotted him at a table outside, in the bar’s patio area. So he’d been waiting for me?

  Fine, so he’s punctual, I thought, as he got up from his chair and waved me over. Punctual and pompous.

  “Hi, Jack,” I said in my perkiest voice when I reached the table and shook his hand vigorously. I was determined to be charming and memorable, determined to take advantage of this guy’s guilt over having trashed me.

  “Thanks for coining, Stacey,” he said, pulling out my chair for me. Such a gentleman. “I was delighted when Kyle to
ld me you’d called.”

  “Well, when someone says they’re sorry for what they did, it’s only right to forgive them and move on.” I smiled widely.

  “I was hoping you’d feel that way,” said Jack, who, by the way, was a canvas of earth tones. He was wearing a brown corduroy blazer, beige shirt, and khaki slacks, and the clothes, combined with his reddish-blond hair, ruddy complexion, and tortoiseshell glasses, made me think of soil or sand or maybe just dirt. “I’ve ordered myself a scotch. What can I get for you?” he asked.

  “A martini,” I said. “Very dry. Onions and olives, please.” I never drink martinis, but I wanted to appear sophisticated, worldly, movie star-ish to this man. Also, I was nervous.

  He ordered my drink and returned his attention to me. “So,” he said, “should we have me expand on my apology for a few minutes or should we try to get to know each other better? How would you prefer to spend the time?”

  “How about a little of both,” I said, because while I wanted to advance my cause and promote myself, I also wanted to watch the guy grovel.

  “All right. Let’s start with the apology. I’m very, very sorry that I hurt you with my review of your movie. I have a tendency to go for the wisecrack instead of simply offering up my opinion, because it makes for better television.”

  “Wait, so are you saying that you’re sorry you compared me to a sledgehammer but that you hated my performance?”

  “I’m not saying that at all. I just think your performance lacked—well, let me rephrase—I thought, as I was screening the film, that you were a promising actress who’d been badly directed.”

  “Oh.” The waiter brought the martini, thank God. I popped the onions and olives into my mouth, not wanting to drink on an empty stomach, and took a much-too-big sip, which caused me to make a slight slurping sound, regrettably. “Then let me understand. You hated my performance but you decided it wasn’t my fault?”