She looked confused, stared at him quizzically, and whispered, “What do you mean ‘an addiction’?”
“I’m not blind, Katy. Our pal, Harry Schiff, is your ‘object’ of addiction. I can see that. And he’s oblivious. Well, he’s got his own addiction, with that Juliet gal who is becoming a film sex symbol to millions of American men. So, in literary terms, you are suffering from unrequited love.”
She was silent. A history of sorts flashed through her thoughts, the years in college where the three of them, and Galen too, were caught up in their thespian pursuits, where relationship issues were blasé and lower on the priority list, where Harry, she knew, was paired off with Juliet in a physical connection that left him unrequited. She remembered all the times when he used her, Katy, as a sounding board for his pain, for his unremitting confusion. With pain of her own, she recalled her solitary fury at home, after yet one more frustrating session with Harry and his narrow, unaware demeanor.
Why in hell, she would ask herself, did she love him? And when she answered herself, it was almost always the same: because of his innocence, because of his naiveté, because of his own brand of charm and selflessness, lack of ostentation, absence of the kind of ego that Randy Gold displayed to excess.
Lamely, she said, “You’re right.”
“I’d rather be lucky,” Carmona said, and laughed.
“I’d say you were that too, though usually I don’t believe in luck. You’ve made your own way and look where you are.”
“You can make your own way. You only have to take some risks.”
“What kind of risks?”
“Where is our Harry boy now?”
“It looks as if he might get a juicy role, a real breakthrough, of all places, on Broadway.”
“Ah, good for him. Well, New York is only six hours away.”
“But I have to decide what to do with Randy.”
Carmona grinned. “I think you already have.” He touched her arm and said, “Katy, be careful. One prevalent trait of Narcissists is a reluctance to lose gracefully. They can get nasty. What that means is that you can get hurt.”
She nodded, keenly aware of her annoyance, disdain, and even resentment about Randy’s arrogance, his refusal to step out of himself to show empathy for her, and, she realized, for any others. Now, resonating with Carmona’s words, for the first time a chill of fear settled in her heart.
EIGHT
O n her return ride from Pasadena, Katy took advantage of the mechanical act of snailing tediously along in freeway traffic to ponder her strategy. Randy would not go gentle, she realized, and that mandated a plan that included backup and safety. She thought of writing a letter, but decided it would be cowardly and inappropriate, considering their two years or more in a relationship, however unsatisfying.
Driving on city streets, she passed a yard sale with a dozen treasure hunters digging through a family’s no-longer-wanted possessions. One day, archaeologists would wonder how some artifact ended up there when it ought to have been here. Well, that is what we do. One person’s cast-off is another’s prize. Move things around, like on a chessboard, only without the win-lose variable, take them out of one attic, display them for a time, and store them in another.
Now, she has to contend with competing motives, take things out of one mode of thinking and move them into another. Yes, Carmona is correct, she has made a decision, and she must execute it. But, in another sense, she is a fair and compassionate person, and it is in her manner to treat everyone with regard. In a burst of generosity, she wonders how Randy Gold will fare if she kisses him off—aware all along, that he, Randy, will never wonder about her. It was true that he never required her to be a cook or a maid, never expected her to replace his mother and iron his shirts and pick up his underwear. But then, he did demand her attention, would bridge no contradiction when it came to travel plans or which restaurant to go to.
Yes! He was a bully, that’s what he was. His financial status gave him the physical comforts, and his bullying was for the purpose of giving him the emotional ones.
Well, she was no longer going to be the provider. He could—in the way the British might say it in the Stoppard play—damned well take care of his own bloody intimacy needs.
There were clouds flying in from the ocean, and the air was cold and damp. Anywhere else, it would auger rain, but Katy knew that in Los Angeles it was part of the coastal scene, fog, low clouds, an occluded sky.
A block from her apartment she saw an accident, blinking red and blue lights, an emergency vehicle and two police cars, a small Corolla with its left side bashed in, an SUV without so much as a dent, and a woman being treated for what looked like a head bruise. She slid past, aware that curious looky-loos will slow to a crawl and impede traffic, and it annoyed her, since they could watch it on their TVs in an hour or two and get a better view. Anyway, why the lust for trauma? Why the insatiable desire among us to observe blood and gore? Why, she pondered—the more profound question—are we so magnetized to violence, to a knee-jerk physical response to frustration? She was frustrated, but it never entered her thoughts to strike out, hit, deliver pain.
When she reached her apartment—the same one she had been in for more than seven years—her voice mail was flashing red.
“We want you,” the voice said. “You’ve got the part.”
She squealed, then plopped down into her softest chair, pounded both hands on the padded arms, and said aloud: “This is it! No time for procrastination. I’m taking this part and Randy will be pissed. And then…and then, speaking figuratively, I must file for divorce. The end. Kaput! Bye-bye Goldilocks.”
A voice from across the room, a Harriet voice, raspy yet with precise diction, echoed, “Goldilocks.”
It became a serious question of where and how. He would be at the theater in the evening, would require her to join him afterwards for a late-night meal, a certain expectation, and he would abide no disagreement. How could he not realize that it was always her caving in to his choices?
Her pronouncement, she knew, would be like the eulogy at a funeral, praise first—flowers honoring their history—disclaimers, then reality, and the permanence of her disenchantment.
That is when she would need an ally, but whom? A man, any man, would surely push Randy’s jealousy buttons before she could get a word out—indeed, her friendship with Harry had regularly triggered suspicion.
In her reflection, she finally conjured up her former mentor, Ms. Florida Berry, an old-time actor who was her professor in college, who supported her in her first break when she sat in as an understudy for Amanda Detmer in Glass Menagerie.
She called her and left a voice message, which started out, “Help, Ms. Berry! I have a personal issue and I want your counsel. Could you get back to me, today, if possible?”
A dutiful person, and supportive of her students’ careers, Ms. Florida Berry returned the call within the hour. She had no children of her own, had been married once at a young age, but it had lasted only two years. Her adult life had been devoted to theater; she was knowledgeable and appreciated, and her primary focus, always, was on her foster children, the students.
Katy’s explanation, an appeal for camaraderie, was hardly the usual kind of assistance Ms. Berry was asked to provide.
“Why do you think you need me present when you dissolve this relationship? Are you afraid of this man?”
“He’s never been physical with me, but he has a temper. I know it’s a strange request, but I think it will constrain him to have another person there, especially a respected woman, when I tell him.”
“I must say, Katy, it feels like manipulation, and you want me to be a partner to your little drama. I resist the idea of colluding to get your way, but I do understand your fear. If I can defer that, I am happy to help, but I caution you that it may simply cause the man, as the hack writers say, to blow his top later on.”
“You haven’t seen my present show yet, so if you come for the performance it w
ill be a natural thing for me to meet you afterward and invite you to join us for some food. I have no interest in being cruel or insulting to him, but I need to be free, and I simply want a comrade with me. I know this man; he is well defended when it comes to his controlling style going public. It would kill him for people to see him furious, or openly oppressive. That’s what your presence would deter.”
“Not part of my job description at the university.”
“I know. It’s asking a lot.”
“I’ll deny it if you tell anyone, but of all my students, you were my favorite.”
The look on his face told Katy more than she cared to know about his feelings when she introduced Ms. Berry and mentioned that she would be joining them for a light supper. She imagined she could actually see the racing of his pulse, did see veins bulging in his neck, picked up a furtive look in his eyes, as if he were calculating a way to sabotage her plan. Her declaration was purposely firm and her manner unyielding, to show she would bridge no contradiction. He was not used to such resoluteness.
Randy normally wore a western-accented outfit, replete with colorful shirt and string tie. This night he had supplemented his usual attire with a turquoise and silver belt-buckle which looked to be directly from Santa Fe, New Mexico. He fancied himself an iconoclast, eschewed dressy suits, and seemed always to want to shine differently than those around him. That same individualism was what set off his bullying manner, never quite admitted, explained away as his uniqueness—and doesn’t everyone desire to be unique?
Ms. Berry, thinking ahead, declared, “I’ll drive my own car, in case I want to leave early. Where shall we meet?”
Katy looked at Randy, as if her look were the usual deferment to his judgment, but said, “You like Marie Callender’s, and it’s only five minutes away.”
“Yeah. That’s okay. We can go there.”
It was more than “in case I want to leave early,” as Professor Berry’s reason. If her alumna’s declaration of dissolution were to strike an unacceptable chord in her man’s obviously volatile character, one might expect that Katy would prefer leaving the coffee shop without him. Katy simply smiled when Ms. Berry suggested that she drive her own car—on the same page, tuned into the same possibilities.
“I just closed a deal to be the primary contractor on the remodeling of the Mormon Temple on little Santa Monica Blvd. It’s a two million dollar enterprise and we stand to make a bundle. I sold them—the Mormons, I mean—with a soft-pitch, you know, not too high-handed, no pressure. Anyway, I think they liked me. They want piped-in music in the auditorium part and in meeting rooms, so we have to go into the walls to do the electrical prep work. I told them how much I like Brahms, and I think that helped clinch the deal.”
Katy had learned to tune out much of Randy’s work-related boasting, had become used to that inevitable agenda at the beginning of each of their encounters. Ms. Berry stared at the man with partly open mouth, aware that her friend had just performed excellently in a classic play, and was being ignored.
“We break ground in two weeks. I’d love to take that statue with the horn—I think it’s supposed to be Gabriel or someone—and ‘accidentally’ tip it off its pedestal. What a commotion that would cause! They’ve got a peculiar way of looking at things, those Mormons. Only thing they do that is the least bit appealing to me, is the notion of more than one wife per man. Wouldn’t that be a blast! Not that I’m a disloyal person, but if it were legal, who wouldn’t want to try it on for size—a couple or three women, for example.”
Ms. Berry realized that this man asked no questions. He didn’t know her, didn’t know what she did, her interests, anything about her background—and seemed not to care.
“Of course, with Katy here, who needs anyone else? She’s quite a package, and her package melds with mine. You (he points a forefinger at Katy) wouldn’t appreciate me alternating with two or three babes, would you now, Kate, my girl? Well, it’s hypothetical. I’d never do that. I’m satisfied with you, even if we don’t always agree on things. I’m a focused kind of guy. You know that. I have my strong preferences as you’ve learned, but I love sharing with you.” He turned, finally, to Ms. Berry, and said, “She’s a most agreeable person. Goes along with what I like.”
Ms. Berry was struck by how many times this man used the word “I.”
There was a solemnity that began to absorb Katy. She wanted to interrupt, disagree, confront. Fear sat with her, along with her trademark, which Harry and others knew as determination, and she struggled to find the appropriate moment to jump in. Her agenda, it was clear, would tumble Randy’s fixed way of seeing the world, tip him off his pedestal.
“For instance, she’s got this possibility at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood, a good role I agree, but it interferes with plans I’ve made to go to Hawaii. I’ve been talking to her about delaying her next role. Give our relationship a priority here.”
“I was offered the part and I took it,” Katy blurted out.
As the outsider, Ms. Berry was profoundly aware of the instant hike in tension, a painful silence that circled the little corner booth where they sat, the standard brown leatherette seats suddenly uncomfortable, the pale green, plastic table-top a vehicle for Katy’s words to ricochet, like a racquet ball off the floor to the front wall, into Randy Gold’s elevated face. The neck, the head, the eyes were above, looking beneath him, like an avenger peering viciously down into the countenance of his foe.
“What do you mean you took it?” he asked with ice in his voice, a menacing tone that carried threat, augured danger.
Ms. Berry caught his guarded glance at her, as he spoke to Katy.
“It is too good an opportunity.” She hesitated, took in a chest-full of air, and said, “Anyway, I don’t want to go to Hawaii with you.”
“Don’t want to?”
“I think, Randy, that we, you and I, have run out our string. I mean I’m not happy in this relationship.”
“What in hell are you talking about? Don’t I give you enough? Aren’t you treated like a queen? I’m a generous man.”
“That you are. But generosity isn’t the whole thing. We’ve had some wonderful times, but to be perfectly honest, I don’t love you. It doesn’t feel right.”
“It?”
“Our connection, our relationship. I feel like the lesser partner, like my opinion doesn’t count.”
“Bullshit!”
“Getting angry won’t help. It’s just how things are.”
“You’re crazy. Maybe you’re sick. Nobody kisses off what you have. You’ll see it differently tomorrow.”
“There is no tomorrow. I don’t mean to be callous, but I need you to know, that as of tonight, right now, we are no longer a couple.”
He cast another quick glance at Ms. Berry, his face a mixed portrait of anguish and rage, turned to focus in on Katy and whispered, ferociously, “If you go through with this, you’ll be sorry.”
“No threats, Randy. We are both adults, and separate people. We have to make choices that clarify our own lives.”
“I would hope,” Florida Berry said, “that by being sorry you meant feeling sorrow, not an object of some kind of revenge.”
Randy stared at this fellow conspirator, her presence at this dénouement, now clear. “Shut up, bitch. If you didn’t initiate this, you are certainly party to it.”
“That’s enough, Randy!” Katy said with her own brand of vitriol. “I won’t have you being brutal to my professor. She is a friend, that’s all. This business between you and me had to happen. This time is as good as any.”
“There is no good time to be stupid, which is what you are being. Take a good look at me. You’ll never do better. I repeat (he looked once more at Ms. Berry), you’ll-be-sorry.”
He yanked the bow out of his string tie so that the threads hung down his shirt like two long, parallel strands of pasta, and rose suddenly to his feet, the narrowness of the booth causing his turquoise and silver belt-buckle to clang again
st the plastic table.
“The best things in life aren’t free. You’ve had a heady ride, lady, and you don’t appreciate it. I’m too good for you anyway. And besides, you’re stuck here because you’re a shitty actor. Get the bitch to drive you back,” he muttered, and strode away.
“Wow,” Ms. Berry said, blowing out her own gush of air, “you weren’t kidding. The man is seriously self-absorbed. I’m not one for judging others, but, Katy, you did the right thing. Good riddance. Let’s hope he has enough grace to leave you alone.”
Katy was crying. “I can’t stand conflict. Somebody always gets hurt.”
“His egotistical style sets him up for hurt.”
“I think,” Katy said, knuckling the moisture away from under her eyes, “he is consumed by glamour. He didn’t know me for myself. Only as an actor, someone in the public eye.”
“Katy, my dear, that man would have a hard time knowing anyone. He has only a superficial interest in others, and mostly as a means to promote himself.”
“I’m not crazy then?”
“You’re not crazy. Let’s hope he isn’t either.”
Two days passed, and Katy received a package at the theater, handed to her by a stage hand with the words, “Some kid said this was for Katy; said some dude paid him a buck to deliver it.”
Warily Katy unwrapped the brown, oblong parcel, tied round with a piece of white string. She opened a cardboard box and pushed aside a wad of tissue paper. A scream escaped her as she dropped the box on the floor. Brian De Genera, who had been watching, rushed over, grabbed Katy’s arm, and peered down at the open container. In it was a dead rat.
NINE
I t would have been comforting to share the whole improbable tableau with Harry, but Katy was not inclined to do so. He was on the edge of something momentous, had his own grand decisions to make, and, besides, she never wanted to burden him with her sordid relationship issues.
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