by Judith Gould
Coyote gladly handed her a small glass vial with a tiny silver spoon attached. Cleo unscrewed the cap, quickly took a snort up each nostril, and handed it to Daliah.
Daliah shook her head.
'C'mon,' Cleo urged. 'It's pure coke. One hit, and I guarantee you'll feel a lot better.'
Daliah lifted the spoon carefully to her nose. She snorted deeply. Then her eyes brightened and she passed the vial back. Cleo was right. The moment the coke hit her system, she felt a hundred percent better. 'What is this, a wake?' she asked suddenly. 'Let's have some music. Turn on the stereo!'
'All right! ' Coyote exclaimed happily, his hand already reaching to punch James Brown back on.
Cleo lived in one of those tenement railway flats, a series of six dark narrow rooms stretching from the front of her building all the way to the back. The bathtub was in the middle of the kitchen, and Cleo's bed was surrounded by mousetraps, but the front door of the building was secure, the intercom usually worked, the boiler broke down only once or twice each winter, and best of all, it was that rare New York phenomenon—a rent-controlled apartment handed down to Cleo from a relative who'd lived there for nearly thirty years so that the rent was a minuscule eighty-three dollars a month. Besides being such a good deal financially, the apartment also let Cleo keep one foot in black culture, so that no matter how far or wide her job might take her, she always came back to Harlem and never completely lost contact with her origins.
The last two hours had passed by quickly. Daliah had unloaded her heart to Cleo, not leaving out a thing, and once she'd gotten everything off her chest, she began to feel a little better. Not great, to be sure, but just talking things out and having someone listen seemed to have helped.
Cleo was an attentive audience; she was also the only logical ear for Daliah to turn to. Cleo knew Jerome well enough to understand how his mind worked, and being Daliah's closest friend, she could sympathize with what her friend was going through. Also, being in the movie business herself, and having worked on and off with both of them, Cleo had a good understanding of the problems inherent in film financing and production. The business being the frenetic zoo that it was, for a long time she had marvelled at Daliah and Jerome's being able to both live and work together, and she'd wondered how such obvious professional strains could not affect their personal relationship. Now she wondered no more about it. The strain had obviously reached the breaking point.
'Well, at least there's a bright side to all this,' Daliah murmured. She looked morosely down into her drink. It was Cleo's special, a quart-sized screwdriver with just enough ice to cool it but not enough to dilute the alcohol. The initial sense of well-being she had felt from the coke had long since worn off, but she'd refused another snort. She looked back up and held Cleo's questioning gaze. 'Jerome and I aren't married, and we don't have any children,' she said softly. 'There's that for a bright side.'
Cleo considered that, and then she shook her head. 'White Woman, that's like sayin' you're glad you didn't get treated for lung cancer because you've died of a heart attack. That don't make any sense at all.'
'You're right, of course.' Daliah nodded and compressed her lips. 'But children or marriage would have made it more difficult to break up.'
'Relationships,' Cleo shook her head. 'Why can't they ever be perfect?' She paused and looked at Daliah. 'I take it you're not planning to go back to him?'
'Not unless he refuses the Arab financing, no.'
'Still, you should have stayed on in Cannes. You're up for an award. I wouldn't have missed out on that if I were you.'
'Cannes,' Daliah said succinctly, 'is too small for both Jerome and me.' She traced her index finger around the rim of her glass.
'So what are you planning on doing now?'
Daliah shrugged. 'Well, for the first time in over two years I have three weeks to myself. We were going to spend two of those weeks in Cannes, but now I can add that to my vacation time.' She gave a low laugh. 'It's been so long since I've had nothing to do that I'm not sure I know what to do with all that time. But first, I think, I'm going to find an apartment of my own here.'
'You mean you're gonna move out of the loft?'
'That's right.' Daliah nodded. 'It was Jerome's loft to start with, so I can't really throw him out. I figure it'll take me a week to find a place and get my things moved in. Then I think I'll go up to Cape Cod and stay with Inge for a few days.'
Inge's employers, the Steinbergs, had died and left Inge a respectable inheritance, which she had used to purchase a motel on the beach, and Daliah had a standing invitation to visit.
'And then, of course,' Daliah continued, 'there's Ari's wedding. I was planning to fly to Israel for it anyway, and that hasn't changed. It's been too long since I've been back home. Eleven years is a lifetime, and I've been neglecting my family for that long.'
Cleo nodded. 'When it comes down to it, family's sometimes the only thing you can depend on.' She grinned suddenly. 'Family an' me, that is.'
Daliah set her drink down, leaned forward, and took Cleo's hand in her own. She smiled. 'Yes, you've been a true friend,' she said, 'and I know I'm lucky to have you.'
'An' that goes vice versa too,' Cleo declared staunchly. 'We're each other's sob sisters.' She gestured at the end table. 'C'mon, hand me that drink. It's all water by now an' it's time I freshened it up. I mean, what's the use of bein' miserable if you can't at least get drunk, huh?'
Three afternoons later, after having scouted nine different rental apartments and four furnished lofts, Daliah found a suitable two-bedroom corner apartment on Central Park West. It was on a high floor and had four living-room windows along one wall, which looked out over the park, and another two windows looking over at the steep green Gothic roofs of the Dakota. It was available for immediate occupancy and she signed a one-year lease. Then she got on the phone and found a moving company that could take care of her the following day. Two more phone calls proved it would be three days before the telephone company could connect her, and eight days before the cable people could come, but she didn't care. Moving her things out of Jerome's loft as quickly as possible meant severing yet another tie with him, and she felt that the sooner that was done, the easier things would be for her in the long run.
She and Cleo spent all that Tuesday night packing cartons, getting ready for the removal men in the morning. It had been years since she'd moved last, and she'd almost forgotten what it entailed. How things accumulated when one lived in the same place for years and had the luxury of endless space to store it all in! There was the gleaming 1820s Biedermeier furniture she collected, with the burled veneers and layers upon layers of lacquer—a very serious luxury for a person who hailed from a country which had been denuded of wood over the centuries and where every twig counted. Then there were the wardrobes full of clothes, the mementos she had collected during her travels to location shoots, and silver-framed photographs by the dozens. Why did it take a move to make one see just how much one had accumulated? Not that she minded getting rid of things for which there was no longer any space or use, but right now she just didn't have the time or the patience to sort through it all and start editing out the useless things. For the moment, at least, it was simplest just to pack it all and have it moved.
Closing off her mind to the size of the chore at hand, she separated what clearly belonged to her and what was Jerome's, and when ownership was in doubt, she settled upon leaving it behind.
She and Cleo packed, folded, wrapped, taped, and labelled, and it became clear to them that if they wanted to be finished by the time the removal men arrived, they would be at it all night long.
'How on earth did I acquire so much junk?' Daliah moaned at one point. She flopped down into a chair and stared at Cleo through bleary eyes. 'The new place is going to look like a warehouse.'
'Don't worry, we'll get it all unpacked and put away within a couple of days,' Cleo assured her. 'We don't have to do it all by ourselves. I can always call in some favours.'<
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'Like Coyote?' Daliah laughed.
It was then that the telephone rang.
Daliah jerked upright as though she had been struck. She looked over at Cleo, sudden panic flashing in her eyes. 'Will you get it, Miss Cleopatra, honey?' she asked shakily. 'I've got a feeling that that's Jerome.'
'And if it is?'
'I don't care how much he yells, threatens, or tries to sweettalk you, I don't want to talk to him. Period.'
'Consider it done.' Cleo squared her shoulders and marched off to answer it. A few minutes later: 'He says to tell you you've got to talk to him!' she called out grimly across the loft. She was holding her hand over the mouthpiece. 'He says you're contractually bound to him.'
'Maybe he doesn't know it yet, but contracts are made to be broken.'
After Cleo hung up, Daliah asked, 'Did you tell him I'm packing my things?'
'Should I?'
'Next time he calls, you might as well. Maybe then he'll finally get the message that I'm dead serious.'
Cleo raised her eyebrows. 'White Woman, honey, from the way he sounds, I think he already knows that.'
Daliah packed in silence.
Thirty minutes passed and then the phone rang again. Daliah gritted her teeth. 'Why doesn't the prick just leave me alone?' she growled angrily.
'You can't 'spect people to do that when you're beautiful, smart, and one o' the biggest box office stars in the world,' Cleo said reasonably.
'BS,' Daliah mumbled. She felt her pent-up tears beginning to spill down her cheeks, and struggled to keep them back. 'Don't you start giving me that shit,' she said in mock anger.
This time after Cleo hung up, she came back grinning. 'There!' she said triumphantly, clapping imaginary dust off her hands. 'Ah think that's done it. We won't be hearin' from him again tonight.' Her big dark eyes glowed with satisfaction.
Daliah was mystified. 'Why, what did you tell him?'
'Oh, a l'il bit o' this, and a l'il bit o' that,' Cleo said vaguely. 'This time I decided to let him have it. Now we'll be able to enjoy some peace and quiet.'
But Cleo was wrong. It wasn't even an hour after she'd hung up on him for the third time that the door buzzer gave off the shrill, steady blast of someone leaning on it.
Daliah froze and her face went white. 'That can't be him!' she exclaimed. 'He's in France.'
' 'Course it ain't him,' Cleo reassured her. 'Takes six or seven hours to fly here.' She strode over to the intercom and pressed the 'talk' button. 'Who's there?' she said into it.
'It's Patsy Lipschitz,' a disembodied voice squawked back. 'Let me in. I've got to see Daliah.'
'Just a moment,' Cleo said patiently.
Instantly the unrelenting buzzer sounded again. And again.
Cleo punched the 'talk' button once more. 'Hold your horses. I'm gonna see if Daliah's in.'
'She's in,' the voice accused brashly. 'Now let me in.'
Cleo looked questioningly at Daliah.
'Shit.' Daliah flung some packing paper on the floor in disgust.
'Can I let her up?'
'Might as well,' Daliah shrugged. 'If I know Patsy, she'll keep leaning on that buzzer all night long, or until we let her up. Better yet, take the freight lift down. She's liable to have a heart attack if she's got to climb the stairs.'
Patsy Lipschitz was Daliah's agent, a gargantuan woman who wore voluminous dresses and whose sweetly puffy features hid a brain which was the envy of financial computers; moreover, she was blessed with a bazaari's natural gift for tough negotiations as well. The rumour mills had it that she was a notorious lesbian, but as far as her relationship with Daliah was concerned, she was all business.
'Will do, White Woman,' Cleo saluted smartly, slid the freight lift cage door aside, got in, and rattled the door shut again. A moment later Daliah heard the rheumatic whirring and clanking of the lift as it descended, as well as Cleo's cheerful calls as she passed each floor: 'Lingerie . . . Better Dresses . . . Bargain Basement!' Then the whole process was repeated as it rose back up, Cleo continuing to chant imaginary store departments. '. . . Notions . . . Menswear . . . Credit Department!'
Patsy didn't even wait until Cleo slid the cage door completely aside. She caught sight of Daliah from inside the lift and started right in on her.
'Whaddya mean, you're refusing to have anything more to do with Jerome?' she yelled out. 'He called and said you've left him and are packing your bags!'
Patsy was bicoastal and shuttled between New York and Hollywood with the ease that other people commuted between Manhattan and Westchester, but she had come to show business via Brooklyn, and the world of Erasmus Hall High ran deep in her blood. She was loud, brash, and obnoxious, and Daliah often wondered why someone hadn't sent her to charm school; more often, how she had survived so long without having been shot. Right now she wondered about the latter. Obviously Cleo did too, for she made herself scarce.
'You heard correctly,' Daliah replied calmly as the enormous hennaed redhead bore heavily down on her. She stepped adroitly aside; when Patsy was riled up, she was like a charging rhinoceros. 'Everything's over between Jerome and me.'
Patsy wouldn't hear of it and waved a fat multiringed hand negligently. Clusters of diamonds gave off rainbow flashes. 'Dollcake, nothing in this town or this business is ever completely finished. You and I know it's like one big, unhappy, incestuous family.' Patsy groped around in her giant woven handbag, came up with a thin cigar, stuck it in her mouth, and lit it with a Bic lighter. Clicking it shut, she squinted at Daliah through a cloud of bilious blue smoke. 'Take my advice and stop packing. Give yourself a few days to sleep on it.'
'I've made up my mind,' Daliah said stubbornly.
Patsy headed for the seating area and parked herself on one of the four big sofas. She kicked off her shoes and put her feet up on the shipping-pallet coffee table. 'I think it's just a phase you're going through. You and Jerome have known each other what now? About seven years?' She glanced at Daliah for confirmation.
'More like eight.'
'Then you're obviously experiencing the eight-year-itch,' Patsy said definitely. 'It's nothing that a little extramarital affair won't cure.'
'Jerome and I aren't married,' Daliah reminded her as she took a seat on a facing couch. 'Remember?'
'But you've been living together all this time,' Patsy said emphatically. 'Except for semantics, living together for eight years and being married are basically the same.'
'There's more to it than that.'
'Well, if you feel so strongly about it, move out of his personal life, but keep making movies together.' Patsy's voice was loud and grating.
Daliah didn't reply. She sat in stunned silence, and despite her best efforts, a tear slid out of each eye and trickled down her cheeks. She should have known that Patsy wouldn't understand.
'Oh, shit,' Patsy said disgustedly. 'Now you're going emotional on me. You can't allow your personal feelings to get in the way of business.'
'I can't help it.'
'You'd better. I don't have to remind you how quickly today's box-office draw can become tomorrow's box-office poison. Jerome gave you your start in this business. He made you into the star that you are.'
'I helped him,' Daliah pointed out. 'I did his first picture for nothing, and that was the one that put him on the map.'
'Yeah, but now you're getting one-point-five mil from him and everybody else. That ain't exactly bubkas.'
Daliah sniffed. 'I never said it was.'
'Good. Just so you know it.' Patsy puffed away in silence for a moment. 'Look at it this way, dollcake,' she said at last. 'This year you've got the Woody Allen movie as well as Jerome's new one. Plus CBS video's paying you two hundred thou for the exercise tape, and Jhirmack wants to put you on a half-mil-a-year retainer for pushing their hair conditioner—'
'Which I don't use.'
'Never mind that. With hair like yours, they could peddle panda piss and the public would snap it up, 'cause there isn't a woman alive who
wouldn't give ten years of her life to have a mane like yours.' She shook her head slowly. 'No matter how you look at it, dollcake, money's money.' Patsy looked over at Daliah through narrowed eyes. 'That brings your income to three and three quarters of a mil for just this year alone. Add the Bob Hope special, and guest-starring for two weeks in that new Broadway show, and you've got a cool four mil. Don't piss it away.'
'I'm not pissing anything away,' Daliah said indignantly.
'You will, if you walk out on Jerome.' Patsy nodded emphatically. 'You'll lose a million and a half. And if that ain't pissing money away, I don't know what is.'
'Patsy,' Daliah said wearily, 'the only difference between making four million and two and a half is that I have to pay more taxes on four than I do on two.'
'Taxes, schmaxes, it's your reputation I'm worried about, not Uncle Sam.' Patsy stabbed her cigar toward Daliah to make her point. 'Listen, dollcake, you're under contract to St.-Tessier Productions, and that means you're obligated, period. If you don't hold up your end of the bargain, word will get out that you're difficult to work with, and you know how fast news like that can spread in this business.'
'It doesn't have to spread at all, unless someone leaks it.'
'Even if all three of us clam up, news like that still has a habit of getting out. And then, before you know it, other producers are going to think twice before hiring you. You wouldn't want that to happen, would you?' Patsy paused a moment for dramatic effect and then lowered her voice to a grandmotherly tone, and she even smiled. 'When Jerome called me, we had a nice long chat. He still loves you a lot, you know.'
Daliah didn't say anything.
'Believe me, you could do worse in a relationship,' Patsy continued. 'He's good-looking, hardworking, and honest as they come. That's rare in any relationship, and even rarer in this cut-throat business. What more could you ask for?'
'Someone who understands where I come from and where I'm going. Someone who takes me into account, and not just so many dollars and so many thousands of feet of film.'
