We're So Famous

by Jaime Clarke

  Go back, I said.

  Paque clicked it back and there we were in New York, the time we went to go see Paul Newman with Chuck. Chuck raised his hand and Paque said, God, this was embarrassing.

  What’s it doing on TV, I asked.

  Sometimes they put stuff like that on TV, she said.

  I imagine you’re both used to seeing yourself on the screen but I have say it was thrilling to come across ourselves randomly on the television like that. It made me feel like we were famous. And it made me miss Chuck. You always miss someone when you think about them, and seeing Chuck on TV like that made me miss him even worse. I wanted to call him and tell him to come out to Hollywood—he would love all of it—but not knowing exactly what was happening day to day made me hesitate. But I did call and left a message on his answering machine that I missed him much.

  I hope you can take the time to write back. I’d appreciate any sort of advice you could give about what Paque’s and my next move should be.

  Daisy

  Dear Sara and Keren,

  You’ve probably had times when you realized something unknown was moving against the balance of things. Like when Siobhan left the group to be in Shakespear’s Sister. There might have been a change of energy in the recording studio once Siobhan made up her mind, or maybe she skipped out on an interview, or was constantly late for shooting a video, etc. Once she left Bananarama you both could probably pinpoint the exact moment—in retrospect—that that conclusion was foregone.

  Paque and I had that feeling one morning—last Wednesday to be precise—when Alan woke up early and disappeared. We had overslept and panicked when we couldn’t find Alan (he keeps his bedroom door locked so we pounded on it, but knew he wasn’t in there), especially since the interview Alan had arranged with L.A. MovieNews was that morning. By the time Paque and I realized Alan really wasn’t home, the MovieNews people were knocking on the front door.

  Just let them knock, I said, and they’ll come back later.

  Nonsense, Paque said, let’s do the interview. Paque was frustrated at the pace of the World Gone Water shoot. The clips had been on the Internet for more than a week and Alan hadn’t started returning the calls on the answering machine like he promised he would. Paque asked him when he planned on calling them back but Alan would just mutter something about ‘critical mass’ and then he’d go in his room and lock the door.

  So Paque and I would spend our days answering the growing cluster of fan mail on our website, which was fun for a while. Guys were writing in and asking us our favorite color and what was our favorite food and all kinds of crazy questions. There were a couple gross ones too, but because it’s over the computer it was sort of easy and okay to find those ones funny, too.

  Then we got the letter in the mail from the toy company. Paque read it over and said, They want to make dolls of us. I took the letter and saw the bright pink logo. What should we do, I asked her. The letter said that if we agreed to the contract we’d receive $25,000 within a month of signing, against future sales of the dolls.

  I wonder if we can help design them, Paque said. You know, what kinds of clothes they wear. Stuff like that.

  Does it say anything about that in the contract, I asked.

  There were a lot of things in the contract that we didn’t understand, but we didn’t see anything about us being involved with the manufacture of the dolls.

  We signed the contracts. Paque wrote Let us help with the outfits at the bottom of each copy and we walked the envelope over to the mailbox on the corner so Alan wouldn’t find out.

  We did the MovieNews interview, too. We let them in and they set up in the front room. I don’t think we knew what we were going to say—at least I didn’t—and I just sort of followed Paque’s lead. She’s quick and I guess she decided that she was going to give them the most scandalous interview they’d ever printed. Before I knew it, I was going along with what she said.

  They asked us what life has been like in Hollywood for us and that opened it up. Paque said, Well, you know, it’s been a little bit rock and roll. (Which I thought was a great answer.) For instance, take the other night, she said. Me and Daisy were hanging out with the guys from Counting Crows, we were getting cones at that great ice cream place on Olympic, and we run into Jack Nicholson, who is also getting cones with his girlfriend and his daughter. Jack invites us all to go with him to the La Brea Tar Pits—his daughter wants to look for dinosaurs—so we all follow Jack’s Mercedes to Wilshire and we park and get out and the guys from Counting Crows keep telling Jack how much they liked Chinatown. Jack is very gracious and his girlfriend and his daughter go to the fence to look at the pits and Jack tells us about this great party at Dennis Hopper’s house, which we go to sans Counting Crows. We never meet Dennis, and we didn’t see Jack, but we met Gary Busey, who was walking around with Buddy Holly glasses on singing ‘Peggy Sue.’ We tell them about Ashley Judd, who asked us if we wanted to go on a beer run—apparently she only drank lite beer and Dennis didn’t have anything that wasn’t imported—and we said, Sure, we’ll go. Gary Busey came along too and he did this really funny thing with the Coke display in the grocery store, but then they wouldn’t sell to us and we got kicked out.

  Paque looked at me and I was biting the inside of my cheek so hard I could taste blood. Yeah, I said, but the night before was even cooler. Jerry Seinfeld had a party at the hangar where he keeps his Porsche collection. It was a really society affair. A champagne and caviar party. We ended up laying in the grass at the end of a runway at three in the morning with Seinfeld and Michael Richards, the guy who played Kramer.

  The MovieNews people were making notes and hurried to flip over the cassette in the tape recorder when it snapped off.

  Paque gave them the best one though. She told them about going to Hollywood Park, the horse track, with Magic Johnson, who we supposedly met at Dennis Hopper’s party. Paque described us going to the winning horse’s stable after the race because Magic knew the owners. The house was full of people in tuxedos and gowns, mostly moneymen from Los Angeles, along with some Arab sheiks (I thought that was a nice touch myself). Someone rang a bell, Paque said, and we all went out to the stable, where Hallelujah, the horse who’d just won at Hollywood Park, was frolicking with Little Lady, the mare who’d won the Preakness and the Kentucky Derby the year before. Everyone gathered at the fence—even the ladies in gowns—and these two models came out in bikinis. All the men hooted and hollered and the models tried to settle the horses down. A guy who looked like a ranch hand came out and steadied Hallelujah. The models crawled under the horse like you would get under a car and cupped the horse’s balls. Hallelujah danced around a little bit but the ranch hand had a hold of his reins and petted his nose as the models massaged him. The horse’s thingie came out just like a ladder on a fire truck and everyone clapped and whistled. Little Lady came sniffing around and the two models and the ranch hand helped Hallelujah mount her. Once he was inside her, everyone lifted their glass. The two guys standing next to me and Daisy shook hands. There was a china bowl in the hall on the way out where you could win a trip to all three Triple Crown races by naming the soon-to-be horse.

  Paque and I told them some other stuff that wasn’t true, like that World Gone Water was going to be a five-hour epic movie that incorporated elements of sci-fi, animation, the Western, rock-u-mentary, and French period pieces. Alan didn’t think that was very funny when he returned but L.A. MovieNews didn’t end up using our interview after all (the bit about the horse showed up in a gossip column the next day though).

  Paque demanded to know where Alan was and why he messed up the interview. She screamed at him that he was fucking things up royally and chased him to his room. He slammed the door in her face without saying anything and she kicked it over and over and I held my hands to my ears.

  Let’s call Stella, she said. We’ll tell her to come pick us up.

  I called Stella’s number and Craig (her boyfriend) answered. He told me Stella
wasn’t there and that he hadn’t seen her in a couple days. He said he thought she was with Paque and me and that now he was really worried. We called the photomat where Stella worked and they said she didn’t work there anymore.

  I was so frazzled that I ran out to get a couple of hot apple pies from the McDonald’s on Sunset, and by the time I walked there and back, Paque had cooled down and was sitting at the kitchen table with Alan, who looked like his entire family had been killed in a plane crash.

  I have something to tell you, Alan said. I pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and set the McDonald’s bag down next to a completed script with the words World Gone Water typed on the front. Some big investors picked up on the movie, Alan said, and they want to back a full-length movie.

  Great, I said but the look on Paque’s face told me it was not great.

  It’s not that simple, Alan said. These guys have conditions attached to their investment.

  I looked across the table at Paque, who I noticed was smoking Alan’s Marlboros. She sat with a dazed look on her face. I nervously opened the McDonald’s bag and unsheathed one of the apple pies.

  How is it hard, I asked.

  One of the conditions is that I have to use two actresses that they want, Alan said.

  I swallowed the gooey filling and said, So you’re replacing us. Just like that.

  Alan winced as he ran his fingers through his hair. It isn’t like that, he said. I don’t want to have to do it but I have to play by the rules if the movie is to get made.

  I thought you said it wasn’t even going to be a movie, I argued. You said we weren’t going to make a real movie.

  We weren’t, Alan said. But this story is important to me—it’s my story—and I’d like to see it get made.

  Why do we need these guys then, I asked. We can do it without them.

  They have enough money to get it done and I don’t, Alan said, leaning back. It’s that simple.

  So what are we supposed to do, I asked.

  We’ll have a project together, I promise, Alan said. I’ll develop something especially for you two. He tried to get Paque’s attention but she was staring at the floor.

  Who are these actresses anyway, I asked.

  You wouldn’t know who they are, Alan said. They’re nobodies.

  Like us, Paque said.

  I started crying and excused myself from the table. Paque came into the bedroom behind me. She ripped down the World Gone Water poster taped to our closet door and for the first time that I could ever remember, Paque cried.

  Alan knocked on the door and Paque screamed, Go away, but Alan knocked again and said, Daisy, your mom’s on the phone.

  Tell her I’ll call her back, I said.

  Should I ask my mom to get us plane tickets home, I asked Paque. She’d stopped crying and was studying the weeds growing outside the window and said, I don’t think that’s necessary.

  Okay, I said.

  Alan’s car was gone and I called my mom back and when she asked how it was going I said, Everything’s fine.

  That night I had a dream Paque and I were back at SaltBed and that we were on stage singing while Alan was in the audience. My mom was in the audience, along with my brother Chuck and everyone I’d ever known in my life. People were screaming out requests for Masterful Johnson tunes and we sang them perfect, every one the crowd asked for and in the morning I woke up exhausted, as if I’d spent the night giving every ounce of energy I had.

  Daisy

  Dear Sara and Keren,

  When you need someone, you can’t count on anybody. Stella is either avoiding us (she’s probably mad because of all the publicity Paque and I have been getting), or she finally got an acting gig and is somewhere on location. Those are the only two answers Paque and I will accept. We really needed her after Alan dumped us. Neither one of us wanted to say it but we realized we didn’t have anyone we could call.

  Then I remembered T.J. I paged him and he agreed to pick us up.

  Should we pack up our stuff, I asked.

  There isn’t anything that can’t be replaced if we don’t come back, Paque said.

  T.J. picked us up in a cinnamon-colored convertible BMW, which turned out to belong to the actress Jennifer Grey, who T.J. was house-sitting for. She really lives in New York, but is renting out here because of her TV show, T.J. said.

  Paque sat up front and I closed my eyes and let the wind whip around me. Whatever romantic feeling I thought I had for T.J. disappeared when I saw him again. Behind the wheel of the car, checking both ways for traffic, he seemed like just another guy to hang out with. I sensed from his coolness that he felt the same way. The clean scent of the new leather seats comforted me and I imagined it was the day before we got dumped, before we knew anything about how quickly something certain turns into something completely unknown.

  Paque and I decided not to say anything to T.J. about what had happened. We told him we just wanted to get out of the house for a bit.

  It sounded like an emergency, T.J. said.

  It wasn’t, Paque said.

  Have you seen Stella, T.J. asked. She owes me some money.

  Neither Paque or I said anything.

  Well, T.J. said, I’m sure she’ll pay me when I see her.

  T.J. drove us back to Jennifer Grey’s house in the Hollywood Hills, a cute little yellow house nestled safely behind a sprawl of lilac bushes. T.J. carefully pulled the BMW into the garage and you got the feeling that he probably wasn’t supposed to be driving it.

  Guess who used to rent this house, T.J. asked.

  Who, I asked.

  Barbra Streisand, he said.

  It looks a little small for Barbra Streisand, Paque said.

  T.J. stopped and collected a few empty beer bottles lined up on the pathway between the garage and the house.

  Who is Jennifer Grey anyway, I asked.

  She was the sister in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, T.J. said.

  Think Dirty Dancing, Paque said.

  What TV show is she on, I asked.

  It’s a new one where she plays herself, T.J. said, and the storylines are based on her real life.

  Are they going to use the one where she and Matthew Broderick accidentally killed those people in Sweden or Norway or wherever it was, Paque asked sarcastically.

  From what Paque said I knew then who they were talking about. I remembered reading in one of Stella’s notebooks about the crash, about how Matthew Broderick had pulled out on the wrong side in his Volvo, right into an oncoming car. Stella’s information had it that it was an accident, and that Matthew Broderick didn’t have to go to jail. Anyway, I think that’s what happened. I only remember it because I thought it was weird that they were playing brother and sister in the film but they were really boyfriend/girlfriend.

  Paque opened the side door and was startled by a man in a blue silk shirt and boxers rummaging through the pantry. His skin was tight and tan and his hair was bleached white. Oh, hello, he said with a British accent.

  This is Jason, T.J. said. He’s with the production.

  Paque and I introduced ourselves and Jason said, You’re in that movie. He snapped his fingers trying to come up with the title.

  World Gone Water, Paque said.

  That’s it, Jason said. He pulled down a box of strawberry Pop-Tarts and opened one of the shiny packages with his teeth. If you’ve got call for a mechanized go-cart driver, I race professionally, he said.

  Paque said, I don’t think there’s any go-carts in the movie.

  Jason’s jaw bounced up and down as he chewed. That’s too bad, he said between bites, I’m really good. He disappeared out the sliding glass door in the kitchen and Paque and I went to the window above the sink and watched him rejoin a small group out by the pool. A woman in a red robe sat in a lawn chair under an umbrella, reading Entertainment Weekly while an enormous man waded in the shallow end of the pool with a camera perched on his shoulder. A second man stayed dry at a soundboard at the edge of the pool.
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  That’s Earl, T.J. said. He gives me money to let him film porno at the houses I stay at.

  What happens if the person sees their house in a porno, Paque asked.

  That hasn’t happened yet, T.J. said. He rapped his knuckles on the wooden kitchen counter.

  The refrigerator is covered with photos of a woman and a chocolate Labrador. Is this Jennifer Grey, I asked.

  Yep, T.J. said, help yourself to anything in the fridge.

  It doesn’t look like Ferris’s sister, I said. I leaned in to study one of the photos.

  She had a nose job, T.J. said.

  I thought she had a cute nose, Paque said.

  It definitely looks better now, T.J. said.

  It’s wild, I said, it really doesn’t look anything like her.

  T.J. looked at the photo. Yeah, when I got the gig and I came up to the house I couldn’t believe it was really her. Don’t get me wrong—she’s beautiful, maybe more so. But when you think of Jennifer Grey you think of Baby in Dirty Dancing or Jeanie Bueller. I think it’s been hard for her to get work because people don’t recognize her.

  Only in Hollywood can you be tossed to the bottom of the heap by improving your looks with plastic surgery, Paque said bitterly.

  T.J. offered to let us stay at Jennifer Grey’s—Jason and the woman in the red robe, Maria, were staying there as well. We thanked T.J. and told him we’d stay the night, and he didn’t make any sort of joke about us owing him big, which we appreciated.

  T.J. ran out for Kentucky Fried Chicken and I took the opportunity to talk to Paque. I want to go home, I said. There’s nothing here for us now.

  You might be right, Paque said. But what harm is there if we hang around to see if Alan makes good on his promise to find something for us.

  I looked out the window at the scene in the pool. Alan’s going to be tied up with that movie for at least a year, I reasoned.

  Maybe we’ll get bit parts, Paque said.

  That’s part of the problem, too, I said. We’re only good for bit parts. We’re not actresses. I don’t even want to be an actress, do you?