These Curious Pleasures

by Sloane Britain

  There was a bottle in the kitchen. I made myself a drink. That would help me get to sleep. The liquor tasted awful. It always did when I was alone.

  The telephone rang. It was Lorraine. She was the latest. I had met her a week before. Her period of grace was fast running out.

  She invited me up to her place. What the hell, it was better than staying alone. At least she only lived three blocks away and I wouldn't have to spend any carfare. I said I'd be right up.

  Jesus, it was cold. The wind blew off the East River and cut through my coat like it was paper. I ran the three blocks to keep the blood circulating.

  Lorraine was a nice girl. She deserved the best. That I gave her what she wanted. I had her moaning and sobbing in my arms.

  I enjoyed it too. She was a good one. Not all women know how to make love. Not by a long shot. I like a woman who's not afraid to let you know how she feels. Lorraine sweated and heaved against me.

  I'm no slouch in the passion department myself. We made it three times before I even began to feel satisfied.

  By the time I got. to sleep you could have picked me up with a blotter. I had given my all. All except for that place under my left breast that was like an icicle throughout the whole thing.

  CHAPTER 3

  It was three in the afternoon and Happy still hadn't shown up at the office. What a day it had been. His numerous lady friends called first on his private line and then, when they didn't get any answer, they called back on the office phone. They drove me nuts with their questions. For a change I didn't have to lie to them. I honestly didn't know where Happy was or when he'd be in.

  Happy had called at ten that morning to say that he'd be in within the hour. That's the last we heard from him. He did that sometimes. Everybody knew what he was doing but not where or with whom.

  Happy was nobody's fool. He knew what he was doing when he hired Steve and Jack. They could handle everything in the office. Happy was a figurehead. He made the money and gave the office class. In a weird sort of way Happy exuded prestige. He had the kind of self confidence that usually comes from an upper class background.

  The elevator door opened and Pat Donnelly got off. "Where is that lousy bastard?" she demanded.

  "Pat, I wasn't lying to you. I don't know. Maybe he's in conference over at the network. Sometimes he gets tied up there and can't call," I told her.

  "In a pig's ear! He would have gotten a message to me somehow if that was the case. He was supposed to meet me for lunch. I've been waiting for him for three hours!" She wheeled on her heel and stalked into Judy's office.

  I felt sorry for her. Judy and Pat were friends but that wouldn't do her any good. Judy had been lying to her about Happy's whereabouts for years. That was her job.

  Pat Donnelly was Happy Broadman's chief mistress. No mean accomplishment. She had plenty of stiff competition. They'd been together for nine years. Happy wouldn't divorce his wife and Pat loved him too much to just let him go. God knows what she needed him for. She could get plenty of better men. She's a stunning green-eyed redhead. I'd go for her if she were gay and I consider myself a pretty good judge.

  The elevator door opened again and Karen Broadman stepped into the office.

  This was going to be quite a scene. Happy's wife was suspicious of every female in Manhattan and a couple in Westchester, too. But she had no proof that he was unfaithful. Pat ranked high on her list of suspects.

  "Is Harold in?" she asked. "I was out shopping and I thought that since I was in the neighborhood I'd stop in and have a drink with him before going on home."

  I told her that he was expected back from a meeting any minute and suggested that she wait for him in his office. She went in there without having noticed Pat.

  Things were getting complicated. They got more so.

  Sylvia, one of Mr. Broadman's current playmates, got off the elevator next. I didn't let her say a word. Just said something to her about how Jack wanted to see her in his office about a walk-on part that she might be interested in. I made sure that my voice was loud enough for Jack to hear. He'd get the picture and know how to handle it.

  Now the problem was to get hold of Happy before those females did. God knows what would happen if he wasn't briefed ahead of time.

  I told the elevator man to keep Happy down in the lobby if he came in and to come up and tell me about it. Then I settled back to await the arrival of the great man.

  The place was loaded with good-looking women. Even Happy's wife isn't too bad. I was in my element. Have a few that look like one of those three in a gay bar when I'm there and hand me my harp, I'm in heaven. But under the circumstances it was look but don't touch.

  About a half hour later the elevator man told me that Happy was down in the lobby. Judy took over the switchboard while I went downstairs to give him the poop.

  He thought the whole thing was a big fat joke. However, he did agree with me that it would be easier if he had a plausible story to tell. He assured me he had a good one.

  Happy went up on the elevator first and I followed a few minutes later so it wouldn't look fishy.

  When I got back in the office Happy had all three women in his office drinking like it was going out of style and listening open-mouthed to his story about the coup he had pulled at the network that afternoon.

  He was telling them some long involved story about getting the network to underwrite half the expenses of a pilot film. Amy Ferguson was hell bent on coming out of the bush leagues of afternoon programming with her own nighttime situation comedy series. The gimmick was to make a sample film called a pilot and show it to sponsors. They figured that it would cost about $50,000 to make a half-hour pilot and that's a lot of bread, even for an outfit like the Harold Broadman Office.

  Happy went on at great length about how he had argued with network officials until they finally agreed to pay for half the expenses. According to his story, the haggling had gone on from ten that morning until just before he got to the office. That's why he had kept all three of his women waiting.

  I listened in complete amazement. Everybody in the office knew that contract had been signed last week. There's no business like show business.

  I got tied up on the phone for a long time and then I had to go into Judy's office and help her with a budget she was preparing.

  It was well after four o'clock when I finally got back to my own desk. I started snooping on the fiasco going on in the inner sanctum again.

  Happy was still entertaining the three broads. What an artist! He was talking so much that nobody had a chance ask any questions. All the attention was directed toward him so that the three women weren't even being bitchy toward each other.

  He was sweating plenty, though. You could tell by the way he was drinking. Usually he would put at least a drop or two of water in with the Scotch. His mannerisms were a little stilted, too. Like an actor's, they were close to being natural but a tiny bit stagey. I noticed that every time the telephone rang Happy would look up anxiously. It would have been murder for him if someone had called about the Ferguson pilot. How would he have been able to talk to them?

  I guess he didn't realize how much I had learned about the job in the few weeks I had been there. I knew how to handle the situation. Sure, there were calls for him but I put them through to Judy. As Happy's private secretary she could tell them that he was in conference and couldn't be disturbed. Judy and I worked perfectly as a team in keeping Happy's social life as uncomplicated as possible. The business aspects he could manage himself.

  * * *

  The next day we were supposed to start casting the bit parts for the Amy Ferguson pilot. It the series sold, most of the actors and actresses who had small parts in the pilot would be used for the later sequences. It was a good deal for them. Worth taking a chance for. They only got $80 a day for working on the pilot and that's chicken feed for television work, but they considered it an investment for the future.

  Somebody goofed somewhere, we never found out who. T
here was a notice in the trade papers that morning announcing that we were casting. Instead of the dozen or so people we expected to come in response to our calls to the talent agencies, at least two hundred actors showed up.

  It was pitiful. Everybody in the office was horribly depressed by it. There was nothing we could do. Steve and Jack auditioned the ones who had been sent by agents and a few of the more promising free-lancers, but they couldn't handle that mob. There just wasn't time enough.

  I got the job of turning away the others. I hated to do 't. Some of them looked as if they hadn't eaten in a week. There were men in their sixties wearing threadbare double-breasted suits who were applying for the role of a man of thirty. They told me that when they dyed their hair, or wore a moustache or who knows what, they would look young enough. What could I do? I had to take their phone numbers and tell them that we'd call them if anything came up. Don't call us, we'll call you—that means no soap in show business and they knew it. Three of the parts were for young girls who were supposed to be beauty queens. Lots of hags were after the job but you should have seen the others! I didn't know there were that many gorgeous women in all of New York, me, you could tell just by looking at them, were strictly no talent kids who thought they could make it on their looks alone. Somebody ought to tell those lovelies that what they had been warned about producers and what they were now preparing to capitalize on just isn't true. You don't get a part by sleeping with the producer. If you've got something to offer it might speed things along to be available after rehearsals, but no producer can afford to substitute talent in bed for talent on the stage. Besides, a guy like Happy Broadman gets whomever he wants (with some exceptions) without bargaining.

  The flood started abating about two o'clock and by three there were no more eager hopefuls in the office. We had told the ones who had come in the morning that the parts had been taken and word must have gotten around. I don't know how. Actors seem to have some sort of sixth sense or underground railroad system of communication when it comes to jobs.

  I was exhausted. All the time that I had been getting rid of the actors the regular business of the office had been going on. Between the two jobs there had been no time for lunch and I was starving.

  Happy saw how exhausted I was and offered me a drink. That was his solution for just about everything. I didn't really want a drink but I took one anyway. Happy mixed two Scotch and waters that would have put hair on a cue ball.

  The phones were taking a coffee break so I sat in Happy's office drinking and having a typical boss-employee conversation. Happy was telling me about his women. He had the most immoral, unscrupulous attitude toward women I'd ever encountered. But there was such a robust Rabelasian quality in his approach to them that I couldn't hate him for it.

  At one point he put his hands behind his head, tilted back in his big swivel chair and said, "I love women. All of them. The short ones, the tall ones, the fat ones, the skinny ones."

  Me too, I thought, but I didn't say it.

  When the elevator door opened and a young woman got off, I didn't get up. It was five o'clock and time for one of Happy's harem to come up for cocktails. She didn't look familiar but I hadn't met them all yet.

  When she didn't come into his office after a few minutes I realized that she must be waiting out in the reception room. Obviously, she was not there on a social call. I excused myself and went out to see what she wanted.

  The carpets were so thick that footsteps were muffled. She didn't hear me approaching. She was standing in profile to me, looking at the clients' pictures.

  Another beauty queen. About medium height, trim and well-groomed. Her long honey blonde hair fell in a soft page-boy on her shoulders. With her figure she could go far, if she had the talent to go with it. She was round where a dame should be round and a 38-C if I've ever seen one. Her suit jacket was open and I could see her sweater doing its best to keep from bursting at the seams. I made a silent bet with myself that she was as tall lying down as she was standing up.

  "May I help you, Miss?" I asked. She turned slowly around. It took me a few seconds to see her face, I was concentrating elsewhere. She had the kind of waist that used to be called waspish. And hips, real ones. I don't go for the flat-hipped Audrey Hepburn little boy look.

  Before she spoke I saw the look in her eyes. There's a special look that a woman who goes for women gives another. I call it the long drink. It's difficult to describe, but it's a peculiar combination of interest, sympathy, appraisal, amusement and challenge. That was the look that was hitting me like the proverbial ton of bricks.

  "I'm Allison Millay," she said. "I heard you were casting."

  "I'm sorry, we've already cast..." I started to say when that look hit me again. "Uh, on second thought, wait here a minute, will you?"

  Jack had gone home but Steve was still there. There was one small part still open. They needed a young girl to play the part of a secretary. Steve was reluctant but I finally persuaded him to give the kid a chance. He agreed to let the girl read the script for ten minutes and then come into his office for an audition.

  I prayed that she'd be a quick study. Ten minutes is an awfully short time to give even an experienced actress. In those few minutes she'd have to figure out the basic personality structure of the character and just how to deliver the unfamiliar lines.

  I handed a copy of the script to Allison and she sat down on the couch to read it. I read the part over at the same time. By then I should have known it by heart. I had typed the thing through five revisions.

  To me the script stank. Later, after I had seen the finished pilot, I understood that that's because I didn't know how things work in television. On paper it looked awful but with a skilled director and good actors it came alive. There are sight gags that aren't written into a script. People who read scripts all the time can visualize them but I was used to reading plays for the theatre. There the humor is more verbal than it is on television.

  When the ten minutes were up, I showed Allison into Steve's office. He closed the door so I couldn't hear what they were saying. Nothing daunted, I flipped on the intercom system. After all, they weren't dealing with confidential material.

  I was so nervous I barely heard Allison read. But then I heard Steve laugh. For the first time. No one else who had read the part had gotten even a chuckle out of him. And he laughed harder as she read more.

  I knew it was in the bag before I heard him discussing terms with her and asking her the usual questions about her background.

  Allison had the usual history. Bit parts in summer stock, roles in college productions and a couple of commercials at trade shows. This would be her first chance to break into television.

  They arranged that she was to come back the next day to sign her contract and meet the rest of the cast.

  Allison came back into the reception room looking like she had just been elected governor. Lord, she was beautiful. She was so radiant with happiness that it hurt me to look at her.

  She put on her coat and rang for the elevator. Then, while she was waiting for it, she came over to my desk.

  "Thanks," she said. "Guess we'll be seeing each other from now on. Maybe we could have lunch some day?"

  "Fine. I'd love it," I said.

  The elevator came and Allison got on it. She leaned out the door and said, "Good-bye."

  That look again!

  CHAPTER 4

  Happy was in the office by ten the next morning. An unheard of thing. He was there at that hour because Amy Ferguson wanted to talk to him about the pilot before the rest of the cast got there. When Amy Ferguson wanted Happy around, he was there. In exchange she brought in at least $1000 in commissions each week. She was a good client in other ways too. Not very temperamental, dependable and considerate. One of the reasons that Judy and I liked her was that she had her own private secretary and didn't bother us with small chores the way some of the other clients did.

  I called her secretary to find out if I should- have br
eakfast ready for Amy when she got to the office. It was a goofy job. Ordering breakfast for someone would be nothing unusual. I was there to accommodate in all kinds of things. I walked dogs, shopped for presents, minded children and modeled hats. You could never tell what a client would ask for next.

  Amy's secretary, Chris Salem, said that she and Miss Ferguson had already had breakfast and that Miss Ferguson would be at our office in a few minutes.

  I felt like telling her to cut out the Miss Ferguson crap, but I didn't. I knew something she didn't know I knew. Something that I don't think anybody else in the office knew.

  Most people don't have their secretary live in their home. I'd never been to Amy Ferguson's apartment but I could bet that she and her secretary at least had separate bedrooms. Why was it then that most of the time when I called Chris would be in Amy's room? Often Chris would tell me that Miss Ferguson couldn't come to the phone because she was asleep. Then I'd hear a voice in the background asking who it was and Amy would come on the phone herself.

  I wasn't jumping to conclusions or projecting. There were too many obvious things pointing to it. Later when I met Chris at the showing of the pilot, I knew I was right. Chris Salem looked like someone my mother would like me to marry. All she needed was to put on a pair of trousers. She even looked like a man in an evening gown.

  I'll bet that without Chris around to take the sting out of her marriage Happy would never be able to talk Amy out of divorcing her husband.

  Amy and Happy were locked in his office for an hour. The other six members of the cast assembled in the reception room waiting for them. Allison was the last one to arrive.

  We didn't have any chance to talk. I was too busy with the phones.

  Amy and Happy came out and introduced themselves to the cast. Amy could turn down any one of them if she wanted to, of course, but that wasn't likely. They had been carefully picked and were right for their roles. Amy wasn't the sort of person to run into personality conflicts. Everybody who worked for her always ended up worshipping the ground she walked on. The suburban pied-piper could bewitch sophisticated theatrical people as easily as she charmed her audiences. And, as I've said before, it wasn't phony. Amy really liked people and they liked her.