by Susan Braudy
Now he raised his arms in mock benediction, his white sleeves billowing. “Thank the Lord, it still works on girls.”
“What?”
“The cheap pimp talk.”
My heart sank. “I believed everything you said on the phone,” I said firmly. It seemed like I was always throwing myself at him in strange rooms. “You need me to take care of things.”
He crooked his uneven eyebrows and smiled like the glowing big screen. Hypnotizing me.
“Stop it.”
He shrugged. “No problem.”
“I didn’t come waltzing around the world just to play.”
“Wait, wait, guess why I threw a fit and forced you to fly over here.”
“Why?”
“I want to know you.”
“Stop vamping.” I stamped my foot.
He spun himself around on the piano stool and fixed me with a stare. “I want to do business with you.”
“Why?”
“Nobody else can handle Princess Anita. I see the way she talks about you.” He wagged a finger at me. “You had trouble getting your ass over here. I had to put pressure on your boss.”
I put my hands on my hips. “So this was all your plan?”
Smiling and smiling, he played the Stravinsky waltz. “She’s nuts, but I have faith in you. You get what you want.”
When he kept on smiling I said stupidly, “You look amazing, a Puerto Rican plastic Jesus.”
He hit a ripple of sweet chords, and sang in a country twang, “I don’t care if it rains or freezes, long as I have my plastic Jesus, sitting on the dashboard of my car—”
I stepped closer, mesmerized. Above his white tunic, his face looked golden brown from sun. But his cheeks were sunken, and I didn’t like the new puffy flesh around his eyes. I bet he felt as shaky as I had when my marriage broke up.
“Please, I’ll do anything, just stop singing that song.” The door slammed behind Anita.
“Who invited her?” he asked me in that stammering cocky drawl that sounded like Jimmy Stewart. He pounded two booming C major chords.
“Very funny,” she yelled. She whispered to me, “I hate that song. He sings it in the middle of takes he doesn’t want me to print.”
“It’s the piano,” I said, pushing my elbow into Anita’s ribs. “She says it’s out of tune.”
I watched them stare each other down. I said, “Anita has one or two things on her mind.”
“Just give me the tune.” She was trying to sound humble. “From now on, I’ll play it your way.”
His eyes darted at me. He stopped playing, and faced Anita. “You’re a sore loser. All I want is to act the fuck out of the best role I ever had in my life.” He began playing slowly up and down the keyboard. “You tried to ruin me.”
Anita looked cornered. “I’m offering you my formal apology.”
I just hoped he didn’t know her well enough to hear the insincerity in her voice.
“But you don’t look destroyed,” I interrupted, trying not to stare at that familiar face like something I loved in a dream.
“You kept your looks.” He winked at me. “What’s your beauty secret? Clean living or maybe no living at all?”
I flushed. Anita closed one eye at me suspiciously. I leaned against a cool plaster wall to hear myself think. “How is your strained back?” I asked, pulling a fistful of crumpled production reports out of my shoulder bag. “Your burnt hand, your headache?”
“Terrible. Want to see?”
“You know each other?” Anita limped past me toward the screen door, her crutch dragging on the old stone floor.
“Not well enough.” He had a taunt in his voice. I swiveled back to him, my heart racing. He was the only thing I ever lied to her about. He better not let anything slip.
The piano stool scraped the floor. He strode to me, his right hand outstretched. I must have looked terrified. He winked like we had a private joke. His palm felt warm. “I’m trying to fix this mess,” I whispered, staring at him like a dope.
He backed away, pulled up his white shirttail, and sat on the piano stool again. “Too late, I want you both out of here.”
The negotiation had begun. “I guarantee her cooperation,” I said.
“If I’m fired, she’s fired,” Anita added quickly from the doorway.
I watched his brow furrow in new places. “I didn’t figure that.” He looked at me coldly. “Who do I have to fuck to make an appearance in my own movie? I want a new director or I just plain quit.”
I felt my face go hot.
“Don’t bother selling me your movie,” he added. “I’m not the problem. She’s making me audition like I’m nineteen years old again.”
“You got all the power. Your job is to get a movie made you believe in.”
“I am doing my best work, and I want a director lighting me like I’m the Hope diamond.”
I heard Anita snort. But thank God I also heard her crutch dragging the stone floor toward us. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
He looked desperate. “And when I’m cold, the director turns the heaters on, she shoots me a lot in close-up, she pretends she loves me, and she makes me look like my character and like the star. She makes me feel brave when I risk mistakes. She makes me a little better than I been before.” He groaned. “She doesn’t step on my lines, hide my face, and joke about me to the crew.”
She was by my side, leaning on the crutch. “I don’t make fun of you.”
He pointed at her. “I been making faces at movie cameras for twenty-two years. I know how easy it is to fail, and I know what it takes to get me going.”
“What kind of monster do you take me for?” she asked in her hurt voice.
“I think you’re pissed off. You figure you’re stuck with an aging sex bomb trying to play the holiest Jew in history.”
She looked at me fast out of the corner of her eye. He grinned: he had her pegged. I saw sweat on her upper lip. I grabbed a pillow off the single bed. “Do me a favor”—I tossed it at her feet—“sit down. Admit you’re in pain.”
She ignored me.
He hit middle C with one thumb. “It’s hell working with somebody lying to you.”
“I’m no liar.” She leaned on the piano.
“No more lies, no more fights, no more insecurities,” I said happily. “The two of you need to work.” I nudged Anita’s bare ankle with my sneaker.
“I have a lot of explaining to do.” She spoke slowly. “You’re the biggest actor I ever worked with. I was afraid to share the spotlight.” Her voice was strained. But since she was standing in front of me, I couldn’t read her face. I crossed my fingers.
“I want to take my best shot,” he stammered, “but I keep thinking no person can feel Jesus’ pain.”
I said, “You two will talk and talk.”
Anita interjected piously, “I fought dirty. I’m an asshole—working against my own best interests.” Her voice gathered momentum and she stepped closer to him. “But I’m not crazy; so far nobody has made a great movie showing Jesus’ face.”
“It’s your challenge,” I said, watching her put one hand on his shoulder. At least they were touching each other.
“It was unbelievable,” he said, looking over to me after a pause. “I’m working and working and suddenly I’m not in the rushes.” He sounded relieved. She squeezed his shoulder. My pictures of him kept flashing like footage. I saw him rolling over onto his back in that hotel bed laughing at my attacks of inhibition, his erection high and straining. My socks were still on and he kept trying to unbutton my blouse. I held on to the buttons.
Now I blinked at both of them in warm confusion.
She was holding the piano for support. Facing me, she made a covert victory circle of her thumb and forefinger. I didn’t react. I hoped she wasn’t faking.
He narrowed his eyes at her bare back. He looked wary. I suddenly remembered how he picked his head off the pillow in the hotel, incredulous after I recited all his lines from his first big
love scene. Then I’d said, “Wait till you see the acting technique.” I wrinkled my forehead and made my mouth go slack and he shouted, “Turkey!” and pushed a pillow into my face.
Now Anita was leaning toward me from the curve of the piano, watching me mistrustfully.
“I want two days, ladies, just for shooting my close-ups,” he said.
She whirled on him. “I decide which takes to print.”
“No, defer to our star,” I interrupted. I was petrified; I was exceeding my authority as a junior executive; she could explode any second.
She stamped her good foot.
“Agreed?” I said loudly.
“What’s my choice?” she asked.
“We talk out every word, every silence, and see what I’m feeling.” He stared without compassion while she dragged past me to press her nose against the screen door and look out at the wheat field. I felt sorry for her, watching her fragile bare back under the yellow halter.
“I’m a good cutter,” Jack said suggestively.
Anita jiggled the door handle. “I got final cut.”
I whipped my head around. She was still inside the door, looking bewildered.
“I cut my scenes,” he said slowly. “I sit in the cutting room and I choose my angles and close-ups.”
The door slammed. She had disappeared. I was in a panic. I turned back to him, trying to sound calm. “She’s just cooling off.”
He played four solemn chords of Beethoven’s Fifth. “Maybe she won’t come back.” He sounded scared also.
“You got your concessions too,” I told him, wondering if I should go after her. “No more extra hours in makeup. No more blowing lines so scenes have to be reshot.”
The door slammed again. I closed my eyes with relief when I heard her stepping unevenly back to us.
He addressed her like she’d never left. “You can’t make the Mary Magdalene scenes kinky. I don’t think we were childhood sweethearts who almost went all the way.”
“Take a walk together in the desert and work on it,” I coaxed.
“I hate it when Mary tells Jesus why women can’t be rabbis. It’s too knee-jerk women’s lib,” he added.
I put my arm around Anita. Standing next to me, she felt wired, her eyes glued to him. Wearing her sunglasses for disguise.
“You’ll write together,” I said.
“We got no time,” Jack sighed.
“Ben Hecht wrote Scarface in six days,” I said.
Anita twisted away from me. “Give me a week to show my good faith.” She dragged herself in front of me and held out her hand to Jack. He stood poised, until she said in a coaxing voice, “Let’s reshoot the crucifixion scene and I’ll light your face like Yankee Stadium at night.” He tossed his long hair off his face and nodded. Their handclasp was quick.
He backed down to the piano stool, and she turned to me and mouthed, “Okay, pal?”
I circled the piano, drawing her with me, and put my arms around them both. His back was too warm. “All set?” I beamed like Allen King at a bar mitzvah.
She echoed my tone of voice. “I’m going to do my goddamn best.”
I took a deep breath. This was my big moment. “Great, and Jack calls Michael and tells him to forget hiring Sam Falco.” I prayed, looking down at the top of his head. He leaned out of my grasp.
“Call Michael today,” I repeated.
He looked warily at me. I lost my balance, tumbling down into his nervous blue eyes.
“Anita, you’re on deadline.” He grimaced up at her, his fingers above the keyboard. “You get two whole working days to shoot my face,” he intoned sarcastically, “as God is my witness. Then I call Michael.”
Anita looked drained. “Okay, but try not to sound like a dime-store Bible salesman.”
“You’ll coach him,” I said, tugging her by her free elbow to the screen door. I looked around, trying to memorize the turning ceiling fan, the two single beds, and the bulky white piano.
He called out in an agitated voice, “Don’t worry, I’m a professional, I can take her criticism.”
“You’ll rehearse and rehearse, and then the camera won’t move from your face,” I shouted boldly into the dim room. I pinched her elbow.
“I won’t pick on you, I promise.” She waved back at him. Then she pinched my wrist. “Get me out of here,” she whispered, “before I puke.”
Then he was right behind us. “Nice doing business with you ladies.” His teeth flashed white in the midst of his beard. The room lit up. Nice teeth. I’m always in trouble when I notice a man’s teeth.
Seven
My body jumped awake. I smoothed my nightgown over my stomach, yawning at a plumped yellow cat licking her tail. My brain was full of Jack Hanscomb. I had a silly feeling he liked me. I pulled the sheet over my face. I didn’t come waltzing halfway around the world to swoon over him—or did I?
The antique phone burped once. An Israeli operator had located Rosemary. I stretched out on the corn-husk mattress petting the yellow cat’s furry spine. I loved the worn granite floors and religious paintings in this huge strange bedroom. A pinpoint of light shone from an oil lamp in the stone house across the alley. It was late. Dammit, I’d slept through Anita’s afternoon shoot.
Rosemary’s sweet voice burst in uneven bits of sound. “Michael’s making big trouble.”
Yellow hairs floated off my palm, my nose itched, tension twinged my chest. “He can’t touch me. I won Jack over to my side yesterday, Rosemary. He never wanted Michael to fire Anita. What’s going on?”
“He’s taking all ten readers, your writers, and every secretary out for coffee, and he’s asking questions like do they like you, do you help them do better work? Wouldn’t they rather have a different kind of boss?”
I curled my toes. No rest for the wily. “He’s just retaliating. If he’s drinking that many cups of coffee with my staff, I hope he’s got the runs.”
“Very funny. You better get back here.”
“Michael loves office politics,” I said. “God, he’ll prove I can’t fold memos.”
“He told me I could run the office better than you,” Rosemary sputtered.
My breath puffed out between my lips like a punctured balloon. “What did you say?”
“Listen, it’s not my fault, we were in the employees’ cafeteria and I got a big dessert and I said he was the only person in the whole world who could do a better job than you, and so why didn’t he move to New York and take a salary cut.”
I leaned my forehead into my palm. Don’t cry, don’t collapse; think big.
“He got real red and said how he hoped nobody lied to me about my job security. I just about died.” She paused. “He pulled a card out of his breast pocket with names on it and said he was talking to people about replacing you.”
“He’s using you to send me messages,” I said. “He’s trying to rattle me.”
“He doesn’t want Jesus to be a hit.” Rosemary sounded woebegone.
I started stuffing socks back into the suitcase. “I’m flying home tonight.”
“You are?” She sounded awed. “Listen, how’s your star?” Stretching the frayed telephone cord, I scooped my toothbrush off the tin bathroom sink.
“You see rushes,” I said. In the round shaving mirror, my face looked pale and bleary. “I’ll get on the next plane.”
I slammed the suitcase.
She lowered her voice. “And leave you-know-who? How is he? I bet he’s incredible in person.”
“Oh, he’s just like anybody else.” I latched the suitcase. Then I opened it again. I was in a state. I hadn’t even changed my nightgown. I knew what Michael Finley could do when he wanted.
My door creaked. “Somebody’s here.”
“Is it him?”
Paul Riley came charging in, all nerves, tightening the white lizard belt on his white gabardine pants. He stuck his aviator sunglasses on top of his short silver crew cut. “Get your ass on the set.” He was completely out of breath.
“The sun’s going down and you got personnel problems.”
“Hey, Paul, I’m not running location, I do the New York office.” I stood up. “Hang on, Rosemary.”
“Something bad’s going down,” he said. He looked away from the bodice of my worn nightgown and drummed his fingers on the rickety bedside table.
I dropped the receiver. “What’s going on?”
“Both those birds look like nervous breakdowns to me,” he said, buckling his belt.
I was pulling my dungarees on under my long flannel nightgown. My hands shook. “Rosemary, I got to go.”
“Better hurry.” She sounded reproachful. “I like my job. Vicky told somebody he’s closing down the New York office.”
“That’s a joke. Ignore it.”
“He was in here twice yesterday, snooping in your memo files.”
“Lock the cabinets. Don’t tell him anything.”
“My lips are sealed,” she said solemnly before I hung up. Paul turned away automatically when I reached into my suitcase for a clean tee shirt. I slammed it shut and fit a dangling bra strap back inside it.
“Anita’s a bitch on wheels today.” Paul was pacing. “I heard her ask him why he wears his loincloth tight like a faggot.”
“But isn’t he trying to take over as director?” I asked.
“Anything’s better than her barking orders,” Paul muttered.
“What did Jack say?” I sat on the suitcase.
“He cursed her out, and crawled the fuck back into his trailer.”
“What a mess, two prima donnas in sore moods. I can’t hold their hands.” I was thinking fast. No time to panic. “I’ve got to get back home to my office. You do the tea and sympathy routine tonight, Paul. I’ll give you stage directions.”
“Just help me now,” he urged. “I’ll lend you my car to get to the airport.” He unwrapped my fingers from the suitcase handle.
“Okay,” I said, letting him carry it, “but in two hours I split.”
We sprinted down smooth purple-veined rocks. I strained my eyes at the movie people scurrying on the sloping dune below me, dwarfed by the huge landscape. They wore dungaree jackets, turtlenecks, and sneakers like a bunch of people loitering on an island beach. But each of them was separate, specific. I watched the gaffer unfolding a silver reflector. The script supervisor sat on a folding chair, writing in the shooting script.
