What Movies Made Me Do

by Susan Braudy

  “That’s a fast crowd’s definition,” I shot back.

  “Fair enough.” He pulled one hand out from under the coats and punched my arm lightly.

  I continued with some relish. “I sat ten more minutes, pretending to eat. Then I left, very dignified, and stood soaking, waiting outside in the rain next to an exotic-bird store.”

  “What were you waiting for?”

  “Who knows? Fun.” I lifted both shoulders. “What do you remember?”

  “Well, I saw you come back to the table in your raincoat like a crank. I almost asked you to leave. But then I saw you had curves in your face and you had this long, long neck and you were very young.”

  “I was young.”

  He was still talking. “Then I saw all those reactions on your face to my bullshit. I mean, your face lit up when I got silly, and when I laid it on too thick.”

  I closed my eyes. I had been so naïve.

  “You’re a voyeur,” he said flatly. “Like me, and guess what else I noticed.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You were lovely,” he said in a funny, hoarse voice, “because you don’t have a clue, you’re out of it, and that makes you beautiful.”

  I was flushing all over my back and arms.

  “What do you feel when you look in a mirror?” he demanded.

  “Amazed,” I said slowly, “that I’m not a frumpy bookworm.”

  “Right, and to make the story short but honest, I dumped the black-haired actress and waited for you at the revolving door of the Carlyle.”

  “Dumped?” I said. “That’s charming.”

  He waved his fingers. “She needed to get to her manager anyhow. What about you?”

  “I was in shock. I kept wishing I could follow you home and sit on your ceiling like an invisible bug. Then you turned around and said to me, ‘I’m being followed, don’t make a sound.’ ”

  “Yeah, I was much younger,” he reflected, one hand over his face, “much more shameless. When did we have the food fight?”

  “Not until we got room service in your room.”

  “Was it fun?” he asked, like he wondered how he felt too.

  “It was the best.”

  “Hey”—he blinked at he ceiling—“when do we get to the hard part? The reason I couldn’t get you on the goddamn telephone.”

  “There were lots of reasons,” I mumbled.

  “Tell me one.”

  “You shouted the wrong name when we were in bed.” I looked out the small round window at the gray water.

  Incredulous, he stared at me. “No kidding.”

  “You said ‘Dorry’ or ‘doll.’ ”

  “ ‘Doll’ is just a nickname for ‘lady.’ ”

  “It wasn’t ‘doll.’ ” Sailboats moved past me: the port was waking up. “It was somebody’s name and everybody knows you’re not exactly constant.”

  “Hey, be nice, let’s do a rerun. I’d remember my line, doll.”

  Embarrassed, I changed the subject. “Do you have a temperature?” I pressed my palm to his forehead. Hot.

  He winked. “Playing doctor?”

  I ignored him. “How much weight have you lost?”

  “Forty pounds.”

  “No wonder you got sick.”

  “Makes me look spiritual.” He made a rueful face.

  “How sick are you?”

  He scratched at his neck. “I got some local mystery virus. I’ll live. It shoots my temperature way up and then way down.”

  “How’s your appetite?”

  “I don’t eat. I’ve been taking hot baths to stop the chills.”

  Now I was worried. “You try antibiotics? Did you see a doctor?”

  “Nope.” He yawned.

  “I want to ask a local doctor if you can travel with this bug.”

  “Nuts, I’ll go to a doctor in Rome or New York. Now, quick, get to the end of our story,” he ordered. Our faces were less than a foot apart.

  “Don’t you remember how you stood me up the next night?” I blurted indignantly. I sat back on my heels, still anxious about his health.

  “No, really?” He sounded disgusted.

  I put my fists on my hips. “I waited for hours. I ate four crèmes brûlées and a peach tart. Boy, I felt sorry for myself.”

  “Humiliating.” He shook his head. “Where the hell was I?”

  “I figured you were only giving it twenty percent that night in your hotel anyway.”

  “Don’t insult yourself.” He coughed. “I probably had some business crisis.”

  “Sure.”

  “What makes you the expert?” he snapped back. “You don’t know my personal habits.”

  “Well, they’re pretty sophisticated,” I muttered.

  “Sure, and what about you? You play the angles.” He sounded tired. “Just a wild guess, but you look like a fucky lady who put it on hold for power and solitary independence.” His reddened eyes bore into mine.

  “That’s a sickening word, and at least I don’t have an addiction problem with women; it’s a disease.”

  “What a knack for putting things unpleasantly.” He took my hand, pressed it, and added gently, “We’re both distorted to be where we are, you know.”

  I felt his hot palm a minute, then pulled away. “Well, I don’t hurt people.” Then I felt stupid. What about Barry?

  “Everybody hurts somebody; don’t get carried away. I get in big trouble because everybody wants something from me, and I want everybody to love me, and I hate turning them down until I got nothing left to give.” His face was candid.

  I felt better. “Well, it’s no surprise you stood me up. But we’re friends now, right? Can we just make everything simpler and keep it at that?”

  The man in the turban stuck his head in the door. “We’re taking off for Tel Aviv.” He switched on an overhead light. “Turn it off.” Jack threw his forearm over his eyes.

  I leaned over him. “Don’t fly anywhere with that fever. Is there a doctor in town?” I asked the stranger.

  “Behind the new motel.” The man checked his big metal watch. “You got fifteen minutes.”

  “I’m not moving.” Jack snuggled under the coats.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  I ran down the gangplank to the parked car, opened the door, and told Mae to sit tight while I drove her and the car down close to the hydrofoil. “I made up my mind,” I told her. “I’m taking him back to New York. I’m not letting him out of my sight. He’s too upset to go right back to work. He just needs a change of scenery.”

  She gave me a worldly-wise look.

  He was lying with his eyes closed when I got back. “Let’s go,” I said cheerfully, “hospital train to Manhattan. I got a couple days. We’ll get you lots of rest and peace. First stop is a local doctor.”

  “I’m nobody’s problem.” He wouldn’t open his eyes. “I can manage, doll, and anyway, I’m splitting for Rome.”

  “You’ll get pneumonia.” I pulled the coats off him. “Let’s go.” He doubled up, shivering.

  “You got your passport?” I asked, changing my tack.

  “Maybe.”

  “How’re you going to travel anywhere?”

  “I filched my stunt double’s ID and passport.”

  “That’s the adult thing to do,” I said.

  “It was a goddamn emergency. I’ve got to go someplace without anybody knowing,” he moaned.

  “You can’t travel with such a high fever,” I said forcefully.

  “Don’t worry, it’ll drop about eight degrees in a minute.” He opened his eyes and looked at me. “What are you really up to, Carol?”

  I took a deep breath. What was I doing? He did need to get away from here, calm down, and then I could talk sense to him, and convince him to go back to work. It was my job to get him and Anita working together; and she’d be nicer to him if she didn’t see his face for a couple of days. “Come back to New York with me.”

  “What’s your hurry?” He looke
d seductive. It was probably nothing personal, just a reflex. “Why not hop over to Rome with me and play?”

  “I got trouble in my New York office. I got a career to rescue.”

  He waved a dismissive hand.

  “How about your career?” I asked.

  “Who cares?”

  I made my voice authoritative. “We’ll sue you for twelve million dollars’ worth.”

  He poked a finger inside his inflamed ear. “Where’d you come up with that figure?”

  “Cost of picture from pre-production two years ago. No studio’s going to eat those costs.”

  “Insurance companies will,” he argued. “Lloyds and Transamerica pay everything. I’m insured, you’re insured.”

  “Be too many questions, unless we had a corpse.”

  “For twelve million, you’ll come up with a corpse.”

  “I’d rather have this movie.”

  “Bad thinking,” he said very fast. “You don’t belong on the studio side. You like movies too much. You’re supposed to love the money and put on the brakes for creative people.”

  Tears came to my eyes again. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Tough guys don’t cry.” He reached out and squeezed my hand. “But you don’t have to pretend to be the hero, that’s my job.”

  I kept snuffling until he said, “I’m not finishing your movie. String together what footage you got and see if her cinematic bullshit and silver paint do anything for you.”

  He pressed my hand lightly between both his palms. I jerked my fingers free. What a selfish guy. I was screwed, no movie and kiss the job goodbye. I swallowed against my rage. I couldn’t afford a tantrum, I knew what Michael would do. “You live like there’s a solid wall of mirror around you.”

  “It’s been a great solo act,” he said lightly. But he turned his face away. “I can hire a nurse in Rome.”

  “You speak Italian?”

  He shook his head.

  “Look, you need my help to get on a plane. And I need you—”

  “For the movie or what?” He was thrusting his lower lip at me. I rubbed my eyes.

  “Are you going to show me a good time?” he teased. “Are you available for card games?”

  “I don’t know. I got big work problems. I’m hoping you’ll feel better and decide to come back here. It’ll be an adventure; I mean, traveling together. You could try it.”

  “The old black magic,” he said sarcastically. “It’s an interesting proposition.” But then he scowled. “Don’t try and talk me into coming back here.”

  “We’ll make a pact,” I said hastily.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know about Manhattan. Too many cars.”

  “Rome has worse traffic.”

  He smoothed his crew-cut stubble. “Lately when I cross a street I worry cars are trying to run me down.” He finally sat up again. “I had a close call three nights ago. I had to climb up the old olive tree in front of my meadow.”

  I looked at him like he was completely nuts.

  “I figured Anita would do anything to get at me,” he said.

  “She’s more direct.” I grinned.

  “She deliberately wore that red shirt,” he muttered. “I told her I would never go near red on location. She won’t let me rehearse in my lucky sneakers. I’d like to go somewhere and take it easy,” he said hoarsely. “I like you, I like the way you like me.”

  I had a flash picture of opening my front door to find him wearing my yellow apron and flipping an omelette in one of my unused shiny copper pans.

  “What a seduction machine,” I scolded.

  He drew his eyebrows together. “You been hurt bad.”

  “That’s a fancy line. What do you really want to do?”

  The coats slipped off his legs. I made no move to help him as he tried to pile them back on.

  “I wish I wanted something,” he said sadly.

  “You’re a good actor, and your work gets better.”

  “Bullshit. Anita treated me like cheesecake.”

  “I see rushes. I get real waves of feelings off your face, it’s very mobile and totally compelling. I can’t believe the misery.”

  “The work makes me miserable.”

  I tried not to smile. “You’re breaking through. You’re expressing a whole new range of feelings.”

  “It’s all fake. I’m like a prostitute faking orgasms.”

  “No, you’re deepening yourself.” I sounded like Mary Poppins with a clinical psychology degree. “Let’s stop negotiating and get you to the doctor anyway. We got ten minutes.” I handed him one of his sneakers.

  I braced my leg against his and helped him stuff his arms in one of the coats. Outside on the rocking deck I walked him past the smiling man in the turban. I unzipped my pocketbook and gave him a hundred-dollar bill. “We’ll take an hour.”

  At the gangplank Jack reached into his dungarees, brandished his own bent green passport, and dropped it into the deep gray ocean. I gasped as it washed sideways and sank.

  “Goodbye, Jack Hanscomb,” he said in a loud voice.

  “Very dramatic.”

  I backed up a paved one-way street and parked in front of a turquoise building with a sign for a Dr. Mildvan. A ceiling fan and three molded plastic chairs were the only furniture in the waiting room. Pinned on the walls were a child’s watercolors of King David’s life.

  As Jack slumped down into his chair, a short curvy woman in white with a stethoscope around her neck and a tiny diamond wristwatch came through a door. Her thick black hair made an aureole of curls around her head. She was wearing pale beige lipstick and dark eyeliner that emphasized her small almond-shaped eyes snapping with energy. She extended her hand to me. I hit him with my elbow. He jumped awake.

  “Shalom,” she said formally in a British-Israeli accent. I smelled Chanel No. 5. Her hand was small and tense.

  “He’s the patient,” I said.

  “Let’s take a look,” she said in her liquid but tough voice. “This way, please.”

  “The local virus,” he said, standing like he had two broken knees.

  I watched her neutral face anxiously. She pulled a pair of round glasses out of her pocket. They magnified her dark eyes. She didn’t seem to recognize him. He looked like a scruffy invalid. “What are your symptoms?” I heard her ask before she closed the door to the examining room.

  Alone, I noted her certificate in English and Hebrew. She was a colonel in the army medical corps. I bet she had some life story. But I was in a pickle. What was I doing? Was I really strong enough to resist his seduction? I didn’t need to get hurt again. Where could I stash him in New York? What was I going to do with a sick and distraught movie star who needed people jumping up and down and bursting into applause every time he hiccuped. His hotel was completely public; everybody would know him.

  The door opened. She leaned out. “You may come in.”

  He sat on the edge of the steel examining table, buttoning his dungarees. I noted dark oil smears on his tee shirt. The room smelled of tart rubbing alcohol.

  She was sitting on a stool and writing on a pad. “I will prescribe some sulfa drug for the hypothermia. His temperature must not fall below normal. He will lose consciousness.”

  “We don’t have time,” I faltered.

  She pulled open a drawer in a white cabinet. “I have samples in here.”

  He asked her, “Am I contagious?”

  She crossed her white-stockinged legs and shook her head. I tucked pills in my purse. “Four times a day, for ten days, and not on an empty stomach. Your virus is a small mystery. It resembles malaria and has become rather a star in the area of infectious medicine.”

  “How come everybody on this island isn’t sick?” I asked.

  “Inoculations,” she said slowly, smiling a little for the first time. “We give our babies a mild chicken pox virus and that seems to work.”

  She sucked in her thin cheeks. “I hear your movie is going well.” She so
unded droll.

  We both stared at her.

  When he didn’t respond she twisted the rubber cord out of her stethoscope. “I never expected to treat you.”

  His eyes darted to me, and he practiced smiling. He looked better already. I asked, “What happens to the star here?”

  “I take pills and I sweat,” he said in a relaxed voice.

  “He goes through cycles,” she said. “Right now, he’s bad, high fever, then hypothermia, but it goes away and recurs in mild forms. I gave him a chicken pox and sulfa shot.” She switched on a small flashlight and beamed it into his eyes. “How’s your vision?”

  “Fine.”

  “Night vision?”

  He shrugged.

  “No hallucinations, no problems with moving things?”

  He shook his head. No mention of cars coming at him.

  “Can he travel?”

  “The sulfa will work fine.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” I asked.

  “Baths to sweat the fever,” she said.

  “How long will he be sick?”

  “At least forty-eight hours,” she said. She pointed her finger at him and visibly softened. “Rest, calm and rest.”

  He raised his head. “Any other symptoms, Doc, besides chills and fatigue?”

  “Depression. The body’s response to a bug it can’t defeat comes as a kind of mental exhaustion.” Her eyes jumped all over his face.

  He quirked his eyebrows at her. “You got a telephone number in case I need some questions answered later?”

  She stood up. “Yes, and I have a monograph I published in The New England Journal on your bug.”

  “Good,” I answered for him. He seemed to fade in and out. “What’s your fee?” I asked.

  She was pulling a white file drawer, and handing me a glossy magazine. “I compare it to an epidemic of hoof-and-mouth disease in Cambridgeshire a few years back.”

  “I got loads of Israeli dollars,” Jack said.

  She waved her hand. “Well, I do have a favor.”

  We both waited.

  She poked at her thick hair. “I have a camera, if you wouldn’t mind—”

  He lifted his head and beamed that big bright winning smile. That smile you would kill to protect.

  She disappeared into the reception area and came back with an impressive Rollei. She focused it for me, and sat down next to him on the black chair, her hands folded on one knee.