“We don’t fly commercial,” Jeff said. Ah, I thought, they want a private plane. Oxford had a private plane, but it was strictly reserved for the top-level studio executives. If the studio gave it to one star, then every other star would demand the private plane. The cost was prohibitive to say the least. But maybe, just maybe, I could make another miracle happen.
“I might be able to get the Oxford jet,” I said.
“No. Not the Oxford jet,” Jeff answered. “We want the same plane the president rides in.”
“The president of the studio?” I was bewildered.
“The President of the United States.”
I sat back in my chair. “You want Air Force One?” I asked incredulously. This was definitely a new one.
“Danny told me he got that plane when he had to fly to do publicity for his last film.” Danny DiNoda, as every moviegoer knew, was the star of enormous hits. He had generated literally billions and billions of dollars at the box office. Mentally, I cursed the studio that had set a precedent by getting a plane that had served as Air Force One for their star. “And when Katsu called me this morning he said he thought it was a great idea.”
“Katsu called you?” Furious, I could barely keep my tone polite.
“Yeah. He seems like a great guy. He said he wanted to help you out on Jet Fuel because you have an overwhelming number of movies to work on.”
Katsu used the word overwhelming? Un-freaking-believable! It was a classic vinegar-wrapped-in-sugar kind of statement. He was pretending that he wanted to “help” me while also subtly indicating that I was no longer capable. The word “overwhelming” meant that a situation had become unmanageable for a person. It indicated weakness. Katsu had used that word very intentionally.
I forgot Jeff Cross was even on the line until he said, “Katsu told me and Stephanie that if you couldn’t figure out how to get the president’s plane, he could probably pull it off. That’s what he said, anyhow.”
I’m sure he did.
“Wow. I guess I can check on it,” I said carefully. As Katsu was well aware, there was no way I was going to be able to get that plane. Neither could he, for that matter. “Is there anything else you would like?” The sarcasm in my voice was lost on Jeff Cross.
“Yeah,” he said. “Stephanie and I want one thousand tea candles set up in our suite—purple tea candles. And the suite has to be redone entirely in white. White carpets, white drapes, white bedding, white furniture, white bathroom fixtures. You get the idea.”
After I hung up, I figured I’d better get all the facts before taking this “upstairs” to the powers that be. I called a friend at the rival studio. True enough, they had secured one of the planes that had served as Air Force One for their billion-dollar box office star.
Surely, that had to have been before 9/11, didn’t it? I asked. I was hopeful it would all be a moot point in this day and age. No, my friend had replied, it was only last year. A lot of different planes could be used as Air Force One. Baffled at government security, I thanked my friend and hung up. I had to take off my shoes to get through airport screening but any random person with enough money could hire out Air Force One? Amazing.
My friend had given me contact information for the plane. After checking to see whether Aidan had called or emailed (he hadn’t), I got to work. Two hours later, after umpteen phone calls and transfers from one department to the next, I got my answer. One of the planes was available. The cost to use it would fund a small nation for a year. I called the Four Seasons. Getting this answer was less problematic. Sure, they said, they could redo everything in white within two days. With all the stars who stayed there, they were as used to strange requests as I was. But even I gasped at the price they quoted me.
In between the Jet Fuel problems, I was working the phones like a madman trying to get the TechnoCat trailer shoot organized.
After I compiled all the budget numbers relating to Air Force One and the Four Seasons, I took everything to Rachael. Silently she reviewed the demands along with the numbers. After questioning me closely about how hard I had tried to dissuade Jeffanie from the president’s plane, she decided we needed to take this to the chairman of the studio. Not only was the budget astronomical but there were many political considerations as well. Rachael had the power to give the approvals but I knew she wasn’t going to have this one on her head alone.
We took a golf cart across the studio lot to Vincent’s office. The chairman and the production people were in a different building from the marketing people. It was a good two or three city blocks, filled with soundstages, between the buildings. When we entered his cavernous office, he could tell from the looks on our faces that this wasn’t good.
Somberly, we looked at all the options. None were that appealing. Denying Jeffanie would jeopardize the current negotiations to get Jeff Cross for the sequel to Jet Fuel. On top of that, Oxford Music was near completing a contract to sign the platinum-selling Stephanie Langer to its label. It had already been a delicate negotiation. Finally, after discussing the pros, the cons, and the political fallout of setting such a precedent, a decision was made. We would do everything that was asked except, Vincent announced, the tea candles.
“Why not the tea candles?” I was startled. By far this was the most insignificant cost.
“Just to piss them off.” He laughed. “But honestly, why does anyone need a thousand tea candles?” Vincent poured himself some Perrier. “They’re just seeing how far they can push us. Plus, I don’t trust them with fire. They’re nuts.”
I practically bit his head off. “Don’t make my job any harder. They’re looking for any reason to back out of this.” I caught myself as Vincent sat back and frowned at me. Oh God, I had just spoken rudely to the chairman. Worse, I had not been calm. To my thinking, you must be calm and controlled in a studio. Clearing my throat I continued in an even, moderate voice. “It’s better for the studio to just give them the candles. There is too much at stake.” Not to mention better for me, as I was sure Katsu would go straight to Jeffanie to tell them I had failed to get them the thousand tea candles.
Vincent considered and finally nodded his head. “Oh all right, Jeannie. You get your way. But we’re going to squeeze this for publicity,” he said firmly. “Every photographer within a hundred miles of New York and Los Angeles will be alerted as to when Jeffanie are traveling.” As I stood up to leave I heard him mutter, “I’ll make their lives hell with the paparazzi. Serves the bastards right.”
Since Rachael wanted to discuss other matters with Vincent, I left her the golf cart and began walking back across the lot. Darkness had fallen. I walked past the silent soundstages where silver screen history had been made for decades. Past the little house that used to contain classrooms for child actors in the nineteen forties and fifties. Past the recording studio where one-hundred-piece orchestras recorded the music for the films. The long trek gave me time to think about my situation with Aidan.
I could just write an email telling him that it was Lucy in my house and not some mysterious Dream Date. But that felt oddly impersonal, as did trying to explain the whole situation to his voice mail. He was still going to be angry once he found out one of my sisters had been in the house and I hadn’t introduced them. Which unfortunately reminded me that my three sisters were probably trashing my good name at this very moment. Then I checked my watch. No, they had already finished trashing me and were probably all tucked in for the night by now. My thoughts drifted from families to marriage. Why couldn’t Aidan just leave it all alone? Everything had been fine just the way it was until he proposed.
My marriage to Walker had been an emotional disaster. But, I questioned myself, Aidan and Walker were as different from each other as black and white, weren’t they? Walker had forced me to vacation every Christmas for six years at his family’s ski condo in Aspen instead of going to North Muskegon. Every time I suggested we spend the holiday with my family Walker brought up the year that my mom poured alcohol over a fru
itcake and, holding it merrily aloft, set it ablaze. Unfortunately this had frightened Ake, the dog, who knocked my mom and the fruitcake into the Christmas tree, setting that on fire, too.
Mom was fine. But by the time the fire trucks left we were minus part of our roof and most of the TV room. The local news station played the footage of the blaze over and over, along with rehashing older news stories about my family. Walker was horrified we had created such a commotion in our town yet again. Surely Aidan wouldn’t hold something like that against me, would he?
I looked up as I crossed the courtyard, with its mature eucalyptus trees. The old-fashioned streetlights lining the golf cart path lit up the branches. Nobody seemed to be around. Looking over my shoulder, I determined that I was, in fact, alone. Mindful of my skirt and high heels, I sat down on the grass next to the cart path. Then I lay all the way down so I could study the way the lights shone through the leaves of the trees above me. It looked the same way it did when I was a kid, lying in the intersection of a quiet street. Every color of green rustled in the warm wind against the black sky. I knew I loved Aidan. But he just didn’t know what he was getting into. If he didn’t accept my family the way I did, shouldn’t I protect him from all of that? And myself? The grass poked me through my white shirt and against my legs but I still lay there.
“You all right?” A voice on the cart path startled me upright. It was a security guard making rounds. He leaned out of his golf cart to peer at me suspiciously.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine.” Awkwardly, I got to my feet while trying to keep my skirt down. Next I picked up my notebooks lying on the grass.
“Bit of a weird place to take a nap.” The security guard still eyed me warily. “I thought you were dead.”
“I just . . . I just . . .” I didn’t know how to explain what I had been doing. I finally settled for, “I’m not dead.”
“You never know around here,” he said as he started to drive off. “You wouldn’t believe the stuff I’ve seen.” Oh, yes, I would, I thought to myself as I brushed myself off. I walked fast to get back to my office. Once there, I planned to grab my purse and head straight for Aidan’s. We were going to talk this out once and for all. I had to make him understand that a girl shouldn’t have to choose between the love of a man and the love of her family.
Entering the empty lobby of my building I said hello to the night security guard at the desk. We were old friends by now. Usually we were the only ones in the building at midnight long after the cleaning crew had left. Tonight, though, a workman was also in the lobby. He was putting the latest poster for TechnoCat into one of the frames that held the posters of all of the current Oxford Pictures releases. He finished and shut the glass door to the case as I was crossing the wide terrazzo floor.
Mid-step, I froze. There, larger than life, was the little “doohickey” sticking up on the side of Esperanza’s head. The doohickey she had said reminded her of her third grade photo, which had made her cry for years. The doohickey I had promised I would fix. The glaring flaw was right now being posted in theaters around the country—hell, around the world—as I stood and stared at it.
I had sent the wrong artwork to print.
Chapter Thirty
November 1986
I crossed another phone number off the Xeroxed list and listlessly picked up the phone again. It was a beige rotary phone and I used a pencil to dial so I wouldn’t have to touch its germy face. It was my own fault. I never should have answered the ad in the student paper.
“Good evening, ma’am,” I started.
“Is this a sales call?” The female voice was pure vinegar.
What a bitch, I thought, but I continued, sugar sweet. “No, ma’am. I’m calling for the Lansing-area Sew-Bee’s charity.” We were instructed to say that, even though it really was a sales call. I didn’t want to give her time to hang up as I rushed on. I find most people are at least polite enough to listen to three or four sentences before they slam down the phone. “We have a coupon book for you with over one thousand dollars in savings at your area establishments!” The exclamation point was written on the script that was provided to us callers. I rarely sounded that enthusiastic, but my boss was standing over me observing. A dial tone was the answer to the exciting news I had imparted. I smiled up at my boss. “Now, ma’am,” I continued to the dial tone, “you can get a three-dollar coupon to the Smart and Sassy dry cleaner on Grand Avenue and that’s only one of these great values!” My boss moved away to monitor the next caller. I hung up the phone and stretched.
I was sitting with twelve other women at long folding tables in the Ramada Inn conference room. The walls were beige, the floor was beige, and the phones were beige. The only thing with any color was my boss’s shirt, an ugly polyester thing with swirling, swishing colors. He sat in front while he ate McDonald’s fries. He wiped one back and forth in the ketchup that he’d squeezed from the little packet onto the wrapper from his Big Mac.
God, how much longer did I have to stay here? Lucy had landed a job as hostess at the restaurant in the Kellogg Center on campus. I envied her. Chuck would be at the house by the time we got there. He’d be sprawled on the couch that had provided years, if not decades, of flopping enjoyment to other students, watching Wheel of Fortune and drinking a Moosehead. It was the only thing I’d seen him excited about since we’d arrived at Michigan State—a Canadian beer.
I dialed the next number on the list. I was supposed to have had my very own place for the very first time in my life. My roommate and I had rented the top half of a house on Virginia Street, on the edge of campus. She was doing the fall semester overseas and wasn’t going to be back until January. I would actually be alone. But when Lucy, Chuck, and I had arrived with our shared U-Haul, we had discovered that there was a mix-up with married housing. Lucy and Chuck were out of luck. Chuck hadn’t sent in the deposit check.
“You told me you mailed it!” Lucy fumed while we sat in the parking lot of married housing just off Hagadorn Road. Other students teemed around us, shouting and laughing, playing Frisbee or carrying milk crates of personal belongings into the dorms. Somebody blared the MSU fight song from an open window. “Go right through for MSU. Watch the points keep growing. Spartan teams are bound to win . . .” The song echoed through the streets. When it got to the part that goes, “They’re fighting with a vim!” I thought, as I did every time, What the hell kind of word is “vim”? Why couldn’t we have a cool fight song like the University of Michigan? “Hail to the victors, valiant! Hail to the conquering heroes! . . .” Now that was a fight song.
“What did you do with the deposit?” Lucy demanded. Chuck shrugged and put another pinch of tobacco chew between his cheek and gum. So they wound up living with me. They paid rent to my grateful, absent roommate and everyone was happy except me. But I never would have told them that. That might have made them feel bad.
When the clock finally said 9:00 p.m. I raced out past the full-sized, black plaster Angus cow at the hotel entrance and hurried to the Kellogg Center. Lucy was waiting for me out front. She threw her backpack into the backseat. Mom and Dad had bought us a sixteen-year-old Oldsmobile sedan so we could get around. Sometimes we had to start it by touching a screwdriver to the battery. We didn’t know why that worked but it did. If you’ve ever trudged through two-foot snowdrifts, you’d know that you don’t care what kind of car you’re driving as long as it moves and has heat. Lucy and Chuck had the little red Ford they’d driven from Monterey, but Chuck needed it to get to his job at the Mr. Taco.
“Are you ready for your test?” I asked her.
She blew on her hands, rubbed them together, and then held them up to the semi-useless heater vent. “Not even close. I put in thirty hours at work this week.”
Lucy studied religiously every night. She had been getting straight A’s while pulling a full load of classes and working almost full time. She refused to take money from Mom and Dad for rent or school, and I knew it was tight for her and Chuck. I had to pay f
or my books, food, and entertainment by myself, but Mom and Dad handled the rest. I often told Lucy she was making me look bad.
Chuck didn’t even look up from the television when we came in. He just shouted, “Shut the door! It’s fucking freezing out there. I don’t know how people can live in this weather.”
Lucy kissed him on top of his head. “How was work?”
“Shitty.” He tipped the beer bottle up and sucked. He reeked of taco meat and cigarette smoke.
Lucy went to the kitchen, which was separated from the living room by a counter, and put a frozen pizza in the oven. “Does your boss still want you to wear that foam thing?” she called over the counter. Chuck’s only response was to start flipping channels via the remote.
I sat on the stool at the counter. “What foam thing?”
“You know, like one of those costumes that people wear. They go out on the street corner and wave at passing cars dressed like a giant hot dog or, in this case, a giant taco. It’s supposed to bring customers into the store.”
“Why? Because seeing a guy dressed in foam is so appetizing?”
Lucy shrugged and bent over her books. I picked up the mail lying on the counter. Flipping through it I saw that the phone bill had arrived and slipped it into my pocket. I had noticed that a strange long distance number had showed up on the last two bills. Last month when we got the bill, I called information and found out that the area code was for Illinois. I called the number, and when a woman answered, I asked formally, “To whom am I speaking?”
She replied, “Carla,” and not knowing what else to say, I had abruptly hung up the phone.
I didn’t know if this was the girl whom Chuck had been seeing when Lucy married him or a new one. No time seemed like a good time to confront Chuck, so I’d been stashing the bills away for the past couple of months. I couldn’t afford to pay them by myself. So I figured that when the phone company turned off the phone that would be a good time to have the discussion.
Born Under a Lucky Moon Page 28
