Dreams Are Not Enough

by Jacqueline Briskin

  When Alyssia’s scenes in Le Feu were completed, Saint-Simon formally released her from the remainder of her contract. His bushy whiskers prickling her cheeks, he wished her goodbye and “Bonne chance en Ollywooood.”

  Barry yearned to return home in first-class triumph. But since both his and Alyssia’s salaries for Wandering On had been deferred, and since she was still in hock to Saint-Simon for the house repairs, he sat crammed shoulder to thigh with his wife and her maid on a Paris/Los Angeles charter flight.

  When he dozed, Alyssia and Juanita went to stand by the bulkhead near the toilets.

  Juanita turned to her sister. “Now we’re going home, why don’t you explain all this to me.”

  “Explain what?”

  “I know you’re only making this movie on Barry’s account. What I can’t figure is why you’re so antsy. I’ve never seen you like this before. Is it to do with Barry’s uncle, Maxim’s dad? You told me he wanted you out of the country.”

  Alyssia gazed down at the clouds. “That was a long time ago—six years. By now he doesn’t care where I live.”

  “So if you aren’t afraid of him, what’ve you got against California?”

  Alyssia rested her cheek against the small oval window. “Remember I told you I was in love and we broke up?” she said slowly. “It was Maxim’s brother, Hap.”

  “The one who’s directing?”

  “Yes. Hap’s nothing like Maxim. He doesn’t have that clever mouth, he’s totally decent. I told him all about our lives, how I grew up, and it didn’t faze him. He’s got gray eyes and blond hair and he’s big. You trust him right away. Mr. Cordiner arranged for Saint-Simon to hire me to separate us. There was no way I could tell Hap about what his father had done, so he must’ve thought I picked a chance at a career over a life with him. He’s going with a very rich girl now.”

  “And after all these years, you’re still carrying a torch?”

  Alyssia’s assenting sigh fogged the window. “I know it’s not logical, but yes. Oh Nita, how am I going to bear being with him every day, knowing he despises me? How am I going to bear seeing him with this girl?”

  18

  Hap had selected Mendocino and Fort Bragg in northern California for the Wandering On location. The neighboring small towns, situated on the ruggedly scenic coastline amid stands of redwoods, each represented a major constituency in the two divergent factions ripping at the seams of American society. The straight quality of Fort Bragg, a lumbering community, showed in the bars and gun shops, in the short-haired males, in the flags fluttering at gas stations and stores. Mendocino, the quaint remnants of a Portuguese fishing village, drew hip young vacationers as well as weavers and potters whose galleries were decorated with peace symbols. College dropouts peacefully tended small patches of cannabis hidden in the nearby forest.

  To this optimum site Harvard Productions transported a skeleton crew of less than thirty people including the half-dozen actors. All were successful and sought after. Yet because Wandering On made a strong pro–Civil Rights, anti-Vietnam statement, each had agreed to accept union scale. Despite this political solidarity the immutable caste system of the Industry prevailed. Nowhere was it more obvious than in the housing that Maxim had arranged: the assistant director, the assistant cameraman, the script girl, the electricians—all the lesser folk, among them Juanita—took over a spartan motel outside of Fort Bragg. The prettily shingled cottages scattered around Three Rock Inn sheltered the producer, the director and his lady, the cinematographer, the stars and the scenarist.

  • • •

  “I damn well smell it’s going badly,” Barry said, his pugnacity bolstered by Johnny Walker.

  Maxim replied, “And of course your nose is attuned to these things, being a long-term film-sniffing veteran.”

  “I’ve been close enough to the business to know any production with a script that’s being constantly rewritten during shooting is in serious trouble.”

  “Barry-boy, we aren’t grinding out dead studio sausage. Wandering On lives and breathes. Therefore your immortal prose must inevitably be altered. Which, if you recall, is why you’re here.”

  Their argument was taking place in a small, crammed trailer. The double bed built into the rear remained, as did the red breakfast booth where Barry crouched behind his typewriter, but all other fittings had been removed to make space for a small copying machine and a large, pink hairdresser’s chair now occupied by Alyssia. For her role of Cassie, she wore a long madras dress glinting with bits of mirror, leather sandals, a half-dozen turquoise and silver necklaces. Ken Papton, his face intent, dexterously tousled her hair while she watched her husband and Maxim.

  She had always considered Maxim the most arrogantly spoiled of the cousins—the family wastrel. But during the two weeks of pre-production rehearsals in Los Angeles and the ten days on location her opinion had altered radically. Maxim rivaled Saint-Simon in organizational ability. He cajoled, coerced, expedited, outdoing the frugal Frenchman in thrift. When July rain had fallen, days that other crews (on full pay) would have been playing cards, knitting, or listening to KMFB on the radio, Maxim had kept them working. He was a genius at location logistics.

  Since filming had begun he had lost five pounds, and now, leaning with one hand on Barry’s table, he resembled a wire-thin, Giacometti statue.

  With ostentatious movements, Barry inserted a new sheet of paper into his typewriter. “I’ll have new lines for you by noon,” he said, glaring at Alyssia—it was for her role that Maxim had requested the additional dialogue.

  The hairdresser said, “Spray coming.”

  Alyssia curved her hands on around her cheeks and forehead as hard-scented lacquer hissed through the trailer.

  Maxim coughed. “The next best thing to Mace,” he said, opening the door. “Come on, Alyssia.” He trailed a caress down her flank as she edged past him.

  Maxim was forever giving her long, knowing smiles or touching her. Yet she could not quite believe he meant serious business. For such a famed philanderer, his smiles lacked intimate heat and there was something noncommittal about his touch, as if his fingers were tracing a road map rather than her flesh.

  Though this was the latter part of July, the cloud cover sagged like a cold and sodden army blanket. Today they were shooting in an area the locals called the Pygmy Forest—here, for some lack in the soil, the pines grew no taller than man-high.

  As Alyssia hurried to where the crew worked around a bus gaudily decorated with slogans and signs, Maxim easily matched her pace. Draping an arm on her shoulder, he let his fingers dangle possessively near her breast. She broke away, jogging to a clump of scrubby trees where Hap, wearing a sleeveless quilted vest, stood talking intently to a tall, extraordinarily striking blonde.

  Whitney Charles of the Charles-Boston Bank played Louise, a minor, also-featuring role. Other than her part there was nothing minor about Whitney. A great deal of money had gone into producing the nearly six foot, athletic yet curved body, and at least a million strokes of a brush held by nannies and governesses had polished the blonde hair which fell straight and gleaming around her shoulders. The shearling coat thrown over her costume was no ordinary sheepskin, but had been designed for her by Revillon.

  As Alyssia neared them, Hap turned, smiling. The smile could be the standard for courteous respect. His mouth curved amiably, his gray eyes showed nothing but polite pleasure.

  “Brought you our starwoman,” Maxim said. With an adieu pat to Alyssia’s hip, he continued to the generator, talking to the electrician.

  “Hi, Alyssia,” Whitney said. Her color-slashed cheeks, glamorous in repose, drew in so deeply when she smiled that the lower part of her face appeared hollow.

  After Alyssia returned the smiles and greetings with forced animation, she moved to the white tape that was her marker.

  The morning thus far had proceeded with the predictability that had given Wandering On its surreal quality. Everybody was behaving so true to form as to be dis
torted self-parodies. Since landing at LAX, Barry had drunk steadily, blaming her for the stream of script changes. She knew that every alteration forced on him caused him to feel he’d failed not only as a novelist but also as a scriptwriter; however, the knowledge didn’t help her transcend the often public humiliation he heaped on her. Maxim, on the other hand, stalked her like a predator. She kept up the pretense that his interest was a running gag between them, but the cast and crew, aware of Maxim Cordiner’s randy reputation, watched for further developments with interest bordering on the salacious.

  Then there was Hap.

  At the first rehearsal—after six long years—his greeting had been, “Alyssia, I can’t tell you how I admire your work. I’m a novice at directing, so I’d appreciate any feedback you can give me.” He had spoken with the deference granted to long reigning stars, and no other intonation. “Uhh, it’s good to see you again, Hap,” she had murmured. When the actors had started their initial reading of lines she had drawn on all her craft, but even so her voice had quavered embarrassingly. After a few minutes she had pleaded a sudden onset of the twenty-four-hour flu and left.

  The assistant cameraman held up the slate board (SCENE 45/TAKE 1), clapping the two pieces together loudly.

  “Quiet everybody,” the assistant director called. “This is a take.”

  Hap looked encouragingly at Whitney, who blew him a kiss before she began her designated stroll past the psychedelic bus.

  Alyssia stepped forward on cue. She thought: To me it was the love affair of the century, to him nothing more than a few highly forgettable boffs. What was Desmond Cordiner so worried about?

  19

  “Why not forget going up to dinner tonight, Mrs. Cordiner,” Juanita said, folding a silk nightgown on one side of the turned-down patchwork quilt. “I’ll go up and get you a tray.”

  “Juanita’s right, hon,” Barry called from the bathroom. Recovered from this morning’s petulance, he was in a mood that could only be described as chipper. “You look worn-out. Why not just get into bed.”

  “I’m perfectly fine,” Alyssia lied. Fatigue dragged at her muscles and her nerve ends felt rubbed raw.

  She was in almost every scene, and this had caused a full-blown case of star’s overload, the most terrifyingly lonely of all show-biz fears. What if she couldn’t summon up a credible performance? What if she couldn’t carry off Cassie’s transformation from outcast, oddball town girl to a free spirit? What if because of her, Wandering On flopped? In addition to the doubts that haunted her, she was shooting exteriors in rough weather conditions. The sensible course, as suggested by Barry and Juanita, would be to go to bed with a light supper. Instead, and this seemed the ultimate in masochism, every night she accompanied Barry to the table reserved for Maxim, Diller, Whitney and Hap in the inn’s dining room. Like a helpless moth fluttering to the light, she was unable to stay away from Hap.

  • • •

  Alyssia sat poking at her roast beef while pretending to listen to Maxim. Lounging in the captain’s chair next to hers, he was entertaining her with stories about the film Marilyn Monroe had made at Magnum. Hap’s head was inclined toward Diller as they discussed the rushes, which came in from a San Francisco lab on the daily commercial flight. At the far end of the table, Whitney was inquiring, “Barry, don’t you agree that John Barth’s the greatest living American writer?” Being an English major at a finishing school in Virginia had nudged her toward Barry, the company’s man of letters.

  “—her skirt whirled out and the crew got a mass hard-on.” Maxim stopped abruptly. “Alyssia, you aren’t listening.”

  “Marilyn wasn’t wearing underpants.”

  “You missed the key sentence. Nobody knew it, but she was.”

  “No tests tonight, Maxim,” she said wearily. “Please?”

  “You do look run-in.” He pressed his warm, bony calf against hers.

  She shifted as far from him as the large chair permitted. “Working in the cold’s always rough on me.”

  He glanced at the sleekly modern brass clock hands affixed to the rough rocks above the fireplace. “Nearly quarter past ten. Time for me to escort this worn-out star to her cottage.”

  “No!” she snapped. “Barry’ll take me.” She glanced down the table. “Barry?”

  Her spouse continued to wax erudite on The Sot-Weed Factor.

  “Barry?” she repeated more loudly.

  He finally turned away from Whitney. “Yes, hon?”

  “I don’t think I can last through dessert.”

  “Go on ahead then, hon.” He poured Napa Valley Bordeaux into Whitney’s glass and his own. “I’ll be down in a little while.”

  “So much for Barry-boy,” Maxim said sotto voce, adding normally, “Can’t have shadows under those big blue eyes tomorrow, can we? Come on, Alyssia. Beddie bye.”

  Diller gave her and Maxim a sliding glance. From allusions and gratuitous smirks around the set, she had learned for certain that he was homosexual, and—though neither a glance on his part nor a word of gossip verified this—she intuited that his affections were directed toward Maxim. Maxim’s flagrant pursuit of her must therefore be as painful to him as she found witnessing Hap and Whitney enter their shared cottage.

  She continued to protest. “You ordered chocolate soufflé, Maxim. Stay and eat it.”

  “We can’t have you tripping.”

  It was then that Hap turned to her. “I’ll see you down, Alyssia,” he said.

  She had been taking a final sip of wine. The glass shook and red drops spilled on the white cloth. Although Hap epitomized professional solicitousness, he had never before extended personal chivalry. To be alone with him in the pine-fragrant darkness? After those dreams about him, dreams from whose eroticism she awoke with her thighs clenched? What if her control failed her, what if she threw her arms around him, kissing him—what if she found herself caressing him in the old, explicit ways?

  “I appreciate all the concern, guys,” she said resolutely, and stood. “But I’m a big girl.”

  Maxim, too, was standing. “Alyssia, forget the women’s lib business,” he said. “Come along.”

  Clasping her cape tightly around herself, she walked apart from Maxim as they crossed Highway One and circled the three enormous gray boulders that gave the inn its name. A fog had rolled off in the Pacific and the occasional lamp suspended from the tall sequoias cast hazy, aureoled pools of light on the winding path ahead of them.

  Maxim broke the silence. “What gives, Alyssia?”

  “I was thinking about tomorrow’s lines.”

  “Stop being obtuse. I meant about us.”

  “Oh, Maxim, come on.”

  They were passing the fork that led to Whitney and Hap’s cottage. Maxim halted under the light to extend both hands. “Look,” he said. “Not a finger missing. No symptoms of leprosy.”

  “Let’s forget this pointless conversation.”

  “I’m asking about you and me, chick.”

  “There’s nothing,” she said.

  “Nothing? Isn’t nothing exactly what you’re getting from Barry?”

  “He’s all upset.” She was too weary and too caught up in fending off Maxim’s advances to realize that this defense of her spouse answered the question. “He doesn’t understand that scripts are written to be changed.”

  “Let’s omit his problems as a writer as well as his obvious difficulties with the bottle. What’s pertinent is, can he get it up?”

  Alyssia started toward the next lantern.

  “So he can’t,” Maxim said. “Then why not you and me?”

  “Oh, get lost!”

  Gripping her arm, he halted her again. His eyes glinted in the darkness for a long moment as he stared down, then he bent to kiss her. His lingual foray toward the back of her throat, a slithering, curling exploration, nauseated her.

  Wrenching her neck backward and to the side, she managed to escape. “No!”

  “Nature didn’t intend a body like your
s for celibacy,” he muttered.

  Exerting her muscles, she pushed both hands at his bony chest. Surprisingly, he released her. Adrenaline flooding her, she dashed downhill toward her cottage.

  At the gingerbread fretwork porch, she fumbled with the large iron key. Maxim, catching up, took it to unlock the door.

  “See you tomorrow morning,” she said.

  “It’s not goodnight time yet.”

  He shoved her into the tiny vestibule, grasping her arm, dragging her into the bedroom.

  She shouted, “Goddamn you, Maxim, get away from me or I’ll kill you!” She slapped, kicked, but her cries and blows had no more effect on him than if she were a paper cutout.

  “You need it, need it badly,” he muttered. “And I’m really hung up on you.”

  Pushing her on the bed, he pinned her shoulders to the quilt. By the dim, brown cone of light from the bedside lamp that Juanita always left on, Alyssia saw that Maxim’s thin lips were twisted.

  His expression was one of yearning grief.

  Maxim sad? Impossible.

  Then his mouth came down on hers for another brutal kiss. She wrenched away. “Get out of here,” she panted. By now terror ruled her. Though his hands immobilized her shoulders, she flipped and twisted in the same way as a landed fish attempts to escape the boat deck, a struggle over which her brain had little control. She tried to knee him, but he anticipated her, capturing her raised thigh between his thin, strong thighs.

  “Maxim, get out!” she panted. “Do you hear me? Get the hell out of my room!”

  He jerked her onto her stomach.

  One hand manacling both her wrists behind the small of her back, he managed to drag down her slacks and French silk underpants. Thrashing, she thought of Henry Lopez—had she been quicker and stronger then, or was Henry a more clumsy rapist than Maxim? He was on top of her, his hands roughly spreading her buttocks.