A light tap on the door. “Miss del Mar?”
The attacks had begun immediately after she broke up with Hap, which meant she’d been having them for approximately ten years. Thus far she had discerned only one rule. They invariably occurred while she was working. Beyond that, nothing could be calculated, all was random. Sometimes, as today, she would be felled in the midst of some simpleminded dialogue. It could happen when hordes of union-scale extras surrounded her or when she was alone with her makeup woman. Sometimes two or three would blitz her in a single week, then several months would pass, raising her hopes of a cure, making the inevitable recurrence more devastating. She had told nobody but Juanita, safe repository of secrets. And to Juanita she had revealed only a tiny fraction of the physical dimension of her problem and none of the terror—this awesome, primal terror. Through the years she had consulted with cardiologists, internists, an oncologist or two. Each gave her a clean bill of health. She tried a psychiatrist. He stated unequivocally that the problem must be uncovered before the symptoms could be cured. Accordingly, she visited him five evenings a week after leaving the studio. Within six months the attacks were coming so fast and furious that she was forced to choose between analysis or her career. To the disgruntlement of her psychiatrist, she chose her work. The attacks again became sporadic.
A series of knocks sounded on the door. Prone on the rug, she felt the jarring vibrations.
“Miss del Mar, can you hear me?” The peevish voice of the director.
Go away, leave me alone.
“Miss del Mar, we need you on the set!”
From a book on phobics, she had gleaned a useful tip: count backward: . . . ninety . . . eight . . . ninety . . . seven . . .
A muttered but intentionally audible, “The last time I work with the fucking bitch.”
She had a reputation for being difficult.
The attack, while demonic, was not long-lasting. The worst of her terror and excruciating agony ended within fifteen minutes. She crawled to the sofa, lying with her hand over her still struggling chest. Her face was slack, her makeup sweat-streaked.
An hour later she was back on the set, glowing and simpering at Edgar Wiatt.
• • •
In New York she and Barry took an apartment at the Sherry Netherland—Juanita was housed many flights below in the comfortable rooms reserved for servants of hotel guests.
While Barry made the rounds of literary agents, Alyssia foraged through Bergdorf’s, Bendel’s and the nearby shops and boutiques. She bought a floor-length white Arctic fox cape and a red-dyed “fun” mink, sweaters and slacks and low-cut dresses; she chose a bakers’ dozen pairs of Maud Frizon shoes and three Hermès bags. She dropped in at Van Cleef’s, selecting a gold minaudière and a pavé diamond pin shaped like a bee. She dragged Juanita to Saks, charging four outfits plus a Persian lamb coat and six strands of freshwater pearls. “Where will I wear all this, in the kitchen?” Juanita protested. She bought gifts for Edgar Wiatt and everyone connected with Counter Point, even the snippy director. She bought exorbitant presents for Beth, Irving and Clarrie, for PD. She bought luxuries for her husband—cuff links in gold, in platinum; Dunhill pipes, a score of Turnbull and Asser shirts, Sulka cravats—he never wore ties—and hand-knit sweaters. She was in the grips of what she called the shoppees, a recklessness that salespeople blessed and her business manager deplored but could not stem. Bourgeois caution in spending was not part of Alyssia del Mar’s background.
Barry became a client of the Karl Balduff Agency.
During the two days that Balduff negotiated the contract for the four-page outline of Spy, the author and his wife explored the galleries of SoHo and wandered through Central Park, munching ethnic food from pushcarts. In horn-rimmed dark glasses, with a scarf covering her glossy black hair, Alyssia was seldom recognized.
After Barry signed the contract, he said, “What a magnificent few days!”
“I have until November. Let’s bum around Europe.”
“My book!” he cried in outrage. “What about my book?”
“You always liked working in the château,” she said. The family who had leased it from them had moved out three months previously.
“The perfect environs for literary endeavors,” he said, kissing her fondly. “We’ll go to Belleville-sur-Loire.”
• • •
They arrived late one September afternoon when a golden haze endowed the run-down nineteenth-century house with the same beglamoured mystery as the nearby historical châteaux. Getting out of the chauffeured Mercedes, Barry stared around.
“I’d almost forgotten what a jewel it is. We’ll start the renovations. First the roof. And the shed’s falling, so we might as well demolish it and incorporate a proper garage into the house.”
“Barry, we’re only going to be here a few weeks,” Alyssia reminded him.
“I’ll pay you back when my royalties start rolling in,” he said stiffly.
“Oh, Barry, that’s not what I meant at all. But you know me. I’m not much with decorating and that kind of thing. So everything’ll be up to you. And you’re here to work on Spy.”
“There are firms who specialize in modernization.”
“You really don’t mind putting in the effort?”
“I didn’t earn the wherewithal. And I can tell you’re not interested.”
It took her a week to convince him to go ahead.
Barry engaged Dupont et Cie, the pre-eminent Paris renovators, and work started immediately. Roofers swarmed above the expanse of broken slate. Masons matched stone, chiseling and fitting missing portions of the Norman fireplaces and main staircase. Two additional bathrooms were carved from the never-used upstairs sewing room; the kitchen was gutted.
Mornings Barry withdrew to the library—the one untouched room. Oblivious to the hammering, the ear-destroying power tools, the shouting, he scratched hastily across long sheets of yellow paper. Afternoons he spent with the workers, marking mistakes, offering suggestions, thoroughly enjoying himself.
Alyssia, on the other hand, found the tumult unbearable. She was growing more and more edgy. What in God’s name had possessed her to make this film? Tormenting enough to work with Hap, but being on location with him and Madeleine would be pure, unadulterated hell. And how could she give a performance when she hadn’t yet seen a script? She put in a call to PD.
“Alyssia, we’re talking a period piece. Period-type scripts need more polishing—you should capisce, you’re married to a writer.”
“I don’t mind if there’s changes, PD. But I need an idea of what I’m about. How else can I get inside my character?”
“Cara, you deserve a vacation,” he said.
• • •
Alyssia was due in Los Angeles for fittings and pre-production rehearsals the first week in November. The day before they were due to depart, Barry dropped his bombshell.
“I’ve given this great thought,” he said. “I can’t leave now.”
“What?”
“I’ve canceled my flight.”
“Barry, you promised.” Her voice rose an octave. To face Hap and Madeleine without him? Impossible. “You can’t back out on me.”
“My opus, the restorations. . . .”
“It’ll be quieter for you to write in Los Angeles,” she said, managing a reasonable tone. “And Monsieur Dupont has everything in hand.”
“The creative juices are flowing; the novel’s taking shape. How can you ask me to risk everything?”
“But you’ll only miss a day’s travel time,” she said, longing to ask, What about Hap? Aren’t you the least bit concerned?
“Have I ever uttered one syllable about where you work?”
“No, but—”
“Well, I am remaining here!” He stamped around the sawhorses, slamming the new, unpainted door after himself.
• • •
A few hours later he was saying apologetically, “Hon, I have my thrust. I can’t risk losing it. But
I don’t like thinking of you alone in the Beverly Hills house. It’s so isolated.”
He placed a call to Beth. She requested that Alyssia be put on the phone.
“You’ll stay with Irving and me,” Beth said firmly.
“I can’t. It’s a huge imposition.”
“Don’t be an idiot. Irving’s your biggest fan. And Clarrie adores you.”
“Thanks, Bethie. You really are a doll,” Alyssia said to her sister-in-law, who was also her friend. “I’ll see you in a couple of days.”
45
Waiting for Alyssia outside the LAX customs area was Bernard Whitson, senior partner of Ares and Whitson, her public relations firm. Bernard beamed proudly because he was surrounded by at least fifty newspeople. Alyssia, who had not anticipated the press, took a figurative step backward. The eleven-hour flight had zonked her more than usual. Briefly gripping Juanita’s hand to steady herself, she tilted her head back, smiling for the photographers, parrying with humor the storm of snoopy questions about Barry’s absence, about her rumored hot romance with Edgar Wiatt, about her upcoming direction by her former lover, Hap Cordiner.
By the time she and Juanita arrived at the Golds’ Holmby Hills estate, Beth had been called away. Alyssia showered and napped. When she awoke it was dark, and her hostess had returned.
The sisters-in-law embraced and went into the living room, which was dominated by Irving’s prized Monet “Nymphéas”—the great drifts of water lilies set the room’s color scheme of floaty mauves and celadons.
“There was an emergency about the big United Way luncheon,” Beth apologized. “I feel terrible, not being at the airport.”
“We wouldn’t have had a word, Beth. The hungry horde was waiting. I could’ve killed Bernard—except he thought he was doing a fine job, alerting the press. And besides, didn’t you promise not to fuss if I stayed here?”
“At least you got a nap.”
“And did I ever need it!” Alyssia took one of the thin curls of carrot. “Did a script arrive from PD’s office?” She paused, recollecting her gushy enthusiasm for The Baobab Tree. “I’m expecting the rewrite.”
“No, but he phoned while you were asleep. There’s quite a few calls.” Beth held out a small sheaf of monogrammed scratchpaper. “You can answer the urgent ones while I go kiss Clarrie goodnight.”
The top two messages were from Maxim and PD. Maxim’s said welcome home and he’d see her tomorrow. PD had left a schedule with phone numbers where he could be reached.
At this hour, six thirty, he was at the Polo Lounge. Alyssia waited while a phone was jacked into his booth. She could hear cheery background noises before he spoke.
“Alyssia, cara. How was the flight?”
“Fine. PD, I thought you said you’d have a script here for me.”
“You don’t have it?”
“No.”
“That damn girl! She must’ve screwed up. I’ll give you one tomorrow morning personally. You and I are taking a meeting at eleven with Hap and Maxim.”
“None of the money people?”
“Just the creative end.”
“PD, who’s putting up the cash?”
“Not to worry, they’re staying clear.”
“But who are they?”
“Meadstar.”
“Should I know them?”
“They’re very highly thought of. And besides, cara, aren’t they giving you the moon?”
Did his voice contain yet more of that artificiality than usual? How could she gauge over the telephone, and with all the background chatter?
“We’ll talk details later,” he said. “Come by the office ten thirtyish and I’ll zip you over to Magnum. I’d pick you up, but . . . you know how things are. Poor Beth.” The sigh that came through the receiver was genuine and filled with regret.
She answered her calls until the discreet hum of an engine drawing up to the front steps told her that Irving was home. She went into the hall with the paintings of fat naked women to greet her brother-in-law.
In repose, Irving Gold’s narrow face had a friendly warmth. He was short, thin and possessed of huge vigor. Born to oppressive poverty in the South Bronx, he had built his first low-priced, high-quality housing tract immediately after World War II, and since then his fortune had multiplied geometrically. He, though, had never taken on the arrogant smugness of many self-made men.
“Some host I am,” he said, kissing Alyssia’s cheek. She could smell his weariness.
“You’re here, that’s what counts,” Alyssia said, kissing him back. Her affection for him was not a spill-off from her friendship with Beth, but an entity of itself.
Three places were set at one end of a table long enough to accommodate sixteen. Irving took the chair at the head, Alyssia and Beth faced each other over a low silver epergne filled with grapes, plums and pears.
While waiting for the sliced tomatoes and broiled sea bass, Alyssia asked, “Irving, ever hear of a company called Meadstar?”
“Meadstar?” He shook his head. “Doesn’t ring any bells.”
“They’re putting a fortune into The Baobab Tree. Over twenty million.”
“Their own cash?”
“Yes. They’re financing.”
“Then it’s an extremely well capitalized outfit. My guess is it operates out of Nevada.”
“Why?” Beth inquired.
“Lake Mead,” he said.
• • •
Upstairs with Juanita, Alyssia said, “We had the low-cholesterol, low-calorie, I-never-eat-red-meat menu. What did you have?”
“Avocado salad, spareribs, cornbread. And hot caramel over coffee ice cream for dessert.”
“Whipped cream?”
“Cool Whip. Roscoe opened a can of Planter’s salted peanuts to sprinkle on top.”
“Heaven.”
“Want me to fix you one?”
“You’re a doll. I’m still ravenous.”
Alyssia was in bed when Juanita brought up the sundae. Alone, she luxuriated in the oversweet goo, her thoughts drifting to the conversation at dinner. Nevada, Irving had said.
Nevada?
The spoon fell from her hand onto the pale-blue silk blanket cover.
She was remembering that lunch at the Bel Air Hotel. Robert Lang, drug dealer and reader of Greek tragedy, had tempted her with the role of Medea. In his version the play had been set in the turn of the century, and—what had been his words? Not in Greece but “somewhere wilder. Africa maybe. . . .”
It fit.
And if PD had gulled her, if Meadstar were indeed a front for Lang, he assuredly would have kept the information from Hap. If it’s true, when Hap discovers it, he’ll bow out, she thought.
She set the melting dessert on the bedside table. Her appetite had vanished.
46
Roscoe drove her in the Golds’ Daimler to the Zaffarano Building—a three-year-old, glinting-windowed structure for which PD was profoundly in hock. PD ceremoniously handed her a script. As he drove eastward along Sunset toward Magnum, where the resurrected Harvard Productions leased offices, he kept up a barrage of talk. His mother, he said, was emerging from her long grief. Lily Cordiner Zaffarano was seeing Ken O’Herlihy, a well-to-do widower, and PD, for one, heartily approved of his mother’s sensible choice. His nephew Jeffrey. . . .
Alyssia wasn’t listening. Her mind flashed like a prism, reflecting a hundred thoughts about the upcoming meeting with Hap.
“PD,” she interrupted. “Is Meadstar a Nevada company?”
He stared at the beat-up Ford directly ahead of them. “For tax purposes it’s based in the Bahamas.”
From PD’s hastily spoken response she accepted that it was not only possible but probable that illegal money, Lang’s or somebody else’s, was financing The Baobab Tree. In the last few years such backing had become commonplace. Those battles fought to keep out the underworld proved to have been rear-guard actions of aging tycoons like Desmond Cordiner. The studio system was dead. The splint
ered new Hollywood, in frantic search for venture capital, had a far more laissez-faire attitude.
PD changed the subject. “Did you hear that Uncle Desmond and Aunt Rosalynd bought a condo on Maui? In my opinion, Hawaii should be their permanent headquarters. Retirement’s been hell on Uncle Desmond. He was one of the true power guys in this town and it’s killing him to sit on the sidelines.”
She felt a ripple of sympathy for her old enemy, and started to say something to this effect, but PD, evidently fearing she might return to questions about Meadstar, rushed on with his outpouring.
He told her about Tim Cordiner’s roostering over the widows at Golden Crest Retirement Hotel. (She knew all about the geriatric romances: Barry, as the son of the family, insisted on being his father’s sole support, so her business manager made out checks each month to cover not only the Golden Crest’s substantial rates but also the limo service and restaurant tabs incurred by the father-in-law, who still turned his back whenever she entered a room.)
PD slowed under Magnum’s wrought-iron archway, and the gatekeeper waved them on in.
During Alicia Lopez’s career as an extra, the back lot had been eerily deserted, devoted as it was to Magnum’s minimum production. Rio Garrison’s astute second husband, who had taken the reins from Desmond Cordiner, had restored the studio to bustling life by renting out the facilities. Actors in cop uniforms and actresses sporting hooker hot pants were streaming into a sound stage. A TV miniseries was being shot on the Western street. PD swerved around a brightly painted open trolley: Magnum’s guided studio tours now rivaled the popularity of those at Universal. A Japanese group stared after them, exultantly snapping away at the back of the Rolls that carried Alyssia del Mar.
PD parked in a reserved slot outside the row of flimsy stucco bungalows that once had housed Magnum’s publicity department.
Maxim met them at the door of Bungalow One. “Sorry about missing you when I called yesterday,” he said, bending to touch a kiss on Alyssia’s cheek. “Mmm, you smell of Joy.”
He led them through the dinky foyer and down the narrow hall to his stifling little office. Framed, yellowing posters for his movies decorated the walls: across from his desk hung the one of her and Diller in Wandering On.
Dreams Are Not Enough Page 30
