Dreams Are Not Enough

by Jacqueline Briskin

  Beth, who had become a crack speed-reader during her years in Magnum’s story department, let her eyes travel swiftly down the center of the seventy-three double-spaced pages.

  When she turned the last sheet, the permanent grooves above the bridge of her delicate nose were deep.

  “Well?” Barry, at the foot of the staircase, was looking up at her with an expression that mingled truculence and nearly insupportable anxiety.

  “Who else has seen this?”

  “I told you! Outside of the literati, you’re the only one!” He stamped up the curving staircase, halting a step before the top. “If you don’t like it, just say so!”

  “Why must you always be so touchy about your work?”

  “The consensus from the East Coast is that it’s lively, witty, candid, well-informed—”

  “Barry, it’s not a matter of quality. The writing’s magnificent. But don’t you see what you’ve done? The people in it aren’t fictional characters. They’re our family.”

  “I plead guilty to a writer’s objectivity.”

  “You show Hap as an egomaniac intent on squandering millions of feet of film to prove what an artistic hotshot director he is. You show him wasting a fortune to get an effect you say won’t be noticed by the audience, jettisoning his relationship with Meadstar. Maxim comes across as a high-strung wisecracker who would be selling used Chevys if his father hadn’t been head of Magnum. You hint strongly that they both signed away their souls in blood to the Mafia so they could do the project.”

  “‘The Baobab Tree was financed by Meadstar,’” he recited from memory, “‘a Las Vegas-based production company whose major stockholder is Robert Lang. Lang, the son of Bartolomeo Lanzoni, founder of the Las Vegas Fabulador, is a longtime backer of the Cordiner brothers. The film was packaged by PD Zaffarano, the savvy, expensively tailored, iron-pumping Hollywood agent. Not too coincidentally, Zaffarano is cousin to the Cordiner brothers as well as related to Miss del Mar through her marriage to this writer. So it’s all in the family.’”

  “Barry, listen to the tone.”

  “What did you expect, fan magazine gush? It’s for The New Yorker!”

  “You’ve damned them all. Not only Maxim and Hap, but PD—he reads like you lifted him from The Godfather. And what about. . . .” Her voice trailed away. She could not bring herself to even say Alyssia’s name anymore. But Barry had word-painted his wife as the ultimate bitch movie star who feels no compunction about letting cast and crew wither on location while she gets her beauty sleep.

  Barry was saying, “. . . an entire issue of The New Yorker, in case you aren’t aware of the fact, is considered the ultimate in status publicity.”

  “Oh, Barry, you more than hint that The Baobab Tree is the disaster of the decade—who wants that kind of promo?”

  Snatching the manuscript from her hand, Barry stalked down the stairs.

  Beth ran after him. “Barry, don’t leave. Please, let’s try to see how it can be changed.”

  “What you just read is the final draft! The exact wordage and punctuation that will appear in print!” He pulled open the heavy front door, slamming it after himself.

  Beth stood amid the abundantly fleshed Rubens nudes for a full minute, and her mournful eyes fixed on the door might have belonged to a maternal forebear surveying the aftermath of a pogrom. Then she went slowly to the den and picked up the phone.

  • • •

  PD piled cream cheese on half of his bagel while the elderly, plump waitress poured expertly from the Pyrexes she held in both hands—coffee for him, decaf for Beth. Beth had invited him to breakfast at Nate ’n’ Al’s, the deli on Beverly Drive favored by film folk of every denomination.

  When the waitress had departed, Beth looked down at her cup, suddenly prim. “I would have asked you to the house for dinner with Irving and me, but it seemed better to discuss this in private.”

  “I hear you, Beth. Now lay the problem on me.”

  “I saw Barry’s New Yorker piece.”

  “What’s the subject?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Barry’s been as secretive as hell. The same way Hap’s been about the editing—you do know he’s refused to show a single frame?”

  “Yes, I heard.”

  “Then this you won’t believe. Before the crack of dawn this morning, he calls to tell me he’s off to Africa, to his medical center.”

  “The editing’s finished? Already?”

  “No way. After cracking the whip over every damn detail, he calls me before six to tell me he’s taking off. Just like that.”

  “He’s all shook up about the divorce,” Beth said. “And Barry’s fuming at me.”

  PD sighed. “How did two guys who were perfectly normal kids develop such temperaments?”

  “The Baobab Tree—”

  “Don’t say another word!” PD interrupted. “Beth, give me a break. The effing movie’s all I hear about. From Meadstar, from Maxim, from all my so-called friends. I’ve had it up to my gullet with The Baobab Tree.”

  “That’s what Barry’s written about. The making of it.”

  PD’s hand jerked, and cream cheese smeared the barber-shaven skin around his mouth. “Jesus!”

  “While he was in Kenya and England, he evidently took a lot of notes.”

  Beads of sweat stood out on PD’s forehead. “Did he trash us?”

  She looked away again. “It’s investigative reporting done breezily.”

  “A real hatchet job, then. Who does he mention?”

  “Everybody.”

  “Me? Lang?”

  “Everybody,” she repeated.

  “What does he say about Lang?”

  “He goes into his background. Uncle Bart’s real name, that sort of thing. Nothing libelous—I’m sure lawyers have gone through it with a fine-tooth comb. But he—Lang—does appear starstruck, in love with show biz. And, well, naive for letting Hap go so far over the production budget.”

  “He comes off a total idiot, you mean?”

  “There’s a phrase: ‘Las Vegas groupie.’”

  “Holy Mother of God!”

  • • •

  PD was in Las Vegas early that evening. While he explained the little he knew about Barry’s magazine sale, he maintained eye contact with Lang, no easy feat against that unfaltering gaze.

  “Did Mrs. Gold infer that the material defamed me?”

  “Only that you lived in Vegas and owned the Fabulador.” PD forced his white smile. “Which isn’t against any laws.”

  “Does it make me appear ridiculous? Mr. Zaffarano, I warn you, I have no sense of humor whatsoever when it comes to being the butt of humor.”

  “I haven’t read the property. I only found out about the subject this morning. Immediately I called Barry’s New York agent to special-deliver a copy to Vegas for you and another to my office. After we’ve read it through, we can strategize.”

  “When will it arrive?”

  “Any time now. I had them take the packages to Kennedy.”

  Lang went to his desk, using a hidden intercom. “Has anything arrived for me from New York?”

  A young female voice replied, “About ten minutes ago, Mr. Lang.”

  “Send it up, please.”

  Almost immediately a short, swarthy man wearing a Fabulador red jacket emerged from the elevator, respectfully handing over an outsize manila envelope.

  Lang carried it to his desk, slitting it with an ivory paper knife, putting on half glasses. Paper rustled as he set the pages he had read on the worn, tooled leather of his Jacobean desk. His demeanor gave not the least clue whether or not the material enraged him.

  PD attempted not to squirm or stare.

  When Lang had finished reading, he sat back in his chair, gazing thoughtfully at his laced fingers. PD would have given a fortune to glance through the stacked sheets, but he knew Lang. He’d have to wait until he saw his own copy. In the meantime he’d be forced to wing it.

 
The old and valuable-looking pendulum clock loudly ticked away several minutes.

  At last Lang looked up. “Is there any way to squelch this?” he asked in a dry rasp.

  “That was the first question I asked Karl Balduff—he’s Barry’s East Coast representative. He said that since there was no libel or slander involved, his advice was to let it stand. If it doesn’t run, a lot of talking heads would be asking questions. About . . . well, about the hotel and Uncle Bart’s connections. But if you find anything objectionable I’ll try to get The New Yorker to cut it.”

  Lang came to stand in front of the unlit fireplace. His expression was normal, but his eyes were strange. The pupils had shrunk to pinpoints as if his outraged brain had secreted some form of drug.

  Frightened, PD muttered, “On the upside, the publicity might help Baobab.”

  “I hear that Harvard Cordiner’s on his way to Africa.”

  “He’s gone? Already?” PD blurted. “It was just this morning that he mentioned that he would be leaving.”

  “I don’t need to tell you how disturbing his excesses on The Baobab Tree have been to me.”

  Beth had mentioned that Barry had skewered Lang as an incompetent dilettante for not controlling Hap. “They went way over budget, sure,” PD soothed. “Once the box office grosses start rolling in, though, it won’t matter.”

  “Then you’ve seen the footage?”

  “Hap hasn’t shown it to anyone. That’s how he operates. He’s a star director, with heat, so he has things his way until completion.”

  “Exactly. He’s overseen the post-production work on his other films. And now with Meadstar, he’s simply left.”

  “This Hy Kelley is a top film editor,” PD said, openly using his handkerchief on his cheeks and forehead. “Maxim’s still here.”

  “Mr. Zaffarano, Harvard Cordiner is your client. I suggest you tell him to return and finish the job he signed to do for me.”

  “I already begged him to stay.” PD shrugged, a helpless gesture. “He explained he’d gone stale. He’s got problems—he’s splitting up with his wife.”

  “His personal life is no concern to Meadstar.”

  “Believe me, Mr. Lang, I’ve known the guy forever, and he’s gone haywire. In my opinion we’re lucky he’s off our backs.”

  Lang continued to stare at him. Under that strange, pinpoint gaze, PD mopped his face again.

  Then Lang looked away. “I appreciate your alerting me about these matters,” he said in an almost warm tone. “And I agree with you. It’s best if we leave The New Yorker alone.” He escorted PD to the elevator.

  By the time PD was on the plane, he had forgotten how terrified he had been in the Fabulador penthouse while Lang was denouncing Hap. He was congratulating himself on having smoothed over what obviously was a rough situation for his cousin.

  • • •

  Even though it was late when he arrived in Los Angeles, and he was hungry, he went directly to the office.

  The large envelope from New York lay neatly on his blotter.

  As he scanned Barry’s material, he understood Lang’s fury against Hap.

  PD’s own rage was directed at Barry. Never before had PD been in the power of the Cordiner rage. His body was poised for battle, his mind was consumed by a great heat, as if he were in the middle of a forest fire. How dare that writer turd say such things about him, about his family! If Barry were in the office, he would have killed him, and this was no figure of speech. He called Barry, getting his answering machine. PD could never remember what he screamed into the phone. Then, to prevent himself from some form of violence, he stormed to the small inner office he had fixed up as a gym, pumping iron until he was drenched with sweat and too exhausted to move.

  He told nobody that he’d read the article—he couldn’t even think about it without that hot conflagration of murderous urges. He avoided Barry.

  59

  Barry, haunted by what he considered Beth’s negative response to his magazine article and horrified by PD’s long, recorded shriek of obscene insults, which he immediately erased from his Ansafone, was in a panic lest Spy also provoke disgust or outrage. The galley proofs were due to arrive from the publisher in the middle of April. In order to go through them carefully and prune away every word that might be objectionable, he needed solitude. Lake Arrowhead being out of season, the mountain area was pretty much deserted and he was able to make a loose reservation for a remote cabin that lacked television and telephone.

  The fat, quilted brown envelope containing the proofs arrived on April 14, a few days after Hap had left for Africa. Barry raced between the house and his car, filling the trunk with his manuscript, the galley proofs, a full pack of ballpoints, his portable electric Olympia, his bulky Webster’s Unabridged, Roget’s Thesaurus, two cartons of groceries and a huge chicken casserole prepared by Juanita.

  A late storm had dumped several inches of snow on Arrowhead, and at the last minute Alyssia remembered blankets and the heavy hunting jacket that he wore at the château. While she went to get them, Barry gunned the engine impatiently.

  Watching the car disappear down the steep, winding drive, Alyssia heard a high, thin voice that she didn’t recognize as her own call out, “Barry, don’t go, don’t leave me.”

  • • •

  That evening, Z Channel was showing Scarlet Empress. Alyssia’s legs ached, she felt alone and spiritless, so she decided to indulge herself by eating a dinner of buttery mashed potatoes in bed while taking in the Marlene Dietrich classic. Waiting for the movie, she watched network news. Later, it would seem impossible that she heard in this, the most cliché manner imaginable.

  The anchorwoman was a pretty Oriental.

  “We have just received a dispatch from Associated Press in Africa. The body of Hollywood director Harvard Cordiner, three-time Oscar nominee, reportedly has been found amid the wreckage of an automobile in a remote area of equatorial Zaire.”

  This isn’t real, Alyssia thought wildly. She didn’t realize it, but she was breathing in loud, ragged gasps that resembled an attack, yet came from purely mental torment. I didn’t hear her say that!

  “. . . Cordiner endowed a medical relief center in Zaire, a third-world country, and often worked there. He recently completed The Baobab Tree, an as yet unreleased film starring Alyssia del Mar and Cliff Camron. Inhabitants of a nearby village reportedly found the charred automobile upended with Cordiner’s remains inside.”

  Charred.

  Alyssia shuddered convulsively.

  Charred.

  Once, she couldn’t have been more than five, May Sue had punished her for interrupting a party-party by holding her hand over the butane stove flame. This’ll learn you to stay out when I tell you to stay out. Now, decades later, Alyssia could feel the incendiary heat searing her palm, smell the charred meat odor. She was again experiencing the awesome pain, her helpless terror.

  “We’ll keep you up to date as more reports come in. Now we return to Humphrey Shaw for today’s news of the stock market—”

  The voice halted abruptly. Alyssia had jammed down on the remote. Rushing to the set, she gave the heavy piece of furniture a vindictive shove that wrenched at her shoulder and abdominal muscles, then she stumbled into the corridor, her legs weakening so that she would have fallen if she hadn’t leaned against the wall.

  “Alice?” Juanita’s frightened voice reverberated as if in a distant echo chamber. “Is it the baby?”

  “Hap. . . .”

  Juanita set down the tray on the carpet. “You’re panting. You’re having one of them bad spells. Here, come back to bed.”

  Alyssia let herself be guided into her room. Falling across the bed, she started to weep in soft, animal-like howls.

  Juanita sat beside her, draping an arm about the shuddering shoulders. “Tell Nita what’s wrong,” she soothed.

  “Hap. . . .”

  “Hap?”

  “. . . television . . . news . . . he’s burned in a car.”r />
  “No,” Juanita denied. “I was watching in the kitchen. I didn’t see—”

  “Near the relief . . . center. . . .”

  The phone rang. Juanita answered. “Cordiner residence. No, she can’t talk now. No. She don’t have any information on any accident!” Hanging up, she left the instrument off, letting it buzz. “I don’t know how they get this number,” she said, tears streaming from beneath her glasses.

  Alyssia asked in a choked tone, “So you believe me?”

  “He was asking if it was true, so maybe it ain’t.”

  Juanita’s remark, intended as mollification, struck hope into Alyssia’s precarious mental workings.

  Maybe he’s alive. Yes. He’s alive.

  Energy pulsed through her. She jumped to her feet, pacing to the dressing room door, then to the curtained window and back again. The baby, who was active, kicked. She didn’t feel the neural jabs.

  “Alice,” Juanita said uneasily, “come lie down again.”

  Alyssia paced faster. “‘Reportedly’ means it doesn’t have to be true, right? Besides, she said it was a car crash. And you know what a terrific driver Hap is. He never had a single accident, not even on those hairpin turns around Lake Como with all those crazy Italians going a hundred miles an hour. He told me there’s no traffic in Zaire once you leave Kinshasa—that’s the capital. How could he’ve had an accident? You’re absolutely right.”

  “I . . . I only said it didn’t have to be true,” Juanita sighed.

  “But you’re right!”

  “Alice, you look awful, I never seen you look this awful.”

  “We have to find out.”

  “Think of the baby.”

  “Maxim’ll know.”

  Alyssia’s hands shook, and she could not open the gilt-edged paper of her address book to the C pages. Juanita, blowing her nose and replacing her glasses, did it for her.

  Maxim’s line was busy. Alyssia’s urgent, quaking index finger pressed the numbers continuously.

  “He probably took it off like we done.”

  “Of course!” A febrile intensity glinted behind the blue of Alyssia’s eyes. “I’ll have to go over.”