Glamourpuss
Page 21
There was no way to inform him of Barney’s treachery, either. If I could ever make Nick believe it happened in the first place, he’d have to think I put Trevor up to it, orchestrated the whole thing like I was Jill Foster Abbott on The Young & the Restless. And Trevor would certainly be having no further contact with the deadbeat in question for Nick to discover. After all, Trev had a primetime family network series airing in a few weeks. And he was in love with me to boot…
Another ant-farm of problems to contend with. I’d felt insta-guilty for not telling him I loved him, too. But I just didn’t. I was fond of Trevor, and maybe that fondness was actually a love-bud waiting to blossom at any moment, but for now… it was closed. Not to mention the fact that even if I’d been wildly in love with Trevor, declaring that on the heels of the Barney story would’ve made me feel like a prize chump. And if we loved each other, did that mean we had to go full anal, intercourse-wise? How could I trust him enough for me, properly condomed of course, to assume what Seventies personal ads deemed a “Greek active” (let alone “passive”) role in bed… for fuck’s sake?!
I was running out of time to phone Nick. Soon Trevor would be out of the shower and we’d be en route to some dark, trendy restaurant where chicken came in medallions. I fumbled out my PacBell card, just in case Santa Monica was a toll call that would show up on Trevor’s bill. As I punched in the digits, I wondered if I should play a prank on Barney if he answered. No — he’d have a miserable enough visit waiting in vain for Randy Northcutt, Dom Centerfold Cyclist, to call him back.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Nick. It’s Alex.” I carried the cordless receiver out onto the balcony.
“How’s everything goin’?”
“Just fine.”
“Can you believe I finally made it to L.A.?” No, dude, I’m having a real tough time swallowing it, if you wanna know the truth. “We gonna be able to get together tomorrow?”
I set my trap: “Actually, I’ve been under a lot of pressure at the show, and was thinking about heading down to Laguna for a day or two. Get away from it all. Why don’t you come with me?”
“Oh, I’ve got a couple meetings to go to. I don’t think…”
“When are they? We can just go down afterward. No expectations, no catch. What do you say?” This was awful of me, but knowing his answer ahead of time made me momentarily grateful that I wasn’t setting myself up for another emotional freefall.
He sounded achingly sad… “but if he was as sad as you were about the way things’d turned out, they wouldn’t have turned out that way, would they?” Thanks, Mini-Kyle Chandler. Excellent point. When was the last time a phone conversation with him hadn’t been steeped in trauma? “That’s you, pussyboy, Daytime TV’s A-#1 Trauma Queen!” Mini-Jeff Stryker chortled.
“I just can’t, Alex,” Nick said.
“Do I even have to ask why? He’s here, isn’t he, Nick? You brought him to L.A.” He didn’t answer. As the hot prickly flow of tears rose higher and higher, I wondered how it all could’ve gotten so fucked when all I’d ever wanted was one chance at happiness with him. “Tell me Barney’s not with you,” I spit.
“He is. I couldn't come unless…”
“How can you say you care about me at all?” I clicked off, aghast that I’d spoken to him like that, feeling like I’d just run over a cherished pet. I could call him back. I could make plans to see him tomorrow. Tell him the whole story — I’d done nothing wrong — emphasizing Barney’s adultery, in a non-hypocritical unemotional tone, and his feverish desire for a repeat offense. That’s the sad-sack he was wasting his life on. Nick would believe me. He would —
“What’s up?” Trevor asked from the terrace door, the fluffy white towel slung over his well-defined shoulder dangling precariously in front of his free-swinging equipment.
“Just beeping in at home,” I told him.
“Everything cool?”
“Sure. I have that new number and only those very special to me know it.”
“What should I wear tonight?”
“Bike shorts and axle grease. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
“I already did.” He forced me down onto the rattan lawn furniture.
MARCH 26, 1991
Parking downtown at noon was simply out of the question, so I begged Sara to drop me off at Pleniluna, the restaurant where Nick had asked me to meet him for lunch about “something important and kind of exciting.”
“This could be it,” I babbled, as she drove south on Red River, brushing her luxuriant black tresses into submission.
“Stop it!” she growled, trying to sound annoyed. “You have no idea what it’s about.”
“Yes, I do. He’s going to tell me Barney’s moving out. And then we’re going to stop by Big Sur Waterbeds for a waveless king-size.”
“I hope so, darlin’. Okay, we’re here.”
“Bye. Do I look okay?”
“Like a little man-stealing angel.” I laughed. Someone behind her honked. “Get out of the car, Alex.”
“Thanks for the ride!” I hit the sidewalk.
“Alex, your backpack.” She tossed it out and I entered the tony restaurant, a favorite of handsome yuppies in three-piece suits, including Nick, waving at me from a table by the wall.
“Hi, there. I went and ordered us a couple of antipastos. Hope that’s okay.”
“It’s awesome,” I smiled warmly. “What’s up?”
“Right to the point, huh?”
“Well, you said it was important. And exciting.”
“Well, potentially.”
“Stop — you tease me.”
This so wasn’t about dumping Barney. Still, I wondered what the hell he’d cooked up when he reached into his briefcase and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “I’ve been tryin’ to launch your film career,” he said, handing me what turned out to be a script.
“Teenage Brides of Christ…?! By Seamus MacDonald. Who’s that?”
“Well, his real name’s Saul Cohen, but he changed it for this, cuz he thought folks might get upset that a Jew wrote a movie about nuns getting massacred by a slasher loose in the cloister. Gary Van Owen, one of the partners at the firm, is producing it with him.”
“This is going to be a real movie?!”
“Oh, yeah. They’re filming up in Dallas in just a little bit. Starring this one gal who was in Playboy and does lots of horror films. Thing is, the fella they hired for the male lead kinda wimped out on them, and they need to find somebody else real quick. So I skimmed the script and thought you’d be just about perfect. And I told Gary about you… and he’d seen you in Psycho Beach Party and thought it was worth a try. What do you think?”
“Sure! I mean, I’d love to. They’d want some kind of audition…”
“Uh-huh. Gary talked to Saul and he said to Fed Ex your picture and resume to Dallas. I brought you an envelope all filled out from work, so just drop it in the box in front of the Tower on campus. The director’s coming to Dallas from L.A. this weekend, and you can drive up to meet him and Saul.”
This was so sweet of him. Watching his animated, kissable face as he told me made me want to cry. But I didn’t. “Thanks, Nick. You have no idea what a chance like this means to me.”
“Aw, I think maybe I do.” His eyes were hypnotizing me. Must— say — words: I love you I love you…
“Nick, I — I wonder, do you know exactly what they’re looking for, with this character?”
“Blonde and real nice-lookin’. Like you. Around 22. You gotta be okay with doing a couple scenes in your underwear. You’re having sex with one of the nuns.”
“Those nutty, busty convent sluts.”
We ate big creamy pasta dishes for lunch, then split a wedge of amaretto cheesecake. I waited until he was driving me back to school to ask, “Would you be able to go up to Dallas with me Saturday morning?�
��
“Maybe, Alex.”
When I read the splattery script, I estimated that my part, Evan Hunt, was the third lead (after Sisters “Corky” and Bernadette). It went on and on until he was run-through with a pitchfork on page 77. The screenplay was outrageous in a deadpan, offensive way I adored: wayward young nuns “punished” by a psychopathic ex-altar boy in a variety of creative kill-scenes. I desperately wanted to be in one. Fortunately, I only had to spend 24 hours in a tension-frenzy. Saul Cohen called Nick the next afternoon and told him to send me up. I was to meet Saul and director Carl DeAngelis at the Marriott in Dallas Saturday at one.
Of course, Nick couldn’t make the trip with me, but Vanessa and Chuck had been planning a visit to her parents’ in Fort Worth and offered to let me tag along. We arrived past midnight on Friday and slithered into the majestic mock-Colonial house, easily the jewel of its cul-de-sac, as quietly as possible, to discover that Vanessa’s mother had prepared a huge feast carefully Tupperwared in the two-door refrigerator-freezer with automatic ice-maker. “Thought you kids might be hungry. See you in the a.m. Love, Mom” read the note stuck to the fridge with Muppets magnets. We pigged out on fried chicken, potato salad and pecan pie, then drank sangria in Van’s old room until the three of us were sprawled on her bed, reading Dr. Seuss books aloud and laughing our asses off.
The next morning we enjoyed a hearty breakfast prepared by Vanessa’s large Texan mom, who made me perform several scenes from the script, then cheerfully proclaimed, “You’re gonna git that part, sugarplum.” Vanessa and Chuck drove me to the hotel, wished me luck, then went to play in the pool. I ducked into a men’s room and fingered my gel-job. I was wearing black pants and a charcoal-gray t-shirt bearing the slightest arcs of underarm dampness. I turned on the hand-blower and took care of the problem, a la Desperately Seeking Susan. Fortunately I was always odor-free, and thus ready to meet the director of such hits as Camp Panty Raid and Cyborg Slayer.
I rode the elevator alone to the tenth floor, any fears I might’ve had about being lured into International bondage via some gay Arab sex-ring alleviated by a misty-edged, cameo-size mental image of Nick in his little office, making phone calls trying to boost my acting career. I knocked on 1017, a conscientious three minutes early. A short bald guy with a black beard in mismatched beachwear answered. “Alexander?”
“Hi, it’s great to meet you,” I said, Pepsodent smile and butch handshake at the ready.
“Saul. Saul Cohen. Gary Van Owen had some great things to say about you.” God bless Charles Busch and Capitol City Playhouse. Saul motioned me to a chair. “Want a beer?” he asked, pawing through the fridge.
“Oh, no thanks, I’m fine.”
Enter the most flaming queen in history. “Christ, this heat’s gonna finish me off!” He had thinning, blonde-streaked hair slicked back on a conical head, John Lennon sunglasses, and a lacy white shirt he pinched between two fingers and billowed in and out, fanning himself. “Texas in March? Who knew? Hi! Who’s this?”
“Alexander Young,” Saul said. “And this is our director, Carl DeAngelis.”
We exchanged pleasantries and Carl arranged himself on a little sofa and examined my resume. “I don’t know if Gary told you what a bind we’re in. This actor’s piss-licking agent held onto our contracts hoping this series deal would work out, and it did, and they fucked us. We start principal a week from Monday. No male lead. No problem! Anywho, you look the type, don’t you think, Saul?”
“Absolutely.”
We read the first scene — Bernadette telling Evan that she’s taken a vow of chastity before he rakishly persuades her to ride the baloney pony in the attic. “Very nice,” Carl cooed, clapping his hands together three or four times. Saul nodded. We proceeded to the dramatic highlight wherein Evan discovers two dismembered nun corpses then runs into Sebastian the social misfit and starts to realize he may be the killer.
“Very good,” Carl said. “Annelise Collins cast the movie in L.A. Do you know her?”
“No,” I replied. “I’ve never worked in Hollywood.”
“Oh, yes. I love it,” he said, scanning my resume again. “You plan to, don’t you?”
“As soon as I graduate in May,” popped out of my mouth, news to me. They said I’d done “fine” and asked about my availability for two to three weeks. I assured them I could swing it and they showed me to the door.
I plodded toward the pool, fairly bewildered. Had I gotten it or not? Shouldn’t they have had me read the lines more than once? Maybe not. I’d been prepared. Being recommended by Gary Van Owen must carry quite a lot of weight, too. Nick had said his boss was putting up “a chunk” of the movie’s budget. And they’d told me to hang on to the script. But what were they going to say — Give it back? That would’ve been pretty undiplomatic, even if they’d hated me. Who knew how many more actors they were seeing? Southern Methodist University’s joke of a theater department certainly boasted a few hunky thesps to choose from. And wasn’t it possible Carl would hit the Dallas gay scene and wind up plugging some toy-boy discovery into the role?
Holding all these gnawing rhetorical questions back behind the door of my conscious brain-functions proved an impossible task, but all I could do was wait and try not to drive my friends batshit in the process. When I got back to my apartment Sunday night I had zero messages. (Nick had very sweetly called me at Vanessa’s parents’ late Saturday afternoon for a full report.) Monday was infernal. I called my machine after every class, then slammed down the phone, messageless, when it didn’t pick up on the first ring. That night I resisted calling Nick and did four hours of class reading, masochistically willing the movie job into existence by preparing for my two-week absence from school.
It worked. I was toweling off Tuesday morning when Nick called to tell me the part was mine. “Congratulations, movie star. You report to the Best Western motor hotel on Sunday. $2000 a week for two weeks, plus 40 bucks a day for meals. Sound okay?”
“I don’t know how to thank you, Nick. This is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“I was talkin’ to Saul Cohen and he said it’s gonna be in theaters at least a week before it hits the video stores.”
“Too bad all the good drive-ins bit the dust,” I said, thinking of Candice Rialson’s hilariously rude screen debut in the Joe Dante/Allan Arkush/Roger Corman T&A spoof Hollywood Boulevard.
“You’re on your way, Mr Young. Saul said you were the hands-down choice for the part.” Then why the hell did they torture me for 72 hours? I considered squawking in my first-ever genuine diva fit, but didn’t. “Gary’s pretty excited, too. He wants to take us for dinner Saturday.”
“Great! Are you free tonight for a little celebration?”
“This week’s no good, Alex. Tell ya what — we’ll go to the lake on Saturday. Get Sara to take off the bikini top. If you’re not too busy.”
He killed me. “I’d love to.”
“I’m real happy for you. And I’ll speak with Gary’s secretary to make sure he takes us someplace super-expensive.”
“‘Kay. You know you’ll be getting a commission for this.”
“Aw, no. Forget it. You’re not givin’ me a cent of that hard-earned horror money.”
“Money wasn’t what I had in mind.”
He hummed enigmatically. We hung up and I went to school. I had to inform all my teachers I’d be out of town for two weeks due to either a film role or a dire family emergency, depending on how cool they were.
✽✽✽
Dear Mrs Wanda Blake, You should know that Simon Arable is the one who tried to kill Cyrinda, not Sean! I can’t believe no one has figured this out, but Simon is a liar and a murderer! Don’t hire him to be the managing editor of your newspaper. After today’s show, I’m pretty sure he will try to kill Cyrinda again, probably on Friday. That’s why I’m overnighting this letter to you. You have to get her o
ut of that hospital!
What state is Harts Crossing in? Because I’d be happy to testify at Simon’s trial any day but Thursdays because that’s when I have custody of little Ashlynn and Billy Joe Jr. Michelle Martin, Roanoke, VA
IN HANDWRITING: Alex, dear— Thought you should see this. These poor, poor people! Love, Babs
Right after Trevor wrapped the sixth Dino & Muffin episode, I had a week in which Simon did not appear on Hearts Crossing, although I’d still be paid $2700, my minimum weekly rate. We flew down to Puerto Vallarta and spent five flesh-filled days at a muy quaint and tropical little hotel Trevor’s model friend Lars recommended, that turned out, to my amusement, to be 100 percent maricones. Trevor soothed his agitation by “disguising” himself in a Body Glove cap and shades whenever he left the suite.
Our next-door neighbors were a hilariously “straight-acting” couple of USC trust-fund frat hunks on a top-secret romantic hideaway. After we all became chummy, Trevor suggested no less than four times that the two of us initiate a “fourgy” with Dave and Kip. I was skeptical yet intrigued — we were on vacation and Dave was a hairy-chested young-fireman type with what looked like four-alarm length of hose crammed into his banana-hammock — but they were so skittish it would’ve been like coaxing two wild chipmunks to go directly from eating out of one’s hand (only after one had spent an hour in a woodland glade waiting, stock-still) to performing backflips on tiny scooters in front of a studio audience.
By our last night in Mexico, I was beginning to relish the imminent solitude of my apartment, at which I’d been spending mere minutes per week, getting my mail and leaving cash to coincide with the maid’s visits. Trev and I strolled around and bought a few Catholically ultra-tacky souvenirs, then impulsively bopped into a ramshackle touristy cafe for an early dinner. A monchichi on steroids showed us to a wobbly, rough-hewn table next to a hanging parrot cage. The occupant, a smartly groomed bird with glamour-length nail-polished claws, crawled up and down the side closest to us, cackling in Spanish and shaking his tail excitedly, sending periodic drifts of blue and green feathers wafting toward our basket of greasy, razor-crisp tortilla chips. Trevor poured us each a second margarita while I absently fingered the shark’s tooth necklace I’d been wearing the whole trip. I’d told the ever-curious Trevor that it had merely been part of my Psycho Beach Starcat costume, leaving out Nick but thinking about him more than a little.