A Stranger Like You (12 page)

As if on cue, his cell phone rang. “I need to take this.”

“Go.”

You drank your wine, something knocking around in your brain. Over Harold’s desk was a lithograph bearing the company logo with the word GLADIATOR in large black letters at the bottom. The Gladiator, great muscled warrior, the hero in the arena, unprotected, willing to risk everything to win. To
survive
. The gory
spectacle
of it, the carnage. You thought Odysseus. You thought army; marines. You thought suicide bombers, Blackwater mercenaries.

Harold had gotten up and was standing at the window, nodding his head as he listened to the person on the other end of the conversation. You drank your wine and considered the books on his shelves. There was fiction, poetry, philosophy, books about art and film. Harold had gone to City College. It was unusual to see bookshelves that actually had books on them, as opposed to DVD boxes. Books,
epic masterpieces,
that’s what had gotten you into this business in the first place—the fat, glorious books you’d read as a kid, great love stories like
Anna Karenina
and
Gone with the Wind
. Filmmakers like D. W. Griffith, Billy Wilder, Hitchcock. You couldn’t help wondering what they would have thought of
The Hold Up
. Was it even possible to turn out movies like theirs anymore? The world was different now. Maybe the people were different, too.

You could tell from Harold’s placating, mildly ingratiating tone that he was talking to Bobby Darling about the new Braden Quinn film that Gladiator was going to make. A disruption at the window caught your eye. Bobolinks flashed behind the leaves of the avocado tree. The sky was pink.

“The wine is nice,” you said when he hung up.

“A good way to end the week.” He finished his glass and stood up, pulling on his blazer. “You got plans tonight?”

“A little light reading. I have a stack of scripts in my office.”

“Maybe you need to get out more.” He smiled at you. “Come, take a ride with me.”

In his hundred-thousand-dollar Mercedes with the top down you submitted to Harold’s itinerary. “I always go to services on Friday night. I’m very superstitious, I never miss.”

“I haven’t stepped foot in a synagogue in years.”

“If nothing else you might meet someone. Take it from me; there are some very cute guys in here. And what could be better, they’re all Jewish.”

“Ha, ha. You sound like my mother.”

“Anyway, it’s
Sukot.
It’s a good time. Festive. You’ll enjoy it.”

The synagogue had a ceiling with a gold dome. Harold put on his
tallis
and
kippah,
then took your arm and like an old married couple you walked down the aisle looking for a place to sit. A man got up and stepped aside to let you into the pew. The rabbi was young, passionate, a recent graduate of rabbinical school. You found yourself admiring him. Aside from the fact that it was a little strange being there with your boss, being there
period
, you tried to relax. You tried to be open to it. You were not a person who could easily submit; perhaps you were a cynic. Any kind of group where there was a focused belief system made you nervous. It was cultlike, creepy. You were not willing to give in to God, to be His servant. You were not necessarily willing to worship Him. What had He done, really, for peace? The world was evil; chaos. The idea of some higher power was too abstract for your literal mind. It wasn’t for you. Instead, even at an early age, you learned to intellectualize, packing your delicate beliefs into a little box to store up in your closet along with your little Torah, your little white bible upon which your name had been inscribed in gold letters. Spirituality made you queasy. And yet, sitting there, hearing the prayers of
Sukot
, you felt an almost uncanny sense of joy. Even the smell of the air reminded you of autumn back home. You thought about your conversation earlier with Harold, what he’d said about rituals, and you found yourself thinking it was true. Rituals were like landmarks, reliable symbols that gave people a reason to get up every morning.

You were like a foreigner from a strange land. You had no home, really. Your life felt temporary, ungrounded. It was hard being in L.A. Underneath your capable exterior, you were impossibly fragile—always the first in line to stand in your own way, to defer to someone else. Your sensitivity was both a gift and your nemesis.

After the service you explored the
sukkah
, a wood structure designed to commemorate the harvest. There were tables laden with vegetables and fruits, pumpkins and squash. Children ran in and out, laughing. You held a lemon in your hands like a baby bird.

Later, back at the studio parking lot, Harold kissed you on the forehead and thanked you for joining him.

“It’s a beautiful synagogue,” you said.

“You’re welcome any time.”

You nodded, but you had no plans to return. You were not a person of faith. You didn’t believe in religion; you didn’t believe in anything.

Then he did something strange. He reached out and gently touched your cheek with his open palm. “It’s good for the soul,” he said. “In a town like this, you can forget you have one.”

In November the weather turns cold. Everybody is wearing sweaters and coats. They complain, but you can tell they really like it. They like walking around in beautiful sweaters, long woven scarves. The first several minutes of every meeting is dedicated to a discussion of the weather. It’s all right with you; you don’t really mind. The days are bleak. The wind unusually strong. That morning your lawn was covered with sycamore leaves.

There are meetings and more meetings. Meetings go late, meetings are canceled and rescheduled. You are charming. You are funny and edgy and dangerous and benevolent; you have croissants and raspberry jam; you have sashimi and drink too much sake and promise too many things; you have grilled trout with almonds; you are not in love, it’s not your cup of tea; you are looking for something darker; you are intrigued; you haven’t laughed so hard in years.

You feel as if something has been lost. You cannot explain it. You are on your hands and knees like a blind person, and yet you have forgotten what it is that you are trying to grasp.

Perhaps it is the beginning of winter, the grim prospect of hibernation that you remember from your youth. And yet, this is Los Angeles, there is no true winter here. Your days are complicated with the hopes and dreams of strangers. Writers come to tell you stories, to peddle their ideas. They are all the same. Most are dull little packages. You are eager to hear something new. Something
fresh
. You don’t know what it is, but you will know it when you hear it.

And then, during a screening of a rough cut of
The Promise,
a film you executive produced, something unexpected happens. At twenty-four frames per second, in the span of eight minutes, you witness three murders, two explosions, and an admittedly thrilling car chase through the narrow streets of São Paulo. Two minutes into the second act, you begin to feel a creepy sense of isolation. Watching a love scene, you discover, surprisingly, that you are offended—and you are not the type who is easily offended. You glance around in the darkness at the others in the small screening room: Harold; Armand, your assistant; Buddy Meyers, the film’s director; Jim Gage, his assistant director; and Vic Peters, his editor. Their faces are calm, almost placid. They absorb the images without dissent. The only other women in the room are Bethany, an “intern” (Harold’s cousin’s daughter), whose IQ is even less than her body weight, and the women from the commissary, soundlessly delivering coffee and pastries. You sit back and watch. Of course you had read the scene in the script, and yet Buddy’s interpretation of it gives you pause. The fact that he is dating the female lead, Claudia Wells, who is twenty years his junior, probably hasn’t helped the situation, and the camera, as it grazes her body, seems to proclaim
feast your eyes
. Antonio Ramirez plays a misunderstood gangster; Wells plays the wife of his boss, a ruthless mobster. She has left her husband, who has threatened to kill her. They are on a desolate Brazilian beach and it has begun to rain—the sky is black—the wind gusts at the ocean, the sea grass undulates—they run up the beach to a cement shelter—a public restroom—as the rain comes down. It is a grimy, disgusting place with cement floors and gray stalls. Closeup of Ramirez’s hand twisting the lock as Wells dries her face on a paper towel. She turns, sees the way he’s looking at her, and knows what is to come. She waits, cautious—he advances on her with a predator’s certainty, violently sweeping her into his arms—the camera backs up and we realize that there is somebody else in the room—a dubious shadow in one of the stalls—watching. Cut to the lovers, the tops of her thighs, his hand as it rips off the lacy g-string then curves around to lift her up—a swift shot of her buttocks as they come in contact with the cement block wall, someone’s graffiti under her flesh—anonymous initials inside a heart—and he pulls her onto his hips and opens his pants, the punitive sound of his buckle as it drops and dangles—and he’s in her, pushing her up against the cement—bashing her into it—as their passion insinuates itself onto the sound track—the sound her back makes as it hits the wall—the grunt that escapes her mouth each time she hits—which the audience will misinterpret as pleasure, excitement, ecstasy—and the camera watches their hips as we register the velocity of their fucking—his fingers clutching her naked skin, the muscles in his arms, her torso, her flushed breasts, her face, her grinding pleasure as her lover pursues his climax and, finally, her face as they “come together,” panting with euphoria.

You stand up, shapes of light flashing across your body, and for a split second you are part of the scene. Your voice cuts through the sound. “Can we stop a moment?”

The projectionist stops the film. Dim lights come up.

“What? What’s the matter?” Harold says.

“What’s with this scene?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m getting really tired of this bullshit.”

“What?” Buddy Meyers looks confused. “What are you talking about?”

“What’s the scene about?”

“What’s it about? It’s pretty simple, Hedda. It’s about sex,” Bud says.

“I don’t understand.” Harold glances around uncertainly like someone who’s been accused of shoplifting. “What’s the matter?”

“The scene offends me,” you proclaim.

“What?” Harold jerks like he’s been pinched. “The scene offends you?”

“Yes, it offends me.”

Buddy and his AD chuckle.

“The scene offends you,” Harold inquires again, as if he can’t believe it. As if it’s impossible to offend a woman like you. “Why?” He smiles a little, humoring you. “Why does it
offend
you?”

“I think it’s very sexy,” Armand interjects, and you shoot him a withering look that tells him to shut his mouth if he plans on keeping his job.

You realize what you’re up against here.
Only the history of modern cinema.
You think of
Klute
, the legendary scene when Jane Fonda, a prostitute, checks her watch while her trick’s fucking her. To your memory, it is the only scene in the history of movies that actually indicates how remotely satisfying sex can be for women.

“Who has sex like that?”

The men look at each other, their solidarity building.

“Evidently you don’t,” Meyers mutters.

You ignore the comment. “It’s not like she’s going to come in that position.”

“Speaking from experience,” Jim Gage snickers.

“Yeah, speaking from experience. She’s hitting her head on a cement wall—you’re telling me that feels good? He gets to come, and she gets to have stitches.”

“It’s just a sex scene, Hedda,” Harold says. “You’re taking it too seriously.”

“Really?”

He opens his hands as if it’s obvious.

“Why is
this
what people want?” You present the question, sounding more like a high school principal than a producer.

“Because it’s sexy, it’s hot,” Buddy Meyers answers.

“Hot for who?”

Harold frowns, uncomfortable, and looks embarrassed.

“Hot for who?” you repeat, but of course no one answers.

“What is this all about?” Harold asks as if it’s obvious that you are having some sort of mental breakdown.

“It’s about a lot of things. It’s about all those seventeen-year-old girls out there who are going to think that this is what it is—that getting pounded against a cement wall is a turn-on. It’s about all those confused women who wonder why they’re not having orgasms when their husbands and boyfriends do this to them—I hate to break it to you guys, but contrary to popular opinion, it’s not necessarily
about
the penis.”

Buddy Meyers sighs audibly. “I feel like I’m being lectured. You’re starting to sound like my ex-wife.”

“Look,” Harold says. “Look, Hedda—”

“No, let her talk,” Buddy concedes. “I want to hear her perspective.”

You persevere: “The scene—it gives men license to be violent. It tells women they should want to be taken, that being submissive is sexy. ‘Fuck me harder. Do whatever you want to me, I’m a bad girl, I deserve it.’ I know it’s not intentional . . . but I think you underestimate the effect it has.”

“It sure as hell has an effect on me,” Gage says.

“We’re saying: This is what love is. This is the best sex you can have. We put it up there on the big screen and people believe it. They think it’s real.”

“But it is real, Hedda,” Meyers argues. “Maybe not for you.”

The men in the room are looking at you in a way that makes you feel naked. Somehow, you feel as though you are on trial. They are watching you closely, judging you. Their eyes accuse you of being frigid, that, perhaps, this is your own personal issue and has nothing to do with the film. That perhaps this isn’t a concern for most women. Most women, their eyes suggest, have no issue with orgasms like you do. Their wives and girlfriends, for example, are completely satisfied. Their wives and girlfriends and mothers even come up a storm every night. But you—a woman like you, with your pale skin and ratty blond hair and hawkish nose and insignificant breasts, are lucky just to get laid, let alone fetch a determined lover. They are actually feeling sorry for you.