Lucky Stars (10 page)

“That’s right. His people called my people,” she said. “We’re in discussions.”

“Your people?”

“Yes. Arnold, Karen, and Jeanine.”

“Who’s Jeanine?” I knew that Arnold was her agent and Karen was her manager, but I hadn’t heard this Jeanine person mentioned before. The entourage was growing.

“Jeanine’s my publicist. Arnold and Karen didn’t think Corbin could h
andle the avalanche of media re
quests I’m generating.”

“But he got you on three national TV shows.”

“I know, dear, and he’s fine for the Fin’s-related appearances, but my reach is broader than that now. I’ve become—well, I hate to sound immodest—an icon.” You see? I wasn’t overreacting when I’d told Maura my mother would be impossible. An
icon,
she called herself. No one in their right mind calls themselves that. Not unless they’ve started believing their own press releases. Fame is a slippery slope, no question about it, but I just didn’t figure my no-nonsense, straight-talking mother to be seduced by it. It occurred to me, as I sat there listening to her yammer about taking a meeting with this one and granting an interview to that one, that we really had switched places, she and I. It was my turn to look after her, I realized. Yes, it was up to me to make sure that fame wasn’t the only thing she was seduced by.

t
welve

“
I
guess you’ve forgotten your own daughter,” I said to my mother’s answering machine, since it had been days since she and I had connected. “Or am I supposed to go through Jeanine to get to you?”

Actually, my mother hadn’t forgotten me at all. It just felt that way. She had tried to call me several times, but we never managed to make contact other than to engage in a frustrating game of phone tag. She was so busy now, was on such a crazy schedule, that I worried about her health. And so I kept leaving messages for her that went like this: “Are you getting enough sleep?” “Are you taking your vitamins?” “Are you drinking your Meta-mucil?” Sound familiar? Yes, I was nagging her, the same way she used to nag me, and my excuse was the precise excuse she’d always fallen back on: I cared.

I mean, how would I know if she was all right? I may have been her daughter, but I hadn’t seen her in weeks. Not in person, anyway. The last time I’d caught a glimpse of her was on
Hollywood Squares
(she sat in the center square). Shortly thereafter, she’d flown to New York to shoot a small part in Woody Allen’s movie, then participated in a segment on
Good Morning America,
during which different celebrities cooked their favorite dishes with Diane Sawyer. (Mom made tuna noodle casserole using canned Fin’s premium solid white albacore.) Her fame was spectacular, her presence felt everywhere. In one week alone, she was a clue in
TV Guide
’
s
crossword puzzle, mentioned in Maureen Dowd’s op-ed piece in
The New York Times,
and photographed by Annie Leibovitz for a
Vanity Fair
spread entitled “Women Who Rule.” Oh, and Tim Russert invoked her name on
Meet the Press
after a politician wagged his finger in response to some policy question and said, “Make no bones about it.”

Yes, the circus surrounding my mother was breathtaking in its scope, and turned my life upside down. Not only did I feel dwarfed by all the attention she was getting—both personally and professionally—but I just plain missed my mommy.

Yup, you read that right. I missed her pestering, missed her showing up and rearranging my kitchen, missed her sticking her nose into my business. I never would have thought it possible, but I yearned for the good/bad old days when I cringed at the mere sound of her voice.

Of course, there was one moderately amusing aspect to having a newly famous mother. Suddenly, people were nicer to me. For example, Cameron, the manager at Cornucopia!, had begun to treat me less like her cleaning lady and more like the lady of the house. I nearly fainted when she instructed another member of the sales staff, a woman whose mother wasn’t famous, to vacuum the store every night so I wouldn’t have to anymore. And there was Mickey, my agent, who saw an opportunity to cash in on the Helen Reiser phenomenon and put the word out to all the big casting directors that I was her daughter. “Maybe you can get back in the game now,” he offered, instead of his usual: “You gotta let the dust settle for a few years.” And finally there was Ethan, the Welsh hairdresser with whom Maura had fixed me up months before, the one who’d fled after my mother had barged in on us that night. Out of the blue, he called and asked me out. As with our first date, we went to dinner and came back to my place and kissed wildly on my sofa—until we were interrupted yet again.

“Was that the phone?” I asked, pulling away from Ethan, who was breathing heavily and quite flushed.

“I didn’t hear anything,” he said and proceeded to draw me back into his embrace.

“Yes. It is the phone,” I said, pulling away again.

“Let your machine pick it up,” he said, drawing me closer again.

“But it might be my mother,” I said. “I need to talk to her.”

Ethan practically shoved me off the sofa. “If it’s your mother, you should get it,” he said. “She could be calling from some celebrity party. Maybe she wants us to join her.”

While Ethan preened, in the hope of mixing and mingling with the A-list, I answered the phone, but it was not my mother calling. It was a wrong number.

“Why don’t you ring her up then, Stacey?” he suggested. “Maybe she’d like to join us tonight. We could
meet her someplace, have a nightcap, just the three of
us.”

Funny you didn’t want her around before, I thought, hating Ethan suddenly and showing him the door.

Feeling empty and rather melodramatic, I plunked myself back down on the sofa and balled my body into the fetal position. No, I did not suck my thumb, but that’s certainly the mood I was in. As I said, I missed my mother. I wanted her back the way she was. Not, I realized then, because I was jealous of her success, but because I needed her love. That’s the weird thing about mothers: no matter how much they get on your nerves, they’re the ones who love you when no one else does.

I
had just come home from having my first mammogram—the technician who was squishing my breasts confessed that she, too, had dreams of going into acting—when I noticed I had a couple of messages on my answering machine.

The first was from my mother, who apologized profusely for being out of touch but promised we’d have dinner as soon as she was back from Cleveland, where she was throwing out the first pitch at the Indians’ baseball game.

The second was from—no. It wasn’t possible. Absolutely not possible.

I hit the play button again to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

“Hello, Stacey,” said a sonorous male voice. ‘This is Jack Rawlins, the host of
Good Morning, Hollywood.
I hope you don’t mind my calling you directly instead of going through your agent or publicist—the manager at Cornucopia! was kind enough to give me your home number, in case you were wondering—but ever since
you waited on me at the store that day and forced me to confront the harsh words I used in connection with your performance in
Pet Peeve,
I’ve had terrible pangs of guilt. Truly, I have. I’d appreciate the opportunity to make amends, Stacey. In person, preferably. I realize that you must have less than fond thoughts of me, but I’d relish the chance to apologize for any damage to your career. I’m learning that I don’t review films in a vacuum; that there are living, breathing people behind them and that they get hurt by what I say. So please give me a call back and let’s schedule a meeting. I promise you I can be a fairly decent guy when I work at it.”

The message ended with Jack Rawlins leaving me his direct line at the office. As if I’d ever use it.

“What do you mean you’re not calling him back?” Maura demanded later that night while we were scarfing down pizza at her place. She’d had
a date with a seventy-
year-old TV producer, but he’d died earlier in the week, so the date was canceled.

“Why should I?” I said. “The guy’s a nightmare. You heard what he told a television audience about me.”

“But he’s sorry. He wants to apologize to you in person. You must have made quite an impression on him at the store that day.”

“All I did was throw his review right back in his face. If he feels guilty, so be it.”

“Obviously, he feels guilty or he wouldn’t have tracked you down. This could be an incr
edible oppor
tunity for you, so don’t blow it.”

“An incredible opportunity? To sit there and listen to him pontificate about what a swell guy he really is? Please.”

“Listen, Stacey, let’s say he
is
a jerk and a snake and a creep, and, other than being great to look at, he has
virtually no redeeming qualities. Still, he’s a powerful man in the movie business. Becoming his acquaintance— particularly now that he owes you a favor—wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen to you. So you despise him. So what. Use him. Use his guilt. Use his clout. You’ve been waiting for a break for months now, waiting for something to put you back on the fast track. Well, maybe Jack Rawlins’s phone call is that something.”

I smiled at her, at how she never ceased to amaze me with her positive spin on life. And she didn’t even take Zoloft.

“So I should call him back,” I said warily.

“Of course you should. Have lunch with him or a drink with him. Just get together with him and see what comes of it. Maybe he’ll mention you to some studio executives. Maybe he’ll engineer some meetings for you. Maybe he’ll do neither of those things, but you won’t know unless you call him.”

I
took her advice and phoned Jack Rawlins the next morning. I did not reach the Great One himself. I spoke to Kyle, his assistant, who was far less off-putting than his boss.

“Hey, Stacey. Jack said to ask you which of these dates are convenient for you.” He rattled off several days and times. “He also said I should be very nice to you, which leads me to believe he’s added you to the list of people who dream about punching him out?”

I laughed in spite of myself. “He gave me a rotten review and I’m still smarting from it, I must admit.”

“Sorry about that,” said Kyle. “I’ve worked for Jack for two years now, and I’ve learned the drill: he serves up the reviews and I smooth things over with the reviewees—or try to.”

“You play good cop to his bad cop, you mean.”

“Yup, only Jack’s not the bad cop you think he is. Really. Underneath the I-can’t-get-over-myself fa
ç
ade beats a heart of gold.”

I said I’d keep that in mind but wasn’t buying it for a second. Jack Rawlins was a self-serving son of a— I stopped myself, remembering that I had an agenda in meeting with him. I was hoping to use him to resuscitate my career.

“So you’re free for drinks with Jack at the Four Seasons next Tuesday?” said Kyle.

I took a deep breath. “That would be fine,” I said.

t
hirteen

T
he bar at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills is a lively spot where industry folk mix with wannabes, and nobody makes eye contact with the person they’re with because they’re too busy checking out everybody else. It’s a scene, in other words, and I spent as much time preparing for it as I would for an audition. I labored over my makeup and fixed my hair in
an elaborate half-up/
half-down ’do, and I wore a very tight, very short black skirt with an equally clinging black turtleneck and high, skinny-heeled black sandals. (If you want to get noticed at the Four Seasons, you have to go with either a slutty look or a filthy rich look. Since I was low on funds, I went slutty.) My goal was to appear as different from my wholesome receptionist role in
Pet Peeve
as possible, in order that Jack Rawlins could see my versatility and
pass the word along to his big-shot friends.

Okay, so where are you, you pompous ass, I thought, scanning the room and not finding him.

I glanced at my watch. I was right on time.

Oh, I get it, I said to myself as I continued to peruse the place. You’re the power guy so you’re gonna keep me waiting, is that it? Well, guess again, because I’m only hanging around for ten minutes, tops, and then I’m outta here.

Tough talk, I know, especially from someone who really needed this meeting to happen, but the very idea of Jack Rawlins, just the image of that arrogant windbag with his florid sentences and preppy wardrobe, got me going.

Another tour around the room. And another. No Rawlins, the bastard. If this was his way of apologizing, I was unimpressed.

I did one more sweep of the room, was about to storm out of there, when I spotted him at a table outside, in the bar’s patio area. So
he
’
d
been waiting for
me
?

Fine, so he’s punctual, I thought, as he got up from his chair and waved me over. Punctual
and
pompous.

“Hi, Jack,” I said in my perkiest voice when I reached the table and shook his hand vigorously. I was determined to be charming and memorable, determined to take advantage of this guy’s guilt over having trashed me.

“Thanks for coining, Stacey,” he said, pulling out my chair for me. Such a gentleman. “I was delighted when Kyle told me you’d called.”

“Well, when someone says they’re sorry for what they did, it’s only right to forgive them and move on.” I smiled widely.

“I was hoping you’d feel that way,” said Jack, who,
by the way, was a canvas of earth tones. He was wearing a brown corduroy blazer, beige shirt, and khaki slacks, and the clothes, combined with his reddish-blond hair, ruddy complexion, and tortoiseshell glasses, made me think of soil or sand or maybe just dirt. “I’ve ordered myself a scotch. What can I get for you?” he asked.

“A martini,” I said. “Very dry. Onions and olives, please.” I never drink martinis, but I wanted to appear sophisticated, worldly, movie star-ish to this man. Also, I was nervous.

He ordered my drink and returned his attention to me. “So,” he said, “should we have me expand on my apology for a few minutes or should we try to get to know each other better? How would you prefer to spend the time?”

“How about a little of both,” I said, because while I wanted to advance my cause and promote myself, I also wanted to watch the guy grovel.

“All right. Let’s start with the apology. I’m very, very sorry that I hurt you with my review of your movie. I have a tendency to go for the wisecrack instead of simply offering up my opinion, because it makes for better television.”

“Wait, so are you saying that you’re so
rr
y you compared me to a sledgehammer but that you hated my performance?”

“I’m not saying that at all. I just think your performance lacked—well, let me rephrase—I thought, as I was screening the film, that you were a promising actress who’d been badly directed.”

“Oh.” The waiter brought the martini, thank God. I popped the onions and olives into my mouth, not wanting to drink on an empty stomach, and took a much-too-big sip, which caused me to make a slight slurping
sound, regrettably
.
“Then let me understand. You hated my performance but you decided it wasn’t my fault?”

“Stacey, it’s the director’s job to guide you into doing the best work you can. You weren’t well served in
Pet Peeve.
Now that I’ve seen you in other roles, I’m convinced of that.”

“Other roles? What roles?”

He smiled. “I’m nothing if not thorough. I was curious about you after our exchange at Cornucopia!—it’s not every day that a subject of one of my reviews taunts me with it—and so I asked Kyle to get me tapes of everything you’ve done.”

My, my. So he had researched me, done his homework on me. I was amazed. Flattered, too. “And?”

“And I came to the conclusion that you were wonderful.”

I gulped more of the martini and sat back in my chair. “Wonderful in what, for example?”

“The
Ally McBeal
episode,” he said. “The
Boston Public
episode. All the television work was first-rate, Stacey. Honestly.”

Jack Rawlins is really handsome. I thought this either because he
was
handsome or because he was praising my acting or because I was sliding into inebriation. “I appreciate that. Too bad you missed my Irish Spring commercial. I gave a bravura performance in it.”

He laughed. “I’ll bet you did. I’ll bet if you’d been directed by someone who knew what he was doing, you would have given a bravura performance in
Pet Peeve,
too.”

“Here’s a question for you, Jack,” I said, starting to feel pretty peppy now. “Why are you such a snob about movies?
Pet Peeve
wasn’t
Citizen Kane,
but it wasn’t meant to be. It was meant to be a goofy, fluffy piece of
escapist entertainment. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, if it’s well made. But I’d rather talk about what a capable actress you are, not about what a snob I am. Can we do that?”

“No argument here. Go ahead.”

“For starters, I think you have a very natural quality on camera, a compelling vulnerability about you. And you’re beautiful, of course.”

Of course? Since when? “I don’t know what to say, Jack.” Another sip of the martini was in order. “I certainly don’t consider myself beautiful, and my agent thinks I’m better suited to character parts than leading lady parts, but maybe he hasn’t been pitching me in the right way.”

“Maybe not.”

At that point—it must have been the booze that had loosened me up—I spontaneously unburdened myself to Jack Rawlins, told him the story of my struggles as an actress. I left nothing out, not even the anecdote about the Tic Tac commercial and the saga of the Monster Cold Sore. He seemed fascinated by every gem that came out of my mouth, murmuring in sympathy, patting my hand in a gesture of commiseration, even agreeing to offer to help me revive my career. “I’d be happy to do whatever I can, since you’re having trouble getting the roles you want—the roles you deserve,” he said. “I could make a few calls, drop your name around, ‘create some heat around you,’ as they say in this town. It’s my job to keep my ear to the ground, so if I hear of anything, I’ll do my best to get you involved.”

“That would be fabulous, thanks,” I said, feeling both giddy with the drift the conversation had taken and queasy from the martini, which I’d polished off entirely too fast.

“Would you like another one of those?” asked Jack, nodding at my empty glass.

“I’d better not,” I said. “But a ginger ale would be great.”

Jack signaled the waiter, who brought the soda right away.

“So, are we friends?” he said, running his fingers through his hair. He had nice hands, I noticed. Nice wrists, too. Come to think of it, there wasn’t anything about Jack Rawlins that wasn’t attractive. Now that I had seen this other side to him, this sensitive, generous side, I found myself feeling rather drawn to him.

“Yes, we’re friends,” I said, wondering about the redhead suddenly, the one he’d had on his arm at Cornucopia! “But enough about me, Jack. Tell me about you, about how you became a movie critic.”

“I became a movie critic because I love movies,” he said. “I love to watch them, think about them, talk about them, talk to the people who make them, all of it. When I was a kid, I’d spend whole weekends in theaters, seeing everything that came out, even the crap. Movies were a safe haven, I guess.”

“From what?”

“
The usual: adolescent angst. My parents had a poor excuse for a marriage and my younger brother had a lot of physical problems. Our house wasn’t the most festive place in the neighborhood.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He shrugged. “Everybody’s got a story. The point is, I buried myself in movies the way other people bury themselves in books. When it was time to start earning a living, it seemed only natural that I’d go into the business.”

“The business of reviewing movies?”

“The business of covering the movie industry. I was a better-than-average writer, so my first gigs out of college were with the trades; first
The Hollywood Reporter,
then
Variety.
Eventually, I moved into reviewing movies for consumer magazines, which led to the local television show, and now the syndicated version.”

“You must be thrilled that you’ve gone national, Jack. You’ve got an audience of millions now.”

“It’s been exciting, no question about it, but when you’re at the top, there’s only one place you can go from there—down. There’s a lot more pressure on me than there was when I was writing my columns. I can’t just review movies anymore. I have to interview guests, too, and the problem with that is that I’m competing with the other entertainment shows for the same guests. It’s all about the ‘get’ now; how you can’t let
Entertainment Tonight
or
Access Hollywood
or
Extra!
air a segment with Tom Cruise before you do. It’s the proverbial jungle out there.”

“It must be.”

“So the trick, I’m finding, is to snag the most interesting guests as opposed to the most famous guests— the ones who aren’t just out there plugging their latest film but who genuinely have something to say.” He paused to swallow the last of his scotch, and as he did, it occurred to me that he might be on the verge of asking
me
to be a guest on his show. Well, why not? True, I wasn’t a big name, but he’d just gotten through telling me what a good actress I was, plus he had seemed so captivated by the trials and tribulations of my career. Most importantly, he had promised to help me raise my profile, and wouldn’t putting me on his show be the most efficient way to do th
at? Maybe he was considering do
ing a segment on up-and-comers or down-and-outers or
actresses-who’ve
-plateau
-
ed. Maybe he’d decided that
I
was someone who wasn’t just out there plugging my latest film but who genuinely had something to say. Maybe he was dying to invite me on the show but was hesitant because of the sledgehammer thing.

“Sounds like you’ve got quite a challenge with the new and improved
Good Morning, Hollywood
,” I
said, “but I think your vision for the show is absolutely right, Jack: interesting guests, not the usual suspects.”

“Exactly,” he said. “So, since you have such a keen understanding of what I’m up against, I’d like to ask you a question, Stacey.”

“Ask away,” I said, my excitement growing. Yes, he definitely wanted me for the show. He’d been searching for undiscovered talent and stumbled onto me. God, I couldn’t wait to tell Maura, without whom I wouldn’t have had the foresight to even meet with Jack Rawlins. To think of it! An appearance on
Good Morning, Hollywood
would totally change my life! Every producer, never mind casting director, would see me. It would be the opportunity of all opportunities. I could hardly contain myself.

“I feel a little uncomfortable asking you,” he said, “given the rocky start to our friendship, but now that we’ve cleared the air, I don’t see why I can’t do you a favor and you can’t do one for me. That’s how this business works, isn’t it? One hand washes the other.”

“That’s how it works,” I agreed, eager for him to pop the question already.

“All right,” he said. “What I’m asking is if you would—”

“Yes!” I couldn’t resist jumping in. I was just too charged up. “I’d
love
to be a guest on your show, Jack. I think your producers could come up with a great segment where you interview me about my day-to-day routine of trying to make it in Hollywood. I think your viewers would enjoy it and I’m available to do it. So let’s schedule it.”

He looked puzzled.

“Is something wrong?” I said.

“Uh, I’m afraid there is,” he said. “I wasn’t asking you to appear on the show, Stacey. I was asking you to get me your mother.”