Postcards From the Edge (19 page)

“Why?” asked Michelle. “What did he-?”

“He served time for manslaughter, for one thing,” Chad said. “And for another thing, he’s gay. You can see him most nights on Hollywood Boulevard.”

“Oh,” said Suzanne meekly.

“You stay away from him,” warned Chad paternally. He chucked Suzarme under the chin and strode back to the Lifecycles. The girls walked out without looking back at the silent man pumping iron for Hollywood Boulevard. “Stay away from him,” Suzanne said. “What was I gonna do, date him?”

They walked up to Suzarme’s BMW. “Tomorrow,” she said, confidently. “Legs.”

Michelle nodded. “And stick to your diet,” she said.

“I will,” said Suzanne, turning off the alarm and getting into her car.

“You will not,” Michelle said.

“Probably a little of both,” said Suzanne, starting her engine. “I will and I will not. The Zen diet.”

“And you’ll end up looking like a Buddha,” shouted Michelle over Don Henley’s “All She Wants to Do Is Dance” on the radio as Suzanne waved and drove off.

She went home to wash her hair and change clothes for her lunch with A1 Hawkins, some manager who wanted to handle her career. Her friend Bob Becker had set up the lunch, and she was not looking forward to it.

She put on a little blue dress that both was comfortable and looked halfway decent. It fell exactly between her two clothing classifications: “dressing for me” and “dressing for them.” It was very hard to find a miracle dress like this, but she had accumulated three. This one had a little burn hole on the lower left side, but she was pretty sure nobody would notice.

She applied her makeup, checking on the steady progress of her blemish, and blow-dried her hair. She turned the dryer off four times while she was using it because she kept thinking she heard the phone ringing, but it never was. Then she put on some black high heels-which she felt firmly planted her outfit

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in the “dressing for them” category-and left for the restaurant she had selected: the Hamburger Hamlet on Beverly Drive. About a block from the Hamlet, she found herself driving behind an enormous Bentley, the driver of which appeared to be on the phone. Staring at the back of his barbered head, Suzanne suddenly knew with absolute certainty that he was her lunch date. She tried to keep alive the possibility that she was wrong, but when he signaled his turn into the parking lot, she was overcome with dread. Could she drive around the corner to the Safeway and call the restaurant and tell A1 Hawkins she was sick?

No. She’d already canceled and rescheduled this lunch three times. She had to go. “Oh, well, maybe I’ll learn something,” she thought philosophically as she handed her keys to the valet. She imagined herself smoking serenely on a pipe and gazing off to sea and saying, “Well, yeah, sure, he was an asshole, but he wasn’t your typical asshole. I really learned something that day at the Hamlet.”

The instant she walked into the restaurant she heard a loud New York voice bark, “Suzanne?” Sure enough, it was the skipper of the SS Bentley.

“A1 Hawkins?” she asked meekly.

“The same,” bellowed Al, shaking her hand. “Why don’t we go to the table? Miss?” he called to a waitress. “Is our table ready? Thanks.”

A1 Hawkins steered Suzanne to a table against the wall, under a mirror. He was under six feet, with a short, almost military haircut, brown eyes, a deep tan, and very good teeth-his, Suzanne guessed. He was wearing weird sunglasses on the top of his head, long thick black glasses, the kind Ferrari would make if they went into the sunglass business. He was wearing a blue button-down T-shirt, tight faded blue jeans, and neat little brown shoes. He was like a sergeant in the Show Business Corps, and Suzanne felt like some lowly private with AWOL leanings. He handed the waitress a couple of singles to get him

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some cigarettes and steered Suzanne like an invalid into her seat. “You sit facing out, okay? Okay,” he said. He was completely self-contained-he asked questions and he answered them. Suzanne felt superfluous.

“You’re not blond,” A1 Hawkins said, fixing her with his intense glare.

“No, I never was,” said Suzanne.

“Well, you’ve never been blond in any of your films, but…” A1 shrugged. “I know a lot of girls who, after a while, just … go blond.”

“Spontaneously?” asked SuzaruZe.

“No, they decide to do it after … Oh, I see. A joke.” Al smiled. “Shall we order?”

The waitress appeared with a pad and pencil. Suzanne ordered cottage cheese and fruit. Al ordered a number eleven, a cheeseburger with bacon and Russian dressing and French fries, and a Diet Coke. Suzanne hesitated, craving caffeine, then mustered all her willpower and asked for mineral water. The waitress left them sitting across from each other in silence. Suzanne watched Al light a Vantage as though she’d never seen it done before. She wondered if she was in the midst of an anecdote that, for reasons of proximity, she was not yet able to perceive. “You have a nice car,” she said.

“Isn’t she a beaut?” said Al, beaming as he blew out a lungful of smoke. “I had her shipped here from New York. Do you have any idea what a pain in the butt it is to ship a car?”

“I once had someone drive mine out,” Suzanne offered. “Well,” said Al, “I would hardly trust my Bentley with a person.”

“I’ve never driven one,” she responded lamely. “They must drive smoothly or something to have become such a status symbol. I mean, a cliche doesn’t become a cliche for nothing.” She no longer knew what she was talking about, so she stopped, plunging them back into silence. Their table was becoming a cemetery for dead air.

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A1 gave her a thumbs-up gesture and said, “It rides like a dream.”

“Really?” said Suzarule. “That’s great.”

Suddenly, A1 got to the point. “What I’d like to say right up front is how much I dislike your choice of agents.”

“Pardon me?” Suzanne didn’t quite know where she was. “When Bob gave me your number, I hadn’t known you had gotten a new agent,” A1 said. “I couldn’t possibly work with Mark Auerbach. I think he’s full of shit.”

“Really?” said Suzanne, without expression. She could just as well have said “hunchback” or “toaster” for all the impact it had on Al. He was on a roll now, and she was truly incidental.

“None of my people are with the Empire Agency,” A1 was saying. “I moved all my people, even Zita Farina. She’s going to be a huge star.”

Suzanne nodded and wondered how much his watch cost as the waitress mercifully arrived with their food. She stuffed a banana into her mouth and made a mental note to kill Bob Becker.

“You know what I’d do with you?” said Al, salting his fries. Suzanne shook her head, even though A1 wasn’t looking at her. “I’d put the word out that you were a client of mine and we were interested in projects, and see what kind of reaction we’d get. See where you stand.” He took a big bite of his hamburger and kept talking as he chewed. “You’re perfect for a series, ‘cause you can play intelligent, and people like intelligent. We have a series in development right now that you might be perfect for.”

“Well, send it to me,” Suzanne said, more to her cottage cheese than to him. “I’ll read it.”

“I’ll send it to you when we have a script,” A1 said. “It’s a show for a guy and three women. You’d be great for the younger woman, the magazine editor. Very bright, funny, down to earth.”

“I’d like to do a series,” Suzanne said seriously. “I mean, I’d be stupid not to. But I keep thinking that movies are more-“

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“You’re being naive,” interrupted Al, waving a French fry dismissively. “If you can get a good part in a pilot, you should go for it.”

“Who is this guy?” Suzanne wondered. “Whether I’m being naive or not,” she said testily, “I would like to explore it a little bit before jumping into television world.”

“It’s a potentially enormous career-maker,” A1 said, chewing another big bite of burger. “Remember Happy Days? Henry Winkler got sixth billing. Remember Welcome Back, Kotter? Travolta was way down on the cast list, tiny speaking part.”

Suzanne decided she didn’t want a personal manager, and she certainly didn’t want one that got this personal. People she had known for years didn’t call her “naive.” She felt defeated. She didn’t seem to want to be anything badly enough to do what was required. She knew a lot of the right people, but she didn’t know them in the right way. Something about pushing your way to the front seemed so undignified.

She liked acting, all right. She just didn’t like a lot of what you had to do in order to be allowed to act: the readings, the videotapings, the meetings, the criticism, the rejections. She was too old, too young, too pretty, too short, not funny enough, too funny … It could wear you down after a while. After a while, it became a job in itself not to take those pronouncements personally.

“I’d like to see you do a guest shot on a Miami Vice or a Cosby,” A1 was saying. “Do some really good episodic. They could build a whole show around you, and then, snap,” he snapped his fingers, “forty million people see you in one night. But even more important,” he said, gesturing with his thumb behind his back, “they see you.”

“Who?” asked Suzanne, looking over his shoulder. “The industry,” he answered, exasperated.

“Oh,” Suzarule said. She felt nauseous. A1 continued extolling the virtues of episodic, and when he paused momentarily, she interjected, “But not that many women go on to movies from TV Except Shelley Long.”

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“You don’t count Sally Field?” leered Al. “The Flying Nun made her.”

“What about Norma Rae?” asked Suzanne hopefully.

“The Flying Nun did it,” said A1 confidently. “It made her.” Suzanne didn’t want to argue Norma Rae/Flying Nun statistics for the rest of the lunch, so she got up and said with a smile, “I’m just going to the men’s room.”

“Quite the kidder, aren’t you?” said Al. “I like that.”

On her way to the bathroom she passed two women in their late twenties, who were standing by the phones and talking about how they could never live in L.A. because the nice weather all the time would annoy them. “I like seasons,” one of them said. When Suzanne came out they were still there, talking now about a mutual acquaintance of theirs. “I heard she blew Don Johnson,” said the woman who liked seasons.

When she got back to the table, A1 had paid the bill. “I’m gonna keep up with you,” he said, rising to greet her.

“Okay,” said Suzanne, her chest tight. “Good.”

“I’m going to South Carolina tomorrow to visit a client,” he said as they walked to the parking lot. “But I’m going to keep pestering you about my pilot.”

“Great,” said Suzanne, desperate for her car. “I want to read it.” “I wish you weren’t with that putz Auerbach.”

“Well.” Suzanne shrugged as her car arrived. “Thank you for lunch.”

“What lunch?” bellowed Al. “You ate like a bird.”

“I ate like a blonde,” corrected Suzanne, sliding into her seat and closing the door while A1 tipped the parking attendant for her. “Thanks, Al.” She waved. “Talk to you soon.”

“Bye, sweetheart,” shouted Al. She watched him in her rearview mirror, working on his teeth and adjusting A1 Junior, and imagined him nude except for a leather maid’s outfit and some nipple clamps. She waved again, then drove into the postluncheon traffic.

She arrived for her facial ten minutes late, apologizing as she ran past the desk to the back for her pink facial robe. As she threw it on, a small dark-haired woman turned to her and said, “Susie?”

“Suzanne,” corrected Suzanne. “Yes, I’m … me.”

“This way, please,” said the woman, in a heavy Eastern European accent. Suzanne followed her into a small room. The woman turned on the light and motioned for Suzanne to lie down on the table.

“I am Marina, your skin consultant,” she said. “Will you be having collagen or a vegetable peel today?”

“Uh, vegetable peel, I guess,” answered Suzanne. She wished she had her regular facial lady, Jean, but she had rescheduled this appointment so many times in the past few days that Jean wasn’t available. Marina put a terry-cloth headband on Suzanne’s head to protect her hair, then moved some cleansing cream around on her face. She removed the cream with cotton and moved a big light over to examine her skin.

“When was your last facial?” asked Marina.

“Last month,” lied Suzanne. She had had two last week. “You need a cleaning very badly.”

Suzanne thought she detected a note of contempt in Marina’s voice. “I know,” she said dejectedly.

“And,” said Marina, “you have one very big-“

“I know!” interrupted Suzanne loudly. “I know,” she repeated, more softly this time. “If it gets any bigger, I’ll have to set up charge accounts for it.”

“I don’t know if I can get rid of that for you,” said Marina doubtfully. “I don’t think it’s ready yet.”

“Just do what you can,” Suzanne said. “I’ll understand.” “Okay, then we start,” said Marina, suddenly brusque, as she moved the hateful light away. She began mixing something behind Suzanne’s head, in a little porcelain dish. “Now,” she said gravely, as she spread something creamy and strange over Suzanne’s face, “you are going to feel a very big smell.”

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It was true. Suzanne felt the biggest smell of her life. Marina passed a paper fan in front of Suzanne’s face to move the horrible vegetable peel fumes as they rose from the muck. After about fifteen minutes the stench died down, presumably taking with it a layer of Suzanne’s skin, so Marina removed the peel and began steaming Suzanne’s face for the deep pore work.

Suzanne hated the deep pore cleansing, but when you got down to it, that was really what facials were all about. She wondered what her skin would look like if she’d never had all these facials. Probably better. She’d probably ruined her skin’s ability to clean itself by getting it addicted to this whole process.

“Am I hurting you?” asked Marina disinterestedly. “No, not really,” lied Suzanne.