Postcards From the Edge (24 page)

“No,” said Lucy. “We fooled around once, but someone inter

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rupted us and it just never got continued. We were both real stoned.”

“Interesting,” said Suzanne. “You never slept with Jack Burroughs, and I never slept with Todd Zane. It makes us unique.” “Do you think there’s anyone else out there who’s never slept with one of them?” asked Lucy. “Do you think there’s anyone who’s never slept with either of them?”

“Yes, and she’ll probably show up soon,” said Suzanne. “We’re probably having a meeting and we don’t even know it.” “Let me just ask you one thing,” Lucy said. “Don’t you think this is a little pathetic? To just be in bed watching television?”

“It’s pathetic,” agreed Suzanne emphatically. “I think if you’re going to be pathetic, you should be pathetic. People don’t dare to be pathetic anymore.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t tell anyone about this until we’re really sure pathetic is the way to go.”

“I think we should just really explore doing nothing,” said Suzanne. “I mean, there are a lot of people who essentially do nothing, but none who are boldly going forward and really doing nothing. We’ll be pioneers in real nothing. We’re the new woman, the Woman of the Eighties, with nothing and no one. Look at it this way. We’ve spent years fixing up and futzing around and being as vivacious as our nerves would allow, and it got us unemployed as actresses and as dates. So if all that effort got us nowhere, we could just as easily get nowhere without the effort. The goal should be to remove all stimuli and find out what your instincts are, if any. Because living in Hollywood, we haven’t used our instincts for a long time. We’ve used the instincts of our environment. We’ve seen what other people do and we’ve done the same in order to achieve their success.”

She sighed. “Yap, yap yap, yap, yap, yap,” she said. “Let’s just hope there are no Third World flies on the wall. If anyone from another culture-from anyplace outside of this specific Hollywood culture-overheard this conversation, it would confirm the worst of their suspicions.”

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“Sometimes I feel so spoiled,” Lucy said, “like something left out too long in the Now-Playing-Everywhere sun. Still,” she added hopefully, “I’m very encouraged by this act of hibernation. So, what kind of revenge do you think I can have on Scott Hastings?”

“Revenge may not be a particularly higher-consciousnessoriented activity,” Suzanne said.

“But it is fun,” said Lucy. “Karmically speaking, I agree it’s probably very bad, but I obviously already have a large karmic debt. Otherwise, why was I sent to this planet attracted to men that don’t like me and unable to get an acting job? What the fuck, I might as well act out some revenge on this guy. Wanna help? I mean, you can’t have incredible karma, either-you’re with me. Come on, double or nothing on bad karma.”

“You’re so crazy,” said Suzanne, laughing.

“I want to call him and tell him not to call me,” Lucy said.

“I did this stuff already,” said Suzanne. “Don’t you see? We’ve become smart enough to justify stupid behavior. Like, ‘I’m angry at him and I didn’t express it, so I turned my anger inward and now it’s depression, so in order to feel good again, what I should do is call him and express my anger.’ It’s like, if we can make it sound smart enough, we’re allowed to do stupid things.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Lucy said. “Sometimes I feel like I should hum ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ underneath when you talk. But I feel bad, because he’s sort of famous, and I feel like maybe he’ll get more famous and I’ll have missed something.”

“You’re joking,” said Suzanne. “You think famous is what, successful? It’s not. This guy is a sad, withered guy. He always plays friendly psychotic murderers, and if you pretend something long enough, it comes true. You’re well out of it. And besides, he’s a moron. This is not a person who acknowledges that other people are right. This is not a person who says, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s very interesting, you’ve changed my thinking on this.’

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This is a moron who says, `What’s your point?’ I guarantee you, you are wired up to have a bad call with this guy. You’ll get off the phone and feel like a putz.”

“Okay, okay,” said Lucy. “We’ll stick to our original plan. We’ll do nothing. The Human Stubble Plan.”

“We’ll be like those Indian women who go into the forest to have babies,” said Suzanne, “only we have no forest, we have no babies, and we’re not Indians. Otherwise, the resemblance is stunning.”

They slept in different rooms, because both of them were used to sleeping alone in king-size beds. In the morning, Suzanne woke up two hours earlier than she’d wanted to, and she lay there tossing around until Lucy leaned in the doorway and said, “Was there no air in my room, or did I use it all up?” She walked into the room. “Are you up?”

“I’m always up,” said Suzanne. “That’s what I am. Up, and in kind of a down mood.”

“Listen, I’ve been rethinking this thing,” said Lucy, who was eating a piece of toast. She sat on the bed, wearing a pair of Suzanne’s pajamas, which were small on her. “I think that if we stay in the house, it looks like we’re admitting defeat. I think that if we’re starting anew, there should be some kind of energy behind it.”

“I would like this all to be easier,” Suzanne declared. “Maybe we should live in a university town and teach acting, and be worshipped by all the young kids.”

Lucy ignored her. “I mean, you’ve given yourself a gestation period of nine days now. You know, like nine months, and now it’s time to break through these barricades of apathy. Let’s hit the stores. We’ll buy outfits for the second part of our lives. I’ve already called a cab. I’m going home to get dressed.”

Suzanne thought her bed had begun feeling grungy. “Well, it does seem an awful lot like I’ve just given up. I have to admit, it’s been more of a defensive move than a preparatory one.” She

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sat up. Outside, Lucy’s cab arrived and the driver honked twice. “All right,” she said, “but you have to stay with me while I dry my hair. I don’t like feeling that blast of heat in my empty head.”

“I’ll tell the cab to wait,” Lucy said.

Two hours later, they were driving into Beverly Hills in Lucy’s Honda. Suzanne definitely felt better being out. While she’d been drying her hair, she’d come up with a new message for her answering machine-“I’m out, deliberately avoiding your call”-and that simple burst of creativity had raised her spirits a bit.

“My mood is lifting,” she said, “like a small, heavy plane.” She was wearing her combat shopping outfit: a blue cotton dress with slits up the sides, and under it, black slacks with a blue belt. Suzanne only wore black and blue clothes. Her fashion statement was Bruised.

Lucy, on the other hand, was wearing a cream tunic with black pedal pushers. She carried a bag that fit perfectly under her arm, and her hair was done in a French braid. Suzanne’s hair was pulled back in a barette.

“I don’t understand how you can do those French braids,” said Suzanne. “It shows such a commitment to your appearance.

“You’re an asshole,” Lucy said. “You’re so goodlooking, and you just don’t want anyone to catch you trying to look good. You only want to look good effortlessly.”

“I can’t seem to outgrow my distaste for doing up buttons and pulling on stockings. It all seems so complicated. I walk into my closet and I suddenly feel like a man. Like I’m a giant man, and it’s bursting with some little girl’s clothes, and I’m like, `How do I put all of this on?’ and I wonder whose house it is.”

“How long have you been in therapy?” asked Lucy.

“I’ve never been in shopping and clothing therapy,” said Suzanne. “Norma doesn’t tell me how to dress.”

„

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“She should,” said Lucy. “It’s much more basic.”

Suzanne was quiet for a moment. “It seems like I want them to like me for my mind, anyway,” she said, “so why not let them go straight for it? Why get them to like my legs? It doesn’t seem like that’s me. I feel like what I look like is government issue, it’s pretty much out of my hands. But I invent the stuff I say. That’s me.”

“That’s a very clever way to discuss it,” Lucy said, turning onto Rodeo Drive from Santa Monica Boulevard. “You’re really just lazy about your appearance.” She pulled into a parking space. “But the past is the past. We are now future-oriented, and shopping lies before us, glistening like a dream.”

They ambled into Bottega Veneta. Suzanne loved the smell of leather, and she briefly considered buying purses in every color. She could envision some day in the future when she would have a yard sale and sell all the stuff she would never use, which was pretty much all her stuff.

She watched Lucy looking at scarves. Lucy looked good, Suzanne thought. She knew how to dress to look thin. She knew how to groom herself. If she had a pimple, your eye didn’t automatically go to it. She had pretty good posture, and she didn’t adjust it according to her facial blemishes. She even had nice nails, while Suzanne’s always looked like she’d kept them short for a typing job and was finally starting to grow them out.

She wandered around eyeing purses, hoping no one would come up and ask if they could help her. If they could help her, they should have shown up years ago, she thought. Even though she was a recognizable personality, she often felt she had to impress shopkeepers with her purchases.

Lucy, conversely, was very frugal. Suzanne watched her haggling with a salesgirl over the price of a scarf and tried to determine what color purse she needed. She found a square black bag, very symmetrical, and as soon as she picked it up a saleswoman who smelled of too much perfume showed up at her elbow and breathed, “Isn’t that lovely?”

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Suzanne jumped. “Oh, yes. Yes.”

“Why don’t you look at yourself with it in the mirror? It will go with anything.”

“I have a black bag, though,” Suzanne said dubiously.

“One can never truly have too many stylish bags of such unique design,” said the saleswoman. “This will probably outshine any of the bags you have at home. Look at it. It’s perfect for someone your size.”

“It is nice, isn’t it?” said Suzanne. “How much is it?”

“It’s very, very reasonable,” said the woman, taking the bag from Suzanne and opening it and looking at the card inside. She smiled a kind of sleazy smile, like a Stepford wife.

Suzanne felt a surge of panic as she realized she was being intimidated into an unnecessary purchase, then moved quickly through her indecision. In the short run it was easier to buy it, and Suzanne was always dealing very heavily with the short run. “I’ll take it,” she said.

Just then, Lucy came up to Suzanne with a scarf around her shoulders. “What do you think of this?” she asked, then noticed the black purse. “Oh, are you getting that?” she asked. “Don’t you already have a bag just like it?”

“Yeah,” said Suzanne blankly, “but …”

“What are you doing?” demanded Lucy. “What are you doing? How much is that bag?”

“I don’t know,” Suzanne said. “It’s a lot…”

“How much?” Lucy asked. She turned to the saleswoman. “Excuse me, I’m her agent, her shopping agent, and I intervene on some of her purchases. She’s in a delirium, she’s had a nearfatal illness.” She took the bag out of the saleswoman’s hands and opened it.

“Four hundred and fifty dollars,” she said. “Four hundred and fifty dollars, and you have a bag almost exactly like it at home. I think maybe we should save this money now, don’t you, Peanut? Didn’t our business manager tell us not to spend money?”

“Yes,” said Suzanne.

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“Honey, why don’t you think about this bag?” Lucy said. “Think about it, and if it stays in your mind like a shiny diamond, we’ll come back and get it. Okay?”

“All right,” said Suzanne. “Don’t condescend to me, though.” “I’m not,” said Lucy sweetly. “I’m patronizing you. You are a patron of the store, and I’m patronizing you. Come on.”

She took off the scarf and put it on the counter next to the black purse. “Thank you very much,” she said to the woman. “I’m sorry that she had a shopping problem.”

“You had a shopping break,” she said to Suzanne when they were outside. “And now the break is closing, and maybe we’ll go put some food in the break, in case it’s not closing.”

They went to the Magic Pan, which Suzanne liked because they used lots of artificial sweeteners. They served crepes filled with all sorts of things, but things she could recognize as food. She ordered a crepe filled with cinnamon-covered apples with ice cream on it and a Diet Coke. Lucy ordered a spinach souffle and an iced tea, and then lit a cigarette.

Suzanne felt depressed from lack of purchase. She eyed Lucy’s cigarette enviously. “I wish I still smoked,” she said. “I shouldn’t have given up everything. Now all I do for fun is park illegally.”

“It’s good that you did all that giving up stuff,” Lucy said. “Anyway, you did doing-it-to-death to death.”

“I do like my additives, though,” Suzanne said. “I ask them to add more MSG.”

Lucy blew out a cloud of smoke. “Don’t you have a secret thought,” she asked, “that if we got work right now, we’d feel better?”

“I don’t know,” said Suzanne doubtfully. “I don’t think you ever get to relax. I mean, sure, there’s a couple of people who could, but I bet they don’t. Because by the time they get to where they could relax, they’ve gotten completely used to not being able to. How do you just suddenly become somebody who relaxes? The kind of ambition you need to get to that place is not relaxing. It’s searing. I think there’s probably something

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about living your whole life in a popularity contest-trying to get people to like you who you couldn’t give a flying fuck about-that kills relaxation.”

“I know what you mean,” Lucy said. “I went up for a part in New York, and I walked in and I thought, ‘Remember those clothes that you see in stores that always make you wonder who buys them? Well, here they are. They’re on the casting woman.’ That’s who I had to impress.”