The Boy Who Never Grew Up (29 page)

She reached for a tortoise-shell comb on the table and began to gently comb out her long, lustrous, golden hair. I watched her, remembering all those times I’d brushed out Merilee’s, brushed it until it shimmered in the flickering light of the candle beside our bed. I watched her. And I found her watching me back, her innocent blue eyes holding mine, weighing mine, inviting mine …
“What makes them so special, Meat
? …
”

“When I was hired to play Debbie Dale,” she went on, her voice low and throaty, “Shelley asked me straight out if I had any skeletons in my closet. I told him all about it. And about the photographs, too.”

“This is cool,” said Cassandra, backing off. “This I know all about.”

Penny set down the comb and reached for her iced tea. “I was working at the Gap in the Galleria Mall,” she recalled, sipping it. “Toy came in one day, real elegant and well tailored, and told me she was an agent who represented fashion models. She asked me if I’d ever considered doing any modeling myself. Hoagy, every teenaged girl in the world dreams of some woman coming up to her and asking her that question. She gave me her card and suggested I think it over. I didn’t have to for very long. I phoned her the next day. She seemed pleased to hear from me. For starters, she said I’d need to put together a book. She gave me the address of a photographer in Hollywood and told me to meet her there and to bring a bikini and two hundred dollars. That was my whole savings. But she said that’s how much a good set of professional shots cost. I didn’t tell my parents about it. I didn’t tell anyone …” She lit another cigarette. Her eyes were on the ocean now, her voice flat and unemotional. “He was a black man, the photographer. Very handsome and charming. He and Toy were lovers, which sort of surprised me. He kept telling me how pretty I was, but I was real tense. So he gave me some weed to relax me. The three of us smoked it together. He took some shots of me in my bathing suit. And then he wanted to take some shots of me
out
of my bathing suit. I freaked, naturally. Said no way. He got real pissed at me. Told Toy he was tired of dealing with amateurs. She explained to me that professional models all have to do full nude shots for their portfolios, like it or not. She was real nice about it. Even told me I could have my money back if I wasn’t into it. She was so nice I decided to go ahead and do it. My teeth were clenched the whole time. I felt like I was being X-rayed for some terrible lump at the doctor’s office. When it was over she hugged me and told me she’d call as soon as she had something for me. I went home and waited by the phone, positive I was going to be the next Christie Brinkley.” She laughed to herself sadly. “I was pretty naive.”

“She didn’t call you?” I asked.

“Oh, she called me, all right,” Pennyroyal said. “But not with any kind of modeling assignment, per se. She kept wanting me to go out to dinner with these men. One was an advertising executive. Another was a producer. They were always older men, men who she told me could do my modeling career a lot of good. I kept telling her I wasn’t interested, and she kept on calling. Finally, it dawned on me what I’d suckered myself into—Shambazza was really a pimp, and she recruited teenaged girls like me for him. I guess I was pretty slow. But she was so low-key and oblique about it all. I mean, she never came out and said it. Or even made any dark hints. It was more like … it was simply
there
for me, if I wanted it. The parties, the cruises, attending to certain men. Making little movies for them, with them. It’s a whole little world, Hoagy, an ugly little world, and a girl with looks can make a good deal of money in it. Even convince herself she’s helping her career. There
are
a couple of pretty big actresses who got started that way.” She cited as example one of the biggest prime-time soap opera stars of the 1980s. “But it certainly wasn’t for me, and I told Toy so. She was very good about it. Said to call her if I ever changed my mind. But I never did. And she never contacted me again. They made their two hundred bucks off me and moved on. I was never paid to model in the nude, Hoagy. I never made a dirty movie. I was never a paid escort or a hooker or whatever else you want to call it.”

“Did you ever go by a different name?”

“When Shambazza was shooting me, he and Toy mentioned that they didn’t think the name Pennyroyal Brim sounded sexy. They thought the name Carla Pettibone did. But I never used it. I never had the opportunity to.” She sighed. “And that’s the whole, sordid story, Hoagy. My life as a bad girl.”

“That’s as far as it went?”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “Don’t you believe me?”

“It’s nothing personal. I don’t believe anyone.”

“That’s as far as it went,” she stated. “Just a stupid schoolgirl mistake, really. But it made Shelley crazy when I told him about it. Debbie Dale … Debbie Dale would not model in the nude. I guess he had visions of Shambazza trying to peddle the shots to a magazine. So he got hold of him and bought the negatives. Just to play it safe.”

“Shambazza was murdered a few weeks after he was paid off. Did you know that?”

“I read about it in the paper,” she acknowledged.

“He dealt drugs, I understand.”

“That part came as news to me. He had a little weed around, but nothing that indicated he was a big-time dealer.”

“Toy lived with him, you said.”

“Uh-huh.” She coughed and cleared her throat. She was getting a bit fidgety. Her bare foot tapped the pavement.

“Must have been odd for you to come across her again,” I suggested. “Married to Norbert Schlom, I mean.”

“Extremely odd,” she agreed. “But that’s the movie business—people are constantly reinventing themselves. You get used to it. She and I are not close friends, if that was going to be your next question.”

“It wasn’t. But I’ll try to remember it next time I throw a dinner party.”

“You can be terribly caustic sometimes,” she said softly.

“I can be,” I admitted. “It’s best to wash thoroughly with strong soap if you get exposed to me. I’m liable to leave burns.”

She gave me an up-from-under look. “Should I consider wearing rubber gloves?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On how you’re planning to use me.”

“
What
are youse two going on about?” Cassandra demanded, bewildered. “I mean, does somebody wanna tell me?”

“Sorry,” I said. “We got off the subject.”

“Or onto it.” Pennyroyal moistened her lips with the tip of her pink tongue. “Depending on how you look at it.”

This one roused Lulu, my fierce protector, who got up and moved halfway between Pennyroyal and myself, the better to watch over me.

“My next question,” I continued, “was going to be about how you got discovered.”

“After high school I enrolled at USC, where I was fortunate enough to become a member of the cheerleading squad,” she replied mechanically. She’d obviously undergone this particular Q&A in a thousand interviews. “They happen to do a lot of promotional things for the school—calendars, posters. The SC cheerleaders are very popular. Anyway, Matthew had been looking for a blond cheerleader type to play Debbie Dale, and I guess he was really starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel because—”

“Don’t put yourself down, honey,” cautioned Cassandra.

“Correction—they were searching for a new face,” Pennyroyal said tartly. “Anyway, his casting agent sent him some of our group shots. Legend has it that Matthew pointed right to me and said ‘That’s Debbie Dale.’ I had zero acting experience. He didn’t care. He wanted me. And he got me.”

“Did he give you much direction?” I asked.

“He just kept telling me to be myself,” she replied. “Because I
was
Debbie. That’s what he kept saying: ‘You
are
Debbie.’ What I was was petrified. My knees shook. I was nineteen, for God’s sake. I still am. Frightened, I mean. I’m positive that everybody’s finally going to wake up one of these mornings and realize that I’m a complete fraud. I’m no movie star. I’m just lucky, that’s all.”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” I said. “Every star in the business feels that way.”

“Even Merilee Nash?” she asked.

“Especially Merilee Nash. There are mornings when she’s so convinced she’s a fake that she almost convinces me.”

Her eyes searched my face. “But she doesn’t?”

“Not a chance.”

“That must be nice,” she said longingly. “Having someone who believes in you that way. That’s a real relationship. Not like what I had. All I had were the highlights. A second Badger movie. A twenty-first birthday party. A wedding. A third movie. Georgie. I had everything but the relationship in between.”

“I’d like to hear about the wedding,” I said.

“It was very exciting,” she recalled, brightening. “Sinful, almost. We just ran off to Las Vegas one weekend and did it, totally spur of the moment. Told no one. Neither of us had ever been to Vegas before. We had fun there. That was our honeymoon. We had to be back first thing Monday morning—he was in postproduction on
Badger Two.
The Shelleys, they were really happy for us. Threw a small party for us at their house. Bunny, she just kept glowering at me,
willing
me to drop dead on the spot.” She looked around at her yard. “We bought this place the following weekend. Spent a lot of our time fixing it up. We never did get to have a real honeymoon. I’d like to have one someday.”

“Possibly you and Trace …?”

Cassandra leaned forward.

“No,” said Pennyroyal regretfully. “Trace was always a friend. A good friend. And then he was a strong shoulder to cry on when things went sour with Matthew. But I think we’ve gone sour, too. It sure doesn’t take long, does it?”

“Not in this weather. Where did you and Matthew go wrong?”

She tossed her head, considering her reply a moment. “I honestly don’t think Matthew has the slightest idea who I am. I’m not Debbie—I’m a human being. He was totally shocked to discover that I get my period and shave my legs and have bad breath in the morning. And I’m not Little Miss Sunshine, either. I can be moody and stupid and a real bitch. I throw things. That shocked him, too. Matthew … Matthew doesn’t understand adults. It shows in his movies. They’re a child’s view of the world. No grown-up love scenes. Our marriage was exactly like that—strictly ‘Fade-out to the next morning.’ Because that’s how it’s done in the movies and TV shows he worships. He has no other frame of reference to draw upon. His parents weren’t close, I gather. He even insisted we sleep in twin beds. I hated those beds. I have a big bed up there now. … He never knew how to behave after the fade-out. He hasn’t the slightest concept of sharing, confiding. He never, ever opened up to me. As for the sex itself, I don’t feel very comfortable talking about that. Let’s just say it was consistent with the rest. There was no closeness or intimacy. It was always kind of … furtive.”

“And before the fade-out? What was he like then?”

“He smothered me,” she replied flatly. “He couldn’t stand me having other friends or interests. He wanted my whole life to be
him.
And when I got offered other parts, he freaked. I was offered good parts, Hoagy—
Pretty Woman
,
Ghost
, Maid Marian in
Robin Hood.
I had to turn all of them down. He forbade me to work for other directors. He was so jealous and insecure. So immature. I tried to help him grow. Become more social, get out more to concerts and plays, maybe dress a little nicer. Neither of us have ever been to Europe. I thought it would be fun to have someone come here a couple of evenings a week to teach us French. I thought we could go to France for a month. Learn about the culture, the food, the wine. He refused. He wouldn’t do it. All he ever wanted to do was sit in the den and watch old movies, over and over again. To me, a relationship is growing together. To Matthew, it’s hiding together. Matthew Wax is a shut-in. That’s what he is. And that’s what did us in.” She sat back and puffed out her cheeks. She’d spoken her piece.

“Sounds like you’ve given it a lot of thought,” I observed.

“Damned right I have,” she said.

“For what it’s worth, he is making more of an effort now.”

“Because I left him or because the critics did?” she wanted to know.

“Because he’s lost his way.”

The breeze picked up a bit. She shivered, goose bumps on her arms. “Maybe you’ll have better luck with him than I did.”

“I might. It’s easier for me.”

“Why?” she wondered.

“I don’t love him.”

“I’ll always love him,” she admitted, her eyes filling with tears. “It’s true.”

“Gawd, this is so
sad
,” whined Cassandra.

“Don’t tell me you’re just figuring that out.” I reached for my boater. Lulu stirred. “I want to thank you, Pennyroyal. You’ve been very helpful. I appreciate it.”

She didn’t seem to be listening anymore. She was gazing out at the Pacific.

“I do have one more question,” I said.

“Of course,” she said hoarsely, wiping her eyes. “Anything.”

“If all of this were happening to Debbie Dale—the breakup, the bad publicity, the nude shots …”

“Yes?”

“How would she handle it? What would she do?”

She let out a short laugh. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“The answer to that question,” she replied, “is that none of this would ever, ever happen to Debbie Dale.”

Norbert Schlom had reportedly plunked down $275 million on Panorama City’s new Yeti-inspired office tower, a thirty-two-story postmodern Himalayan peak complete with crags, escarpments and snowy peaks. It looked a little like the Matterhorn with windows. An open-air arcade connected it to the Panorama City Convention Center and the adjoining Sheraton Hotel complex, which was situated directly across a man-made lake from the grand entrance to the Panorama City Studio Tour.

It wasn’t a place to make movies anymore. No wonder he needed Bedford Falls.

He was looking at dailies in one of the few remaining bungalows, which was located across an alley from one of the few remaining soundstages. Inside was a quaintly old-fashioned screening room. Oversized red velvet armchairs with individual cigarette stands and phones were positioned six across, a dozen or so rows deep. Schlom’s bulky, intimidating self was parked in the middle surrounded by a coterie of development boys and girls and the director of what was up on screen. They were watching Panorama City’s hottest new chop ’n’ sock star, Sylvie, a sexy Norwegian kung fu mistress whose low-budget debut had grossed $120 million. Right now she was busy grabbing two Japanese thugs by the lapels, conking their heads together, and hurling them bodily through a plate glass window.