The Fame Game (8 page)

From the moment Dick Devere first spoke to her, or actually to all the girls, Silky admired him. He had this real
cultural
way of speaking, the way he pronounced words. And he dressed in a way that wasn’t at all sharp but certainly was hip. She knew his clothes were expensive. And she liked the way he moved, sort of relaxed but quick. She would watch him moving about the set, directing the other acts, and she thought he was kind of sexy. That surprised her, because it had been such a long time since she had thought of any man as sexy, or even as anything. Then, after she sang for the first time, she had the idea maybe he was noticing her too.

She didn’t at all hold it against him that he was white. Silky had never been prejudiced. In fact, she kind of liked it. He was nothing like pimply Marvin, or that ape Mr. Libra, or the cruddy Eyetalian boys in her old neighborhood. He was real classy. She wondered if he had a wife or a girl friend.

They did the show in their new plaid knicker suits, with little red ascot ties and their Buster Brown wigs. They looked groovy. And they had never sounded better, since they were only lip synching to their records, so it was crazy of her to worry about losing her voice, although logic had nothing to do with it. After all, someday soon they would be doing their singing live, on an even bigger TV show than this, and it would be a heck of a mess if she couldn’t sing
now
, just because there were millions of people watching what was coming over the camera at their end. All the girls were aware of the unseen audience, and the thing was, you had to sing out loud anyway, or it didn’t look real. When they did “You Left Me,” as usual Silky got carried away and changed some of the words without even knowing it. The girls knew it, though, and they were furious.

“Can’t you even remember that old song?” Honey said, mad.

“I’m sorry.”

“You certainly had enough practice,” Honey said. “
I
know the words.”

“I know the words,” Silky said.

“That girl sure is dumb,” Honey said to the others.

Dick Devere just laughed. After the show he asked Silky to come have a drink with him. The girls raised their eyebrows when they saw her go off with him, but Silky didn’t care. She was floating on air. All the way to the bar she was wondering whether she dared order a real drink even though Mr. Libra had told them they must never drink in public.

They went to a little bar down the street from the television studio. There were a lot of television people there. Silky had changed into her own clothes; a navy-blue wool sailor suit with a white blouse, and she was still wearing her wig and her television make-up. She glanced at herself in the mirror over the bar when they walked in and she thought she looked real good. They sat in a booth near the back, and Dick Devere ordered a Scotch on the rocks.

“Bourbon and Coke,” she said recklessly.

“Cigarette?”

“Thank you, I don’t smoke.”

“Good girl.”

She chewed on a nail.

“How did you ever get the name Silky?”

“On account of ma’ voice,” she said, because it was what Mr. Libra had told her to say.

“You’re going to be very famous one day,” Dick Devere said.

“You think so?”

“There’s no doubt about it. I can always tell. I see hundreds of singers, but none of them have what you do.” He smiled at her. “What’s that book you’re reading?”

Silky showed him. It was
The Death of a President
.

“I’m glad you’re not reading
Valley of the Dolls
,” he said.

“Oh, I read that too.”

“You read a lot,” he said, sounding surprised.

“I read a book a week. I really read them too; I don’t just carry them around like the girls say.”

“You don’t get along too well with the other girls, do you,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.

“Oh, sure I do!” Silky protested. “We get along just fine. They’re great girls.”

“I think they’re jealous of you,” he said.

“Oh, no, they’re not. We all get equal money.”

“That doesn’t make any difference. They know you’re going to be a star someday and leave them far behind, and what’s worse, they know you deserve it and they don’t. Don’t you notice they’re jealous?”

“I’m just too busy singing,” Silky said. The drinks came and she gulped down half of hers. It made her feel warm and more relaxed. “I’m trying to figure out where you’re from by the way you talk,” she said, “but I can’t.”

“I’m from the Middle West. What you’re listening to is the accent I learned in a short stint at radio-announcer school. I did that for a while after college, while I was trying to break into directing. Where are you from?”

“South Philadelphia.”

“Then why do you have a Southern accent?”

“I don’t,” Silky said.

“Sometimes you do.”

“My parents were from Georgia,” she said, remembering.

“Are they still alive?”

“No,” she lied. “They’re both dead.” Well, maybe her father
was
dead; she hadn’t heard from him in years.

“I think you should take acting lessons,” he said thoughtfully. “Has Libra talked to you about that?”

“No. We’re taking dancing lessons now.”

“Well, you should ask him about an acting class. Eventually you’re going to do a Broadway musical, and you should know how to act.”

She had forgotten about the rest of her drink. The things he was saying to her were making her dizzy. “What Broadway musical? Me? What are we going to play, a black
Little Women
?”

“Not
we
,” he corrected. “
You.
”

“I’ll never leave the girls,” she said.

“You left them to come out with me,” he said. She realized he was teasing her.

“That’s different,” she said.

“Not so different. People are going to seek you out, want to see you on your own. You’re going to have a life of your own. I’m just telling you this because I want you to know it isn’t going to be so easy for you to get along with the girls after a while, and I don’t want it to be a shock for you. It’s always better to be prepared.”

“I don’t go out with anybody, and I never minded who they went out with,” Silky said. She finished her drink.

He ordered two more. “Don’t you know anybody in New York?”

She thought about telling him about her vow and decided against it. Telling anybody might break the magic. “Oh, I know a few boys,” she said.

“But you don’t like any of them?”

“I’m too busy to date,” she said. Then she realized what a dumb thing that was to say—he might think she didn’t want to see him ever again. “I mean, I guess I don’t like
them
much.”

He smiled. He seemed to know a lot of things she didn’t have to bother to tell him. She couldn’t decide if he made her nervous or not. He certainly was sexy. She had decided that, anyway. He was as sexy as hell.

“Have you always read a lot?” he asked.

“No, just since I quit school. I didn’t think quitting school was any reason why I should stop my education.”

“Have you ever read
The Wind in the Willows
?”

“I never heard of it,” she said.

“It’s a children’s book, but like all good children’s books it’s really for grown-ups. You should read it. And read
Mary Poppins
.”

“I saw the movie,” she said.

“It’s much better than the movie. Movies of children’s books are terrible. The great thing about a children’s book is you have to use your imagination. Once you see the people in front of your eyes on the screen you have to go by the director’s idea of what they should be like instead of your own.” He took a little leather-covered note pad out of his pocket, and a slim gold ballpoint pen and began to write. “I’m writing down a couple of books you’ve probably missed that I think you’ll enjoy.”

Well, get her! She was sitting here in this bar with all the television people and a big director twice her age was talking to her about books and movies as if she was an educated person! Shee-it … I mean, wow! She sipped the new drink. Somebody had put money in the jukebox and it was playing “Lemme Live Now.” It was like a dream come true. She would have
paid
somebody to put her record on now! That was her voice there, and here was her body here, having a drink or two with this groovy guy, and oh, wow, who had ever heard of a gold ballpoint pen! She made up her mind to buy one just like it tomorrow, and a leather-covered notebook too, and write down little things in it.

He tore out the page and gave it to her. “Where are you staying?”

“The Chelsea Hotel.”

He nodded approvingly. Then he wrote that down in the little notebook, and put it away in his pocket. “I’m not going to do television forever,” he said. He sipped his Scotch. “Eventually I’m going to do a new kind of musical, using techniques of film and the total environment of the discothèques. Have you been to Schwartz’s Lobotomy?”

She shook her head no. It sounded like a delicatessen.

He looked at his watch. “Known to the regulars as the Lobe. We have time to get something to eat before it opens, if you’re not doing anything.”

“I have nothing to do for the rest of my life,” Silky said cheerfully. At that moment it seemed as if she didn’t.

He took her to a French restaurant where she didn’t know what she was eating, which didn’t matter much as she hardly ate a thing. She had half a glass of wine. Then they took a cab to the Village, to an ugly-looking warehouse with a lot of trash piled up outside. Inside it was like another world. There was a big room with a round balcony hanging in the center of it, suspended by big things that went right through the ceiling and led to by a catwalk. The balcony, suspended by the foundations, was the only thing in the room that was not shaking. The walls, ceiling and floor were covered with moving patterns of psychedelic colors and flashing lights, and the whole room was shaking like a bowlful of Jell-O: the floor they were trying to stand on, the walls, the ceiling. The tables were just tiny silver boxes, and they were shaking too, so the drinks were anchored to them with rubber plungers, but the liquid kept splashing out anyway on to the customers’ clothes. The music was deafening, and the room was evidently wired to vibrate to the sounds. People were trying to dance and stand up at the same time, and most of them looked seasick. Silky could smell pot in the air. She wondered if pimply Marvin took Tamara here, and she hoped he did so they could see her with Dick Devere.

“The ultimate in masochism,” Dick said.

“What?”

“This place. It’s my theory that all discothèques are experiences in masochism for the people who go there, and the reason this one is so popular right now is because it’s the most sadistic. Look there.”

He led her to the side of the room where there was a long line of people waiting to get into a small room with a sign over it:
De-vibration Chamber
. That room wasn’t shaking at all. There were chairs to sit on in the room, and admission was a dollar. The room was so small that only six people could go in at a time, which was why there was the line. The people waiting to get in looked sicker by the minute. Silky didn’t feel too well herself.

Then he took her back to the center of the room. He refused a table and he didn’t want to dance; he just stood there watching professionally, taking it all in. Once in a while he would nod to himself. She didn’t see how he could use any of this on his show but she supposed he had to know about everything that was going on. She felt like they were two outsiders, just standing there. It was a funny feeling, but kind of nice. They were out of it, but special. It was like everybody else was out of it and they were in.

“That’s the V.I.P. balcony,” he said, pointing. “We can sit there if you feel sick, they’ll know me. You see, the celebrities can come here and watch and not have to be tortured. It’s the only way the management can make them feel like they’re celebrities.”

There were shades all around the hanging balcony in front of each of the tables, and some of the celebrities had pulled their shades up so they didn’t have to watch anything at all, in case
that
made them sick.
What a laugh
, Silky thought.
It costs fifteen dollars a couple to get in here and then they don’t even look at it
.

“Okay,” Dick said. “Let’s split.”

It was midnight, and he took her to an ice cream parlor on Third Avenue and bought her a sundae about ten inches tall. She would have rather had an Alka Seltzer, and she just played with the sundae, pretending to eat it. Which was just as well, she thought, because fudge sauce made her break out. The sundae cost three dollars and fifty cents and she was glad he didn’t seem to notice that she had hardly touched it. He must make a lot of money, she thought, or else he’s really a gentleman.

She was feeling much better now that they were away from the Lobe, and she tried to remember that groovy thing he’d said there, about discothèques being sadistic or maso-something, and try to get it right so she could say it to somebody sometime and impress them. But he kept talking, saying more groovy things, and she was too busy trying to keep up with what he was saying now to keep her mind on what he’d said an hour ago. Sha—being out with him was like being out with ten people!

And then he took her to the Chelsea and told the cab to wait. Maybe she had bored him, she thought, beginning to feel very depressed. He didn’t even hint to come up, he just told the cab to wait. She wondered if he was going to kiss her good night or anything, but he just took her hand and held it a long time and looked at her.

“I had a wonderful time,” he said.

“Oh, I did, too,” she said. “I really did.” She thought for a moment of asking him up, but she realized they had turned the room into a pigsty, and Leroy and his girl friend and Cornelius and Ardra would be sleeping on the floor, and he would probably run out of there in horror. “I’ll get those books,” she said.

He smiled. “I envy you, reading them for the first time. Good night.” And then he went away.

She pretended to be walking to the elevator and then when she saw the cab had pulled away she sat down on a chair in the lobby so she could be alone to think. She didn’t know what to make of him. She had thought all evening, until the end, that he really liked her. He certainly wasn’t shy. Maybe he thought she was repulsive. Maybe he wouldn’t go to bed with a black chick. Maybe he was gay. No, she was sure he wasn’t gay. Maybe he had a jealous woman at home. She’d have to get up her courage and worm it out of Mr. Libra in the morning. Boy, she was stupid! She should have asked him something about himself instead of letting him talk about all those arty things at dinner. But she had been so flattered and interested it hadn’t mattered at all about his private life at the time. Maybe the way he acted was just the way people on a date acted in New York when they were his age and sophisticated. She thought that was probably it. He respected her. Wasn’t that a gas!
He respected her!