Woman (7 page)

     "My name is
Ganine," she said.

     "Ganine Woodbury, Val,"
David said, returning with Max's drink.

     "Indeed," Val
said. He leaned over her. "I'm sorry, I'm already stuck with a date,"
he said, "otherwise, I'd make a move."

     
"Val"
Candy tried, in vain, to sound disapproving.

     "And how are you, Doc
Harper?" Val asked, "How's the network shrink?" His voice became
high-pitched and tremulous. "Doctor Harper, sir, I'm having trouble
getting it up. What do you advise?"

     "Use it less, young
man," David said, as though answering a genuine call.

     "I am," said Val
protestingly, "I've got it down to ten times a night."

     David smiled and shook his
head, extending his right hand to Candy. "I'm David Harper," he said.

     "Hi," she
answered.

     "Is that a real leopard
jacket you have?" he asked, glancing at Liz as she came back from the
bedroom andwent over to the bar to make herself a fresh drink.

     "Uh-huh," Candy
answered.

     "Ex-leopard
jacket," Max said. David smiled.

     "Hey, Charlie,"
Val said, "we gonna sweep tonight?"

     "Why not?" Charlie
answered, almost apathetically.

     "Well, control your
enthusiasm—from the program of the same name," Val said.

     "Usually nap time after
dinner," Charlie said, taking a sip of his Scotch. He went back to his
conversation with Barbara.

     "Would you like a
drink?" David asked Candy.

     "Can you make a
Margarita?" she asked.

     "Can he make a
Margarita?" Val said, attempting an Italian accent. "He's a doctori.
He can-a make-a any woman he wants."

     Candy looked confused,
"Huh?"

     "Forget it," Val
said.

     "I'm afraid I don't
know how to make a Margarita, Candy," David told her.

     "Oh. Well. . .Uh. .
."

     David waited for her
decision as Val walked over to the bar and put an arm around Liz's waist.
"How you doin', Sexy?" he said.

     "I'm okay," she
told him.

     "Nervous about
tonight?"

     "A little."

     "Don't give it another
thought. We don't win, I'll blow up the fucking theatre.
Country Boy
rides home a winner
tonight."

     He glanced over at Ganine
who was looking at him curiously.

     "Our show," he
told her. "You've seen it, of course. Wednesday night, eight to
eight-thirty?"

     She looked blank, shook her
head. Val murmured to Liz, "This is your
guest?"

     Liz gave him a Medusa smile.
"David will explain," she said.

     Val scowled, turning to face
Ganine. "You really don't know
Country Boy!
Top ten? Thirty-seven share?"

     She made a hapless gesture.

     Val turned back to Liz.
"The girl's retarded, I presume," he said.

     The smile remained.
"Possibly," she said.

     "Who brought her
here?"

     
"No
one"
Liz said tightly. "David said she was in
the corridor with Charlie and Charlie thought she was a guest."

     "She's not
though?"

     
"Hardly"
she said.

     "When are we
leaving?" he changed the subject.

     She gritted her teeth.
"As soon as possible," she said.

     "Doesn't sound as
though you're too crazy about her," Val said.

     Liz was about to reply when
David came over to them. "So what does Miz Einstein want?" Val asked.

     "Gin," he said.

     "No kidding," Val
said, impressed.

     "And Coke."

     Val's lips puffed out as he
laughed.

     "That's her," he
said. He looked at Candy as she approached the bar. Liz turned away, walking to
the sofa to sit beside Barbara.

     "Yeah, Candy is a
connoisseur of booze all right," Val said, pouring himself vodka over ice
cubes.

     "What's that?"
Candy asked.

     "It means you have big
tits," he told her.

     Candy struck feebly at the
space between them. "Don't say that," she said.

     "Why? You don't have
big tits?"

     She frowned, "It's not
polite to—"

     "Hey, I didn't know
that," Val interrupted in a mockingly sincere voice. "All these years
I've been talking about big tits and I never realized. God
damn."

     He whistled softly, wincing
as Candy punched him onthe arm. "
Ooh
," he said, "I love strong women. Don't you, Doc?"

     David didn't answer, smiling
as he handed Candy her drink. "Thank you, sir," she said, "I see
that you're a gentleman."

     "And
I'm not?"
Val said looking pained.
"You cut me to the cock, dear girl."

     Candy made a disapproving
sound, starting toward the group, David and Val following. As she looked for a
spot to sit, Max patted his lap, an exaggerated leer on his face.

     "Don't trust him,"
Val told her. "He writes."

     "Why did you ask me if
my leopard fur was real?" Candy asked David. "Didn't you think it
was?"

     David didn't know what to
say. "Doc-a-doc was zinging you without you knowing it," Val told
her, "which isn't difficult, of course."

     
"Zinging
me?" Candy asked, looking confused.

     "Zing went the zip of
my fly," Val sang briefly, seeing her still blank expression, he added.
"Leopard? Fur? Endangered feces?"

     "Feces?" she
asked.

     "Oh, shit," Val
said, "you explain it, Doc."

     "It's nothing,"
David said to Candy.

     "But it
is,"
Ganine broke in. Everyone
looked at her with varying reactions from mild surprise to criticism. The room
grew momentarily silent as Candy wedged herself down on Charlie's right side,
filling the sofa and David and Val took chairs.

     Charlie had an angry
expression on his face. "For Christ's sake," he snarled. "What's
the difference if some lousy, fucking cats die out?" Barbara, Liz and
David looked at him in surprise.

     "Amen," Val said.
"Kudos, Charlie. Who needs leopards anyway? Well, Candy does. Right, Sugar
Pussy?"

     "Oh, stop," Candy
said, looking embarrassed.

     "So what the hell are
we talking about?" Val asked, "Emmys or endangered species?"

     
"Emmys"
Liz said sharply, glancing at Ganine with a frown.

     "Right!" Val said.
He looked excited suddenly. "Forget to tell you, Liz," he went on,
"I'm working with some of the writers on a segment where I get to go
dramatic."

     "Oh, shit, here we go
again," Max said, casting his gaze heavenward.

     "Fuck you. What do you
know?" Val said. "You're only the head writer. You give head but
can't write shit." He looked at Liz. "Like this," he said.
"Country Boy gets caught up with a traveling Shakespeare company and the
lady director gets the hots for him and teaches him how to do Hamlet's
soliloquy."

     
"What?"
 Max muttered with a pained expression.

     Val ignored him. "She
tells Country Boy it doesn't matter if the fucking words were written in the
Stone-Ages—"

     "Middle-ages," Max
corrected.

     Val waved away his
objection, looking irritated, "Hamlet's just some ordinary cocker deciding
whether or not to screw his mother, kill his uncle or blow his fucking brains
out."

     "Never heard
Shakespeare explained so well," Max said. Val gave him the finger as David
glanced at Ganine to see what her reaction was to all this. She looked
perplexed, he saw. No wonder, he thought, God, let's just all get out of here.

     "What'd you think,
Sis?" Val asked.

     She looked dubious.
"Well," she said.

     "It'll work, it'll
work," Val told her. "Wait till you hear it." He took a big
swallow of his drink.

     "Let's get back to
woman's lib before he decides to do King Lear," Max said.

     "Who the hell is
he?" Val asked, sounding aggravated.

     "Some blind
cocker," Max told him. "Man versus woman, folks? It was just getting
interesting."

     "What are you
talking
about?" Val demanded.

     "Woman's Lib," Liz
told him.

     "Oh, shit, who wants to
talk about that?" Val said.

     "Doc Harper thinks it's
going down the toilet," Charlie said.

     "No shit." Val
sounded interested now.

     "What do
you
think, Val?" David asked.
"What should woman's position be?"

     "Oh, on her stomach
definitely," Val said. He pointed at Candy. "Candy likes it that
way," he added, leering at her. "Don't you?"

     
"Val,"
David said. As Val looked at him, David looked toward Ganine. Val
shrugged.

     "In other words, women
should be exclusively sex objects, right, Val?" Max said, goading him
obviously.