Flavor of the Month (112 page)

Sy hadn’t let on to anyone, of course, but all this tabloid stuff was turning out to be a boon to the reputation of his girls. Yeah, everyone’s
cojones
were in an uproar, but he knew that the minor squall over Sharleen and Jahne would pass, and in its place would come a torrent of new interest. And with that, of course, higher ratings.

So Sy wasn’t ambivalent at all about showing up at the celebrations tonight. One of his girls was going to walk away with an Emmy, that much was guaranteed. He didn’t really care which one, but kind of hoped that it would be Sharleen or Jahne—they could use the positive press, and, in light of the tabloid mess, it would go a long way toward balancing things out.

But whoever got it would be Sy’s. And that no one could take away from him.

The way Sy figured it, the only way he could lose tonight was if there was a nuclear holocaust. Other than that, he was already the winner. The very best, the absolute very best that could happen would be that there would be a three-way tie. Sy chuckled. About as much chance of that as a nuclear holocaust.

But he could hope, couldn’t he?

April looked into the mirror and grimaced. Yes, lipstick
had
smeared onto her two front incisors, as it so often did. When she was a kid, some of the children at school had teased her, calling her “werewolf girl.” Stubbornly, even now, she’d never had them filed down. They came in handy when she had to tear out the throat of her next victim.

Carefully she wiped off the offending makeup. Yes, she would do some throat-tearing tonight. Sy Ortis and Marty DiGennaro were about to participate in her favorite little game: retribution. Because, after all the chips she’d called in, it was certain that
Three for the Road
wasn’t going to win a goddamn thing tonight. The bad publicity on the bitch Jahne hadn’t hurt, nor had the exposé on that Jukes-and-Kallikaks brother-and-sister act, but she was pretty sure that she could have neutralized the thing anyway. Her pressure on Warren Lashbeck and the Industry censorship committee was tightening the pressure on Les Merchant, head of the Network. He might be pushed into canceling the show. She couldn’t trust anyone to do what they promised, of course. Still, if there was one thing she was dead certain of, it was this: that rats in Hollywood knew what to do about a sinking ship.

Tonight, after almost eleven years, she’d get to fuck up Marty DiGennaro and Sy Ortis as badly as they’d fucked her all that long time ago.

Marty DiGennaro hummed tonelessly to himself as he fit the opal cabochon stud into his shirtfront. It was a habit that used to drive his ex-wife nuts, but he never thought about her anymore. He almost hoped that he would run into her this evening, with Lila clinging to his arm. His ex was petite and dark, not really an impressive woman. Lovely in her way, certainly, but not stunning. Not Lila. No one was like Lila.

He kept trying to push in the stud, but something wasn’t working. Either the buttonhole was sewed closed or the damned stud was defective. Shit. Marty was a detail person, and he loved the detail of dressing. The opal shirt studs had once belonged to Gary Cooper. Marty had bought them, as discreetly as possible, from the estate of a past mistress of Coop. Sally had been upset, said that opals brought bad luck unless they were your birthstone, but Marty loved them. He was wearing them for the first time tonight.

Well, they were bringing bad luck now. He checked the time, then called to Sally for help. He would wear the opals, damn it. Because he was a man who had made all the good luck he’d ever need. He had a ravishing fiancée who never looked at another man, a string of Oscars a mile long, and a new, hot career in television, which he, single-handedly, was turning around.

“Sal!” he called, impatient. “Hurry up and bring a scissors.”

As Sal walked into the room, Marty jerked at the stud. It spun out of his hand, arching across the room, and fell on the marble saddle at the bottom of his dressing-room door. As if in the slow motion of one of his films, Marty watched the opal shatter, sending gleams of iridescent color across the floor.

“Goddamn it!” Marty cried.

“Maybe it can be fixed,” Sally said, and knelt to begin gathering the shards.

“Forget it!” Marty told him. “Once it’s broken, it’s broken.”

Ara’s guests began to arrive, and though he was tired—well, almost exhausted—from all the preparations, now it all seemed worth it. Not bad for an old man, he thought. Here he was, a man that should by all rights be dead, or at least retired and living in Palm Springs, here he was, giving yet another successful party, with only the
crème de la crème
of the Industry present.

He laughed at his little pretension.
Crème de la crème
, my wrinkled Armenian
vorick
, he thought to himself. Stars, star-makers, star-fuckers, and star-breakers—all grasping, back-stabbing cutthroats.

But, he reminded himself, most of the media clout in the nation was gathered under one roof tonight. He was still a player. A major player. A man of power, surrounded by the tastemakers, the trendsetters, the wavemakers. All under one roof.
His
roof.

He smiled, nodded, and limped forward to greet his first guest.

“Don’t forget who you’re dealing with,” Theresa snapped at Robbie when she’d asked for a simple glass of sherry and he refused. “I just need a little something to calm me down.”

“Theresa, right now you have enough Valium in you to float you higher than the Goodyear blimp. You don’t need another thing.”

Theresa couldn’t give up so easily. As if Valium could ever take the place of vodka. “You don’t seem to grasp one very important fact here. I’m under
incredible
pressure. In a little while I’ll have to go out there and face her. And show myself to all those people. Live. Jesus. I haven’t done live in a hundred years.”

“You’ll be fine. It will all go fine,” he assured her and patted her shoulder.

“I was just saying to—who was it? Warren Beatty? No, it was Annette. No, April Irons! That’s who it was, April.” Crystal Plenum almost had Ara by the lapels, standing very close. “I was saying to April how Ara Sagarian never seems to age. What’s your secret, Ara? You could make a fortune if you sold it.”

Crystal felt pretty desperate, and her desperation showed. She knew what it was like to enter a room and make an impression. And she knew that she had and hadn’t.

Crystal’s face hurt. If she had to smile at these fucking assholes, these insulting, insufferable assholes, for even ten more minutes, she would have facial spasms. Joel Silver was here. So was Larry Gordon. Dawn Steel looked great—where did she get that dress? God, Crystal was ready to stoop to being a Disney whore if she had to. They were famous for buying up fading stars cheap and resuscitating them. So, smile nice at Dawn. She remembered what her first movie director had told her. He had said that some actors and directors thought the most difficult thing to do on cue was cry. He had disagreed and said it was laughter, not crying, that was the harder for actors to manage realistically. He was right. Laughing at people’s little jokes at her expense was almost more than she could bear.

Then she saw him: the son-of-a-bitch! In tiny steps—all her dress would allow—she walked up to Sam Shields. He was surrounded by some of the powers in the Industry, but she ignored them.

“Aren’t you going to say hello?” she asked.

He looked up and smiled—one of those useless polite smiles she’d been getting from people lately.

“Hello, Crystal.”

She looked him right in the face. “I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for ruining my career. And I wanted to give you this.” And then she spat at him.

Elizabeth wandered with Larry. Warren sat, laughing, beside Annette. Kevin Costner and Cindy chatted with Marvin Davis. Joe Pesci stood in a corner, sharing a bottle of Evian water with Jack Nicholson. Steven Seagal ate sushi beside one of the monitors. Scott Rudin threw a napkin at Paula Weinstein. Rob Reiner stood beside his wife, one of the famous Singer sisters.

Now the thirty-five-inch screens scattered around Ara’s house were all forgotten, save one. The screen in Ara’s library seemed to be the only one the guests were watching, as if sharing the one screen made them all feel more a part of the audience. Ara sat in the middle of the guests. On the screen, the emcee was introducing Theresa O’Donnell, who was smiling and opening the envelope. There wasn’t a sound in the room, as if everyone had a personal stake in the outcome of the Emmys. Ara smiled to himself. He did, too. Yes, anyone, just so long as it wasn’t Lila Kyle.

Theresa tore at the envelope, pretending she was having trouble getting it open, prolonging the tension. She opened the envelope, took out the card, and said, “The winner is…”

Jahne had taken her place on an aisle seat, with Dr. Moore next to her. She had forced herself to sit back in her seat, and tried to breathe deeply. Brewster sat beside her, his hand holding hers tightly. And it was not just comforting, but a clever career move: it was as if she were laughing at the bad press, flaunting her doctor at them. She seemed unashamed.

As the evening wore on, there were a lot more losers than winners. The audience was restive. Self-loathing and fear seemed like a palpable force. Winners glowed, but every loser had to sit in a pool of failure, everyone watching and judging. She told herself she could rise above it all.

But could she? It was hard to sit there, in this room filled with the best and the beautiful, and know that she was being watched and judged, perhaps most of all. Would she get the Emmy? Did she care? She was certain that neither Sharleen nor Lila could act. She was not so certain that the rest of her peers saw things that way. And she found that, oddly enough, she wanted to win tonight. Not because she thought these contests mattered, but because, right now, she needed a vote of approval.

When she arrived at the theater, Sharleen had looked up to the monitor, only to see her own face turning from the camera. She had quickly looked away, back to Dean. On the other side of her sat Dobe—Sy had managed the extra ticket. “I never been on live television before. Don’t it make you nervous?” she asked him in a whisper, her throat dry.

“Sure do. Afraid some people we sold gas pills to might be tuned in.”

For a moment, she turned to him with frightened eyes. Then she saw he was jokin’ with her.

“They never bother no one, Sharleen. They’re too embarrassed by their own greed and stupidity. Now, hold your head up high, girl. You’re on TV, and you got nothin’ to be ashamed of.”

“I’m ashamed that I ever doubted you,” she admitted. “I thought I’d never see you again after I gave you that money.”

“But you gave it to me anyway, didn’t you? How come?”

“I couldn’t say no to a friend, Dobe.”

“And I noticed you haven’t asked me about our spread.”

“It’s okay if you lost the money, Dobe. I just didn’t want to lose
you
.”

“Lost the money? Well, hell, do you think I’m a dang fool? I didn’t
lose
the money. But I didn’t buy us any land in Montana.”

Oh, good. He was going to confess. Sharleen felt relieved. It was the one thing that had stood between them. “That’s all right, Dobe. It’s water under the bridge.” He was welcome to the money. She just didn’t want him to lie to her about it.

“Great. I’m glad you aren’t disappointed. Montana was full of yuppies and Hollywood jerks. Turned the whole damned state into a fern bar.” She nodded. It was all right. She loved Dobe and she always would. As if he knew what she was thinking, he smiled back. “Yep, Montana’s been ruined. So I bought us the nicest piece a land in Wyoming that you ever laid eyes on!”

Her mouth opened in surprise. “Did you really, Dobe?” She turned to him, her face shining. Happiness flooded her.

“Of course I did! You never doubted me, did you?” He grinned at her slyly. “Got all the papers back at the house. Nine hundred acres. Not too shabby. Halfway between Daniel and Halfway.”

“Halfway?”

“No, not
in
Halfway. That’s the town to the south. Daniel’s to the north. We’re halfway. Kinda like the who’s-on-first joke. Anyway, I’ll show you on the map tonight. Now, wave to the people at home, and then settle down and pay attention to the man onstage. They’re announcing the Best Actress award. No matter what happens, I want you to keep that look on your face when the winner is announced.”

The master of ceremonies had gone through all the oddball categories, the ones only family and friends of the nominated sat at the edge of their seats for. He presented the penultimate award, for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series, then said, “And now the one we’ve all been waiting for: Best Actress in a Dramatic Series. And to present it, someone who might have a preference. Ladies and gentlemen, Theresa O’Donnell!”

“The Loveliest Girl in the World” theme song began and Theresa tottered out. Was she drunk? She read the nominees’ names from the cue screen, then the inevitable, “The envelope, please.”

Lila felt paralyzed. The PMS here! To present the Emmy. No. No. She was totally prepared to win. But not for this. Oh God, not this!

And what if she lost? All at once, the possibility swept over her. She reached her hand out to Marty’s beside her and almost crushed his in her clawlike grasp.

“Jesus, your hands are cold!” he said, and then the master of ceremonies, Johnny Burton, handed the envelope to her mother.

“And the winner is…Lila Kyle!”

The theater audience gasped as if it were one person, then burst into applause. Hey, no one bought drama the way actors do. The camera picked up Lila’s face as it broke into well-rehearsed surprise, then the broadest smile she had ever done, on- or offscreen. She kissed Marty sitting next to her, jumped up, and, holding up her long dress to ensure she wouldn’t trip, ran up the aisle and to the podium. She felt the hammering of her heart, and the heat of the lights. She seemed to be moving as if through water, as if in a dream, all in slow motion: each step up to the platform, across the stage.

She faced her mother, who clutched the Emmy in her own claws. Lila reached for the statuette. Theresa stared at her glassily. Lila pulled at the award. But Theresa didn’t let go. Lila tugged. Theresa hung on. But Lila would have it. It was hers. Everything would be hers from now on. And at last her mother gave in. Lila held the award to her chest. The crowd went wild.