Authors: Armistead Maupin
“Oh,” she said, brightening. “Did you talk to your agent today?”
“Yeah.”
“What does he have in mind?” She had that movie-mad gleam in her eye again.
“Oh, just…various possibilities.”
“Great!”
“It’s nothing definite, Renee.”
“Still…if you’re dieting…” She gave me a look that said I was just being coy, concealing something truly fabulous. I felt like a total fraud. Frankly, the diet is for my own comfort more than anything. I haven’t gained
that
much, really, but the extra weight has begun to leave me breathless after short walks. My self-esteem has always been pretty good, but lately, when I look in the mirror, the person who looks back reminds me of a beach ball with legs.
Renee wanted to take a drive after dinner, so we piled into her clunker convertible and cruised off down Ventura. It was a pearly pink evening, scrubbed clean by the rain, and the air seemed especially warm for April. With her streaming yellow hair and blue angora sweater, Renee played havoc with the teenage boys loitering along our route. Since the little horn-dogs couldn’t see me from a distance, any more than I could see them, they just assumed that
the solitary blonde with the big casabas was out looking for action. They howled with exaggerated lust whenever we stopped at a light.
“They’re so awful,” Renee said, the third or fourth time this happened.
I looked up at her and cackled. “You love it.”
“I don’t, either.”
“Any of ’em cute?”
“No. They’re gross. They’re practically naked.”
“Where?” I undid my seat belt, scooted to my knees, and peered over the top of the door. Four shirtless skateboarders sat on a wall bordering a mini-mall. They weren’t my type, really. Too Matt Dillonish.
“How ’bout I moon ’em?” I said.
“Caaady.” Renee rolled her eyes and giggled.
“Why not?”
“You’re almost thirty, for heaven’s sake.”
I feigned indignation. “Are you suggesting my moon isn’t what it used to be?”
“Just chill out.”
“It’d be so easy. We just open the door right here…”
She reached across and pulled my hand off the handle. “What’s gotten into you?”
“You don’t think I’d do it.”
“Oh, I think you’d do it, all right.”
We exchanged crooked smiles, understanding each other, so I abandoned the game. I wanted to tell her we couldn’t be victims, that we had to take a stand and give that shit right back to them, but I kept my mouth shut. I knew she’d get whiny and accuse me of lecturing again.
I slid back down and refastened my seat belt. We just drove for a while, making rectangles. The sky became a ripe nectarine backdrop to the palm trees and Exxon signs that flickered past my line of vision. I filled my lungs with the spongy air and sank back against the seat, wallowing in the promise of summer. A tape deck
in another car was playing “Kiss the Girl,” a Disney tune that sounded almost pagan on this pseudotropical evening.
“Where we heading now?” I asked.
“I dunno. Mulholland? Some place pretty?”
“Go for it.”
By the time we reached the hills, a purple twilight had come over them. Renee was so closemouthed on the way up that I began to wonder if something was eating her. If she had any major bombs to drop, I knew she’d save them for the very top, where long-established custom demanded that we get out of the car and watch the lights of the Valley.
Then, as we wound around a steep canyon curve, I looked up and caught her frowning into the rearview mirror. “What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Just some guys.”
“Guys?”
“In a car.”
“Following us?”
“I can’t tell.”
I chuckled. “How do you do it? Is it a
musk
or something?”
Renee didn’t answer, busy watching the mirror again. I could hear them hollering now, a rednecky sort of croon. The only word I could make out for certain was “dick.” Why is it that some guys can’t see a nice pair of boobs without bursting into a love song to their peckers? If it’s boobs they like, why don’t they talk about boobs?
Renee’s face suddenly registered dread. “Oh, no.”
“What?”
“They’re pulling up next to us.”
“Big deal.”
“Don’t egg them on, Cady, please.”
“Me?”
“
Oowee, would you look at that
?” His voice was pure Orange County and came from just above the door next to me. I could see
the side of his hat, in fact, which had an American flag on it. “
Shit, man, she’s got a kid with her
.”
I restrained myself, looking straight ahead.
“
Nah, it ain’t a kid. What the fuck is that
?”
Renee whimpered at me. “Cady?”
“What?”
“What should I do?”
“Just drive, OK? Faster.”
“But…”
“I’m not gonna moon ’em. Just keep driving.”
“
You won’t fuckin’ believe this, man. She’s even got a friend for you
!”
I kept my eyes ahead of me and, ever so discreetly, gave him the finger.
“
Ha ha…you see that? You see what that fuckin’ midget did
?”
“Cady.” Renee cast me a desperate glance.
“It’s all right,” I said, still flipping the bird. “Stay cool.”
The guys lingered a moment longer, laughing like jackals, then shot ahead of us and screeched out of sight around the bend. Checking Renee for damage, I found her cheeks shiny with tears. This kind of stuff really gets to her, poor thing. She hasn’t dealt with it as long as I have.
“How can they be so ugly?”
“Practice,” I said.
“If they knew who you were, they’d be so ashamed of themselves.”
“We’re swerving, Renee.”
“Oopsy…” She grabbed the wheel and made a quick recovery. “Sorry.”
“What do you mean, if they knew who I was?”
“If they knew they were saying those ugly things to Mr. Woods.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” I hooted at her. “You think they’d give a rat’s ass?”
“I do…yes…I do.”
“You are such a schmaltzbag.”
“I bet they went to that movie, and I bet they cried.”
“And then they went out and joined the ACLU.”
Renee frowned at me in confusion.
“Just a group,” I said.
Now she looked more wounded than ever. “You’re making fun, and I’m serious.”
“No, I’m not.” Sometimes she makes me feel like I’ve just knocked a kid’s ice cream cone into the dirt.
“I believe in Mr. Woods,” she said.
“I know, honey,” I found a Kleenex in the glove compartment and handed it to her. “Blow your nose.”
We sat on our private hillock and watched the glowing grid of the Valley. The air was cooler but still very pleasant. A helicopter dipped and swayed on the slope below us, slashing the underbrush with garish white light. The night was so still and diamond clear that I could hear a dog barking all the way down in Sherman Oaks.
“I saw Ham today,” Renee said.
“Oh, yeah?” I tried to sound as nonchalant as she had.
“He was at that baked potato place. At the mall.”
“What did he have to say?”
“I didn’t talk to him,” she said. “I just saw him.”
“Oh.”
“That was the first time I’ve seen him in almost two years.”
“Three,” I said.
“He looked good.”
Good God, I thought, the creep dumped her. What was there to get misty-eyed about?
She turned and looked at me. “Do you think I should call him?”
“No, I do not.”
“He looks different, Cady. Sadder. Maybe he misses me. How would I know if…”
“Sweetie, he threw your stuff in the yard and changed the locks.”
Playing the old tape again, Renee nodded morosely.
“I think that was a clue,” I added.
“Yeah.”
“Besides, you haven’t missed him for years. You’ve told me so a million times.”
Another nod.
“What’s this about, anyway?”
She sighed and gazed balefully into the distance. The helicopter was rising now, heading away, growing tinier by the second. I thought she might cry again, but she didn’t. She just pursed her lips and frowned a little. “I’ve been thinking,” she said. “Maybe he was right.”
“About what?”
“Maybe he
was
the only guy who’d ever want me.”
“Oh, honey.”
“Ya know?”
“No, I don’t know. Look, Renee. Just because some men can’t sustain a relationship long enough to…well, that doesn’t mean…” I didn’t finish, since I couldn’t really say for certain where the fault lay. The truth is, I almost never see Renee around her boyfriends; when she’s got something going, she tends to hang out at the guy’s place. It’s possible, given her insecurity, that she turns all clingy and desperate on the third date, scaring off even the nice ones.
Looking for another way out, I reached over and tucked my hand into hers—my “baby starfish,” as Renee calls it, into her huge catcher’s mitt—and told her it was time to lighten up. Hand holding almost always works on her, but I save it as a last resort to keep from wearing out the effect. Also, there’s an unsettling sort of come-to-Mama thing that happens when the great and the small converge sentimentally. I’ve never been completely comfortable with it.
Renee smiled wanly. “But what else could explain it?”
“Explain what?”
She shrugged her big fuzzy blue shoulders. “Why they don’t stick around.”
“Because they’re buttheads.”
She uttered an impatient sigh. “How can they
all
be buttheads?”
“I don’t know. It’s one of the great wonders of the modern world. An all-butthead extravaganza.” Removing my hand from hers, I wrote across the sky with my forefinger. “
The Night of a Thousand Buttheads
.”
She giggled. Finally.
“And it could be me, you know.” I threw this in breezily, as if it had just crossed my mind. Cooped up in that damned house so much, with too much time to stew in my juices, I’ve started to fret about all sorts of things.
“What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “Maybe it’s me who’s scaring them away.”
“Cady…” Oh, how wounded she looked. “I brag about you all the time.”
“Well, that’s what I mean. Not everybody’s like you, honey. Maybe you shouldn’t always mention it right away.”
Her hand fluttered to rest on her bosom as she stared at me in genuine horror. “That is the worst thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
“It’s just a theory.”
“Well, it’s a dumb one. People are
impressed
that I room with you. Especially after I tell them who you were.”
Were
. Get it? Sometimes she makes me sound like the Norma Desmond of elfdom.
“I just meant,” I explained calmly, “that some guys might think of you as encumbered.”
“What does that mean?”
“You know. That you and I are a unit.”
She gave a girlish little gasp. “Lesbians?”
“No, sweetie.” I chuckled.
“Then what?”
“I don’t know.” This was getting muddier by the minute. “I just hope people realize you’re a free agent. I mean…free to go your own way.”
Now she looked utterly stricken.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You want me to move out?”
I just shook my head and smiled at her.
“Well, it sounded like it.”
“You’re such a mess,” I said.
Renee’s lower lip plumped like a pillow. “Well, you are too.”
Both of us, I think, were greatly relieved.
Since that night a lot has happened. A check arrived from the cellulite people the following day, just barely enabling me to pay off the dentist and my other bad checks. Apparently they
are
going to air the infomercial—in a matter of weeks, they claim—so I’m bracing myself for the endless replay of this indignity. I can’t even justify it as exposure, since all you see are two fat little legs sticking out from under a Mylar and Styrofoam jar. Renee is beside herself, of course, and is currently alerting the planet.
The money will buy me time, at least, so I’ve embarked on a program of self-improvement in preparation for taking a meeting with Arnie Green. Yeah, I called him, and Renee knows all about it. That’s why I’m stretched out here on the air mattress, cram-tanning like crazy in the thinnest coat of baby oil, in spite of everything I’ve ever heard about the ozone layer and melanomas and all that. It’s also the reason I’m doing the Cher Diet, if the truth be known. I said I was doing it for myself, but I’m not; I’m doing it for Arnie Green, an
alte kaker
with hair in his ears.
If you’re not totally disgusted yet, try this on for size: I’m making an outfit for Arnie Green. I work on it in the morning when I’m watching Joan Rivers. I was doing just that today, in fact, when I saw that fucking yellow ribbon on my lamppost. The outfit is black-and-white satin, very
Dynasty
, like something Alexis would wear to a board meeting. That kind of eighties retro drag would be downright embarrassing in Leonard’s office, but it might be right up ol’ Arn’s alley.
It better be. I’ve made a hat to go with it.
I
T’S LATE AND
I’
M POOPED, BUT
I’
M WORKING AGAIN
. T
HE
temptation is to blow off the diary, since I’d like nothing better than to climb out of this sticky costume and into a hot bath. On the other hand, I haven’t written in almost two weeks, and there’s all sorts of stuff to tell you. I’m afraid I’ll forget the important details if I don’t get some of them down. Since Renee has just rewarded me with a cup of cocoa, I’ll put the sugar rush to work and do my best to tell you about my meeting with Arnie Green.
I lost almost five pounds in the ten days I gave myself to get in shape. That’s pretty dramatic for me. It didn’t do much for my thighs, of course, but it gave me a lot more energy and made my cheekbones pop out again. Renee hennaed my hair the night before the interview, and I spent two hours on makeup, paying special attention to my eyes. Everyone tells me they’re my strongest feature—emerald green with flecks of warm brown, sultry but reassuring. When I was a teenager in Baker, I used to study them for hours in the mirror, imagining how the rest of such a pretty girl might look.
Arnie Green’s office was in North Hollywood. I made an eight-thirty appointment with him so we’d both be fresh and
Renee could take me there before she went to work. As the first client of the day, I’d also avoid the gut-wrenching chitchat of the waiting room, which was easy enough to imagine, even though I’d never been to the office. I’d be stuck there with all the others, twiddling my thumbs in quiet agony while some bleached-out accordion player bragged to me about her recent triumphal come-back at the Amway convention. Who needs that kind of stress?
We found a spot to park right in front, which I took as a bad sign. We were in a sort of ghost town, a mini-mall less than half occupied, where businesses announced themselves by painting over the flaking plywood of their predecessors. Arnie’s glass-fronted office was one of a row of three facing the street. The other two were a Philippine import shop and a place with burnt-orange curtains fading along the folds to pale shrimp. The hand-stenciled sign outside said:
VID-MART ENTERPRISES
.
“OK,” I said. “Time to lose the hat.”
Renee was crushed. “Why? It looks so nice on you.”
It was a rakish triangular affair, the same black-and-white satin as my dress. I’d spent a whole morning making it, gloating over the finished product, but in this shabby setting it struck me as overeager, even pathetic. I felt like some broken-down baroness flaunting her tiara at a flophouse.
“It’s not right,” I said.
“At least keep it on till he can see it.”
“Renee…”
She sulked a little while I undid the pins and stashed the hat in the glove compartment. I tried to check myself in the rearview mirror. “Is my hair fucked?”
“No.” She adjusted a few wisps over my ears. “You look beautiful.”
I grunted.
“I swear, Cady. Your skin is radiant. You’re glowing.”
Glowing or not, I felt like a total fool. Renee got out of the car, opened my door, and lifted me down to the pavement. I brushed out my dress, groaning at the folly of it all. How could I
have listened to that evil queen Leonard? And why in the name of Jehovah had I thought black-and-white satin would be suitable for a morning meeting?
A woman in rollers and Bermudas came out of the import shop and stopped in her tracks, staring. I acknowledged her presence with a tight little smile and a vaguely royal wave. She wasn’t even faintly embarrassed. “You in show business?” she asked.
“Workin’ on it.” I headed for Arnie’s door like a bat out of hell.
“The circus?”
“She was Mr. Woods,” Renee announced grandly.
“Renee, for God’s sake!”
Seeing my exasperation, my housemate flushed violently, then turned back to the woman. “We have to go now. We’re late for an appointment with her agent.”
“He’s not my agent,” I muttered as Renee held the door open for me.
“Well, whatever.”
We beat a retreat into a space no larger than our living room. There was a desk with a receptionist, and half a dozen plastic chairs were lined against one wall. A single row of publicity stills was the only thing in sight that kept this from being the waiting room of a veterinarian. I even spotted animals among the glossies: a cowgirl astride a palomino, a cockatoo in drag, a chorus line of poodles. The humans in Arnie’s stable tended to be magicians and clowns and ice skaters and, yes, little people, all of whom seemed to tower over me. No surprises so far.
The receptionist looked up from her computer. “Cadence Roth?”
I threw up my hands and grinned at her. “Guilty, Your Honor.”
She tossed off a look that said to save the cute stuff for the boss. I didn’t hold it against her; the old girl must’ve heard a lot of shtick in her time. I wondered if she might be Mrs. Green. “He’ll be back any minute,” she said. “He’s gone for doughnuts.”
“No problem.”
“Did you bring a résumé?”
I told her I’d already mailed one to Mr. Green.
“Oh.” She fidgeted among the papers on her desk for a moment, then stopped and said: “Have a seat, please.” Then she turned and addressed Renee, who was gawking at the wall of photographs. “You with her?”
For a moment I worried that Renee might claim to be my manager. I allow her such indulgences around shop clerks and people in movie lines, but agents are a different matter, even agents like Arnie Green. They could easily start asking things that Renee couldn’t answer. In my scramble to get ready that morning, I hadn’t thought to warn her about this.
Renee just said yes, though, without embellishing.
“Coffee?” asked the receptionist. “Either of you?”
“No, thanks,” said Renee.
I shook my head, smiling, then hoisted myself onto the sofa, all ass and elbows. I’ve carried out this maneuver most of my life and still can’t find a graceful way to do it.
“Ooh, look,” said Renee, studying a photograph. “He does Big Bubba.”
“Really?” I said this as enthusiastically as I could, since the receptionist was watching and I had no earthly idea who—or what—Big Bubba was.
“We’ve handled him for years,” the lady said.
“How wonderful,” I said, smiling like the whore I am.
“You a fan of his?”
Renee was the one she’d asked, thank God. “Oh, yes!” came the answer.
“Big,” I told the receptionist. “She’s a big Big Bubba fan.”
That’s when Arnie came in, toting his bag of doughnuts. I knew it was him right away, since he always puts an ad in the trades for Halloween and he looked just like his photo, skinny and bald and heavily tanned, with big ugly caterpillars of hair crawling out of his ears. Instead of a plaid suit, though, he was wearing pale-blue Sansabelts with a matching golf shirt.
I scooted off the sofa to give him the full impact of my height.
This usually gets the talk going when I meet people for the first time. Plus they’re not as uncomfortable once they see you can walk.
Arnie bent down to shake my hand. “Miss Roth.” He’d obviously done his homework.
“Mr. Green.”
“I’ve been looking forward to this.”
“Well…good.” I couldn’t decide if his courtliness was phony or not, but I was grateful for it.
“Is the lady…?” He gestured toward Renee, who was still standing by the photo wall, looking useless.
“My friend,” I said. “Who drove me.”
“Ah, yes.” He swept his blue-veined hand toward his office door, inviting Renee to join us. I could have sworn I caught a whiff of vintage testosterone. “Please,” he said, “after you.”
Renee pointed at her left tit. “Me?”
“Why not? We’re all friends here.”
I didn’t like this at all. For one thing, I wanted Arnie’s undivided attention. For another, I didn’t want Renee to see me groveling. When she glanced at me for guidance, I made a quick slashing motion at my throat.
“I better not,” she told Arnie.
“Why not?”
“Uh…I gotta keep an eye on the car?”
Arnie looked distressed, as if my driver had just suggested that his neighborhood was less than desirable.
“The top is down,” I explained. “We’ve got stuff in it.”
“Suit yourself.”
I followed him into the office, which was windowless except for a skinny slit at the top of one wall. The chair provided for clients was ominously high and on rollers, so I enlisted Arnie’s help in mounting it. He was really clumsy about this, stumbling a little, and I heard something crack in his back when he set me down. So much for the Cher Diet.
Behind his desk, Arnie pecked at a doughnut while he studied my résumé. “
Mr. Woods
, eh?”
I nodded, smiling modestly.
“I took my grandkids to that.”
“Mmm.”
“Was that your voice, then?”
I told him no, that the elf’s voice had been electronically created, that I had provided his movement only, that sometimes Mr. Woods was a robot and sometimes he was me. (I really should have a fact sheet or something. God knows I get asked this stuff often enough.)
After a while, Arnie said: “I don’t think I’ve seen the other movies.”
I gave him a sardonic smile. “I don’t think you have, either.”
He chuckled, showing the teeth of an old horse, impressed by my bold display of professional candor.
“They let me act,” I said. “That was enough.”
Arnie brushed doughnut sugar off his fingers. “You know I don’t handle movie people.”
I nodded. “I just want to work, Mr. Green.”
“Arnie,” he said.
“Arnie.”
“You sing well,” he said. “You have a fine voice.” I had sent him a homemade demo tape of me singing “Coming Out of the Dark,” Gloria Estefan’s new back-from-the-brink-of-death number, thinking that it struck the right note of spunky survivorhood.
“The tape’s pretty bad,” I pointed out. “I mean, the sound quality.”
“I can tell, though. You sound like…what’s her name? Teresa Brewer.”
That’s not far off, actually.
Arnie grinned. “You’re too young to remember her.”
I told him I knew who she was, though, and took it as a compliment.
He was looking at the résumé again. “And you do your own makeup, make your own costumes.”
“Who else?”
“You didn’t make those shoes.” He squinted down at my black patent slippers.
“K mart,” I told him. “Toddlers department.”
He cracked another smile, which seemed almost grandfatherly, shook his head slowly, then returned his watery gaze to the résumé. After a long silence he said: “Don’t see any wrestling work.”
“No,” I replied. “And you won’t.”
He nodded slowly, as if that sounded reasonable enough.
“And I don’t want to be tossed anywhere.”
The nodding continued.
“Any hope?”
He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a ragged-looking file. “I think maybe so.”
As it turned out, he had an arrangement with a small company in the Valley called PortaParty, which provides entertainment and “color” for social functions, mostly rich children’s birthday parties. One of the performers, a girl clown of average height, had just left for a job in television, and they were looking for a replacement.
Arnie assured me I didn’t have to be a clown. I’d be free to create my own character, maybe even sing, as long as the boss was happy. Mostly, it involved handing out candy and putting up with the kids. If I liked the sound of this, he said, I could start work the following weekend.
I didn’t
hate
the sound of it, especially the part about my predecessor leaving for a job in television.
At least it was show business. Sort of.
I thought about it overnight, at Arnie’s suggestion, and called back the next morning to accept.
“This is just a start,” he said.
Then why did it feel so much like the end?
My mood grew bleaker as the day wore on. I found myself brooding over the Corsos, people I hadn’t thought about for years, a retired midget couple who had been in show business but had
nothing to show for it when I met them except a few battered scrapbooks and an apartment full of odd mementos. Like me, they had worked in a movie that had enchanted the world, but no one ever knew that unless the Corsos took the trouble to tell them.
Mom latched onto Irene and Luther in the mid seventies at a Little People of America convention. They had presented a slide show on their long-dead career. Mom was so convinced of their wonderfulness that she drove me all the way to Phoenix so I could see them in their natural habitat. I was a moody teenager in those days, struggling more than most with my identity, so I guess she thought the experience would be inspirational.
The Corsos were both in their late fifties and lived on the seventh floor of a suburban high rise. Luther loomed over me at nearly four feet. He had a face like a dried apple and wore plaid trousers with a button-down shirt. A recent stroke had impaired his speech, so Irene, who was aggressively lilac-haired and even taller, did most of the talking. It centered on their kids, as I remember, and their bridge game, and their fleeting moment of glory almost forty years earlier as Munchkins in
The Wizard of Oz
.
Their living room was awash in Ozabilia: plastic Tin Men, stuffed Lions, Wicked Witches out the wazoo. Even the bricks on their balcony had been painted that unmistakable shade of yellow. I’d always loved the movie (still do) but couldn’t for the life of me connect its legend with these hopelessly prosaic people. These were Munchkins in flip-flops, for God’s sake, without benefit of Deco. Munchkins with a microwave, who ate Pop-Tarts and watched golf tournaments on TV. It just didn’t scan.
Part of the problem was their size. Irene and Luther had been teenagers at MGM, and since then they’d each grown over a foot, fleshing out considerably in the process. A lot of the Munchkins were taller now, Irene told me, a shocking revelation I absorbed without comment, feeling somehow betrayed. Most of the Munchkins had been midgets, I remembered, not dwarfs, and thus proportional, so the right punch to the pituitary would have made
growth possible. When you got right down to it, the Corsos weren’t like me at all.