Authors: Alison Lurie
“Answer them.” Glory shrugged, and poured beer into a glass, tilting it to keep down the foam.
“But I don’t know what to say,” Katherine protested, feeling embarrassed and incompetent. “I never did exactly this kind of work before.”
“Just give them what they want. ... Didn’t Iz clue you in what this is all about?” Katherine shook her head. “Ah, for shit’s sake.” Glory set her beer down and wiped foam off her mouth. “Well, it’s like this, a kid socked me at a première last month, a fan, and so I socked her back and got myself some bad publicity, you probably read about it.” (Katherine shook her head again.) “So Maxie Weiss, that’s my agent, had the idea to put out a release, a story for the papers, see, I’m really crazy about fans, I just love ’em so much I answer all their creepy letters personally, instead of letting the studio do it; get the picture?”
“I think so,” Katherine said, taken aback by the insouciant directness of this statement, rather than by the assumption that she was going to be composing lies for Glory. Dealing in lies, or at least polite half-truths, was something one took for granted on any job. “You want me to write to them and say how much you appreciate their interest and that kind of thing.”
“Yeah. Just keep it short and sweet. For instance—” Glory reached into the box, took a letter at random, and tore it open. She squinted close at the awkward handwriting, done in pencil on cheap lined notebook paper, and read as rapidly as possible: “‘Dear Glory Green I saw
Three Dumb Mice
four times I enjoyed it very very much especially your scenes I am 15 years old besides you my favorite stars are Doris Day and Sandra Dee I am enclosing 25 cents could you please send me an autograph picture for my album yours truly Florrie Ridley.’ Here. Just write her thanks very much and send the photo.”
“But she said she wants it autographed.”
“So autograph it. She’s not going to know the difference. ... Lessee. Here’s a longer one. ‘My dearest Miss Green since I first saw your extremely lovely face and form in
Restless
I have been Restless about you I have 23 pix of you already My favorite one is in the bikini with the octopus that was in
Screen Lives
I just want to let you know that You are my new Secret Movie Love Dream and I am sleeping with this photo every night next to my pillow not under it as I do not want to tear or crush your very lovely form please send all your most recent pix I enclose one dollar to cover mailing costs your not-so-secret admirer Earl G. Jorgensen.’ How d’you like that!” Glory giggled and held out the letter to Katherine, who took it by the corner as if the paper were smeared with invisible slime.
“Boy,” Mona said. “What a creep.”
“You don’t want me to answer this one.”
“Naw, I guess you better just mail him a couple of photos.”
“You send that nut a picture, you know what he’ll do with it,” Mona remarked.
“So what? He’s paid for it.” Glory felt her curlers again, unconcerned. “I’ve got plenty a lot worse than that. ... The poor jerk, after all. He probably can’t get his kicks any other way.”
“Yeah, all right. But all the same it’s kind of disgusting to think of that creep sitting in his room somewhere playing with your photo and pulling himself off, ’cause he can’t find himself a girl.”
“Aw, how do you know? Maybe he’s even married. There’s a lot of people can’t feel physical about what they’ve got around at home.” Glory shrugged. Katherine, still holding the letter, looked from one to the other. She had never heard women speak so bluntly, and wondered if they were doing it on purpose to embarrass her, though they seemed not to be paying her the least attention.
“Oh hey, that reminds me. I knew I had something to tell you!” Mona exclaimed. “You know that kid Lucille that was in the Johnny Espy Show with me, she was going to the doctor for these awful cramps she had every month? Well, she got to talking to him about her private life and she finally let on her and her husband just weren’t getting any bang out of doing it any more. Well, so this doc told her it wasn’t psychological like she was scared of; the trouble was she didn’t have any muscle tone down there at all, since she had her baby.”
“Yeah?” Glory considered. “It could be. That was how Brandy said it was with her after she had Joe Junior. They sewed her up wrong or something and her clutch was all flabby for months, she couldn’t feel a thing. She said she coulda driven Joe’s motor-bike through there without getting a charge. You know she went on one of those dumb health plans.”
“Lucille’s really sold on this doctor,” Mona went on, sliding down the diving-board towards them. “He taught her these crazy exercises you do in the bathtub, to strengthen your muscles. She said it took her a couple months to really get into condition, but now her and her guy are having a ball. So now she’s trying to turn everyone on; she wants me to go to her doc and learn the routine. What d’you think? I mean, it’s scientific. You could come too.”
“No, thanks,” Glory said, laughing. “Not me. There’s only one kind of exercise I ever want to do with that part of me.”
Nearly positive now that Glory, at least, was trying to shock her, Katherine was equally determined not to react. So she laughed too, as well as she could, and said: “I agree. I certainly wouldn’t go. ... Well, after all,” she went on as they looked at her expectantly. “What kind of doctor would it be that would want to be doing that sort of work all day long, instead of taking care of people who are really sick?”
“You mean he might be some kind of weirdo,” Mona said. “Sort of a mad scientist.”
“No.” Katherine recognized a stereotype which, in her experience, had no basis in reality. “Just rather unprincipled.”
“She means he might jump you when he had you on the table, or something kinky,” Glory interpreted.
“Aw, they can’t do that,” said Mona.” They get thrown out of the union if they try to get funny with a patient.”
“Yeah?” Glory said. “What about that guy over on Crenshaw that was making out with all the girls in the Blue Dog? ... Hey.” She lifted her head to listen.
“Your phone’s ringing.”
“Goddamn it.”
Glory got out of her chair and slouched across the patio. Inside the house, they could hear her answer the phone in a completely different voice, full of sex and sleepy enthusiasm: “Hel-lo ... Oh hi, baby ... Yeah, swinging ... fading out as she crossed the room and flung herself on a sofa. “She’s talking to someone she’s intimate with; she’s having an affair,” Katherine thought. Or was she only superbly pretending? “Glory and I have the opposite problem professionally,” Iz had explained the other day. “See, the actor has to express what he in fact doesn’t feel. That’s their job, and sometimes there’s a carry-over. Well, that’s her problem. On the other hand, a psychiatrist often has
not
to express what he does genuinely feel. Which is even harder on him.” (Had he meant her to take that personally? Was it a kind of excuse he was offering?)
“I’m sorry,” Katherine apologized, realizing Mona had spoken. “What did you say?”
“I just asked what’s your birth-date.” Katherine told her. “Uh-huh. You have an adventurous temperament,” (Katherine smiled at this miscalculation) “balanced by strong practical capabilities, same as my mother.”
“Thank you.”
“Hey, about this pool foulup,” Mona continued. “Now you’re working for Glory, you oughta convince her she should get after those bastards that built it. I mean you could write a letter or something, tell them they don’t fix it up right she’ll get a lawyer. I bet they could fix it if they wanted to. And it would really do a lot for her morale.”
“Um,” Katherine said. It was a new idea to her that by agreeing to answer Glory’s fan mail she had somehow become responsible for her welfare in general. But perhaps a good secretary was, in a way, responsible. ... “All right. I’ll try to mention it.”
“Great. You do that; and I tell you what, if you don’t get any results, I’ll ask this friend of mine to go see them. He could give them a real scare if he wants.”
Iz had told her, Katherine recalled, that Mona was the girlfriend of one Piero Pasanetti, a restaurant owner with underworld connections.
“I mean, gee, we gotta do
something,”
Mona continued, looking at Katherine earnestly out of her great dark eyes. “You see the way she is. Sh.”
Glory dragged her robe (grimy at the hem, Katherine noticed) across the patio and sat down wearily.
“What was that?” Mona asked.
“My date from last night.” She felt her hair again. Katherine became extra attentive. If she had been sent here to spy, Glory was certainly playing into her hands.
“Oh, R—”
“Uh huh.” Glory shook her head at Mona not to mention the name. “The poor guy, that little creep Brian walked out on him again about five
A.M.
this morning and didn’t come back yet. He’s practically flipping.”
“He oughta be glad. You think maybe the kid’s gone for good?”
“Nah, he’ll be back soon as he runs out of loot.” Glory began to take her curlers off, releasing one by one what looked like coils of pink embroidery floss. “The only thing going to get Brian out of that set-up, is if he ever makes it on his own, which that no-talent little fag isn’t going to in a thousand years, or else he crawls on to somebody he thinks will do his big nowhere career more good.” The door-bell rang. “Ah, for shit’s sake. This is getting to be like a vaudeville routine. ... Mona, honey. Could you go? I’ve about had it for this afternoon.” Mona yawned and rose. “Thanks, hon.”
Glory continued taking down her hair. Her face was now surrounded by silvery-pink serpentine curls. In her matching pink terry-cloth robe, she resembled a Walt Disney Medusa.
“Ah, screw it all,” she murmured, making a Disney grimace.
“What’s the matter?”
“Aw, nothing. ... It just gets me down, that’s all, a decent guy like, like my friend I was just talking to on the phone, has to be hooked on other guys and go through all that crap. If you ever want to see a fucked-up relationship you got to take a look at the queers. I mean when you get two guys living together, then you really have a dumb scene.”
Katherine had come to this house as to the camp of a heartless and soulless enemy. Now, finally, she realized that Glory was not trying to embarrass her or frighten her, but speaking sincerely in her own terms.
“I suppose most homosexuals are pretty unbalanced emotionally,” she suggested, trying to reciprocate. “I mean I really haven’t known many, but—”
“It’s not just them. It’s
men.
All men.” Glory stared ahead stonily, as if over a landscape of exposed and petrified heroes. But then her face softened, and she murmured: “Well, that’s the way they are, they can’t help it, I guess. ... Men are all children. In the end, you just take the child whose personality you go for most.”
“You might be right.” Katherine thought, nodding. Yes, that’s how it is—and then had to remind herself that the man Glory’s conclusions were based on was not someone like Paul, but Dr. Einsam.
“Hey, there’s a kid wants to see you,” Mona said, coming out of the house. “Some teenager. ... Listen,” (she lowered her voice to a whisper of crisis) “I think it might be that one that made all the trouble. She looks kinda like the picture that was in the
Mirror.”
“For Christ’s sake. Did you let her in?”
“No. I didn’t know what to tell her, so I said I didn’t know if you were here.”
“So what does she want?”
“I d’know, she wants to see you. She’s all charged up and talking kind of kooky.”
“Well, I don’t want to see her. She’s got no business coming up here. Tell her I’m not home, and you don’t know when I’ll be back ... Huh?”
“Uh, okay.” With obviously reluctance, Mona re-entered the house. Presently Katherine and Glory, sitting in silence, heard the door slam.
“She said she’ll try later,” Mona reported. “Maybe you oughta call up Maxie, huh?”
“Yeah.” Glory half rose from her chair, then fell back. “You know if I go on bugging Maxie all the time about this business, he’s really going to get sick and tired of it. He was kidding me yesterday, if I wanta keep on this kick I should better find myself another agent with no ulcers.” Glory mimicked Maxie’s voice. “You know, kidding.”
“You better call him,” Mona said. “You don’t know what flippy thing that girl has in mind, coming up here.”
Glory frowned and ran her hands through her pink silk hair. “What do you think I should do?” she asked Katherine.
“I don’t know.” Both flattered and frightened to be consulted, Katherine thought a moment. “I guess I would telephone your agent.”
“Okay.” Again Glory rose, and again subsided. “Ah, hell, I can’t do it now, he’s already left the office. It’s after five. ... Well, I could ring his house and leave him a message.”
After five? Katherine had completely forgotten the time. She should have started home an hour ago. She said so, and stood up; taking Glory’s cardboard box under her arm, she promised to answer the fan letters and return for more next week.
Why, I really quite like her, Katherine thought, as she crossed the yard and let herself out of the gate. She’s not at all what I thought. She has a hard life, really.
Ee! She jumped, and nearly screamed, as a figure burst out from behind an oleander bush, rushed headlong towards her, and then stopped suddenly, breathing hard. It was a girl dressed in the extremest Hollywood manner, with a tangle of teased yellow hair, frantic heavily made-up eyes, and a blurred violent mouth. “You’re not
her,”
she gasped, staring through Katherine rather than at her. “Listen, is Miss Green in there? I have to see her.”
“She’s not home.” Katherine told her first lie for Glory, to lend it verisimilitude looking straight at the girl—at the child, she realized, for under that heavy paint she was very young. “What’s the trouble?” she added in a more maternal or at least aunt-like tone.
The intruder did not answer, but her wild eyes focused on Katherine, and seemed to register her existence.
“Who’re you?” she asked. “Are you in films?”
“No,” Katherine said. “I’m Miss Green’s secretary. What did you want with her?”
Plunging forward again, the girl clutched Katherine’s arm with a small plump hand that ended in violet-enameled claws. “I want a screen test,” she breathed, staring into her eyes with what seemed intended for hypnotic intensity. “I’m terribly photogenic—look at my profile; no, the other’s better. You can fix it for me. You’re
her
secretary, you can tell her—Bobi Brentwood, B-O-B-I, not Y. Do you like it? My name—I made it up myself. I know tap soft shoe and ballet and I’m starting voice. All I want is a chance, just a chance; my coach says I have a sexual voice quality—Madame Carmelita Woodruff, you can ask her; ask anybody about
Bobi Brentwood.
I just know I have star potential.”