Postcards From the Edge (14 page)

“She calls us the Mind-Fuck Twins,” she said. “She says I’m feasting on a banquet of crumbs.”

“Sounds like she should be writing scripts,” he said. “You really think you’re going to a good shrink? Those don’t sound like such enormous insights. I mean, forgive the pun, but I don’t

think I’m so crummy to you. I think we have a very modern relationship. I think it’s a reaction to the times. You know, we have no real rules, and we’re both very independent, but certainly we kind of respect one another. In a certain way, I admire you.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I admire you, too. I love your work and your eyes. No, I think she was just saying … She actually doesn’t like the idea of me seeing you. She thinks it’s not good for me. She thinks I sort of use you because I would have a lot of difficulty having another kind of relationship.”

“What’s wrong with this relationship?” he said. “I mean, it’s not a relationship, but what’s wrong with this? We both have similar feelings, we feel cut off from other people, we share a certain disdain for the Hollywood lifestyle we love, and I think we have a camaraderie that’s very-“

“Come on,” she said. “We have a camaraderie, but this is kind of a weird thing we’re doing. I mean, it’s weird. We have an oddness … What does your therapist think?”

“I don’t let my therapist run my life,” he said. “You know, I go in, I talk to him … I think of him as a good bounce. Mainly I go to hear myself think, and sometimes I’ll discover something through what I say. I’ve been seeing him for a lot of years, and we did most of the main thrust of the work on my early family stuff in the beginning. Now it’s just … It’s like going in for a brushup, like teeth-cleaning. Anyway, you’re probably not describing this accurately to your shrink, or she wouldn’t object to it. I mean, she doesn’t know me, so she’s not basing her objections on an experience of me but on something you’re telling her. And I think you must have misrepresented this situation, because I don’t think there’s that much wrong with it.”

“Well,” she said. “So the screening is what, Thursday?”

“The Ziz! screening?” he said. “It’s Thursday. You know that. Which one are you coming to, the seven or the nine?”

“Which one are you going to?” she said.

“I’m going to both,” he said. “I’m the producer. Obviously I’m gonna go to both.”

102

POSTCARDS from the EDGE

“Well, I’ll go to the late one,” she said. “Are you nervous?” “I think it’s a fabulous film,” he said.

“I know,” she said, “but what if everybody else doesn’t think so?”

“Well, fuck ‘em,” he said. “I think it’s a fabulous film.” “Remember that line from The Philadelphia Story?” she said. ” ‘To hardly know him is to know him well’? I feel like that’s us, like we’ll just go on and on and on like this, but we’ll never quite get past the incandescence of that first meeting. There’s this sort of dull phosphorousness we maintain now, but … I mean, on a certain level, you’re the closest thing to love I have in my life right now, but it’s still far away. The closest thing I have to a relationship is very far away. I think that’s interesting.”

“I’d like to meet someone like you,” he said. “But there’s no one more like you than you.”

“Maybe we can get somebody to introduce us,” she said.

103

*

DREAMING OUTSIDE YOUR HEAD

Suzanne was desperate to do something she felt would legitimize her, or that would be perceived as legitimizing her. Something that would cause her to seem desirable. Ideally, she would accept the marriage proposal of a member of the Royal Family who would renounce his throne for her. Since this was hardly likely, she concentrated on an alternate plan: getting work.

She plagued her agents for months, until they finally got her an offer for a low-budget film called The Kitchen Sink, starring Robert Munch, who was best known for the series Mr. Blue, in which he played the janitor in a women-only apartment building. More recently, he had portrayed a bishop in the miniseries Read My Lips.

The Kitchen Sink was a mistaken-identity comedy about a pair of undercover cops-Munch and Suzanne-who endure a series of mishaps while investigating a prostitute ring, end up in jail, and then get married. Since the film was shooting just outside of Palm Springs, Suzanne decided to stay with her grandparents, who lived in a two-bedroom house in the desert. The house had a flag in the front and a pool in the back, both of which lent it a kind of protection, a strange bracket.

Her grandfather, whom she adored, had gotten pretty senile.

107

Suzanne was never sure if he quite knew who she was, but, whoever she was, he was always glad to see her. He spent most of his time sleeping or watching Mexican TV though he spoke almost no Spanish. Her grandmother, though, was as Right There as she could be without making people wish she was somewhere else. She had three Yorkies-Jigger, Peanut, and Howdie-and when she wasn’t doing her mosaics or microwaving Franco-American food, she was talking to her dogs. “Didn’t she, Jigger?” she would croon. “Wouldn’t I, Peanut?” “Isn’t that right, Howdie?”

On the morning of her first day of shooting, Suzanne’s alarm rang at five. She went into the bathroom and, without turning on the light, started her bath. Then she climbed back into bed for a brief reprieve, trying to be grateful she was finally working again.

She lay there, half awake, thinking about the wrap party of her first movie. She had hugged her dresser, Rosie, a forty-fiveyear-old woman with a thick Cockney accent, and said, “I’ll miss you so much. Give me your address and phone number.” Rosie had replied, “Luv, what’s more’n likely’s we’ll never see each other again.” Ten years had passed since then, and so far Rosie was right.

It was always like that, Suzanne thought, as she stepped into her bath. You did a film for a few months and you got a family. An intimate family with its own dynamic, its own in-jokes, its own likes, dislikes, and romances. The intensity of it was heightened by the knowledge that it was all temporary. Not only did you know that it would end but, give or take a week or two, you knew when. What you didn’t know was how the whole thing would turn out. It could be good entertainment, it could be bad. It could succeed, it could fail. It was mining for celluloid gold. Suzanne dressed quickly, not bothering to dry her hair, and crept out of the dark house, past the dogs, the microwave, and the Stars and Stripes, and into the station wagon that waited in the driveway to take her to work.

108

POSTCARDS from the EDGE

They arrived at the set at five thirty, just as the sun was coming up over the Joshua trees. Suzanne watched the frantic activity of the set against the otherwise serene backdrop of the desert. It was as if this movie set was some inane act of nature. “And the Lord said, ‘Let there be entertainment,”’ thought Suzanne as she got out of the car. Then, remembering the script, she added, “‘Of sorts.’ “

A man with a beard-Suzanne guessed he was an assistant director-came toward her, speaking into a walkie-talkie. “Yep, she just got here,” he said. “I’ll show her to her trailer.” He smiled at her. “I’m Ted,” he said, “designed to make your life a more annoying place to be.”

Suzanne smiled back, bowed her wet head, and said, “Suzanne, designed to be annoyed.”

Ted laughed. “Then we ought to get along great.” He led her to a long trailer consisting of a row of doors, each of which had a name on it. “And this, of course, is your-“

“My hamster cage,” Suzanne interrupted cheerfully as she surveyed her allotted space.

“I was going to say ‘resting place,’ ” Ted said.

“My resting place,” Suzartne repeated. “My final resting place. I always suspected it would end like this-alone in a tiny room with an air conditioner, a toilet, and an AM radio, in the middle of nowhere.”

“Hopefully, it won’t end like this,” said Ted. “It’ll just middle.”

“Yeah, it’ll probably end alone in a large air-conditioned room with an AM-FM radio.”

“Well, this is a grim way to start the day,” said Ted. “I know!” he said brightly. “Let’s get you into some makeup. That’ll cheer you right up.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Suzanne, following him to another trailer. “Put a little base and lipstick on me and I’m just a giggling fool.”

They walked up some steps into a fat one-room trailer where

109

a man stood toying with a red wig while a woman sat reading a magazine. “I bring you the head of Suzanne Vale,” Ted announced. “Suzanne, this is Marilyn, our makeup artist, and this is Roger, our hair stylist.” Everyone exchanged hellos.

“Ooh, your hair is still wet,” Roger fretted. “You’d better come to me first.”

“I’ll leave you folks and check on how the caterers are coming with breakfast,” said Ted. He opened the door, letting in some beautiful dawn desert air, then slammed it behind him.

Suzanne sat in Roger’s chair, staring at the reflection of her dread morning face. Roger browsed his cassette rack. “Do you want calming or stimulating?” he asked her.

Suzanne mulled it over for a few moments. It was a question she had asked herself about men. She had finally decided she wanted stimulating that very subtly became calming-a holocaust that became a haven. She had hoped Jack Burroughs might make this improbable leap, but he had merely made the transition from stimulating to stressful. “Calming,” she finally replied.

“Calming it is,” said Roger, popping a Windham Hill tape into his player and starting it. He looked at Suzanne. “Early, isn’t it?” he said maternally.

“It’s so early it’s late,” she said somberly.

“That’s cute.” Roger laughed. “Did you just make that up?” “I don’t know,” said Suzanne. “I should know later.”

“Listen to her!” Roger called over to Marilyn. “We’re going to have a ball!” Suzanne smiled.

Marilyn lit a cigarette and walked to the door. “Can I get either of you anything from Craft Services?”

Suzanne looked at her. She was blond, somewhere in her forties, with blue eyes in a tan, weatherbeaten face. She was tall and thin, and she wore blue jeans and a T-shirt that said, “Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.” Suzanne smiled-she had the same T-shirt at home. “If there are any doughnuts or pancakes … ,” she said shyly, suddenly convinced that food-particularly fun food-would wake her up.

POSTCARDS from the EDGE

“Not really a health nut, are you?” said Marilyn, through her just-inhaled cigarette smoke. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“She’s a trip,” said Roger, shaking his long, tinted, curly blond head as the door closed behind Marilyn. He plugged in the hair dryer. “We’ve worked on …” He rolled his eyes upward, as if the number of films they had done together was hidden high in his head. “Fifth,” he said. “This will be our fifth picture together.” With that he raised the dryer like a friendly gun, pointed it at Suzanne’s head, and said, “Bang bang, you’re dry.”

Suzanne searched her mind for an appropriate rejoinder. When none turned up, she simply sat grinning inanely at Roger in the mirror, the silence burning through her.

“I’m so glad to have a chance to work with you,” Roger enthused. “I’ve always been a fan.”

“Thank you.”

“But more of you than your hair,” he went on. “I’ve never actually seen a flattering hairstyle on you in any of your films. Not that you didn’t look good, I just thought your hair could look better.” He turned on the dryer and continued the conversation, shouting over the loud whine of hot air. “Except for Mist on the Lake. That’s the best I ever saw you look.” He ran his fingers through her hair as he spoke. Suzanne frowned at her reflection.

“But my hair was wet for most of Mist on the Lake,” she screamed.

“Exactly!” Roger shouted back with satisfaction. “And that’s close to what I want to try with you on this picture. Slicked back. The wet look. Dramatic but casual.”

“Great!” she shouted.

Show business, Suzanne thought, as this man she had just met-this man she would probably know fairly intimately by the end of the week-played with her hair. It’s all about distraction, a way of being transported out of your life, of having someone else’s life for a while. Identifying with them. Feeling relief that

CAR R I E F I S HER

their predicament isn’t yours, or feeling relief that it is. A way of dreaming outside your head. Tilting your head with the actors when they kiss, thinking, “It’s so real.” The New Real.

The New Real was not being real, it was acting real. Suzanne was in the business of seeming-of entertaining people with her ways of seeming real. Portraying reality had become her way of experiencing it. She knew how to act like a regular person. She was selfconsciously unselfconscious. She didn’t mind being watched, but on some level she minded being recorded. It was as if she became an African native the moment the cameras started rolling, and felt her soul being robbed. If the natives were right about this, Suzanne figured her soul level was unacceptably low by now. It occurred to her that after she noticed her soul was completely gone, she would quickly lose her allimportant ability to seem okay.

The door opened and Marilyn came in. “Lucky you,” she said, placing several chocolate doughnuts in front of Suzanne. “I got to the doughnut tray before the camera crew, so there were plenty of the icing ones left.”

“How can I ever repay you?” asked Suzanne, looking at the doughnuts as if her medicine had arrived.

“Just hold still while I’m doing your eyes.” Marilyn moved to her area and took the lid off her Styrofoam coffee cup.

“She’s all yours!” Roger announced to Marilyn, gesturing grandly. Suzanne thanked him through a mouthful of cake, then made her way across the room into Marilyn’s chair. She squinted into the glare of the lights around the mirror, trying to adjust to their fluorescent horror.

“Loud, aren’t they?” Marilyn said. “Deafening,” Suzanne agreed.

“Well,” Marilyn said, placing Kleenex in Suzanne’s collar to protect it from the makeup. “Is there anything you’d like to tell me about preferences or allergies or pet peeves? We might as well cover it before we get in too deep.” She sipped her coffee, watching Suzanne over the rim of her cup.