Show Business Kills (36 page)

Now they rolled a videotape of the exterior of the hospital, and as the anchorwoman spoke, there was a background of
Jan’s fans with their signs and their candles. A microphone was in the face of a fat man who said, “We want to know that she’s
doing okay, we love her, and if she can get our message up there in the hospital, ‘Maggie, we’re praying for you.’ ”

Now they cut back to the newsroom, where the pretty, perfectly coiffed, blonde anchorwoman said, “West Hollywood police have
made an arrest in connection with the Jan O’Malley shooting. The suspect being held for questioning is Filbert Borzak, a longtime
fan of O’Malley’s. Witnesses told police that earlier this week, Borzak broke onto the set of ‘My Brightest Day,’ on which
O’Malley has appeared regularly for fifteen years. Jan O’Malley, still in critical condition at Cedars-Sinai tonight.

“That’s all for this Friday evening. Stay tuned for the new Billy Mann show, premiering right after this. Billy’s guests are
Kim Basinger and Madonna.”

“Oh God,” Rose said.

“A perfect end to an otherwise perfect evening,” Marly said.

“Another asshole heard from,” Ellen said.

“I can turn this off,” Rose said, holding up the remote and looking quizzically at Marly.

“No, leave it on,” Marly said, and then, to make sure she wasn’t sounding too eager, she added, “Janny loves Billy. She’ll
get a kick out of hearing his jokes.”

There were commercials, followed by more commercials, and then a big-band sound, playing Billy’s theme, and a spray of cuts
of Billy from the old show. Pictures of Billy dressed in every imaginable costume, Billy with big-name guests, images flying
by that gave you the message “This is
one giant star, so don’t even think about changing the channel, because you’re in for a great time.”

One of the nurses stood in the doorway with a concerned expression. Marly was sure she was about to tell them to turn off
the TV because the noise was disturbing the other patients, but instead she tugged at a pocket glass door that would shut
the sounds of their room off from the rest of the ICU, and slid it about three quarters closed and walked away. Rose turned
down the lights, and they all pulled their chairs into the best position to watch the wall-mounted television.

The incongruity of sitting in that desperate little room, with Janny on a ventilator, and all of them watching Billy, gave
Marly chills. This would be Billy taped a few hours after their tearful lovemaking, their promise-filled parting, Billy knowing
his name was being destroyed by the press, and that his adolescent daughters were in the audience.

“Heyyy, how are ya?” he asked the audience. Lots of whistles and hoots and Billy smiled his ain’t-I-adorable smile, and Marly
felt her hands clutched into fists, wondering if he was going to take on the
Enquirer
and the smut they wrote about him.

“Did you hear about the new doll they’re manufacturing this year? Divorce Barbie. She comes with Ken’s things.”

There was a big laugh from the studio audience.

“Of course, if you have kids, you know that can’t be true, don’t you? Because Ken doesn’t have a thing.” Another laugh. “Did
you ever look? Tell the truth, when the kids were asleep one night? I mean it could be because Barbie took it in the divorce.
But I don’t think so. I think he never had one in the first place. And I’m worried. My daughters are getting
too old for those dolls, so they gave them to me to take to the rummage sale at school, and I got to the school to help them
take inventory, so I opened the box and there was Ken. I think it was Ken, it might have been Aladdin, they’re relatives,
and he was naked as a jay-bird, and I thought if this is what these girls are raised on, they’re in for a terrible shock!”

“Good ol’ Bill is doing the quality material,” Ellen said. “Open the season with penis jokes. His usual fine taste.”

“Not that I’m implying that there should be Flasher Ken, raincoat sold separately, or to be politically correct now, he’d
be called Sexual Harassment Ken, but…”

He was getting big laughs, and Marly saw the confident look he got in his eyes, which meant he knew he was on the money, happening,
funny. Marly found herself grinning, and when she looked at Rose and Ellen, they were smiling, too. The next few jokes were
about the Clintons. Billy loved to do material about them.

“Al Gore, Bill Clinton, and Hillary all to to heaven,” he was saying now. “When they arrive, they go in to meet God, who is
sitting on a heavenly throne, and God says to the vice president, ‘And, in your brief time on earth, what have you done for
mankind?’ and the vice president says, ‘Well, Lord, I was an advocate for the environment. I fought to save our world from…’”

There was something odd about the audio on the television. As if there was an echo, and Marly thought that it sounded as if
maybe the nurses had turned another television on in the ICU, or maybe another patient in an adjacent room had turned one
on, but Billy’s voice seemed to be reverberating.

Now he was doing the part of the joke where God asked
President Clinton what he thought he had done for mankind, and then he imitated the President’s southern accent and the imitation
was perfect. It got a huge laugh from the studio audience. And now God asked Hillary what she thought her contribution was…
and Rose must have heard the echo, too, because she stood to close the pocket door all the way, and when she did, she gasped.

It wasn’t another television they were hearing. It was Billy Mann himself, in person, standing in the doorway of Jan’s room,
reciting the monologue along with Billy on the tape. “Never mind what I did, pal. You’re sitting in my chair…” was the punch
line. Billy on TV said it, and so did the real Billy. Ellen glanced up at him, and then Marly saw him and stood, not knowing
what to say, afraid she looked as disheveled as she felt.

He was wearing red sweat pants and a Lakers sweatshirt and a brown leather bomber jacket, and he looked pale. “Hi,” he said,
looking into Marly’s eyes, but the sad smile on his face was one Marly couldn’t identify, though she’d been sure she knew
them all. This one was almost afraid, very contrite, filled with concern, and surprisingly it felt sincere. He looked over
at Jan, then closed his eyes as if the sight of her was too hurtful. He shook his head and opened his eyes and asked Marly,
“Is she going to make it?”

“We don’t know,” Marly said, wondering what she should say, about this morning, the picture in the paper, anything, everything.
“We’re waiting.”

Both Rose and Ellen stood tentatively. They both knew that to Billy they were the enemy. After all, who did a man hate and
fear more than his estranged wife’s best friends? Three women who knew about every dumb thing he’d ever
done and said to Marly and the twins. Three lifelong loyal friends who had held Marly’s hand through the separation, railed
at her to confront him when she’d been too accepting of his childish behavior. Insisted that Marly swear she’d never “yes”
him the way everyone in his entourage did. These were the very friends who had nagged her into promising them she’d go and
fight for sole custody unless he stopped disappointing the twins the way he often did.

But even if he did hate them for all of those reasons, Billy moved forward to each of them now with a hug that said that what
happened to Jan transcended all of that. Billy on the TV was telling the audience to stand by because he had a great lineup
of guests, and when he said the names of the female stars, the studio audience whistled and stomped raucously. Rose picked
up the remote from under her chair and clicked off the TV.

“I went back to your house with the twins after the taping because I heard the news,” Billy said. “We canceled our plans and
went back to your house to see if you were okay. Maria told us you were here, and all three of us played with Joey until we
tired him out and he went to sleep. God, is that kid cute. What in the hell is going to happen to him?”

Marly raised a finger to her lips and tossed her head to the side to indicate Jan and said, “He’s going to be fine, because
Jan’s going to be fine. We’re all counting on it.” She wanted to throw her arms around his neck and say, “Let’s go home.”
He’d gone to her house to see if she was all right. It was a step toward human.

“That was sweet of you, Billy, to stay and play with Joey,” Rose said.

“Billy’s a Capricorn and a two,” Marly said, her eyes
never leaving his as she riffled around in her purse feeling for a hairbrush, which she finally located and pulled through
her white curls. “And they have tender feelings for children.”

“New show looks good, Bill,” Ellen said.

“Yeah, thanks,” Billy said. That was usually all the opening he needed to launch him into what Ellen would call “more self-examination
than there is a self.” A deep discussion about the way his timing had improved, how bonded he’d become with his writers, how
his input into the production elevated his show from the usual late-night claptrap into something more meaningful.

But he didn’t take it. “The twins wanted me to bring these signs they made.” He unrolled two papers he was carrying under
his arm, one that read
GET WELL, AUNT JANNY
, Love, Jennifer, and the other that read I
LOVE YOU, AUNTIE JAN
, Love, Sarah.

“Oh, thanks, Billy,” Rose said. “I’ll get some tape and put them up.”

The ventilator huffed in and out and nobody spoke for a while.

“Mar,” Billy said, ‘I hate to quote another talk-show host, but ‘Can we talk?’ I mean the twins told me you had the cleanup
crew at Gelson’s working overtime today. So I thought maybe you’d let me say a few words to you on my own behalf before I
go back to the house to make sure all the children are asleep and safe.”

“For example, what words?” Marly asked nervously.

“For example, surely you’re not buying into that shit? That little girl in that picture with me on that newspaper is Greg
and Sandy Weber’s daughter. He’s one of the guys over at the agency who represent my production company.
Their daughter was walking with me out of the Bruin Theater and her parents were two feet behind us. Greg Weber is suing that
paper because the kids at the high school are all tormenting the poor little girl. Mar, these are the tabloidians who brought
you ‘Elvis is alive and a Hassidic rabbi in Miami Beach.’ ”

“You mean he’s not?” Ellen said.

Marly was leaning wearily against Jan’s bed, holding nervously to Jan’s hand as if she were afraid Billy’s tirade might damage
Jan further. It really was too much, completely inappropriate for Billy to have come here tonight. He could have waited until
Jan was improving, or at least until Marly was at home to talk about this. Instead of bringing their painful relationship
to the intensive care unit.

She knew her friends were waiting for her to act, to stand up for herself the way she did for every other issue on earth,
to tell him to go away. To refuse to fall for his con anymore. So she summoned her courage and tried to organize her thoughts.

“Billy, without insulting you or hurting your fragile ego, I need you to hear that I have more urgent problems to deal with
right now. Life-and-death problems. I’m not going to let myself get all caught up in some battle that will compromise the
energy I require to focus on taking care of my friend and her child.

“I’ve wasted more than enough of my life mourning the unfulfilled expectations I had for our marriage, and now, when I’m confronted
with how precious life is, it makes me absolutely certain I don’t want to waste another minute on the shallow concerns you
and I spent years making important.”

“So, Mar, does that mean that everything you and I talked about this morning is out the window? Because some sleaze gazette
buys a picture of me from one of those paparazzi leeches, you’re going to forget all that we did and said this morning and
send me out of here? Look, I know this is a terrible time to talk, and a terrible place and a horrifying situation. But I
want you to know I lived on this morning all day. Why do you think I was cooking on that show tonight? Because all the way
to the studio, and sitting in that makeup chair, I was saying, ‘My baby loves me, and we’re going to make it work.’ ”

“Gee,” Ellen said. “Musta been some hot morning.”

It made them all laugh out loud. “So what’s it going to be?” Billy asked, as straightforwardly as he’d ever said anything
in his life. “Are you going to take me back? Yes or no?”

Marly thought about it, then suddenly her eyes opened wide, and she gasped and then laughed.

“I think it’s yes,” she said. “I mean Janny thinks it’s yes,” and then, though her face was lit up like a Broadway marquee,
she was crying. “She just squeezed my hand! Once. For yes.”

“There must be a kink in her IV,” Rose joked, and Billy gave her a look that said “Stay out of this,” but Ellen and Marly
laughed.

Billy went to Marly and put his arms around her and spoke, not caring that Rose and Ellen heard every word. Probably figuring
they’d hear about it eventually, so why not just let them be there when he said it. “I’ve been fighting so many demons for
so long, honey. Let me come home and help me make a life with you. I really want that.”

Marly’s face was as full of blush as it was the day she and Billy walked down the aisle. “I’m going to go, but if it’s okay,
I’ll stay at your house tonight, to be with the twins and Joey while you’re taking care of business here. Then, when you get
home, I’ll be—“ Marly interrupted him.

“No, Bill,” she said. “You can’t stay there. I have to give this lots of thought. To make a decision from a stable place.
Not here in this room, at this moment.”

“Yeah, Bill,” Ellen said. “Some people don’t think they have to do everything in front of an audience.”

“I’m going,” Billy said to Marly. “I love you.” Then he took Jan’s hand out of Marly’s and held it and said to her, “At least
I know one of you is on my side,” and without looking at any of them again, he was out of the room.

“Now that was the real Billy Mann show,” Ellen said.