When the Stars Come Out (21 page)

‘we,’ I really mean ‘Quinn.’ I was only invited because I was the guy who was with Quinn.” He paused, trying to decide how much he

W H E N T H E S T A R S C O M E O U T

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should confide before fixing on full disclosure. “And let me tell

you, Rock Hudson was one persistent bitch.”

Noah shook his head. “So much for Quinn not having a story to

tell.”

“He’s got a story,” Jimmy assured him. “I doubt it will ever be put on paper, but he’s got a story.”

It was then and there, in the seconds between the end of Jimmy’s

story and Bart’s return from the market, armed with tequila and

limes, that Noah Abraham decided firmly that he was not only going to write the Quinn Scott story, but he was going to make the actor like the idea.

He would no longer rely on fate or the goodwill of others; he

would make his own luck.

The margaritas tasted especially good that afternoon.

At eleven o’clock the following Monday morning, Noah walked

into the Midtown Manhattan offices of Palmer/Midkiff/Carlyle

Publishing for his appointment with David Carlyle, beating him to

the office by a full twenty minutes. When David did appear—

flushed and breathing a bit too heavily from the combination of excess weight and a hot, humid day in New York—he asked Noah to

wait another ten minutes before finally ushering him into his of-

fice.

“So what do you have for me?” David asked, getting straight to

business.

Noah opened a manila folder, exposing three crisp copies of his

proposal and a half-dozen printouts of Web pages. “Have you ever

heard of Quinn Scott?”

He smiled warily. “Of course.”

“There’s a story there.”

David sighed. “You’ve decided to substitute a serious study about

the impact of homosexuality on personal politics with a pop-culture biography? Interesting choice. But I have to admit I’m not feeling it.”

Noah took one copy of his proposal out of the folder and handed

it to David. “Maybe this will convince you.”

David took it and, without another word, began to read. Although

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he remained mute, Noah watched his eyes and saw them start to

flicker with interest. When a smile crossed David’s lips, he knew his editor had reached the money paragraph.

David finished reading and set the proposal faceup on his desk.

“Interesting.”

“And?”

“And . . . well, first, I owe you a bit of an apology. I thought you were talking about the television actor. The son, that is. I’m glad to see that some people still remember Quinn Scott Sr.”

“A much better story, right?”

“If it can be published.”

His abrupt statement puzzled Noah.

“Uh . . . but
you’re
a publisher.”

David sighed. “Noah, let me be quite blunt. A biography of Quinn

Scott, in and of itself, would interest me only slightly more than one of his insipid son. But here you propose to out the father. You propose to publicly state that Quinn Scott is gay. That gets touchy, legally.”

Noah cleared his throat. “My goal,” he said, “is to have Quinn

out himself.”

David cocked an eyebrow. “You’re talking about an auto-

biography?”

“As told to me.”

The editor again scanned the proposal.

“And he’s willing to do this?”

“He’s expressed interest.” Noah hoped that David couldn’t see

through the transparent lie.

“I’m . . . uh, I’m not sure what that means. He’s either willing to come out, or he’s not.”

Noah leaned forward, tenting his fingers on top of the desk. “I

broached the subject with him, and he didn’t reject it.”

“Which doesn’t mean he agreed.”

“Not exactly. But he will.”

David chuckled and sat back. “You are quite confident in your

powers of persuasion, aren’t you? Why would he do it now, when he

hasn’t worked in thirty years?”

“Because he hasn’t worked in thirty years.”

David conceded the point, even if he didn’t quite agree.

Noah continued. “Decades ago, Quinn Scott dropped off the

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radar, right? I’m sure some people still wonder what happened to

him. Now we have the opportunity—”

“Not quite,” David cautioned.

“
Almost
have the opportunity to tell his story. In the process, we not only show what a different world it is today to be gay in

Hollywood—”

“A bit of an overstatement.”

“But,” Noah continued, ignoring him, “we get to tell his unique

story and, in the process, put him back in the public eye. I mean, married to Kitty Randolph! Films with John Wayne and Robert

Mitchum!
Philly Cop
! Think of the stories he has, the people he’s known. And then we add his gay angle to the story, and I think we

have an autobiography that’s not only a big seller, but puts Quinn Scott back in the news and up on the screen.”

His sales pitch over, Noah relaxed, easing back in his chair.

David was silent for quite a while, thinking things over. When he

finally spoke, it wasn’t to offer the deal Noah had anticipated. It was to offer another note of caution.

“
If
you can get Quinn Scott to publicly acknowledge his homosexuality, I’m interested. But there is another matter that will need to be addressed before I can make a formal offer.”

“Which is?”

“Kitty Randolph.” David paused to let Noah think about that for

a moment, then filled the conversational vacuum. “Madame Ran-

dolph does not have the visibility she had forty years ago, Noah.

But if anything, she’s even stronger now than she was back in her

glory days. In the fifties and sixties, when she was one of the top box-office draws, she made a lot of money, which is how she managed to all but blacklist your friend Quinn Scott. But she was no-

body’s fool, and she reinvested all that money right back into

Hollywood. She may stay mostly behind the scenes these days, but

she’s a studio power-broker. And from what I understand, she’s still nobody’s fool.”

“How do you know this?”

David shrugged and said, “I read
Premiere
, of course.”

“She seems like such a sweet lady.”

“I’m sure she’s very sweet . . . as long as she’s getting what she wants.” David fixed a frosty smile in Noah’s direction. “How she reacts when she’s not getting what she wants is anybody’s guess.”

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“So . . . okay, she can stop Quinn’s comeback. But the book—”

David waved him away, and the smile disappeared. “If she disap-

proves, the book will vanish.”

“It can still be published.”

“It can,” David acknowledged. “But without publicity, a book

about a dinosaur like Quinn Scott—and I mean that with the great-

est affection, of course—will vanish. The only way this book will be relevant is if we can book him on the talk shows, get him on
Oprah
, generate the publicity that will lead to the reviews that will lead to the sales. If Kitty Randolph wants this project to be buried, though, it will be buried. Quinn Scott will not get within one thousand feet of Leno or Letterman. Or even Dr. Phil. Trust me on this.”

“You seem to have a healthy respect for her,” Noah observed,

stating the obvious.

David smiled, and this time it was genuine.

“To most of the world, she’s just the sweetest thing. The ador-

able girl next door . . . the spunky career woman . . . the darling grandmother . . . But from what I hear, she’s a tigress.” He paused, then gushed: “I think she’s
wonderful
! A true diva!”

“I’m glad you’re a fan,” said Noah. “But are you going to accept

my proposal?”

David frowned and puttered around his desk for a moment be-

fore answering. “I’ll make you a deal,” he finally said. “If you can get Quinn Scott to formally agree to this project, and if you can get him to give me something I can sell, then I’ll publish the book.”

That seemed fair enough to both of them. They shook hands,

sealing the not-quite but sort-of-almost deal.

So it was really all coming together quite well, Noah thought, sitting on the jitney on his way back to Southampton. All he had to do was convince Quinn Scott to cooperate; convince him to come out

as gay in his eighth decade; convince Kitty Randolph not to squelch the biography; and convince America’s booksellers and readers

that the experience would be worth the $25 suggested retail price.

Oh, and he’d also have to write 300 to 350 pages in just a few

months. But, compared to the other obstacles he faced, Noah felt

that would be a comparatively easy task.

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He knew it was a fascinating story; he just wasn’t sure if Quinn

would ultimately cooperate. It was one thing to get some juicy gossip from Jimmy; quite another for Quinn to go on the record with

tawdry tales of his life in Hollywood.

And then there was the other important question: could Noah

even write the damn book?

He had been every bit as enthused about the book on closeted

congressional staffers, after all. Maybe more. He was confident,

committed, and just knew that it would be significant. And yet,

more than a year later, he had nothing . . . nothing except a sneaking suspicion that the closed mouths of his completelashuels were

more an excuse than the cause of his writer’s block.

What if he tried and failed to collaborate with the actor? In his

imperfectly perfect life, Noah was confounded by the obstacle that was his writer’s block. He knew he had to get beyond it; he just didn’t know how.

The congressional book was dead. That was for sure. He would

never finish that book, and couldn’t even conceive of opening his

notebooks again. His hopes all now rode on the Quinn Scott auto-

biography. It wouldn’t be as prestigious as the original book, true, but it could still do good, and it could keep Noah motivated and

propelled in a forward trajectory.

And if it didn’t pan out—if Quinn refused, or Noah’s writing

demons again challenged him and again won—well, would it truly

be
failure
to move out here to Long Island and become a wage slave?

Noah stared out the window, watching suburbia inch by as the

bus crawled down the Long Island Expressway. All those people liv-

ing normal lives; all those soccer moms and commuter dads and

towheaded brats heading to the mall in their SUVs to shop at Sears and Macy’s. In a sense, he envied their lives, devoid as they were of closeted congressional aides and faded homosexual actors and

Hollywood divas. If he could keep Bart Gustafson and lose the rest, he thought, he might be quite content moving on to a cul-de-sac

and taking a dependable office job. After all, if there was satisfaction in a book well written, there must also be satisfaction in a lawn well mown.

As for books, well, he’d pay for the sweat of the labor of other

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chumps when he took the SUV to the mall and made his monthly

drop-in at Barnes & Noble or Borders or Waldenbooks. In fact, he would even read Danielle Steel without shame.

That is precisely how suburban-conformist he would become.

He and Bart would trade in circuit parties for the Friday fish fry circuit at the VFW post or the Elks Club. Maybe they’d adopt children. Maybe they’d even install lawn ornaments. Maybe even
garden gnomes
!

Noah smiled. There was something about taking this concept

too far—to the garden gnome level—that was ever so slowly lifting

him out of his malaise.

A convertible slowly passed on the left and he stared down into

the interior. A young couple—he was tan, she was pale—sat in clear unhappiness as the wind tossed their hair. Watching them, Noah

felt regret . . . and reality. He could have his fantasies—his snob-bish, belittling fantasies, at that—but the fact was that all lives were complex. Hadn’t decades worth of pop culture been devoted to exposing the tensions and secrets behind the façade of magazine-

perfect suburban living? The couple in the convertible obviously

had more going on in their lives than arranging a rock garden and

buying garden gnomes, and would almost certainly trade lives with

him if they could.

So what, exactly, was his problem? Why was he discontented?

And now why was he feeling . . . shame? Was that what he was feel-

ing as he watched the convertible pull away?

Noah felt his cheeks flush and realized that, yes, he
was
feeling shame. His father’s words echoed in his head: he had had a good

life and he was unappreciative of it, even as he took advantage of his many advantages.

He hated it when his father was right.

He slipped in his earbud, turned up his iPod, and let the voices

in his head be drowned out by the music.

Forty miles or so down the road, his eyes opened, and he gasped

in surprise at the realization that he had fallen asleep. He rubbed his eyelids gently, then looked back out the window. Now, the landscape was much more open; it was still suburbia, but it was the suburbia now dotted with farms, which eventually gave way to glimpses of larger houses partially hidden behind the tree line.

Which meant that the bus was slowly easing into the Hamptons.

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And that meant he was almost back to Quinn Scott’s house, which

in turn meant that it was almost time to face his demons again.

He told himself that he
would
convince Quinn that the book should be written, and he
would
work with him to write it. And, together, they
would
record a bit of history and, in the process, im-prove a few lives.