And the whole thing had to have a name, too, didn't it? There had to be a title to the story of his life, which Jack was reciting--with such restraint and in chronological order--to his psychiatrist. But Jack knew the name of his life story before he started telling it; the first day he went to see Dr. Garcia, when he'd been unable to tell her anything without shouting or crying, Jack knew that his mother's Until I find you tattoo had been her crowning deception. Certainly she'd been proudest of it; why else, if only after her death, had Alice wanted Leslie Oastler to show Jack the photographs?
"Why show me at all?" he'd asked his mom.
"I was beautiful once!" Alice had cried--meaning her breasts, when she was younger, he'd thought at the time, but the tattoo was what interested Jack.
She'd been so proud of keeping the tattoo from him that, even after everything, Alice had wanted him to see it! From the time he was four, that Until I find you tattoo said everything there was to say about Jack Burns.
As a psychiatrist, Dr. Garcia was the opposite of an editor. Jack was not supposed to delete anything--he was instructed to leave nothing out. And not infrequently, Dr. Garcia wanted more. She required "corroborating details." Instances of what Dr. Garcia had identified, early on, as Jack's older-woman thing could not be overemphasized; in his boyhood, the seemingly unmotivated cruelty and aggressiveness he encountered in older girls was "an underlying problem." What was it about Jack that had provoked those older girls?
Ditto the penis-holding. Most surprising in Jack's case, in Dr. Garcia's experience, was how this didn't necessarily lead to having sex. Then there was the closeness he'd felt to his mom as a child, but how swiftly and absolutely they had grown estranged; it was almost as if Jack knew that Alice's lies were lies before he actually found out.
Dr. Garcia was further puzzled by the Emma relationship, which stood in contrast (but bore certain similarities) to Jack's relationship with Leslie Oastler. Did he still want to sleep with Leslie? Dr. Garcia wanted to know. If so, why? If not, why not?
Dr. Garcia was a stickler for thoroughness. "I think I'm done with the St. Hilda's part," Jack had told her on several occasions.
"Oh, no--you're not," Dr. Garcia had said. "A boy with looks like yours in an all-girls' school? Are you kidding? You're not only not done with St. Hilda's, Jack--you may never be done with it!"
Jack got tired of all the contradictions--his inglorious return to the North Sea, especially. But not Dr. Garcia; there couldn't be too many contradictions for her. "How long's it been since you thought about dressing as a girl?" she asked him. "I don't mean in a movie!" (He must have hesitated.) "You see?" she said. "Give me more contradictions--give me all you've got, Jack."
Jack sometimes felt he wasn't seeing a psychiatrist--it was more like taking a creative writing class, but with nothing on paper to show for it. And when Dr. Garcia gave him an actual writing assignment, he almost stopped the therapy altogether. She wanted him to write letters to Michele Maher--not to send to Michele, but to read out loud at their therapy sessions.
"There's no way I can explain myself to Michele," Jack told his psychiatrist. At the time, it had been more than a year--closer to two years--since Michele had written him. He still hadn't answered her letter.
"But explaining yourself to Michele is what you want to do, isn't it?" Dr. Garcia asked him. He couldn't deny that.
It was further unnerving that Dr. Garcia's office was on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, within walking distance of that breakfast place where he'd first met Myra Ascheim--another older woman who had changed his life.
"Fascinating," Dr. Garcia said. "But don't tell me about it now. Please keep everything in chronological order, Jack."
In 2000, when Jack won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, Dr. Garcia found it "illuminating" that he referred to the award (and the statuette itself) as Emma's Oscar. But Dr. Garcia wouldn't allow him to tell her his feelings. Even the Oscar had to be rendered in chronological order.
And Dr. Garcia disapproved of his first actual communication with Michele Maher, for several reasons. In the first place, Jack hadn't shown the doctor the letter he wrote Michele before he mailed it; in the second place, it was a ridiculous letter to have sent Michele after almost eighteen years of nothing between them.
But when Jack was nominated for two Academy Awards (one for Best Supporting Actor and the other for the screenplay), he felt he had a golden opportunity to make contact with Michele Maher--while at the same time sounding casual about getting together.
Dear Michele,
I don't know if you're married, or otherwise attached to someone, but--if you're not--would you be my date at the Academy Awards? This would mean coming to Los Angeles--Sunday, March 26. Naturally, I would take care of your travel expenses and hotel accommodations.
Yours truly,
Jack Burns
What was wrong with that? Wasn't it polite, and to the point? (Michele's answer, which was prompt, was a little wishy-washy.)
Dear Jack,
Gosh, I would love to! But I have a boyfriend, sort of. I don't live with anyone, but I'm seeing someone--as they say. Of course I'm very flattered that you thought of me--after all these years! I'll make a point of actually staying up to watch the awards this year, and I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.
Best regards,
Michele
"It's hard to tell if she really wanted to go, isn't it?" Jack asked Dr. Garcia, which prompted his psychiatrist's third reason for disapproving of his letter to Michele.
"Jack, you are very fortunate that Michele turned you down," Dr. Garcia said. "What a wreck you would have been if she'd said yes! If she'd been your date, you would have blown it."
Jack didn't think this was fair. He could have had a ball with the media--just telling them that his date for the Academy Awards was his dermatologist! But Dr. Garcia was not amused; she considered his faux pas of inviting Michele Maher to the Oscars to be "in the denial category." Dr. Garcia said that Jack was completely unaware of how far removed he was from the normal world, of normal people and normal relationships.
"But what about her?" he cried. (Jack meant Michele Maher.) "What's she mean that she has a boyfriend, sort of? Is that normal?"
"You're not ready to make contact with Michele Maher, Jack," Dr. Garcia said. "You have heaped so many unrealistic expectations upon a relationship that, as I understand it, never developed in the first place--well, I don't want to hear another word about this now! To me, you're still a four-year-old in the North Sea. Speaking strictly professionally, you've not recovered from your sea of girls--and I need to know much more about Emma and your older-woman thing. Keep it in chronological order. Is that understood?"
It was. He had a bitch psychiatrist, or so it seemed to Jack, but he had to admit that her therapy had noticeably cut down his tendency to shout and burst into tears--and his inclination to wake up weeping in the middle of the night, which became habitual after he came back from the North Sea the second time. So Jack stuck with her, and the unfinished telling of his life story went on and on. Jack had become what Emma said he could be--a writer, albeit one given to melancholic logorrhea. A storyteller, if only out loud. (Jack's actual writing was limited to those unmailed letters to Michele Maher.)
Dr. Garcia was a heavyset but attractive Mexican-American. She appeared to be in her late forties. From the photographs in her office, she either came from a large family or had a large family of her own. Jack didn't ask her, and--from the photos--he couldn't tell.
Of the children in the many pictures, he couldn't recognize Dr. Garcia as a child--so perhaps they were her children. Yet the older-looking man in the photographs seemed more like a father to her than a husband; he was always well dressed, to the point of fastidiousness, and his pencil-thin mustache and perfectly trimmed sideburns suggested a character actor of a bygone era. (A cross between Clifton Webb and Gilbert Roland, Jack thought.)
Dr. Garcia didn't wear any rings; she wore no jewelry to
speak of. Either she was married with more children than Jack could count in her office photos, or she'd come from such an overlarge family that this had persuaded her to never marry and have children of her own.
In a doomed effort to solve this mystery, Jack cleverly said: "Maybe you should be my date for the Academy Awards, Dr. Garcia. At a stressful event like that, a psychiatrist would probably come in handier than a dermatologist--don't you think?"
"You don't date your psychiatrist," Dr. Garcia said.
"Oh."
"That's a word you overuse," Jack's psychiatrist said.
The distinguished-looking older man in Dr. Garcia's family photographs had an air of detachment about him, as if he were withdrawing from a recurrent argument before it started. He seemed far removed from the clamor of the ever-present children in the photos; it was almost as if he couldn't hear them. Maybe Dr. Garcia had married a much older man, or a deaf one. Jack's psychiatrist was such a strong woman, she was probably contemptuous of the convention of wedding rings.
Richard Gladstein had recommended Dr. Garcia to Jack. "She knows actors," Richard had told him. "You wouldn't be her first movie star."
At the time, this had been a comforting thought. Yet Jack hadn't seen anyone famous in Dr. Garcia's waiting room; it made him wonder if she made house calls to the more famous movie stars among her patients. But to judge Dr. Garcia by the waiting room outside her office was confusing. There were many young married women, and some of them came with their small children; there were toys and children's books in a corner of the waiting room, which gave you the disquieting impression that you were seeing a pediatrician. The young married women who showed up with their children always brought friends or nannies with them; these other women looked after the kids when the young mothers went into Dr. Garcia's office for their therapy sessions.
"Are you here to see the doctor or to watch someone's kid?" Jack asked one of the young women once; like Dr. Garcia, she wasn't wearing a wedding ring.
"Are you trying to pick me up or something?" the young woman said.
Jack almost asked her if she would be his date at the Academy Awards, but he stopped himself when he considered what Dr. Garcia might have to say about that.
"Who should I take to the Academy Awards?" he'd asked his psychiatrist.
"Please don't mistake me for a dating service, Jack."
Thus Jack was on his own for the Academy Awards. In addition to his two nominations, Lucia Delvecchio had a nomination for Best Actress, Wild Bill Vanvleck had one for Best Director, and Richard Gladstein got a Best Picture nomination, too.
No one thought Lucia had a shot. She was up against some very big guns--Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore and Annette Bening--and besides, it was Hilary Swank's year. (As an occasional cross-dresser, Jack was a big fan of Hilary in Boys Don't Cry.) And Richard Gladstein knew, going in, that The Slush-Pile Reader was a long shot for Best Picture. (It would go to American Beauty.)
William Vanvleck was just happy to be there. Not one review of The Slush-Pile Reader referred to Wild Bill as The Remake Monster; The Mad Dutchman had become almost acceptable. Not acceptable enough to win Best Director; there were some heavy hitters in the lineup that year. (Sam Mendes would win--American Beauty again.)
Nor did Jack realistically have a chance to win Best Supporting Actor--Michael Caine won. (Jack's role as a nice-guy porn star was sympathetic, but not that sympathetic.)
Jack knew long before the night of the awards that the film's best chance for an Oscar was in the Best Adapted Screenplay category--Emma's screenplay, as he thought of it. How could he not look at it as Emma's Oscar? It was her movie!
Yes, Jack had learned a little bit about screenwriting in the course of fine-tuning the script Emma had given him. But as a storyteller, he was learning more from his therapy with Dr. Garcia. (Go easy on the foreshadowing; watch the interjections; keep it in chronological order.)
Miramax's promotion of The Slush-Pile Reader was exhausting, and the lion's share of it had fallen to Jack in February and March of 2000. Wild Bill Vanvleck was back in Amsterdam; his much younger girlfriend was an anchorwoman on Dutch television, and Wild Bill was completely taken with her. Besides, Vanvleck was a disaster at promoting his own picture--in this case. That pornography was such an issue in the United States offended The Mad Dutchman; nobody had a problem with pornography in the Netherlands. "It is only a problem in Puritan America, which is ruled by the Christian Right!" Vanvleck declared. (It was probably wise of Miramax to keep Wild Bill in Amsterdam, except for the film festivals.)
Following her tragic one-night error in Venice, Lucia Delvecchio had shunned Jack. She'd virtually turned her back on the film, too. Jack's old friend Erica Steinberg was the Miramax publicist. Jack had been on the road with Erica--in print and on television--for The Slush-Pile Reader almost nonstop.
It was the night after Jack did Larry King Live that he called Leslie Oastler and asked her if she would be his date at the Academy Awards. (Fuck the blonde, he thought.)
"I'm flattered you would think of me, Jack," Mrs. Oastler began. "But how would that make Dolores feel? And I don't know what I would wear."
"It's Emma's night, Leslie," Jack said.
"No, it's gonna be your night, Jack. Emma's dead. Why don't you go with Miss Wurtz?" Mrs. Oastler asked him.
"The Wurtz! Are you kidding?"
"An Oscar would be wasted on me, Jack. What would I want with a gold, bald, naked man holding what is alleged to be his sword?" Leslie Oastler had always had a particularly pointed way of seeing things.
The next morning Jack called Caroline Wurtz and popped the question. Would she consider coming to Los Angeles to attend the Academy Awards with him?
"I've heard so many terrible things about the drive-by shootings," Miss Wurtz said. "But they don't shoot people at the Oscars, do they?"
"No," he told her. "They only wound you internally."
"Well, I suppose I should go see the movie, shouldn't I?" Caroline asked. "I've heard both wonderful and awful things from people who've seen it. As you know, your friend Emma was never one of my favorite writers."
"I think it's a pretty good film," Jack said. There was a lengthy pause, as if Caroline was considering the invitation--or perhaps The Wurtz had forgotten that he'd invited her to anything. Jack was a little miffed that she hadn't seen The Slush-Pile Reader. (The movie had five Oscar nominations! Everyone Jack knew had seen it.)
"Don't you have anyone else to ask, Jack? I can't be the best you can do," Caroline said.
"For a couple of years, I've been seeing a psychiatrist," he admitted to her. "I haven't been in the best shape."
"Goodness!" Miss Wurtz cried. "In that case, of course I'll go with you! I'm sure if Mrs. McQuat were alive, she'd want to go with us, too!"
Well, there was a concept! At Mrs. McQuat's urging, Jack had taken Miss Wurtz to that most memorable Toronto film festival--the one he went to with Claudia, when The Wurtz was convinced that the morons protesting the Godard film were outraged by the ritualistic suicide in the Mishima movie. Jack wondered what confusions awaited Miss Wurtz at the Shrine Civic Auditorium on the night of the Academy Awards. Whom might she mistake Billy Crystal for?
Jack explained to Caroline that he would arrange her air travel and all the rest of it. That Jack Burns was taking his third-grade teacher to the Oscars was a bonus bit of publicity; nor did it hurt that Emma Oastler had died and put him in charge of bringing her first and best novel to the screen. "The death connection," Jack had called it; that turned out to be a bonus bit of publicity for both Miramax and Jack Burns.
The issue of what Miss Wurtz would wear provided a down-to-earth return to the heart of the matter. Jack told her that Armani was dressing him for the Academy Awards. (They had called; he'd said okay. This was how it usually happened.)
"Who is dressing you?" The Wurtz asked.
"Armani--the designer, Caroline. Different fashion designers dress the nominees and their guests for the Oscar
s. If there's a particular designer you like, I'm sure I could arrange it. Or you could just wear something by Armani, too."
"I think I'll dress myself, if it's all the same to you," Miss Wurtz replied. "I have some perfectly lovely clothes your father bought for me. Naturally, William will be watching. He'll be so proud of you! I wouldn't want William to see me wearing a dress he didn't choose for me, Jack."
Well, there was a concept, too--namely, that Jack's father would be watching. The Wurtz would be dressing for him!
"You'll have to tell me who's nominated for what," Caroline was saying. "Then I'll go see all the movies."
Jack wondered how many Academy voters had the diligence of a third-grade teacher, but--when Jack would finally get to the Oscar-winning part of his life story--Dr. Garcia would call the "diligence" detail an example of his interjecting too much.
Jack doubted that every film nominated for an Oscar was still playing in a theater in Toronto; quite possibly, not every film had ever played there. But he knew this wouldn't deter Miss Wurtz from trying to see them all.
Jack almost called Leslie Oastler to thank her for suggesting The Wurtz as his date for the Academy Awards, but he didn't want to risk getting Leslie's blonde on the phone.
"Dolores," he would be tempted to say to the bitch, "I wanted to alert you to a large package that's coming your way--more of my clothes. If you or Leslie wouldn't mind hanging them in my closet as soon as they arrive, I'd appreciate it. I wouldn't want them to be wrinkled for my next visit." Or words to that effect; naturally, Jack didn't make the call. (Had she known, Dr. Garcia would have been proud of him for exercising such restraint.)
The two-bedroom suite at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons, where Miramax put them up for the long Oscar weekend, was larger than Miss Wurtz's apartment--or so she told Jack. There was even a piano, which Miss Wurtz liked to play in her Four Seasons white terry-cloth bathrobe. She claimed to know only hymns and the St. Hilda's school songs, but her voice was pretty and she played well.
"Oh, I don't play well--nothing like your father, who used to tease me," she said. "William would say, 'If you want to be even a bit more tentative, Caroline, you might try breathing on the keys instead of using your fingers.' He could be funny, your father. I wish you'd tell me more about your trip, Jack. Why don't you begin with Copenhagen? I've never been there."