He dipped his fingers in his water and flicked them at her face.
She laughed, wiping her chin. “You’ll become this big celebrity voice-over and I’ll have my own little woman’s show on CNN or something. What a riot.”
“So when are you going to write a tell-all book?” he teased.
The waiter set the check down on the table, and she snatched it up before Max had a chance. “Don’t joke, five New York literary agents have already called me.”
“You’re kidding,” he said, wondering what he could ever do that would draw so much attention.
She placed a $20 bill on top of the check, and then set the salt shaker on top as a paperweight. “Thanks for coming out today. I really needed to be around somebody who wasn’t holding a camera or microphone.”
They stood up from the table and walked through the restaurant, each taking a mint from the dish beside the cash register on their way out the door and into the unknown.
S
itting at her desk, Bebe opened her latest American Express bill. A mistake, it seemed, had been made. It showed the amount due as $19,287.64. How, she wondered, was that possible? What had she purchased in the past month besides a few basics from the catalogs and a couple of early Christmas presents? She spread out all seven pages of the itemized bill on the desk. Nothing unusual: shoes, sheets and such, hair products, projection TV, restaurant charges, etc.
Oh. She had forgotten about the bronze gong from eBay. But of course, that was really more of an investment.
Still, the amount due on her American Express card was, in fact, correct. It seemed clear that she was on the verge of having a shopping problem.
She’d always been a shopper. When she was a girl and feeling a little blue, her mother would say, “Let’s go shop ’til we drop.” Shopping was her form of therapy, a relaxing thing to do.
It seemed obvious to Bebe that she needed to remedy the situation, curb her spending. So she put away the bill and logged onto Amazon.com to look for a book on the subject. She did a search and found ShoppingStoppers: The Breakthrough Bestseller that Can Help You Curb Your Compulsive Shopping. She clicked on it. The book jacket appeared on her screen. Beneath the book jacket the text said, “Customers who bought this book also bought . . .” and then listed seven other titles. So Bebe purchased them all, along with a book about investing in Chinese artifacts. She logged off feeling tremendous relief.
fourteen
“I don’t know what to tell you, Max. I can’t create a job for you out of thin air.”
Slumping down into the couch, Max pressed, “Are you sure Discovery Channel has nothing? Did you actually talk to Radio 102?”
“Yes, Max, I’m sure and I did. The programming director at Discovery was familiar with the penis incident, and he—”
“Jeez,” Max interrupted, “do you have to keep calling it that?”
“I’m sorry. Okay, anyway, he knows why you were terminated from Sellevision and he’s just uncomfortable becoming involved with the situation.”
Max pounded his fist on his thigh repeatedly. “Well, what about Radio 102?”
“They feel—and this was said to me in the strictest of confidence—that they already have a sufficient gay male presence on the air. They’re looking for either an Asian or a lesbian.”
“A radio station doesn’t want me? Radio? God, well, what about something else?”
“Look, Max, so far I’ve been able to get you an interview, even an audition for the news anchor spot. That was a no-go. We tried the other shopping channels—nada. And that thing with E! I’ve run out of advertising agencies to contact for voice-over work.”
“I still should have gotten that cat food thing.”
“Well, that wasn’t your fault and you know it. They didn’t get FDA approval. Or maybe it’s PETA approval. Whatever. It’s just bad luck.”
“So what are you suggesting I do? What are you saying?”
“Well, didn’t you tell me you had a possible lead on Donny Osmond’s new show?”
“Donny Osmond? What are you talking about Laurie? I said Denny’s. I said I didn’t want to end up a waiter at Denny’s. Jesus.”
“Oh. Okay, that’s right, I’m sorry.”
“Well . . . ?”
“Well, Max, I’ve run out of options as far as what I can do for you as an agent. I think it’s probably the best use of our time if we part ways.”
“Excuse me?” Max said, running his fingers through his hair, changing the phone to the other ear.
“Well, I just don’t feel that I have any options left, and I need to focus on my other clients.”
“But you can’t just—you said . . .”
“Listen, sweetie, I’ve got to run now. I’ve got Lou Ferrigno’s publicist on the other line. Keep in touch. I’ll be thinking of you.”
Max hung up and sat for a moment, absorbing the reality of the situation. Without an agent, there would be no chance of work. Now he wouldn’t even be able to fail auditions for voice-overs because there would be no more auditions.
Running down his list of options, Max realized just how dire the situation really was. There just wasn’t a whole hell of a lot that a junior college drop-out, Barbizon School of Modeling graduate, and former Sellevision host was qualified to do. God, why hadn’t he just borrowed Miguel’s underwear?
At 33, Max was too old to return to his modeling career, which had never taken off anyway (unless you counted the JC Penney men’s briefs ad that appeared in a few newspaper circulars more than twelve years ago.)
But he belonged in front of the camera. He had a certain something that worked on air. Well, until it fell out.
Maybe he wasn’t thinking big enough. Why couldn’t he be the next Greg Kinnear? Hell, he was as good looking and funny as that guy. And look what happened to him—from Talk Soup host to three-time Oscar winner.
Max decided to drive over to South Street and pick up a copy of Backstage magazine. Maybe he’d even pick up some forbidden Kentucky Fried Chicken on the way home. As he gathered his keys and wallet then put on his leather bomber jacket, Max felt a small sense of hope and excitement.
Until he realized the hope and excitement wasn’t really about finding a job in Backstage, but about the Kentucky Fried Chicken. And the thought that such a simple pleasure could actually make him happy made him depressed, because there was no one around to appreciate the fact that Max appreciated the small things in life.
P
eggy Jean sat on a chair in the living room shaking uncontrollably as a policewoman sat on the sofa across from her with a pen and pad, asking questions. Blue and red lights from the cruiser outside flashed across the walls, making the entire scene feel like something out of that terrible show her husband insisted on watching, COPS.
“I told you, I told you everything I can think of, oh my God, she’s going to kill me—she’s going to hurt my babies.” Peggy Jean wept, long streaks of black eyeliner staining her cheeks.
Sitting in the chair next to Peggy Jean’s, Tina placed her hand on her friend and neighbor’s arm. “She’s only trying to help. Why don’t you go through it again, maybe you’ll remember something new.”
Sniffling and thanking the officer for the tissue she was handed, Peggy Jean recounted the entire story, just like she had told it to Debby Boone, right up to the point where she opened the front door and saw what she saw.
What Peggy Jean saw had, at first glance, looked like hundreds and hundreds of yellow flowers had suddenly bloomed throughout her yard. But then she saw that they were not flowers, but rather plastic disposable razors with yellow handles. And they were everywhere—blanketing the grass, the brick walkway, sprinkled across the hedges beneath the living room window—everywhere. Hundreds upon hundreds of disposable razors, their sharp blades gleaming.
It was only after the police arrived that Peggy Jean saw the words hairy and bitch and cut cut sprayed across the front of her home with what the detectives tentatively said was Nair ha
ir-removal foam. (But to make absolutely certain, laboratory tests would need to be performed.)
“No fingerprints so far, not one,” a police officer said as he passed through the living room to continue with the investigation outside.
“She knows where I live, she’s been to my home—I’ve got to call Debby Boone.” Peggy Jean’s central nervous system was collapsing. She felt at once overheated and freezing cold. She could not stop shaking and perspiring. The seven Valium she had taken immediately after calling 911 had done nothing. Neither had the schnapps. Her husband wouldn’t be home for another hour, and the boys were with him.
“What exactly is Debby Boone’s involvement with this crime? Are you saying you think she might be somehow connected to it?” the officer asked, pen and notebook poised.
“Yes, yes, Debby . . . I need Debby . . .” Peggy Jean was unable to focus her eyes on anything except the shiny silver badge on the officer’s uniform. She thought about taking out a ruler and measuring it.
“So, Debby Boone—you’re telling me that the singer Debby Boone—you’re saying that you believe she has something to do with this?”
“What?” Peggy Jean snapped out of her hypnotic gaze. “What? No, no, Debby Boone’s not involved with this, are you crazy? This is Zoe, I told you, it’s a crazy woman named Zoe. Debby is a friend, she was helping to calm me down.”
The officer and Tina exchanged a glance. “Ms. Smythe, I know that this is a very traumatic event and that you’re frightened and confused, but I’m gonna have to ask you to please, for your own sake, try and focus.”
“What?” Peggy Jean asked vaguely.
Tina leaned over. “Peggy Jean, you’ve got to pull yourself together. This lady is trying to help you.”
Shaking the fuzz out of her head, Peggy Jean regained her composure. “I apologize, I’m back, I’m here.”
The officer continued with her questioning and Peggy Jean did her best to answer and be helpful. But inside, she felt a dreadful sense of doom.
After two and a half hours, the police left without any fingerprints, suspects, or leads. As far as they were concerned, all that could be done was to wait and see. And hope that if the stalker struck again, he or she would make some sort of identifying mistake.
“Listen, Peggy, I’ve got to run home real quick. My tuna casserole must be in flames by now.”
“No, that’s okay, I’ll be okay, you go . . . you go . . . and . . . did you sprinkle crushed potato chips on top like I told you to?”
“Yes, I bought a bag of Lay’s and then crushed ’em all up.”
Peggy Jean looked at Tina and yet also through her. “Oh, that’s good. The potato chips are a very nice touch. You know, a fan sent me the recipe.” Peggy Jean brought a hand up to her forehead. “Or did I get it from a magazine? I can’t remember, Tina. I just can’t remember,” she cried.
Alone in her home once more, Peggy Jean shuffled over to a cupboard in the kitchen and pulled out a box of Saltines. She opened it and removed the emergency bottle of potato vodka. Then she reached in her bathrobe pocket for the Valium. “Hold my hand, Jesus,” she mumbled as she downed the pills.
E
ating a cold, leftover drumstick for breakfast while watching the Today show and hoping that some of Katie Couric’s enthusiasm passed through the television into him, Max told himself not to panic, at least not until Donny and Marie came on.
Max’s fantasy of perhaps becoming the next Greg Kinnear evaporated the night before last while he was reading the classified ads in Backstage and working his way through a sixteen-piece bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Without membership in either SAG or AFTRA, and with no TV commercial credits, no summer-stock theater experience, and no knowledge of show tunes, it seemed to Max that his future was uncertain at best. His future was bordering on iffy.
As a very desperate last resort, Max decided that he could probably secure a retail sales position with Macy’s—though that would mean stepping foot, on a daily basis, inside the Woodlands Mall. He felt fairly confident that given his retail broadcasting experience, he could probably start out immediately in the lucrative audio/visual department or perhaps men’s furnishings, as opposed to working his way up from, say, cashier. But until eviction and starvation forced him, he would not entertain this scenario.
Tossing the drumstick bone in the trash, Max grabbed a Diet Coke from the refrigerator and settled into the couch, gripping the remote control. Certainly he could spend his days of unemployed limbo more productively: paint the bathroom, do squats at the gym, maybe even build a terrarium. But why? His depression was now his pet, a pet that required constant feeding, daytime television being the food of choice.
The instant Marie’s maniacally perky face popped onto the screen, Max switched to MTV. Road Rules IV was on. But the adventurous twentysomethings with their whole lives and careers ahead of them, parasailing off the coast of Bali, were simply too grim to watch, so he flipped over to the Food Channel. One Fat Lady was making a cake out of bacon and ground pork. He went to CNN and for a few minutes watched live footage of children fleeing a high school, as usual. Switching to Sellevision he saw Trish Mission hosting Jewelry of Faith, a show that normally belonged to Peggy Jean.
The Jewelry of Faith set was pale blue. Behind Trish a giant cross was projected onto the wall, a cross made of light. Phil, the lead set designer and the most sarcastic queen Max had ever known, probably dreamed up the whole cross made of light thing while he was sitting in a bar watching beefy go-go boys with shaved chests and scars from their laser tattoo removals.
Max hit the remote again. The History Channel was doing something on Nazi Germany, the Discovery Channel had a winking zebra vulva, Comedy Central featured a fire-eating dog, and HBO was playing Titanic II, yet again. It’s all a wasteland, he thought, but I belong in that wasteland. He switched back to the Discovery Channel and the zebra vulva was still winking.
Max got up off the sofa and went into the kitchen to stare at the phone. After spending five minutes psychically directing his agent to unditch him and call with a job offer from 20/20, Max tossed the empty Diet Coke can into the trash, ignoring the city’s recycling ordinance. Outcasts make their own rules.
He made his way back to the couch and the remote control. Zap, zap, zap, zap, zap—until he saw Leeza Gibbons. On stage was a handsome blond guy wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, sleeves pushed up. Underneath him was a title that read “Porn Star and Proud of it.”
“. . . So your mother knows what you do. Let me ask you this, then: Has she seen any of your movies?” Leeza asked, and the studio audience broke into nervous laughter. The porn star smiled. “Nah, my mom doesn’t have a VCR, and believe me—I’m not about to buy her one.” More laughter. Leeza smiled.
The porn star said that he just accidentally fell into the porn industry when he was twenty-two. Tired of waiting tables at a Mexican restaurant in L.A. he had answered an ad in the back of a newspaper that requested actors for “adult movies.”
“I really liked the attention, to be honest with you, and I loved the money.”
“How much money are we talking?” Leeza asked.
“In the beginning it wasn’t all that much, maybe a thousand dollars per movie. But after I began to make a name for myself—which didn’t take long—I was making upwards of seven, eight grand per flick, and doing maybe three to four a month.” The studio audience ooohed.
“What about diseases? Are you afraid of catching AIDS?”
“Not really, we’re all very careful, all the actors. And we get tested on a frequent basis. We use protection.”
“How long do you think you’ll continue to make porno movies?”
“As long as, uh, the equipment holds up.” Laughter from the studio audience, and a smile from Max.
“What makes for a successful adult actor?” Leeza asked.
The porn star thought for a minute, then answered, “I think part of it is physical, just, you know, the way you look. And another part is
, like, having this exhibitionist side.”
Max thought back to the conversation he had with Howard after the Slumber Sunday incident. “. . . You make it sound like I did it on purpose, like I’m some kind of exhibitionist or something.” He had said exhibitionist like it was a dirty word. And yet there on Leeza was a handsome, normal-looking guy who was making a great living because he was an exhibitionist.
At the end of the show Max watched the credits roll by:
Ms. Gibbons’s wardrobe provided by Ann Taylor.
Catering by Mari & Co.
Guests of Leeza stay at the luxurious Parker Meridian Hotel, located just blocks from beautiful Central Park and convenient to everything.
Then, at the very end, Max read, “Special thanks to Eagle Studios, San Bernadino, California.”
Seven or eight thousand dollars per movie? Three or four movies a month?
You exposed your penis on national television.
Max shut the TV off and got up off the couch. He went to the phone and pressed zero. When the operator came on the line, Max asked, “Yes, what’s the area code for San Bernadino, California, please?”
“P
eggy Jean, you’ve got to get out of bed. You can’t stay here forever,” John told his wife. Peggy Jean moaned, but did not move from the fetal position she had motionlessly occupied for almost three straight days except to get something out of her cosmetics case or take a One-a-Day.
When John had come home from the mall with his kids the evening of the disposable-razor attack, he had found his wife crouched beneath the kitchen table, an array of Henckel knives and an empty bottle of potato vodka at her side. Her eyes were wild and she was panting like an animal, snapping at the air with a pair of scissors. It had taken him the good portion of an hour to coax her out from under the table, and once he did, she would not stop clinging to him. Nor could she explain what had happened. Instead she mumbled incoherently, “Cut cut . . . she knows . . . I need to be waxed . . . where’s Debby? . . . hide my babies . . . I was Junior Miss San Antonio. . .”