“Come again?”
“Mr. Woods. They’re disinfecting him. Spraying him with poly-whatsit.” He laughed gleefully. “He’s been on the shelf for ages, but he’ll be nice and fresh for you.”
In a matter of seconds I was sick with despair, suffocating on the truth. Words just wouldn’t come.
“Cady?”
“Is that all this was about? Somebody to wear that fucking suit?”
“Not just somebody.”
“Well, you can find yourself another dwarf.”
“Doll, doll. You act like it’s nothing. This is historic. It’s a moment for the ages. Nobody’s even seen Mr. Woods since the movie was made.”
“Horseshit. I saw hundreds of them on that goddamn ride.”
“What ride?”
“At Icon.”
“Those are robots.”
“Then hire yourself a robot. I’m an actress.”
“They need an actress, Cady. That’s why they’re asking you. You are Mr. Woods.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“You know what he requires, Cady. How to give him life and personality. You’re the only one who does.”
“What about Philip’s sacred rule?”
“What rule?”
“About the elf never showing up in public.”
Leonard heaved a condescending sigh. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. This’ll be the first time. Nobody’ll be expecting it, so they’ll go nuts when it happens. It’ll bring down the house. You’ll be the one who gives him the award.”
“Mr. Woods, you mean, not me.”
“But don’t you see? It’ll make every front page in the world.”
As angry and disappointed as I was, this pronouncement stopped me short for a moment, causing me to consider another possibility, one that just might work. “OK, what about this?”
“Yeah?” Leonard sounded wary.
“What if I did that, the whole elf thing, and then came out later as myself and…sang, maybe?”
No reply.
“That would really surprise them. Talk about the crowd going crazy.”
“I really don’t think—” He cut himself off abruptly.
“What?”
“Don’t take this wrong, Cady, because it’s not about you.”
Of course not, I thought, it never is.
“I just don’t think that’s the way Philip sees the evening.”
“Oh.” All sorts of stuff had begun to register. “So Philip is actually organizing this?”
“Well, he’s a consultant. He has to be. They want to get it right.”
“Of course.”
“He really wants you to be there, Cady. He told me so himself.”
“Is that why he kissed my ass at Icon last week?”
Leonard feigned ignorance. “You lost me there, doll.”
“I don’t think so. You set this up through Callum, didn’t you? You knew Philip and I weren’t speaking, so you arranged for us to meet and make up. Just so I’d put on that fucking body condom one more time and give a trophy to the prick who—”
“Cady, look—”
“Callum’s part of this tribute, isn’t he? He must be.”
“Well, sure, but—”
“So you boys all chipped in and sent me a limo, and…Oh God, it’s so clear now. Why didn’t I see it? I’m such a jerkwad.”
Leonard offered me a hurt silence. Then: “I can’t believe you’re being so hostile.”
What I couldn’t believe was that Leonard hadn’t blown a fuse and hung up. He’d taken more abuse from me in ten minutes than I’d dared to dole out in ten years. His moderation could mean only one thing: he needed me too badly to risk alienating me. Philip had obviously put the screws to him. “What’s the matter?” I said. “You fresh out of wee people?”
No answer.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” I laughed bitterly. “You can’t find anybody to fit that damn suit.”
“That’s not true, and you know it.”
“Try Arnie Green, why don’t you? He’s got some terrific midgets. You might have to chop them off at the ankles or something, but what the hell. Or maybe a child. That would work. Homeless, preferably, so you don’t have to answer to SAG or anything.”
“This is so unlike you.”
“No, Leonard, this is exactly like me. This is me. This is what you get when I don’t have to be careful anymore, when I don’t give a fuck what you think.”
And that’s when he hung up on me.
At least an hour has passed, so I’m calmer now, if a little numb. Leonard called back a while ago, as I suspected he might, given the apparent urgency of his mission. When I answered, he didn’t even bother to announce himself, just started talking, assuming the tone of a long-suffering parent.
“How long have we known each other?”
I groaned.
“Have I ever steered you wrong? Have I ever betrayed you? Have I ever acted against your best interests?”
“Save it, Leonard. I’m not doing it.”
“Just tell me why not.”
“Because it hurts too much.”
“You mean the suit? I’m sure they could—”
“Not the suit. The whole twisted thing. I’m sick and tired of it, that’s all. I have to be myself sooner or later. I can’t keep doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Being invisible.”
After a pause he said: “It’s had its rewards, hasn’t it?”
“Not enough.”
“Think of the people you’ve met. Think of the life you’ve led.”
“I am thinking of the life I’ve led.”
“C’mon. It hasn’t been that bad.”
“Oh, really? You try it sometime.”
“Yeah, well…” He laughed uneasily. “You’ve got a point, I guess.”
Even at this late juncture, that dazzling lineup of stars kept coming back to taunt me. It took all my strength to stifle the whiny child within who kept telling me to stuff my principles, for God’s sake, Meryl and Bette and Barbra would be there, and I would probably get to meet them. But I couldn’t forget my years of exile from Philip’s life or the silence he’d imposed on me from the beginning. It was better to take a stand, I felt, to make an exit with my dignity intact. I needed to know that I could do that, I guess, that I could take control of my own destiny no matter how much empty glitz they threw my way.
“I’m wasting your time,” I said.
“Look…”
“I’m a singer and an actress, Leonard. If you can help me with that, fine. If not…”
“You won’t do this for Philip?”
“Why should I? He won’t do shit for me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Has he cast his new musical yet?”
You better believe that stopped him cold. “Well, uh…I don’t know much about it, really.”
“I bet you don’t.”
“It’s just a script. If there’s anything right for you, I’m sure he’d…”
“Oh, blah, blah, blah…”
“Why are you acting like this?”
“Because you’re a liar, Leonard.”
“I’ve never lied to you.”
“Bullshit.”
“When? When have I ever lied?”
“When I asked you if Callum was in town. You told me he was back East in college.”
“Well, he was—then.”
“He was not, Leonard. He was blowing a friend of mine in Griffith Park.”
There was an audible intake of air. Most satisfying.
“Not in the park, really. Back at the house. They met at the park.”
“What is your point, please?”
“That he was here in town and you knew it. And that you lied to me. Why did you lie to me?”
“I barely remember this.”
“Then why do you think you might have lied to me? Because you knew I’d try to reach Callum?”
“Maybe…I gu
ess.”
“Maybe?”
“The kid needed his space, Cady.”
“And I was just gonna pester him, beg him for jobs, make your life complicated.”
He considered that for a moment, then said: “Something like that.”
“So you lied.”
“Yes…OK, yes.”
We shared a moment of silence over that one.
Finally, Leonard said meekly: “You can be pretty…persistent, you know.”
I grunted.
“I admire that, though. I admire it a lot. Don’t get me wrong.”
I was beginning to think I could make Leonard say or do anything, confess to the sins of the whole sorry town. I felt a little giddy with the power of it. Nothing makes you stronger, I guess, than saying no and meaning it to someone who really needs you for something. Given time, I might have found other ways to torment him, but I suddenly felt bone tired, drained of energy. I’m ready to be done with this for good, I realize. All I want now is to lie in Neil’s arms and have a good cry.
“I have to go,” I said.
“I want you to think about it,” Leonard said. “I don’t want you to turn it down yet.”
“I just did, Leonard.”
“I’ll call you back in a day or so. You’ve had a lot thrown at you at once. I won’t talk to Philip about it yet. He can find somebody else, I’m sure, but that’s not what I want. I want you to be there, playing the role you created. It’s just good karma all the way around.”
Good karma? All else had failed, so Leonard was stooping to metaphysics. I might have felt sorry for him, if the approach hadn’t been so patently out of character. Everything Leonard knows about karma he learned from an afternoon of shopping at The Bodhi Tree with Shirley MacLaine.
Two hours later.
I just got a call from Callum—the first in ages. I let the machine take it:
“Hi, Cady, this is Callum. Leonard told me about—uh—your reaction to Philip’s tribute. I just want you to know that I’d really like for you to be there. I’m sure Philip would too. He really does have great admiration for you. It looks like an incredible evening too, and it wouldn’t be the same without you. I hope I didn’t do anything to upset you. Leonard seems to think I might have. I’m still at the Chateau. Call me, OK?”
Yeah, right.
After supper.
I tried to reach Neil several times this evening, but there was no answer. Renee, meanwhile, thinks I’ve gone off my gourd. When I told her about turning down the tribute, she stared at me in open-mouthed horror. “Gah, Cady…”
“Save your breath. I’ve heard all the arguments.”
“But if he said he was sorry…”
“Who?”
“Blenheim.”
“He hasn’t said shit. He let Leonard and Callum do his dirty work.”
“He must not be mad at you, though. He wouldn’t have asked you.”
“I don’t give a shit whether he’s mad or not. I’m mad.”
Seeing the truth of this, Renee let the subject drop, but her expression has since grown more and more petulant. She just sits there on the sofa, stuffing her face with Mini Oreos and sulking into her magazine. The message is clear enough: I’ve been a fool and a hothead, guilty of excessive pride. What’s more, I’m being punished by her silence because I willfully deprived her of a glamorous evening.
We have a weird relationship, Renee and I. Sometimes I’m her parent and sometimes she’s mine. I’m not sure which mode we’re in at the moment, but I resent her attitude. If she wants a little glamour in her boring existence, she can find it on her own for once. I’ve had it up to here. All I want is a life I can live on my own terms.
Neil just called, so I told him what happened. He offered to come by and pick me up, take me back to his place.
Sounds like a plan to me.
20
IT WAS RAINING HARD WHEN NEIL BROUGHT ME TO HIS APARTMENT. The white brick building had turned the color of dishwater in the downpour, grim as an old Kleenex, while the Astro Turf lawn shimmered brighter than ever, a glossy, nuclear green. I’d left home in a hurry, without a raincoat, so Neil made me walk under his as we headed to the elevator—a peculiar four-legged, two-armed, one-headed creature lumbering along under a leaden sky. From where I stood, about knee-high to Neil, it was a place of safety and peace: my own little terrarium, toasty warm, smelling deliciously of denim. I could have stayed under there for hours.
Upstairs, he made me cocoa. He had learned of my favorite comfort food a week or so earlier and had gone out and bought a big can just for me, as if he’d sensed somehow my impending need for comfort in large quantities. In the van on the way over, he’d listened to my tale of woe with sympathy but without comment. I knew that would come, but I thought it best not to push it, so I didn’t raise the subject again until we’d finished our cocoa and were under the covers, face-to-face, in bed.
“You think I fucked up?”
“How?”
“Telling them no.”
He smiled at me faintly. “Not if it feels better this way.”
I told him I wasn’t sure how it felt.
“Well,” he said, “if you were degraded by wearing that suit, then it was the right thing.”
“I was degraded by the fact that they refused to see me as anything else.”
“Like yourself.”
“Like myself.” My eyes clung to him with a grip all their own, grateful for his placid understanding. “Tell me something.”
“What?”
“Why is Mr. Woods cute and I’m just disturbing?”
“C’mon.”
“That’s what they think, Neil. They won’t say it, but that’s exactly what they think.”
“You’re just depressed.”
“No. Don’t bullshit me. I count on you for the truth.”
He blinked at me for a moment, assembling his thoughts.
“Is it because I’m a woman?”
He chuckled. “You sound like Streisand.”
“Be serious. Would a little man be easier to take?”
“I don’t know.”
“How do they see me, then?”
“Who?”
“People.”
“I’m not sure,” he said after a pause. “Once they get to know you—you’re just Cady.”
“Do they pity me?”
“I don’t,” he said. “I admire you sometimes, for what you put up with, but I never pity you. I couldn’t be with you if I felt that way. You’re the strongest person I know, Cady, and the most forgiving. That’s what makes you so beautiful.”
In spite of my best efforts, a tear rolled out of my eye. Neil smoothed it away with his thumb as rain splashed against the windows by the bucketful. I heard the squeal of tires on wet pavement, then a car alarm shrieking in the distance like a teenage banshee caught in the storm.
After a while, I asked: “Do you think I’m talented?”
“Cady…”
“Just tell me again, OK?”
“I think you’re very talented.”
“Am I mainstream?”
“I’m not sure what that means, but…I think everybody would love you.”
“Leonard doesn’t think I’m mainstream.”
“He said that?”
“Not in so many words, but I know how he thinks. He thinks I’d frighten the horses, scare off the yahoos.”
“What does he know?”
“Everything, when it comes to that. That’s how he got rich. It’s his job to second-guess the public. He’s a pissy queen with his own Hockney and this fancy house in the hills, who is paid to think exactly like someone from Iowa.”
“Who needs him?” said Neil.
“I’m not sure he even knows I can act.”
“Who cares? He’s just an agent.”
“I can, you know. I’m a really good actress when they let me do it. I’m not just selling my size.”
I must admit, I’m a little sensitive about th
is. In the early days, when Mom and I first hit town, we used my stature as a calling card to the haunts of the rich and famous. We’d go to The Comedy Store, say, when Robin Williams was performing, and slip the security guard a handwritten note to take backstage: “Hi, Robin, I’m the shortest woman in the world and I love your work. If you’d like to meet me, I’m outside.” It was shameless, but it worked almost every time—Diana Ross being the notable exception—and Mom chronicled our conquests on a monthly basis in long, heavily embroidered, eat-your-heart-out letters to Aunt Edie in Baker.
The way I saw it, my height was a means to a worthy end, so I worked it like a carny scam, always knowing, deep down, that I had the talent and the drive to back it up. Actually, Mom was more of a fanatic about this than I was. I’ll never forget the night she chastised me for wearing my hair up in a bun to a big premiere. “It’s spoiling the whole effect,” she told me. “It adds a good two inches. You’re almost as tall as that girl in North Dakota.” Mom kept track of these things.
“I’ve been thinking,” said Neil.
“Yeah?”
“What if we talk to Arnie, get some glossies made of the two of us?”
“And?”
“Start our own act. Riccarton and Roth. I think it’s time, don’t you?”
“Riccarton and Roth?”
“Sounds good, doesn’t it?”
“If you like second billing.”
He laughed. “OK. Roth and Riccarton.”
I rolled it around for a while, testing the rhythm of the words. “No, you’re right. Works better the other way.”
He stroked my hair. “I know a guy with a club just around the corner. He might not book us right away, but we’d steal the show on Open Mike Night. After that, who knows?”
“Well…it’s a start.”
He frowned. “Hate it, huh?”
“No. Sounds good.” Not as good as an evening with Meryl and Bette and Barbra and Madonna, but I was trying like hell to lower my sights for once. I have to do that, I realize, if I’m to survive in this town at all. All things considered, an Open Mike Night in North Hollywood sounded preferable to, say, phone solicitations in Reseda or another idiotic infomercial where you can’t see my face. I’d sunk lower than this, after all, and still managed to hold up my head about it.
Neil got out of bed, lit a cigarette, returned to stretch out and stare at the ceiling. “We need a classy look,” he said, warming to his subject. “I’ll get a tuxedo, maybe, with a bow tie the same color as your dress.”