“Embarrassed?”
“Yes.”
“Because you were white?”
“Forget white! Because I’m…me.”
“I really don’t think—”
“Well, you weren’t there, were you?”
“But he took you to Catalina.”
“So?”
“Wasn’t his wife there then?”
“His ex-wife. Yeah. So?”
“Well, he wasn’t embarrassed then.”
“Because we weren’t fucking yet.”
She winced at my naughty word. “What does that have to do with it?”
“Everything,” I told her. “Everything. It was fine for us to be friends; it just made him look like a nice guy. It is not fine for us to be fucking. People will think he’s perverted. Especially his family members…”
“Oh, now…”
“I’m serious, Renee. Think about it. It’s of crucial importance in this culture where dicks get put.”
She blushed like a virgin. “Do you think she knows?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, then…”
“It doesn’t matter. The point is, he’ll never cop to it.”
“Well, maybe later.”
“No. Never. And certainly not to that kid he spends half his life with. Daddy can’t have this for a girlfriend.”
Renee looked at the floor.
“I knew this was coming,” I added gently. “I just didn’t know when. This is the way it works, you know. Eventually. You can ignore it or not. I went for not.”
Renee looked up at me balefully and started to get quivery-lipped.
“The thing is,” I said, “it was stupid of me to think I could pull it off. I knew what the rules were.”
“But he’s such a nice guy.”
“As nice as they get,” I said.
She was holding the gown as if she might decide at any moment to use it as Kleenex, so I took it away from her. “If you’re gonna blubber, go in the other room.”
“Aren’t you sad?” she asked.
“I can’t afford to be,” I said. “I have a show to do.”
23
I’VE JUST HAD A WEIRD THOUGHT. WHAT IF ALL THE NOISE around my debut flushes out my father? He’s out there somewhere, presumably, still in his fifties. What if he’s flipping channels one night, or flipping through a magazine, and comes across this multi-talented dwarf with a distinctive name. Will fame be enough to make him seek me out after twenty-seven years? Will he show up here one day soon, filled with remorse, or at least with respect for the life I’ve made for myself? Will I forgive him if he does?
No, no, and no.
24
THREE HOURS TO GO.
I should be napping, I guess, but I’m sitting on shpilkes, as Mom used to say about twice a day. I also want to get this down while I can, since there’ll be lots more to tell you after tonight.
Jeff took me to the tech rehearsal this morning at the Beverly Hilton. Leonard was there for a while and made a big gushy show of hugging me. When I introduced him to Jeff, such a look passed between the two of them you could’ve hung laundry on it. Part of this has to do with Gut Reaction furor and part with the fact that each regards the other as Callum’s corrupter—so Leonard obviously saw Jeff as an infiltrator of sorts, a loose cannon with a backstage pass. They were civil to each other, though, at least on the surface.
When I remarked on how skinny Leonard looked, he rattled on so long about his latest diet (a woman brings him Baggies of greens once a week) that I thought he must have thought that I thought he had AIDS. That would be just like Leonard, to think that. For all I know, he does have AIDS; he’s not the sort of guy you’d hear it from first. He looked pretty good, at any rate—tanner than ever. His concern over Jeff’s presence may have worked for me in some ways, since it allowed me to cast myself in a less dangerous light. I tried to project an air of coolheaded competence, one that said I was just there to do my job and go home, a solid no-nonsense professional.
The ballroom was bigger than I’d imagined. (One of the biggest, according to Leonard, which is why the Hilton does so many of these industry events.) The place was empty except for a few techies, a few stray producers. The stage was fairly small, since the all-star audience was obviously the whole show. To make for good television, the guests would be seated cabaret-style on tiers surrounding the stage—a great big drinkless party full of startlingly familiar faces. Some of the chairs were labeled with masking tape and Magic Marker, so Jeff sprang from tier to tier, reconnoitering on my behalf. When he returned, grinning like a bandit, he took a piece of tape off his arm and stuck it on mine. It said: MRS. FORTENSKY.
“Put that back!” I said.
“Why?”
“Because…” I took off the tape and gave it back to him. “I want Mrs. Fortensky to have a good seat.”
He laughed.
“Is there a ‘Mr. Fortensky’?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said, “and a ‘Mr. Eber’ next to them.”
“Makes sense. It’s a long evening. They could have hair failure.”
He smiled.
“What else?”
“Callum’s two seats away from ‘Miss Foster.’”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.”
“What else?” I asked.
He smiled. “No more. You’ll overload.”
“I fucking love this!”
“No shit,” he said.
Later, the stage manager heard us laughing and came to introduce himself. He led us to a dressing room, where the elf already awaited, dormant in his coffin—a metal crate with a big lock, designed to safeguard all that costly machinery. I remembered it from the old days, with nothing like fondness. As promised, the dressing room was all mine, which had obviously been no big deal, since the other performers will arrive at the hotel in evening clothes and take the stage that way. In fact, as far as I can tell, I’m the only person who even requires a place to change.
The stage manager said the MC for the evening will be Fleet Parker. (The obvious choice, when you think about it, given the number of Blenheim films in which he’s flashed those lovely silicone pecs.) I make my entrance at the very end, just after Callum, who’ll plug his new movie and talk about what a great dad Philip was to him on the set. Then Fleet will come back and say a few more words, prompting Philip to leave the imperial box he’s been occupying all evening and join the actor onstage. They talk a while—yodda, yodda, yodda—which leads to my cue. I toddle on adorably, hand Philip the award (which is hideous), issue my heart-warming prerecorded message, and toddle off again.
“It’s fairly straightforward,” the stage manager said, summing up. “Just a quick fix for the audience and off again, before it wears off. The element of surprise is what we’re going for here.”
“Gotcha.”
“How long should she be suited?” asked Jeff.
“Before, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, an hour or so. They want you here at seven, but you won’t have to put on the rig until about nine. There’ll be somebody here to help with that.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” said Jeff.
“No. I mean somebody to check the wiring, make sure everything’s up.”
“Oh.”
“Will you be with her backstage?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Jeff, trying to sound like a voice of authority.
The stage manager’s brow creased ever so slightly, so I added: “I need somebody…you know…” I widened my eyes and left the sentence unfinished as if to suggest that the stage manager could easily imagine the sort of personal, unmentionable services a person like me might require.
“Right,” he said, nodding, not really wanting to know.
Our first small storm cloud had passed, so I was gladder than ever I’d asked Jeff to remove his WE’RE HERE, WE’RE QUEER button before we entered the ballroom. The way I saw it, the fewer waves we mad
e, the better.
The stage manager was called away about a lighting problem, which enabled us to case out the place on our own. There was a fairly short, straight route from the dressing room to the stage, so the gauntlet I’d have to run as myself wasn’t as bad as it might have been. As for mikes, there were several on stands along the edge of the stage, so Jeff agreed to bolt out and leave one on the floor during the brief moment of darkness before my entrance. I should grab it on my way to Philip, Jeff said, and just start singing.
“What if it’s dead?” I asked.
“I’ll find you a live one.”
I told him, if he didn’t, he’d be dead.
“What about the award?”
“What about it?”
“Can you carry that and the microphone?”
“Fuck, no.” This fairly crucial logistical point hadn’t even occurred to me.
“OK…then leave the award.”
I popped my eyes at him. “He has to get the award, Jeff.”
“Why?”
“He just does. I’m not trying to ruin his evening.”
“Then come back and get it. Or I’ll bring it to you.”
“That’s not very graceful.”
He shrugged. “A coup d’état never is.”
“If you’re trying to make me nervous,” I told him, “you’re doing a swell job.”
He gave me a droopy-eyed smile. “Take the award out with you, then, and put it down when you pick up the mike. And take your time about it—work it. You know what to do. A spot’ll follow you the whole way, so make it into shtick. This isn’t anybody walking onto that stage, Cady. You will have their attention. And you’ve got some good props to work with.”
This made sense, I admit, even as it suggested new horrors. “What if they turn off the spot?”
“When?”
“When they see that it’s me.”
“They won’t do that.”
“Why won’t they?”
“Because Blenheim will be onstage, for one thing.”
“And?”
“And…this could be some last-minute surprise he planned himself. Isn’t he kind of famous for that?”
“Kind of.”
“So if he’s up there reacting to you—smiling and everything—they’ll think everything’s cool.”
“What if he’s not smiling?”
“He will be. He thinks he’s liberal, remember?” Jeff seemed to ponder something for a moment, then asked: “Are you just gonna sing?”
“What do you mean, just?”
He chuckled. “I mean…are you gonna say anything to him?”
“I guess I’ll have to.”
“Like what?”
“Who knows?” I’d thought about this a lot, of course, but still hadn’t decided on anything.
“What’s Mr. Woods’ big line?” asked Jeff. “The thing the suit says.”
I told him to forget it.
“Why? That might be the logical thing. It would help to connect you with the character.”
“Why do I have to be connected?”
“So they’ll know why you’re out there, Cadence. Besides, you want credit for the role, don’t you?”
“I guess so.”
“Makes sense to me.”
I told him he was right. Again. We left shortly after that, as soon as I’d checked out the stage from the top of the tiers. My heart did a few somersaults when I imagined the tiny fleck of flotsam I’d make in that sea of celebrity, but I was basically all right about it. Getting out of the suit was obviously the biggest hurdle; the rest would be like working a birthday party—only bigger.
Jeff dropped me off here at the house just after noon, arranging to pick me up again at six. He was bland about his goodbye—largely on my account, I think—but I could tell he was just as wired as I was. He honked a second farewell as he turned the corner out of sight, as if to assure me one more time that we were absolutely doing the right thing.
The house was a mess, since I’ve been anything but tidy lately in my preoccupation with the tribute. I fluffed a few pillows in the living room, threw out old newspapers, raked my dirty laundry into a single pile in the closet. They say this helps order the mind, but it didn’t do shit for me. I decided to confront my demons head-on and rehearse my number one more time, using what I’d learned about the layout of the stage. Enlisting my vibrator, Big Ed, as a substitute microphone, I slinked my way across the backyard, singing at the top of my lungs, stopping when I reached the banana tree that was supposed to be Philip.
I got through the whole song without a hitch. At the end, where the sea roar of applause should have come, I heard only the un-Zenlike sound of two hands clapping. This startled me so that I dropped Big Ed in the grass, then looked up to see Mrs. Bob Stoate grinning at me over the fence.
“That’s really pretty,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“I hope I didn’t scare you.”
“No.”
“Is that a hobby or something?”
“No,” I said evenly. “I do it professionally.”
“Really? I never knew that. I mean, I know you do movies sometimes, but…well, I never knew this.”
She was so obviously impressed that I lost my head and told her I was singing tonight.
“Really? Where?”
“At the Beverly Hilton. With Bette Midler and Madonna and Meryl Streep.”
She gave me a sickly little smile that made it clear she thought I was several sandwiches short of a picnic.
25
MY COMING-OUT PARTY, CONT.
Jeff returned when he said he would and drove me and Renee back to the hotel. He hadn’t expected Renee, of course, so he eye-balled me in a prim, chastising way, but didn’t say anything. I knew damn well he thought she was too drifty for the job ahead, but I really didn’t care. I’d decided at the last minute that Renee’s loyalty and cheery outlook would be good for my morale—the right instinct, clearly, considering what happened later.
When we arrived at the hotel, I stood up in the front seat of the Civic to check out the scene. The entrance was already cordoned off against fans, and there were klieg lights slashing their way anemically through the pale winter twilight. I saw several early arrivals being disgorged from limos, but they were all gray, anonymous producer types. Renee gasped histrionically at the sight of a sequin-sheathed blonde on the sidewalk she took to be Meryl Streep. When I broke the sad news to her—that it was actually Sally Kirkland—her face fell like a soufflé in a thunderstorm; she’d never heard of Sally Kirkland.
I could have stood there forever, I think, spying on my audience-to-be, if a cop hadn’t flagged us on. Jeff pulled off the street and parked in a side lot the stage manager had told us about. We tumbled out of the car, identified ourselves to a security guard, and made our way through a space that felt more like a tradesmen’s entrance than a stage door. Inside, there was such a mob scene around the dressing rooms that Renee and Jeff had to run interference for me—a human shield, front and rear. I looked for stars in that crush of humanity, with no success, though Renee assured me when we finally got inside that I’d spent “at least a whole minute” in communion with the legs of Lucie Arnaz.
There was champagne from Philip awaiting us—an expensive brand, according to Jeff—and several dozen yellow roses from Callum and Leonard. That’s what the card said: “Callum and Leonard.” In the handwriting of some florist.
I showed it to Jeff. “Are they a couple now?”
He laughed. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Because Leonard and his lover would never break up their Stickley collection.”
“He could still be doing it with Callum.”
Jeff smiled ruefully. “I hope he likes preppie porn.”
Renee was flashing like a caution signal at all this gay talk, so I gave her a reassuring wink. “What do you think of our headquarters?”
“It’s nice,” she said, then g
lanced at the elf’s metal carrying case. “Is that…uh…?”
I nodded.
“Gah.”
“Is somebody coming to…put it on you?”
“Eventually,” I said.
Renee tried to smile bravely and look prepared, but she reminded me of someone standing on the edge of a bridge, waiting ever so demurely for her turn at bungee jumping.
We had lots of time to kill, so Renee and Jeff took turns venturing into the backstage hallways, even into the ballroom itself, returning with accounts of all the famous faces they’d spotted. Renee saw Meredith Baxter Birney, Tori Spelling, and “that guy who plays the retarded man on L.A. Law.” Jeff identified Jonathan Demme, Michael Douglas, and Jamie Lee Curtis. I stayed put, sipping champagne and collecting myself, while the chatter of the swelling audience droned in the distance like low-level industrial noise.
Eventually I was joined by two technicians from Icon, who removed the creature from his case and checked his circuitry. They made polite conversation as they worked, and one of them even asked me to autograph a program for his kids. Once they were satisfied with the functioning of my armor, they left, to return fifteen minutes later with one of Philip’s underlings, an earnest young woman named Ruth, who said she was just checking to make sure I was comfortable. She loitered there so long that I had to introduce her to Renee and Jeff. I identified them as “friends who came along for moral support,” secure in the basic truth of that description. She welcomed them like insiders, I was relieved to see, without a trace of suspicion. I felt that much closer to victory.
Traffic in the dressing room thinned dramatically as soon as the show started. In no time at all it was just the three of us, pricking our ears as Fleet Parker boomed out the names of the great, one by one, and a star-hungry spotlight roamed the risers.
The show was more of a high-class roast—and less of a concert—than I’d imagined (or Leonard had described). Most of it consisted of short, funny, and/or touching testimonials from Philip’s famous friends and colleagues. Madonna did sing (Jeff saw her bolting out of one of the dressing rooms), but the music was prerecorded. There was no orchestra at all, in fact. All of this came as a relief, since it meant the evening would be more about star power than pure entertainment. My half-assed little entrance wouldn’t be that much out of place, after all.