An American Love Story (34 page)

“Actually, some producers don’t even bother to talk to the writer,” Clay said. “They show the property to the networks and then they come to you after the network expresses interest. That’s how they cover themselves. And if the network doesn’t like the way the producer’s presented it, then you’re dead—they don’t want to hear about it again.”

“What thieves! How can we protect ourselves?”

“I have contacts, everybody knows me. And if anybody else tries to peddle your article, you and I will type up a little piece of paper I can show the networks so they know it’s mine. But right now we don’t need anything. We trust one another.”

“Okay,” Susan said. She had never felt so close to him. They would protect each other: he would do her story better than anyone else and let her be a complete part of it, she would see that no one hurt him by trying to take it away. She couldn’t bear to think of any other producer doing “Like You, Like Me.” What good was work if it wasn’t fun too?

She didn’t say anything to her agent until the piece was finished and had come out as the
New York
cover story. It got instant attention. The idea that wife battering could happen to anyone, in “nice” families, not just Neanderthals, was a revolutionary concept. She was called for interviews: a radio program wanted her, an Ivy League alumni journal wanted to know about “Bree,” a Jewish newspaper wanted to hear more about “Esther.” On the crest of this excitement Nina got her the promised book contract with Rutledge and Brown. Susan was euphoric. She planned to put the voucher for the advance check into her scrapbook. If it wasn’t a bit vulgar to she would have framed it.

“I’m giving Clay Bowen the television and movie rights,” she told her agent on the phone.

“Don’t confuse love and business, Susan.” The old fox knew about them, but she supposed by now everybody did.

“I’m not.”

“I have a lot of interest from other producers asking about it,” he said.

“Who?”

“MGM. Columbia. Even Magno—they’re going into TV now you know.”

“I want to work with Clay,” Susan said stubbornly. “He did a good job on my last one.”

“These are some good solid people,” Glenn said. “I want you to think about it and not be hasty.”

“I have thought about it,” she said. “I want to work with Clay.”

Glenn didn’t scream but he laughed when she told him the way she wanted to do the option agreement; verbally and on spec. He insisted on making a contract so she would get paid. He wanted it to be for only six months, with a six-month renewal clause, but Clay said that wasn’t long enough to give him a chance. He said networks were slow. Eventually they gave him a year.

She went back to California to visit Clay, and he took her to Chasen’s for dinner to celebrate their new plans. He had hired a part time press agent, and a few days later there was an item in the trades about the book she was working on, and that he was going to produce it as a four-part miniseries.

“
Four
parts?” Susan said.

“Why not? Eight hours pays more than six.”

She had never even seen it as six. She couldn’t possibly see “Like You, Like Me” as eight hours, but she figured he would find out when the time came to sell it and the networks told him it couldn’t stretch to more than four. Besides, eight hours looked impressive in the trades. This wasn’t la la land, it was lie lie land.

They went to bed. Clay was reading her article for the ninety-ninth time, the ubiquitous pen in his hand. At least he had stopped reading about Stalin. Then suddenly he turned, and Susan realized he had taken her whole nose into his mouth. Very gently: no pressure of his teeth, just his lips, but her nose had disappeared. It was a weird and vulnerable feeling. His mouth was very warm. Then he let go. “I bite your nose,” he said. “Right down to the ragged edge.”

“No you won’t,” she said.

“Yes I will. When you’re not looking. Just you wait.”

She thought it was a little hostile, but adorable. It made her feel cherished to be able to put her head into the lion’s jaws and know he would never hurt her.

22

1984—HOLLYWOOD

T
wo more years had passed, and to Bambi, who was now thirty-one, they seemed like a century. She inspected her mirror for lines, imaginary or real, thanked God that her funny little haircut made her look younger, at least from a distance, and thought about all the reasons why Simon was ruining her life. The truth was he hadn’t done anything to her—except be content, without any of her push or ambition, and think she was wonderful. But she had grown beyond that, and now whatever didn’t happen for her seemed to be in some way his fault.

He had cut his hair too, and his large pointed ears, again revealed, reminded her of the outcast days of their childhood when everybody picked on him. She remembered the kids throwing erasers at him when they were six, and sometimes she felt like tossing something at him herself. He was so
good
. She couldn’t even stand to have him touch her anymore, and she had stopped pretending. He just looked sad. Once in a while she tolerated his lovemaking,
to keep him from cheating on her, but that was all. When he asked her if something was the matter she said she was thinking. A writer, she told him, was entitled to be let alone to think and create. He respected that, but looked sadder.

She wondered if secretly he thought that what she was now was as special as she was ever going to be. If so, he would have thought that was fine. The thought made her grit her teeth and she almost couldn’t look at him.

Matt had turned out to be the dick brain she should have known he was from his previous behavior. She had shown him her first completed script and he had said it wasn’t in any way ready to be shown to anyone in the business. He wouldn’t do a thing for her, and he told her not to call his agent.

She did anyway, and used his name. She spoke to the agent’s assistant, who said to send along the script, so she dropped it off, and a few weeks later it came back with a little note from the assistant, not even the agent himself, saying that his eminence was not taking on any new clients.

When Matt married his skinny girlfriend and they stopped going out at night so much anymore, Bambi was relieved. She could sit at the writers’ booth in Simon Sez without having to look at this person who didn’t believe in her talent, or even in auld lang syne.

After a while she began to notice the writer named Bob, who had been around all this time but wasn’t the sort of man you’d notice first off. Bob was young and short and exuberant and had beautiful skin. He was going bald in the back, but who looked at the back of someone’s head anyway? He had a lot of credits: movies, TV. He seemed shy, like someone who would be grateful for her attentions. Eventually she asked him if the two of them could get together sometime so he could give her some writing tips, and he agreed.

Bambi went to his house in the afternoon. She had never seen such a neat bachelor house in her life, but he wasn’t gay. He proved it after he told her that she should write about the things she knew, that fantasy was not her forte. Having learned from her experience with Matt that she was the one with sexual power, that it was within
her
and the man was just an instrument, Bambi
enjoyed sex with Bob very much. He was gentler than Matt, sweeter, and his skin smelled like meadow grass.

“The first thing a writer usually tries is something autobiographical,” Bob said. “And you should watch a lot of television. Maybe you’ll get an idea for an episode.”

“How can I watch television when I’m stuck in Simon Sez every night?” Bambi said.

“Tape it. Don’t you have a VCR?”

“Oh, sure. Simon has every gadget ever invented. He tapes the news, can you imagine? I tell him, why do you need to watch the evening news in the middle of the night when in a few hours you’ll have the
Today
show with the new news, but he doesn’t listen. Simon is extremely dogmatic.”

“I would be very upset if Simon ever found out about this afternoon,” Bob said.

“
You
would be upset? What about me? He’d leave me.”

“Simon would never leave you, Bambi,” Bob said. “He worships you. You have no idea how lucky you are. How long have you two guys been married—ten years?”

“Mmm.”

“Ten years in this town? You have a good thing; stick with it.”

“Then why did you sleep with me?” Bambi said.

Bob grinned sheepishly. “Nobody’s perfect.”

She discovered quite quickly that Bob meant it to be a one-night stand, but it didn’t bother her because she was already hard at work on her new script, for a movie—for television or a feature she wasn’t sure—about herself. He had said autobiographical and she certainly had a plot: She and Simon and how he had betrayed her by being ordinary. Although she had never had any close women friends, she was sure a lot of women would be able to identify with that subject.

She wrote her new script rapidly, secretly and angrily. When Simon asked if he could “take a peek” she said no, not yet. He smiled at her in anticipation and she turned away. Wouldn’t he be shocked to see what she was saying about them?

She decided to start it at school when they had no friends and he was on her side. She painted herself in the rosiest possible
light; she was unappreciated because of her sensitivity, and the wimpy little boy hung around because he had no one else to be kind to him. They grew up to be cute, and fell in love; adolescent passion that led to an early marriage right after college, and a dream for the future. But then, the betrayal. The real Simon surfaced. Simon the dull. He was no longer the anchor that gave her security but the anchor that dragged her down, the heavy piece of metal that prevented the adventurous boat from skimming away into the sun-dappled waters of its future. She had to stay with him because otherwise no one would come to his coffeehouse, since they only came to see her. But finally she couldn’t bear it anymore, and when a producer offered to do her script she left, became a famous writer and then a triple threat writer/director/producer, and when she found out that Simon Sez was languishing she made a surprise appearance and rescued it, for old times’ sake. She no longer loved Simon, but she was merciful. At the end there was a sad little scene between them where he admitted he had never been good enough for her, they said good-bye, and she went off in her chauffeur-driven limousine. She named the movie “The Far Waters,” after the boat.

Of course she changed their names.

In the rewrite she decided it needed more plot so she put in her lover. He was a famous writer, he had no girlfriend, and he was the one who went after her. The two of them could have done great things together, but she gave him up because Simon couldn’t exist without her. That was before she finally decided to become a famous person anyway. She thought very long and hard about whether she wanted the rejected writer to be revealed sitting in the limousine when she left, or whether she should leave alone. Damn, damn; she had no one to ask! She couldn’t show it to Simon, and even if she could have, he never had suggestions, only praise.

If she went off with the writer it was romantic. If she went off alone she was strong.

Was it good to be perceived as a feminist? Was it better to make the audience cry? Would they cry either way? She finally wrote it
with the two different endings, marked A and B, and left the script on the ottoman in front of the fireplace.

There were no mistakes in life, only destiny.

Afterward she supposed a part of her had secretly wanted Simon to find and read the script so he would know she didn’t respect him anymore, and another part wanted him to read it so she could ask him which ending was better. A saner course would have been to show the script to Bob and ask him for his advice, but she was afraid he would crab that she was going to hurt Simon. So because she believed there were no mistakes, only destiny, Bambi promptly forgot that she had left the script in the living room at all.

She had taken to coming home at night before Simon did, leaving him to close up. She always taped either a movie or several of the evening’s TV shows now, and that gave her a chance to watch them before they went to bed. With a long-running tape they could have the shows and the news too, so Simon was happy.

She was lying on the bed watching
Miami Vice
when she heard him come in. “Hi,” he called.

“Hi.” She continued watching Don Johnson. Simon was poking around out there, going to the kitchen, unwinding. She hoped he’d stay there for a while. She wished Don Johnson would come into Simon Sez some night so she could meet him, and allowed herself to drift into a sexual fantasy. It was only when the news came on and Simon was still in the living room that she began to wonder. “Simon,” she called, “the news is on.”

Then Simon walked into the bedroom looking very pale and strange, and when she looked down she saw that he had her script clenched in his hand.

“What is this, Bambi?” he said. Her heart lurched. From his voice she could tell that he knew perfectly well what it was.

“I can’t get the ending right,” Bambi said.

“Is this what you think of me? Of us?”

She shrugged and looked away. What should she say? Then she looked right back at him. “Yes,” she said.

“I’m a wimp? A failure? An anchor?”

She felt trapped and vulnerable lying on the bed, so she jumped
up and walked past him into the living room. He followed her. It was all right though, he only looked as if he were in shock. “Yes,” she said.

“You didn’t try to disguise it at all.”

“How do you know?”

“The boyfriend?” Simon said. “Did you make that up or is it true?”

God, he was so weak. Suddenly she wanted to have a fight. They had never had a real fight; maybe that was what was wrong, why she always felt as if she were choking. “I made up that she left him,” Bambi blurted. “If I had a boyfriend like him I wouldn’t leave him.”

“Did you ever cheat on me?” Simon asked in horror.