Dreams Are Not Enough (9 page)

On Monday, one week to a day after Desmond Cordiner’s visit, the Barry Cordiners moved into a furnished bachelor apartment in a rundown section of West Hollywood. Barry counted out the first and last month’s rent from Alicia’s savings, then the couple drove to the nearby Van Vliet’s supermarket. When the checker returned their change, Alicia fingered the two worn dollar bills and the coins. This was all they had. The precariousness of their finances didn’t appear to faze Barry, normally a worry wart about money. He helped her stow the groceries in the old-fashioned, built-in refrigerator, he laughed when she discovered the oven of the ancient, high-legged stove didn’t

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work, he peered into every shelf of the kitchenette and bathroom.

After they ate their hamburgers, he suggested they open up the couch.

He hadn’t made love to her since the night before Newport. (Alicia took the avoidance personally; however, the infrequency of their conjugal relations had no connection to her appeal. Barry’s sex drive, never high, had been perilously drained by their ugly, odiferous room. ) Finishing, he followed his pattern of falling instantly asleep. Alicia got up to use the foam, which she now left out on the sink ledge-Barry was delighted about what he called double insurance. Her bruised breasts seemed oddly huge; her pelvis felt engorged. Her body appeared to be awaiting something further. With a sigh, she decided that she wasn’t any good at being a wife.

Three days crept by. Desmond Cordiner hadn’t contacted her since his visit to the Youngs’, and now she nursed dark doubts. Had she misinterpreted his offer? Had he really intended to help her become an extra? Or was it possible that the secretary had neglected to tell him of her call? Maybe he’d mislaid her note with their new address? Or changed his mind? Her worst and most persistent fear was that he’d concocted a monstrous game to punish her for not accepting his bribe.

Desmond Cordiner was too complicated and too powerful for her to figure. All she knew for certain was that unless something happened soon, it would be back to seeking employment in the Help Wanted, Domestic ads, which would mean the demise of her marriage-she had not realized the full force of Barry’s aversion to living in the cottage until they had moved here.

On the fourth morning after Barry left for UCLA she was too jittery to even turn the bed back into a couch. Sitting on the rumpled blanket, she drank another cup of stale coffee. She jumped, nearly gagging on the hot brew, as a rap sounded on the screen door.

A tall Oriental boy wearing cut-off jeans called out that he was a Magnum messenger. She signed for a large manila envelope with the Magnum leopard’s head logo in the left-hand corner.

Opening it with fumbling fingers, she found a Screen Extras Guild membership card made out to Alicia Lopez, and a creased, extremely authentic looking Texas birth certificate for Alicia Elena Lopez, dated July 2, 1941. Clipped to the IDs was a handwritten memo. You are not permitted to use the name Cordiner. It was not signed, but she knew the spiky, near illegible sentence had been scrawled by Desmond Cordiner. Later the note would both infuriate and desolate her, but now, giddy with relief, she crumpled it into the plastic garbage can under the sink.

There was also a typed letter explaining that Alicia Lopez had been registered for preferential treatment at Magnum. She should call Central Casting immediately. There was a job for her. At the bottom, in lieu of a signature, were the words: Dictated but not read by Desmond Cordiner.

They could not afford a telephone and Alicia trotted the long block to Santa Monica Boulevard, using the Standard station’s pay phone.

The number given in the letter rang fifteen times before an unpleasant voice snapped.

“Central Casting.”

“Do you have a job listed for Alicia Lopez?”

“Nothing,” snarled the voice.

“But there’s supposed to be. Maybe at Magnum Pictures.”

A long pause.

“Here it is, Lopes.” The name was pronounced as a single syllable.

“Why didn’t you say Lopes? You’re in Paris Lovers. Report to Magnum at eight tomorrow, Stage Fourteen.”

“What shall I wear?”

“Street clothes.” The phone went dead.

At seven thirty Barry was edging along the slow left lane of traffic on Gower. Alicia, who had never seen a studio, peered through the morning haze at a high, block-long stucco wall painted a nondescript shade of mustard yellow. Barry braked at the open gates through which cars were streaming. High overhead on the wrought-iron arch was worked a leopard’s head and an intaglio of Gothic lettering: magnum pictures.

“See you here at five thirty,” he said, leaning over to peck her on the cheek.

“Wish me luck?”

“Hon, I’ve told you again and again not to agonize. You’ll simply be a body in the background.”

The cars behind them were honking persistently and Alicia jumped out.

She watched the De Soto disappear around the corner of Sunset. Drawing a breath, she started toward the iron arch. Then she noticed a turnstile beside a window. Neatly painted above the window were the words: extras report here.

A full-cheeked old man sat behind the grille.

“What’s your name, sweet heard He hit a d, not a t on the end.

“I’m Alicia Lopez, working on Paris Lovers.”

“Lopez?” He consulted his clipboard.

“Yup, here you are.” He smiled and handed her a voucher.

She read the slip of paper.

“Where’s Stage Fourteen?”

He waved at a pretty, pouty-mouthed driver who was vaguely recognizable, then turned back to Alicia.

“First day, huhh? Those big buildings are called sound stages. Walk straight ahead past two of them, turn to your left and go two more. The third on your right is Stage Fourteen. And, sweet heard break a leg—that means good luck.”

She gave him a blazing smile of gratitude and went through the turnstile onto the lot. Hurrying past the huge buildings, she went up a half dozen cement steps. Pushing open a heavy metal door, she gasped.

She appeared to be in some high, endless subterranean cavern. In the distance to her left was one brilliant splash of light. As she went toward it she saw a canvas backdrop of a city skyline. In front were fake grass, fake bushes to hide the ugly wood crates in which real trees grew, and a small carousel. Around this gaudily lit pseudo park were maybe a hundred people, mostly casually clad men and a handful of women. A foursome of propmen carried park benches, two electricians walked along overhead scaffolding, but nobody else appeared to have a job. Alicia peered at men drinking coffee, men reading the trades, men laughing and chatting, trying to figure whom to report to. She spotted a gray-haired, motherly-looking woman knitting.

Approaching her, Alicia said politely, “Excuse me, but where do the extras go?”

“Shit! Now I’ve dropped a stitch.” She glared up at Alicia.

“You’re an extra?”

“Yes.”

“Then where’s your makeup?”

Alicia, who had spent nearly an hour at dawn in front of the bathroom mirror putting on what she presumed would be enough makeup for any camera, realized that the face thrust belligerently forward was coated with orange pancake, while long false lashes quivered above the glinting little eyes.

“Think you’re a star, huhh? Think you’ll be given your own makeup woman? Well, let me tell you—the rest of us are ready to earn our money when we get here.” The woman viciously dug her long steel needle into red yarn.

Alicia backed away. She spotted a little girl sitting on a stool.

Entirely covered by a voluminous pink cape, the child held her face tilted upward, eyes closed, as a redheaded makeup woman patted an enormous powder brush on the small nose.

As the child trotted away, Alicia went over. Swallowing hard, she asked, “Uhh, could I please borrow some of your stuff?”

“New, ehh?” said the makeup woman amiably.

“C’mon, sit down, I’ll give you a lesson.”

A few minutes later, as Alicia’s mouth was being painted, a masculine voice shouted, “Okay, you guys, get over here!”

“That’s the assistant director calling for a run through of you extras,” said the kindly makeup woman.

As Alicia got to her feet, she sucked in her breath.

Standing by a complicated-looking boom mounted with a camera was Hap.

In his clean white shirt with the sleeves rolled up he looked improbably strong and handsome.

“Hap,” she called softly.

He turned.

“Alicia! What are you doing here?”

“I’m an extra. You’re a surprise yourself.”

“Meet the second assistant cameraman,” he said.

Now she remembered Barry telling her that both Maxim and Hap worked at Magnum, while PD had a job in the contracts department at Paramount—the point of his story had been that he and Beth were the only two of the cousins with more than a year of college. She also recollected that in Newport Maxim had made a remark about Hap’s goal of becoming a director.

“Hap,” called the man behind the camera.

“We need more film.”

“Right away,” Hap called. He said to Alicia, “You better get on the set, but what about lunch?”

“Wonderful,” she said and ran.

Twenty or so extras were gathered around the assistant director, a thin, nervous man wearing a gray suit. She was assigned to move along the park path left to right. Her knees locked and she fell. They went through it again. This time the assistant director advised her to slow it down, she wasn’t running the hundred-meter dash.

Then Hap was in front of the camera, closing a clapper chalked with words that he called aloud.

“Scene twenty-six. Take one.”

The camera bugged her hideously. Her ankles wobbled above her good patent shoes. This time when she stumbled, the entire crew was in on it.

“My first day on the job,” she said with a nervous snicker, “and I’m about to be blacklisted from the entire motion picture industry.”

“Why?” Hap asked.

“I looked through the lens at you and you photograph sensationally—of course, the secret of making it as an extra is to stay away from the cameras. If you show up in the rushes-that’s the day’s exposed film, which get looked at every night—you won’t be called for other scenes.”

She filed away the information.

“There’s so much to learn,” she sighed.

“But you saw me fall all over myself.”

Thoughtfully Hap pulled the saran wrapping off the two chef’s salads he had just set down. Alicia had been expecting a glamorous studio dining room, but they were in a cafeteria with linoleum floors and undecorated walls. The chipped Formica tables were jammed. Some people were made up like her, and a few had on Western costumes, but there were also painters in smudged coveralls, elderly

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women who looked like they were secretaries but were script girls, and grips and electricians.

Hap asked, “What do you think about when we’re shooting?”

“Getting to the other side of the set—what else?”

“Maybe this is a girl enjoying the sunshine and thinking about her boyfriend?”

“Mmm,” she said, nodding.

“You’ll be a really good director.”

He smiled.

“Now tell me how you got the job.”

“Your father.”

Hap tore off the end of his French roll, buttering it.

“But when he left Newport, I smelled the brimstone.”

“He stopped burning.”

Hap smiled again.

That afternoon, when she passed in front of the camera, she sauntered slowly, imagining herself a girl dreaming of her lover.

It was not quite four thirty when the director called out, “Print it!”

It was too late to start another setup, so cast and crew were dismissed.

The hot kliegs around and above the set were doused, people gathered up their possessions, farewells and footsteps echoed in the murkiness.

Alicia, having an hour to kill before Barry picked her up, sat on a folding chair in the shadows.

“Ever see that black-haired extra before?” a nearby masculine voice inquired.

“The one who tripped? Nope. And I’d sure as hell remember. She oozes it, doesn’t she?”

“That she does. The sweetest little ass—and those big jugs. How’d you like to” -Her face was hot as the voices faded, yet she couldn’t help smiling.

“Alicia?”

She jumped, then said, “Hi, Hap.”

“What’re you doing here?”

“Barry’s not coming for me until five thirty.”

“I’ll drop you off. Just give him a buzz.”

“Uhh, we don’t have a phone.”

“Then come on, we’ll have coffee.”

“Hap, the makeup woman, Madge, she told me there’s a place up on Sunset where they sell professional makeup” — “Gower Cosmetics,” he said.

“Be glad to drive you over there.”

They were back at the gate before Barry drove up. As Hap opened the car door for her, he said, “Hey, Barry, since Alicia and I’ll be on the same film for five or six days, I might as well give her a ride home and save you the trip. Your place is right on my way.”

“Good deal,” Barry said. Having turned in the three pieces on The Child Buyer, to the Daily Bruin, he had started what he called a novella that might stretch into a novel, filching time from sleep and his studies to write.

As the De Soto inched along in the rush-hour traffic, Alicia sat back wearily. All day she had been mentally etching details to describe to Barry—the other extras, the kind makeup woman, the director-however, now she found herself staring at the oncoming headlights in silence and thinking of Hap.

Alicia worked on Paris Lovers six more days. Driving home each evening, she deluged Hap with questions about the movie business. She seldom asked questions, having learned in numerous schools that to admit lapses in her education was tantamount to an admission of inferiority, but the adept way Hap handled his small MG, the darkness, their proximity, made it easy to confess ignorance. He told her about the unions, the pay scale, the equipment, what it was like to go on location, the front office. He would park at the shabby apartment court, walking her past the orange-scented pittosporum bushes, coming in to chat with his cousin.

When the Pans Lovers shooting schedule finished with extras, Alicia felt a letdown, almost a depression. She called Central Casting every morning, each day getting a negative response. But she had received her paycheck: even after the deductions there was enough left for the Barry Cordiners to put in a telephone and go to the movies to see Sons and Lovers and dine on spaghetti Bolognese, the cheapest item on the menu at swanky Perino’s.