Flavor of the Month (56 page)

“Spoken like a true star!” Sam laughed. “I’ll have a treatment over to him in the morning. Bear in mind, it’s only in first draft. I can do better. I always do better the second time out.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” she said, and dropped the receiver into the cradle.

Lila sat in the darkness of her beach house, in the empty room on the second floor that looked out over the Pacific. The room that had once been Nadia’s bedroom. The room Nadia had died in. Nadia Negron, who had starred in the first
Birth of a Star
. Well, the room wasn’t totally empty. All around its edges, Lila had ranged candles—black candles—of almost every size and thickness. All of them now were lit. Since Ara’s party, Lila had a single obsession, a single desire, a single goal. This was how she’d reach it. An offering. A twofold offering. Because Lila wanted—needed—to get to play Nadia’s part, Theresa’s part, in
Birth of a Star
.

On the wall, a single shelf held a sort of altar that Lila had created in the otherwise empty space. On it was a picture of Nadia, two more candles in silver candlesticks, a dish of smoking incense, and the video cassette of Theresa’s
Birth of a Star
. Since she had heard about the remake, she had had no other goal.

Lila stood up and bowed to the picture of Nadia. Then she lit a candle, lifted it off the altar, and went around the room lighting one taper after another. Tonight, she had a lot to ask of Nadia. She needed her mother, the Puppet Mistress, to watch
3/4
and feel envy. She needed the premiere of
3/4
to rack up great ratings. She needed April Irons to watch it. But most of all, she needed Sam Shields to cast her in
Birth of a Star
.

Lila lay flat on the floor, her face against the bare tile, her arms spread. She said aloud the only prayer she ever said: “Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes.”

Sharleen switched off the set and turned to Dean, who sat beside her on the floor, finishing the last of the popcorn. “Well, what did you think?”

“You’re good, Sharleen. Real good,” he said.

“Really? You
really
think so?”

“Sure.” She could see his hesitation.

“But…”

“Well…”

“Tell me.”

“Well, the show sure isn’t as good as
Andy Griffith
.”

Flanders Fields was the largest single piece of property in Bel Air. Inside it, in the master suite, Monica Flanders sat beside her Pekingese in her satin-brocade upholstered canopy bed. And not just
any
canopy bed, mind you, but the one that once belonged to Josephine, back in the days when she was a simple island girl from the West Indies. Of course she, Monica, had had it completely redone, but the provenance still mattered to her. It was the bed of a woman of no special beauty, whose charm and brains had raised her to empress. A woman not unlike herself.

“Will there be anything else, Madame?” her maid asked. Her
Irish
maid, not a
schvartzer
as so many women her age had to put up with. No. Monica Flanders was called the Queen of Cosmetics, and she lived like a queen. All the other great ones were retired, gone, dead. Helena Rubinstein. Elizabeth Arden. Coco Chanel. Now the business was ruled by corporations; heartless, mindless entities that lived and sold by statistics, by studies, by market share and focus-group results. Men like her son, Hyram. A good boy, perhaps, and a good father to his children, but a bit soulless, no?

What could those men in control know about a woman’s needs? For half a century Monica had been selling women a dream: the dream of beauty and perfectibility. Perhaps a new face cream, a different color eye shadow, would do the trick: make them beautiful, make them loved, make them happy. That it never worked seemed not to matter; hope was what she sold and it simply kept most of them restlessly looking for the right product—the one that
would
work.

She had started by listening to their laments in the little beauty parlor in lower Manhattan: a husband who cheated, an engagement that was broken off, an empty marriage, insecurity, unhappiness, discontent. And to each she had nodded, clicked her teeth in sympathy, let her eyes fill with a sheen of tears. She understood them. And then “Try this,” she would say. “Try this and things will change. You’ll feel younger, you’ll glow. People will notice a new you. A better you. Softer. Dewy. New. Young.”

Since then, little had changed but the size of her market. Tonight, Monica felt that she had perfected her pitch. Tonight a million, ten million, perhaps even fifty million women would watch the new show that she had caused to happen. And each one, no matter her age, no matter her appearance, would look at the screen and envy the images she had put there. It was like an hour-long commercial. Maybe better. And she had the products ready, the advertisements that would tell these yearning, envious woman what they could do to look like those three beautiful, perfect girls on their screens.

“Put on the television for me and bring me the remote and my glasses,” she told her maid. “I have something to watch on television.” Monica had bet millions that this show would succeed.

And, as always, she was right.

In Bakersfield, Jake’s diner was closed on Sunday nights. It was the one night a week that he could spend alone, without Thelma, watching TV. First
911
, then
Rescue Squad
, followed by reruns on cable. He stretched his feet out on the footrest and pushed the recliner until he was almost supine. As his hands scrambled in the seat beneath him, he yelled out, “Thelma.” After no response, he yelled it again. Ah, she’d left. He settled back, sighed, ready for a pleasant evening.

Then, out of the blue, Thelma waltzed into the family room, kicked off her floppy rubber sandals, and dropped her large form down onto the plaid Herculon-covered sofa.

“What’s the matter, Jake?” she asked, like she didn’t know, and she placed a bowl of microwaved popcorn between them on the table, along with two beers she snapped open. Then, most shocking of all,
she
picked up the remote control.

“Hey!” he said. “
911
is coming on.”

Thelma reached into the pocket of her housedress, took out a Kleenex, wiped her nose, and then calmly looked at him. “Not tonight it ain’t,” she said, and clicked a button. The twenty-seven-inch RCA screen instantly burst into color.

“What are you talking about, Thelma? You don’t watch television Sunday nights. I thought you go play bingo over to the Bakersfield Rotary?” He couldn’t keep the disappointment from his voice.

“Bingo ain’t on Sundays no more. Don’t you remember? They changed it to Mondays now. ’Cause of the TV show.”

What
show? he thought. Not the one she tried to get him to watch
last
week. Jesus, now he thought of it, she’d come in then, too. He’d had to go back to the diner and watch his shows on the black-and-white he had in the kitchen. Oh, shit. “I thought that was only a made-for-TV movie, or something like that. You mean to tell me it’s on
every
Sunday night now?”

“Where you been? This show’s the most-watched TV show in America,” she said. “Where’s your patriotism?” The television went silent during the opening credits. “Anyway, I got something I want to show you. A surprise I figured out.”

Jake sat back, his arms folded across his chest. He was mad. Another woman’s piece of shit, some
Designing Women
garbage or something, with the actresses in frilly clothes and crazy hairstyles. He looked over at the screen: a desert in Utah or somewhere, with Eagle Rock or one of them tall buttes. As the camera got closer, he saw three motorcycles, a woman in full leather on each bike, jackets open revealing full breasts under tight T-shirts. Nice tits. Well, so what?

“I’m going over to the diner.”

“No, you’re not. You’re stayin’ right here. Look carefully. Look at them girls.”

Thelma was letting him look at tits? This was a new one. On the screen, each of the girls pulled up in a sharp gravel-spattering stop for a close-up.

“Remember I said last week that I’d seen that blonde somewhere before?” Thelma asked. “Well, I have. And so have you. Look at her close, now.”

Jake squinted at the screen. Thelma was right—there was something about her that was familiar. “Maybe. What of it?”

“Jake, I think we just got on the map.” Thelma held up a piece of cardboard with hand-lettering. “Jake’s Place. Home of
Three for the Road
’s Clover.”

The camera moved closer, and Jake’s face lit up. There she was, big as life. Sharleen! “You mean that blonde waitress we had working for us? That’s her? Goddamn, Thelma. You’re right. Holy shit, we had us a real star at the diner! But you fired her.”

“Good thing I did. Otherwise you’da made a fool a yourself and she wouldn’t be on TV!”

In Manhattan’s East Village, what was left of the St. Malachy rep company’s Movable Feast had moved from Saturday night to Sunday night. The tiny living room of the tenement apartment had people sitting all over—on the secondhand sofa from the Salvation Army, the stacks of Woolworth’s cushions, even on the bare linoleum floor. The actors used to eat at makeshift tables, but that was before
Three for the Road
had become the focus of their weekly meals together. Now the meal was buffet-style, set up on the cover of the bathtub in the kitchen that doubled on these nights as a sideboard. Everybody watched
Three for the Road
.

“Anyone need anything?” Molly called out from the kitchen. “I’m not getting up again after the show starts, so let me know now.”

The television had been on for several minutes, but with the sound off. “Here it is,” Chuck, Sam’s replacement as director of the group, said, and turned up the volume. The teaser began. Molly wiped her hands on the dish towel. The dialogue had already started. “Clover! Wow, man! That’s psychedelic!” Then another voice spoke. “Groovy! I can’t take it.”

Molly blinked. For a moment, the voice had sounded exactly like her old friend Mary Jane. Had Mary Jane gotten a bit part out on the coast? Molly rushed to the doorway. But it was only Jahne Moore, one of the three stars, speaking. Molly sighed. Since Mary Jane disappeared without a trace, Molly had “seen” her on subways, on buses, in museums, and once on the down escalator at Bloomingdale’s. But, like this time, she’d been wrong. Mary Jane had disappeared.

A close-up of each of the three actresses flashed on the screen with the opening credits. “They
are
beautiful women,” Molly sighed, “
really
beautiful.” And young, she thought. Very, very young.

“That’s all it takes out there,” another woman, Sharon Malone, said. “That’s why I’m sticking with the stage. You can get by on just talent here,” she said, the sarcasm heavy in her voice.

“Now, let’s not be catty,” Molly called out in a singsong voice.

“That’s right, sometimes they
can
act. Look at Jahne Moore. I read she was discovered in some Ibsen play at the Melrose Playhouse. Not
too
shabby,” Chuck reminded them.

“Still reading those
People
magazines, eh, Chuck?” someone joshed.

“See her, the tallest one, Lila Kyle?” Sharon asked. “Well,
I
read in
TV Guide
that it was hard for her to get taken seriously as an actress, since both her parents were so famous and all.”

“Wait a minute; can you believe this shit? Remember what Neil Morelli used to say? Poor little rich girl? Come off it. Lila Kyle wasn’t discovered while working in some hash joint. She was ‘discovered’ by Marty DiGennaro himself—
while they were having dinner, for chrissakes
. When was the last time
you
had dinner with Marty?” Harvey Jewett asked sarcastically.

“Sounds like I’m not the only one scarfing up
People
,” Chuck laughed. “Try not to sound
too
bitter, Harvey.”

“Hey, I could do an hour of material on that, but Neil would do it better,” Harvey said. “Where’s Neil Morelli, now that we really need him?” Harvey shook his head, his eyes glued to the screen.

“Where
is
Neil Morelli?” Molly asked, not for the first time. “Anyone hear from him?”

“Speaking of the lost and deported, do you think Sam Shields has put the wood to any of those honeys?” Harvey asked. “Maybe he’s gotten real lucky. You know how he was in New York.”

“Harvey,” Craig, another of the out-of-work actors, said, “even Sam would be out of his league. These girls are working with Marty DiGennaro; Sam doesn’t have a chance.”

Then the program started again, and they were silent, drinking up the fast cuts, the dissolves, the weird, innovative camera angles, the quirky dialogue. And the youth and beauty of the three girls. Too soon, the show ended. Sighs went round the circle. They would all have to go back to their day jobs tomorrow.

In Los Angeles, George Getz sat down in his easy chair and clicked on the TV he had recently bought. George, child of the sixties, hated television. He was a movie person. But then he found out, a little late, what all the students in his classes were talking about with such excitement.
Three for the Road
was on its way to becoming the phenomenon of the decade. It wasn’t until he heard the names of the costars that he reacted. Lila Kyle, his former pupil, was in a Marty DiGennaro series.

That hadn’t hurt business, either, he thought. Now his classes were doubled in size and had waiting lists, for chrissakes. And he was, at last, happy. It was the money, he told himself. No, it was the money and the recognition he had been robbed of for so long.

He watched tonight’s show with intensity. It was, as they would have said in the sixties, psychedelic. And all style, no substance, if you asked his opinion. But on a medium that usually had neither, it was a major breakthrough. Tonight’s show gave Lila more close-ups and lines than the other weeks, he noticed. Leave it to Lila, he thought. She always knew how to draw attention to herself! As the closing credits rolled across the screen, George rolled himself another joint and lifted it in a silent toast to the screen.

“Taught her everything she knows,” he said out loud to the empty room, and pulled the sweet smoke deep into his lungs.