The Fame Game (39 page)

Once in a while Mr. Libra supplied her with a date—Shadrach Bascombe, the boxer, who was his client and soon to be a movie star—and a few young men about town Mr. Libra knew who wanted to have their names in the papers, but with the exception of Shadrach it was more like a business meeting than a date and she never saw them again. Shack Up, which was what everyone called Shadrach, dragged her off to bed almost immediately, and she went because he was attractive and she was lonely, but he was dumb and conceited and she didn’t care if she ever saw him again. He told her she was a lousy lay and he was going to cure her. He saw her twice again and didn’t cure her. She didn’t even feel like pretending. She thought of Hatcher Wilson from time to time and decided she had been a fool not to like him more when she could have had him. She hardly ever thought of Dick Devere, and when she did she was glad she was out of that disaster forever.

She did a few television talk shows, saying the lines Mr. Libra had written for her, avoiding anything controversial, being cute and funny and innocent and sincere. Sometimes it occurred to her that she could sit right there with a million and half people watching her and say some dirty word or unforgivable things and it would ruin her career forever in one second. It was a terrifying thought. She wondered if the other people on the shows with her thought the same thing about themselves. They were all very nice to each other in the Green Room before the show, because they were nervous and trapped together as if on a lifeboat, but when the show was over they never even bothered to say good-bye. Once in a while she saw guest celebrities exchanging telephone numbers, but they were always saying that they and their wife or husband should get together with the other person and his or her wife or husband, and none of it was ever romantic, just suburban. What a laugh and a fake fame was! You lived in your own plastic bubble, you smiled and pretended to be charming and happy, and it was all a lie. No one could get into anyone else’s plastic bubble with a blowtorch. No one even wanted to.

She wondered what would happen if once—just once—she were to tell a sympathetic reporter that she was lonely and miserable and forgotten. He’d print it, of course, because that would be interesting. She’d get a lot more crazy fan letters from losers who were just as lonely and miserable and forgotten as she was. And she wouldn’t have the courage to meet any of them on the street corner they designated in their badly spelled, pencil-scrawled missives on lined schoolroom paper, with the stamps that looked as if they’d steamed them off a bill that had missed the canceling machine.

Her phone number, of course, was listed under the name of the tenant she’d sublet from, and her own name was unlisted for the sake of safety. She didn’t want to hear any two a.m. breathing at the other end of the phone.

She went to publicity parties occasionally, if they were given at night after the show; usually with Mr. Libra and a few other people, or sometimes with one of his arranged escorts. There would be a lot of stars at these parties, and everyone seemed to have friends except her. The stars tried hard to be just folks and carefully ignored her, not wanting to be square and say congratulations or act impressed—or maybe they weren’t impressed, because they were stars too and they must know by now what a fake it was. The other stars talked to each other about their children or golf or their new diets, and sometimes about show business or politics, but mostly about the dull things all their fans talked about back home in the suburbs, where most of these stars were from anyway. She enjoyed recognizing people she’d heard of, and when Mr. Libra introduced her to a star she’d admired she was impressed and tongue-tied. They probably thought she was either stupid or a snob.

No one in her show bothered much with her. She arrived at the theater in time to hole up in her dressing room and do her face, the hairdresser would flit around with her wigs, the wardrobe woman would make tea with honey for her, and they would exchange banalities because Silky didn’t want the woman to mother her. Then she would be onstage for almost all the show, and when she wasn’t onstage she would be rushing into another costume and another wig. Then it would be over, and she would be too wound up to feel tired and too tired to try to find someone to shock by asking them if they’d like to go out to eat. The doorman downstairs didn’t let strangers into her dressing room, and she had hardly any friends. The people she’d grown up with didn’t have the price of even a balcony seat. When strangers did get in, because they were a friend of a friend, Silky would be glad to see them and very self-conscious, not knowing how close she should get, whether they wanted her to go out with them or keep her distance. She always seemed to do the wrong thing, because they usually looked embarrassed too. If they did ask her to go out drinking with them after the show, she said she was too tired or had a date or something, and then as soon as they had gone away she was so sorry she could have killed herself. She knew she was acting this way because she was depressed, and she knew she was depressed because she didn’t have a man—and she knew she would never get a man if she didn’t get out at night. She was ruining her life but she was too afraid of disappointing people to be anything but elusive.

There was a boy in the chorus she’d begun to notice because he was the prettiest thing she’d ever seen. He was about six feet tall, with the face of an angel and the body of a middleweight fighter. He had a nimbus of curly black hair that looked as soft as chinchilla, huge murky green eyes, and skin that looked like a good suntan but was what he’d been born with. He looked to be a mixture of two races and four nationalities, the best of each. His name (his own?) was Bobby La Fontaine. He was a dancer. She thought he might be gay, but if he was he was the man. He always smiled at her with his perfect white teeth (definitely his own) and she always smiled back gratefully, but they never spoke. Then, after the show had been running for two months, he started asking her how she was, and she asked him how he was. He was her only friend, if that could be called a friend.

Then one evening he knocked on her dressing-room door.

“It’s my birthday,” he said. “Do you want to come to my party after the show?”

“I’d love to. Congratulations.”

“Okay,” he said, edging out.

She wanted to keep him for a minute. “How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

So was she. She smiled at him. “Me too.”

“I know.”

“See you later.”

She had forgotten to ask him where the party was, but the wardrobe woman found out for her—it was in a dressing room shared by only two people because Bobby La Fontaine dressed in the chorus boys’ room, which smelled like a pigpen. Silky went there with her stage make-up still on, frightened, wishing she had said she wouldn’t go. But everyone seemed glad to see her, getting her drinks, offering her cake, trying to give her their chair. That embarrassed her too, because she knew they were being nice because she was the star. None of them really knew her.

Bobby La Fontaine was in the corner, talking to two pretty white girls. He excused himself to them and came right over. “I’m glad you could come.”

“Thank you.”

“My mother sent me a birthday cake she’d baked, so I thought I might as well throw a party.”

“That’s nice.”

“So meanwhile I had to buy about fifty dollars’ worth of booze.” He laughed. “I hope you don’t mind paper cups.”

“Of course not.”

He sat on the edge of the dressing table next to her chair. “I didn’t think you’d come. I’m honored.”

“Why wouldn’t I come?”

“Well, you’re the star and I’m just a chorus boy. Why should you bother?”

“That’s an awful thing to say.”

“I didn’t mean you’re a snob, I just mean I’m honored.”

“I wish you’d stop saying honored.”

He grinned at her. “To tell you the truth, I’ve wanted to get to talk to you ever since the first day I saw you. But you always run away.”

“I’m shy,” Silky blurted out. She drank her whiskey and water. The birthday boy waved at one of his dancer friends who came running over with a refill. He introduced them and then gave his friend a look that said “Go away and leave us alone.” The friend went back to the group. The dressing room was crowded with people, hot and noisy. The little air conditioner in the window wasn’t doing enough for that mob, especially all those sweaty dancers. Silky noticed with pleasure that close as he was to her, Bobby didn’t smell at all, except faintly of a nice, light masculine cologne.

“I kind of knew you were shy,” he said, leaning over her so she could hear him above the noise. He had a soft, sexy voice. “You’re always so aloof, like a duchess, but you remind me of a scared little girl.”

“Don’t be so smart—we’re the same age. In fact, I’m six months older.”

“I don’t care how old you are. To me you’re about six.”

They looked at each other, smiling, and Silky hoped he wasn’t gay because she liked him and he certainly was beautiful. He had a strong New York accent that she unaccountably found very sexy.

“Do you live with anybody?” he asked.

“No. Do you?”

“Not me. I like to have my little room where I can throw my clothes on the floor and throw the furniture around if I get drunk. I love chicks, but I couldn’t live with one—I’d have to be too neat.”

“Unless you found a girl as messy as you are.”

“That would be a disaster.” He laughed happily. “Do you like to dance?”

“Sure.”

“Well, a couple of us are going to a discothèque after here. Will you come? I want you to be my date.”

She was tired, but she didn’t care. “Okay, I’d love to.”

“As soon as all the booze is gone, which should take ten minutes, we can sneak away.”

She thought it would be groovy to dance with a real dancer, and that she would probably not be good enough because he probably went out with girls who danced professionally. She didn’t want him to be disappointed in her. He thought she was a star, and he didn’t know she was just as inadequate as anybody else, maybe more.

“Let me go talk to some of my guests and I’ll be back.” He peered into her paper cup, saw that it was still nearly full, and jumped up. She saw that he knew everybody and that everybody liked him. He was running around the little dressing room, kissing girls, hugging guys, being congratulated, making jokes. He sent a couple of guys over to talk to Silky and she made lame conversation with them, feeling hot and itchy and self-conscious. She realized that except for Dick, who’d been more of a lover than a date, she’d been out on less dates in her life than any other girl she knew. What did she know about men? It had always been work, ambition, work, then love and suffering, then the string of Mr. Libra’s dates who weren’t dates at all. She might as well be six years old, like Bobby said. She had two more drinks and played a word game with herself.

Life … Laugh. Life is a laugh. Date … Late. Too late to date. Date … Fake. Sex … Wrecks. Men … Them. Games … Pain. Bed … Get Ahead. Did he just like her because he thought she could help his career? Suddenly she wasn’t hot any more, she felt chilled and depressed. Why else would he like her anyway? He didn’t even know her. She was just the star of this show … no, she was
the star
, and he was
just
a boy who danced in the chorus. But who else was she going to meet in her secluded little life?

The crowd was beginning to thin out and Bobby La Fontaine, whom she no longer liked, came bouncing back to her like a happy lamb-haired angel.

“Let’s go,” he said, and pulled her to her feet.

Silky let herself be led to a cab, climbed in with him and two other couples who were high and giggly, after the boys had argued with the taxi driver who didn’t want to take six. They went to a discothèque that had just opened, which Silky had never heard of: beautifully air conditioned, dark, with slides of beautiful girls thrown on the walls and loud music, most of it American songs translated into French.

The tables were tiny cubes, with everyone packed together. In the back room there was every game you could think of to play except a slot machine. Everyone who entered looked like a model, male and female. There didn’t seem to be even one ugly tourist who’d gotten in by accident. Bobby seemed to know all the waiters.

“I’ve been here every night since it opened,” he told her, “which is about two weeks. I love it. Aren’t the people beautiful? I love beautiful people.”

Which should make me last about five minutes, Silky thought, still depressed. No one seemed to notice her or recognize her, which made her feel better, until their waiter, a beautiful blond faggot of about nineteen, came with their drinks, and said to her: “Oh, Miss Morgan, I loved your show and I love you.”

“Thank you,” she said, and smiled at him.

The other kids from the show were already on the dance floor, which was packed but not too much to dance. Black lights flickered, making it hard to tell who could dance and who couldn’t.

“I love to drink,” Bobby told her. “I don’t like pot, and I only take LSD occasionally, but I love to drink. I’m old-fashioned. Most of the dancers don’t drink because they think it’s bad for them, but even with a hangover I can go on. Dancing is the best thing to cure a hangover.”

“I guess you don’t plan to be a dancer forever anyway,” Silky said, hoping to trap him into revealing his ambition and get it over with right away.

“Oh sure I do, until I’m too old. Then I’ll open a ballet school. I have absolutely no desire to be an actor or a movie star.”

“Oh? Why not?”

He looked at her. “Why? Did it make you any happier?”

“Sure it did.”

“Well, you have talent. That’s different. I don’t have talent in that direction, so what would be the point of it? People have asked me to model, but I’m not that interested. I like to
move
. Let’s dance.”

They got up then and danced on the crowded floor, and Silky could see that he really did love to dance; he had forgotten she was there. He was a wonderful dancer, and she saw people looking at him. He didn’t notice them, either. Some of the people who were watching Bobby dance smiled at her, not because she was Silky Morgan, the star, but because she was a girl out on a date with a boy who was the best dancer in the room. She liked that. They must be thinking that he really liked her if he wanted to take her out dancing when he knew she wasn’t good enough to keep up with him. Maybe he really did like her a little. After all, why shouldn’t he? She was nice, refined now, she’d educated herself, she could talk if she wasn’t scared, she looked okay. She hadn’t planned to come here so she wasn’t dressed for it, but she didn’t look frumpy or out of place.