Best to Laugh: A Novel (19 page)

The first morning I typed checks for the voice-over actors of the Saturday cartoon
Mildred’s Mummy,
the actress voicing the sixteen-year-old Mildred earning a sweet $15,000 per episode, and the actor playing the centuries-old Mummy pulling in five thousand more. Age before beauty, I guess.

I filed headshots and résumés, although I didn’t quite understand why voice-over actors needed headshots. I took messages from actors, agents, and managers: had there been a casting decision on the new series
Clancy’s Clubhouse
? What sort of accent should the character Milo the Marmet have? And when would the residuals from the summer reruns of
Farm Yard Follies
be released?

I eavesdropped on arguments between the two brothers who led
Joe-Jack Productions—arguments that ranged from the quality of a script to last week’s ratings to who called their mother more often. From what I could tell, it was the short, stout Joe who instigated, and the short, stout Jack who yelled louder.

Next I was sent for a three-day assignment to Eminence, a literary agency in Beverly Hills. Their clients included novelists and nonfiction writers, but their big money came from screenwriters.

“Do you know we represent Robertson Foley?” asked Lawrence, an agent who liked to loiter in the reception area, tying and retying the sleeves of the cardigan sweater he wore draped around his shoulders.

“He wrote eight novels—he was up for a National Book Award twice—but sales?” Lawrence made a puhhh sound and looked skyward. “He was lucky his wife had gainful employment as a college professor. Then he writes the screenplay for his novel
I Smell a Rat
—it’s a box office hit, plus it’s nominated for a Guild award, and suddenly the guy’s in the money! He writes another adaptation—this one from his novel
Journey Back,
and not only is he in the money, he’s submerged in the money! So he ditches the professor wife and marries the actress who played an amnesiac in the second movie, and now he’s writing an original screenplay for a cool two million dollars!”

“I saw
I Smell a Rat,
” I told the agent. “Now I’m going to read the book.”

“Don’t bother,” whispered Lawrence conspiratorially, one hand held to the side of his mouth. “The book’s got a lot of boring stuff that was cut out for the movie.”

The literary agency was a block away from Rodeo Drive, in whose ultra-swanky shops and boutiques the rich and celebrated wrote checks for designer gowns in the same amount normal people wrote for a down payment on a house, for jewelry that equaled their yearly salary times ten.

The windows of JJ Newberry’s were crammed with dime-store clutter, and in those of Frederick’s of Hollywood mannequins posed in black garter belts and leopard-spotted negligées, but what was being sold inside these Beverly Hills stores was harder to discern by mere window shopping. One featured an arrangement of black suede cubes with a sprinkle of single diamonds; in another, glass pyramids rose up from a ripple of blue silk scarves.

Wandering under the white and yellow striped awning of Giorgio’s, I was relieved to see a clothing boutique with actual clothing displayed
in the window, and remembering Robb, a fellow tenant and pool-hound, worked there, I decided to say hello.

I stood in the entrance, breathing in air that even smelled expensive. A woman approached me—if she was a security guard, she was awfully well dressed—and with her head slightly cocked, she offered a warm smile and said, “Welcome to Giorgio’s! My name’s Cynthia. May I help you find something?”

“Uh, yes. Actually, I was hoping to find Robb—”

“—oh, Robb’s not working today,” she said as if it pained her to give me the news. “But I’d be happy—”

“—excuse me,” I said, practically pushing the gracious salesperson aside to better gape at the apparition approaching me.

“Candy!” it said, “I didn’t know you had such expensive taste.”

“Madame Pepper! What are you doing here?”

Taking my arm, she waved at the salesperson, who rushed to open the door for us and wished us both a wonderful afternoon.

“You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” she said, once we were outside and standing under the awning.

“Well, I . . . I just . . . look at you!”

Madame Pepper patted her hair, done up in a scarfless, demure bun. Her layers of gypsy clothes had been replaced by an olive green dress and a matching olive jacket.

“When in Rome,” she said. Looking over my shoulder she raised her index finger, and I turned to see who she was signaling to wait.

A chauffeur standing next to a Rolls Royce thumbed the brim of his hat.

“I meet a client here every month,” she explained. “She likes to top off a morning’s shopping with a little chat with me. We have a mimosa in the bar.” She nodded toward the store. “Did you know they’ve got a bar in there?”

“Figures.”

“The car belongs to same client. She doesn’t want me bothering with taxis or whatnot.”

“Wow. People really do believe in you, don’t they?”

“Because I give them reason to,” she said with a weary patience. “Now I’ve got to get back to Hollywood. Can we give you a lift?”

“I’m temping—the office is just two blocks away. But Madame Pepper,” I said, anxious to update the seer, “I’ve been at the Comedy Store
twice already and the Improv once, and I’m not bombing! And I’ve got a stage name—Candy Ohi!”

“Candy Ohi,” she repeated, raising her head like a dog smelling something on the wind. “I like it. Is name for a successful comedian.”

“Thanks.”

I accompanied her on the short walk across the sidewalk.

“I’m glad things are going well,” she said as the chauffeur opened the car door for her. “I—oh!” She stopped, half inside the luxurious leather cavern of the backseat and half out. “I just had wonderful idea. We need to celebrate! Go back in Giorgio’s and find a dress. A fancy dress you can wear to an awards show.”

“What?”

“Or at least to a fancy party. Many of which you’ll be invited to, now that you’re successful comedienne, Miss Candy Ohi.”

“I just had . . . just a couple of good nights,” I said, flummoxed. “And there’s no way I could—”

“Don’t worry about the cost, just tell Cynthia that Madame Pepper will take care of it.” She settled in the backseat and winked at me. “Which means my client will. I am on her charge account and her feelings get hurt if I don’t use it.”

“But I can’t—”

“Yes, you can. I mean it. And after you get the dress, bring it over to show me. And cake, too, if you feel so obliged.”

O
N
MY
LAST
DAY
at the literary agency, after Lawrence had told me that he’d just sold a screenplay about a telepathic farm boy—“It’s like
Carrie
with tractors and combines”—I answered the telephone to hear Zelda’s voice.

“So how’re things going at Eminence?”

“Eminently.”

My temp agent’s laugh was nasal.

“Listen, Candy. I’ve got your next assignment. I’m sending you to the Rogue Mansion.”

When I regained my ability to speak I said, “The Rogue Mansion? Ha! I don’t think so.”

I was not about to degrade myself in this Citadel of Sin (as its religious detractors called it), this Bastion of Bull*#@! (a term coined by a feminist magazine), and there was no way I was going to put on the
little kitten ears and tails Rascalettes wore as accessories to their satin, swimsuit-like costumes. This last part I said aloud.

“They only wear those at the Rogue Clubs. This is the Rogue Mansion.”

“That’s even worse. That’s where they have all those orgies in the grottoes, right?”

Zelda sighed.

“All I can tell you, Candy, is that it’s a clerical job. You’d be working for Rogue Industries, wearing normal clothes. ‘Attending orgies in the grotto’ is not in the job description.”

“What is the job description?”

“I’ve got the work order right here,” said Zelda. I heard a shuffle of paper. “Typing and filing. A proficient knowledge of the English language/motion pictures a plus.”

“A proficient knowledge of the English language/motion pictures a plus?” I repeated. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Zelda sighed again. “They didn’t go into detail, Candy. Now do you want the job or not?”

I wanted a job, not necessarily that job, but beggars and temps can’t be choosy.

31

“
I
CAN’T
BELIEVE
you’re going inside the Rogue Mansion,” Ed said, grinding the gears of his Volkswagen as we climbed a hilly section of Bel Air. “It’s every boy’s dream to spend a day—make that a night—at the Rogue Mansion.”

He was between teaching assignments and beyond happy to drive me to my temp job.

“I’m surprised you haven’t been here with Sharla. Doesn’t
tout
Hollywood come to Donald Doffel’s parties?”

“If she’s been invited, she hasn’t brought me along.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to subject you to all that temptation.”

Ed smiled. “Maybe.”

After driving alongside a stone fence, the kind built to guard castles rather than ordinary domiciles, we pulled up to an elaborate iron gate with statuary of nubile young women flanking it. The grounds were visible through the slats, and Ed craned his neck to get a look.

“Don’t strain anything,” I said, opening the car door.

There was a large rock into which a speaker had been outfitted and it was into this rock, Zelda had informed me, that I was to announce my presence.

“Uh, hello,” I said, leaning toward it, “I’m uh . . . I’m Candy Pekkala and I’ve been sent here by Hollywood Temps?”

Waiting for a moment, I looked at Ed who returned my worried expression with a thumbs-up sign.

I tried again but before I’d gotten the last syllable of my name out, the gate opened.

This was worth two thumbs up from Ed, and a wiggle of his eyebrows.

With a wave, I thanked him for the ride and plunged into the emerald grounds that surrounded the Citadel of Sin and the Bastion of Bull*#@!

Deirdre, a gangly, middle-aged woman who stooped to compensate for her height, met me at the front doors, which were tall and wide enough to admit a pair of elephants.

She explained that she was Doff’s secretary and that I was to follow her. And so I did, up three staircases whose walls were lined with Rascalette and celebrity photos, and to the “attic,” which housed the video offices and library.

“These fine people—Denny and Trudy—will tell you everything you need to know,” said Deidre, and she ducked under the door’s threshold, leaving me in a room my high school audiovisual club would have salivated over.

“This is your desk,” said Trudy, sniffing her pink-tipped nose every couple of seconds. “What you’ll be doing here is typing up descriptive labels—production credits, cast lists, synopses for Doff’s videos. He watches
a
lot
of TV, and he likes to be an informed viewer.”

“Of all sorts of things,” said Denny, with a wink I chose to ignore.

A
T
NOON
I was in the kitchen, filling my plate in a luncheon buffet line.

“Have you ever had a free lunch like this?” said a woman who was exactly the same height as me. Her hair, too, was black but cut short and spiky.

“No,” I said, spearing a big prawn, “I brought a bag lunch but then I was told lunch is on the house.”

“It’s from the party Doff throws every night,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Pretty swank for leftovers, huh?” She ladled seafood salad onto her plate. “It’s my theory that they give you all these niceties to make you feel like it’s okay to be working in a place like this. I’m Terry, by the way. Where do you work?”

“Up in the video room. I’m a temp.”

She directed me outside, where we dined at a wrought-iron table under a eucalyptus tree.

“I started as a temp, too,” Terry said, spearing a scallop with her fork. “I took the job thinking I was sorta like Margaret Mead, exploring a secret culture, you know? I was only going to work long enough to save money for a trip around the world, and then they ask me to stay on permanently and offer me a raise and all sorts of benefits, which I really needed—and whoosh—I’m sucked into that which I despise.”

“It’s such a strange place—on the way to the bathroom I passed a girl wearing a sarong who asked me if I knew the way to San Jose.”

Terry chuckled. “That’d be Barbie Tenucci, April’s Rascalette. She’s
trying to be a singer so she quotes Burt Bacharach lyrics a lot. Plus if she’s not stoned, she’s asleep.”

Terry explained that she worked in Doff’s office, which was like working in NASA’s Command Central.

“Everything goes in and out through our office. The Rascalettes’ breast implant appointments, Doff’s oral surgeon bills—he’s getting all new teeth—letters and phone calls from old movie stars begging to be invited to the Halloween party . . . even fried chicken samples from the kitchen that Doff rates. I really have no idea what that’s about.” She sighed. “It’s like working in a Fun House, only it’s more weird than fun. How’s it up in the video room?”

“Well, I’ve only been up there a couple hours, but so far all Denny and Trudy have done is watch TV, while I type up labels like, ‘Doff crowns winner at annual Bikini Ping Pong tournament,’ or ‘Doff crowns winner at annual Bikini Volleyball tournament.’”

“Lucky you. I was on the phone for three hours, trying to track down the kind of sheets they use in this Caribbean hotel that Gina Mills insists Doff gets for the Mansion.”

“And Gina Mills is . . . ?”

Terry tsked in mock indignation. “Only Rascalette of the Year! Only Donald Doffel’s new girlfriend! Geez, Candy, where’ve you been?”

“Out of the loop, I guess. Thank God.”

T
ERRY
LIVED
UP
IN
THE
H
OLLYWOOD
H
ILLS
and generously offered to pick me up every day, pulling up in her little Saab promptly at eight fifteen. She wouldn’t accept gas money from me either.

“Listen, I am just so happy to have a normal person to share this bizarre experience with me! My friends think I’m a sellout, my sister would love nothing more than to be a Rascalette, and everyone I work with thinks Doff’s the Second Coming.”

I nodded. “I told my grandma where I was working and she said, ‘Oh, Candy, just make sure you wash your hands when you get home.’”

Terry barked a laugh.

“My dad asked me if I could get an autograph of the 1963 November Rascalette! Although he’d freak if he knew my sister would pose for the magazine in a minute.”

The thing was, it was a good temp job. When we got to work, Terry and I ambled into the kitchen, helping ourselves to pastries or fruit or
cereal and coffee from the big kitchen urn, and while she went to her second floor office, I continued upstairs, occasionally seeing in the hallways a sheepish-looking television actor or movie star who’d spent the night being rogue-ish with one of the Rascalettes.

One morning I might thumb the encyclopedic books about movies that constituted my research library so I could type up things like “
Born Yesterday
(1950) starring Judy Holliday as a tutor assigned by her tycoon lover (Broderick Crawford) to teach him proper etiquette” and “
In Splendor in the Grass (1961),
Elia Kazan directs Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood in a story of sexual repression, social hypocrisy, and mental illness.” Later I might watch a movie to write a critique, or view several videotapes so that I could provide information like “1977 October Rascalette, Jann Diomedes, shows how to make grape leaves on
Dinah & Friends
” or “Aubrey Dale, 1975 June Rascalette, brings her pet ferret to
The Merv Griffin Show.
”

Regarding the porn movies, all I had to do was type the movie title on a special label marked with a big X and thus was saved the monotonous task of writing the same synopsis, “People having sex.”

At noon, the entire Rogue Mansion staff repaired to the sumptuous buffet table to load up their plates, and at three o’clock a butler delivered coffee, tea, and cookies from an ornate silver service. Employees were made to feel not just valuable but coddled.

“It’s all a plot,” said Terry. “The oppressor makes oppression so nice that nobody wants to rise up anymore.”

“Somehow I can’t see Gina Mills wanting to rise up,” I said.

“But who really knows? Maybe she started out as a temp—maybe she’d grown up reading Betty Freidan and Simone de Beauvoir, and suddenly, the free lunches, the afternoon tea, the double-overtime pay—maybe it all got to her and made her want to take her clothes off and pose for
Rogue
magazine.”

“And why not?” I said in a robotic voice, as I started to unbutton my shirt. “Donald Doffel is my lord and master.”