How to Save Your Own Life (27 page)

But no words came out of my mouth.

JOSH (
hurt, sad
)
:
I tell you my deepest, darkest secrets, things I've never told
anyone,
things I'm ashamed of—and you don't even reassure me ...

“I guess,” I said haltingly, “I guess all men really feel that way, but none of them are honest enough to admit it.”

“Maybe,”
Josh said.

“God
—it's so hard to be straight with someone—even someone you ... care about.”

“You were going to say ‘love,' weren't you, but you chickened out.”

“I guess ...” I said tentatively.

“I love you too,” he blurted out, “but what the hell good is it going to do me? You're six years older, married, famous—and besides, I like skinny model-types.”

He trailed off, knowing he had hurt me.

I stormed out of bed (almost impossible to do from a waterbed), and for the first time burst into tears. I had never felt so fat, so rejected, so vulnerable.

“Why do you have to back away before we've even
begun?”
I screamed. “Why are you so scared of feeling
anything?”

Josh buried his head in the pillow. I stood there watching, feeling uglier and uglier, fatter and fatter, determined not to comfort him. Finally, he looked up. “What the hell's the point?” he shouted. “You get me to tell you everything, to fall in love with you, to need you, to depend on you, but for you it's just another affair. Because pretty soon, you'll go back to your boring husband and leave me all alone—and then I'll be lonelier and worse off than I was before.” He sat up in bed, looking like a madman. “I know you didn't come last night. I know it, I'm not an
idiot
—but what's the sense of working it out? What's the sense of satisfying you? making you come? You'll only go home to your husband and leave me
anyway.
You've certainly done it
before.
Anyway, you don't take me seriously. I'm just a kid to you, a ‘fling,‘ a sort of sexual slumming trip. All your fucking lady-writer friends in New York will want to know, ‘What's it like to fuck a hippie?' And
you'll say, ‘Terrific.'
But it's not so terrific for me. I'm the hippie. I'm the goddamned sucker in the piece. Oh go ahead and try everything, Candida —try an Englishman, a Chinaman, a
shvartzer,
a lesbian, a hippie. Meanwhile I go back to my apartment in Hollywood and my weekly fuck with a librarian, and I sit around reading your poems and seeing you on Johnny Carson and looking forward to your next book so I can see how I rated on your
scorecard
. Terrific, huh? Terrific for
you
. But not so terrific for the kid. Well, no
thanks.
You're not going to put me through that routine. I love you—but what the hell good is it going to do me? I don't want to wind up in a book. Frankly, I don't give a shit about immortality. I just love you.” And he buried his head in the pillow again, this time sobbing loudly.

I was astonished. I had never known a man who could cry before and I loved him even more for it. I walked over to the bed and took him in my arms. “How the hell did you know? How did you know I slept with a woman?” I asked.

“Did I say that?” he asked, baffled. “I didn't know at all. It just
figured
.”

“You amaze me,” I said. “You keep reading my mind. How could I ever leave a man who reads my
mind?
I've been waiting for you my whole life. I always told myself that if I met someone like you and didn't do something about it, I'd be crazy. I'd blame myself for the rest of my life.”

“What about Bennett?”

“What
about
him?”

We looked at each other very hard, our faces smeared with tears and sleeplessness, both trembling, exhausted, on the edge of hysteria. The dawn was coming up. We both looked terrible in the light.

“Oh Josh, let's just
wing
it, okay? Let's not try to predict the future.”

“Okay,” he said.

Take the Red-Eye ...

The next morning Ralph's houseman made an elaborate breakfast for us during which Ralph insisted on reading aloud from his favorite book, If
I Knew
Who
I Was, I Would Tell You
(printed on rice paper in Big Sur and handbound in brown batik by hippies). It was written by a friend of his, a certain Dwayne Hoggs, who was, according to Ralph, a philosopher, a sculptor, and “a beautiful human being.” His prose style left something to be desired, but what he lacked in style, he made up for in schmaltz.

“ ‘I asked the brook. Tell me who you are,' ” Ralph read piously. “ ‘And the brook replied:
My name is written in syllables of water. My name bubbles itself to you. You may dip

your foot in my name
.‘ ... Isn't that
beautiful?”

“Hmm,” I said.

“Hmm,” said Josh.

“
I
know why he can't tell us who he is,” Josh said of Hoggs as we were leaving Ralph's emporium. “Because he's the village idiot. If he knew who he was, he'd be exceedingly
embarrassed
.”

“Isn't it, ‘if I knew who I
were'?”

“Not in Big Sur, it ain‘t,” said Josh. “Grammar is bourgeois and repressive dontcha know.” (He imitated Kurt's husky Brooklynese.) “Also, I love you immensely.”

“Me you too.”

“Promise me one thing,” Josh said passionately.

“What? Anything ...”

“Promise me we'll never see Ralph Battaglia again.”

“Done,” I said.

 

We returned to the Beverly Hills Hotel, where we were astonished to discover our suite occupied by none other than Britt Goldstein, the tiny terror herself, and two gentlemen callers. They were all cosily breakfasting in bed and the gentlemen (who were wearing nothing but gold neck-chains and St. Christopher medals) looked extremely unsavory. They jerked the covers up to their hairy armpits as we entered.

“Hi, Isadora,” said Britt (as nasal as ever). “I hope you don't mind ...” (she glanced at her boon companions, who were shoveling in the crisp bacon as if this were the Last Breakfast) “... but we got in late last night, and I was so excited about this
deal...”
(she glanced from side to side at her buddies) “... that I wanted to tell you
immediately
. When we found out you weren't
here
... well, we thought we'd let ourselves in and
wait ...
and then we got stoned ... and you
know.”
She gave me a sheepish, trying-to-be-endearing look. Her two bodyguards just kept on shoveling.

“This is Sonny Spinoza” (she gestured to the thug on her right) “and Danny Dante” (the thug on her left).

“Hi,” they said in gruff unison.

“And this is Josh Ace,” I said.

Britt looked him over, with naked calculation. The torn shoelaces particularly caught her eye.

“Not bad,” she said to me—as if Josh were chattel. “I see you've done okay for yourself. Do you want some breakfast?”

“Thanks a lot, we've already eaten.”

Josh looked as if he wanted out of there as fast as possible. I'd told him about Britt, but he hadn't really believed me till then.

“Listen, cookie,” said Josh, “why don't I go home and do some work and I'll come get you later, okay?”

“That sounds like a good idea,” said Britt, “I mean, nothing personal, but I wanna talk business.”

“Right,” I said wondering if they were going to put on some clothes before business or not. I wanted to take a shower too but the room was clearly Britt's now, not mine. She paid the piper and therefore called the tune.
Producers-Jesus.
Next time, I'd pay my
own
hotel bill.

“Would you mind steppin' out a minute, honey, while we get some clothes on?” one of the thugs said to me, as deferentially as he could. “You could kiss your boyfriend good-bye.”

“Okay,” I said, flustered. Britt had only been back in my life two minutes and already I felt like a lackey.

In the hall I said good-bye to Josh. “Better come back and rescue me later,” I said. “It looks like one of the outtakes from The Godfather.”

“I'll see you about five, okay sweetie? Just holler if you need help, but they look pretty honorable to me. Sleazy, but honorable. Just remember, you're safer doing business with the Mafia than with any big conglomerate you can name. Anyway, they all use the same lawyers.”

“Oh god,” I said, with mock horror. “It's a sequel:
Candida Meets the Mob.”

“You bet your boobies,” Josh said, kissing me and hotfooting it down the hall. He waved before he turned the corner. “Write if you get work ...” he called out.

“Very funny,” I yelled back.

I knocked at the door of my suite.

“Just a minute, babe,” said one of the thugs.

After about five minutes, the door was opened and Danny Dante stood there in buckskin jeans, bare feet, and bare chest. He was all of five foot two. Just four inches taller than Britt. I was beginning to feel like the jolly blonde giant.

“Hiya,” he said, “welcome to our humble abode.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Coffee was pressed on me by a now caftan-clad Britt, who was out of bed, smoking furiously and pacing as usual. Sonny Spinoza was sitting on the edge of the bed slithering into his snakeskin loafers.

“Here's the deal,” said Britt. “Danny and Sonny have friends —a very influential tax-shelter group—who want to finance
Candida Confesses.
They can get six million for the picture right now. All they ask is that we change the title to
Candida!
and change a couple of minor things—like the heroine should be Italian, not Jewish, but that's still open to negotiation ...” (she winked broadly at me) “... and we should get some major, bankable star in the
lead.
I frankly think—and I've really looked into the situation with the studios—that we'd be crazy not to take it. Up-front money is terrific—
if
we finalize the deal now. Because in exactly seventy-two hours some new tax law—don't ask me what it is—gets passed which really will dry up all these funds. So we have to act
fast
—which is why I brought these guys here so you can see how straight they are. All we really need from you is a signed option on the rights. The terms can be negotiated later. This is just for them so they can show their people they have a real deal and we can get the project off the ground. We'll work out all the lawyer-agent stuff later. Whaddaya think?” Britt blew smoke at me emphatically. “I frankly think we'd be crazy to pass it up.”

I was baffled by the spiel. Six million only reminded me of the number of Jews killed by the Nazis and I didn't really know what a tax-shelter group was. I wanted to sound cagy but knowledgeable. So I said, “Who's the bankable star you have in mind anyway?”

Danny was waiting for that question. He sprang to his feet (which still made him look like he was sitting down).

“Listen, babe,” he said, “I don't wanna drop names or nothin' but for the past coupla years, I've been into arranging scenes for Robyn Barrow. She and I are very good friends—even though, frankly, she digs women—and I can tell you that I can get her to commit to this project for a hundred grand in a brown paper bag, and from there on, it's clear sailing.”
Whatever
I had heard about Robyn Barrow—the Italian nightingale from Flatbush—this description sounded totally off the wall. Scenes? Digging women? The hundred thousand—that was another story. Of course no one likes the tax man. And the richer they are, the more they hate taxes—but why would a classy lady like Barrow be hanging out with a guy like Danny? (Hollywood, after all, is run by a bunch of Jewish and Italian kids from New York who are really far more interested in real estate than kinky sex.)

“Okay,” said Danny, “so maybe she wants the hundred grand in a Swiss bank, not in a brown paper bag. Big diff, you get me? But she's a good kid, sensible—and basically a buddy. Look, I once told her, ‘Robyn, anybody mess wit' you and I break bot' dere legs—and if you don' call me when you're in trouble, den I break bot'
your
legs,' dig?”

I dug. What an interesting theory of life. A hundred thousand in a brown paper bag or a pair of broken legs to take care of all the many vicissitudes destiny has to offer. There had to be a how-to book in this
somewhere.

“Puppy, I
like
you,” Danny said to me. “I like her too” (he nuzzled Britt). “She looks like a poodle—and you look like a cocker spaniel. Listen, I'll break the legs of anyone who messes wit' either of you. When Danny's your friend, puppy, you know the meanin' of the word
friendship
for the first time.”

Danny's buddy Spinoza, a big bouncer of a man at least a foot taller than Danny, nodded his head gravely.

“It's true,” he said. “Danny never lies.”

“So,” said Britt, “whaddaya think?”

“She has to be
Italian?”
I asked, “or was that a joke?”

“Oh, I was
kidding,”
Britt offered. “These guys are very sophisticated. They love jokes like that. And actually, Robyn Barrow is not a bad idea. But nobody's going to make her Italian. You remember what I promised you: complete artistic control.” Sonny and Danny nodded their heads solemnly.

“You're the artist,” Danny said. “You got the talent. We're just promoters. I tell you, if I had your talent, I'd be suspicious too. So take your time. Get to know us. The more you know us and the more you know this crummy goddamn business, the better it is for
us.
This business is filled with sharks—and they ain't in
Jaws,
either. This business eats it.”