Selling Out (14 page)

He liked being recognized and appreciated, not only as a literary talent but now, for the first time in his life, the creator not only of stories but of jobs for all the people whose work it was to bring his fiction to life on film—the prop men like Tom and Larry, the set designer who built the living room he stood in, the set decorator who selected the furnishings, the location man who scouted places for exterior shooting, the camera crew that would soon begin shooting the two-hour script, the makeup people and hairdressers, the gofers and drivers, the whole array of men and women and their spouses and children who were now being supported, provided with food and clothing and medical benefits, all by the mere exercise of Perry's talent.

This was a far cry, a whole different order of experience and responsibility, from publishing a short story in the
Hudson Review
.

The heady feeling of power and command increased when he and Ned stopped in Kenton's office and saw the young director poring over the storyboard. The storyboard was like the master plan of any production, a long, graphlike chart showing each day of the shooting schedule, color-coded according to scenes, locations, and cast members. It was intricate and awesome, like some elaborate plan for the invasion of an enemy country, with troops and equipment amassed for carefully coordinated split-second action, yet all the more inspiring because this was not a campaign of destruction, but of creation.

“After all, you're the creator.”

Larry's awed reminder rang in Perry's ears as he drove home from the studio that evening. Shooting was to start in two days. He had done it. He felt like celebrating.

After all, even creators took breaks. Perry had rarely even rested on the seventh day, and he'd now been out here working steadily, with concentration, for more than two months. In his focus on the all-consuming project he had paid little attention to Jane, and he felt now it was time for the creator's wife, too, to get a break.

Jane was at the table going over some contact prints with her magnifying glass.

The ungracious thought came to the creator that she didn't look much like a creator's wife.

He wasn't sure what such a glorified creature should look like, but he thought something rather on the elegant side would seem appropriate. At least around cocktail time.

Jane was wrapped in the fuzzy old bathrobe she wore around the house in winter, along with the matching pink bunny slippers. Perry hadn't seen this outfit since Vermont, where it seemed warm and cuddly. Now, here in Southern California, it simply looked sad.

The creator sat down with a sigh.

“Lovey,” he said, “I thought you were only bringing back our
summer
clothes.”

Jane looked up at him, then down at the tattered robe, automatically drawing it closer around herself, as if for protection.

“This is comfy,” she said.

“Mmmm.”

He paused a moment, held back his comment and asked, “Like a drink?”

“Thanks.”

Perry made them both vodka and tonics, and sat down at the table with her. She was bent over the contacts again. Perry stoked up his pipe, trying to invoke in himself a reflective mood, a philosophic attitude.

“I was thinking,” he said.

“Uh-huh?”

“Maybe we should buy some summer clothes.”

“I
brought
our summer clothes out. We
have
everything.”

“I meant new ones. You know. ‘California' clothes.”

Jane put down her magnifying glass, took a sip of her drink, and looked suspiciously at Perry.

“What do you mean, ‘California' clothes?”

Perry shrugged, taking a sip of his own drink and trying to sound completely casual.

“The kind they wear out here. More casual.”

“Why?”

“Why not? We're in California, aren't we? Shouldn't we dress as the Romans dress?”

“What's wrong with the way we always dressed?”

“Nothing! I like the way I've always dressed. Obviously. Or I wouldn't have dressed that way all my life. But I never lived in California before.”

“We're only going to be here a few more months. Till the end of May. Aren't we? Is that still the plan?”

“Of course it's the plan! You think I'd change any plans without telling you?”

“Just checking.”

“We start shooting next week. Then we go on location. I'd like to have some things to wear—you know, just some appropriate, casual stuff. Something besides my old sport jackets. They're too damn formal for this kind of thing.”

Jane took a slug of her drink.

“You know what Thoreau said?”

“What has Thoreau got to do with this?”

“He said, ‘Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.'”

Perry took a long, cool pull of his vodka and tonic.

“Thoreau never lived in Los Angeles,” he said.

They went in to Beverly Hills and had lunch the next day, both to celebrate the fact that shooting began the following morning, and to have the little shopping spree Perry was so intent upon. He really wanted to enjoy his role in the production and felt he had to look the part, just as his colleagues did. He wasn't out to top the flamboyant Archer Mellis with any orange silk jumpsuits, but at least he wanted to seem in the sartorial spirit of the others.

Once Ned assumed the mantle of executive producer, he switched from his Ivy League garb to the more casual, semi-military look of the working West Coast show business mogul, and even Kenton had a well-stocked wardrobe of the right stuff, clothing-wise.

Perry bought himself a fatigue jacket at a fashionable men's store on Rodeo Drive that except for its silk lining and London label might have been purchased at any Army Navy store for around thirty bucks, but seemed a wise investment at $465. He also got three pairs of pants with a mind-boggling array of pockets and flaps and brass buttons, and a half dozen sport shirts with epaulets on the shoulders. He felt himself to be now one of the many important officers in the Army of Entertainment, a veritable George S. Patton of show business, and it was only appropriate that he look the part.

Jane could tell he was pleased, like a kid with a new baseball outfit, and she relaxed and seemed genuinely happy for him.

“They'll never be able to tell you apart from Steven Spielberg,” she said when they went to the dark, cool bar of the Beverly Wilshire for a glass of chilled Chablis.

“Well, now what about you?” he asked.

“I'm not part of the team,” she said. “I don't need a uniform.”

“It's not fair for me to be the only one in the family with new clothes.”

“I don't need anything.”

“Aw, c'mon. It's for fun. Get into the spirit of it, huh? For me?”

She agreed to go look for something just to please him, but not on Rodeo Drive, where the prices were so outlandish. He took her to one of the nice department stores in Century City. She put on a couple of the dresses he liked that were as tight as the skirts Amanda LeMay wore, but she pulled and tugged at them uncomfortably as she looked at herself in the mirror, grimacing and frowning. She wouldn't even try on any dress that was clingier than a sack, and absolutely refused to consider slipping into a pair of high heels. She said all this stuff made her feel like a hooker.

“This is what the top women executives wear out here!” Perry argued.

“Then thank God I'm not a top woman executive out here!”

Just to please him and be a sport, she bought a new slinky silk dress. It wasn't really slinky by Southern California standards, but she acted like it was something wild.

They ordered ribs and cole slaw from Greenblatt's Delicatessen that night. The idea was to eat in and get up early so Perry would be fresh for the first day of shooting. He wanted to be on the set before seven, along with the cast and crew. He didn't mean to drink much, but found that both he and Jane seemed to be constantly refilling their wineglasses instead of talking. He was disappointed with her obstinate refusal to get in the spirit of the shopping spree, but knew the subject was best left alone.

“You always used to like what I wore,” she said suddenly.

Perry took a gulp of his wine.

“I do like it. I just don't see why you can't wear something different in a different place.”

“I'm not a different person.”

“Are you trying to say that I am?”

“Well, are you?”

“For God sake, are you accusing me of going Hollywood?”

“I didn't accuse you of anything.”

“It sure sounds like it.”

“Well, I don't like you accusing me of being a prude, either.”

“I never said any such thing!”

“You acted like it. Just because I don't want to buy all my clothes now at Frederick's of Hollywood.”

“That's a lie! You've distorted this whole thing!”

He jumped up and went to the kitchen to pour himself a brandy.

Then they really went at each other.

The tension the next morning was so great it seemed tangible. It was obvious that neither of them had slept well the night before. He was still in the shorts he wore to bed, while she was wrapped in her old ratty bathrobe.

“Coffee?” she asked.

“Thanks,” he said.

She started to pour from the electric pot, but her hands were shaking so badly she couldn't hold the cup steady. She put it down and turned away from him. Instinctively, he started to reach for her, then drew back, and poured himself the coffee. He took a sip and winced. It was bitter and hot. He put the cup back down on the table.

Then everything went black.

Perry could feel his heart pounding. There were tears welling up in his eyes. He was all at once extremely sad and happy. The situation was so poignant, the pain of both husband and wife so real that the viewer had to feel sad, yet there was something deeply human, universal, about it that was oddly uplifting, even ennobling. In the silence and darkness that followed, Perry felt a sense of awe.

“Scene twenty-three, take two!”

The crisp voice jerked him from reverie as the screen flashed to life again, showing the torso of a man with head and feet cut off by the camera, holding the traditional black-and-white slate-board of film production. The hinged upper arm with diagonal stripes was held aloft and then smartly clapped down to signal the new take of the scene.

Perry felt a sudden déjà vu, and he realized he was living now an experience he had fantasized way back in his other life, while he was waiting for the call from Hollywood and watching “Entertainment Tonight.” They had showed some film in production on location, with a close-up of the slateboard announcing the new take of a scene, and Perry had been electrified with the thought, like a precursor of the act, that he would someday himself be involved in such a ritual with his own work. And here he was, not just fantasizing his dreams of glory on a cow path in Vermont, but sitting in a darkened studio on a movie lot in Los Angeles. The slateboard bore in chalk the name of his own show, his own creation.

And now it came to life.

Perry's story. His characters.

They moved. They walked. They talked.

“Coffee?” she asked.

“Thanks,” he said.

Perry was entranced, captivated. He was amazed at how much more wonderful the words sounded when spoken by the actors, instead of when only read on a page. The only dialogue in this scene were the two words, one word apiece, per actor, the most commonplace words in the most commonplace setting and situation, words that not only were uninspired but almost obligatory under the circumstances.

“Coffee?”

“Thanks.”

But oh, when you heard human beings say them, when you saw their faces, their expressions, those simple words took on another life, new dimensions. Watching and hearing the words being spoken, they seemed now to Perry as profound as
Hamlet
.

Coffee
.

Thanks
.

“I can't explain it,” he told Jane later.

“You just did, love,” she said. “It was eloquent.”

She touched him tenderly.

“No. I said the words, I told you what I felt like, but I know I didn't convey the actual experience, the amazing feeling of seeing those actors on the screen, bigger than life, saying my lines.”

“I can't wait to see it myself.”

“I'm afraid you'll have to wait. We just started shooting.”

“Can't I see what you're seeing? The little bits and pieces? What do you call them officially—the ‘rushes'?”

“The ‘dailies.' But lovey, only the staff gets to see the dailies.”

“My God, do you have to have a national security clearance? It sounds like you're watching nuclear strategy secrets.”

“I'll ask Red Simmons if he minds your coming.”

“Who the hell is Red Simmons? Did I miss him in
People
magazine this month?”

“He's the director of photography. The head cameraman.”

“Pardon my abysmal ignorance, but how was poor little me supposed to know?”

“Because I've told you about six million times, that's how!”

“You've also told me about six million names of other people I've never met, along with all the wonderful things they do, complete with your new terrific show biz terminology, and I can't even come and look at the pictures—or whatever you show biz insiders call them.”

Perry started for the brandy, then stopped.

He went to the couch and sat down next to Jane, taking her hand.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “All this is new to me, and I'm nervous as hell about it.”

“I know. I didn't mean to jump down your throat.”

“I was just about to get a brandy, and then we'd both be starting in again like we did last night. We can't fall into that. I have to have my mind clear in the morning. All day.”