Selling Out (28 page)

“Dallas” was all that Perry could say, as if that explained everything.

Perry felt a sudden lust for a double martini, straight up, as dry as the most malevolent Santa Ana wind in history. Luckily, when the waiter came to take their order for drinks, Ravenna shot a glance at Perry's troubled countenance and ordered for both of them.

“Bring us each a Kir Royale,” she said with a sparkling smile and a wink to the waiter, as if they were there to celebrate some amazing stroke of fortune.

It was of course just the right thing—zippier and more festive than a plain glass of wine, and yet keeping Perry to his pledge of staying off the hard stuff. It was made of crème de cassis and that magical potion Perry still associated with the glow of his first happy days out here with Jane, that greatest of all elixirs, champagne.

By the end of the second drink, Perry realized he was crazy to even consider backing out of the condo deal. Ravenna reminded him that if the very worst happened and the show was canceled, he would simply move right onto the big deal for a feature film of his next story, produced by the powerful and popular Vardeman.

Perry's only danger, Ravenna clearly showed him, was in panicking, in imagining any kind of defeat, in even allowing himself to think of a circumstance in which he had to worry about such minor matters as a $3,000-a-month mortgage. Defeat was self-fulfilling; think poor, become poor.

The food was reassuringly rich. After the morels, flown in fresh from France, after the
Volaille à
la Vapeur de Truffles et Puree de Christophines
, after the
Sorbet Maison aux Fruits Exotiques
, Perry felt much more optimistic. When the coffee and brandy arrived, so did an impeccably dressed, slim gentleman named Scotty Shearson, whom Ravenna had invited to stop by and join them for a drink. Scotty had done some acting off and on, but now he had his own business, in the area of personal public relations, which involved getting his clients' names mentioned by the right people, in the right way, in the right places—newspaper columns, for instance, even radio and television shows that dealt with the world of entertainment and its personalities.

A “personality,” Perry gathered, was someone who, with the right professional attention, might become a “celebrity.” He of course admitted to no such self-seeking aspiration for his own sake, but Ravenna pointed out that any public attention that came his way right now could only help the show—just when it needed all the help it could get. Furthermore, Perry was impressed with the positive way in which Shearson viewed what only hours before had seemed the unmitigated disaster of the scheduling of his fragile new program.

“I love it,” said Shearson. “It's the old David-against-Goliath plot—and you know who won!”

As if to help celebrate the upset victory in advance, the restaurant owner himself sent a round of cognacs to their table. Scotty raised his glass in a toast to Jean Paul, evidently a close friend, which explained how Ravenna had been able to secure this choice table at the last moment in such a hot new dining spot. Among Scotty's many services, he aided his clients in securing the right tables at the right places, so they could be viewed by the right people and later be reported in the right columns as having been seen there. As if all this weren't enough, Scotty revealed (
sotto voce
of course) an exclusive bit of info he had heard from sources deep inside the network, so dangerously new that its reverberations had not yet even been reflected in the ratings:

“
‘Dallas' is slipping
.”

Ravenna gave a squeeze to Perry's knee.

“And
you
, darling,” she whispered, “are on the way
up
.”

Perry went home feeling like a million dollars, justifying his addition of a personal public relations counselor to his growing staff with the age-old logic that it takes money to make money. Besides, Shearson's retainer was only a token $250 a week, and it was, anyway, as Ravenna pointed out, tax deductible, which in Perry's thinking had come to seem like the same thing as free.

“Welcome to kamikaze time,” said Ned.

He was holding a beer, trying to seem jaunty. Perry was glad that Ned at the last minute had invited the “First Year” inner sanctum to gather at his home to have dinner and watch the show, as they had done for the pilot, but this of course was quite a different circumstance. Instead of excited anticipation there was simply nervous tension, a sense that if you accidentally bumped into someone you might get a nasty little electric shock. Kim, who looked bleary-eyed and bedraggled in baggy blue jeans and one of Ned's old button-down dress shirts, had not made one of her wonderful curries but ordered out an assortment of deli stuff from Greenblatt's—sandwiches, deviled eggs, chicken wings. Instead of a snappy, red-coated bartender there was simply a variety of bottles arrayed on a card table, but most people seemed to be taking cans of beer from a big cooler on the patio.

The cast of guests was different, too.

The main difference for Perry was that Jane wasn't there. He had waked that morning missing her more than usual, feeling her absence like an ache. He thought how nice it would be to have her comfort, her hand-holding, her support. He had called her, hoping to get some of that on the phone, but he realized at once it was a mistake. She didn't seem to understand the do-or-die nature of the coming evening's crisis. She actually complained that Perry hadn't asked how she was doing herself, how things were going in Vermont. (
Vermont
?)

Oh well. Kenton Spires's wife was missing, too, off on some therapeutic shopping spree in New York. Perry was just as glad. They wouldn't have to put up with her whining over how she missed Bloomies.

Unexpectedly, Kim's buddy Liz Caddigan, the actress, was there, looking crisp and fresh, perhaps because she had nothing to do with “The First Year's the Hardest.” Perry was a bit unnerved to see her, feeling this gathering should have been limited to “the family,” those directly involved with the show, as if tonight's airing were a private and intimate affair. Against “Dallas,” it might in fact be just that.

Watching was pure agony, knowing that at the same time, just a channel away, the flash and flesh of “Dallas” was being offered. “The First Year” seemed now too slow, too gentle, too wispy to survive in this real world. If only they had known, if only they had designed it for sophisticated, late-night viewing! If only the censors hadn't prevented them from at least having that last scene of lovemaking in the kitchen!

At one point they flipped to Dallas during a commercial, only to have their worst fears confirmed by watching the fascinatingly evil, magnetic J.R. in bed with some exotic young beauty, with an ice bucket of champagne at their side!

“Well,” said Ned, “at least he's doing it in the bedroom. At least they didn't let
him
do it on the kitchen floor.”

“Of course not,” said Kenton. “J.R. may be ruthless, but he's not kinky.”

At the end, Perry felt bloated, yet had another beer. Everyone decided it was best to get to bed early. There was nothing much to say.

Perry gave Liz a ride home and she invited him in for coffee

“Do you have any of that brandy left?” he asked.

She smiled.

He settled himself on the couch this time, feeling an anxious, aching mixture of anger, frustration, and lust.

It was the first time he'd been to bed with any other woman since he met Jane more than five years before. He told himself that she was the one, after all, who had left him, had physically left his bed and living quarters and gone back clear across the country by her own choice. He had nothing to feel guilty about, he assured himself.

Still, he was clumsy and inept in bed, and finally, inadequate.

Liz lit a cigarette. She was coolly comforting, in a detached, almost clinical sort of way.

“You have the show on your mind,” she said. “I understand.”

“Hell. I'm sorry.”

“Listen, that's what it's like when you're doing a series.”

He dressed quickly, sheepishly.

“Call me when you're on hiatus,” she said.

“When I'm what?”

“When the show is
on hiatus
. You know. That's the break between production orders.”

“Oh,” he said. “Sure. Thank.”

“Believe me. You'll be relaxed then.”

“You're too soft.”

Archer Mellis stood ramrod straight. His hands were clasped behind him and his feet were planted apart in the military position of at ease, yet his manner was one of full attention. He was wearing one of his khaki shirts with epaulets, and khaki pants tucked into paratrooper boots. He looked as if he might be about to order his men to jump, whether they had any parachutes or not.

Perry glanced over at Ned, wondering if he, too, was feeling lonely.

“Shouldn't Kenton be here?” Perry blurted out.

“Kenton's out,” snapped Archer.

“I know he's out shooting,” Perry said, “but they're just over at stage three, it's only a few minutes to—”

“He's out of the show,” Archer said firmly.

Ned jumped up.

“Surely,” he said with disbelief, “you're not going to yank him in the middle of—”

“He can finish this episode,” Archer said.

Ned winced, and sat down.

“My God,” he said, “were the ratings
that
bad?”

They had decided not to check the overnights on the weekend, figuring Monday morning would be plenty soon enough. Before anything else, they had been summoned to this meeting in Archer's office.

“You got a ten,” Archer said.

Ned grabbed his head.

“A
ten
,” he said. Then he burst out laughing. “It's too bad a ten doesn't mean what it meant for Bo Derek.”

Perry, catching Ned's hysteria, said, “Does that mean there were only ten people watching? You know, I kind of had that feeling—that only about ten people in the whole country were watching our show.”

“I'm glad you gentlemen are amused,” Archer said.

Ned sat back down and Perry bit his lip again. He felt lightheaded.

“All right, in all seriousness,” Ned said, “it's not fair to make Kenton the fall guy. We're all just as responsible. Why pick on Kenton?”

“Max thinks Kenton's direction is too pastoral,” Archer said.

Perry remembered that was the very word that Archer had originally used in praise of Kenton's direction—its “pastoral” quality, which he said was so classy, so class-
ic
, so superior to the jangled junk of network television, a distinguished “style” that would put a distinguished stamp on “The First Year's the Hardest,” set it apart from the run-of-the-mill stuff.

By now, however, Perry had his mouth under control. He bit his lip and did not mention any of the above.

“Pastoral,” was all Ned Gurney said, rolling the word around with a kind of nostalgia.

“And I happen to think Max is right,” Archer said.

“Do you think he was right to throw us on at nine Friday night against ‘Dallas'?” Ned asked.

“Listen, Ned, this is not Broadway, this is network television. We have to be ready for everything. Max explained to me certain factors that overrode earlier considerations.”

“You had a long talk in New York with Max himself?” Ned asked.

“I spent a great deal of time with him,” Archer said. His chin jutted slightly forward, with pride. “Max and I watched the show together Friday night.”

Awesome, as the kids would say. It was sort of like a bishop coming back from Rome and telling the priests he had spent an evening in prayer with the pope. Max of course wasn't the head man of the network, but he was the highest one that mortals could commune with; the head man was unseen except by divine visitation, like God.

Archer, perhaps feeling more relaxed and comfortable merely by the recollection of his private audience with the powerful man, leaned back against his desk, folding his arms across his chest.

“The important thing is,” he went on, “Max believes in your show. He wants to hang in there with you.”

“If Max is so committed to us,” Ned asked, “is he going to take us out of the most suicidal time slot a new show could have?”

“He's going to personally keep an eye on your show, decide what's the best way to go with it.”

“I might suggest, as executive producer, that I think the best way to go might be to the eight o'clock time slot we were promised in the first place, and that we designed the show to fit.”

“There's no use going backwards,” Archer said.

“It's not a matter of ‘back,' for God's sake,” Ned said. “If he keeps us on Friday at nine it's a matter of
down
.”

“Not if you get stronger,” Archer said.

“How? What are you talking about?”

“Max thinks your future lies in becoming harder.”

Perry could feel his ears getting hot and his heart beginning to pound.

“In all due respect,” he said, “we've finished shooting three shows, all approved by the network, on the following stories: Jack takes cooking lessons, Laurie takes karate lessons, and the two of them buy a home computer. Those subjects were conceived and designed for an eight o'clock family-viewing hour, which is soft, as I understand it.”

“Correct,” said Archer.

“Now,” Perry continued, “we have developed outlines for three new shows that have just been approved by the network as well. These scripts involve Jack and Laurie joining the town bowling league, Laurie getting angry at Jack when he takes
her
side in a fight she's having with her father, and Jack's old friend who was a football hero coming for a visit to try to borrow money. None of these, either, can by any stretch of the imagination be thought of as hard shows, and our writers are already at work on them.”