Star Time (57 page)

For the first few seconds, Marian heard nothing Derek said. Then, gradually, the pounding in her ears diminished, and she could observe his performance. And it was all she had hoped for when she had insisted the part be recast. Derek was comically sly and seductive and charming. His extraordinary beauty fit the role precisely.

"You can't believe how lucky we were to find him," Gus gushed. "Your casting woman told us to look at the guy, but he stumbled all over the reading. The worst cold reader I ever saw—he must be dyslexic or something. I'm surprised he ever got a part in anything. But we were testing everyone on camera, so we had him memorize a short scene and do it on camera. He knocked us for a loop. This guy just comes alive in front of a camera."

"And when he doesn't have to read," one of the young men with Gus added.

"He is just so gorgeous," the other contributed, "that it's tough to believe there's all that talent inside."

Gus turned to Marian. "It's up to you, though."

Marian was frightened. Not for being criticized for hiring her lover

he was too good for that

but because he could become a star.

She stood up. "Leave the disk with me. I want to think about it some more. Call me in the morning."

Gus and the others began to file out. "Remember, though," he stopped to remind her, "
we've
got to have an answer."

Marian nodded. As soon as they were gone, she watched Derek's performance again. And then several
times
more. She watched it until tears were running down her face.

Derek had not told Marian about the impromptu screen test for Gus Krieger's
company,
certain he would be disappointed once more. He thought he must sound like a broken record of failure. He had decided that only if he won the part would he divulge the good news.

That night neither raised the matter. They hardly spoke. Derek could not sit still. He looked at a magazine for a minute or two, turned on the TV, then turned it off and went out to the driveway to wash the cars. Marian watched him and brooded.

When they were in bed, she drew him to her breast. He kissed her nipple, sending the familiar thrill throughout her body.

"Do you love me?" she asked as she had a dozen times before.

"So much," he said softly, glancing up into her eyes. "I can't believe how happy I've been with you."

"And if you were a star?"

He laughed happily, thinking of the part his agent said he had a real shot at getting. "I would love you more. I wouldn't be ashamed to love you."

Marian kissed him and held him against her and thought about what he had said and how much she loved him and how empty her life would be without him.

Greg was already inside the little mews apartment when Chris arrived. He had just
laid
out on the small dining room table the sushi dinner he had bought them. The television set was on in the bedroom.

"What did you think of the broadcast?" she asked him.

"Fine.
No complaints."

"Enough foreplay for me."

She flew into his arms and began kissing his ear.

Later, they ate dinner seated on the carpet, aware that sexual hunger would blossom again as soon as the last piece of
uni
or yellowtail disappeared. Her feet were up, resting companionably on his lap.

"Anything new on that rocket base?"
Greg inquired.

"The older brother called me from Washington. The younger one who's at the base tells him there's been a lot of commotion lately. Someone found out a TV crew was nosing around. Everybody's being questioned. He's worried we won't keep his identity concealed. I told him he can assure his brother there's no way he could be recognized."

"Maybe you'd better go with it tomorrow night."

Chris pondered for a moment. "I'd still like to hold off just a little longer
to see
if we can come up with that memo. A Pentagon contact swears it exists. Once we break the story, it will be buried deeper than those silos."

"But no later than the end of the week.
It sounds like we can't risk delaying over the weekend."

"Hugo feels the same way."

"Friday night then, at the latest."

She smiled. "Truth now, Greg. All the important things you do as CEO, all the big decisions, isn't news still the most fun you have?"

He bent down and kissed her ankle.

"It doesn't even come close."

Freeway traffic was brutal, and although she was late for an appointment, Marian went first to the office of the young woman in charge of comedy development, where she played the audition disk. Taking no chances, Marian declared that she thought Derek Peters much the better of the two actors. Her subordinate instantly agreed. Marian ordered her to phone Gus Krieger with FBS's approval and then send her a memo documenting her choice.

Mickey Blinder, Sally Foster, and Johnny
Mannetti
were waiting in Marian's office when she arrived. They wore grave expressions, Mickey's almost desperate.

Johnny declared that first and foremost, he had come there because of his duty to FBS as the new executive producer of
Loving
Luba
.
Mickey Blinder was quick to claim a similar commitment to duty. Marian's impression was that they had come as intermediaries to settle the issues Annette Valletta contended were preventing her from commencing production.

"Annette's sick," Mickey blurted out. "It turns out that was her real problem all along. The chances are good she can't do
Luba
."

Marian felt suddenly dizzy and nauseated, as if her chair had plummeted straight through the floor.
Luba
was the network's only hit show, the linchpin on which an entire night's scheduling strategy had been based.

"What's wrong with her?" Marian asked.

Mickey deferred to Johnny, who explained the medical problems as far as they were known. "You've got to understand," he concluded, "Annette doesn't know we're here. She'd go crazy if she knew."

Sally finally spoke up, conveying a command that indicated she was providing the group's leadership. "Annette won't accept the fact that she's desperately ill. She keeps hoping the doctors will find a magic pill to cure her. They don't even know what she's got. We were worried that if we waited any longer to come here, FBS might lose her show. We didn't think that was fair to all the people who work on it

or to you."

Marian was somewhat confused. "But Annette, you say, can't do the show."

"Someday she might," Johnny interjected loyally, "but for now, no."

"Annette's absence doesn't have to mean the end of the show." Sally winked at Marian and smiled. "You see,
dollink
,
ve
hev
a
plen
. Meet Natasha. I
em
Luba's
old
friend,
just arrived from Moscow. I
em
vat you
Yenkees
call a
bumshell
. And I
hev
come to dis country to
expluhd
."

The three visitors watched Marian's face as she digested the idea and assessed its viability.

"Tell me how you see the character playing," she asked.

Sally sketched the revamped concept for the show and the initial episode. Natasha would arrive unannounced in the U.S. just after
Luba
has left to visit her folks back in Moscow.
Luba's
bandleader husband is frantically trying to find a live-in housekeeper to take care of their kids while he is at work.
Natasha volunteers, falsely claiming expertise with children.
Comedy would arise out of her unfamiliarity with American ways and her decidedly
undomestic
nature in a household inhabited by
Luba's
very American husband and kids. Another comedy source would be her attraction to the husband, whom she is forever trying to seduce.

Marian turned to Johnny. "Could you still meet the schedule?"

"We have two writing teams and two other writers. One team has already given me an outline I like. They can deliver a script by Monday. The others will start working on the scripts that follow."

Necessity and the shortness of time offered Marian little choice. "All right, I buy the idea. We'll finance thirteen scripts and commit to your shooting the first six episodes. We'll want to be on top of everything you do. If ratings hold up, we'll order the rest of the season." Marian focused on Sally. "I'll have Business Affairs contact your agent as soon as our meeting's over."

"I assume there won't be any problem letting me out of my commitment for
Adam and Eve?"
Sally wanted to confirm.

"The truth is it never quite came together." Marian had a more pressing concern. "Who's going to tell Annette? Ten minutes after we make a deal, she's going to read about it in the trades."

No one seemed willing to risk her ire.

"She's your wife, Johnny," Sally pointed out.

"She's your best friend," he replied.

"It's your show," Sally stated to Mickey with the force of an accusation. He could not think of a reply.

"That gets everyone off the hook," Sally insisted. "We could say you and Monumental forced Johnny to produce the show under your contract with him. And that FBS forced me under my contract for
Adam and Eve
to go into
Luba
. I finally agreed to do it rather than let some actress come in who would fight to keep the part if Annette got better."

"If she gets better," Marian warned, "she's in and you're out. The name of this show is not
Loving Natasha
. "

Sally nodded. The important thing was that she was back on top again, a TV star once more, in a series that could now happily run for years. Look how Aston Kutcher saved
Two and a Half Men.
At midseason she could always raise again the question of that bothersome title.

Half an hour later, when the meeting ended and the visitors stood to leave, Sally raised a hand to halt them. "I think it would be appropriate if we all said a little prayer for Annette."

Each head piously bent forward. The phone rang. Marian rushed for it. Enough sanctimony had been shoveled at her this morning to last a lifetime. She waited until the others filed out to take the call.

"Mr. Peters is on the phone," her assistant announced. "He says he has to talk to you right away. He sounds very excited."

Marian took Derek's call and listened with deep ambivalence to the happiness spilling excitedly out of him. The days were numbered until Derek—famous, wealthy, and achingly beautiful—left her for another woman.

When he became CEO, Greg took on jobs customarily held by several people. Now he had withdrawn, for the most part, from supervising the nightly news, but he was still putting in twelve-hour and longer days directly running the Entertainment Division and the network. Next year he might feel confident enough to move someone up to ease his load, but right now he had to be in direct contact with everyone whose work could affect FBS's profitability in the coming year.

As time had grown shorter until the new fall season premiered and he became more comfortable wielding power, he had grown increasingly short-tempered, even overbearing. What he said that morning to Ted Woodruff, the head of the Sales Department, flew around the company at Mach 5 speed.

They were in a conference room with several other key people linked by a television hookup to Marian and others on the Coast. Greg began by summarizing what most of them already knew. To get a jump on the other networks, FBS's fall lineup would premiere in very early September, a few weeks from now.

"We're taking two weeks to roll the shows out right, with enough promotion and advertising and the best exposure. Some we may show twice over a couple of days, like we hear NBC is planning to do. Some we'll premiere in showcase slots and then move to different permanent time slots after the public has had a taste of them. We think this is going to be a great season for FBS."

Despite the confidence Greg invariably displayed to instill it in those around him, he felt under siege. Everything in his life was riding on how the audience would respond to the new shows. He also carried on his shoulders, he knew, the hopes of so many others at FBS, from those he had elevated, such as Marian and Hugo, down to mail-room clerks who might be laid off if FBS was forced to cut back again. The ripples of success or failure would spread far beyond employees. They would wash over actors, producers, directors, writers, camera operators, set decorators, hairdressers, and so many others in production and at the affiliates. They would also extend to the finances of thousands of stockholders who owned shares in the company. The price of the stock, a particularly sensitive meter of the company's success, was never far from his thoughts. His bankers had told him the company was a prime candidate for a takeover if the stock dipped much further.