Until I Find You (97 page)

“Jack, you are very fortunate that Michele turned you down,” Dr. García said. “What a
wreck
you would have been if she’d said
yes
! If she’d been your date, you would have blown it.”

Jack didn’t think this was fair. He could have had a ball with the media—just telling them that his date for the Academy Awards was his
dermatologist
! But Dr. García was not amused; she considered his faux pas of inviting Michele Maher to the Oscars to be “in the denial category.” Dr. García said that Jack was completely unaware of how far removed he was from the normal world, of normal people and normal relationships.

“But what about
her
?” he cried. (Jack meant Michele Maher.) “What’s she mean that she has a boyfriend,
sort of
? Is that
normal
?”

“You’re not
ready
to make contact with Michele Maher, Jack,” Dr. García said. “You have heaped so many unrealistic expectations upon a relationship that, as I understand it, never developed in the first place—well, I don’t want to hear another word about this
now
! To me, you’re still a four-year-old in the North Sea. Speaking strictly professionally, you’ve not recovered from your sea of girls—and I need to know much more about Emma and your older-woman thing. Keep it
in chronological order.
Is that understood?”

It was. He had a bitch psychiatrist, or so it seemed to Jack, but he had to admit that her therapy had noticeably cut down his tendency to shout and burst into tears—and his inclination to wake up weeping in the middle of the night, which became habitual after he came back from the North Sea the second time. So Jack stuck with her, and the unfinished telling of his life story went on and on. Jack had become what Emma said he could be—a
writer,
albeit one given to melancholic logorrhea. A storyteller, if only out loud. (Jack’s actual writing was limited to those
un
mailed letters to Michele Maher.)

Dr. García was a heavyset but attractive Mexican-American. She appeared to be in her late forties. From the photographs in her office, she either came from a large family or had a large family of her own. Jack didn’t ask her, and—from the photos—he couldn’t tell.

Of the children in the many pictures, he couldn’t recognize Dr. García as a child—so perhaps they were her children. Yet the older-looking man in the photographs seemed more like a father to her than a husband; he was always well dressed, to the point of fastidiousness, and his pencil-thin mustache and perfectly trimmed sideburns suggested a character actor of a bygone era. (A cross between Clifton Webb and Gilbert Roland, Jack thought.)

Dr. García didn’t wear any rings; she wore no jewelry to speak of. Either she was married with more children than Jack could count in her office photos, or she’d come from such an overlarge family that this had persuaded her to never marry and have children of her own.

In a doomed effort to solve this mystery, Jack cleverly said: “Maybe
you
should be my date for the Academy Awards, Dr. García. At a stressful event like that, a psychiatrist would probably come in handier than a dermatologist—don’t you think?”

“You don’t
date
your psychiatrist,” Dr. García said.

“Oh.”

“That’s a word you overuse,” Jack’s psychiatrist said.

The distinguished-looking older man in Dr. García’s family photographs had an air of detachment about him, as if he were withdrawing from a recurrent argument before it started. He seemed far removed from the clamor of the ever-present children in the photos; it was almost as if he couldn’t hear them. Maybe Dr. García had married a
much
older man, or a deaf one. Jack’s psychiatrist was such a strong woman, she was probably contemptuous of the convention of wedding rings.

Richard Gladstein had recommended Dr. García to Jack. “She knows actors,” Richard had told him. “You wouldn’t be her first movie star.”

At the time, this had been a comforting thought. Yet Jack hadn’t seen anyone famous in Dr. García’s waiting room; it made him wonder if she made house calls to the
more
famous movie stars among her patients. But to judge Dr. García by the waiting room outside her office was confusing. There were many young married women, and some of them came with their small children; there were toys and children’s books in a corner of the waiting room, which gave you the disquieting impression that you were seeing a pediatrician. The young married women who showed up with their children always brought friends or nannies with them; these other women looked after the kids when the young mothers went into Dr. García’s office for their therapy sessions.

“Are you here to see the doctor or to watch someone’s kid?” Jack asked one of the young women once; like Dr. García, she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

“Are you trying to pick me up or something?” the young woman said.

Jack almost asked her if
she
would be his date at the Academy Awards, but he stopped himself when he considered what Dr. García might have to say about
that.

“Who
should
I take to the Academy Awards?” he’d asked his psychiatrist.

“Please don’t mistake me for a dating service, Jack.”

Thus Jack was on his own for the Academy Awards. In addition to his two nominations, Lucia Delvecchio had a nomination for Best Actress, Wild Bill Vanvleck had one for Best Director, and Richard Gladstein got a Best Picture nomination, too.

No one thought Lucia had a shot. She was up against some very big guns—Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore and Annette Bening—and besides, it was Hilary Swank’s year. (As an occasional cross-dresser, Jack was a big fan of Hilary in
Boys Don’t Cry.
) And Richard Gladstein knew, going in, that
The Slush-Pile Reader
was a long shot for Best Picture. (It would go to
American Beauty.
)

William Vanvleck was just happy to be there. Not one review of
The Slush-Pile Reader
referred to Wild Bill as The Remake Monster; The Mad Dutchman had become almost acceptable. Not acceptable enough to win Best Director; there were some heavy hitters in the lineup that year. (Sam Mendes would win
—American Beauty
again.)

Nor did Jack realistically have a chance to win Best Supporting Actor—Michael Caine won. (Jack’s role as a nice-guy porn star was sympathetic, but not
that
sympathetic.)

Jack knew long before the night of the awards that the film’s best chance for an Oscar was in the Best Adapted Screenplay category
—Emma’s
screenplay, as he thought of it. How could he
not
look at it as Emma’s Oscar? It was
her
movie!

Yes, Jack had learned a little bit about screenwriting in the course of fine-tuning the script Emma had given him. But as a storyteller, he was learning more from his
therapy
with Dr. García. (Go easy on the foreshadowing; watch the interjections; keep it in chronological order.)

Miramax’s promotion of
The Slush-Pile Reader
was exhausting, and the lion’s share of it had fallen to Jack in February and March of 2000. Wild Bill Vanvleck was back in Amsterdam; his much younger girlfriend was an anchorwoman on Dutch television, and Wild Bill was completely taken with her. Besides, Vanvleck was a disaster at promoting his own picture—in this case. That pornography was such an issue in the United States offended The Mad Dutchman; nobody had a problem with pornography in the Netherlands. “It is only a problem in Puritan America, which is ruled by the Christian Right!” Vanvleck declared. (It was probably wise of Miramax to keep Wild Bill in Amsterdam, except for the film festivals.)

Following her tragic one-night error in Venice, Lucia Delvecchio had shunned Jack. She’d virtually turned her back on the film, too. Jack’s old friend Erica Steinberg was the Miramax publicist. Jack had been on the road with Erica—in print and on television—for
The Slush-Pile Reader
almost nonstop.

It was the night after Jack did
Larry King Live
that he called Leslie Oastler and asked her if she would be his date at the Academy Awards. (
Fuck the blonde,
he thought.)

“I’m flattered you would think of me, Jack,” Mrs. Oastler began. “But how would that make Dolores feel? And I don’t know what I would
wear.
”

“It’s
Emma’s
night, Leslie,” Jack said.

“No, it’s gonna be
your
night, Jack. Emma’s dead. Why don’t you go with Miss Wurtz?” Mrs. Oastler asked him.

“The Wurtz! Are you kidding?”

“An Oscar would be wasted on me, Jack. What would I want with a gold, bald, naked man holding what is
alleged
to be his sword?” Leslie Oastler had always had a particularly pointed way of seeing things.

The next morning Jack called Caroline Wurtz and popped the question. Would she consider coming to Los Angeles to attend the Academy Awards with him?

“I’ve heard so many terrible things about the drive-by shootings,” Miss Wurtz said. “But they don’t shoot people at the Oscars, do they?”

“No,” he told her. “They only wound you internally.”

“Well, I suppose I should go see the movie, shouldn’t I?” Caroline asked. “I’ve heard both wonderful and awful things from people who’ve seen it. As you know, your friend Emma was never one of my favorite writers.”

“I think it’s a pretty good film,” Jack said. There was a lengthy pause, as if Caroline was considering the invitation—or perhaps The Wurtz had forgotten that he’d invited her to anything. Jack was a little miffed that she hadn’t seen
The Slush-Pile Reader.
(The movie had five Oscar nominations! Everyone Jack knew had seen it.)

“Don’t you have anyone else to ask, Jack? I can’t be the best you can do,” Caroline said.

“For a couple of years, I’ve been seeing a psychiatrist,” he admitted to her. “I haven’t been in the best shape.”

“Goodness!” Miss Wurtz cried. “In that case,
of course
I’ll go with you! I’m sure if Mrs. McQuat were alive, she’d want to go with us, too!”

Well,
there
was a concept! At Mrs. McQuat’s urging, Jack had taken Miss Wurtz to that most memorable Toronto film festival—the one he went to with Claudia, when The Wurtz was convinced that the morons protesting the Godard film were outraged by the ritualistic suicide in the Mishima movie. Jack wondered what confusions awaited Miss Wurtz at the Shrine Civic Auditorium on the night of the Academy Awards. Whom might she mistake
Billy Crystal
for?

Jack explained to Caroline that he would arrange her air travel and all the rest of it. That Jack Burns was taking his third-grade teacher to the Oscars was a bonus bit of publicity; nor did it hurt that Emma Oastler had died and put him in charge of bringing her first and best novel to the screen. “The death connection,” Jack had called it; that turned out to be a bonus bit of publicity for
both
Miramax and Jack Burns.

The issue of what Miss Wurtz would wear provided a down-to-earth return to the heart of the matter. Jack told her that Armani was dressing him for the Academy Awards. (They had called; he’d said okay. This was how it usually happened.)

“
Who
is dressing you?” The Wurtz asked.

“Armani—the
designer,
Caroline. Different fashion designers dress the nominees and their guests for the Oscars. If there’s a particular designer you like, I’m sure I could arrange it. Or you could just wear something by Armani, too.”

“I think I’ll dress myself, if it’s all the same to you,” Miss Wurtz replied. “I have some perfectly lovely clothes your father bought for me. Naturally, William will be watching. He’ll be so proud of you! I wouldn’t want William to see me wearing a dress he didn’t choose for me, Jack.”

Well, there was a concept, too—namely, that Jack’s father would be watching. The Wurtz would be dressing for
him
!

“You’ll have to tell me who’s nominated for what,” Caroline was saying. “Then I’ll go see
all
the movies.”

Jack wondered how many Academy voters had the diligence of a third-grade teacher, but—when Jack would finally get to the Oscar-winning part of his life story—Dr. García would call the “diligence” detail an example of his
interjecting
too much.

Jack doubted that every film nominated for an Oscar was still playing in a theater in Toronto; quite possibly, not every film had ever played there. But he knew this wouldn’t deter Miss Wurtz from trying to see them all.

Jack almost called Leslie Oastler to thank her for suggesting The Wurtz as his date for the Academy Awards, but he didn’t want to risk getting Leslie’s blonde on the phone.

“Dolores,” he would be tempted to say to the bitch, “I wanted to alert you to a large package that’s coming your way—more of my clothes. If you or Leslie wouldn’t mind hanging them in my closet as soon as they arrive, I’d appreciate it. I wouldn’t want them to be wrinkled for my next visit.” Or words to that effect; naturally, Jack didn’t make the call. (Had she known, Dr. García would have been proud of him for exercising such restraint.)

The two-bedroom suite at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons, where Miramax put them up for the long Oscar weekend, was larger than Miss Wurtz’s apartment—or so she told Jack. There was even a piano, which Miss Wurtz liked to play in her Four Seasons white terry-cloth bathrobe. She claimed to know only hymns and the St. Hilda’s school songs, but her voice was pretty and she played well.

“Oh, I don’t play well—nothing like your father, who used to tease me,” she said. “William would say, ‘If you want to be even a bit
more
tentative, Caroline, you might try
breathing
on the keys instead of using your fingers.’ He could be funny, your father. I wish you’d tell me more about your
trip,
Jack. Why don’t you begin with Copenhagen? I’ve never been there.”

There were always a lot of parties prior to the Academy Awards. As a nondrinker escorting his third-grade teacher, a woman in her sixties, Jack didn’t think that he and Caroline were in step with the bacchanalian behavior of many of his colleagues in the industry. But they went to those parties where Jack’s absence would have been resented, even if they spent much of the time talking quietly to each other.