What Movies Made Me Do (8 page)

He looked disappointed, and I knew why. He liked his subordinates fighting. It gave him more control.

He slipped a thin black sport watch over his tan wrist. Then he faced me. I felt suddenly as if a siren had gone off. My neck muscles knotted. His face flushed as he thundered, “I’m flying to Israel tomorrow night to fire that girlfriend of yours, and then I just may come back and fire you.”

My stomach contracted and rose up into my chest. “That would be incredibly self-destructive. There’s interest in the movie for Cannes and we’re twenty days away from a wrap.”

“Don’t lie to me.” His lips moved over clenched teeth.

“No, never—”

“I got a call from somebody very important on location.” His small dark eyes bore into mine.

My heart sank. Of course, Jack Hanscomb woke him up too.

Michael pulled the watch off. “Your director disappears and you don’t report it to me?”

“She didn’t disappear, I know exactly where she is.” I lied.

He shoved the watch across the counter to the startled salesman. “Jack had me on the phone for hours,” he said proudly. “Jack has had it with her. And what Jack wants, Jack gets.”

He spotted a bigger black watch in the case. “That’s it,” he said. My mind whirled. If he flew to Israel, he’d miss his fancy black-tie five-hundred-dollars-a-plate dinner where they were honoring him in two days as humanitarian of the year.

“What’s Jack’s problem?” I asked crisply.

“She’s toying with him, making him stand by while she shoots the baby getting circumcised.” He slapped his American Express card on the counter. I bet he’d return this watch. He had two just like it.

“Then Jack confronts her and she walks off to sulk. She’s throwing sixty thousand dollars of my money down the toilet every day.”

“Michael, he’s fine, I spoke to him, it’s under control.”

He cracked the knuckles of both hands. “You are in defiance of your studio. You have lost touch with your picture.”

“She’ll be back,” I said. “I know her as well as I know myself.”

“She is back.” He clenched his teeth. He smoothed his flattened hair; not a strand moved. “You don’t know what the hell is going on. Jack called me an hour ago. He told me she limped back into camp with a very sore hip.”

He had me there.

He extended his wrist, admiring the new black watch. Then he counted my offenses on his fingers. “She ran away, you failed to report it, she’s back and you don’t know it. Not much of a supervising executive.”

I tried to look smug while I lied. “Oh, don’t be silly, I knew exactly where she was. Nobody disappeared. There was nothing to tell you. She went to an artists’ retreat near the King David Hotel to write a few more women into the script.”

I put on my sunglasses to hide the fright in my eyes.

“Don’t cry.” He shook his head. “This is why I don’t work with women.”

I whipped off the sunglasses. “I have nothing to cry about.”

He slipped his American Express card into his lizard wallet. “I’m flying over to fire her. She’s a million over budget, she’s shot two hundred thousand feet, and she’s got only half the film in the can.” He was spitting his
t
’s like little threats. “She keeps a fucking superstar waiting for weeks and refuses to shoot his face.”

“Michael, I see dailies, they’re great. Jack’s just frightened because he’s stretching as an artist.”

“You forced this project on me,” he said, putting a full second of time between each word. “You got the idea, you pushed your pal Anita into it, you never thought about it from the studio’s position. You got too much ego in it. Anita never directed a big star before—and I warned you, I never wanted to make this film.”

“You never want to make any film,” I snapped.

“You’re out of line,” he said coolly. “I’d make
The Exorcist
tomorrow.”

“They already made it, and they made the money too.”

He marched for the door, a little shopping bag over one wrist. “I’m closing her down,” he told me over his shoulder. “Jack won’t work with her, he’s the money. I’m not subsidizing
the Sistine Chapel. All I want is a commercial movie, and she’s gone nuts.”

I caught up with him at the revolving door. “Who’s slated to take over?”

“Sam Falco.”

I couldn’t believe it. “He’s all wrong!” I cried. “He’ll make it a horror film with everybody good or evil. He has a fundamentalist view of the Bible. It’ll cost a fortune, he’ll reshoot everything bloody, and he’s even anti-Semitic.”

“We shook hands on it,” Michael said.

“Is he signed?” I gulped.

“Yeah.”

But I saw the nervous dance of his pupils. He was lying. He couldn’t move that fast. My mind jumped ahead. Without Anita nobody needed me. Michael would fire me to prove to his boss he’d eliminated the source of his problems. He’d also be showing Jack Hanscomb things were going his way. The movie would never be made the way I dreamed. Sam is a genius but he throws blood all over his lens. He’s a serious Catholic and he always hated my idea of Jesus as the sensitive Jewish radical.

Out on the cold street he waved to his limousine to follow us and pushed past tourists carrying shopping bags and gaping at Tiffany’s stone façade. I said calmly, “What a shame.”

Michael checked out a man’s Italian kidskin briefcase. He intoned, “I’m sorry you’re a weak administrator. Now I got to save the day, and get that picture finished on schedule.”

I waited until his head swiveled back from the briefcase. “Yeah, well, I’m sorry you’re going to miss that fancy dinner at the Waldorf. Who’s going to pick up your humanitarian-of-the-year award?” I tried to sound mournful.

I stopped in the middle of a crowd waiting patiently for the red light on Fifth Avenue. Michael turned, his eyes flashing
at me. When the light changed, the crowd surged forward, but Michael waited, fingering the knot of his navy-blue silk tie. I shivered and tried to look nonchalant. He had been bragging for months about the award dinner. I had heard him say “five hundred dollars a plate” about eighty times.

We crossed Fifth Avenue shoulder to shoulder, each of us silently building bombs. Michael stopped to watch three giggling fashion models with short pageboys, long fur coats, and huge slim portfolios under their arms. At Bergdorf’s I cleared my throat. “I’d volunteer to deliver the bad news, but—”

“But what?”

“I’m pretty shook up,” I said tremulously.

He was chewing the inside of his cheek. “It’s your job,” he snapped. “Clean up the mess you made.”

I felt an explosion in my brain. I wanted to jump up and click my heels. “Oh, God, no,” I said. I dabbed at my dry eyes under my sunglasses.

“It’s your duty,” he said, slowing down to look inside Bergdorf’s. He squared his shoulders. Michael was exactly my height. He looked depressed. “You tricked Jack into the package, you went out on a limb, now you take a plane and prepare her so I can fire her, I don’t need her hysteria.”

I had a flash of pure joy. I would go to Israel, ignore his orders, and make Anita behave. “I’ll dictate a couple things to tell her.” His voice was high-pitched. “She destroyed the morale on the set. I hear she was screwing Jack.”

“She’s a professional.” My whole face twitched. I had trouble maintaining my composure just thinking about the two of them together.

“Professionals fuck,” said Michael.

“Not on company time,” I said, watching him step into the middle of the busy street, raising his arm to flag his car in a Hitler-like salute.

Twenty minutes later Michael Finley rushed for the bathroom
while I sat on my coat and sipped warm club soda from a room-service cart in his living room at the Carlyle. An overeager decorator had color-coordinated all the moldings around the windows to match the black-and-beige Coromandel screen that stretched behind the black couch.

“Call down to room service for three cold glasses and a bottle of Moët,” Michael yelled out from the john. That meant a big meeting.

I pressed the phone buttons, my mind counting the hours before I had to jump on a plane. My favorite old loose dungarees needed washing, but I’d wear them anyway. They’re my travel uniform. I’d take my own pillow, a trick I got from reading Margaret Mead’s memoir.

The door chimes rang and Michael Finley rushed out to answer, drying his face on a white towel. I heard the door unbolting. “Howyadoin’, Sammy?”

Sam. I felt something melting between my heart and my stomach. Then Sam Falco stood poised in a huge down coat at the entrance to the living room. I had a flood of feelings. It was great to see his shining blond beard, the huge smile glowing over his face as he unbuttoned his big coat.

“How’s it going?” He covered the living room in several huge strides and enveloped me in a big hug.

I smelled soap in his beard. A minute later he sat next to me on the couch balancing a coffee cup and saucer. He was a manic and gleeful movie genius, and he reminded me of a huge yellow bear who’d tamed himself down for rare human interaction. We almost murdered each other during the time we lived together. He was the only man I’d lived with since my ex-husband.

“Nice sweater,” I said.

He tugged at the front of his argyle sweater. He was growing too much girth. “Went home last week,” he said without looking at me. He was Italian, from South Philly.

“Fun?”

“Nope.”

Former lovers are a surprise bonus in life. I patted his wrist. I was remembering the secret pact we’d made that we’d be sitting on rocking chairs on a porch together in our old age.

Michael Finley sat down on the arm of the sofa near Sam. He slapped Sam on the back. “When you leaving, boy?” he shouted boisterously.

“I’m not signed, so don’t call me boy,” Sam muttered, stirring the coffee with his finger.

Michael bent over, forcing laughter. Sam hated authority figures. He’d once choked another head of production who parked in his space in the Burbank lot.

“It’s just a formality.” Michael stopped his fake laugh.

“More coffee,” Sam muttered.

“Allow me.” Michael rushed toward the kitchen and disappeared. I calculated I had two minutes.

“How can you talk to that asshole?” Sam wrapped one arm around my neck.

“Judas.” I pulled away.

“What?”

My throat closed with self-pity. “You negotiated with Michael behind my back.”

“Oh, God.” He scratched his beard with both hands and sucked in his lips nervously.

“You’ll never film Jesus as a radical.”

“We’re all in the business.” His eyes raked my face. “Anyway, don’t be such a tight-ass intellectual, Carol. I think it’s really an opera of human sacrifice.”

I had sixty seconds left.

“If Anita goes, I lose my job,” I said carefully.

“God, I never thought of that.” He looked away.

I almost believed him. “I guess Anita won’t like sharing directing credit.”

“Huh?” He jumped up.

“The Guild will rule, but she’s completed most of the principal photography.”

“I’ll slit her throat.” He glared at me.

Michael approached him with two sugar packets and a fresh cup of coffee.

“I don’t share credit,” Sam told him in a menacing voice. He flapped sugar into his cup, then laughed apologetically.

“Let’s call the Guild.” Michael dived at the telephone.

Sam stood over him. “You didn’t check it out?”

Michael looked at him and hung up the phone. “Sure, sure,” he lied, “but the only thing is, the secretary’s in Palermo and he’s unreachable.”

Sam sat again, shifting his weight until the couch rocked. “I’m unreachable until I hear from the Guild.”

“I want you in Israel next week.” Michael looked ready to kill.

“Two weeks at the earliest.” Sam faked a yawn.

I know when to say nothing. But I was elated. I had bought myself two weeks to make things go my way.

“Just don’t make it bloody,” I teased Sam.

“
Please
don’t tell the man how to work.” Michael took several steps toward me, his teeth clenched. He hates me talking during meetings.

“She’s the only woman who bosses me around.” Sam smiled sheepishly.

“Don’t forget your sainted mother.” I hit him in the ribs with my elbow.

Michael squatted in front of him. “Hey, you can handle Jack, right?” I felt punched in the gut. Sam hated Jack; I knew he was jealous of Jack’s reputation with women.

“How would
you
handle him?” I asked sarcastically.

Sam shot me a sideways glance. “I directed the guy when he was first starting out.” He handed his cup and saucer to
Michael and raised both arms straight up like a blessing preacher. “I love the guy, love him. The secret is, treat him like your co-director. I mean, God, you have to respect him for never making a false move in front of the camera, and look at some of the turkeys who directed him.” He smiled sideways at me. “Of course, he’s got his problems, big problems, with women.”

“Whatever do you mean?” Michael smirked.

I hoped Sam didn’t remember my all too casual questions about Jack Hanscomb. He once called me a movie groupie when I said I knew him.

“He has a disease,” Sam said shortly. “He has to seduce women authority figures.”

“How does he get them all?” Michael asked.

Sam fingered his beard. “He’s an actor, he’s a chameleon, he’ll give you whatever you want.” Sam avoided my eyes. I knew he practiced this technique himself.

“He’s growing as an actor in Jesus,” I said.

“Carol’s been supervising him. She knows firsthand.” Michael leered up at me, still kneeling. I hoped his knees ached.

Sam snickered. “She’s his type.”

Michael plopped down on the couch between me and Sam.

“Don’t gang up on me.” I leaned around Michael to look Sam in the eye.

“Anita’s crazy,” Sam said, standing hastily. “This movie’s been Carol’s dream for years.” He circled the room, finally landing on the arm of the couch by me. He began rubbing an affectionate circle on my back. “She’ll be a big help to me on location.”

I checked my watch and cursed.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked.

“I’m late for a date.” Poor Barry, betrayed again.

“Business?” Michael asked.