Authors: Joe Keenan
“Phil Cavanaugh,” I said crisply even as a voice within me cried,
“I want your T-shirt for a pillowcase and death to the maid who washes it!”
“Sorry we’re late,” said Stephen.
“They were just going,” said Diana.
“Oh, did we miss the meeting?”
I wondered what he’d meant by “we.” Then I noticed that Diana was gazing past us with a look of weary distaste. I turned around
and there, framed in the doorway, was Stephen’s wife, Gina Beach.
It will give you some idea how swiftly and completely desire had unhinged me when I confess that I viewed her on first sight
with that beady critical eye we reserve for our rivals in romance. Her wee nose seemed to me insufferably pert, her hair unpersuasively
blond. Her breasts, I granted, were bouncy perfection but so large in relation to her scrawny torso as to render their authenticity
dubious in the extreme. She had, it appeared, joined Stephen on his jog. Sweat did not become her.
“Gina,” said Diana, her voice swooping a disappointed octave, “I hadn’t realized you’d be joining us.”
“Stephen asked me to. I read that book
A Song for Greta
last night — cried my eyes out!”
How uncultured her voice was. How lamentably twangy.
“I thought,” she continued, “that is, Stephen and I
both
thought, that I could play Lisabetta. Y’know, the one Heinrich falls for?”
“You’d be
perfect!”
fibbed Gilbert.
Gilbert’s endorsement won a grateful smile from Gina and we introduced ourselves.
“So, you’re the ones who know Max?” she said.
“Know him? He’s practically my dad.”
She gazed around the foyer as though doing a head count.
“Weren’t there three of you?”
We said that our partner Claire sent her regrets but she was nursing a cold and would never have forgiven herself if she’d
passed it along to any of them.
“Well, you tell her thank you for me,” said Gina emphatically. “I wish more people were considerate that way. I had a photo
shoot last week and this guy doing my hair, he’s hacking his lungs out and, I’m like,
hello!
”
“Did you hear the way she said that, Philip? Pure Lisabetta.”
We were now facing away from Diana, and I wondered nervously how she was taking all this. Not only were we blithely ignoring
our banishment, we were bolstering her daughter-in-law’s impertinent assumption that she was ft to share a screen with her.
I stole a glance at Diana and saw that my anxiety was well-founded. She was standing ramrod stiff by the stairs wearing an
expression that called to mind Hedda Gabler as portrayed by Yosemite Sam. Stephen, noting her demeanor, asked gently—such
tenderness in his voice!—if something was wrong.
“YES! As I thought I’d made perfectly damn CLEAR I cannot deal with this project today! Something’s come up, something very
upsetting, and I need to discuss it with you!”
“Right this minute?”
“YES!” she barked and, glowering at Gina, added,
“Alone!”
She turned, stormed off down a short hallway, and, extending her arm like a battering ram, disappeared through a swinging
door.
“Sorry, hon,” said Stephen to the woman who could never love him as I could. “You don’t want to be around her when she’s this
way.”
“She’s always this way,” noted Gina. She spun around and, in a pale imitation of Diana’s imperious exit, flounced petulantly
into the living room. He watched her go, then favored us with a beleaguered smile.
“Sorry, guys,” he said. “We’re not always this crazy.”
“Just one of those days,” I said.
He turned and disappeared down the short hall. I was sorry to see him go though delighted to watch him go, the view from behind
being a honey and one I could ogle freely without him noticing. After he’d gone we stood a moment in dreamy silence, mired
in that trancelike zone where worship and lust collide.
“He’s gorgeous!” whispered Gilbert.
“Stunning.”
“In shorts yet!”
“We sure won that lottery.”
“We have
got
to get this job, Philly!”
“I know!” I concurred from the depths of my soul. “If it weren’t for Diana—”
“Yikes, what a bitch!”
“I’ll say!”
“And looking pretty rough too.”
“Tell me. That face has more fine lines than
The Importance of Being Earnest.
”
We agreed that our one slim hope of victory would be if Diana, having unburdened her woes to Stephen, retired to her fainting
couch. Then Stephen, finding us still waiting, would surely consent to hear us out. In the meanwhile we’d suck up to Gina,
who might, despite Diana’s clear disdain for her, prove a useful ally.
We sidled discreetly into the living room, a vast high-ceilinged chamber that seemed designed to make you kick yourself for
having left your powdered wig at home. Gina, looking incongruous in her running togs, sat sulking on a richly brocaded gold
sofa. I feared she’d resent the intrusion but she seemed, if anything, to have been waiting for us.
“She loves to do this to me,” she declared with a wounded frown.
“Diana?”
“Constantly! She loves to make me feel I’m not part of the family, like I’m some... interloper! I’ve reached out to her
so
many times but nothing I do is ever good enough.”
At first we felt surprised, even flattered that a glamorous film star (albeit one whose acting we abhorred and whose husband
we longed to purloin) had taken us so swiftly into her confidence. We did not yet realize that her openness owed less to our
empathic faces than her impulse to talk about herself during all hours not given over to sleep. When there was no suitable
friend or relation on hand to listen, then a screenwriter would suffice, as would a stylist, driver, or elevator occupant.
To be Gina’s confidant you did not need to be her peer. You just had to be in earshot.
“This so-called crisis,” she continued, “I’ll bet it’s nothing. She’s just making it sound important for the fun of shutting
me out.”
“Actually,” I said, “she did seem pretty upset when we got here.”
“Yes,” said Gilbert. “She told us something really bad had come up.”
“See!” she cried in bitter triumph. “She tells
you
about it and she doesn’t even
know
you. But I have to hear it from strangers!”
We assured her that Diana had confided no details of the crisis to us except that it involved her sister. Then Gilbert, spotting
the houseman trembling in the foyer, suggested that he might know the scoop, having been tantrum-adjacent all morning.
“What a good idea! Phelps knows everything that happens around here!”
She raced off to intercept him, and when she returned it was clear from her malicious smirk that the shakedown had yielded
results.
“Well!” she said, plopping herself between us. “No
wonder
she’s upset—she’s writing her memoirs!”
“Diana?”
“No, Lily. Her sister.”
“And that’s bad?” asked Gilbert.
Her laugh was as merry as it was vindictive.
“Well, yeah—for Diana. They
hate
each other. Apparently she’s just signed with a publisher and Diana’s going nuts.”
“Why?” asked Gilbert, thrilled to be privy to such inside stuff. “What’s Lily going to say about her?”
“That’s just it — she doesn’t know. And it’s making her
crazy.
She got wind of it this morning and called Lily demanding to know what she planned to say about her. Lily just blew her off—said
she could read it when everyone else did. Poor Diana!” she hooted, giddy with sympathy.
I said I failed to understand why Diana should be so upset, noting gently that this would not be the first time she’d been
denigrated in print.
“This is different. Lily knows
everything.
Gawd, if she tells even half the stories she told me at my wedding —!”
“She trashed your mother-in-law at your
wedding?
”
“She wanted me to know what I was getting into. I thought it was pretty tacky myself. We’d just met and there she was telling
me all this really personal stuff. But some people are like that. No boundaries.”
Gina, fearing perhaps that her lip smacking over Diana’s woes had made her seem less than kind, softened her tone. She assured
us she sincerely pitied Diana even if she had brought this upon herself through a lifetime of “negative karma.” As she continued
in this vein, my mind began to wander.
It wandered, of course, to Stephen. It began by conjuring once more those piercing amber eyes, loitered briefly around his
sweaty, still-heaving chest before drifting due south. It then swerved painfully to the depressing likelihood that I’d never
see him again after this interview. What could I possibly do to win his favor and the job? My mind went into overdrive, searching
desperately for some argument or angle that might sway him.
I was much vexed by Gina’s jabbering, as the need to feign attention was hampering my concentration. But then something she’d
said earlier echoed in my mind. And that’s when it hit me.
It was a cunning little plan, so cunning, in fact, that I couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to Gilbert, in whose brain “guile”
is the default setting. I glanced at his face but saw no hint of the smirk that would have been blooming there had he thought
of it.
As Gina droned on I pondered my plan further. Its one drawback was that, centering as it did on Lily’s memoir, it served Diana’s
ends more than Stephen’s. How much better for me if my beloved shared his mother’s anxiety over the book’s possible contents.
Gina had betrayed no hint of concern as to how she and her rumor-plagued husband might be portrayed. Was this because they
were so friendly with Lily they had no need to fear her wrath? Or was Gina just too busy savoring Diana’s discomfort to wonder
what grenades might be lobbed their way?
“Well,” I said when she finally paused for breath, “I’m glad for your sake Lily seems to like
you
. ”
“Why?”
“So she won’t write nasty things about you. Or Stephen. You two get along with her all right, don’t you?”
I’ve watched many a face fall in my day, but I’ve never seen one bungee quite so spectacularly as Gina’s did now.
“Gawd!” She gasped. “You think she’ll go after us too?”
“No!” I said, exulting in her fear. “I mean, you’ve always been nice to her—haven’t you?”
She made no reply, but I surmised from her stricken frown that neither she nor Stephen had ever extended to his aunt those
small kindnesses that do so much, come memoir time, to stave off the stink bombs. Gina rose and began to pace fretfully.
“Gosh,” I said, “don’t tell me she’s mad at you guys too?”
“Who knows? She’s a very bitter woman! We’ve
tried
to be nice but that doesn’t mean we can rush off to every stupid play she does or give her parts in our movies.”
“Has she asked for them?”
“She’s
constantly
dropping hints. Which we ignore, of course. She was never a good actress.”
“Hmm.” I frowned. “I doubt she sees it that way.”
“Dammit!” she exclaimed, tears welling in her eyes. “Now you’ve got me all worried!”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to.”
Gilbert, blind to my purpose, kicked my shin to remind me that we were here to charm the stars, not to panic them. He rushed
to comfort Gina, offering his handkerchief. She gratefully accepted and it was this fraught tableau that Diana and Stephen
beheld on reentering.
Diana, finding us still infesting the place, froze. It was clear from her outraged stare that she felt our presence had ceased
to constitute a creative meeting and was now more of a home invasion. Stephen wore a harried frown—proof, I hoped, that news
of the memoir had perturbed him as well. His frown deepened when Gina turned to him, revealing her tear-streaked face.
“Jeez! What’d you guys do to her?”
“It’s not our fault!” mewled Gilbert. “She heard about the book— your aunt’s memoir.”
“Who told you about that?” demanded Diana.
“Phelps,” sniffled Gina. “It’s nice that
someone
around here lets me know what’s going on.” She raced melodramatically to her husband’s side. “Gawd, this is awful! What do
you think she’ll say about us?”
Stephen’s response was an incredulous stare, which I interpreted as meaning, “You expect me to
answer
that?! With
people
here?! Why did I ever marry you, you penis-lacking albatross?”
“We’ll talk about it later, okay?”
“I’m sorry,” she replied sulkily. “I’m upset. You know how crazy she is, how desperate for attention! Who knows what kind
of horrible lies she might make up about us just to sell books?”
“Nobody knows,” snapped Diana. “That’s the maddening part! She can write whatever she wants and until the damn thing comes
out we have no way of knowing what she’s saying.”
“But you could know,” I said, rising suavely to my feet. “You could know everything.”
It was an elegant gambit, worthy of the best courtroom drama, and succeeded in drawing the eager gaze of all present.
“How?” asked Stephen.
“Yes, how?” echoed Diana. Her tone was withering and skeptical but her eyes betrayed a glimmer of hope.
“Well,” I began, “I’m assuming Lily won’t write the book by herself. These things are always ghostwritten. So what I propose
to you is this...”
I paused for effect, then took a step toward them.
“
I
go to Lily, butter her up royally, and win the ghostwriting job. Then you can read every page the very day it’s written because
I’ll
be the one writing it and I’ll give them to you. What you do with it all, well, that’s between you and your lawyers. But
the point is, you’ll
know
. And you’ll know early when you can still maybe take some action—not when it’s in print and every gossip in the country’s
talking about it. So, what do you say? Interested?”
I have seldom beheld anything so gratifying as the look that now shone on the faces of all three stars. It was a look of sudden,
glowing reassessment, and basking in it, I felt like some lovely stenographer who’d finally removed her glasses. Equally satisfying
was the look of upstaged consternation adorning Gilbert’s puss. I couldn’t blame him. Not only had I managed in one bold stroke
to cast myself as the brains of the team and him as my slack-jawed sidekick — I’d done so employing techniques he regarded
as proprietary.