Flavor of the Month (15 page)

“You’re stinko,” she told him. “In both senses of the word.”

“
In vino Veritas
. And in humor, too. That’s why they laughed. Because it’s true.”

“But too much. Too mean. It’s…” she paused.

“Bad taste? Mean-spirited? Provocative? Uh-oh. You know what happens to comics who err in that direction?” He took a beat. “They fill Madison Square Garden!” Neil took the towel from around his neck and patted down his sweating forehead. He stopped smiling, and, for a moment, his thin, almost weasellike face looked sad. “You didn’t like it?”

“I did, Neil. I did. But I just worry. People might take you at your word. It won’t endear you to Hollywood.”

“Who cares about Hollywood? There isn’t going to be one person in L.A. that I respect.”

“Neil,
I’m
going to L.A.”

He paused, shook his wet head like a spaniel, then recovered. For a moment, he looked serious, and tired. “Great news for me. Great news for Sam. Great news for you?”

She shrugged. Neil smiled at her, his burning energy surging again.

“Hey, we’ll grab the bitch goddess by both teats, huh? We’ll hang on hard and squeeze.”

“Yeah, a regular Hollywood Romulus and Remus,” she said dryly.

“Weren’t
they
with the Aristocrats?” Neil asked. “Oh, no, excuse me. They were that dog-and-parrot act.”

“Was Romulus the dog or the parrot?”

“I don’t remember, but I know Remus was the uncle.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. He
was
funny, and he was her friend. He smiled, his weasel face lit up by the grin, his eyes narrowing. He put out both arms to her.

“We’ll slay ’em, Veronica,” he said. And he was half right.

“I worry about you, out there with those…those…Americans.”

“Ah, fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke. Anyway, I don’t have to do sets anymore. I got a sitcom now. Let the
writers
sweat their guts out over the yocks.” He paused, his toughness draining out of him like dirty water down a sink. “But you liked it, didn’t you? You laughed?” He looked at her, needing her benediction. “I was funny, wasn’t I?”

“Neil, you were a fucking riot.”

Mary Jane left as soon as she could and splurged on a cab to get her back to the apartment and Sam as fast as possible. Aside from the debacle at the rehearsal and the fight that followed it, they hadn’t been together since he got back from L.A. His body against hers was almost all she could think about. Just in time, she remembered the cat, though, and stopped the cab at the corner bodega to pick up Tender Vittles and a bottle of wine. What the hell.

She ran the three flights up the cold stairway, but when she got to her apartment, no light showed under the door. Midnight met her, his fluffy white coat silken smooth as he moved in figure eights against her legs. She scooped him up, flicked on the light, and called out to Sam. Had he fallen asleep? Had he not come? Her stomach tightened in fear.

She walked through the kitchen clutching Midnight to her, peeked into the empty living room, and then continued down the hall to the tiny bedroom. Maybe, she thought desperately, maybe he’s asleep.

Sam was stretched out on the bed. And he seemed to be sleeping. Well, with jet lag and all, it was understandable. As always, Mary Jane was moved by his grace—his long body stretched diagonally across the bed, his feet relaxed over one corner, an arm thrown negligently over his head reaching the other corner. It was his length and leanness more than anything that attracted her, she thought. She longed for Sam’s arms, for the comfort of his body pushing against hers. But he was tired. She’d let him sleep. There was always tomorrow. She began to undress in the dark.

But when she climbed into bed beside him, as quietly as she could manage, he turned to her. He buried his head in the soft flesh of her neck. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

And all at once she
could
forgive him. Completely. His voice, husky with sorrow and maybe with lust, released her from her anger, from her pain. He was in pain, too, and she could free him. All it took was his apology, her acceptance of him.

Because she loved him so much. “That’s all right,” she told him. “It’s all right.”

“You love me?” he asked, his mouth close against her ear, his deliciously warm breath tickling her. She felt her body warm to him.

“Of course.”

“I need you, Mary Jane.”

She pressed herself against him, her softness against his hard flesh. Pressing him at the shoulder, at the chest, belly to belly, thigh to thigh, she still couldn’t get close enough, be close enough to him. Then his hands were on her breasts, and his mouth was on her mouth, and his body rolled onto her body. She felt his erection, and tears sprang to her eyes: tears of gratitude and pleasure. She had the power to excite him, and he loved her. He
needed
her. He had said so. And she needed his love, needed him so desperately that she was almost afraid to let her neediness show.

“Sam. Oh, Sam,” she whispered.

“Promise you’ll forgive me.”

“I do, Sam.”

“No, promise that you’ll
always
forgive me. I need you to.” In the dark, his voice sounded as desperate as she felt.

“Yes. Yes, I promise. I forgive you.”

With a groan of relief or pain, he slid inside her. She shuddered, but he remained still, cradling her in his arms. Yet it was she, she felt, who was giving comfort, giving absolution.

“I love you,” she said.

“I know,” he told her, and it was only much later that she realized he had not told her he loved her, too.

The next morning, she awakened with a smile, reached across the bed, but found that Sam was already up. Quickly she rose, shrugged into her chenille robe, and walked out, barefoot, looking for him. Midnight, nestled at the foot of the bed, stretched and followed.

Sam wasn’t in the bathroom, or in the living room. She didn’t smell coffee brewing, but he must be in the kitchen, making it.

He wasn’t. But there was a note propped on the old, scarred Formica table. He had gone! Fearfully, she sank onto the sofa and unfolded the paper.
M.J., First of all, your grandmother called while I was here last night. She’s real sick and wants you to go upstate
.

Also, I’ve given a lot of thought to what went down and I guess I feel that I was way out of line. I’m sorry
.

I’m also sorry that I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come out to L.A. You know how very, very special it was for us with
Jack and Jill
and how good things had been. I always told you that I wasn’t the kind of person who compromised. Something’s lost and I think it best not to go on without it
.

My silks and fine array
,

My smiles and languish’d air
.

By love are driv’n away;

And mournful lean Despair

Brings me yew to deck my grave:

Such end true lovers have
.

Then he’d signed his name and had added, “Try not to hate me.”

Mary Jane stood there in the bleak little room, staring at the note. He fucks me, quotes Blake to me, and blows me off! she had time to think before the tears began.

The strangest interview I ever did was a brunch with Theresa O’Donnell out at her Bel Air mansion more than a dozen years ago. I showed up with a photographer for an “at home” shoot. It was the first time I had been to Theresa’s home and the first time I met Lila Kyle
.

Theresa was decked out in one of those lacy bed jackets and silky pj’s. The kid was in a matching outfit. But so were Candy and Skinny, the two dummies that were featured on Theresa’s TV show at the time. And the luncheon table was set for five. Cute gag, huh? Except the dummies were served, too. And they spoke up throughout the meal. Theresa was a fairly good ventriloquist, but it was Lila I watched. The kid—she was five or six then—acted as if this were the most natural thing in the world. She called her mother “Lovely Mummie” and had perfect table manners. Meanwhile Candy picked on her. So did Skinny. And Theresa intervened when it got too rough
.

I can’t remember what provoked the final incident—I think Lila didn’t want to finish her fruit cup. Theresa said she had to. Lila pointed out that Candy and Skinny hadn’t eaten theirs. Theresa smiled, overly sweetly, and said it was too bad. Lila would still have to. So Lila dumped her fruit cup on Skinny’s lap
.

And Skinny called the child “a little cunt.”

I often wondered what the rest of life was like for that little girl in that big house. But I didn’t see her again until her birthday party almost five years later
.

Lila remembered the party. It was a turning point in her life. And now, in the quiet of Aunty Robbie’s house, as she faced the question of what she wanted, the party kept coming back to her.

Lila had given it a lot of thought. At least for her it was a lot. And when she tried, really tried, to think about what she wanted, what she wanted more than anything, it was to be a star. A powerful, important star. A star a lot bigger than her mother, or even her father, had ever been.

She wasn’t sure if she could act—she didn’t even care. She knew that what she could do was get people to look at her, to want to know her, to be interested in—no, fascinated by—her. It had happened to her before—she knew she could hold a room. She remembered her moment onstage, in the room full of stars at that party, when she sang “The Loveliest Girl in the World.” She remembered the feeling in the room. Everyone stopped. They only wanted to watch
her
.

She shivered. Her mother’s theme song gave her the creeps. She hated it. Lila Kyle knew that she was born to Hollywood royalty. But, like Princess Anne, or Margaret, or even poor Queen Elizabeth herself, Lila also knew that lineage didn’t ensure happiness. Still, she wasn’t going to wind up like Nancy Sinatra or her brother Frank, like Julian Lennon, or even Jane Fonda, who had never exceeded the reputation of her father. She, Lila Kyle, would be important in her own right.

Years ago, she recalled, she had sat before the mirror at the vanity table in her bedroom, watching Estrella’s reflection as the woman stood behind her, when their eyes met. Perhaps they hadn’t looked one another in the eye since then. “It’s your
tenth
birthday, that’s all I know,” Estrella had said, in answer to Lila’s question. “That’s what your mother say.” Estrella had turned Lila around while she inspected her from head to toe.

“But it’s my
eleventh
,” Lila remembered she had continued to insist. “I was ten
last
year.” Lila wanted to cry but was afraid to ruin her makeup. Aunt Robbie had warned her about that all week, when they were rehearsing. “And eleven is too old for bows in my hair,” she told Estrella once again. The woman shrugged. At times like that, Estrella still pretended she couldn’t understand English.

Lila had been sure—
positive
—that she had been ten years old on her
last
birthday, the year
before
. Why were Lovely Mummie and Estrella saying she was only ten years old
this
year? Lila
remembered
her other tenth birthday. She remembered it so clearly. Unlike this birthday, there had been no big birthday party, only birthday cake with Aunt Robbie and Estrella, because Lovely Mummie and the girls had been too busy working.

But that was before Mummie’s TV show was canceled, which must be a terrible thing, because Mummie had yelled all the time since then, and it was getting harder to understand when she spoke, even in her normal tones. Lila didn’t know what “canceled” meant, but it sounded worse than sickness, or even death. And Mummie and Aunt Robbie acted as if it was. And so did the girls at Westlake. “Your mom’s show was
canceled
,” sneered Lauren Caldwell. “Some big star.”

Estrella tightened the bow in Lila’s hair and gave her a gentle prod. “Now,” she said, “perfect.” Estrella placed the brush back on the blue-mirrored vanity table and waddled to the door. Before she closed it behind her, she said, “Lila. Listen to Estrella. For the last time, you’re
ten
years old, and your mother say you got to have a big bow in your hair. Please,” she added, “don’t ask questions. Promise?”

Lila had considered Estrella’s request, then nodded in agreement as she always did. Even though Lila didn’t really like Estrella, they both wanted the same thing: to keep Lovely Mummie happy.

Alone, Lila ran to her bedroom window and stood on tiptoe looking out, hoping that it wouldn’t put cracks across the front of her new black patent-leather shoes. She strained to see the occupants of each of the limousines as they were pulling up at the door of her mother’s house. As the cars disgorged their well-dressed occupants, Lila practiced naming the famous persons she recognized: “Miss Taylor, Mr. Stewart, Mr. Peck,” she murmured. Her mother insisted she be polite and greet every one of the party guests by name. Some were famous, and she knew them from movies or TV, but the others were harder. And even more important. She had to get them all right. Mr. Sagarian, Lovely Mummie’s agent. Mr. Wagner from CBS. And her business manager. And lots of fat, bald guys. All grown-ups, she thought. Lila didn’t really have any friends at school, but, still, since it was her birthday, she wished some kids were here.

For Lila, it was a relief that there weren’t as many parties as there used to be, back when Lovely Mummie was working. Lila could remember how she used to long to be with her mummie and Candy and Skinny on TV. Every Friday night, Lila would sit before the TV, watching her mother’s show. She often played at being Cinderella: she had two mean stepsisters and a wicked mother who wouldn’t let her go to the ball.
Theresa O’Donnell Presents “The Candy Floss and Skinny Malink Show
.” Why couldn’t she be on television with them? The Theresa and Lila show. Without stupid Candy and Skinny. Lovely Mummie might let her,
if
she was very, very good tonight, and
if
they got another show.

Except Lila wasn’t so sure she wanted to anymore. Mummie was home all the time, and sometimes Lila wished she weren’t. It wasn’t so much fun to be with her mummie. Maybe it would be different, though, when they got their new TV show.