I Loved You Wednesday (18 page)

But why those rude people would care to see me again is a mystery. In fact, the only explanation I can come up with is perhaps they liked what they didn’t hear the first time.

Second auditions are a little easier to handle. For one thing, they’re less crowded. For another, the management is less hostile and more attentive.

Reporting again to the Ethel Barrymore Theater Monday afternoon, I repeat the eight-week-old audition, again reading with the same very tall stage manager. I’m better equipped this time out: more confident, more in control.

The scene completed, I’m introduced to the producer, the director and the author. They ask me to look at another scene, taking place later in the play, and to come back in ten days for another callback.

This is encouraging as it means I’ve cleared another plateau.

Bicycling home through the cold January winds in splendid spirits, I allow myself the slightest fantasies about how great it will be to land the part and walk off with the Tony Award for Best Supporting Actor before Mike Nichols asks me to star in his next film, for which I pick up my first Oscar. Ah, success!

When I get to my apartment, I wake the bulldogs, announcing my good fortune. But they’re not especiallyinterested, concentrating as they are solely on the dog biscuits being handed out in celebration. So I dial Chris’ number and wait as it rings and rings, on and on, with no answer.

Just as I’m about to hang up, maybe twelve rings or so, someone finally answers.

But all I hear on the other end is the sound of the receiver dropping to the floor. I patiently wait several moments for it to be picked up again and for someone to say hello. But nothing like that happens. I can hear the muddled sound of a radio playing in the background, but no one is speaking to me.

Quickly remembering that today is Monday, the day Bradley was to come over, I suspect I may have interrupted a session. But that’s not likely since if she were otherwise occupied, Chris would never have picked up the phone in the first place.

“HELLO!” I shout into the receiver.

No answer.

“Chris! PICK UP THE PHONE!”

Still no answer.

“ANYBODY HOME?”

Nothing.

I’m about to hang up when I hear the receiver being lifted.

“. . . whash . . . itsh . . . I . . . cantsh . . .” is the inaudible dribble coming over the wire.

“I beg your pardon?” I say, confused.

“... I ... I .. . help . . . pleeje help. . . .”

“Chris?”

“. . . come . . . pleeje . . . Shteev. . . .”

“WHAT’S THE MATTER?” I yell, pretty much petrified.

Clunk.

The phone on the other end falls to the floor. Again.

I’m not sure what’s going on, but something in the pit of my stomach starts tying knots, sending adrenalin shooting every which way.

I run from my apartment and, grabbing a taxi, hurry over to Chris*. Rushing up the stairs, I unlock her door with my spare key and hurry inside.

I find her in the bedroom. Out cold. And Jesus, is she a mess. Her lip is cut open, puffed up and bloody. Her left eye is swollen and badly bruised. The telephone receiver, next to her, is off the hook, bleeping like crazy.

Lifting her up into a sitting position, I yell, “CHRIS!”

She shakes her head slowly, opens her eyes halfway and with what looks like a smile, waves her arm lethargically.
. . sssshhh
. . . don’t sssshout. . .” she manages to say.

Which, while not exactly coherent or decent diction, at least tells me she’s alive.

I lower my voice, trying to conceal my near hysteria.

“Chris, what’s going on here?”

“. . . noshing. . . .”

“What do you mean nothing? What happened to you? What did you take?”

“... I didn’t. . . . wasch an axshident. . . .”

“What was an accident?”

“. . . SSSSSH . . .” she says, placing a finger on her lips.

“CHRIS”—I raise my voice again—”WHAT DID YOU TAKE?”

“. . . wha . . . ?”

I slap her across the face. Hard.

“. . . OUCH! . . .” She perks up a bit. “. . . wha ... are ya crajee?”

I grab both her shoulders and shake.

“. . . gonna be shick. . . .”

Why didn’t I think of that?

“Of course you’re gonna be sick!” I yell, still shaking her back and forth.

Picking her up, I carry her into the bathroom. There I get her to put her finger down her throat until she gags and then throws up.

She seems more responsive already. So I turn the shower on, fairly cold, and somehow get both of us into it.

Standing there, fully dressed, fully drenched, the nearly chilly water cascading down over our bodies, Chris awkwardly lifts her head and, staring at me for the first time, asks, “. . . how . . . waj . . . your audishon. . . ?”

“Terrific,” I tell her casually, like we were seated at the breakfast table. “They want to see me again.”

Several minutes later we’re in bed. I’m shoving hot black coffee down her throat, and she seems to be snapping out of it.

Which is good
and
bad.

Good because she is no longer ODing.

Bad because now that she can again think more clearly, she remembers why she was ODing in the first place, and remembering why she was ODing in the first place brings her to relentless sobbing.

Ten minutes ago I was dealing with a somnambulist. Now I’ve got an alternately shaking, coughing, hiccuping, foot-stomping, drooling, screaming, crying and particularly nauseated young lady on my hands.

It takes well over another half an hour and half a box of Kleenex to calm Chris down and almost get her to stop crying. And it’s not until another hour after that, while I’ve got her propped up straight in a living-room chair, that I’m finally able to get her to speak clearly, without hysterics.

“I’m telling you it was an accident, Steve!” she says indignantly, wiping still another tear from her eye.

“Accident or not,” I scold, “that’s no condition to be in for the cocktail hour.”

“I was fine, honest. Bradley came over, and I made us each a couple of powerful martinis. We smoked a little also and had a really nice time... a little pornographic, perhaps, because he insisted on throwing dirty words at me while thrusting, but why not, right? He was taking his ‘afternoon fuck’ seriously. And I must say, in all honesty, I was throwing out a couple of the old four letterers myself. Just to keep it down and dirty. Oh, Steve, why did he do this to me?” And she again launches into one of her rounds of sobbing.

“Stop it, Chris. For Christ’s sake, stop crying.”

I can t.

“You can. Stop until you’ve finished the story. Then Ipromise I’ll open a box of man-sized Kleenex and you can wail all night.”

“You spoil me, Steve, that’s your problem,” she says, half crying and I think half laughing.

“Continue.”

“All right. Well—” She interrupts again to blow her nose and wipe her eyes. “There we were, lying in bed next to each other, more asleep than awake. You know how it is right after sex.”

“And?”

“And I turned over on my stomach to get closer to him and even a little affectionate and he turned to me and said, ‘I’ve got to call my wife. Would you mind leaving the room?’ And Steve, you just can’t imagine what happened to me. It was like driving into a brick wall. In just that one terrible moment I sank so low, felt so cheap, so used, so awful, so dirty, I simply cannot tell you. Well, I guess I got a little hysterical, yelling and crying and hitting him a lot.”

“Jesus!”

“Heavy, huh? Needless to say, Bradley got a little crazed himself, not knowing what to do with this raving maniac.”

“What happened?”

“Well, I kept beating him and yelling and crying and I must admit it’s a great tension releaser. Anyway, while I was beating against his chest with my fists, he somehow managed to get to my bottle of Valium on the night table. I was so hysterical and by this time so hypercrazy, I was even scaring myself. So I took four of the tranquilizers he handed me ... or five ... or six ... I really don’t remember, and then he waited and held me down the fifteen minutes or so it took for me to calm down.”

“Incredible!”

“Don’t interrupt. I’m coming to the best part. Pass me a tissue, Steve. I’m not sure I can get through this next segment.”

I open a new box of Kleenex and hand it to Chris who snaps it from me like a squirrel hoarding chestnuts.

“I’m listening, Chris.”

Another nose blow, and she continues. “So there we were. Me writhing on the bed, Bradley sitting on top of me, holding me down. And I can’t tell you at which point exactly things got erotic, but there’s something incredibly sexy about being pinned to your bedsheets by a gorgeous naked man. Anyway, he got an erection which I think he was at first a little embarrassed about, but apparently not for long, as he decided to take advantage of the situation. And that really flipped me out. I started kicking and screaming and biting, and he kept getting harder and more insistent. I spit at him, there was nothing else I could do, being pinned down like that, and he belted me across the mouth and then hit me a few more times. The rest is show biz history.”

I’m staring at Chris, hardly able to believe what she’s just told me. Confused and fumbling for words, I stutter, “You . . . mmmmean. . . .”

“Yes, Steve. Your darling Chris has had her first rape.”

Now I’m crying.

Where it came from, I don’t know. How it started, I can’t say. But there I am in Chris’ living room, and suddenly I’m the basket case.

Crossing to her and dropping to my knees, I bury my head in her lap. “How could anyone hurt you?” I whisper. “I’m sorry. So very, very sorry.”

“Steve, get a hold of yourself. I was raped. Not mutilated. If you want to know the God’s honest truth, it would’ve been terrific without the excessive violence.”

“Wait’ll I get a hold of him!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. This isn’t some Mafia vendetta, Steve! It’s me. The only permanent damage has been to my

“I’d better get some ice for that shiner,” I say, hugging her.

“And some aspirins for headache, please.”

“How many?”

“Eighty.”

“Chris!”

“Forget the whole thing.” She hugs me back. “Stay here. I need you.”

I hug her even tighter. She caresses my hair.

“When did he leave?” I ask, lifting my head.

“Once it was all over, he lay next to me for a long while, catching his breath. I just lay there crying. It had all been so fast and strange, neither of us knew what to say. I mean, have you ever heard of after-rape conversation? I kept crying while he got dressed. Then he went to the door, and just as he left, he apologized for hurting me.

“I was so pent up and hysterical by then I grabbed the Valium and took five pills, having completely forgotten, mind you, that I’d already taken the others, plus the martinis, plus the grass. Then I cried myself to sleep while all the chemicals went to work.”

“And then I called.” “Right.”

“My darling. My poor, poor darling,” I say, plopping my head in her lap again to cry some more.

Chris strokes my hair slowly and cries along with me.

Wiping away still another tear, she lowers her head and kisses the back of my neck. “Don’t get too comfortable,” she says, “I think I’m gonna throw up again.”

“Just give me notice, huh?” I say, gently kissing her thigh.

“Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think being raped in late afternoon is cosmopolitan?”

“About as cosmopolitan as one could get.”

“You know what, Steve?

“What?”

Chris pauses a moment or two, takes my face in her hands and, looking down at me, says sadly, “I think I’ve come a long way from Seattle.”

Chapter Ten
 

Chris and I spend the remainder of the day glued to one another. Even well into the evening we just cling together like families you hear about drawn closer through trauma.

Eventually, we fall asleep on the couch, sleeping securely through the night.

In the morning I tell Chris I don’t want to leave. I feel so close to her, so compatible, so
needed
. She seems an empty orphan. Open, vulnerable, abandoned, and I simply have this unexplainable desire to protect and care for her.

So I move in for a few days.

Dogs, vitamins, toothbrush, shirts and half a dozen cans of Alpo chopped beef.

And it doesn’t take more than a day or two for the swelling in Chris’ lip to subside, the discolored bruise around her eye to fade and for the bloom in her cheek, the laughter in her smile and the madness in her logic to return to their normal, bizarre ways.