The Fame Game (41 page)

She had records on, and she made another drink, feeling herself getting high already. When he came back she was going to ask him to move in. How could she do that? He would be insulted. He didn’t want to be trapped, to go steady. She wanted to scream and bang her fists against the wall.

At five after six the bell rang and she ran to the door. It was Bobby. He had some clothes over his arm, wrapped in plastic cleaner’s bags.

“I just thought I’d bring some stuff for tomorrow,” he said casually. “I have an audition. Can I use your closet?”

She ran to the closet and pulled her clothes aside so he could have space. He had brought a jacket and two pairs of pants and two shirts. That was a lot for one audition. Maybe he didn’t know what kind of clothes he would have to wear. He had also brought a bottle of after-shave lotion, which he had in his pocket, and his razor. He put them in the bathroom beside her things. She gave him a white terry-cloth bathrobe she’d bought when she was going with Dick because it was like Dick’s, one size fits all, and he grinned at her.

They had a drink together and then he took her to a movie, a Western, which he loved and she hated. They groped each other shamelessly all through the film, in the safe darkness of the balcony, and fed each other popcorn. Then they went to a Chinese restaurant that had take-out and bought a lot of food, which he paid for, and went back to the apartment.

He asked if he could use her phone and she walked out of the room in case it was personal, but she was listening as hard as she could from the bedroom. He called his service and then he called someone whom he talked to as if it was someone he didn’t like very much but was putting on. She didn’t know if it was male or female. She also couldn’t tell if he was making a date with this person because he talked mostly in yes and no when they got to that part of the conversation and he knew darn well she was listening. She walked back in the living room when she heard him hang up, and he took her in his arms right away as if he was relieved to see her.

They fooled around in the king-sized bed for hours and hours, ate dinner there out of the paper cartons, which she had heated up, and watched a rerun of some awful ball game on television. Bobby loved playing with the remote-control buttons much more than he liked watching a program. He was like a kid with a toy. They hardly talked at all, but she felt secure and content. She really knew hardly anything about him, she realized, and perhaps she should try now to find out.

“We don’t know much about each other,” she said.

“Everything I want to know about you I’m going to find out,” he said. “I never listen when girls talk, anyway. They just jabber on and on and lie. Girls don’t know how to talk to men. I realize now that it’s not what people
say
that matters, it’s what they
do.
”

“Do I lie?”

“You don’t say anything that matters. You’re too scared to. I’m going to find out all about you … just give me time.”

“I’ll give you all the time you want,” she said.

“You’ll find out about me, too. You’ll learn to trust me. That’s what I want.”

“I want you to trust me, too,” she said.

“Okay.” They shook hands.

“And when I trust you,” she said, “then what?”

He looked into her eyes. “Then I’ll never lie to you.”

The next day around noon he went off in the clean jacket and one of the clean pair of pants and Silky went off to an interview at Sardi’s where she smiled and laughed a lot and carefully restrained herself from saying that she had a boyfriend or was in love. She felt wildly frivolous and could hardly keep her mind on the same dull questions and her same rehearsed answers, but she did her best and felt very tired when the interview was over. She went home and took a nap, ate a steak, and went to the theater. Monday night was usually the worst night of the week, but tonight it was a good audience and the house was full again, which made the cast very up. After the show she met Bobby in the alley.

“I had a hard time getting rid of my friends,” he said. “They wanted to go down the street.”

“Do you want to go?”

“I didn’t know how you felt.”

“I don’t care.”

He took her to the bar, then, and they sat at a table for two. His friends kept coining over and greeting him, and they were all nice to her. Bobby kept holding her hand and pressing her knee, and Silky began to feel less self-conscious about being seen as his girl in front of all the kids from the show and soon she didn’t mind at all. He dragged his chair over so he could sit next to her, and after a couple of drinks they were all over each other and then they went home.

“Well,” she said, “I guess they know.”

“Do you care?”

“Do you?”

“I only mind if you mind.”

“I’m proud of it,” she said.

When he was undressing he took off a pair of gold and sapphire cuff links that she hadn’t seen him put on in the morning. He saw her looking at them and showed them to her.

“Cartier’s,” he said. “Eighteen-carat gold. I just got them back.”

“Where were they?”

He grinned. “Pawned. Sometimes I get drunk and buy drinks for everybody in the place and then the next day I have to pawn something just to get carfare.”

“You mustn’t do that.”

“I’m going to try not to—now.”

“I mean … I don’t want to tell you what to do … but …”

“No, you’re right. I have a woman now. It’s different.”

“Who’s your woman?”

“Who do you think?”

During the next few days he kept going home to get more clothes either “from the cleaner” or “for an appointment,” and soon he had a whole closet of his own and Silky doubled her things up in the other one. He brought shaving cream and deodorant and underwear and socks and a vibrator, which he used for various things the manufacturer had probably not intended it for. He bought whiskey when they finished what Silky had in stock, and she bought the food. She was paying the rent, of course, because he was officially living in his room, where he paid the rent. At the end of two weeks she realized they really were living together without either of them having mentioned it.

She wondered what had happened to her ambition for marriage and respectability. It didn’t seem to matter right now. She knew that when they really fell in love they would know it without making speeches, just as they had begun to live together without a formal decision, and she also knew that someday they would get married, and that when it happened it would be a quiet, natural decision, just like every decision they had ever made since the moment they met.

Then, just when everything was going along beautifully, Mr. Libra reared his ugly head. He made Gerry call and tell Silky to come to the office. She went, carefully dressed as befitted a young star, complete to a little pillbox hat, and walked into the Plaza suite trying not to look frightened. She didn’t like being summoned, but she supposed he had a screen test for her or something. She wished that she could stop being frightened of this man and stop hating him, but just when she thought she could stand him he antagonized her again. Like why didn’t he just talk to her on the phone this morning, instead of having Gerry summon her and make it all so formal?

“What is that thing you have on your head?” Libra greeted her. “Who do you think you are—Jackie Kennedy?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s corny.”

Silky took the hat off and placed it carefully on her lap. She was sitting on the couch, looking at Mr. Libra with big eyes, clenching her teeth, trying to look pleasant.

“I want you to look like a lady, but you don’t have to go too far,” he said. “Coffee?”

“No thank you.”

He deliberately poured a cup for himself. He had sent Gerry out of the room. “All right,” he said. “What’s the story? Do you just want to get laid or are you in love with him?”

“Who?” she said. So that was it!

“Bobby La Fontaine, chorus boy and professional hustler. I know everything you do, you know. I don’t just supervise your contracts. Tell me your little story now.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” Her palms were wet; there were big damp blotches on the hat she was holding.

“He’s been living in your apartment for two weeks, that’s chapter one. What’s chapter two?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Silky said.

“You might as well admit he’s living with you because I know it already. I made a few phone calls when I found out and I know a lot more about that boy than you do, Silky. Are you in love with him?”

She wished she could tell him it was none of his f …, none of his business. “Yes,” she said.

“And he’s in love with you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know that he’s given up his room?”

That was a shock. She didn’t answer. Her heart was soaring.

“I gather from your silence that you didn’t,” Mr. Libra went on. “Do you know what he did in his spare time before he met you? Aside from dance in a chorus, I mean.”

She shook her head. Given up his room … that meant he wanted to stay with her. She wondered why he hadn’t told her: pride, she imagined.

Mr. Libra stood up. He seemed nervous. “I’ll tell you what he did in his spare time,” he said. “He was a hustler. Men, women, anything the traffic would allow. I have a list of names and dates, which I can show you if you don’t believe me. He was very well provided for by these people. You may have wondered how he had so much money to spend when he made only ninety dollars a week.”

“He pawned things,” Silky said.

“Such things as a pair of gold and sapphire cuff links from Cartier’s, given to him by a very old, very wealthy, and very fruity producer …? Oh, I see you’ve seen the cuff links. Would you like me to list the rest of his jewelry?”

“I never noticed his jewelry,” Silky said. “Can I go now?”

“Sit down! You can go when I’m through with you. You may also have noticed the labels in his clothes. Or perhaps you’re not interested in his clothes. I think not. What I want to know is, is this an indulgence on your part because you’re lonely and you think you deserve a treat, or are you foolish enough to want to marry him?”

“I don’t believe he’s a hustler,” Silky said. “And if he is, I don’t care.”

“You know he is. You may not care, but you know I wouldn’t lie to you. I didn’t pick you out of the gutter and educate you and teach you how to behave like a lady so that you could turn around and behave like a fool. I’m not telling you you’re a tramp or a tart. Everyone’s entitled to find sex where they can. If you want to pick up a little hustler and play with him for a week or two, and you’re discreet about it, then that’s your business. But I know you too well for that. You’re not playing. You never play. I wish you did play. I wish you had more guts.”

“You can’t tell me who to fall in love with,” Silky said.

“I can tell you who
not
to fall in love with. I can tell you not to fall in love with a hustler who’s going with you because of what he can get out of you, because you’re a star, because you’re rich, because it’s comfortable for him, because people who marry stars end up getting good jobs in show business and becoming stars themselves just because of the publicity. I’m not saying he doesn’t care for you—he’s given up his other lovers and he evidently thinks this gamble is worth it. You’re not entirely unlovable. If he was a nice boy, he would probably fall in love with you because of what and who you are as a woman. But Bobby La Fontaine is not a nice person.”

He paused, looking at her to see if it was sinking in. She looked back at him with as little expression showing on her face as possible, wanting to claw his eyes out. How
dare
he make phone calls about her? He had probably hired a detective. She wouldn’t put any low thing past old ape-face Libra, not even that. She was too angry to worry right now about whether or not the information was a he. It didn’t matter! She loved Bobby and he loved her, and she was entitled to some happiness. She’d been unhappy for so long. This wasn’t going to change anything, no matter what else old ape-face Libra pulled out of his hat besides shit.

Libra sighed. “You’ve seen them at ringside tables at the night clubs where you sang, the old, lonely stars with their young men. You might have thought they were pathetic and ridiculous. Famous, aging, pathetically drunk and drugged old stars, clawing at their purchased young men. And the young men, with eyes like snakes, all feelings dead, nothing left but a hard-on that they can’t even get often any more, but it doesn’t matter because the poor old star who keeps them doesn’t care about sex any more either. You never thought in a million years that you would end up like that. But you have, just in a few months. You’re a young girl—you have your life ahead of you, you’re beautiful, you’re going to be even more famous than you are now. Don’t become a satire. It’s not worth it. You’re too good for that, Silky. Leave that to the old bats who went wrong. I won’t let you go wrong. I’ll protect you. Don’t settle for a Bobby La Fontaine.”

Somehow his sweetness angered her even more than his presumption. He had always been able to play her like a fish. He’d get her worked up, then scared, then she’d snivel and cry … What
right
had he to run her private life? He’d never allowed her even a free thought!

“I’m not saying I’m not grateful to you for all you’ve done for me, Mr. Libra,” Silky said quietly. “But if I’m a satire it’s because you made me one. You tried to change me from the inside out. You changed my thoughts, even the dreams I had at night. You made me act like a puppet. You still do. Every word I say is something you wrote down for me. You tried to destroy my
soul
. You can’t do that. I won’t let anybody do that. I’ll act like anything you want when I’m working or being interviewed, but when I’m on my own time I want to have my own life. Otherwise none of it is worth it, not even being a star.”

“I can destroy you,” he said. “I made you and I can destroy you.”

“How?”

“If people find out …”

“People will
love
it!” Silky cried. “They love to hear about scandal! I’ll be a bigger star than ever and you know it.”