Authors: Rosecrans Baldwin
You Lost Me There (24 page)
Victor spun on his toes. He didn’t know where to look. “Dr. Low, I apologize. If you’ll excuse us—”
“I’ll excuse nothing. I am not in need of pampering , thank you. I believe your wife asked you a question.”
“Yes, Victor,” I said, “about this luck.”
Victor squeezed his nostrils and closed his eyes. It’s the same look when he’s on the phone with customer-service people. “For argument’s sake, then, no, probably there wasn’t much going on besides luck if—and it’s an essential if—we’re going by ticket sales alone, and nothing else. I’m only relating here what you’ve said before, Sara, many times. That commercial success never relates to what’s written down. Now those are your words. That it’s the director’s and the editor’s vision, the studio’s plan—never mind whatever the audience wants, which nobody knows!”
Victor laughed and glanced at his boss, and rubbed a hole through the moisture on the window with his sleeve. “Think about it,” Victor said, peering out. “Going by tickets sold, you really want to be compared to
Moonstruck
?”
Moonstruck
?”
“Ha!” yelped Toad. “Olympia Dukakis.” He fixed his glasses. “And that singer, too.”
“Cher,” Victor said.
I was about to speak, then I lost my train of thought. “Now, let me remember,” Toad said. “Your movie, Sara, is about an actress, once upon a time a star. In the present day, though, she’s a has-been. An old amphibian like me.”
He dropped his glasses. He bent forward and wiggled his piggy fingers. I jerked out of my seat to pick them up.
“Thank you. Then she falls in love with a young film director. I saw it on television recently, that’s why you’re here, of course. I thought the next morning, I must invite that woman to dinner. Sara, tell us, what did you set out to create?”
“It’s a romantic comedy,” I said.
“A comedy,” said Toad after a moment.
“You didn’t laugh, I take it.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, my dear.” He laughed now.
“It’s an homage to Billy Wilder,” Victor said, as though he’d said this a thousand times before; it was the first time I’d heard it. “A pastiche.”
“Is that right?” I said.
Victor tilted back his head.
“Exactly!” snorted Toad. “But then all art is homage, isn’t it? It can’t help itself. Don’t tell me that you didn’t set out, Sara, at least unconsciously, to pay tribute to
Sunset Boulevard
. That’s Wilder, isn’t it? I knew it the moment the credits rolled.”
Sunset Boulevard
. That’s Wilder, isn’t it? I knew it the moment the credits rolled.”
“Well, not pay tribute,” said Victor. He was staring at some picture book he’d taken out from the bookcase, with a lighthouse on the cover.
“Rewrite. No, I don’t mean rewrite,” Toad said. “Improve upon. As in research, for example, we take what’s put forth, then search for improvements. It’s not the best film anyway.”
“Sunset Boulevard,”
Victor mused.
Victor mused.
“Without the pool.”
“Right,
Sunset Boulevard
without the pool,” Victor said, laughing.
Sunset Boulevard
without the pool,” Victor said, laughing.
“Can I get a word in here sometime?”
Then silence. As if I’d wandered into the men’s room.
“Oh, Sara,” said Toad, flapping toward Victor, “my dear, excuse us.”
“So a Wilder homage. Minus the pool.”
“Sara, he’s only joking—”
“Well, if you look to the masters you’ll find—” started Toad, but I interrupted him: “So if I did anything here, it was to repackage a classic, is what you’re saying? The success wasn’t really mine. It probably had more to do with Wilder, or some marketing person at Sony, is that right?”
“There’s nothing wrong , per se, with
Sunset Boulevard,
” said Toad.
Sunset Boulevard,
” said Toad.
“Sara, be reasonable,” Victor said.
Now it wasn’t humid anymore. Toad was blindly smiling, staring at me with blotto eyes.
“I think I’m ready to go,” I said, getting up.
“ What?”
“Unless there are other flukes to cover.
Woman Hits Forty.
My menopausal masses. My career of chance.”
Woman Hits Forty.
My menopausal masses. My career of chance.”
“Sara, my dear, slow down,” said Toad. “We are but simple scientists. We spend our lives chipping away at a stone. How one prepares for luck, how hard one works for it, we don’t appreciate. You see, we don’t understand how to give it credit.”
Victor was exasperated, fidgeting by the window as if he wanted to grab me, hug me, scream at me. He did none of the these things. “Come on, tell him,” Victor said, losing his hands in his pockets, “how many screenplays you wrote before
The Hook-Up
. I mean, why weren’t they picked up?”
The Hook-Up
. I mean, why weren’t they picked up?”
“Well, they weren’t any good,” I said, pausing.
“What?”
“Weren’t good,” I said.
“Sure they were.”
“My dear, my dear,” Toad said, now all the way out on the edge of his chair, “I did not mean to start a fight. Please sit down, you’re being hysterical.”
Finally I could laugh.
“I can assure you, this is not hysterical,” I said when I had my breath back, though honestly, I did feel hysterical, but only for that second. Then everything was hardening to a single sharp prow.
“Sara, I see you believe what you say. Obviously people have lied to you. Victor has lied to you. However, I do not lie. And I will tell you, I didn’t like your movie much, but I’m sure its success was hard earned and hard fought.”
The housekeeper appeared. If no one needed anything else, she’d excuse herself. We saw ourselves out. The Toad moved chairs around and peered at us through the window. In the driveway between our cars, Victor said, “Look, you lost me back there.”
“You’re right.” It was the quietest thing I’d said all evening.
“What do you mean?”
I met his eye. “Really, you don’t know?”
Truly, I don’t think he did. I was the first one down the driveway. I wondered, driving home with Victor’s headlights in my mirror, perhaps our longevity is a fluke, too. An accident three-decades running.
Right now I can’t write any more.
UPDATE: This is not to change what I’ve written. Rather, it’s to say I have seen the most wonderful movie, and it’s connected to all this, I don’t know how. For the moment. I’ve just come in the front door, here I am clanging around inside. I have to get this down.
The university started a film festival on the island a couple years ago. This year they asked me to chair a panel on screenplays. Fine. It was held under a tent on the square downtown, and there were exactly thirty people and they had two questions at the end: what type of software do I use, and do I know any agents who read unsolicited manuscripts. Afterward they held a panel on short films, and they opened with something I’d never seen before.
The Perfect Human.
Released 1967. In Danish:
Det perfekle menneske.
Black and white, about ten minutes long. But revolutionary. Like I’d never seen a movie before. The smallest, most perfect thing.
The Perfect Human.
Released 1967. In Danish:
Det perfekle menneske.
Black and white, about ten minutes long. But revolutionary. Like I’d never seen a movie before. The smallest, most perfect thing.
And the whole time I’m watching, I’m thinking, God, why can’t I write this? I made a note on the back of a dry-cleaning tag: WHY CAN’T I WRITE SOMETHING SO SIMPLE AND SHARP? I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything better.
We have discussed this, Doctor, you and me, the pressure post-
Hook-Up
for more success. The load I bore alone, partnerless, once Victor decided to ward himself off. The offers afterward, the proposals for collaborations from strangers, rewrites, adaptations of novels I hadn’t read since high school. Money out the wazoo, but for what? A thousand too many options, and all of them spooking away any original ideas, aside from the house.
Hook-Up
for more success. The load I bore alone, partnerless, once Victor decided to ward himself off. The offers afterward, the proposals for collaborations from strangers, rewrites, adaptations of novels I hadn’t read since high school. Money out the wazoo, but for what? A thousand too many options, and all of them spooking away any original ideas, aside from the house.
So I built a house.
But, for this afternoon. This moment.
First time in forever, I’m inspired, I remember what it feels like, and all because of one little movie. Here’s something, I thought, that reminds me I once made somethings, too.
UPDATE: Victor and I haven’t slept in the same room since that dinner at Toad’s. That was three nights ago. Not that we’ve discussed this as The Deliberate Next Step of Whatever Is Happening. It’s never happened before. The first night, I closed the door when I came home, and Victor slept in the music room. That’s the way it’s been since.
Both of us suave, sophisticated adults, purposefully avoiding each other in the bathroom. But I’m still too upset to behave differently, and Victor’s on tiptoes. He thinks I’m still upset about the other night. He’s in the business of being unaware, looking to turn a profit. Both inside and out, I’m incredibly fatigued. I act pissed off when I’m not, and then I’m upset all over again, angry again, crying over the laundry.
Finally, have we put too much distance between us? I don’t know that I want to breach it. I’m haunted by that ringing superior tone in Victor’s voice: the absence of respect.
Got the Criterion’s manager to play
The Perfect Human
for me again. Afterward, he burned me a DVD. At least someone understands my mania. He agrees, for its ambitions it’s a flawless film. Like
Meet Me in St. Louis
. Like
Charade
. He says he can get me the original poster on eBay. I told him to order two, one for each of us.
The Perfect Human
for me again. Afterward, he burned me a DVD. At least someone understands my mania. He agrees, for its ambitions it’s a flawless film. Like
Meet Me in St. Louis
. Like
Charade
. He says he can get me the original poster on eBay. I told him to order two, one for each of us.
I’ve watched it three times at home, with a notepad.
And it’s just the littlest film. But you can tell, whatever compels the director inside to create, this is what it looks like exposed to air.
The Perfect Essence,
it should be called.
it should be called.
What would that look like for me?
What do I have left in me anyway?
Here I am, fifty-eight, losing my marriage.
Here I am, forty-four, thirty-five, losing my parents.
Here I am, twenty-nine, losing my baby.
Here I am, seventeen, punching my mother in the mouth.
A life beholden to insecurity.
Really I am just tired of all of this.
UPDATE: Took Victor to see
The Perfect Human
. Why not? I thought it could help. Perhaps communicate something to him I can’t express. But in conversation afterward, it was clear, no progress made. No connection. He heard all the dialogue, but nothing said.
The Perfect Human
. Why not? I thought it could help. Perhaps communicate something to him I can’t express. But in conversation afterward, it was clear, no progress made. No connection. He heard all the dialogue, but nothing said.
What I’ve been thinking all along, I’ve decided to put into action. It’s only now that I can say this: I must go. For how long I don’t know, but for our sake, I should leave.
Vámonos. Vamoose
.
.
“Deke telephoned last night.
He wanted to know if I wanted to hang out. I said, ‘Hang out’? ‘Play video games,’ he said. Victor, this is an established M.D., forty-four years old, he proposed marriage to me six months ago, now he’s inviting me over to play Mario Kart. When did modern man give up on shame?”
He wanted to know if I wanted to hang out. I said, ‘Hang out’? ‘Play video games,’ he said. Victor, this is an established M.D., forty-four years old, he proposed marriage to me six months ago, now he’s inviting me over to play Mario Kart. When did modern man give up on shame?”
Lucy was tossing a football she’d picked up somewhere. In a sleeveless shirt, she looked tanner than normal. Darker and also more muscular. I wondered if she’d added weight lifting to her rock-climbing workouts.
“I explained that I didn’t have time this week to play Nintendo, but now I feel bad about the whole exchange. No man wants to be called an adolescent, he just wants to preserve the right to act like one, am I right?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” said Lucy. She held out the football. “Hey, are we at thirty thousand feet?”
I had already sent a notice about my vacation to the team, but I’d stopped by campus to write some e-mails.
“What?” I looked up from my computer. “Sorry, Lucy, try me again.”
“I am posing the question to you: Why men this exact way? You know, I have better things to do.”
“Are you saying I’m a poor receptor?”
She hunched forward, as though schooling a toddler. “Take the neuron.”
I looked up again from the monitor. “That’s your theory? Men are neurotic?”
“Know what? Forget it.”
“No, I’m here, man as neuron. Please continue.”
“Feign interest, go ahead.”
“Lucy—”
“So connections aren’t made aimlessly. We know this.”
“Between neurons.”
“Circuits occurring between certain cells and not others. Signals traveling in predictable patterns.”
“Well, not always.”
“Not always, there are special cases, yes, and that’s my point.” She pointed one end of the football at my nose. “So what if I’m not seeing the synapses for a ball of string? What if I’m wrong about Deke? What if it wasn’t a conviction about him so much as an uncertainty about me?”
“I don’t follow.”
“Me valuing myself enough as one who could end up with someone like that. Didn’t you see him at the recital?”
“At your concert?”
Her eyes were frozen.
“I did not see him,” I said.
“Well, I am not unseeing. I didn’t even tell him about it. Yes, I am aware of my tendency to catch and release. What I don’t get is how easy it is for some people, how someone wakes up to the stimuli and says yes, yes, I’ll take that one, I mean, how do they know?”
“How do they know what?” I snapped. This time I really hadn’t been listening. I was trying to understand an e-mail sent by a colleague about some new federal report. Lucy smashed the football down on my desk. She left it there, her hand pinning it next to my computer.
“This deafness, Victor? Your blindness to those of us still sticking around?”
Lucy walked out. I shut down my computer.
I stood up and gazed at the football.
I hurried outside, remembering Cornelia sitting in my car.
Cornelia had never seen Thuya Gardens before, so we drove there first, then hiked to the top of Day Mountain. In the afternoon, I gardened while Cornelia suntanned. With seventy-five dollars and a quick trip to Walmart, she’d equipped my house with wireless Internet access, and was soon able to instant-message outside while Web-surfing while e-mailing while watching a DVD of some TV show she liked okay.
Other books
Wicked Paradise by Erin Richards
Mrs. Bennet Has Her Say by Jane Juska
The Point by Marion Halligan
Merv by Merv Griffin
Finding Dr. Right (Contemporary Medical Romance) by Lisa B. Kamps
Greed: A Detective John Lynch Thriller by O'Shea, Dan
Girls' Night Out by Kate Flora
From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 by George C. Herring
How Many Friends Does One Person Need? by Robin Dunbar