Hollywood Stuff (4 page)

“All settled at the W? Rooms okay? Flight okay?”

Jane nodded, since there wasn’t really any space left for answers to the questions.

Bix led them into her office in the back of the house. She took the tray from Jenna, who had appeared with drinks and cookies, and closed the door, offered them their cups and plates, and then threw herself into a chair and smiled.

Jane and Tim smiled back.

Jane was afraid they would remain that way for too long. Smiling. Then Bix would produce the contract and Jane, not knowing what else to do, would just sign it. Somebody had better say something.

Somebody did, but it wasn’t Bix, Jane, or Tim.

“You’ll give him a message? Okay. Give him this. I’m going to kill him. I’ll kill him and I’ll get away with it.You know why? Because no jury in the world would convict me for killing that bastard. You want to give him
that
message?”

A very angry visitor seemed to be checking in with Jenna in the front office.

Wren didn’t stop smiling, but she cocked her head to listen.

“I want everything back and I want acknowledgment. Got that? Can you fit that on your memo pad? Yo u tell him Patrick wants acknowledgment.”

“Ah, a writer,” said Wren, as if that explained it. “Always unhappy.”

They heard a door slam, and Bix started over on the smiling and the let’s-start-the-meeting adjusting herself at her desk.

“Who do you see playing you, Jane?” asked Wren.

Jane was caught off guard. Not by the subject…she and Tim had played the who-would-play-me game since Bix’s first call…but she had no idea that Bix would start the meeting with the same trip to fantasyland that they had taken.

“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Jane began, then stopped herself. Hadn’t she decided she was too restless, and that she had to make something happen? Maybe this was it.

“Teri Hatcher?”

Tim nodded approvingly.

Bix nodded too. “Too bad she’s tied up with a hit. Perfect choice. And she loves garage sales, too. When she was on Leno—”

“I saw that, that’s why I thought of her,” said Jane. “It was an accident. I never watch Leno, I’m more of a Letterman type, but I was flipping and heard her talk about driving around on Saturday mornings, so I—”

“Yeah, yeah, and she’s so hot right now, we’d have to see how tied-up—”

Jane shook her head.

Bix looked from Jane to Tim, who leaned forward, acting as interpreter.

“Jane isn’t a regular television watcher. She has no idea,” he said.

Jane did watch television, but in a wise and wary moment she decided not to protest. She knew Teri Hatcher was on a hit show, she knew who her costars were, and she vaguely understood the show’s premise. One could get all that from catching Letterman or any other late-night program and that’s what Jane watched. She turned on television after ten and schooled herself on popular culture. No reason to explain all this to Bix, or to Tim, for that matter. Why not allow herself to be portrayed as the know-nothing and let them talk out the fantasy, tentatively titled
The Scarecrow Murder
? Since she was going to say no in the end, the less involved she got, the better.

Jane tuned back in to the conversation, buzzing along happily without her. Now Bix and Tim were discussing writers. Jane was impressed with Tim’s ability to pretend that he recognized all of the credits Bix recited for each of the names floated.

“Oh, Tal Beaman? Yo u know he was really hot after the
Ghoulie Boy
sequel made such a splash, but we hear he wants to get away from all the melting latex special effects and delve into character work,” said Bix.

“Call me crazy, but I thought
Ghoulie Boy II
was so much better than one,” said Tim. “Much more heart.”

“Exactly what I’m talking about,” said Bix.

“How about Patrick?” asked Jane.

Bix turned to her, smile intact, but with one braid twitching slightly, as if it were trying to escape the ponytail.

“Patrick?”

Jane gestured toward the outer office. “You know,” she said, “the one who wants to kill somebody. Maybe he’d calm down if he got some work.”

“It is true that most writers out here forget all about their outrage and their artistry being tampered with as soon as you offer them another paycheck, but I’m afraid Patrick’s a different case. Not a writer, really.”

“But I thought you said—” Jane began.

“Novelist.” Bix shook her head and looked sad. “Couldn’t write a second act if his life depended on it. I hear his books aren’t bad, though. First novel won some sort of prize a zillion years ago. He and Lou are in some pissing match over some first editions that Lou bought from his uncle’s estate.”

A noticeable edge had come into Bix’s voice when she told Patrick’s story, and she began fussing with one of her many braids, so Jane refrained from asking any more questions. Still, she wondered why Patrick, if his anger really
was
over being outbid on books, would demand acknowledgment. That was a new one. Dealers and pickers she knew, after losing an object of desire, would never be satisfied with a little tag that said the armoire had almost gone to Big Elvis, who, on another day, might have been the picker who got up the earliest and shrewdly went into the master bedroom ahead of Jane and slapped a red sold sticker on it.

The meeting went on to cover who would play Tim, who would play Nellie, and who they might get for the roles of Fuzzy and Lula. Jane tuned out deliberately when they got to parsing the qualities of aging character actors who might be perfect for the old couple. Jane realized that hearing the individuals who she knew and loved reduced to facial characteristics, height, weight, and voice quality depressed her.

Good thing this movie wasn’t going to happen.

Jenna—or was it Cynda?—apologized for interrupting and stepped in to hand Bix two notes. Jane sipped her green tea and considered what would happen if she moved to Hollywood. First she would change her name to Jana.

Tim leaned over and patted Jane’s arm. “Going well, isn’t it?” he whispered.

“Yes, Tima.”

“Looks like your lunch date with Jeb is on. He’s meeting you at Has Been’s,” said Bix.

“It serves leftovers?” asked Tim.

“Owned and managed by actors who never made it past their first hit, or who didn’t move on to another second-banana spot—you know, the Potsies and Ralph Malphs of the world.”

Jane shook her head. She didn’t get Bix’s references, but she had a suspicion that she herself might be one of the Potsies of the world.

“You’ll love it. You can play spot the child star for whom braces and rehab just wasn’t enough. I’ll have Cynda run you over there now, and then Jeb can get you back to…”

Bix was reading the second note. She allowed her face to go blank and she took a few breaths before she looked up. “How about a studio tour, Tim?”

If Jane had known she had a firm lunch date with Jeb, she might have opted for open-toed shoes to show off her fresh pedicure, a fitted blouse to show that she had a waist, and a flirtier skirt that would showcase her still-slim legs. That morning, however, when she was dressing for the meeting she did not want to take, she had decided to dress down, show she could be casual and unimpressed by an interested producer. She had assumed she’d have a chance to change and prepare herself more for a meeting with Jeb. Her jeans were not expensively torn, but they did fit well. She had paired it with a loose-fitting pale yellow shirt and wound a rope of amber Bakelite beads around her wrist, passing Tim’s wardrobe scrutiny with only a sniff at her insistence on sticking with the old hippie riffraff look. Tim had selected the earrings she wore, a tangle of loopy gold chains that hung from a small rough-cut citrine. And Jane herself had chosen to wear her old faithful rusty orange clogs, for comfort and luck.

Now, waiting for Jeb at a sidewalk table, she checked her lipstick and hair and thought just for a moment that perhaps she, Jane Wheel, a happy enough wife and mother, shouldn’t be thinking about whether or not her pedicure was showing. Why was her heart racing at the thought of seeing Jeb Gleason again?

Jane quickly calculated the time difference between Los Angeles and the site where Charley and Nick were digging and sifting and cataloging. Charley’s cell phone did not work there, but once a week they drove into a small town nearby and called Jane with an update. As accustomed as she was to Charley’s absences when he was in the field, she needed to hear his voice now.

“I still haven’t forgiven you for breaking my heart.”

Jeb’s voice was as deep and self-amused as she remembered. She had rehearsed what she would say to Jeb, but none of her well-thought-out witty words came to mind.

“Bullshit.”

“Touché,” said Jeb. He kissed her cheek and pulled up a chair. Within two minutes he had charmed the waitress, who looked vaguely familiar to Jane, into switching the flowers on the table, a tall vase of carnations for a low basket of violets—
all the better to see you with,
he had explained to Jane—and also secured an off-the-menu list of specials that the chef would make up for regular customers who knew enough to ask.

“May I?” he asked, gesturing toward the menu, and Jane nodded.

He ordered shrimp bisque for both of them, a basket of artisan breads, and a cheese plate, then asked for one lamb curry and a wild mushroom ragout with extra plates for sharing. “And a bottle of the Sancerre,” he added.

“Isn’t that too sweet?” Jane asked.

Jeb shook his head. “Not this one. Doesn’t really go with the lamb, but it’s too delicious to pass up. Might be trite to ask about the last twenty years, so I’ll start with today. How was your meeting?”

Jane shrugged. “You first. You’re not acting anymore, are you?”

Jane knew Jeb had begun writing as soon as he hit Los Angeles, but she didn’t want to admit she had followed his career and his credits, if not the actual programs he wrote, for years.
Parker’s Playground, Mr. Meek and Polly
—those were his early shows. Then the megahit—
Southpaw and Lefty
. Everyone watched on Thursday nights and quoted it to each other the next day. Viewers claimed withdrawal headaches when it left the air. After
Southpaw,
Jeb was executive producer of a badly reviewed comedy drama that limped along for one and a half seasons—
Merle’s Place.
It had been off the air for two years.

“I better not be, since you don’t recognize me from anything.”

Jeb told Jane that he was writing a screenplay and working off a development deal. “I was a writer on a hit show, so I’ve still got some…and have an idea that will blow…” Jeb reached for the cell phone that was quietly vibrating in his pocket. “Sorry, I have to take this.”

While Jeb answered questions and laughed at his apparently witty caller, Jane sized up her first love. He had aged well. Damn men. They all did. Tim, with his crinkly eyes, all Redford-and Newman-like, and Charley with his boyish grin and hair forever tumbling over his forehead. Now she had to add Jeb to the handsome-boys-to-handsome-men list—still tall, still lean, no loss of confidence in his smile, no fading of those intense dark eyes. Just enough gray to signal experience and wisdom, but not enough to make any girl half his age lose interest. Damn those men.

Jane watched Jeb drum his fingers while he listened to his caller. That was new. Jane had always considered Jeb’s hands to be his most startling feature. He was tall and thin, with huge hands that he would lace in front of him on his lap. He always held them still. To Jane, loopily in love with him, his quiet hands had emphasized how capable and strong he was. The last thing you’d say about the Jeb Gleason she knew was that he was a fidgeter.

Jane heard angels sing and looked up. Down. Her purse was vibrating in celestial celebration. She’d ask Tim to change this ring—a lively mambo, perhaps? She sure didn’t feel like she deserved a heavenly choir. She wouldn’t have answered her cell phone while out to lunch with a friend, but what the hell? Jeb was so engaged in his conversation that he didn’t even look up when she answered her phone.

“Yeah?”

Angels must have a sense of humor if they deigned to announce her mother.

“Hi, Mom,” Jane spoke softly. People in L.A. got important calls on their cell phones. She looked around at the other tables. Half the people were talking not to their lunch companions, but into their hands or to the tiny wires hanging out of their ears. She doubted that any of the carefully downdressed, artfully made-up to look non-made-up, surgically enhanced women and men sitting around her were talking to their mothers.

“Your dad said you went to California even though I told you not to. You back?”

“Still here in L.A.,” said Jane.

“I need those pictures.”

“What pictures, Mom?”

“The ones in the sewing box you took. Your Aunt Veronica says we didn’t wear hats for Bernice’s wedding and I say we did. What? Get the ketchup from the other table. Yeah, you can get up off your behind and get it yourself. Jeez, what am I? Your maid?”

Technically, Jane thought, Nellie was the server of food and drink at the EZ Way Inn, the tavern she and her husband had run for thirty years in Kankakee, Illinois, and strictly speaking, since the person she was yelling at was a patron trying to eat his lunch, he was a paying customer, and if one subscribed to the customer-always-being-right theory of business, Nellie was, sort of, for the time being, his maid. Jane did not point this out to her mother.

“And the photographs?”

“There’s some picture in there with all of us in big hats. Had to be Bernice’s wedding…here’s mustard, ketchup, what else you want? Egg in your beer? You still got those pictures?”

Jane smiled. Yes, she had those pictures. Upstairs hall, oak flat file, third drawer. She had recently placed all the wedding pictures of people she didn’t know, the rescued photos from estate sales, flea markets, and rummage sales, into the top two drawers, and labeled them with a big
N
for
Not ours, Nick, not to
worry.
The third drawer, the narrowest, the one that could hold the least amount, was reserved for
O, Our family, for better and/or worse.