Til the Real Thing Comes Along (2 page)

“She’s so young, when he takes her out to dinner he has to cut her meat,” Marty Nussbaum offered.

“He has to strain the food.”

“He comes home with pablum on his breath.”

“The only social disease he worries about is diaper rash.”

The voices of the writers were strained with exhaustion.

“You’re makin’ the girlfriend too young,” Harry Elfand said. Then he absently put a lit match to the cigar he was chewing,
even though the cigar was already lit.

R.J. wriggled her toes inside her boots. She would never get through another hour of this. She was freezing and sleepy. A
younger woman. What’s funny about a younger woman? she thought.

“Everyone reads the
Enquirer.
We’ve gotta make Patsy
come out smelling like a rose. She caught her old man cheating. The girlfriend’s eighteen. Patsy’s thirty-six.”

“How’d Patsy catch him?” Eddie Levy asked.

R.J. put her cup down on the table and answered in a sleepy voice. “She found Clearasil on his collar.”

“That’s funny,” someone muttered very quietly.

“Good one,” Harry Elfand said to R.J. “Stay with it.”

“Freddy’s so cheap, he’ll marry the girl ’cause he can get her into the movies for half price,” R.J. said. She was so punchy
that she laughed a sharp little laugh out loud at that one. No one else even cracked a smile.

“Okay, two jokes about the girl is enough,” Harry Elfand said, turning to face R.J. “Now gimme one about why he left Patsy.”

Why he left Patsy. Why he left Patsy? Because she was…

“Boss, I got a great idea,” Marty Nussbaum said. “Since R.J. is on a roll, why don’t we all go home and let her stay here
and finish it?”

“Because it’s gotta be done by nine this morning,” Harry Elfand answered, tapping his cigar out—which usually meant he was
considering ending the meeting.

“I’ll come in at seven,” R.J. said, knowing it was the only answer that could get all of them out of there and to their respective
homes to sleep, even for a few hours. She stood, hoping Harry Elfand would take a cue from her. As she did, she could feel
the stiffness in her neck and back and legs.

Someone sang a few bars of “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” and all the men stood too.

“Well, if you ask me, writing for television is a hell of a way to make a living,” Marty Nussbaum said. It was what he always
said when a meeting ended at this hour.

“You call this living?” everyone muttered. It was what they always muttered as they searched for their car keys and made their
way out the door. When they were all in the hallway, moving, shuffling toward the elevator, too tired to talk—which for them
was very tired—R.J. switched off the lights in the conference room, closed the door, and turned to join them.

OPENING MONOLOGUE

(TIM CONWAY, BETTE MIDLER, RAY CHARLES)

MUSIC: PATSY OPENING THEME

FROM BLACK, THE PATSY SUNSHINE HOUR LOGO

MOVES FORWARD AND FREEZES WHEN IT PILLS FRAME.

ANNOUNCER (VOICE OVER)

From Hollywood… it’s the Patsy Dugan

Sunshine Howr!!!!

IMAGES OF PATSY EXPLODE ALL OVER FRAME. DOZENS OF SHOTS PER MINUTE. LAST SHOT GOES TO BLACK.

ANNOUNCER (V.0.)

…And now, ladies and gentlemen, the rhinestone cowgirl herself… Patsy Dugan!!!

PATSY
(
SINGING V.O
.)

LIKE A RHINESTONE COWGIRL

RIDING OUT ON A HORSE

IN A STAR-SPANGLED RODEO.

DISSOLVE TO: PATSY LIVE

PATSY

Howdy, everybody.

AUDIENCE (0.S.)

Howdy, Patsy!!!

PATSY

Well, if y’all have been readin’ the papers I guess y’all know by now that my husband Freddy who used ta be on the show with
me has left me for a woman half my age. Now, ain’t that the pits? Only thing worse was the way I figured out he was cheatin’.
(BEAT) I found
Clearasil
on his collar. And ya
know
how cheap Freddy is. He’ll probably many the gal on accounta he can get her into the movies for half price. Ain’t it just
awful? Freddy told
The National Enquirer
he left me ’cause I was dumb. Now ya see, that’s where me and him are different. I would never use name-callin’ in the press
against that two-timin’, lowlife, redneck piece of trash.

He also told everybody I was a lousy housekeeper. But I proved he was wrong about that. After the divorce I’m keepin’ the
house in Beverly Hills, the house in Malibu, and the house in Hawaii. Hey, who needs him anyway? There are still some men
around who think that
I’m
a cute young chick. ’Course, most of ’em are in nursing homes and institutions. I’m jokin’ because I want y’all to know that
I am not one bit bitter about this situation. I have me a very positive attitude about my future. As soon as I can, I’m gonna
start goin’ on dates and meetin’ people, because I believe it’s possible to go out there and find a man. After all, that young
gal found mine!!!

I’m real glad y’all are here ta keep me company tonight. We’re gonna have us a real good time. My special guests are Tim Conway…

APPLAUSE

The fabulous Ray Charles…

APPLAUSE

And my good friend, the Divine One, Bette Midler.

APPLAUSE

So stay tuned, hear? We’re comin’ right back, with Patsy’s Sunshine Hour.

MUSIC: RHINESTONE COWGIRL

PATSY (SINGS)

THERE’S BEEN A LOAD OF COMPROMISIN’

ON THE ROAD TO MY HORIZON

BUT I’M GONNA BE WHERE THE LIGHTS

ARE SHININ’ ON ME.

LIKE A RHINESTONE COWGIRL…

MUSIC: OUT

DISSOLVE TO BLACK.

M
ichael had a whole routine that he did with a cigarette. First he’d light one, take a few long drags, and exhale volumes of
smoke through his mouth and nose, and, R.J. was sure, sometimes a few bursts even came out of his ears. Then he’d make a kind
of nest in the crook of his hand, where he’d cradle the cigarette while he rolled it between his thumb and forefinger and
stare at the glowing end. Then he’d blow on the lit end, which would make the orange part look even brighter, and tiny ashes
would fly all around his face. After that, he’d take another few drags, let out more raging smoke, and look at the cigarette
with distaste, as if he was sorry he’d ever started smoking it in the first place. So he’d smash out what was left of it wherever
he happened to be at the time. He’d smash it into a telephone pole if he was walking down the street. He’d smash it into the
bricks of someone’s pool deck if his host had neglected to provide him with an ashtray. Or—and this was the one that made
R.J. cringe—he’d smash it into his half-f drinking glass at a party. At the moment, R.J. was watching him smash the remains
of the most recently smoked cigarette into the freshly mowed lawn of the Four Oaks School, not six feet from the sign that
said
SMOKING FORBIDDEN ANYWHERE ON CAMPUS.

It wasn’t that Michael hadn’t seen the sign. It was that he just didn’t care. He was nervous. Very nervous. R.J. had seen
him nervous before, but never this bad. Maybe the loud music and all the kids running and squealing were
upsetting to him. Probably he’d never been around this many kids at once. Never at a school fair. But that was all part of
what he’d have to get used to, now that he was going to be Jeffie’s stepfather in a few days. Five days.

R.J. felt queasy. Probably she was just worried that the wedding plans could go awry. Nothing serious. Michael was lying on
his stomach on the grass now. He had a new cigarette going, and he was doing the part where he blew on the lit end. R.J. looked
at his carefully combed prematurely silver hair and his perfectly manicured nails, and the queasy bubble in her stomach felt
as if it were growing from Ping-Pong ball to tennis ball size. She glanced across the lawn to see if there was a line waiting
to get into the ladies’ bathroom, actually the girls’ locker room. There was. When she looked back at Michael, and saw his
contorted face, at first she thought it must be a joke he was playing… but no. This wasn’t funny. He was sobbing. Silently.
His cheeks and the backs of his ears were bright red, and his body was shaking with the effort of holding in what, if he hadn’t
contained them, would be mighty cries.

“Michael.”

He couldn’t answer.

“Michael, my God, are you okay?” Maybe she should get him out of there before the children saw him, or before he let go and
the children heard him. Her eyes scanned the fairground trying to spot Jeffie. Fifth-grade boys. There were so many of them,
and almost all of them were wearing the same red school sweat shirt. It was impossible from this distance to pick out her
own son from the rest.

“Michael, let’s get you to the car,” she said, “and I’ll ask one of the other mothers to look after Jeffie. Michael,” she
said again, touching his shoulder. “Please.”

“I can’t,” he said, moving his shoulder away from her touch.

“Of course you can,” she said in a voice she often used to encourage Jeffie. “The parking lot is just across the street”

“I mean”—he narrowed his puffy red tear-filled eyes—“that I can’t marry you.”

The queasiness bubble was now a medicine ball that filled R.J. from her throat to her groin. She looked back toward the ladies’
room, positive that she would have to run over there any second, push all those other people out of the way, scream “emergency,”
and lock herself into a
cubicle and throw up. Instead she took a deep breath and said, “That’s fine. Now let’s go.” She stood and helped Michael,
who was still trembling, to his feet.

She took him back to her house after asking Harriet Wallace, another fifth-grade mother, to promise to locate and look after
Jeffie. Now she sat in her living room across from Michael, who was blowing on the ash of the current cigarette nested in
his hand. In front of him on the coffee table, an ashtray was already filled with the gold filter butts of several recently
completed Dunhills.

“This is going to break my mother’s heart,” he said quietly. “She’s not going to believe it when I tell her I couldn’t do
it. I’m a forty-year-old man, for Christ’s sake. You’d think by now I could settle down. But I still can’t make a commitment
to one woman.” His voice broke in a way that R.J. thought sounded as if it had been rehearsed. “It isn’t you. You’re a hell
of a gal. I mean, you must be if I thought I could marry you. Look how close we came. Christ, we had blood tests. We had wedding
rings,” he whined, as if she didn’t know. “I never came this close with anyone. But I can’t… I…” He burst into tears and threw
himself at R.J., put his arms around her, and buried his wet face in her neck.

“Oh, God. Forgive me. Please, R.J., say you forgive me. I’m a sick horrible person. My God.”

R.J. put her arms around his shoulders to comfort him and patted his back, and as she did, her nose and eyes were overwhelmed
with the acrid smell of cigarette smoke. R.J. hated Michael Rappaport, and she hated herself for ever agreeing to marry him,
for ever allowing herself to fall for the dozens of clever ways he’d used to win her over.

“Napoleon never waged such a campaign,” her friend Dinah would tell everyone, about Michael’s courtship of R.J. That line
always got a big laugh, because everyone knew that Michael was short. Only five feet what? Three, probably, but it was something
he never discussed. After the Napoleon joke, Dinah would be encouraged to go on and regale their mutual friends with tales
about poor Michael, so lovesick over R.J. that on top of all the other insane things he did to court her, he actually went
to one of those billboard companies that rent advertising space on the Sunset Strip, knowing that Sunset was the route R.J.
always took home from work. And “spent a friggin’ fortune,”
Dinah would announce, just so he could tell R.J. he loved her.

But how did Michael know that R.J. would even see it? That was what someone invariably asked Dinah when she told the story.
And Dinah, who had set the story up perfectly in the hope that someone would ask just that, was ready with an answer.

“Because,” she would say, heavily mascaraed eyes aglow, “it wasn’t
a
billboard. It was three—count them—three billboards. The first one said ‘Michael loves’; the second one said ‘his beautiful
R.J.’; and the third one said—are you sitting down, everyone?—’more than life itself.’”

“No!” People would invariably shriek in amazement, and R.J. would shift uncomfortably in her chair, and they would turn and
look at her as if to ask: This can’t possibly be a true story, can it? And she would nod weakly and admit it was not only
true, but that renting the three billboards was one of the less extravagant things Michael had done in an effort to win her
hand. Making her feel as if her life were an episode of
Love American Style.
And sometimes someone would say, “I remember that. I had a meeting at the nine-thousand building and I remember seeing those
billboards and wondering what shmuck did that?”

R.J. would always jump to Michael’s defense then, remembering how sweet he looked that day, standing on Sunset knowing just
when she would drive by because he’d paid someone at her office to call him at a number in a phone booth as soon as R.J. left
for the day. He was carrying two dozen roses and had his thumb up as if he were hitchhiking. But R.J. didn’t see him at first.
ROCKY
II:
THE STORY CONTINUES.
A determined Clint Eastwood punching his fist through the prison wall to
ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ
. R.J. loved the billboards. Later she remembered that she’d once told Michael that the reason she took Sunset home instead
of Beverly was to look at the billboards.
MICHAEL LOVES… HIS BEAUTIFUL R.J…. MORE THAN
… Oh, God.

“No,” R.J. said aloud when she read the three signs and her brain put together what they said. “No. Oh, please, no,” she said
again when she spotted Michael standing at the curb just beneath the third sign. “No.” And she pulled up and rolled down the
car window.