Play It as It Lays

53

'I'LL BE AWAY a few weeks," Carter said. "I came by because I'll be away, I wanted to tell you — you know the picture's entered at Cannes.”

"I read that."

"You seen it yet?"

"How would I have seen it, it's not in release, I mean is it?"

"Maria, for Chrisfs fucking sake, they've been screening it every night for a month, you know that — oh shit."

"I didn't mean to be that way," she said after a while.

"You never mean to be any way."

It was always that way when he came by but sometimes later, after he had left, the spectre of his joyless face would reach her, talk about heart's needle, would flash across her hapless consciousness all the images of the family they might have been: Carter throwing a clear plastic ball filled with confetti, Kate missing the ball. Kate crying. Carter swinging Kate by her wrists. The spray from the sprinklers and the clear plastic ball with the confetti falling inside and Kate's fat arms stretched up again for the catch she would always miss. Freeze frame. Kate fevered, Carter sponging her back while Maria called the pediatrician. Kate's birthday, Kate laughing, Carter blowing out the candle. The images would flash at Maria like slides in a dark room. On film they might have seemed a family.

"Listen," Maria said to Carter the night before he left for Cannes.

She had put off calling until almost midnight but had finally made herself do it. "The picture's fine. I went to a screening, it's a beautiful picture."

There was a silence. "If you need to reach me call BZ," he said then. "He'll know where I am."

"The picture. I really liked it."

"Fine. Thanks."

"What's the matter."

"Just forget it, Maria." His voice was tired. "There hasn't been a print in Los Angeles all week."

During the next few weeks Maria bought Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter and studied them dutifully for small mentions of Carter. After Cannes he seemed to be in London, and after that in Paris again, where he appeared on television discussing the auteur principle.

“Carter's staying another week in Paris, I guess you know,"

Helene said on the telephone.

"The touring auteur," Maria said.

Helene paused only slightly. "BZ called them last night, apparently she has to stay over to talk about a picture."

"I suppose he was pleased about Cannes."

"He didn't talk about it much but she said—"

“You think you're telling me something, Helene, you're missing the point."

Helene giggled. "Whose point."

That afternoon Maria had a small accident with the Corvette, received a call from the bank about her overdrawn account, and learned from the drugstore that the doctor would no longer renew her barbiturate prescriptions. In a way she was relieved.