Postcards from the Edge

Dreaming Outside Your Head

Suzanne was desperate to do something she felt would legitimize her, or that would be perceived as legitimizing her. Something that would cause her to seem desirable. Ideally, she would accept the marriage proposal of a member of the Royal Family who would renounce his throne for her. Since this was hardly likely, she concentrated on an alternate plan: getting work.

She plagued her agents for months, until they finally got her an offer for a low-budget film called The Kitchen Sink, starring Robert Munch, who was best known for the series Mr. Blue, in which he played the janitor in a women-only apartment building. More recently, he had portrayed a bishop in the miniseries Read My Lips.

The Kitchen Sink was a mistaken-identity comedy about a pair of undercover cops—Munch and Suzanne—who endure a series of mishaps while investigating a prostitute ring, end up in jail, and then get married. Since the film was shooting just outside of Palm Springs, Suzanne decided to stay with her grandparents, who lived in a two-bedroom house in the desert. The house had a flag in the front and a pool in the back, both of which lent it a kind of protection, a strange bracket.

Her grandfather, whom she adored, had gotten pretty senile. Suzanne was never sure if he quite knew who she was, but, whoever she was, he was always glad to see her. He spent most of his time sleeping or watching Mexican TV, though he spoke almost no Spanish. Her grandmother, though, was as Right There as she could be without making people wish she was somewhere else. She had three Yorkies—Jigger, Peanut, and Howdie—and when she wasn’t doing her mosaics or microwaving Franco-American food, she was talking to her dogs. “Didn’t she, Jigger?” she would croon. “Wouldn’t I, Peanut?” “Isn’t that right, Howdie?”

On the morning of her first day of shooting, Suzanne’s alarm rang at five. She went into the bathroom and, without turning on the light, started her bath. Then she climbed back into bed for a brief reprieve, trying to be grateful she was finally working again.

She lay there, half awake, thinking about the wrap party of her first movie. She had hugged her dresser, Rosie, a forty-five-year-old woman with a thick Cockney accent, and said, “I’ll miss you so much. Give me your address and phone number.” Rosie had replied, “Luv, what’s more’n likely’s we’ll never see each other again.” Ten years had passed since then, and so far Rosie was right.

It was always like that, Suzanne thought, as she stepped into her bath. You did a film for a few months and you got a family. An intimate family with its own dynamic, its own in-jokes, its own likes, dislikes, and romances. The intensity of it was heightened by the knowledge that it was all temporary. Not only did you know that it would end but, give or take a week or two, you knew when. What you didn’t know was how the whole thing would turn out. It could be good entertainment, it could be bad. It could succeed, it could fail. It was mining for celluloid gold. Suzanne dressed quickly, not bothering to dry her hair, and crept out of the dark house, past the dogs, the microwave, and the Stars and Stripes, and into the station wagon that waited in the driveway to take her to work.

They arrived at the set at five thirty, just as the sun was coming up over the Joshua trees. Suzanne watched the frantic activity of the set against the otherwise serene backdrop of the desert. It was as if this movie set was some inane act of nature. “And the Lord said, ‘Let there be entertainment,’” thought Suzanne as she got out of the car. Then, remembering the script, she added, “‘Of sorts.’”

A man with a beard—Suzanne guessed he was an assistant director—came toward her, speaking into a walkie-talkie. “Yep, she just got here,” he said. “I’ll show her to her trailer.” He smiled at her. “I’m Ted,” he said, “designed to make your life a more annoying place to be.”

Suzanne smiled back, bowed her wet head, and said, “Suzanne, designed to be annoyed.”

Ted laughed. “Then we ought to get along great.” He led her to a long trailer consisting of a row of doors, each of which had a name on it. “And this, of course, is your—”

“My hamster cage,” Suzanne interrupted cheerfully as she surveyed her allotted space.

“I was going to say ‘resting place,’” Ted said.

“My resting place,” Suzanne repeated. “My final resting place. I always suspected it would end like this—alone in a tiny room with an air conditioner, a toilet, and an AM radio, in the middle of nowhere.”

“Hopefully, it won’t end like this,” said Ted. “It’ll just middle.”

“Yeah, it’ll probably end alone in a large air-conditioned room with an AM-FM radio.”

“Well, this is a grim way to start the day,” said Ted. “I know!” he said brightly. “Let’s get you into some makeup. That’ll cheer you right up.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Suzanne, following him to another trailer. “Put a little base and lipstick on me and I’m just a giggling fool.”

They walked up some steps into a fat one-room trailer where a man stood toying with a red wig while a woman sat reading a magazine. “I bring you the head of Suzanne Vale,” Ted announced. “Suzanne, this is Marilyn, our makeup artist, and this is Roger, our hair stylist.” Everyone exchanged hellos.

“Ooh, your hair is still wet,” Roger fretted. “You’d better come to me first.”

“I’ll leave you folks and check on how the caterers are coming with breakfast,” said Ted. He opened the door, letting in some beautiful dawn desert air, then slammed it behind him.

Suzanne sat in Roger’s chair, staring at the reflection of her dread morning face. Roger browsed his cassette rack. “Do you want calming or stimulating?” he asked her.

Suzanne mulled it over for a few moments. It was a question she had asked herself about men. She had finally decided she wanted stimulating that very subtly became calming—a holocaust that became a haven. She had hoped Jack Burroughs might make this improbable leap, but he had merely made the transition from stimulating to stressful. “Calming,” she finally replied.

“Calming it is,” said Roger, popping a Windham Hill tape into his player and starting it. He looked at Suzanne. “Early, isn’t it?” he said maternally.

“It’s so early it’s late,” she said somberly.

“That’s cute.” Roger laughed. “Did you just make that up?”

“I don’t know,” said Suzanne. “I should know later.”

“Listen to her!” Roger called over to Marilyn. “We’re going to have a ball!” Suzanne smiled.

Marilyn lit a cigarette and walked to the door. “Can I get either of you anything from Craft Services?”

Suzanne looked at her. She was blond, somewhere in her forties, with blue eyes in a tan, weatherbeaten face. She was tall and thin, and she wore blue jeans and a T-shirt that said, “Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.” Suzanne smiled—she had the same T-shirt at home. “If there are any doughnuts or pancakes… ,” she said shyly, suddenly convinced that food—particularly fun food—would wake her up.

“Not really a health nut, are you?” said Marilyn, through her just-inhaled cigarette smoke. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“She’s a trip,” said Roger, shaking his long, tinted, curly blond head as the door closed behind Marilyn. He plugged in the hair dryer. “We’ve worked on…” He rolled his eyes upward, as if the number of films they had done together was hidden high in his head. “Fifth,” he said. “This will be our fifth picture together.” With that he raised the dryer like a friendly gun, pointed it at Suzanne’s head, and said, “Bang bang, you’re dry.”

Suzanne searched her mind for an appropriate rejoinder. When none turned up, she simply sat grinning inanely at Roger in the mirror, the silence burning through her.

“I’m so glad to have a chance to work with you,” Roger enthused. “I’ve always been a fan.”

“Thank you.”

“But more of you than your hair,” he went on. “I’ve never actually seen a flattering hairstyle on you in any of your films. Not that you didn’t look good, I just thought your hair could look better.” He turned on the dryer and continued the conversation, shouting over the loud whine of hot air. “Except for Mist on the Lake. That’s the best I ever saw you look.” He ran his fingers through her hair as he spoke. Suzanne frowned at her reflection.

“But my hair was wet for most of Mist on the Lake,” she screamed.

“Exactly!” Roger shouted back with satisfaction. “And that’s close to what I want to try with you on this picture. Slicked back. The wet look. Dramatic but casual.”

“Great!” she shouted.

Show business, Suzanne thought, as this man she had just met—this man she would probably know fairly intimately by the end of the week—played with her hair. It’s all about distraction, a way of being transported out of your life, of having someone else’s life for a while. Identifying with them. Feeling relief that their predicament isn’t yours, or feeling relief that it is. A way of dreaming outside your head. Tilting your head with the actors when they kiss, thinking, “It’s so real.” The New Real.

The New Real was not being real, it was acting real. Suzanne was in the business of seeming—of entertaining people with her ways of seeming real. Portraying reality had become her way of experiencing it. She knew how to act like a regular person. She was self-consciously unselfconscious. She didn’t mind being watched, but on some level she minded being recorded. It was as if she became an African native the moment the cameras started rolling, and felt her soul being robbed. If the natives were right about this, Suzanne figured her soul level was unacceptably low by now. It occurred to her that after she noticed her soul was completely gone, she would quickly lose her all-important ability to seem okay.

The door opened and Marilyn came in. “Lucky you,” she said, placing several chocolate doughnuts in front of Suzanne. “I got to the doughnut tray before the camera crew, so there were plenty of the icing ones left.”

“How can I ever repay you?” asked Suzanne, looking at the doughnuts as if her medicine had arrived.

“Just hold still while I’m doing your eyes.” Marilyn moved to her area and took the lid off her Styrofoam coffee cup.

“She’s all yours!” Roger announced to Marilyn, gesturing grandly. Suzanne thanked him through a mouthful of cake, then made her way across the room into Marilyn’s chair. She squinted into the glare of the lights around the mirror, trying to adjust to their fluorescent horror.

“Loud, aren’t they?” Marilyn said.

“Deafening,” Suzanne agreed.

“Well,” Marilyn said, placing Kleenex in Suzanne’s collar to protect it from the makeup. “Is there anything you’d like to tell me about preferences or allergies or pet peeves? We might as well cover it before we get in too deep.” She sipped her coffee, watching Suzanne over the rim of her cup.

“Just make me look like my face is thinner than it is and my lips aren’t as thin as they are, and I can survive anything,” Suzanne said. “Also, I have a particular horror of blemishes.”

“Thin lips, fat face, and zits,” Marilyn mused, as she examined the source of Suzanne’s complaints. “Well, that won’t be too much of a problem. We’ll use lip line, shadow, and concealer. I frankly don’t quite see what you’re talking about, but if you ask me, most actresses look at their faces for too long and find too much wrong with themselves.”

As she talked, she began applying base to Suzanne’s face and throat. “I’ll have you know that I’m famous for my zit cover,” she went on. “I have a special little pencil I use, with almost a yellow tint to it, and over that I apply base and powder, and then, if more is necessary, I use a cover stick. Medium. You don’t seem to have any spots at the moment. Were you referring to something specific, or were you just warning me for the future?” She stood with her sponge suspended over Suzanne’s jawline, waiting for a reply, but Suzanne—lulled by the music, the makeup, and Marilyn—was asleep.

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. Your prince has arrived.”

Ted shook Suzanne gently by the shoulders. “My mother thinks I’m a prince,” he explained.

Marilyn watched Suzanne carefully as she surveyed her face in the mirror. “Pretty good for six thirty in the morning, huh?”

Suzanne smiled. “This has to be one of my favorite things. Going to sleep plain and waking up pretty.” She eased out of the chair and walked with Ted to the door.

“I’ll slick you down on the set,” shouted Roger, who was blow-drying the pin curls on a wig.

“She’s on her way to wardrobe,” said Ted gravely into his walkie-talkie. “We’re literally out the door,” he continued, as they stepped out into the cool desert morning. “The producer is coming to see you,” he said to her. “I mean, one of the producers.”

“How many producers are there?”

“Three,” he said. “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” He opened her trailer door for her.

“And which am I endearing myself to this morning?” she asked, climbing into her hamster cage.

“The Holy Ghost. Joe Pierce, our alleged line producer. Can I get you anything before he comes?”

“Coca-Cola,” she said, as a red-haired woman appeared behind Ted with an armful of clothes.

“Rita, my darling,” Ted said, “this is our artiste, Suzanne. Suzanne, our wardrobe mistress, Rita. Ladies, I leave you temporarily to yourselves.” He bowed and wandered off, soothing someone on the other end of his walkie-talkie.

“I brought your clothes,” said Rita, a voluptuous woman verging on heavy, with the kindest watery blue eyes Suzanne had seen on a movie set. “We should probably get them on you.” Suzanne saw that Rita also had dimples and freckles—all the friendly features. Rita helped Suzanne get into her undercover cop outfit, which consisted of jeans, a sweatshirt, and sneakers. Just as she was tying her last sneaker, Ted came in brandishing a Diet Coke.

“Your caffeine ration,” he said, handing Suzanne the cold can.

“Thanks,” she said. “Where can I get more of these, should the need arise?”

“Prop truck,” said Ted. “Ask Raider, the prop guy. Or I can get you one, if you’re nice to me.”

“Oh, I’m nice,” she said. “I think these will be remembered as my nice years, quickly to be followed by the sullen months, and then, of course, the obscure decades. I only recently finished those wacky fuckup years, so you’re the first to benefit from my reform.”

Rita was about to say something when there was a knock on the door. “Who is it?” called Suzanne.

“Joe Pierce. Just came to welcome you aboard.”

Suzanne opened the door and Ted went out, squeezing past Joe Pierce. “Morning, sir,” he said to Joe, then, to Suzanne, “So, can I tell them you’re ready?”

“I guess,” she said.

Joe Pierce walked into the trailer, a nondescript man wearing a white polo shirt and jeans that, on him, looked like slacks. He looked like somebody’s stepfather. “Any more people in here,” he said, “and we’d need a lubricant.”

Suzanne laughed uneasily, and Rita excused herself. “See you later, Rita,” Joe called jovially, then fixed what passed for his attention on Suzanne. “I just came by to say hello and make sure everything was up to snuff,” he said.

“Everything’s great,” Suzanne assured him, forcing a smile.

“I want you to know we really appreciate your doing a drug screen,” said Joe, who, with his tiny dark eyes in his big white head, reminded Suzanne of a sand dab.

She put her soda can down. “Sure,” she said. “Did I pass?”

“Did you pass?” Joe echoed, laughing. “Of course you passed. We knew you would. It was the insurance company that was worried, not us. You apparently had some problems on your last film, but…” Joe slapped his knee and stood up. “I just want you to know we’re right behind you one hundred percent. Well, I’ll leave you to get ready.” He opened the door. “See you out there,” he said, disappearing with a wave.

For the first time since she’d arrived at the set, Suzanne was alone. She sat nursing her soda and thinking about her visit with Joe. She hadn’t minded taking the drug screen. She understood that these truly had to be the nice, cooperative years for her. She didn’t think of it as a punishment, not even the part about her salary being held in escrow until she finished the picture, just in case she got loaded and cost the producers money. She just figured she had to do all this until she didn’t have to anymore. It was a repair process that could go on for as long as it liked. She only wished it was for a better film—a big-budget picture, for example, or even a small, interesting art film. A high-action, low-budget film, though, was harder to reconcile.

Suzanne heard the static of a walkie-talkie transmission outside. She swallowed the last of her Diet Coke, opened the door, and followed Ted to the set.

The director, Simon Markham, was English. A nice guy. She’d met him the week before, when they’d interviewed her for the job. For all her desperation, she hadn’t cared that much if she got the part or not. She simply assumed she would never work again. Whenever she wasn’t working, Suzanne knew she’d never work again, and when, inevitably, she did work, she knew it was the last time. It was a relationship with her profession that was based on trust.

Simon was standing near the camera. He was wearing a big straw hat, linen pants, a white T-shirt, and a jacket tossed cavalierly over his shoulders. “You look like you’re dressed for a yacht,” Suzanne said.

“Oh, good morning, darling,” Simon said, almost kissing her on both cheeks. “You’re looking well.” The cinematographer asked him to look through the lens at the shot they were lining up: the scene where Suzanne and her co-star Robert Munch have been tied to a cactus by a bunch of pimps and left to die. It was a long scene with a lot of dialogue, especially Suzanne’s speech about her fear of the dark.

She watched Simon Markham deal with the crew. It was his first feature film and he was nervous, although he seemed to be assimilating his nervousness into his naturally high spirits. Now he was listening to the director of photography explain why the shot wasn’t going to work the way he wanted.

Suddenly Ted appeared at her elbow. “We’re ready for a line-up,” he said. Suzanne nodded and followed him to the cactus, where she was introduced to Robert Munch, was tied up with him, and talked to him about her fear of the dark, all before nine A.M.

Suzanne smiled as she rode back to her grandparents’ house that evening. It had been a good day, she thought. She’d met at least five people who were in AA, including Bobby Munch and his wife, who was down here with him. She had found someone who would give her some water pills before her bathing suit scene. She’d remembered most of her dialogue, and Simon had seemed pleased with her work. She’d met the two executive producers—the Father and the Son—toward the end of the day, and even though they’d been nicer to Bobby than to her, she chalked it up to the overall sexism prevailing in show business and let it go at that.

Suzanne felt that her acceptance of her reality verged on the adult, and was almost proud of herself. Yes, all in all, a pretty good first day.

The next morning, while the cameras were being repositioned for close-ups, Simon came over and sat down next to Suzanne. He was friendly, but there was something else. He seemed almost embarrassed.

“What’s happening?” said Suzanne cheerfully. “Did you have to take a drug test, too?”

Simon looked confused. “Oh, no, no,” he said. “It’s nothing, really. They just… The producers saw rushes last night and had some rather interesting notes.”

Suzanne instantly tensed up. She began wringing out her hair, which had been soaked for the chase-in-the-rain sequence they were filming. “Well, what?” she said, as calmly as she could manage it.

“Now, don’t take it the wrong way,” Simon said. “I saw them this morning and you were fine.”

“It was my first day,” Suzanne said, staring at the ground.

“It was your first day, absolutely,” he said emphatically. “I couldn’t agree with you more. The producers simply felt you should have fun with it.” He stopped and smiled at her. “Just,” he shrugged, “have more fun with it, that’s all.”

Suzanne stared at him. “Simon, if I knew how to have fun with stuff, I wouldn’t be in therapy. I wouldn’t need to have drug tests.”

“Now, now,” Simon said, tilting his head and looking at her as if she wouldn’t finish her vegetables. “I think they had some very interesting comments. Maybe I’m not saying it properly. What I think they mean is that you could own your performance. Make it more your own. Just sort of have fun.”

Suzanne stared at an anthill at her feet. “Really?” she said sarcastically to the ants. “And here I thought everything I did had to be fraught with torment. This is incredible. Why didn’t one of my shrinks tell me this?”

“Now, Suzanne,” Simon said patiently. “You shouldn’t be in this business if you can’t take criticism.”

It was true that Suzanne couldn’t take criticism. Even when directors gave her direction, she often took it as criticism. “But Simon, please,” she said, not looking at him. “‘Have fun with it.’ Don’t you think I would do that with everything I did, if it was at all possible?”

Simon put his arm around her. “I know you can do this part. Just relax into it. Be yourself and you’ll be wonderful.” He kissed the top of her head and went off to talk to his D.P., as Ted walked up to her with a can of Diet Coke.

“NutraSweets for the sweet,” he said, handing it to her.

“You know what I think?” she said. “Actors are the lowest of the low. Unless they have box office, in which case they’re treated with respect without being respected.” She took a swig of soda. “At least with me, there’s an honest level of contempt. They don’t respect me and they don’t treat me with respect.”

Ted nodded sympathetically. “You ought to be an assistant director if you want to sample the mother lode of contempt. And preferably a second assistant director,” he said, taking her arm. “We need to get you touched up. You’re in the next shot.”

After the scene, Suzanne went over to the prop truck to check on the cookie and candy possibilities. The truck was on the far end of the location, and she normally wouldn’t have gone, but it was a cool fall day and everything looked crisp to her. She had heard somewhere that the light in the desert changed all the time, so she decided to walk to the prop truck and see it change.

She moved through the warm hum of the crew as they checked lights, changed lenses, positioned extras. Suzanne loved crews. There was something reassuring about a crew, something that said maybe it was all worth it after all. She loved the different baseball caps they wore, and their jackets and shirts from films and shows they’d worked on before. And their little stories about things that happened on other sets, the anecdotes about bad food, hangovers, and girlfriends. All the stuff of real life. Suzanne felt good when she thought of being a part of it.

She was humming “There’s No Business Like Show Business” as she arrived at the truck. She headed for the metal steps at the back, and as she rounded the corner she almost collided with Neil Bleene, the younger of the executive producers. “Well,” said Neil, stepping aside, “fancy meeting you here.”

Suzanne smiled a startled smile and went up the steps. Neil Bleene held a maroon leather-bound script under his arm. He wore beige leather pants and a plain white shirt open at the collar, with the sleeves rolled up. He had dark hair, a beard, dark eyes, pale skin, and he never seemed entirely to close his mouth. He looked as if he were pleasantly dumbfounded. Or dumb.

Finding no doughnuts or other treats, Suzanne got a Diet Coke and peered down at Neil from the truck. “I understand my enjoyment levels are down.”

Neil looked down at his crocodile shoes and cleared his throat. “Well, no,” he began in an amused tone. “We felt the performance was fine, but… ” He scanned the horizon for the right phrase. “You’re holding something back.”

Suzanne realized she was older than Neil Bleene, who couldn’t be much more than twenty-six. “Holding something back,” she repeated solemnly.

“It felt like you weren’t… that you didn’t really make a choice. You made a nonchoice. Like you were concentrating more on not doing something than on doing something.”

“I see,” Suzanne said.

“I’ve acted in theater,” Neil explained. “I’ve also directed theater. I’m doing this to make money, but basically I’m a theater director. From what I was told, you spontaneously hit Bobby during a rehearsal and Simon stopped you. Well, I don’t think he should stop your impulses.”

Neil was really wailing now. “The other thing is that sometimes certain line readings are appropriate. Like in comedy, it’s a rule that inflections go up at the end.”

Suzanne knelt down to look in his eyes, without giving up the separation and protection of the truck. “There’s a comedy rule?” she asked.

Neil ran his hands through his hair. “Well, there’s not necessarily rules so much as guidelines. Comedy guidelines.” He paused for a moment, then came at her from another angle. “You were very good in Public Domain. What did you do there?” he asked patiently.

“I had Magna Valnepov as my acting coach and Benjamin Keller as my director,” she almost shouted. “I didn’t have fun with it. We had a month of rehearsals. We worked very hard. We hardly ever relaxed.”

Suzanne noticed that Neil was watching her steadily now, holding his leather script to his chest like a shield. She realized she was getting pretty defensive. “Look,” she said, “I may not take criticism well, but that doesn’t mean I’m not hearing it. I’ll hear it later. Right now I’m storing it in my delayed response area, because it’s hard for me. I wish I was someone who welcomed criticism and immediately understood its value, but I’m not, and if I look unhappy about this, I am. I’ve had one day of work on this thing, and this is my second conversation about what’s missing in my performance.”

Neil shook his head benignly. “We’re talking about two minutes of film. Two minutes of screen time out of ninety.”

“Is it correctable?” she asked.

Neil laughed. “Come on,” he said reassuringly. “It’s not as though you farted during all your dialogue and we all sat in rushes and said, ‘What’s that noise all over her lines?’”

“I’m so relieved,” Suzanne said. “That analogy has bathed me in relief.” She jumped off the prop truck, careful not to spill her soda. “Thanks for the acting tips and pep talk,” she said over her shoulder as she headed back to the set. “I’m feeling much more relaxed now.”

On the ride home, Suzanne asked her driver, Les, if he liked show business.

“Sometimes, sometimes not,” Les said. “It’s a sissy job. Never steady.” He shrugged. “Seems all right on the outside, then there’s nothing behind it.”

“Why did you go into it in the first place?”

Les grinned sheepishly. “Wanted to meet Jean Arthur,” he admitted.

“Did you?”

“Sure did,” Les replied proudly. “Drove her for three pictures she did at Columbia. She asked for me special the last time.”

She hadn’t been at her grandparents’ house for ten minutes when the phone rang. “It’s for you, of course,” her grandmother said to her. “George something.”

“George Lazan,” Suzanne whispered, holding her hand over the mouthpiece. “One of my producers.”

“Oh,” said her grandmother, “Miss Snooty Britches.” She went into the kitchen to open a can of something for dinner. “Miss Snooty Britches,” she repeated. “Isn’t she, Howdie?”

Suzanne put the receiver to her ear. “Hello,” she said.

“Have I caught you at a bad time?” asked George Lazan.

“No, not at all,” she said politely. “How are you?”

“Well, look,” George said. “I saw the rushes and, frankly, you’re holding back. See, I think of this piece as a light, fluffy piece, a kind of What’s Up, Doc? for cops. So you gotta relax. You gotta just enjoy yourself and trust the process.”

Suzanne watched her grandfather’s incredibly long cigarette ash grow while he stared at the ball game on the living room TV. “Well,” she said, “I can’t really promise you I’m going to turn in a Barbra Streisand performance.”

“No, no, no, no,” George said. “You see, I think of Bob Munch as a kind of Ryan O’Neal type. He’s a reactive actor. What we need is for you to be the one who governs the pace of the piece. If you dictate the pace, then Bob will follow you.”

Suzanne sat down and pulled Jigger into her lap, and said nothing.

“So, we need you to establish the pace, and Bob will follow you,” he restated brusquely.

Suzanne stroked Jigger. “I hardly think I’m responsible for the pace of the piece.”

“Well, look,” said George impatiently, “it’s a Happened One Night kind of thing. You know what I mean.” He cleared his throat. “Look, do you think you can do this part?”

Suzanne went cold. Jigger jumped out of her lap. The ash fell off her grandfather’s cigarette. “Yeah,” she said in a small voice. “Why?” This is surreal, she thought. I’m going to be fired from a bad movie for not relaxing.

“I always ask my actors that,” he explained. “Look, just because we imagined Goldie Hawn or a Marilyn Monroe kind of thing in this part… Now we’ve got to deal with what you have to bring to it. We hired you, now we’ve got to go with what you have.”

Suzanne sighed. This is a lot, she thought. This is as hard as I was hit for taking drugs. “I appreciate your comments, Mr. Lazan,” she said finally. “I’ll certainly give relaxing my best shot. If I’m not enjoying myself, though, it’s not because I’m deliberately trying to sabotage your film.”

George cleared his throat again. “I realize that,” he said. “Just do the best you can.”

“I’ll try,” she replied, in her most relaxed voice.

“Well,” he said, “nice to… I’ll see you on the set.”

“You sure will,” Suzanne offered, and hung up. “You sure will,” she repeated to the air in front of her.

“And the farmer hauled another load away!” sang her grandfather. Suzanne looked at him and saw that he was smiling. “Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap,” he said. She walked to his chair, sat on the arm, and kissed his head.

“Soup’s on,” her grandmother called from the kitchen.

Her grandfather shook his head and said, “Don’t that beat all?”

After dinner, Suzanne decided to go to sleep early and put this day behind her. She took off her makeup, brushed her teeth, and put on her nightgown. Before going to bed, though, she decided to call her therapist.

Before she lifted the receiver to dial Norma, the phone rang. “Suzanne?” a man’s voice said. “It’s me, Rob.” Her agent.

“What’s happening?” she said.

“Well, George Lazan called me today and he’s very upset. He says you’re not enjoying your work.” Suzanne felt what she had been holding together all day quickly begin to come apart.

“If George Lazan is upset about that, he should see a shrink,” Suzanne said tightly. “If he’s upset about me not enjoying my work, he should fucking go into therapy.”

“Well,” said Rob, “but, I mean, what are you doing?” He sounded concerned. “What are you doing?”

“I’m on Quaaludes,” shouted Suzanne childishly. “I’m on lodes and base and smack.”

“There’s no need to shout,” he said.

“Rob, it’s me, Suzanne,” she said. “I’ve been working one day.”

“Two days,” he corrected her.

“Well, I usually don’t go into my deep REM relaxation until about my fourth or fifth day on the set.”

“But George Lazan told me you seemed to be holding something back.”

“Don’t do this to me,” said Suzanne ominously. “Do not do this to me! I don’t want to be in this business anymore anyway.” She started to cry. “I will not be treated like I’m deliberately withholding something. I went into this on Monday, and it’s Tuesday, and I’m doing the best I can. I got the job Friday night. It’s Tuesday!” She sniffled loudly, and felt silly.

“Well,” said Rob, sounding worried, “there’s no need to get so upset. I simply wanted to pass on what Lazan said to me—”

“Are they going to fire me?” Suzanne demanded.

“No, of course not,” he assured her.

“What is this, then? This is not going to achieve what they want. This is going to make me defensive. If they want me to relax and enjoy myself, this is not the way to get me to do it. I’ve been in this business twelve years, and they’re treating me like I just got out of drama school.”

“Suzanne, take it easy,” Rob said. “George Lazan is on your side. He wants you to be as good as you can be in this part. So calm down and just go in there tomorrow and be great.”

Suzanne sighed. “All right,” she said finally. “All right. But I don’t want any more of these conversations. If they call after tomorrow and don’t like it, I want you to fucking get me out of it, and… I’m sorry. I’m tired. I got four hours’ sleep and I worked all day, and I got a lot of acting lectures, and now…” She trailed off dramatically. “Let me talk to you tomorrow. I’ll be more philosophical by then.”

“All right, sweetheart. Take it easy.”

“Thanks,” Suzanne said, and hung up.

“Honey, you shouldn’t get so worked up,” her grandmother said from the doorway.

“They’re treating me like I’m a jerk,” Suzanne said.

“Just ’cause they treat you like a jerk doesn’t mean you have to act like one. How they treat you is not necessarily who you are. My mother always told me that. She’d say, ‘Honey, just ’cause they treat you like shit, you could still act like pie.’”

“This was a big recurring theme with Great-grandma Pearl,” said Suzanne. “I remember her saying that a fly is as likely to land on shit as on pie. So she thought everything could be divided into two categories. Either shit or pie.”

“Well, yeah, but she was a smart woman. Very smart woman. But I guess we were never rich enough to have your problems. Not so much time to get ourselves so worked up. Your grandpa worked on the railroad.” She paused for a moment and sat down next to Suzanne on the bed. “You know what you should do? You should do something with your writing, with those poems you used to write. Some of your poems are better than anything I’ve ever read in those cards over at the Palm Desert Mall. Why don’t you find out how you get into that?”

“I don’t know if I want to,” Suzanne said dubiously.

“Well, then, why don’t you find a nice guy and marry him and settle down?”

“It’s the ‘nice’ part I have trouble with,” she said. “Don’t you think that if it was going to happen, it would have happened already?”

“No,” said her grandmother. “You’re a good age for it. Find a nice guy to take care of you.”

“Yeah, but Gran, I’m a lot to take care of.”

“Oh, you talk big,” her grandmother said. “You talk big and you think fancy, but you’re just like other people. You act all rough and tough, but you’re a pushover. You just think too much and you talk too loud.”

“Don’t you think my life is weird, Gran?”

“Weird, weird, you call everything weird. It’s not so weird. But you’ve got to do something sooner or later to get your life together, girl. You don’t take those drugs anymore, and I’m real proud of you for that, but now that you can see it clearly, you’ve got to figure out what you want to do with it all.”

“What was that thing you always used to say? ‘It ain’t what you eat that makes you fat, it’s what you get’?” Suzanne asked.

“Yup.”

“What does that mean? I always thought it was specifically designed to confuse people out of their panic.”

“No,” said her grandmother, “it’s like ‘Your eyes are bigger than your stomach.’ It ain’t what you eat that makes you fat, it’s what you get. It’s like what you eat is what you get—even if it’s a plate of cold beans.”

“I see.”

“What’s happening?” said Suzanne’s grandfather, who was standing in the doorway. “Look what the cat drug in.”

“Hi, Granpaw.”

“Hi, honey,” said her grandmother. “What are you doing up?”

“Well, I heard everybody yap, yap, yappin’ in here and I thought I’d come in,” he said.

“You want some more beef jerky, Granpaw?” Suzanne asked.

“Did I have some already?”

“He doesn’t remember,” her grandmother whispered.

“Oh, I sure do,” he said. “I remember. I heard that. Don’t talk behind my back. You women, I tell you…”

“Honey, don’t get all worked up now,” said Suzanne’s grandmother. “Do you want some—”

“I just want some coffee and one of my doughnuts,” he said. “I just heard you so loud in here. I’m all right.” He wandered back to his room.

“He gets worse every day,” her grandmother said. “It reminds me of you, when you used to get all bleary from those painkillers.”

Suzanne sighed. “All I want is to feel like I’ve got a regular life. Do you think I could make it if I moved here and wrote the insides of cards, and—”

“I don’t think you could do it, quite frankly,” said her grandmother. “But I think it’s your way of having a nice dream. Most people dream big, you dream small. It’s just whatever you haven’t got is what you want. It isn’t the life, it’s what you do with it. So, do something regular with your irregular life, rather than trying to get a regular one, ’cause you’d just do something irregular with that.”

“But do you think I could hold down a job? A regular job?”

“I’m one of those people who believe you can do whatever you set your mind to,” her grandmother said. “But, that being said, I think some people have an easier time setting their minds down than others do, and your mind seems to hover. Your brother seems to have his head out of the clouds, but yours is right up there in them. You always read too much, always had your nose in a book. A bookworm. You just don’t seem to have a level look on things, and I don’t know if you can get that or not. Maybe you could just live with it. I don’t think it’s such a bad thing. Certainly there’s worse.”

“Was Mommy like this?”

“You’re a little like your mother. She never was booky like you, but she had that big kind of personality. When you were a little girl you were very quiet. Your mother was more of a tomboy, but you… One time when we were driving somewhere I had you in the car seat, and we were taking these bumps really hard, and you took this big bump—you were less than two years old, way less—and you looked over at me and you said, ‘Damn it!’ And I don’t know where you got that word.”

Suzanne smiled. “What else do you remember?”

“You were very serious,” her grandmother continued. “You had these big brown eyes and you were always going, ‘What’s that? What’s that?’ You wondered what everything was. You would frown and point a lot, like a conductor looking for your orchestra. You always seemed very busy, like you were between appointments all the time, but you were just a little child.”

“You know what I remember, Gran? I don’t know where I was, but I was little enough to be under doorknobs, and I wanted to say a word so bad, and the word was ‘interesting.’ And I tried to say it, but it always came out ‘insterting.’ And that was my first big, big frustration.”

“You take things pretty hard,” her grandmother said. “I always tried to get you not to, but I don’t know, you can’t get children to be other than they are, and your nature is you take things rough. You work them over too much. Let things be, I always figure, but you always mull around and check everything out. Oh, you were a nosy little thing.”

“I like to hear stories about me,” Suzanne said. “It’s like I expect to hear some clue one day, like ‘Rosebud,’ where I’ll think, ‘That was the moment.’ See, I don’t really remember feeling like a child, or like I imagine children are supposed to feel—that kind of Yippee! thing like running down a green pasture or something. That’s why I love hearing stories about myself as a child, so it seems like maybe I didn’t just land here.”

“No, you didn’t land here,” her grandmother said. “You were a child. There’s plenty of children in the world that are serious children. You had to grow up fast because of the divorce. That was hard, but it happens to lots of people nowadays. Of course, it’s easier on children when it doesn’t, but there’s no use going over that. I don’t know, you did things children do. You wore big hats and put on your mother’s makeup and wore her big high heels. You directed little shows in the closet. You were a child, and you can still be a child if you want. If you want we can go down to the market and I can get you some baby food. You’re not missing that much.”

“I always feel like I’m missing something.”

“Well, you always did feel that way. You never could even nap. Never.”

“I’ve always had this sense of foreboding,” Suzanne explained, “that something could go wrong and…”

“And what? You think that if you could be there you could prevent it? A little person like yourself? If it’s gonna go wrong, it’ll do it all by itself.”

“I know, but I feel like if I were there, I might be able to make it go right.”

“Well, that feeling is wrong,” her grandmother said. “So maybe the foreboding one is, too. You can’t stop things from doing what they’re going to do, unless you’re doing the things. And if you really want to get married and have children and cook, well, you better get a move on, little sister. You’re not doing any of that stuff now. You should shit or get off the pot, pardon my French.”

“Beautiful French,” said Suzanne. “Is that some Berlitz thing I’m not aware of?”

“Don’t you be fresh.”

“Is there a cutoff age for fresh?” asked Suzanne. “Or does it just go on indefinitely as long as you have older relatives?”

“Don’t make fun of me,” said her grandmother. “You know what I’m saying is right. Just pick someone and make it work, rather than using all the make-it-work energy saying, ‘He’s too short, he’s too tall, he’s no good…’ Just pick somebody. I’ve stayed with your grandfather now for fifty-odd years. I don’t like him, but I picked him. I’m proud of the fact that we’ve had this long marriage. I can’t say it’s all happy, it’s not always a good life, but we have a life together, and it’s as God intended. You’re there with your partner, and you don’t always like them but you don’t leave just ’cause you don’t like it. You’re spoiled. Your generation thinks that if you don’t like something, you can do this or do that, take a drug or whatever, but that’s not my generation. We make a choice and we stick with it, and I think you could learn something from that.”

“Yeah,” said Suzanne, “but you and Granpaw hate each other.”

“Where did you get that idea? We don’t hate each other. He just mostly stays in the back of the house and I stay in the front, but we see each other. We have our history together. We are each other’s lives, and I don’t hate my life.”

“So I should just… pick somebody?” asked Suzanne.

“I’m not saying I just went out and picked him, but I stuck by him,” she went on. “I can’t say we’ve had the happiest marriage, but we don’t just get up and walk out when we have a fight. We’ve been faithful to each other, and that counts for something. I love your grandfather. I don’t like him all the time, I think he’s an ornery old grunt, but he’s my husband and I will stay with him.”

“So, what qualities should I look for in a guy?”

“Well, you can’t afford to be so choosy. You know, you’ve got twenty-year-olds also looking around, with their tits way up high and the best years of their lives to throw away on somebody. You’ve already thrown yours away, so you can’t be all that choosy. If you find somebody who likes you and respects you, and if you like each other, then, you know, you can work on the rest of it.”

“That sounds reasonable,” said Suzanne, nodding.

“Don’t think you’re not going to argue with them,” her grandmother said. “You can’t spend a lot of time with somebody and not have them get on your nerves, or vice versa. If you expect to not argue, don’t have a relationship.”

“Well, I haven’t,” said Suzanne.

“Oh, you have,” her grandmother said. “You’ve had a couple. I met Jonathan, I met that fellow Albert…”

“Yeah,” said Suzanne.

“Well, what happened with those? You split up with them.”

“We didn’t get along anymore.”

“See, I don’t understand that,” said her grandmother. “This is what I don’t understand about your generation. You just stop getting along? You’ve got to work at getting along. It has to be something you care about, a priority.”

“Gran, you should put out a relationship video. There’s Doctor Ruth for sex, and then, once they’ve had the sex, you could tell people how to stay together.”

“Go ahead, make fun of me,” her grandmother said, getting up from the bed. “And don’t take this movie thing so seriously. Don’t they always say, ‘It’s only a movie’?”

“Yeah, Gran, that’s what they say.”

“Now, how do you want your eggs in the morning?”

“You don’t have to get up,” Suzanne said. “I’ve got a very early call.”

“I’m up anyway,” she said. “Your grandfather has to have his heart medicine.”

“Poached,” said Suzanne.

“All right. Good night, darling. Sweet dreams. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

“You were right there when they handed out clichés, weren’t you?” said Suzanne. “Good night, Gran. I love you.”

She was calmer when she arrived on the set the next morning. The first scene was being shot in a car, which was placed on a platform with the crew and all the equipment on it, all of which would be dragged along by a pickup truck. Rita had just finished connecting Suzanne’s body mike when Simon walked by with Rocky, the first A.D., who was explaining how many extras they needed to do drive-bys in the car scene.

Suzanne followed behind them until Simon and Rocky were through. Then she said, “Excuse me, Simon. Could I talk to you?”

“Certainly, love,” he said. “What’s the problem?”

“The problem,” she said sternly, “is that four people, including my agent, had conversations with me yesterday concerning my low enjoyment level, and it bothered me. I would prefer to receive direction solely from you.”

Simon looked concerned, and the wind almost blew off his hat. “Really?” he said, in an affronted English tone. “That shouldn’t be. I’ll have to have a word with them. Your agent called you about this?”

“My agent,” Suzanne repeated indignantly. “As if I were a child. As if I were difficult to communicate with,” she said, rising to some inner occasion. “I mean, why don’t I give them my mother’s number! Or better yet, call my grandmother! She’s down here, she can stand by and make sure I’m relaxed!”

“That’s it!” Simon said excitedly, snapping his fingers. “This is her! This is the quality I want for your character. Right there, what you’re doing now. See?”

“But Simon,” Suzanne said, trying now not to give him the quality he wanted in her character, “this is not relaxed. This is incredibly upset. If this is the quality, then maybe—”

“Darling,” he soothed her, putting his arm around her and walking her toward the car on the platform, where the crew was waiting to do a rehearsal. “Just be yourself and you’ll be fine. I know it sounds trite, but trust me. I’ll talk to the producers and make sure that what occurred yesterday is not repeated. Now, try to calm down.” He kissed the top of her head.

Rocky came up to Simon. “They need you behind camera,” he said.

“Oh, surely, surely,” said Simon, going around to the other side of the truck. Suzanne made her way to the passenger side of the platform, where Ted helped her up into the car. Bobby Munch came in a few minutes later, and Suzanne filled him in on the entire enjoyment/relaxation saga as the platform was dragged out to a lonely stretch of desert highway where they would spend the next few hours.

When she finished her story, Bobby smiled gleefully. “Telephone call for Suzanne Vale,” he said. “Brrring! ‘Hello,’ you say. ‘Hello, sweetheart, this is your Aunt Lillian in Tucson,’” Bobby said in a high little voice. “‘Listen, honey, George Lazan called today and mentioned that you didn’t seem to be enjoying yourself. Well, now, I know that it’s harder nowadays to have fun than it was when I was a girl. You know what we used to do for enjoyment, we would go down to the swimming hole and swing in one by one from a tire tied to a rope. Anyway, seems to me that if you want to do this dang fool thing for a living, you might as well try to enjoy it while you’re at it. Well, bye-bye, dear.’”

Suzanne was as happy as she’d been in months. “Brrring!” she intoned gaily. “Hello,” she said as herself, then went on, “Suzanne, it’s me, Mary. Now, listen, girl, I been lookin’ after you since you was tiny, and I’m worried about you. This Mr. George Lazan called me, uh huh, he shore did. Says you’re not relaxin’ enough. Suzanne? What are you eatin’? I bet you’re gettin’ too much sugar and not enough proteins and things like that. You know, my Pete, what he do to enjoy himself—now, I know he’s not an actor but he has a lot of tension—often he will take a very hot bath and a cold shower right afterward, and then he’ll… Well, you can’t drink, so that might not work for you, uh-uh. All right now, honey, stay warm. Bye-bye.’”

“Brrring! Brrring!” Bobby said excitedly. “‘Hello?’ ‘Hi, Suzanne? You may not remember me, but I was in kindergarten with you. Louis Bodenfelden? We were in Mrs. Webber’s class together. I threw up scrambled eggs out of my nose one day on the way to the library. On the stairs? Anyway, this guy George Lazan called me. He thought maybe I could talk to you about relaxing in your performance. I don’t know why he called me. He said he tried to reach Mrs. Webber, but she was dead. Anyway, nice to talk to you again. I’ve enjoyed your work over the years. Good luck.’”

Suzanne noticed that Simon and Rocky and all the sound guys were laughing, and she remembered she and Bobby were body-miked. Anyone with a headset was in their audience. She tapped insistently on her window. “‘Miss Vale?’” she said in a low male voice. “‘Miss Vale! It’s your pool man, Jeff. Sorry to wake you, but this dude George somethin’ or other called and said you weren’t owning your performance. I told him you always seem pretty relaxed to me, but then you’re usually asleep when I get here. Maybe there’s too much chlorine in the pool. Well, take it easy. I say, shine the old guy on. Later.’”

It went on for hours. Between every take there were new calls from people George Lazan had contacted. Suzanne’s dry cleaner, her exercise coach, her gynecologist, an old water-skiing instructor, a camp counselor, both her parents and all of her stepparents, Jack Burroughs, and, finally, the New York critic who had once suggested that Suzanne leave show business, and who now restated his position more vehemently.

“You were wonderful all morning,” said Simon enthusiastically on the way back to the set. “Just a delight, on camera and off.”

Suzanne smiled and blushed. Her entire body ached from laughing. She had to admit she felt pretty relaxed.

A week later, on her thirtieth birthday, Suzanne sat in an unmarked police car, soaked to the skin and waiting for Simon to call, “Action!” She looked over at Bobby. “If this is any indication of how my thirties are going to go—” she began.

“Your thirties?” he shouted. “Let’s talk about my forties for a few minutes, shall we? Let’s discuss that I have a wife and two daughters and I’m still soaked to the skin with a big movie wound on my arm, playing cops and robbers.”

“What about that I’m thirty and I don’t have any children?” countered Suzanne. “Or a husband, for that matter.”

Bobby started laughing. “This is a perfect actor conversation,” he said. “‘What about me?’ ‘Oh, yeah? Well, what about me?’”

“An actress on her thirtieth birthday obsessing about herself,” Suzanne said, also laughing. “I’ve become typical.”

“Sweetheart, you became typical long ago, only you were too stoned to notice.”

“Oh, thank you,” she said. “I suppose you’re not typical?”

“I revel in my typicalness,” Bobby said. “Do you think they remember that we’re out here waiting to do this shot?” He squinted down the highway at the crew, where Simon and Rocky were having what appeared to be an important conversation. Simon looked down the road toward their car and held up five fingers. “Five more minutes,” Bobby sighed.

“Hey, babe,” teased Suzanne, “you wanted to go into show business.”

“Not this show business,” he said. “I wanted to be in the glamorous, fun show business.” A soft warm breeze moved steadily across the desert, carrying the voices of the crew. “You’re awfully cheerful for someone who’s just turned thirty,” he said.

“I’d just hate to remember my thirtieth birthday as an ordeal,” she explained. “Sometimes I’m afraid I’m happy and I just don’t…” She paused, looking for the right words. “Sometimes I’m afraid I’m happy, but because I expect it to be something else, I question the experience. So now, when in doubt,” she shrugged with true bravado, “I’ll assume I’m happy.”

Suddenly they heard Rocky call them, and Simon made a thumbs-up sign. Roger ran up the hill with a water bottle to spray them.

“Action!” called Simon.

Bobby clutched his wound and started driving down the hill. Suzanne grabbed her movie gun. As they drove past the camera, Suzanne was exhilarated. She was still young, good-looking, funny, bright, her wet hair was blowing behind her, and she had a gun in her hand. As soon as they were out of camera range she began to sing “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.”

As they hit the main highway, Suzanne saw that the Desert Palm Drive-In was showing False Start, a movie she had read for and not gotten. Her spirits sank instantly. “We should go back,” she said quietly. “They’ll be mad.”

Bobby noticed the sign and smirked sympathetically. “Were you up for that?”

Suzanne pretended to be interested in her gun. “I’ll get over it,” she said stoically.

“When?” Bobby asked, turning the car around and heading back.

“When I have my therapy breakthrough and nothing bothers me anymore.”

“You know,” he said, “there are people who feel bad because they didn’t get this movie. What would you tell them?”

“To rethink their careers,” she said. “I’m always rethinking mine. It keeps my skin soft.”

“Do you think you’ll stay in show business till the end of this picture?” he asked.

“Do you mean this show business, or the glamorous, fun show business?” Suzanne asked.

“This show business,” he said dramatically, gesturing grandly and stopping the car. Suzanne looked around and saw that the entire crew was mooning her and singing “Happy Birthday.” Marilyn stood at the car holding a chocolate cake with thirty-one candles.

“I had the worst ass, so I got to present the cake,” she said, smiling.

“It’ll be hard to forget this,” said Suzanne, blushing like a desert rose.

“Still,” Bobby said, “maybe with enough therapy…”

“There isn’t enough therapy,” said Suzanne.