He decided to retreat to his banger, away from the temptations of second meal. He realized Selene had nibbled just enough pizza so that her breath would be all crab-and-cheese stink in their next scene, when they were supposed to kiss. Very clever, Selene, but had anyone else noticed? Flip and Ben melted in her presence. Lottie didn’t seem quite as impressed, but then Lottie didn’t like anyone. The fact was, it probably didn’t matter if everyone saw through Selene, if everyone realized what a phony and a bitch she was. It was understood that Mann of Steel had a shot only because Ben and Flip had been lucky enough to sign Selene before Baby Jane earned her that Golden Globe nomination.
Johnny wondered if they still considered themselves lucky, or if they had stopped to consider why Selene had been so convincing as an amoral, scheming teen whore. Johnny, who read the trades and the tabloids as obsessively as he read science fiction, knew all the rumors about Baby Jane. Moreover, he believed them, too. It was said that Selene had an affair with the director, which had been dicey, given that Selene was barely legal at the time. The bigger sticking point, however, Hollywood being Hollywood, was that the director was married to the screenwriter, and she tried to block the release. At least, they were married when the project started. Part of the reason the film had languished for two years was that its distribution rights had to be divvied up in the divorce. The screenwriter couldn’t decide, for a while, what she wanted more – to destroy Selene’s career or make a bundle off a low-budget movie with a star-making performance. Ultimately, she had chosen the bundle. Didn’t everyone?
Johnny had left The Boom Boom Room at the height of his popularity to pursue the movie offers that were pouring in. Of course, he hadn’t known it was the height, far from it. He thought there was still plenty of sky over his head. Separated from the part that had made him a household name, he seemed to lose whatever charisma he had. On television, he was handsome, in an interesting way. On a movie screen – he just disappeared, couldn’t hold the frame. “It’s kind of like Samson,” his agent had said. “When he cut his hair.” Which was confusing, because Johnny hadn’t cut his hair. He hadn’t changed at all, and that seemed to be the problem. It was as if the rules of the universe had been subverted, as if all the physical laws, such as gravity, had reversed when he wasn’t looking. Hot was cold. Up was down – and out. That’s when he started reading science fiction.
There was an envelope propped up in front of his mirror, addressed to him in care of the set’s street address, which few people knew. Inside was a recent tabloid, with a paper clip attached helpfully, pointing him to an article headlined: WHO SAYS MEN AGE WELL? There were photographs of Mel Gibson, Alec Baldwin, and, shit, him, circled with a big red pen mark, just in case he couldn’t find his own fat mug on the page. The photograph was at least six months old, when he was thirty pounds heavier. So unfair. He was – he looked in the mirror, lifted his chin, lifted it higher. There was the old jawline. Sort of.
Suddenly, it seemed as if the mirror was the only place to look, there was no angle in the trailer where he couldn’t see himself. He charged back to where the crew was eating, eager to show Ben the magazine. Selene gave him a triumphant little look, her eyes flicking to the rolled-up tabloid in his fist. He ignored her and, when he couldn’t find Ben, turned his attention on the icy blonde who had been lingering around set all day, Selene’s babysitter or bodyguard, take your pick. She looked to be in her early thirties, which was his demographic. She would have been in high school about the time he was playing high school senior Trip Winters on Boom Boom.
“Johnny Tampa,” he said.
“Really?”
“Really,” he said, with an aw-shucks grin, waiting to hear how much she had loved him when she was in high school, how his posters had covered her room.
“I mean, that’s your real name? Or did you change it from something?”
That question was so tired that he had long ago developed a standard answer. “I was born Johnny St. Petersburg, had to shorten it when I went into show business.”
After a small delay, as if she needed time to process the fact that he had actually said something clever, she laughed. It was a rather metallic, rat-a-tat sound, but it seemed genuine enough. She had a hard, almost scary edge to her. He liked it.
“Whitney Talbot,” she said. “I’m here to-”
“I know. You follow her everywhere? To the bathroom and stuff?”
“I let her have her bathroom breaks in privacy.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t.”
“What?”
“I mean, this soundstage, it’s a big space. And it might seem secure, but who knows? I mean, you’re here to protect her, right?”
“Right,” she said, after a beat.
“If I were you, I’d never let her out of my sight. You never know what she’s going to be up to.” He turned his head to the side, in case his profile jogged her memory. Pride vanquished, he said: “The Boom Boom Room?”
She looked puzzled. “Is that one of the strip clubs still operating on the Block?”
“No, it was a television show, about kids put in a school-within-a-school on special detention, kind of like The Breakfast Club – oh never mind. A lot of people watched it, back in the day.”
“I didn’t watch a lot of television, growing up. I was kind of outdoorsy.” She said it nicely, apologetically, not in the snobby way some people had. He almost believed her, except he didn’t believe anyone who claimed not to watch television. Who didn’t watch television? It was like… not brushing your teeth, or refusing to shower, odd to the point of being uncivilized. Everybody watched television. There had been a time, around season four of Boom Boom, when he couldn’t go anywhere or do anything without being recognized. He hadn’t always enjoyed the attention, but he hadn’t been stupid enough to wish it away, and he had been genuinely surprised when it stopped. Since then, it was as if he couldn’t get quite enough oxygen in his blood, as if he were living at 75 percent. He had plenty of money, he had been smart that way, but his financial stability was scant comfort. He wanted another success in this business, and to get that, he had to pretend to be in love with some twenty-year-old twat. He hated her. He needed her. Well, that’s why they called it acting.
Dinner was wrapping up. He couldn’t help noticing there was a lot of leftover pizza. He wondered if he should take it home. No, it wouldn’t be any less fattening at breakfast tomorrow, only colder. He wondered if he should try to take the blonde home, but he supposed she had to stick close to Selene. Besides, she hadn’t seemed terribly interested. No, he would just go home and get into bed, read a few pages of the latest Robert Harris. He had tried to get Flip and Ben to read Harris, engage them in the rules of alterna-history, but to no avail. They seemed to think that because Napoleon had, in the end, forced the divorce between his brother and Betsy Patterson, they could remove her from history with no real effect. But what about Betsy’s son? You couldn’t just eliminate people from history. That was a kind of murder.
The PAs were calling them back to work, but Johnny spotted Lottie huddled with the director and showed her the magazine.
“Look what was in my trailer.”
Lottie glanced at the photos. “It’s not so bad, Johnny. Besides, it can’t hurt to be considered in the same class as Mel Gibson and Alec Baldwin.”