The gorgeous women started out after him. A fourth, who couldn’t have been more than eighteen, had been lingering in the background, watching from the hallway. Now she stepped out of the shadows and followed tentatively, as though afraid to be seen. She hesitated by the door.
‘Pardon me,’ she said shyly, ‘but can I ask you something?’
‘Sure,’ I said.
‘Are. are you an actor?’
Busted again. ‘I used to be.’
‘I thought so.’ She kept her head down, too nervous to meet my eyes. ‘The Boomer Family was my favourite, when I was little.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, and almost meant it.
She didn’t look like she belonged at the party. She had on a simple summer dress with a high neckline and low-heeled pumps, no jewellery except for a small gold heart on a chain around her neck and hardly any make-up. She didn’t need it. She stood there with me and watched the commotion outside.
Donn was flapping his arms and chewing out a guy in ragged cut-offs who was supposed to be running the projector. For a moment I thought he was going to slap the kid across the face, in front of everyone.
‘What’s your name?’ I said.
‘Charlene.’
‘Hi, Charlene. I’m Rob.’ I held out my hand and finally had to touch her wrist before she would look at me.
‘I know. Rob Muller.’
That was a surprise. ‘Most people think my name’s Skippy, even though that was only the character I played.’
She grinned as she took her hand away from mine, embarrassed. Behind her, on the patio, women with matching turned-up noses and collagen lips leaned over the projector, allowing Donn to audition their perfect breasts while they helped him load the next reel.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘What?’
‘I mean, where are you from?’
‘Jonesville,’ she said. ‘That’s in Iowa.’
‘Did you come out here to go to school?’
‘Not really. I want to be an actor.’
She sounded like she meant it. ‘That’s a tough gig,’ I told her. ‘Are you taking classes?’
‘I was, back home.’
‘Do you have an agent yet?’
‘I just got one.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Jim Western.’
That sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it. ‘Who’s he with?’
‘Global Modeling,’ she said, ‘on La Cienega. Have you heard of them?’
I had. They represented most of the nude models and dancers in town, and provided the talent for Vulcano, Silver Nitro and VibroFlix, the largest producers of tripleX films and videos in the San Fernando Valley. I didn’t know what to say.
‘That’s how I met Donn,’ she explained.
I nodded as if I understood.
‘Why don’t you try Dimension Films, over at Miramax? They might have something for you.’ I racked my brain to remember who else was making low-budget features at the moment, hoping to come up with a legitimate alternative. ‘Or TriMark. Or Full Moon. You’ll probably have to do horror movies at first, but at least it’s a start.’
‘I already have one lined up,’ she said, without a trace of pretension. ‘It might be a series, if it’s successful. They’re writing the script right now. It’s called The Last Whorehouse on the Left.’
At that moment the white light outside darkened and the enormous face of Donn’s newest contract player, Celestine Prophet, reappeared on the side of the dam above the treetops. Her mouth was open but it was not empty. A hoot went up from the crowd. Two starlets with impossible figures stepped out of their skintight dresses, dove into the deep end and began rolling through the water like dolphins locked in a slippery embrace, as the man with the video camera hurried out to record the action.
‘I don’t know if I can do it,’ Charlene said softly.
‘Maybe you shouldn’t,’ I said.
‘Not the way they do.’ She meant the starlets outside, those in the pool and the others with their synthetic bodies and sparkling clothes and desperate recklessness. ‘Should I change my name, do you think?’
‘Why? I like Charlene.’
‘Oh, that’s not my real name. ’
Donn was on his way back in. As I moved aside, she took my hand and clasped it tightly to her side. I felt the youthful firmness of her body moving beneath the thin cotton and realized that she was trembling. She leaned close and whispered in my ear.
‘Help me.’
‘How?’ I said, not moving my lips, as Donn approached the glass doors.
‘Not here.’
Donn hadn’t met my eyes yet. He was squeezing the buttocks of the one in the hotpants. He twitched his fuzzy moustache, made an O with his mouth and sucked air, moaning in ecstasy.
‘Where?’ I said to Charlene.
‘Later. I’ll find you…’
She separated from me and disappeared into the hall.
Donn entertained the troops in the rec room. I stood by while he told a story about a guy who became famous for having his penis cut off twice. I’d heard it before, the day I met him in the lobby of the SAG building, where he held forth with a slightly different version of the same routine. He had recognized me and later, over a drink, offered me a chance to direct. I didn’t know who he was then but I found out. I came to his party because he claimed that plenty of regular industry people moonlight in the adult biz under other names, and he threw around numbers that added up to more money than I had made from a whole season on CBS when I was a kid. That was all gone now, of course; there weren’t any decent residual clauses back then. I hadn’t had many acting jobs since puberty, except for some sci-fi motorcycle flicks and voice-overs on Saturday morning TV. The Boomer Family was a curse. My ex had thought she was marrying into show business but what she got was a part-time real estate agent. I couldn’t hack it any more, not after the divorce. Maybe Tony had seen the handwriting on the wall, after all.
Donn finished his story in the rec room and introduced the girls to the reporters from Hustler’s Erotic Video Guide and Adult Video News. Then he caught my eye and nodded towards the hall that led to the rest of the house. As we got to the end of the hall I saw an open door and a bright bedroom, where at least two very naked young women were engaged in an act involving a dildo of life-threatening proportions. A videographer with a handheld BetaCam circled around them, offering unnecessary advice as to positions and techniques. Donn led me to the den.
‘Strap this on for size,’ he said when he closed the door. ‘“Geoffrey Nightshade”.’
‘Who?’
‘Your nom de plume.’
He took a swig from a Heineken and smacked his lips, then set the bottle down and leant back in the leather chair, eyelids at half-mast.
‘We send out press releases, hinting that you’re a famous European director. They’ll beat their meat tryin’ to nail you. Is it Karel Reisz? Dario Argento? Michaelangelo Fuckin’ Antonioni?’
‘Antonioni’s in a wheelchair,’ I said. ‘He had a stroke.’
‘That’s just it — we don’t say! You’re this artsy-fartsy schmuck who came here for some real action. You want to do NC-17 but the majors won’t let you, blah blah blah. Maybe you’re Brian Fuckin’ DePalma, who the hell knows? Is it beautiful?’
‘Except for one thing,’ I said. ‘Everybody knows what I look like.’
‘Don’t be so conceited,’ he said.
That brought me up short. Right, I thought. But then I thought, He doesn’t know what it’s like. The red hair, the freckles… I couldn’t even go to the 7-Eleven at two o’clock in the morning without hearing the name Skippy! behind my back. Once, in Vegas, the men’s room attendant passed a piece of paper under the stall door and asked me to sign it.