“I only had two lines in Telling Lies,” Lisa said.
Only one of which I’ve heard, Arthur said to himself, seeing as how I only caught the second half of the movie last night on HBO. “They were good lines,” he said. “A person knows talent when he sees it.”
“You’re such a liar.”
“Yes,” Arthur said, “I am. Want some lunch?”
She faced him dead on, arms crossed over her chest. “Let’s get one thing straight, okay? This feeling you had about me? No, listen to me. I don’t care what you did for me or why you did it, I’m not going to sleep with you.”
“What did I say?” Arthur said. “I said, ‘Want some lunch?’ I did not say, ‘Want to sleep with me?’ Lisa, I’m a married man, and though my wife wouldn’t believe it if I slapped my hand on a pile of Bibles and sang it soprano, I haven’t had sex with another woman since a few weeks before November 5, 1976, which is the day she and I got married. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Because that was the only thing I could figure,” Lisa said, going on as if he hadn’t said anything. “That you’d thought about me some more and decided you wanted to get me into bed. The only other thing I could figure was that you felt sorry for me, which would be even worse.”
Arthur took his coat off the hook on the back of the door and slung it over his arm. Why had he done it? Why had he taken her picture home and called Fitch and put himself on the line for her? He wasn’t sure. Lots of reasons. No reason. Oh, hell, what could he tell this woman that would make her understand?
“Totally honest?” he said, and she nodded. “Maybe I did feel a little sorry for you. Jesus, who wouldn’t? And maybe I wanted to get you into bed, too, just for a minute. I don’t any more, believe me.”
“Which?”
“What?”
“Feel sorry for me or want to get me into bed? Which don’t you any more?”
“Either,” Arthur said. “Listen, you say you felt like you wanted to kill yourself when I called. I don’t know if you meant that or not. But I could have said the same thing that very morning, and I would have meant it, every word of it. I was standing at that window-” he pointed “-and I was this close, this close, to opening it and saying sayonara to the whole goddamn shooting match.
“Why? You’re asking yourself why. Here’s a man, corner office on the thirtieth floor, casting for major Hollywood blockbusters, has beautiful women in his office at all hours showing him their tits, bigshot agents call him all day long begging him to let their stars be in his pictures, why would a man who’s got all this want to do a double gainer from his office window?” He ran his hand through his hair. His fingers itched for a cigarette.
“That’s what you’re asking yourself. Well. All I can say is, the agents aren’t calling, the stars aren’t begging, the thirtieth floor stinks as much as the third in this lousy city, my business is all on the West Coast, my wife’s sure I’m shtupping every girl who walks in here, and the girls-yourself excluded, God bless you-all look like they got inflated with the same bicycle pump. I walk out of here at five o’clock, I don’t want to see another pair of breasts as long as I live.
“Then you walk in here, deserving better than me, deserving better than this whole lousy business, and I treat you the same as the rest of them. And you let me do it to you.” Arthur shook his head. “I had to call you back. That, or come back here, open the window, and get it over with once and for all.”
II
The descent into LAX had left her with a headache, and though normally she could cure her headaches by promptly applying chocolate, the Snickers bar she’d bought from a vending machine by the escalator was doing no good. It wasn’t hunger that had given her the headache this time, it was reading on the plane. It always did. But she had scenes to do in twelve hours-no, less, ten and a half-and, my God, this dialogue was not the sort to stick in your head on first reading.
Why couldn’t it have been Pale Moon? She’d really loved that script, not because it would make such a good movie, but because the part she’d have had was just a great part. Melanie Lyons had lots of screen time and a great arc-from docile wife to heroic rescuer of her family to drained and bitter widow after her plans went all to hell. She’d have gotten to play opposite Michael Keaton, who may not have had much of a career lately but had always struck Lisa as a generous actor, judging by his films. But now it was Michelle Glassberg playing the wife (Michelle Glassberg? What was she, fifteen?) and Lisa was struggling to learn page after page of pseudo-scientific gibberish.
Why did they even bother with dialogue? No one would come to the theater curious about the combination of tachyons and muons and pi-mesons it took to make a man invisible, they just wanted to see the results. They might as well hang a sign around her neck labeled “exposition” and let her keep her mouth shut. She’d get to carry a syringe, wear a lab coat over surgical greens, restrain the hero on a gurney, and explain breathlessly to Jon Farrell what had gone wrong. She couldn’t imagine a more generic part. Even the character’s name was generic: Carol Brown. Doctor Carol Brown, but so what? You want to talk invisible, you don’t need to mess with tachyons and muons, just name someone Carol Brown, stick her in a lab coat, give her a clipboard and a stethoscope, put her in a hospital hallway, and you’ve just made an invisible woman right there.
Checking in at the hotel was mercifully quick. Lisa dropped her suitcase heavily on one of the room’s twin beds and stretched out diagonally across the other. She couldn’t read, the words were swimming before her eyes as it was. The radio was on, playing classical music that was obviously supposed to relax her, but she turned it off as soon as she was able to locate the switch. Rest. That’s what she needed. Tomorrow she’d be a trooper: show up on time, know her lines, hit her marks, demonstrate that she was a pro. A job was a job, and she was glad to have it. God willing, there would be other jobs after this one. Sharon Stone got started in that horrible Wes Craven movie, after all, and Jamie Lee Curtis screamed her way through Halloween. Careers survived. Although it probably helped if you got your screaming roles out of the way while you were in your twenties.
Lisa had one foot in the shower when the phone rang. Who knew she was here? The studio, she supposed, since they were footing the bill for the room. The director, presumably-he had to know where his cast was. The entire production staff. But who would call at midnight?
She picked up on the third ring.
“Hey, Lee. It’s Bill. Get in okay?”
“I got in fine.” She belted her robe. “I’ve got a bit of a headache, but it’s nothing that won’t go away with a little sleep.” Then, belatedly: “I want to thank you again. I appreciate your getting me the part.”
“Look, we both know it’s not the one you wanted. But this is just the beginning. I want you to remember that.”
“Thanks.”
“Listen, mind if I stop by?”
“Stop by? Where are you?”
“Right outside the hotel. I just parked.”
“Bill, it’s late, I need to sleep.” Lisa stepped to the window and looked out, but the room faced the rear courtyard. She let the curtain fall. “I figured we’d have dinner tomorrow, after the shoot.”
“You think you’re tired today,” Bill said, “just wait till tomorrow after the shoot. It really takes it out of you. You wouldn’t think so, all that sitting around, but when you’re done, you just want to hit the sack.”