Asking around, I found out to my surprise that Doran Rudd had grown up with her in some hick town in Tennessee. He told me she was the straightest girl in Hollywood. He also told me not to waste my time, that I’d never get laid. This delighted me. I asked him what he thought of her, and he said she was the best woman he had ever known. It was only later, and it was Janelle who told me, that I learned that they had been lovers, had lived together, that it was Doran who had brought her to Hollywood.
Well, she was very independent. Once I tried to pay for the gas when we were riding around in her car. She laughed and refused. She didn’t care how I dressed and she liked it when I didn’t care how she dressed. We went to movies together in jeans and sweaters and even ate in some of the fancy joints that way. We had enough status for that. Everything was perfect. The sex became great. As good as when you’re a kid, and with Innocent foreplay that was more erotic than any porno jazz.
Sometimes we’d talk about getting her fancy undergarments, but we never got around to it. A couple of times we tried to use the mirrors to catch any reflections, but she was too near sighted and she was too vain to put on her glasses. Once we even read a book on anal sex together. We got all excited and she said OK. We worked very carefully, but we didn’t have any Vaseline. So we used her cold cream. It was really funny because to me it felt lousy, as if the temperature had gone down. As for her, the cold cream didn’t work and she screamed bloody murder. And then we quit. It was not for us, we were too square. Giggling like kids, we took a bath; the book had been very stern about cleaning up after anal sex. What it came down to was that we didn’t need any help. It was just great. And so we lived happily ever after. Until we became enemies.
And during that happy time, a blond Scheherazade, she told me the story of her life. And so I lived not two but three lives. My family life in New York with my wife and children, with Janelle in Los Angeles and Janelle’s life before she met me. I used the747 planes like magic carpets. I was never so happy in my life. Working on movies was like shooting pool or gambling, relaxing. Finally I had found the crux of what life should be. And I was never more charming. My wife was happy, Janelle was happy, my kids were happy. Artie didn’t know what was going on, but one night, when we were having dinner together, he said suddenly, “You know for the first time in my life I don’t worry about you anymore.”
“When did that start?” I said, thinking it was because of my success with the book and my working in movies.
“Just now,” Artie said. “Just this second.”
I was instantly on the alert. “What does that mean exactly?” I said.
Artie thought it over. “You were never really happy,” he said. “You were always a grim son of a bitch. You never had any real friends. All you did was read books and write books. You couldn’t stand parties, or movies, or music, or anything. You couldn’t even stand it when our families had holiday dinners together. Jesus, you never even enjoyed your kids.”
I was shocked and hurt. It wasn’t true. Maybe I seemed that way, but it wasn’t really true. I felt a sick feeling in my stomach. If Artie thought of me this way, what did other people think? I had that familiar feeling of desolation.
“It’s not true,” I said.
Artie smiled at me. “Of course it’s not. I just mean that now you show things more to other people besides me. Valerie says you’re a hell of a lot easier to live with.”
Again I was stung. My wife must have complained all these years and I never knew it. She never reproached me. But at this moment I knew I had never really made her happy, not after the first few years of our marriage.
“Well, she’s happy now,” I said.
And Artie nodded. And I thought bow silly that was, that I had to be unfaithful to my wife to make her happy. And I realized suddenly that I loved Valerie more now than I ever had. That made me laugh. It was all very convenient, and it was in the textbooks I had been reading. Because as soon as I found myself in the classical unfaithful-husband position, I naturally started to read all the literature on it. “Valerie doesn’t mind my going out to California so much?” I asked.
Artie shrugged. “I think she likes it. You know I’m used to you, but you are a tough guy on the nerves.”
Again I was a little stunned, but I could never get mad at my brother.
“That’s good,” I said. “I’m leaving for California tomorrow to work on the movie again.”
Artie smiled. He understood what I was feeling. “As long as you keep coming back,” he said. “We can’t live without you.” He never said anything so sentimental, but he’d caught on that my feelings were hurt. He still babied me.
“Fuck you,” I said but I was happy again.
It seems incredible that only twenty-four hours later I was three thousand miles away, alone with Janelle, in bed, and listening to her life story.
One of the first things she told me was that she and Doran Rudd were old friends, had grown up in the same Southern town of Johnson City, Tennessee, together. And that finally they had become lovers and moved to California, where she became an actress and Doran Rudd an agent.
Chapter 30
When Janelle went to California with Doran Rudd, she had one problem. Her son. Only three years old and too young to cart around. She left him with her ex-husband. In California she lived with Doran. He promised her a start in movies and did get her a few small parts or thought he did. Actually he made the contacts, and Janelle’s charm and wit did the rest. During that time she remained faithful to him, but he obviously cheated with anyone in sight. Indeed, once he tried to talk her into going to bed with another man and him at the same time. She was repelled by the idea. Not because of any morality but because it was bad enough to feel used by one man as a sexual object and the thought of two men feasting off her body was repugnant to her. At that time, she said, she was too unsophisticated to realize that she would get a chance to watch the two men making love together. If she had, she might have considered it-just to see Doran get it up the ass, as he richly deserved.
She always believed the California climate was more responsible for what happened to her life than anything else. People there were weird, she said to Merlyn often, when telling him stories. And you could see she loved their being weird no matter how much damage they had done to her.
Doran was trying to get his foot in the door as a producer, trying to put a package together. He had bought a terrible script from an unknown writer, whose only virtue was that he agreed to take a net percentage instead of cash upfront. Doran persuaded a former big-time director to direct it and a washed-up male star to play the lead.
Of course, no studio would touch the project. It was one of those packages that sounded good to innocents. Doran was a terrific salesman and hunted outside money. One day he brought home a good prospect, a tall, shy, handsome man of about thirty-five. Very soft-spoken. No bullshitter. But he was an executive in a solid financial institution that dealt with investments. His name was Theodore Lieverman, and he fell in love with Janelle over the dinner table.
They dined in Chasen’s. Doran picked up the check and then left early for an appointment with his writer and director. They were working on the script, Doran said, frowning with concentration. Doran had given Janelle her instructions.
“This guy can get us a million dollars for the movie. Be nice to him. Remember you play the second female lead.”