But tonight Meadow lingered because one of her father’s guests mentioned a mysterious woman, “Nicole,” who used to call men in Hollywood.
“It wasn’t just me. She called a number of men in the industry. We all used to talk about her,” said Jeremy, a screenwriter who was also her father’s client and friend.
“I think I remember hearing about her,” her father said. “She seduced men on the phone, right?”
“But no phone sex,” Jeremy said. “That was the thing. It was very personal and even erotic, but it wasn’t explicit. I mean, that’s what I heard. I only talked to her twice. I didn’t see the appeal, and I guess she felt the same way because she never called me again. But some people became obsessed with her.”
“Did she call you?” her mother said to her father. Her father shook his head.
“I believe she only called ‘creative’ types,” he said. “The snob.” They all laughed.
“Wait, wait. So she would cold-call these men?” Meadow said.
“Yes, but not really. She knew your friends. She knew everyone, somehow. She had a lot of confidence, and she was persuasive without it ever feeling that way. Jack Cusano was one of the guys.”
“Hey, do you remember Jack Cusano? We had him over a couple of times. The Robert DeMarco guy,” her father said.
“Of course I remember him. He was very cool. He told me all about working with DeMarco. And we talked about John Cassavetes, about our love for Love Streams. So Jack Cusano spoke to her?” Meadow said.
“I heard that he was really into her. For a couple of years,” Jeremy said.
“That’s surprising. He doesn’t seem like the type,” her father said.
“Did anyone ever meet her in person?” Meadow said.
“No. People tried, and she would stop calling them. And then she stopped altogether. She just disappeared a few years ago,” he said.
“I wonder why,” she said.
There was a pause at the table. Everyone looked at Meadow.
“Uh-oh,” her father said, smiling.
“What?” she said. “It’s interesting.”
* * *
Meadow hung up the phone after “Nicole” had finally agreed to meet with her. Their talk made Meadow feel a bit uneasy. It was undeniable that Nicole was reluctant; yet she sounded almost happy to hear from Meadow. She was impressed that Meadow had tracked her down. One of the men, Jack Cusano, had given her Nicole’s phone number. She took it as a sign of fate that it was a Syracuse area code, just a couple of hours from her place in Gloversville. The number didn’t work, but the phone company (once Meadow explained to them it was an urgent family matter, she was looking for her sister) was able to look up the name of the woman who had the number in the past. With the real name, Amy Anne Thomas, and the city, Syracuse, it was simply a matter of looking in the phone book.
“Hello?”
“Hello. Is this Nicole?” At the last second, Meadow decided to use Amy’s phone name, just to see how she would respond. There was a pause.
“Yes, I am Nicole.”
The minute Meadow heard the woman’s voice, she knew she had to make the film. It was a very appealing voice. And the perverse idea of doing a film about the power of a voice excited her. Meadow could feel herself drawn in right away. Meadow tried to persuade Nicole to let her interview her for a film. She listened to Meadow and then politely refused.
“I think you are a fascinating person — you captivated all these big power guys in Hollywood. And then dropped out of it altogether. You are a legend.”
“That’s very flattering, but I am not that fascinating in real life. I think.”
“I doubt that. I really do. You are mysterious, and no one can resist that.”
“Mystery only lasts until I am exposed. I don’t want to be exposed, and I don’t want to be filmed,” she said. “I mean, you can see that was the point of using the phone, right?”
Meadow laughed. This woman was smart.
“Of course,” Meadow said. “Maybe no filming. Maybe we can just do voice recording then? Hmmm. Even film your apartment, your world, but not you? It’s such a good story. And you deserve credit for doing a brilliant deconstruction of male desire, a brilliant confidence game, a great hoax.”
“I don’t think of it that way, a hoax.”
“Maybe that is too hard a word, too public. How would you describe it?”
Meadow proceeded slowly. They agreed to speak again in a few days. Meadow didn’t push her. She talked about her previous films and sent Nicole her videos. She had credibility and would only make something interesting and sympathetic. She flattered the woman but meant what she said.
“I get you,” Meadow told her. “We are alike. You know how to read people. You are an inventor, a story conjurer.” She reassured her that the process was collaborative. Meadow also said (which Meadow of course didn’t mean as a threat but as a statement of fact), “I respect your feelings. It’s fine if you don’t want to do it. I can make a film about it without interviewing you.” Nicole didn’t seem to mind Meadow’s interest, in fact she liked to talk on the phone with her about it, but she would not say yes to the film or even to meeting in person. Meadow’s instinct told her that Nicole didn’t have a lot going on in her life. She knew that there was a good chance if she spent some time with this woman in Syracuse, if she expressed a profound interest in her and her life, she would come around. But Nicole kept saying no. Then the key came: Meadow mentioned that Jack Cusano had agreed to be interviewed.
“You spoke with Jack?”
“Yes, a few times.”
And then Nicole told Meadow she would meet with Meadow in person, if not yet go on camera.
CHILDREN OF THE DISAPPEARED
When she had finished Inward Operator, Meadow felt uncomfortable with the outcome: it wasn’t that things had gone badly for her subjects, but more that she had orchestrated so much of it. She worried that it was too contrived, too forced, too cheesily consequential. So she quickly started something new. In her next film, she wanted to be invisible and not make anything happen.
Meadow and Kyle plunged into researching and planning a new film. They worked from the apartment she had rented in Washington Heights. It was a large and very affordable place, with two bedrooms, a living room, and a dining room. She could see the George Washington Bridge from her living room window if she stuck her head out and looked to the far left. The reason it was so cheap was that it took a long ride on the A train to get anywhere, and the neighborhood was devoid of other people like her, which was fine with Meadow. It didn’t feel like Manhattan at all, it felt like an outer borough with young Dominicans and old Italians. Plus the striving middle-class families that needed more space but refused to leave the city for New Jersey or the suburbs. Meadow felt she had privacy, as though she were in New York and not in New York. She could even park her car on the street and heading upstate was easy: over the bridge and onto the turnpike and 87. She could be in Gloversville in three hours.
She read the tabloid papers looking for things that interested her, and one day she read about the children of the desaparecidos, the people who were disappeared during the Argentine junta’s Dirty War. Meadow was hungry for real stakes beyond trivial American concerns. She didn’t want to have to gin up any drama; she wanted to make a film about life and death, lies and deception. She wrote down the names of the young people interviewed in the article, the ones who discovered that they had been adopted by the very people who had executed their parents. Several of them were attending boarding school in the United States, and she contacted them. All were trying to come to terms with what they had learned about their parents, understanding it but not quite believing it. One girl, Maria Suárez, was willing to be interviewed. She wanted to defend her “father” although Meadow knew a paternity test said he was not her father, and the records showed she was part of the mass abduction of babies. Meadow filmed her as she went about her life, in class, in the dorms, and out with friends. She sometimes talked about her father and his work against the subversives, but Meadow didn’t push it. As she was doing laundry and eating, Meadow stayed with her. She wanted her to forget there was a camera. Meadow did this for a few weeks until the girl trusted her. Then Meadow sat her in a room and gently asked her to speak about the paternity test and what it meant. The girl conceded that her father had done something terrible, and he had lied to her her entire life. She said, tearfully, that you can’t undo a life all at once, and that it was also true that he loved her. Her helplessness and confusion made for a vivid piece of film, her emotional dilemma poignant. After filming her and watching the video, Meadow realized what she was really interested in. Not the poor children, the victims. She wanted the parents. The perpetrators. She had to talk to the parents.