“Why didn’t you send a picture of yourself?”
“Look at me,” she said. “Do I look like anyone’s fantasy?”
“Why a fantasy?”
“Because that is what I enjoyed, imagining myself like that. It is for me as much as them.”
“But they don’t know that.” Another pause. She looks wavy, and her face colors. She looks a little emotional. Shamed. That’s the word. Carrie didn’t want Meadow to keep at Nicole.
“It was different with Jack. I let myself be myself more and more with him. Under different circumstances, we were very compatible.”
Now it is Jack’s turn: Meadow shows him in Malibu, walking on the beach. It interested Carrie, where the film was going, however obvious its point; how enslaved we are by our bodies, our selves concealed. How much are we our bodies? And why is it so different for women? Why is Nicole’s tumid, faded person so much less appealing than worn, old Jack? And it isn’t just success or money. It is men and women. Carrie felt a heat rise in her face.
Carrie was watching Meadow’s film, but she was also thinking about her own life, her own disappointing body. She was barely thirty-two, and already she could read it in the faces of the interesting men she met. She would be having a great conversation with another filmmaker. Someone her age, someone with a comparable amount of success. Not even actors, for god’s sake. Just male equivalents of her, people behind the camera and not built for glamour. And she would feel a rapport. Then they would say, I want you to meet my wife. Or, here is my girlfriend. And out she would come, so young and perfect. Breathtakingly attractive. Not stupid by any means. Full of admiration and adoration. Why should these men get it all? It was such a cliché. And what did Carrie get? A tired, frustrated husband she had no idea how to please anymore. Things were going so well for her, and yet she knew she was slowly losing him. Carrie’s eyes blurred.
Next, the film settles into a straight monologue from Jack that doesn’t get intercut with Nicole. Meadow’s presence is felt even though she doesn’t say anything; she is who he is talking to. The camera is Meadow, and the waiting is the question. One of Meadow’s favorite techniques.
Jack tells the story of being stood up by Nicole. He sits on his white couch. His legs are crossed and he lights a cigarette. “I’m over it now, but for years I tried to figure it out. I am not a player, you know? Not like a lot of men I know. I’m divorced, I work a lot. It’s an old story. Nicole listened to me, and I think I made her feel good. I liked that I could. I’m a little cynical and rough around the edges, but there was something about her voice on the phone. She didn’t interrupt me. She told me about her life, and I told her about mine. I wanted to meet her. Actually, I wanted to be with her. Change my life, whatever it took. I never felt that way before.”
A pause and Jack’s eyes look to the side, then back to the camera.
“I thought she was a student at Syracuse University, interested in the film industry. I think I thought she grew up here — she seemed to know everyone. I don’t know — there wasn’t a lot of backstory with details. She elided details; we talked about movies and music. Our childhoods. She was very intelligent and kind.” He shrugs. “Okay, kind until the end when she stood me up and disappeared.”
Jack lights a cigarette, sighs, and exhales. “I wanted to meet her in person. She seemed to want to meet me. She sent me these photos of herself.” Now Meadow finally cuts away and old snapshots fill the screen: a beautiful woman in a bathing suit, clearly not Nicole, not even young Nicole.
Meadow’s voice says, “Were you pleased with the way she looks in the photos?”
“I was, but I wasn’t surprised. I could tell from how she sounded on the phone that she was an exceptional girl. I mean, she was very young for me, I know it would make me seem like a cliché, but I didn’t care what anyone thought. I loved her. I thought, maybe this is an old photo, but she said no, it was recent. Why would I disbelieve it?” He puts out his cigarette. “It isn’t much of a story from here on out.”
Jack is smiling, but you can hear the edge creeping into the tone of his voice.
“I bought her a first-class plane ticket — and I am a pretty frugal guy, so I had never done anything like that. I was really infatuated with Nicole. Wanted her to feel loved when she got on the plane. It was all set. I spoke to her the night before, nothing odd about it, no cryptic hints. I drove to LAX, with fucking flowers in my hand and a sign, just as we had discussed. I planned a dinner at my house; I was never happier than when I bought the food for that dinner. Lots of women walked right past me. None of them looked like Nicole. None of them looked at my sign. I stood there, stupidly, ridiculously for an hour. I asked if everyone was off the plane. They were. I asked if Nicole Lamphor was on the plane. She was a no-show. I tried calling her from a pay phone. No answer. No answering machine. It rang and rang.”
“What did you think happened?”
“At first I worried that maybe there was an accident.”
Following Jack is Nicole’s version of the same story, also a monologue. She tells her side of it. “I made the plan thinking I would go. I wanted to go. I had fantasized about him, about that house by the beach. Of making dinner together and sleeping in the same bed and not being so alone. Of sex and affection. Of belonging. But I couldn’t do it. I even took the bus to the airport. When the bus pulled up, I didn’t move. I stayed there until the bus headed back out, away from the airport.” Nicole wipes her eyes with her hand. “I couldn’t face him. I couldn’t face it.”
“What?”
“That I lied and he wouldn’t understand. That I was unlovable, deep down. It was not a nice thing. It was mean what I did. I stopped calling and I stopped returning his calls. I just cut it off.”
She pauses.
“I had nothing to say. I let it go too far. Of all the men I called on the phone, he was the only one I ever considered meeting. But they all ended the same way: me cutting them off.”
The next section, somewhat predictably, consists of Meadow arranging for them to meet.
“What if I told you she would be willing to meet you in person, now?”
Jack shakes his head. He turns away from the camera. He puts his hand in front of his eyes. He collects himself. Shakes his head. Then he looks at the camera/Meadow.
“I miss her so much. Still. It is pathetic.”
“That isn’t her in those photos.”
Jack nods, resigned. “Yeah. Of course not.”
“You still want to meet her?”
“I do.”
Nicole is getting ready. Carrie was already cringing. Why would Meadow do this to these people? Why would they go along with it?
Meadow shows Jack waiting at a diner table. There is no sound from the scene, only music: low, steady, minimalist pulses. Nicole walks in. Her face already looks broken. She is trembling as she approaches the table. The camera moves into a medium shot as they meet, and the ominous pulsing gets louder. Clearly it is a disaster. Jack’s face when he sees Nicole; then Nicole’s face when she sees Jack. They sit at the table. He is speaking but still the only sound is the loud, oppressive music.