“No, I...”
“Don’t be silly. The car’s free. And it’s pouring.” Fritz came out and opened the door. Schiffer Diamond slid across the backseat.
James looked at Fritz. What the hell, he thought, and got in.
“Two stops,” she said to the driver. “Where are you going?” She turned to James.
“I, uh, don’t know exactly.” He fumbled in his jeans pocket for the slip of paper on which he’d written the address. “Industria Super Studios?”
“I’m going to the same place,” she said. “One stop, then,” she informed the driver. She reached into her bag and pulled out an iPhone. James sat stiffly beside her; luckily, there was a console between them so it wasn’t as uncomfortable as it might have been. Outside, the rain was coming down in buckets, and there was a rumble of thunder. This is nice, James thought. Imagine never having to worry about getting a taxi. Or taking the subway.
“Horrible weather, isn’t it?” she said. “It’s so wet for August. I don’t remember it being this rainy in the summer. I remember ninety-degree heat. And snow at Christmas.”
“Really?” James said. “It doesn’t usually snow until January now.”
“I guess I have a romantic memory of New York.”
“We haven’t had snow in years,” James said. “Global warming.” I sound like a putz, he thought.
She smiled at him, and James wondered if she was one of those actresses who seduced every man. He remembered a story about a journalist friend, a real regular guy, who had been seduced by a famous movie star during an interview.
“You’re Mindy Gooch’s husband, right?” she asked.
“James,” he said. She clearly wasn’t going to introduce herself, knowing, obviously, there was no need.
She nodded. “Your wife is ...”
“The head of the board. For the building.”
“She writes that blog,” Schiffer said.
“Do you read it?”
“It’s very touching,” Schiffer said.
“Really?” James rubbed his chin in annoyance. Even here, in an SUV with a movie star going to a photo shoot, it was still about his wife. “I try not to read it,” he said primly.
“Ah.” Schiffer nodded. James had no idea what the nod meant, and for a few blocks, they rode in stiff silence. Then Schiffer brought the topic back to his wife. “She wasn’t the head of the board when I moved in. It was Enid Merle then. The building was different. It wasn’t so ... quiet.”
James winced at Enid’s name. “Enid,” he said.
“She’s a wonderful character, isn’t she? I adore her.”
“I don’t really know her,” James said carefully, caught in the middle of betraying his wife and alienating a movie star.
“But you must know her nephew Philip Oakland,” Schiffer insisted.
There she went again, she thought, bringing up Philip’s name, digging for information. “Aren’t you a novelist as well?” she asked.
“We’re different. He’s much more ... commercial. He writes screenplays. And I’m more ... literary,” James said.
“Meaning you sell five thousand copies,” Schiffer said. James was crushed but tried not to show it. “Please,” she said, touching his arm. “I was kidding. It’s my bad sense of humor. I’m sure you’re a wonderful writer.”
James didn’t know whether to agree or disagree.
“Don’t take anything I say seriously. I never do,” she said.
The car stopped at a red light. It was his turn to come up with a conversational gambit, but James couldn’t think of one.
“What’s happening with Mrs. Houghton’s apartment?” she asked.
“Oh,” he said, relieved. “It’s been sold.”
“Really? That was quick, wasn’t it?”
“The board meeting is this week. My wife says they’re as good as approved. She likes them. They’re supposedly a regular couple. With millions of dollars, of course,” he added.
“How boring,” Schiffer said.
The car arrived at the destination. There was another awkward moment as they stood waiting for the elevator. “Are you working on a movie?”
James asked.
“TV show,” she said. “I never thought I’d do TV. But you look around at your peers and think, Is that how I want to end up? With the plastic surgery and the adoptions and the crazy tell-all books that no one really wants to read? Or else with the dull husband who cheats.”
“I’m sure it’s difficult,” James said.
“I like to work. I stopped for a while, and I missed it.”
They got into the elevator. “Do you shoot the TV show here?” he inquired politely.
“I’m here for a photo shoot. For the cover of one of those over-forty magazines.”
“Don’t you get nervous?” James said.
“I just pretend I’m someone else. That’s the secret to all this.” The elevator door opened, and she got out.
An hour later, James, having submitted his face to the basting and flouring of makeup, sat on a stool in front of a blue roll of paper, his face stiffened in a death mask of a smile.
“You are famous author, no?” asked the photographer, who was French and, although a good ten years older than James, in possession of a full head of hair, as well as a wife thirty years his junior, according to the makeup artist.
“No,” James said between gritted teeth.
“You will be soon, eh?” said the photographer. “Otherwise your publisher wouldn’t pay for me.” He put down his camera and called to the makeup artist, who was hovering on the side. “He is so stiff. Like a corpse.
I cannot take a picture of a corpse,” he said to James, who smiled uncomfortably. “We must do something. Anita will make you relax.” The makeup artist came up behind James and put her hands on his shoulders. “I’m fine,” James said as the young woman dug her fingers into his back. “I’m married. Really. My wife wouldn’t like it.”
“I don’t see your wife here, do you?” Anita asked.
“No, but she...”
“Shhhhh.”
“I can see you are not used to the attention of beautiful ladies,” said the photographer. “You will learn. When you are famous, you will have the women all over you.”
“I don’t think so,” James said.
The photographer and the makeup artist began laughing. Then it seemed that everyone in the studio was laughing. James reddened. He suddenly felt eight years old. He was playing on the Little League team at the neighborhood baseball diamond and had let the ball roll through his legs for the third time in a row. “C’mon, buddy,” the coach said to James as he was laughed off the field. “It’s all about picturization. You got to picture yourself a winner. Then you can be one.” James sat on the bench for the rest of the game with his rheumy eyes and his runny nose (he had hay fever) and tried to “picturize” himself hitting a home run.
But all he saw was that ball rolling between his legs again and again, and his father asking, “How’d it go, son?” and James replying, “Not so good.”
“Again?” “That’s right, Dad, not so good.” Even when he was eight, it was obvious to him that he was never going to be more than Jimmy Gooch, the kid who didn’t quite fit in.
James looked up. The photographer was hidden behind his camera.
He clicked off a shot. “That’s very good, James,” he said. “You look sad. Soulful.”
Do I? James thought. Maybe he wasn’t so bad at this famous-author business after all.
That evening, Schiffer knocked on Philip’s door again, hoping to catch him at home. When he didn’t answer, she tried Enid. “Philip?” Enid called out.
“It’s Schiffer.”
“I was wondering when you’d come to see me,” Enid said, opening the door.
“I have no excuse.”
“Perhaps you thought I was dead,” Enid said.