"Freddy did, naturally." Helene picked up Maria's lipstick and studied the effect of the color on the back of her wrist. "I mean Freddy is seriously worried about you, Carter is seriously worried about you, BZ and I are—”
"I'm all right."
"Of course. You're really on top of it. I mean for example there's nothing at all peculiar about hiding here under the covers shaking at three o'clock in the afternoon. Nothing at all off about leaving a party with Johnny Waters and ending up in jail in Nevada at eight o'clock the next morning. Nothing wrong there."
"I've got a headache. I'm in bed because my head aches."
"I'll get a Darvon."
Maria pulled the sheet up to her chin.
"I'm just trying to help you, Maria."
"I'll be all right." Maria sat up and touched Helene's arm. "Really, Helene. I promise."
"All right, never mind, I'm leaving." Helene stood up and smoothed the bed where she had been sitting and then stared at herself for a long while in the mirror on the dressing-room door. "What kind of fuck is Johnny Waters?" she asked finally.
During the next week Freddy Chaikin made a numher of telephone calls to various television producers asking, "as a personal favor to Carter," that Maria be considered for parts, even day work.
"Anything to take her mind off herself," Freddy said to each of them.
"What we’ve got here is a slightly suicidal situation." Maria knew about these calls because Helene told her about them.
"I saw a picture of you today," Helene said.
"Where." Every time she went downstairs Helene seemed to be there.
"You know that employment agency on Beverly? The one where you got the Guatemalan who stole your diaphragm?"
"I don't know." Maria did not want to think about the Guatemalan who had taken her diaphragm.
"You do too know. They've got all those studio stills on the wall?
Satisfied customers? Anyway, now they've got a picture of you, signed 'Good luck, Maria Wyeth."'
"Well, fine," Maria said. "I didn't think you'd be in town again today."
Helene looked at her and giggled. "BZ sent me," she said finally.
"BZ wants me to get you to spend a few weeks at the beach."
Maria said nothing.
"You looked years younger in this picture, I must say." Helene laughed again. "'Good luck, Maria Wyeth."'
"Dear Maria," the note read. " Well don't know when I'll get over to LA but wanted to give you a telephone where you can call if you are in Nevada again or need help. Have some things of your Dad's I want to give you, also because you are like my own daughter there will be a little windfall from this quarter some day, not too soon let's hope. Have all your Dad's papers Plus mineral certiftcates, no action now but quien sabe, once knew a man who thought his rights were worthless and he was sitting on pitchblende so loaded with U. the counters went haywire. Call me at number below and ask for Benny, phone belongs to lady next door, also she cooks for me sometimes. Not like your Mom. Ha ha.
Your Friend Benny C. Austin."
Maria was listening to someone talk and every now and then she would hear herself making what she thought was an appropriate response but mostly she was just swaying slightly with the music and wondering where her drink was when suddenly Felicia Goodwin took her arm.
"We're leaving now, Maria. We'll drop you."
"I have my car, thanks, I'm fine."
Les?" Felicia was talking over her shoulder. "I need you."
Maria picked up someone else's drink and smiled past Felicia at Les. "Crowd scene," she said. "Principals emerge."
"You come with Felicia and me, Maria. I'll get your car tomorrow."
Maria put the glass down and looked at him for a long while.
"I didn't come with you," she said very clearly then. "Thank Christ."
After that she was crying, and Helene was holding her arm while BZ got her coat.
"I thought it merited a mention," Felicia Goodwin whispered.
"Let it go," Helene said. Grateful, Maria put her head on Helene's shoulder and let herself be led outside. In the car she was sick on Helene's lap, and told BZ he was a degenerate.
When she woke before dawn in Helene's bedroom she saw that someone had undressed and bathed and creamed her body. At first she thought she was alone in the room but then she saw BZ and Helene, sprawled together on a chaise. She had only the faintest ugly memory of what had brought BZ and Helene together, and to erase it from her mind she fixed her imagination on a needle dripping sodium pentathol into her arm and began counting backward from one hundred. When that failed she imagined herself driving, conceived audacious lane changes, strategic shifts of gear, the Hollywood to the San Bernardino and straight on out, past Barstow, past Baker, driving straight on into the hard white empty core of the world. She slept and did not dream.
63
"I GUESS I DRANK too much last night," Maria said carefully.
"Don't talk about it." Helene was staring out the kitchen window, holding a cup of coffee in her two hands as if for warmth. Her eyes were puffy and there was a bruise on her left cheekbone and her voice was soft and vague. "I don't want to talk about it. The wind makes me feel bad."
"I just don't remember getting here." Maria had a flash image of BZ holding a belt and Helene laughing and she tried not to look at the bruise on Helene's face. "That's all I was saying."
Tears began falling down Helene's face. "Don't talk about it. And don't say you don't remember, either."
"I didn't—" Maria broke off. BZ was standing in the doorway.
"I picked up your car." BZ dropped the keys on the table and looked from Maria to Helene. "What have we here," he said softly.
"A little hangover terror? A few second thoughts? Is that about the size of it?"
Helene said nothing.
"I can't take this, Helene." BZ was wearing tinted glasses and for the first time Maria noticed a sag
beneath his eyes. "If you can't deal with the morning, get out of the game. You've been around a long time, you know what it is, it's play-or-pay."
"Why don't you go tell that to Carlotta," Helene whispered.
Maria closed her eyes at the instant BZ’s hand hit Helene's face.
"Stop it," she screamed.
BZ looked at Maria and laughed. "You weren't talking that way last night," he said.
64
FROM A PAY PHONE on the highway outside Las Vegas she called the number Benny Austin had given her. The number was no longer in service.
“You here all alone?" the bellboy in the Sands asked, lingering after she had tipped him.
"My husband's meeting me here."
"Is that right? Today? Tomorrow?"
She looked at him. "Go away," she said.
The room was painted purple, with purple Lurex threads in the curtains and bedspread. Because her mother had once told her that purple rooms could send people into irreversible insanity she thought about asking for a different room, but the boy had unnerved her. She did not want to court further appraisal by asking anyone for anything. To hear someone's voice she looked in the telephone book and dialed a few prayers, then took three aspirin and tried not to think about BZ and Helene.
In the morning she went to the post office. Because it was Saturday the long corridors were deserted, and all but one of the grilled windows shuttered. Her sandals clattered against the marble and echoed as she walked.
"Could you put this in Box 674," she said to the clerk at the one open window. 674 was the number on the envelope of Benny Austin's letter.
"Can't."
"Why not."
"It's got to have postage. It's got to go through the United States mail."