• • •
JUST BEFORE ARRIVING in Chicago, Lisanne showered in the closet-size bathroom. The water was nice and warm, and she smiled at the comic absurdity of hosing herself down in the upright plastic coffin of a train toilet. Looking at the big white folds of skin, she felt like an animal at the county fair. She laughed when imagining herself stuck in the stall, the dull-witted porter having to pry her out.
She had four hours to kill and went to Marshall Field’s for lunch. The grandiose dining room was shopworn and depressing, so she ate lunch in an ill-lit, pretentious chain-boutique hotel with giant, ludicrously stylized chairs and lamps. After the meal, she strolled to the Sears Tower. It was windy, and her mind imbecilically repeated: The Windy City, the Windy City, the Windy City. She tried calling her aunt but couldn’t get through.
It was good to get back on the train. She saw herself traveling like this forever, city to city, station to station, coast to coast, working for Amtrak incognito as a secret inspector in quality control, a plus-size spinster who kept to herself and legendarily took meals in sequestration. She thought seriously about changing her return ticket so that instead of coming through Chicago again she could take the southern route to Jacksonville then over to New Orleans.
By the time she got to Albany, her father was dead.
The Benefit
HE FLIPPED THROUGH the paper. Viv was still getting ready. The driver waited outside to take them to the benefit.
Kit was always looking through articles in the Times for movie ideas. Maybe there would be something to develop that he could direct. Shit, his friend Clooney had done it. Nic Cage and Sean, Denzel and Kevin — name the film and the chances were that some actor had “helmed.” There was an item about a woman accused of feeding her young daughter sleeping pills and shaving her head in an effort to convince the community she had leukemia and was worthy of multiple fund-raisers. She even put the kid in counseling, to prepare her for death. Another told of two Wichita brothers who broke into a town house and forced a bunch of twentysomething friends to have sex with each other before staging executions on a snowy soccer field. At the bottom of the page was the story of a pole vaulter who had freakishly crashed to the ground and died during his run. The last thing he said before jogging to his death was, “This is my day, Dad.”
“What’s this thing we’re going to?” Kit asked as Viv strode in, cocky and perfect-looking. He could smell the hair on her arms.
“A benefit for Char Riordan,” she said. “She’s a casting agent—so great. I love her.”
“Television?”
She nodded.
Viv Wembley was as famous as her boyfriend but in a different way. She was one of the stars of Together, the long-running, high-rated sitcom.
“She cast me in my first play and my first TV movie. I was bridesmaid at her wedding on the Vineyard.”
“So what’s wrong with her?”
“Scleroderma.”
“Gesundheit.”
“Very funny.”
“Sclerowhat?”
“Scleroderma.”
“What is that?”
“I don’t even know! It’s in the tissues or something. She looks kind of like a monster — like she’s rotting away.”
“Always attractive.”
“If I ever get anything like that, promise to shoot me.”
“After I fuck you. Or maybe during.”
She swatted at him as they got into the Town Car. When it pulled up to the hotel, the photographers shouted their names in a frenzy. Alf Lanier, a younger movie star in his own right and a friend of both, nudged his way over, doing jester shtick as the trio posed in a seizure of strobes.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” asked Kit, playfully sotto.
“Isn’t this the Michael J. Fox thing?” said Alf.
“You are such an asshole,” said Viv, with a scampish smile.
“You stupid cunt,” said Kit to Alf, whispering in his ear to be heard above the vulturazzi. “Didn’t you know this was the Lymphoma Costume Ball?”
“You guys better shut up!” said Viv, enjoying their banter.
Alf looked outraged and shot back to Kit: “This is the cystic fibrosis-autism thing, you insensitive prick.”
“Oh shit,” said the superstar, contritely. “I fucked up. But are you sure this isn’t the bipolar Lou Gehrig tit cancer monkeypox telethon?”
They went on like that as Viv dragged them into the ballroom.
Fisticuffs
THE OFFICE OF the Look-Alike Shoppe Productions was on Willoughby, not far from where Metropolis had its theater. It was Saturday when Becca came in. Before taking the stairs, she noticed the dented Lexus with the customized plate:
Elaine Jordache, a hard fifty with jet-black, dandruffy hair, had predatory eyes that somehow still welcomed. She sucked from a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf cup festooned with lipstick. Glossies of actors covered every available wall space; Xeroxes and boilerplate contracts littered floor and desk in a parody of industry. She rid a chair of papers and bade Becca sit amid the shitstorm. If the phone rang, Elaine said she would have to take it — her assistant was out sick, and she was expecting an important call from Denmark. As it happened, she said, the Look-Alike Shoppe did a ton of business with Denmark.
“What did you think of the show?” she asked.
Becca was flustered until she realized Elaine was talking about the Six Feet Under premiere.
“It was amazing. Ohmygod, did you cast it?”
“A close friend of mine,” she said, shaking her head. “A protégée. She handles the extras. She’ll be doing principals soon, wait and see — they all just won Emmys. The girls who cast the show. They do a great job too. But you burn out doing a series. It’s an assembly line. That’s a fuck-load of faces, each and every week. They’ll be wanting to move on.” She took a long cigarette from an antiquey silver case, then shuffled beneath the contracts, hunting for matches. “Fun when you’re younger, though. They really work you. Everyone wants a lot of bang for their buck. I’ve been with all the biggies — Altman, Ashby, Nic Roeg. Do you even know who Nic Roeg is?” Becca shook her head. “Well, why should you? My God, I worked with Nic when I was a baby—your age. Married to Theresa Russell. Were they the couple: hot, hot, hot! I’ve got a fabulous Theresa Russell, but I can’t use her. Saw her on the street — not even she knows she looks like Theresa. Who’s heard of Theresa Russell anymore?”
Elaine found a matchbook and lit up. She dipped into a steel file drawer and passed an eight-by-ten Becca’s way — a pretty girl with wavy blond hair dangling from beneath a fedora, like a starlet from long ago. “There she is,” said Elaine. Becca noticed some acne on the chin that should have been airbrushed. “That’s my Theresa, for all the good it’ll do me. I don’t even know where she is. Phone disconnected. She was working at either Target or Hooters, can’t remember which. Maybe Costco. I get all my kids confused.”