Lisa Anne barely knew them. This was only her second week and she was not yet a part of their circle. One had been an editorial assistant at the L. A. Weekly, two were junior college students, and the others had answered the same classified ad she had seen in the trades. She considered crashing the conversation. It would be a chance to rest her feet and dry out. The soggy new shoes still pinched her toes and the suit she’d had to buy for the job was damp and steamy and scratched her skin like a hair shirt. She felt ridiculous in this uniform, but it was necessary to show people like Marty that she could play by their rules, at least until she got what she needed. At home she would probably be working on yet another sculpture this morning, trying to get the face right, with a gob of clay in one hand and a joint in the other and the stereo cranked up to the max. But living that way hadn’t gotten her any closer to the truth. She couldn’t put it off any longer. There were some things she had to find out or she would go mad.
She smiled at the monitors.
Except for Angie they barely acknowledged her, continuing their conversation as though she were not there.
They know, she thought. They must.
How much longer till Marty saw through her game? She had him on her side, but the tease would play out soon enough unless she let it go further, and she couldn’t bear the thought of that. She only needed him long enough to find the answer, and then she would walk away.
She went to the glass doors.
The rain had stopped and soon the next group would begin gathering outside. The busts of the television stars in the courtyard were ready, Red Buttons and George Gobel and Steve Allen and Lucille Ball with her eyebrows arched in perpetual wonderment, waiting to meet their fans. It was all that was left for them now.
Angie came up next to her.
“Hey, girl.”
“Hey yourself.”
“The lumberjack. He a friend of yours?”
“Number Sixteen?”
“The one with the buns.”
“I never saw him before.”
“Oh.” Angie took a bite of an oatmeal cookie and brushed the crumbs daintily from her mouth. “Nice.”
“I suppose. If you like that sort of thing.”
“Here.” She offered Lisa Anne the napkin. “You look like you’re melting.”
She took it and wiped the back of her neck, then squeezed out the ends of her hair, as a burst of laughter came from the theater. That meant Marty had already gone in through the side entrance to warm them up.
“Excuse me,” she said. “It’s showtime.”
Angie followed her to the hall. “You never miss one, do you?”
“Not yet.”
“Aren’t they boring? I mean, it’s not like they’re hits or anything.”
“Most of them are pretty lame,” Lisa Anne admitted.
“So why watch?”
“I have to find out.”
“Don’t tell me. What Marty’s really like?”
“Please.”
“Then why?”
“I’ve got to know why some shows make it,” she said, “and some don’t.”
“Oh, you want to get into the biz?”
“No. But I used to know someone who was. See you.”
I shouldn’t have said that, she thought as she opened the unmarked door in the hall.
The observation booth was dark and narrow with a half-dozen padded chairs facing a two-way mirror. On the other side of the mirror, the test subjects sat in rows of theater seats under several 36-inch television sets suspended from the ceiling.
She took the second chair from the end.
In the viewing theater, Marty was explaining how to use the dials wired into the armrests. They were calibrated from zero to ten with a plastic knob in the center. During the screening the subjects were to rotate the knobs, indicating how much they liked what they saw. Their responses would be recorded and the results then analyzed to help the networks decide whether the show was ready for broadcast.
Lisa Anne watched Marty as he paced, doing his schtick. He had told her that he once worked at a comedy traffic school, and she could see why. He had them in the palm of his hand. Their eyes followed his every move, like hypnotized chickens waiting to be fed. His routine was corny but with just the right touch of hipness to make them feel like insiders. He concluded by reminding them of the fifty dollars cash they would receive after the screening and the discussion. Then, when the lights went down and the tape began to roll, Marty stepped to the back and slipped into the hall. As he entered the observation booth, the audience was applauding.
“Good group this time,” he said, dropping into the chair next to hers.
“You always know just what to say.”
“I do, don’t I?” he said, leaning forward to turn on a tiny 12-inch set below the mirror.
She saw their faces flicker in the blue glow of the cathode ray tubes while the opening titles came up.
The show was something calledDario, You So Crazy! She sighed and sat back, studying their expressions while keeping one eye on the TV screen. It wouldn’t be long before she felt his hand on her forearm as he moved in, telling her what he really thought of the audience, how stupid they were, every last one, down to the little old ladies and the kindly grandfathers and the working men and women who were no more or less ordinary than he was under his Perry Ellis suit and silk tie. Then his breath in her hair and his fingers scraping her pantyhose as if tapping out a message on her knee and perhaps today, this time, he would attempt to deliver that message, while she offered breathless quips to let him know how clever he was and how lucky she felt to be here. She shuddered and turned her cheek to him in the dark.
“Who’s that actor?” she said.
“Some Italian guy. I saw him in a movie. He’s not so bad, if he could learn to talk English.”
She recognized the co-star. It was Rowan Atkinson, the slight, bumbling everyman from that British TV series on PBS.
“Mr Bean!” she said.
“Roberto Benigni,” Marty corrected, reading from the credits.
“I mean the other one. This is going to be good. ”
“I thought you were on your break,” said Marty.
“This is more important.”
He stared at her transparent reflection in the two-way mirror.
“You were going to take the day off.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
The pilot was a comedy about an eccentric Italian film director who had come to America in search of fame and fortune. Mr Bean played his shy, inept manager. They shared an expensive rented villa in the Hollywood Hills. Just now they were desperate to locate an actress to pose as Dario’s wife, so that he could obtain a green card and find work before they both ran out of money.
She immediately grasped the premise and its potential.
It was inspired. Benigno’s abuse of the language would generate countless hilarious misunderstandings; coupled with his manager’s charming incompetence, the result might be a television classic, thanks in no small measure to the brilliant casting. How could it miss? All they needed was a good script. She realized that her mind had drifted long enough to miss the screenwriter’s name. The only credit left was the show’s creator/producer, one Barry E. Tormé. Probably the son of that old singer, she thought. What was his name? Mel. Apparently he had fathered a show-business dynasty. The other son, Tracy, was a successful TV writer; he had even created a science-fiction series at Fox that lasted for a couple of seasons. Why had she never heard of brother Barry? He was obviously a pro.
She sat forward, fascinated to see the first episode.
“Me, Dario!” Benigni crowed into a gold-trimmed telephone, the third time it had rung in less than a minute. It was going to be his signature bit.