“Your work?” Sylvia repeats and Leni gives a huge smile and points to the screen.
Sylvia turns and looks and realizes that the woman up on the screen, the naked woman enlarged to three stories high and currently having a jar of honey dripped on her by a very tall man, also naked except for a chef’s toque on his head, that woman is this woman. That woman on the screen writhing under the coating of golden liquid is Leni Pauline.
“You’re very …” Sylvia starts and when nothing comes to her, she says, “you have beautiful skin.”
Leni looks from Sylvia to Hugo and says, “What is she, a cosmetologist?”
Sylvia doesn’t know whether to laugh or be annoyed, but it’s Hugo that responds.
“In fact,” he says, his accent seeming to get thicker, “Sylvia is an artist.”
Leni tosses a kernel above her head and makes a production of catching it in her mouth.
“That right?” she says.
Sylvia starts to say no, but Leni continues. “I’m an artist too.” She juts her jaw out and says defiantly. “Can you do that?”
They all pivot and look at the screen in time to see Leni writhing on a flour-covered tabletop in the midst of what looks like a large restaurant kitchen as she’s doused with olive oil by a swarthy young chef.
“My God,” Sylvia hears herself whisper and then hears Leni behind her say, “You still think you’re an artist, sister?”
Hugo leans to Sylvia’s ear and says conspiratorially, “Leni is our current starlet and raging prima donna.”
Leni hits him with another popcorn kernel and mimics his voice, “And Hugo is our current washed-up, never-made-it, almost-broke, can’t-get-it-up porno king.”
Hugo keeps his composure and says, “Your gratitude is humbling, my child.”
“My gratitude,” Leni laughs and looks to Sylvia. “What do you think, honey, should I be grateful here for the chance to hump the sandwich boy in this scene?”
Sylvia glances over her shoulder and there’s Leni, spread out on a long table surrounded by luncheon meats and a roasted turkey, piles of sliced tomato and bulkie rolls, loaves of rye bread and croissants and French sticks, dishes of mustard and mayonnaise.
Leni mutters, “I was picking parsley out of my hair for a week.”
Sylvia turns to Hugo and hesitantly asks, “You made this movie?”
He smiles, closes his eyes and bows his head.
“I thought you owned the theater?”
“Hugo,” Leni says, “is a man of many talents.”
Another piece of popcorn bounces off the huge skull and leaves a shine in the blue light from the movie. Hugo ignores it, folds his arms, stares at the screen and whispers, “Glutton for Ravishment II was something of an indulgence for me. I’ll concede that to the critics. But I simply felt there was more to be said after the first film. I just wasn’t done with these characters. They hadn’t released me yet. And though I quake at the thought of further expanding her swelled head, Leni is genuinely breathtaking here. Truly astounding. I took us both to the brink and tore that performance out of her. But, as you can see, it was worth it.”
On the screen, Leni is using a plastic spatula to smear mayonnaise on the chests of two over-endowed waiters.
Hugo puts his mouth next to Sylvia’s ear and says, “You’d be amazed how little editing was required. She can be miraculous when handled properly.”
Sylvia feels a second set of lips at her other ear and she flinches and turns to see Leni up out of her seat and leaning across the chair that separates them.
“Tell me you’re not a bored little rich girl from Windsor Hills,” she says. “Tell me you weren’t jogging past Casa Schick when the bald one offered to teach you about art. Please, Sylvia, tell me.”
Her tone annoys Sylvia. They shift so they’re eye to eye and Sylvia says, “I work for a living.”
Leni doesn’t get angry. Her voice stays even and she looks to the screen and says, “You don’t think that’s work, sister?”
No one answers and she goes on, maybe a little conciliatory.
“I was just trying to warn you. Hugo’s been known to go into anyone’s wallet for financing. We’ve emptied out more than one trust fund to sustain his career.”
She says the last word like it was obscene.
A beam of light hits Sylvia in the eyes and then moves on to Leni and Hugo. They all squint to see one of the bouncers from outside.
“Turn that off,” Hugo hisses and the bouncer complies, slides into the aisle below and whispers to Hugo that things have calmed down out in the street.
Hugo nods and takes a deep breath.
“All right. Go tell June to get the lawyers and Counselor Frye on the phone. Set up a conference call. Then have Ricco get down to the Spy and find out exactly what happened. Have him tell Starkey I’m very disappointed.”
The bouncer trots off and Hugo turns his attention to Sylvia. He takes her right hand and holds it up in front of him.
“It looks like you can venture home now, my dear. The rabble has been dispersed.”
“Tremendous,” Leni says, sliding out of her row. “I’m late at the masseuse.” She stops in the aisle and says, “Always a pleasure meeting my public.”
They all nod agreement and watch her run down the balcony stairs.
“I guess I can go,” Sylvia says to Hugo, suddenly feeling awkward and frightened.
He squeezes her hand, gives a tight-lipped smile and a nod.
“Schick,” he says, releasing the hand and fishing in his coat pocket, “is a true believer in the strange ways of fate.”
He pulls out a business card and extends it toward her. She takes it and says, “I want to thank you again. If you hadn’t pulled me inside, I don’t know what—”
He cuts her off with a wave of his hand.
“We were meant to be brought together, Sylvia. The method is always inconsequential. I feel a genuine connection here. I feel a kindred outlook, a mutual way of seeing things.”
Sylvia laughs and brings a hand over her mouth. Someone from down below in the audience shouts, “Shut the hell up.”
Hugo shakes his head and whispers, “We must walk amongst the ignorant. That is one of the costs of our art, yes?”
She shrugs and says, “Honestly, thanks again. You saved me.”
He smiles a long minute, then says, “I’m throwing a party, Sylvia. Really, a working party. After seven years of toil, we are filming the finale of my great albatross—Don Juan Triumphant. I would love for you to attend. We are filming this Wednesday night. I think you’d find it fascinating. You’d get a chance to see the final flourishes in the creation of a masterpiece. And you could bring a camera.”
He’s caught her off guard. She stammers, “Oh, I don’t—”
“Wednesday night,” he says. “Give it some thought. As they say, sleep on it.”
She simply nods and whispers, “Thanks again.”
She makes her way out of the seats into the aisle and follows Leni’s course out of the balcony without waiting for Hugo. When she gets to the corridor she looks back and when Schick doesn’t appear she guesses that he’s stayed to watch the rest of the movie.
She comes to the end of the corridor, to the huge stairway down into the lobby and as she’s about to turn the corner onto the stairs, something catches her eye. Just an instant, just a momentary flash of image. She stops and stares at a print that’s framed and mounted on the wall. She steps back to get her focus. It’s a black-and-white shot. Stark. A little frightening. A Madonna and Child shot. A decaying landscape hosting the mother and infant.