Glitter Baby (9 page)

“I don’t.” She hopped up from the chair. “I know everybody thinks I do—that everybody’s asking me out. But it’s not true.”

He picked up a light meter and toyed with it. “I see your picture in the paper with movie stars and Kennedys and everybody.”

“Those aren’t real dates. They’re…sort of for publicity.”

“Does that mean you’d like to go out with me? Maybe Saturday night. We could go down to the Village.”

Fleur grinned. “I’d love to.”

He beamed at her.

“You’d love to what, baby?” Belinda came up behind her.

“I asked Fleur to go to the Village with me on Saturday night, Mrs. Savagar,” Chris said, looking nervous again. “There’s this restaurant where they have Middle Eastern food.”

Fleur curled her toes in her shower thongs. “I said I’d go.”

“Did you, baby?” Belinda’s forehead puckered. “I’m afraid that won’t work. You already have plans, remember? The premiere of the new Altman picture. You’re going with Shawn Howell.”

Fleur had forgotten about the premiere, and she definitely wanted to forget about Shawn Howell, who was a twenty-two-year-old film star with an IQ that matched his
age. On their first date he’d spent the evening complaining that everybody was “out to screw him,” and he’d told her he’d dropped out of high school because all the teachers were creeps and faggots. She’d begged Gretchen not to arrange any more dates with him, but Gretchen said Shawn was hot now, and business was business. When she’d tried to talk to her mother about it, Belinda had been incredulous.

“But, baby, Shawn Howell’s a star. Being seen with him makes you twice as important.” When Fleur complained that he kept trying to put his hand under her skirt, Belinda had pinched her cheek. “Celebrities are different from ordinary people. They don’t follow the same rules. I know you can handle him.”

“That’s okay,” Chris said, disappointment written all over his face. “I understand. Some other time.”

But Fleur knew there wouldn’t be another time. It had taken all of Chris’s courage to ask her out once, and he’d never do it again.

Fleur tried to talk to Belinda about Chris in the cab on the way home, but Belinda refused to understand. “Chris is a nobody. Why on earth would you want to go out with him?”

“Because I like him. You shouldn’t have…” Fleur pulled on the fringe of her cutoffs. “I wish you hadn’t put him off like that. It made me feel like I was twelve.”

“I see.” Belinda’s voice grew chilly. “You’re telling me that I embarrassed you.”

Fleur felt a little flutter of panic. “Of course not. No. How could you embarrass me?” Belinda had withdrawn from her, and Fleur touched her arm. “Forget I said anything. It’s not important.” Except it was important, but she didn’t want to hurt Belinda’s feelings. When that happened, Fleur always felt as though she was standing in front of the Couvent de l’Annonciation watching her mother’s car disappear.

Belinda didn’t say anything for a while, and Fleur’s misery deepened

“You have to trust me, baby. I know what’s best for you.” Belinda cupped Fleur’s wrist, and Fleur felt as if she’d been about to fall off a precipice, only to be snatched back to safety.

That night after Fleur had gone to bed, Belinda stared at her daughter’s photographs on the wall. Her determination grew stronger than ever. Somehow she had to protect Fleur from all of them—from Alexi, from nobodies like Chris, from anyone who stood in their way. It would be the hardest things she’d ever done, and on days like today, she wasn’t sure how she’d manage.

The blanket of depression began to settle over her. She pushed it away by reaching for the telephone and quickly dialing a number.

A sleepy male voice answered. “Yeah.”

“It’s me. Did I wake you?”

“Yeah. What do you want?”

“I’d like to see you tonight.”

He yawned. “When you coming?”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

As she began to pull the phone away from her ear, she heard his voice on the other end. “Hey, Belinda? How ’bout you leave your panties at home.”

“Shawn Howell, you’re a devil.” She hung up the phone, grabbed her purse, and left the apartment.

Hollywood wanted Jake
Koranda smart-ass and mean. They wanted him staring at a piece of street scum over the barrel of a .44 Magnum. They wanted him using pearl-handled Colts on a band of desperados and then kissing a busty broad good-bye before he walked out the saloon doors. Koranda might only be twenty-eight years old, but he was a real man, not one of those pansies who carried a hair dryer in his hip pocket.

Jake had hit it big right from the start playing a drifter named Bird Dog Caliber in a low-budget Western that grossed six times what it had cost to make. Despite his youth, he had the rough, outlaw image that men liked as much as women, the same as Eastwood did. Two more Caliber pictures immediately followed the first, each one bloodier. After that, he made a couple of modern action-adventure movies. His career rise was meteoric. Then Koranda got stubborn. He said he needed more time to
write his plays.

What was Hollywood supposed to do about that? The best action actor to come along since Eastwood, and he wrote shit that ended up in college anthologies instead of staying in front of a camera where he belonged. The fuckin’ Pulitzer Prize had ruined him.

And it got worse…Koranda decided he wanted to try writing for film instead of the theater. He called his screenplay
Sunday Morning Eclipse
, and there wasn’t a single car chase in the whole damned thing. “That highbrow shit is okay for the stage, kid,” the Hollywood brass told him when he started shopping it around, “but the American public wants tits and guns on screen.”

Koranda eventually ended up with Dick Spano, a smalltime producer who agreed to do
Sunday Morning Eclipse
on two conditions: Jake had to take the leading role, and he had to give Spano a big-budget cops-and-robbers afterward.

On a Tuesday night in early March, three men sat in a smoke-filled projection room. “Run Savagar’s screen test again,” Dick Spano called out around one of the fat Cuban cigars he loved to smoke.

Johnny Guy Kelly, the film’s legendary silver-haired director, popped the lid on a can of Orange Crush and spoke over his shoulder to the lone figure sitting in the shadows at the back. “Jako, boy, we don’t want you unhappy, but I think you left those genius brains of yours in bed with your latest lady friend.”

Jake Koranda pulled his long legs from the back of the seat in front of him. “Savagar’s wrong for Lizzie. I can feel it in my gut.”

“You take a long, hard look at Cupcake up there and tell me you don’t feel something someplace other than in your gut.” Johnny Guy pointed his Orange Crush toward the screen. “The camera loves her, Jako. And she’s also been taking acting lessons, so she’s real serious about this.”

Koranda slouched deeper into his seat. “She’s a model. One more ditzy glamour girl who wants a movie career. I went through this with what’s-her-name last year, and I swore I’d never do it again. Especially not on this picture. Did you check Amy Irving again?”

“Irving is tied up,” Spano said, “and even if she wasn’t, I gotta tell you I’d go with Savagar right now. She’s hot. You
can’t pick up a magazine without seeing her face on the cover. Everybody’s been waiting to see what she chooses for her first film. It’s built-in publicity.”

“Screw the publicity,” Koranda said.

Dick Spano and Johnny Guy Kelly exchanged glances. They liked Jake, but he had strong opinions, and he could be a stubborn son of a bitch when he believed in something. “It’s not that easy,” Johnny Guy said. “She’s got some smart people behind her. They’d been waiting a long time to find exactly the right picture.”

“Bullshit,” Jake retorted. “All they want is a leading man tall enough to play with their little girl. It doesn’t go any deeper than that.”

“I think you’re underestimating them.”

Cold silence drifted their way from the back of the room.

“Sorry, Jake,” Spano finally said, not without some trepidation, “but we’re going to overrule you on this one. We’re making her an offer tomorrow.”

Behind them, Koranda uncoiled from his seat. “Do what you have to, but don’t expect me to roll out the welcome mat.”

Johnny Guy shook his head as Jake disappeared, then once again looked at the screen. “Let’s hope Cupcake up there knows how to take some heat.”

Belinda had dragged Fleur to all of Jake Koranda’s pictures, and Fleur had hated every one of them. He was always shooting someone in the head, knifing him in the belly, or terrorizing a woman. And he seemed to enjoy it! Now she had to work with him, and she knew from her agent exactly how dead set he’d been against casting her. Part of her couldn’t exactly blame him. No matter what Belinda believed, Fleur was no actress.

“Stop worrying,” Belinda said, whenever Fleur tried to
talk to her about it. “The minute he sees you, he’ll fall in love.”

Fleur couldn’t imagine that happening.

The white stretch limousine the studio had sent to pick her up at LAX delivered her to the two-story Spanish-style Beverly Hills house Belinda had rented for them. It was early May, unseasonably cold when she’d left New York, but warm and sunny in Southern California. When she’d come over from France three years ago, she’d never imagined her life taking such a strange direction. She tried to be grateful, but lately that had been hard.

A housekeeper who looked like she was at least a hundred years old let her into a foyer with white walls, dark beams, a wrought-iron chandelier, and a terra-cotta floor. Fleur took the suitcases away from her when she started to carry them upstairs. She chose a back bedroom that looked down over the pool and left the master bedroom for Belinda. The house seemed even larger than the photos. With six bedrooms, four decks, and a couple of Jacuzzis, it had more space than two people needed, something she’d made the mistake of mentioning to Alexi during one of their phone conversations that substituted for visits.

“In Southern California, lack of ostentation is vulgar,” he’d said. “Follow your mother’s lead, and you will be a wonderful success.”

She’d let the dig pass. The problems between Alexi and Belinda were too complicated for her to solve, especially since she’d never been able to understand why two people who hated each other so much didn’t get a divorce. She kicked off her shoes and gazed around the room with its warm wooden pieces and earth-toned fabrics. A collection of Mexican crosses hanging on the wall gave her a pang of homesickness for the nuns. Never once had she imagined making this particular trip alone.

She sat on the side of the bed and called New York. “Are you feeling any better?” she asked when Belinda answered.

“I’m miserable. And humiliated. How can a woman my age get chicken pox?” Belinda blew her nose. “My baby is going to star in the most talked-about film of the year, and here I am stuck in New York with this ridiculous disease. If I get scars…”

“You’ll be fine in a week or so.”

“I’m not coming out there until I look my best. I want them to see what they passed up all those years ago.” Another nose blow. “Call me the moment you meet him. Don’t worry about the time difference.”

Fleur didn’t have to ask whom Belinda was talking about. She braced herself, and—sure enough…

“My baby’s going to be doing love scenes with Jake Koranda.”

“If you say that one more time, I’m going to throw up.”

Belinda managed a laugh through her misery. “Lucky, lucky, baby.”

“I’m hanging up now.”

But Belinda had beaten her to it.

Fleur walked over to the window and gazed down at the pool. She’d started to hate modeling, another thing Belinda would never understand. And she definitely didn’t want to be an actress. But since she had no idea what she wanted to do instead, she could hardly complain. She had gobs of money, a fabulous career, and a great part in a prestigious film. She was the luckiest girl in the world, and she was going to stop acting like a spoiled brat. So what if she never felt completely comfortable in front of the camera? She did a darned good job of faking it, and that’s exactly what she’d do with this movie. She’d fake it.

She changed into shorts, twisted her hair on top of her head, and carried the script of
Sunday Morning Eclipse
out to the patio. She settled into one of the cushioned chaises along with a glass of fresh orange juice and gazed down at the script.

Jake Koranda was playing Matt, the lead, a soldier re
turning home to Iowa from Vietnam. Matt is tortured by memories of a My Lai–type massacre he witnessed. When he gets home, he finds his wife pregnant with another man’s child and his brother caught up in a local scandal. Matt is drawn to Lizzie, his wife’s kid sister, who’s grown up in his absence. Fleur was playing Lizzie. She thumbed to the script notes.

Untouched by the smell of napalm and the corruption in Matt’s own family, Lizzie makes Matt feel innocent again.

The two of them get into a playful argument over the best place to find a great hamburger, and after a traumatic scene with his wife, Matt takes Lizzie on a week-long odyssey through Iowa in search of an old-fashioned root beer stand. The root beer stand served as both a tragic and comic symbol of the country’s lost innocence. At the end of the journey, Matt discovers that Lizzie is neither as guileless nor as virginal as she acts.

Despite the movie’s cynical view of women, Fleur liked the script a lot better than the Bird Dog Caliber pictures. But even after two months of acting lessons, she didn’t see how she’d ever play a character as complex as Lizzie. She wished she was doing some kind of romantic comedy.

At least she wouldn’t have to do the movie’s nude love scene. This was the only battle with Belinda that she’d won. Her mother said Fleur was being a prude and that her attitude was hypocritical after all the swimsuit ads she’d done, but swimsuits were swimsuits, and naked was naked. Fleur wouldn’t budge.

She’d always refused to pose nude, even for the world’s most respected photographers. Belinda said it was because she was still a virgin, but that wasn’t it. Fleur had to keep some part of herself private.

The housekeeper interrupted and told her she needed to look outside. Fleur went to the front door. In the center of the driveway sat a shiny new red Porsche topped with a giant silver bow.

She raced to the phone and caught Alexi just as he was getting ready for bed. “It’s beautiful,” she cried. “I’m going to be scared to death to drive it.”

“Nonsense. It is you who control the car,
chérie
, not the other way around.”

“I’ve got the wrong number. I want to speak with the man who’s invested a fortune trying to find the Bugatti Royale that spent the war in the sewers of Paris.”

“That, my dear, is different.”

Fleur smiled. They chatted for a few minutes, then she rushed outside to drive her new car. She wished she could thank Alexi in person, but he’d never come back to see her.

Some of her pleasure in the gift faded. She’d become a pawn in the battle between her parents, and she hated that. But as important as her new relationship was with her father, and as much as she appreciated this beautiful car, her first loyalty would always be with Belinda.

The next morning, she drove the Porsche through the studio gates to the soundstage where
Sunday Morning Eclipse
was shooting. Fleur Savagar was too scared to show up on the set herself, so she’d sent the Glitter Baby instead. As she’d gotten dressed, she’d taken extra care with her makeup and pulled her hair away from her face with a set of enameled combs so that it fell long and straight down her back. Her peony-colored Sonia Rykiel body sweater complemented a pair of strappy lizard sandals with three-inch heels. Jake Koranda was tall, but those heels should just about even them out.

She found the parking lot the guard had directed her to. The toast she’d eaten for breakfast clumped in her stomach. Although filming on
Sunday Morning Eclipse
had been under way for several weeks, she didn’t have to report for another few days, but she’d decided that checking things out before she had to go in front of the camera would build her confidence. So far, it wasn’t working.

This was silly. She’d made television commercials, so she understood the process. She knew how to hit her marks and take direction. But her anxiety refused to ease. Belinda should have been the movie star. Not her.

The guard had phoned ahead, and Dick Spano, the producer, met her inside the soundstage door. “Fleur, sweetheart! It’s good to see you.” He welcomed her with a cheek kiss and an admiring look at the leggy expanse that the body sweater put on display. Fleur had liked Spano when they’d met in New York, especially when she’d found out how much he loved horses. He led her toward a pair of heavy doors. “They’re getting ready to shoot. I’ll take you in.”

Fleur recognized the brightly lit set on the soundstage as the kitchen of Matt’s house in Iowa. Standing in the middle of it, she saw Johnny Guy Kelly deep in conversation with Lynn David, the tiny, auburn-haired actress who was playing Matt’s wife, DeeDee. Dick Spano gestured Fleur toward a canvas director’s chair. She resisted the urge to peek at the back and see if her name was stenciled there.

“You ready, Jako?”

Jake Koranda stepped out of the shadows.

The first thing Fleur noticed was his impossible mouth, soft and sulky as a baby’s. But that was the only thing baby-like about him. His walk was loose-jointed with a rolling, slouch-shouldered gait that made him look more like a range-weary cowboy than a playwright–movie star. His straight brown hair had been cut shorter than he wore it in the Caliber pictures, making him look both taller and thinner than his screen image. Offscreen, she decided, he didn’t look any friendlier than he did onscreen.

Thanks to Belinda, Fleur knew more about him than she wanted to. Although he was notoriously reticent with the press and seldom gave interviews, certain facts had emerged. He’d been born John Joseph Koranda and raised in the worst part of Cleveland, Ohio, by a mother who cleaned houses during the day and offices at night. He had
a juvenile police record. Petty theft, shoplifting, hot-wiring a car when he was thirteen. When reporters tried to get him to open up about how he’d turned his life around, he referred to a college athletic scholarship. “Just a punk who got lucky with a basketball,” he said. He refused to talk about why he’d left college during his sophomore year, his short-lived marriage, or his military service in Vietnam. He said his life was his own.