The Diamond Lane (34 page)

“Is that what you told them?” Mouse laughed nervously. “No wonder I never get grants. I always go for the ‘why the world needs this film' angle.”

“The world needs nothing,” said Ivan. He was standing
behind her. She heard the crunch of denim sliding on, then a zip. “Except
Wedding March
, of course.”

“Of course!” said Mouse. She was afraid she agreed a little too quickly.

“Is it safe to say we're in pre-production?”

“There are some things we need to talk about.”

“That's why we're meeting. There is a nice place on the Boardwalk that has a salad bar. Can I take you to a late lunch?”

“Oh, no, I've already –”

“Then come with me. We can at least do the production schedule. We need to think about crew members, assistants. I have someone very good – Eliot, E., you know E. – he can roll sound, assistant edit, do anything. Documentary is a religion for him.”

“I know how that is.”

“I know you do.” Ivan smiled, held open the door. His teeth were very straight and hard looking, like bathroom tile.

THE SALAD BAR
was all-you-can-eat and didn't look particularly good. Ivan went back four times. Mouse drank enough coffee to make her thighs shake.

There was the issue of Tony. It was very difficult to do a ninety-minute movie about a wedding without a groom. As he ate, Mouse noticed Ivan had a tattoo on his wrist. She had thought it was a bracelet but saw it was a ring of film frames, green and blue.

“You get that in prison?” she asked, pointing to his thick wrist with the end of her teaspoon.

“You have been talking to your neurotic sister.”

“You did get it in prison?”

“I have never even had a parking ticket.”

“You don't have a car.”

“I guess that's enough to make someone seem psychotic in this city.” He speared a radish.

“I talked to Tony,” she blurted out.

“So did I,” said Ivan, “When I called for you.”

“Oh God. What did he – what did he say? When?”

“He told me about the insurance settlement. Otherwise you would have planned the wedding yourself. He was proud. He is into it, which is good. The wedding. I like that he is English. It will give the piece a slightly different feel. A little class. A little storybook feel. An opportunity for social irony.”

“Irony,” said Mouse. Tony reserved, Tony polite, had not said word one to Ivan. She could just hear him, “Oh hallo, sport. No, Mouse is out and about seeing to wedding matters.” A chilly edge to his voice, nothing more. He saved his tantrums and threats for her.

“I had an idea. I think the movie might be better from the bride's point of view, from my point of view.” She rolled her lips inside her mouth, waiting.

“Tony is balking, isn't he?” Ivan pushed away his plate, lit a cigarette, exhaled adroitly through his high-cut nostrils, passed it over to her and lit one for himself.

“No,” said Mouse. “Did he say something?”

“No. It seems natural he would. A man captured on film getting the harness slipped on.”

“Ivan, he's the one who wants to get married. It was his idea. In Africa. I can't tell you how many times he – Anyway, don't put it on me, the scheming woman. I hate that.”

“This is good,” said Ivan. “I like this.”

“Don't work me. I know what you're doing.”

“Have I ever said how much I miss our old talks? You were the best friend I ever had.”

“Ivan.” She didn't want him to say anything more.

He leaned back in his chair, dug in his pockets for money to pay the bill. He counted nickels and pennies. He didn't have enough for both the tip and her coffee. Even though he ate there nearly every day, he was happy to stiff the waitress.

16

MIMI HAD PASSES TO A CAST AND CREW SCREENING OF
a lesser movie by one of Talent and Artists' lesser clients. She could always tell how lesser a movie was by how many times the passes got passed on. If she had passed them on to the guy in the mail room, the movie was beneath “lesser,” probably low enough to qualify as career-ruining. She had only two passes and invited Mouse. Her sister. They didn't do enough together, she thought. They hadn't been to a movie since Mouse had been home. Mimi overapologized to Tony. That was quite all right, he said, not to worry. He was going to take in a Lakers game with Ralph.

Mouse looked forward to the screening the way she looked forward to getting some much-needed dental work out of the way. She and Mimi needed to have a talk. Now that she was entering into a partnership of sorts with Ivan, it was important that she and Mimi clear the air.

This would be as easy as picking up a ball of mercury with tweezers while blindfolded. For one thing, so much time had elapsed since the summer of Ivan that Mouse sometimes thought she only imagined Mimi had seduced him right out from under her nose. After all, nothing had ever actually
happened
with Ivan. No dates, no kisses, no promises. And since Mouse had never actually had him, how could Mimi “steal” him? There was no tangible evidence that Mimi had done anything wrong. Still, Mouse had loved Ivan and Mimi knew it. Mimi knew it, and she did
what she did anyway.
You're so dramatic! Dramatic, paranoid, and self-pitying. You're just jealous because Mimi had boyfriends when you never did
, said The Pink Fiend.
Don't be difficult. Be nice. Mimi loves you so much. She would never hurt you intentionally
. Mouse could not eat for two days before the screening.

The movie was at an eighteen-plex in Universal City. Mouse had never been to a – plex of any kind; when she left for Africa they still showed one movie per movie house. It was nicer than she expected. The walls were fairly solid, so only wordless love scenes were accompanied by the rattle of submachine guns from the theater next door. There were purple velvet seats – made especially in France, said Mimi. Cappuccino was sold at the snack bar. The theater sat atop a steep hill, secluded from neighboring Universal Studios by artful landscaping.

Mouse hoped that she and Mimi would go for a cup of coffee after the film. She would apologize at long last for not coming to Mimi and Ivan's wedding. She would apologize for not answering Mimi's letters. But she would not apologize for being angry.

The movie was a political thriller, featuring the usual cast of look-alike bureaucrats in dark suits having too many cryptic conversations in the backs of limousines. There were many scenes of the same men outwitting complex alarm systems, sneaking into computer rooms at the Pentagon and, in pitch darkness, planting high-tech explosives and wiretaps. There were the usual evil-incarnate assassins anxious to double-cross either side for a few dollars more.

Mimi and Mouse shared a bucket of popcorn and a large Diet Coke. They slouched in their seats, their legs slung over the backs of the seats in front of them. They kept leaning onto each other's shoulder and whispering.

“What's he doing
now
?”

“Is that the same guy?”

“Who's he calling?”

Mouse was chummy, sisterly, unhappily anticipating the unpleasant and unsisterly scene that would follow.

Near the end, when the plot was uncovered and leaked to the
New York Times
and the explosive, which Mouse had lost track of due to a sudden flurry of love scenes featuring full-frontal male nudity, was dismantled, Mimi asked loudly, “What bomb?”

For the rest of the movie, people stage-whispered to one another: “What president?” “What top-secret papers?” After the final confusing image faded, before the credits rolled, there was a moment of black during which, Mouse supposed, they were to reflect on the import of what they'd just seen. Mimi yelled out, “What director?” The audience roared.

The response put Mimi in a generous mood. Didn't it prove her timing was good, just as Bob Hope had said? She decided then to look into taking another acting class, but only after she finished her blockbuster, which she promised herself she would begin on Saturday. She strutted out of the theater scrunching her blond mop, waving to people she knew from the office. She was proud to be seen with Mouse. A lot of the people from the office knew her sister had lived in Africa. That was impressive. To some people.

At ten o'clock at night the freeway was a parking lot, a sea of red brake lights, people cursing over their bone-rattling car stereo systems. There must have been construction or an accident.

Mimi's good mood deteriorated the second they hit the diamond lane. The car ahead of them had no passengers. The diamond lane was supposed to be for cars with two or more people. No one in this town had any morals, Mimi thought angrily.

“I bet this jerk parks in handicapped parking places,” she said. “I bet he doesn't recycle.”

“Want to get a drink or something, a cup of coffee?” asked Mouse. She glanced over at her sister's unremarkable profile. She felt bad for Mimi, suddenly. That contrived hair, all that expensive makeup. Mouse wished Mimi suspected something.
She would be crushed when Mouse accused her of being a narcissistic, undermining, manipulative man-chaser.

“I can't drink coffee anymore at night, keeps me up. You shouldn't drink so much either. It gives you cysts. I just want to get home. Look at this traffic. I hate this city.”

“Cysts?”

“In your boobs.”

“I'm going to do that film with Ivan,” said Mouse.

“You are?” Mimi's voice was slow and kind. Too kind, thought Mouse, like an adult addressing a child who says he wants to be president.

Mimi coaxed the car out of gear, tipped her toe off the gas. They rolled forward a few inches. The brake lights on the sports car ahead of them lit up like the slanted eyes of an exotic cat. “I think that's great. I mean, Ivan's a madman, but I guess you have to be to do documentaries. Not that you're mad. You're sort of more eccentric is what it is. If you need any help on it. I'm more into features, but if there's anything.”

“I'd love you to help.”

“Just don't do anything like sleep with him. I know how it gets working on a film. It's the Love Boat without the boat.” Her toe tipped on the gas. They rolled forward.

Mouse chewed the inside of her mouth. To her knowledge Mimi had never worked on a film, she had worked only in an office. “That was my exact plan, Mimi. Sleep with him, then co-produce a movie about my wedding to Tony.”

“I'm just saying…”

“I think we have to talk. I want to discuss this. About Ivan, I mean.”

“I've just been so busy. With Shirl and my blockbuster and my job and Ralph and everything. Ivan is great with women, I have to say that for him. He makes a big thing of asking what
you
want. But I guess guys that look like that have to be sensitive to the woman. It's their only choice. Ralph's the same way.”

“Ivan's not bad-looking,” said Mouse, trying to check the
indignant tone in her voice. “You thought he looked like James Dean.”

“Did I ever tell you about this? It was right before we broke up. Really the last straw. This was to finance some movie, his first one, I think. Every Sunday he read the car want ads, looking for cars being sold by women. He'd go and check it out. He'd schmooz with them, pretend he was really interested. The women would let him look under the hood. He'd steal some part of the distributor or fiddle with some wires, then hop in. Guess what? It wouldn't start! The women would be embarrassed. They'd say, it started this morning. He'd say, look, I'll take it off your hands for x-amount, usually half as much. They'd say okay. They were always glad to have this nice guy take their turkey car off their hands. He'd have one of his lowlife friends from a gas station come and tow it, then he'd turn around, put the wire back in the engine, and sell it for twice as much as he paid for it. He has the soul of a felon, I'm telling you.”

“How did you know this?”

“We had fights. It came out.”

“I'm sorry I never came home for your wedding, I –”

“No biggie. I got so drunk I didn't know who was there and who wasn't. You'll see. You have two glasses of champagne on an empty stomach, you're so plowed it doesn't matter.”

Mouse stared out at the night. This conversation was like a package clearly addressed to Atlanta that had mysteriously wound up in Yugoslavia.

After several miles the traffic loosened up. There was no construction, no accident. They were quiet for a long time.

“Maybe you'll help me with one of the shoots,” said Mouse.

“What shoots?”

“On the wedding documentary. On
Wedding March
– that's the title.”

“I'd love to. I can't stand this place. I can't live here anymore. I know everyone says that. I need something to take my mind off it. Working on a production would be good.”

“I was thinking, for the first shoot? An underwear thing. It'd be fun. We could go to one of those ritzy places on Ventura Boulevard.”