The Diamond Lane (36 page)

Tony gritted his teeth in his sleep. The sound was like a boat tied to a dock by old ropes, creaking with the tide. He had been gritting his teeth more than usual lately. A sign, she thought, that he's unhappy with her but pretending not to be.

Mouse knew the difference between normal pre-shoot jitters and panicking over the major things she forgot to consider. She knew the normal fear of logistics. Will the lights work? Will the camera jam? Will the Nagra hold sync? Will the owner of Sins, the store in which they will be shooting, withdraw permission at the last minute? Normal documentary fears.

Among the things she forgot to consider: She never stopped to think, for example, that she would be the subject. She would be the one on-camera, the one manipulated, the one whose psyche would be spared or laid bare, the one Ivan – who, from all reports, was demented and untrustworthy – would subtly provoke
to get at the “true” meaning of what it was to get married in the modern age. She could hardly stand to be a bride in front of a few friends and her family; now she was going to be a bride in front of the whole world? Except, as Mimi liked to point out, no one ever paid any attention to documentaries. Mouse never imagined she'd find any comfort in this. She never imagined she'd get married. She never imagined she'd make a movie about her own wedding with her own first true love and ex-brother-in-law. Freak accidents ran in her family, not complicated scenarios.

Another consideration: Throughout all this she had never managed to watch the videotapes Ivan had given her of
Total Immersion
and his recent
El Funeral
. She rationalized that there hadn't been time. In truth, she was afraid the films' subjects had been adroitly flayed alive by Ivan's subtle choice of images, juxtapositions, sounds. She did not trust him. Why was she doing this? She was like Sniffy Voyeur, chewing his own rear raw to rid himself of fleas.

Ridiculous doubts of the night. She hurled herself over onto her other shoulder. Sniffy, toenails clicking on the wood floor, came and hovered over her, bathing her in warm dog-biscuit breath. She tried to push him away but he was as intransigent as Gandhi. She felt a drop of drool on her ear.

IN THE MORNING
, Mimi skipped her usual jog around the neighborhood. Instead, she made potato salad and turkey sandwiches.

“
What
are you doing?” Mouse said through clenched teeth, Mimi stood over the sink peeling warm potatoes. The kitchen stank of starch. She bustled around, a girl in a high wind.

“Feeding the crew. Ivan loves my potato salad.” Then, loudly, “I just thought I'd make some potato salad!”

“He's in the shower,” said Mouse. “It's not that kind of a movie.”

“You have to eat,” said Mimi. “When I worked on that thing with Bob Hope they had the most dynamite catering. They
had bottled water before anyone drank bottled water. You don't have the budget for that, so –”

“– We've actually got a lot of funding for this. The California Arts Council –”

“– low budget, though. You're used to
no
budget so it just
seems
like a lot.“

Carole stumbled out in her robe and socks, raccoon mascara eyes, purplish hair snarled at the crown like it had been combed with an eggbeater. She poured herself a cup of coffee, expertly tipped the sugar bowl into her cup, plunked down at the kitchen table in front of the half dozen scripts she had to read over the weekend. “Thought you guys'd be out shooting already.”

“Oh, great.” Mouse knew this would happen. Mimi and her mouth.

“I had to tell her. She'd think it was weird if I was making potato salad Saturday morning.”

“You don't think Tony will? This is great.”

“He's a
guy
,” said Mimi.

“Don't worry, I won't tell,” said Carole.

“'Morning, ladies.” Tony was going golfing with Auntie Barb. He was wearing madras slacks and yellow socks. He sat at the kitchen table and put on his shoes. “What's on today's agenda?”

“Shopping,” said Mouse. “Bride business, nothing you'd be interested in.”

“We're going
lingerie
shopping,” giggled Mimi. She turned from the sink, potato peeler still in hand, and struck a cover girl pose, arching her foot, plumping her hair. Mouse noticed she wore athletic shoes and sweatsocks. She looked like she was dressed for something more rigorous than trying on garter belts.

“Then we thought we'd go for a hike or something,” said Mouse. She stood behind Tony, massaged his shoulders. She tried to conjure up a facial expression that would say to Mimi, “Look at how you're dressed! He'll know something's up, even if
he's a
guy
. Just go along with this!” Of course, no facial expression can say this.

“A hike?” said Mimi. “When?”

“Now that sounds my speed. Perhaps when I'm back from golf.”

“We can't believe you're playing golf with the Wicked Witch of the Northwest,” said Mimi.

“She's not so bad, bit crusty perhaps. Got a nice swing.” He stood, smoothed down the legs of his pants. “I like those – what are they – everything's connected.” He ran his forefingers along one of Mouse's sides, then kissed her on the temple. “Get one of those.”

“Merry Widows,” said Carole.

Mouse stared at the chair legs. Inability to make eye contact is the universal sign of lying, she thought. Look at him! She couldn't. She radiated guilt like heat from an electric blanket on high.

SINS WAS IN
Brentwood. Like most shops in Los Angeles, no one would miss it should it go out of business or collapse in an earthquake. Mouse marveled at this. Laundromats closed their doors. Hardware stores, gas stations, shoe repair shops disappeared, even in the short time she had been back. What stayed were places that sold only belts, or fancy wine and cheese. Mouse despaired that this was beginning to seem normal.

Ivan and Eliot were already there when Mouse and Mimi arrived. Ivan twirled his thin ponytail with his forefinger as he wandered from one end of the store to the other. Eliot crouched in a corner, hands buried in a black changing bag. He was loading the camera magazine with film. “Here we are in the trenches,” he said gaily when he saw Mouse walk in.

“Hmm,” said Mouse. She still held the pole against him.

Sins was long and narrow. A basketball player could stand in the middle and touch both walls. There was deep, white wool carpeting, a white marble counter, gold fixtures. White silk robes
and satin slippers awaited each customer in her dressing room. Mouse could count the few gowns and teddies on display on delicate gold hangers. Everything else was secreted away. Champagne and paper-thin imported cookies stood on a small marble table, waiting to satisfy appetites whipped up by shimmying, tugging, snapping, unsnapping, and choosing.

Sins was the most promising of the four locations Ivan and Mouse had scouted. It was chosen, by mutual consent, because of its name, outrageous prices, operating room coziness, and, according to Mimi, because it stocked all the hot designer underwear. Movie stars shopped there, as well as middle-class brides spending beyond their means. Personally, Mouse didn't care where they shot: she could get a bra and a pair of panties at Sears. What did concern her was that Dani Lynx, the overly effusive owner of Sins, was charging them a hefty hourly rate to shoot on her premises. Mouse had never paid for a location in her life. Ivan said in Los Angeles everyone pays for everything.

“Isn't this great?” said Mimi, inhaling deeply. She felt like a confirmed city-dweller who'd escaped to the country for the day. She pulled out the camera she brought for production stills. These giants of documentary filmmaking hadn't even
thought
of that. “I love film. What's that saying in that Truffaut film? ‘I'd give up a man for a movie but I'd never give up a movie for a man.' That's pretty much how I feel.”

“What's
that
?” Mouse asked, horrified by the sight of Mimi's camera.

“Production stills,” said Mimi. “Say cheeseburger.”

“We don't need production stills,” said Mouse. “This isn't the yearbook.” She could just imagine a packet of photos accidentally left by Mimi for Tony to find.

“Stills are useful in marketing,” said Ivan.

“I know,” said Mouse. “I know, it's just –”

“You're nervous,” said Mimi. “It's okay. All brides are nervous. You should have seen how –”

“– I am not nervous.”

Ivan introduced Dani, an aging blond with a fierce dark mustache waxed to an inch of a serious dermatological condition. Mouse was beginning to recognize a man-made nose: Dani's was small and elegant, but her nostrils were mismatched. One was perfectly round, the other oval.

“So this is it?” asked Dani. She watched while Eliot heaved the camera onto his shoulder.

“Checking focus,” said Eliot. He peered through the viewfinder.

There were no lights, only a small fill mounted on top of the camera, powered by a battery belt worn ammunition-belt style around Eliot's wide middle. People like Dani were always disappointed with the jerry-built quality of documentary film production. They expected the glamour of gigantic semitrucks rumbling outside, director's chairs, tables groaning with food for an army-size crew.

Mouse drifted over to a rack displaying an unidentifiable item in black lace that looked as though it'd be tight on a flagpole.

“That's our French stretch-lace body stocking, honey. Nylon mesh, with a nice cotton-lined open panel. Madonna has one in every color. You will probably want one in white. Brides always want white.”

“An open panel?” Mouse imagined experts discussing politics on television.

“It means it's crotchless,” said Mimi. “She lived in Africa for sixteen years,” she added by way of explanation.

“Oh!” said Dani, alarmed.

“I knew what it meant,” said Mouse.

“They have a lot of crotchless French-lace body stockings in Nairobi, huh?” Mimi winked at Dani.

“You didn't know?” said Mouse. “The Kikuyu invented them.”

“All right, ladies,” said Ivan. “I would like to explain how I work. I will not interfere, except to ask a few questions of the bride. You are to forget that I am here. It will be awkward at first.
Don't let that bother you. You will get used to it. Anyone can get used to anything.”

He knelt down on one knee on the white carpet, slid the thick raggedy strap of the Nagra on his shoulder, clipped the headphones onto his ears, fiddled with a few knobs on the recorder, checking levels. Mouse, Mimi, and Dani were wired with small cordless mikes clipped inside their shirts.

Mouse had worked with cordless mikes only once before. People forgot they were wearing them. The camera could be off, but the sound was still rolling. The subject of the movie she'd worked on had been a beer drinker with a bladder the size of a pistachio. They had hundreds of feet of audiotape of him in the WC.

Sins was meat-locker cold. The air conditioning purred even in January. Mouse watched Ivan with the tape recorder, struck with a kind of vertigo.

Ivan. All the times she'd imagined him doing this or something like it. Statistics could be compiled. Over the last sixteen years, X number of hours spent sleeping, X eating, X spent imagining making a movie with Ivan. They'd done their small 8mm movies together. She had never expected to see him again. Now here it was, something big. Or bigger. A form of dream come true. There should be satisfaction. She had imagined this with Ivan, but had done it with Tony. She watched while Ivan knelt down, flipped on the recorder, checked the levels. It was simple, as ordinary as the stroke of a shoulder before a kiss. The Nagra weighed forty pounds. Lifting it required care. Backs were thrown out, shoulders dislocated. Ivan slipped on the strap, stood up. Mouse had watched Tony do this a million times. Tony, in baggy khaki shorts, the machinery working inside his knobby freckled knees, as he stood. Where was Tony? What had happened to Stanley? Who was living in their concrete house in Nairobi? She rolled her lips inside her mouth and bit them, hard. She could not afford a bout of nostalgia.

“I want something plain, thirty-two C, beige,” she said.

“Buff,” said Dani. “Are you sure you don't want white? It's been my experience that a bride likes to be white inside and out.”

“Buff,” said Mouse.

“She's practical,” said Mimi.

“Let's go,” said Ivan. He was too cool to say action. Eliot eased around on the heels of his flip-flops. He filmed a few feet of Ivan, the hoop box taped to the strap of the Nagra. The hoop box flashed a red dot of light and laid down a melodic “hoop” on the sound track. It was the electronic equivalent of a slate.

Dani disappeared in the back, falling twice off her sling-back pumps into the deep carpet. Even though she was not impressed by the production, she was nervous, acting like a saleswoman playing a saleswoman.

“That's not all you're going to get, is it?” said Mimi, a hysterical edge to her voice. “What about a body brief? You've got to have something sexy, you know, for your wedding night.”