Sugar Time Page 12

  By now the cast and the rest of the crew were already in Vancouver. I’d told Robin I was stopping in Seattle on the way up there to see this incredible man I’d been getting to know; how can any woman not tell something like that to her girlfriends? (Of course she wasn’t one, not any more, but that’s beside the point—or maybe it was the point.) So she might just think I was deep in the throes of lust and had taken an extra couple of days off. But she’d never believe I’d be unprofessional enough to blow off the whole first week of a shoot of my own pilot for any man, not even George Clooney. If I told her the real reason, I was fucked. Word would get around fast—she’d make sure of it. And even though I hadn’t had a real heart attack, just something that looked like one, it would be over. Not the show—they wouldn’t postpone the pilot, and even though I like to think I’m indispensable, the truth is I’m not. With a script, a director, and a couple of other writers to make the changes that always get made when the cameras finally get rolling, they wouldn’t have any problem replacing me. Besides, they had Robin.

  Both Paul and the doctor thought my suggestion about going AWOL from the hospital was crazy and it was clear that they weren’t taking it seriously. I was trapped here, with a sleeping octopus stuck inside me, until he decided to go away and take his bottle with him.

  “This thing I have, what caused it?” I asked.

  “Have you been under a lot of stress lately?”

  “No more than usual,” I replied. “Why?”

  “Stress precipitates takotsubo. When the brain releases an overload of stress hormones, the blast paralyzes the muscle cells. The Japanese call it broken heart syndrome.”

  “I don’t have a broken heart.” Au contraire, I might have said, thinking for the first time since they carried me out of the bookstore about Alex—I wondered what he thought when I didn’t show up or call.

  “It’s not only grief that causes it—other kinds of emotional trauma have been known to bring it on, too. If your heart doesn’t give out before the initial burst of hormones subsides—and you were lucky you got to the hospital as fast as you did—most people recover.”

  “Can it happen again?”

  “Possibly. It comes back in less than 20 percent of cases, but as long as you take care of yourself and avoid stressful situations you should be okay.”

  Paul turned to me after the doctor left. “Why don’t you just level with the studio, tell them what’s going on?”

  “Because if I do, I’ll not only not get another shot, I’ll never eat lunch in Hollywood again. I’ll just be an old lady with no career and some kind of heart trouble that sounds like sushi.”

  “You could do other things. You could finish that novel you’re always talking about.”

  “I tried and I couldn’t. Listen, baby, your mother needs this job. She needs another series. It’s not about the last chance at the gold ring; it’s about the gold. The money. I need it.”

  “Going it Alone’s still in syndication, isn’t it?”

  “Not really, nobody picked it up this year, that’s over.”

  “But you’ve still got the house.”

  “And the mortgage that goes with it. If this show doesn’t make it, I don’t, either. I’ll have to sell the house, liquidate what’s left of my stocks, and live on that until I can collect social security. Which even then—especially then—will never provide a standard of anything I’d call living.”

  “You could ask Frances for help,” he said.

  “What? And have her tell me it’s still not too late to go to law school?” I said, and we both laughed.

  Paul was just a kid the last time I had to ask Frances for money. I’d had a long dry spell, financially speaking, after the book tanked and before the show took off. During that year and a half my roof fell in, my transmission fell out, my tenants disappeared owing four months of back rent, and I needed three root canals plus porcelain crowns to cover them. I also had no work—the free-lance market had less tread than the tires on my six-year-old station wagon.

  All their married life, Frances got an allowance from my father. Often they argued about what it should cover—the drycleaner, the gardener, the paper boy, the maid when she stayed to help with their dinner parties or the new dress she bought for the Bar Association dinner. It wasn’t heated or angry, just a kind of low-level bickering that was the lingua franca of my childhood. I never heard him tell her they couldn’t afford something, just that money didn’t grow on trees. “He used to say if I knew how much money he had, I’d spend it,” she told me after he died and she learned how much it was—not a fortune, but substantial enough, she said, “so I never have to go into one of those awful places, I could have nurses around the clock, right in my own house, as long as I live. And Esme, of course.”

  Even when my father was alive—when, technically speaking, it was his money—my mother always told him what to do with it. Which was usually to give it to us if we needed it but only after we agreed that we were helpless without her, the way you have to do in 12 step programs before you can get better.

  That was how she was about money—then, anyway. My brother would never ask, but my sister Joan was a genius at getting Frances to open the purse strings. Of course, she really was helpless; she was in and out of funny farms from Menninger’s to McLean for twenty years, and during her manic periods she went on crazy spending binges. But for me, asking Frances for money was a last painful resort, an admission of guilt for having been so foolish as to think I could get along without her, so shortsighted as not to have taken her advice and chosen a more stable career or gotten a better divorce settlement. I didn’t do it unless my back was to the wall, it was years since I’d had to, and I wasn’t going to do it now.

  “So it’s the money thing you’re worried about, right?” asked my son.

  “It’s that, and the show, too—I’m really proud of it, I wanted—want—to see it made. To see it through. To be doing what I know how to do again, knowing a lot more now than I did then. To feel like I’m somebody.”

  He took my hand and squeezed it. “I always thought you were somebody. I knew you were. You still are.”

  I felt a rush of love for my son so strong it overwhelmed me, made the breath catch in my throat and the tears well up in my eyes.

  “And so are you, darling…so are you. You are a wonderful man.”

  It’s hard to keep your life from happening to your kids, especially when you’re a single parent. If you’re busted or flush, depressed or delirious, having sex or not having it—whatever’s going on, they know it. All you can do is try to keep your own shit from affecting them—the stuff you know about, not what you don’t figure out until years later, after it’s too late. But once they leave home, your problems are your own business, and they’re too busy figuring out their own lives to think about you, including Paul, unless he senses something physically amiss, the way he does with that odd gift he has. So it was strange to be talking to him the way I would to a grown-up. Not just any grownup, but a friend I trusted, someone who loved me and wouldn’t leave me to deal with the octopus alone. Someone who was strong enough so that if I had to lean on him, I could.

  It took me a while to figure out how to handle my other immediate problem. Paul had gotten himself a room in a B&B near the hospital, and I sent him to retrieve my luggage from the concierge at the W and bring me some things I needed, including my computer and briefcase.

  “Ma, you heard what the doctor said. The primary cause of takotsoba is stress. In fact, that’s the only cause. I don’t think the computer is such a good idea,” he said.

  “The doctor didn’t say I couldn’t.”

  “His exact words were read, watch TV, whatever you feel up to.”

  “I won’t know what that is unless I do it. At least bring my briefcase. I can’t just ignore my responsibilities. I have to look at the schedule so I can tell Robin what to do.”

  “They won’t let you use your cell in here.”

  “I k
now, but I can call from here—I’ll use the room phone. I‘m going to tell Robin where I am.”

  He looked relieved until I added, “I’m just not going to tell her why.”

  “Your appendix?”

  Robin was surprised, but she believed me. There was no reason not to—it could happen. In fact, it recently had, to the governor of New York, and I made my story as close to the newspaper accounts of his as I remembered. He’d spent a couple of weeks in the hospital after his appendectomy, a good cover in case Kaplan decided to hold me longer than a few days. None of the stories had made any fuss about how old he was; a hot appendix is an equal-opportunity excuse, even though I’d had mine out when I was 15.

  I ran down my last-minute list with Robin, who’d already taken care of the niggling details I hadn’t quite wrapped up before leaving L.A. Everyone had arrived, she said; she’d scheduled a meeting the next morning with Derek, the director, and Luca, the unit production manager. “I want to be conferenced in on that,” I told her, while Paul rolled his eyes in disbelief. “And you’d better bring Sharon in, too.” She was the other writer I’d brought on after the script was approved and could make any necessary changes. But Robin would be the go-between between Derek and Sharon and the actors, who actually have to say the words and frequently have strong feelings about what they should be. Sometimes their suggestions or objections are good, other times they’re useless or obstructive or both, but it’s the show runner or producer’s job to keep everyone happy. Robin would be good at that, probably better than I am, I mused: as I knew from my own experience, she was very good at shining people on.

  Producing a show is walking a line between being in control and interfering. A good producer doesn’t interfere unless it’s absolutely necessary to get the show done on schedule and on budget. I’d hired good, experienced people and I needed to let them do their jobs. What Robin herself lacked in experience, she made up for in intelligence; she was thorough and prepared, and, most important, people liked her.

  It doesn’t matter if you’re making widgets or movies; people like to do business with people they like. What casts and crews hate are producers who create havoc on a set by second-guessing everyone and being assholes just to assert their authority. The good ones don’t have to; they know how to guide, lead and support their people, and when to get out of their way and shut up.

  The fact is, I was lucky as hell to have Robin. This time I really needed her. I just didn’t know what it would cost me.

  I got frowned at a lot that first week. The nurses complained that I was screwing up their schedule when I was too busy on the phone, soothing, cajoling, putting little fires out, to accommodate their demands that I have another MRI, get my IV changed, give them more blood or X-rays or urine. Kaplan showed up one morning just as FedEx arrived with the tapes of the previous day’s shooting, and shook his head. “Did I tell you that stress caused your condition? Did I tell you that it comes back sometimes, and the next time, it could kill you?”

  “This isn’t stressful, it’s just watching television,” I said as I popped the tape into the VCR. “Really, I’m fine. Aren’t I? Isn’t the octopus going away?”

  “You’re making very good progress,” he replied. “But if you get right back into the situation that caused the stress in the first place, it won’t matter.”

  Paul said pretty much the same thing and so did Jessie, when she flew up for the day to see me. I was thrilled that she’d brought Rosie; I put her in my lap on her back, tickling and kissing and making sounds and faces that elicited her infectious, throaty little giggle, which made me and Jessie laugh, too.

  “Really, Mom, it makes no sense at all for you to go to Vancouver,” she said. “You’ve just had a major heart attack—”

  “I did not have a heart attack!” I said indignantly.

  “Well, you could, that’s what the doctor said.”

  “I could also trip and break my neck or get hit by a car, but that’s not a reason to stop walking or driving,” I said.

  She was exasperated. “Then how about this? How about Rosie? Isn’t she enough to keep you from trying to kill yourself?” She picked the baby up and opened her blouse to nurse her.

  “I’m not trying to kill myself. And she’s the light of my life, but if I don’t have a life—if I can’t work—so what? That’s a big burden to put on a little thing—to be the reason someone gets up in the morning.”

  There were times right after the divorce when my kids were practically the only reason I did. If I hadn’t had them—if they hadn’t needed me—I’d have stayed in bed, I was so depressed and miserable. Ted betrayed me; even if I could get past it he didn’t want to. It’s easy to say it was only my pride that was hurt, but that’s not true. My confidence in my own judgment was destroyed; in spite of the occasional other women, I’d believed he loved me and our life together until he told me he didn’t. I felt rejected sexually as well as abandoned, worried about having to fend for myself in the marketplace again, fifteen years older and even less convinced of my desirability than I was when Ted settled the issue by marrying me. Except as it turned out, he hadn’t. I wasn’t. And because of my inexplicable need to prove that I didn’t need him either, I was also in dire financial straits.

  So I got out of bed and got on with my life. I had no choice. I had responsibilities. Which, if they’re in good hands, grandchildren aren’t.

  “Please don’t worry, Jessie. I’m not pushing myself. I’m here, aren’t I?”

  Tears filled her eyes. “I couldn’t bear it if you weren’t,” she said.

  I reached for her, across the baby between us. Her thin arms encircled my neck. “Don’t you let anything happen to you. Don’t you dare,” she sobbed. “I still need you.”

  Paul came in one afternoon while I was giving Robin a carefully staged update on my condition—“No, it’s not serious, nothing like that, just a slower than expected recovery, just between you and me they’re not letting me out until I move my bowels, and the food is so awful here that I—that’s right, probably before the weekend or maybe right after—I know everything’s going well, I talked to Derek, he had a question and couldn’t reach you…I know, you were taking care of Anne, yes, well, we’ll just have to get her a makeup person she likes, we’re not relighting the whole scene because—Of course, that was more important, Robin, you’re doing a fabulous job…no, you really are. It’s like you’ve been doing it as long as I have. I really lucked out, having you on board. And you know I’ll make it good, money and credit-wise, don’t you? That’s right…we trust each other. We’ll work it out….okay. ‘Bye.”

  According to Robin, so far things were going so smoothly that few people had noticed my absence. Derek was a good director; we’d spent enough time together to know we wanted the same thing from the actors, and he was getting it from them. The AD’s seemed to be making good use of all the extras we’d hired, the sets looked good, especially Amelia’s office, and the castle the location scout found in the mountains not far from our Vancouver soundstage would do nicely.

  I was pleased with the cast. My leads were good—Chloe as Clea was a fascinating combination of child and adult, insecure and independent at the same time, touchy and difficult but brilliant and quick-witted on the job. Anne wasn’t quite as I’d imagined Amelia—a little less steely, a little more maternal—but in the director’s hands it worked; I could see how Clea needed that from Amelia, how it might even have made her confident enough to take the kind of risks the script calls for with such élan.

  Watching other people make a movie of something you wrote can be like getting knocked up by an alien—there are little things about whatever’s born of the union you recognize as having come from you, but the others… well, who the hell knows? But what I was seeing wasn’t only pretty faithful to my original concept and script, it was better. Even without me.

  “You’re not going to quit before the show is done, are you?” Paul had given up trying to talk me out of it; he
just wanted to be sure I’d be “sensible,” as he put it.

  “You don’t have to be on the set every day, you know,” he said.

  “No, I don’t,” I agreed. “But I do have to put in an appearance now and again. Talk to people in person. Tell the cast I like what they’re doing. Head off any problems.”

  “How often?” he wanted to know.

  “Couple of times a week. But I should be in the production office more often. Mornings—I could just do a couple of hours, then not come back after lunch. I’ll go back to the hotel and concentrate on not feeling stressed. Go to the gym. Meditate. Let go of my ego, as you JewBus say.”

  “Ma, if you let go of yours you’d have separation anxiety,” he said dryly.

  Paul was the only one of us who took religion seriously. He’d lived in a kibbutz for a year before he went to college, and traveled in India after he dropped out, when ski season was over. He went back to Dharmsala a couple of years ago for six months and when he came back he brought a spiritual practice I didn’t totally comprehend but that seemed good for him—at least it didn’t make him do something bizarre like wear an orange robe and beg for money at airports, like his high school buddy Scott Greene, who I recognized at LAX once when I was catching a flight somewhere. Nor had Paul grown payes and joined the Lubavicher, either. He studies Tibetan, he goes to a local zendo, and he’s happy. “Your father used to meditate to lower his blood pressure,” Frances said. “He didn’t shave his head, did he?”

  “I just want you to take care of yourself, that’s all,” said Paul.

  “And you’ll know if I’m not…I’m only kidding, Paul, I intend to.” I hugged him. “Have I told you that I’m glad you were here?”

  “Did you think I wouldn’t be?”

  “Of course not. I always knew you’d be here for me. I just didn’t really, you know, know it the way I do now.”

  “Yeah, the octopus opened your eyes.”