Sugar Time Page 7

  “Blow her off is more like it. I’ve already paid her. And pretty generously, I might add,” I protested.

  “Sweetheart, just relax and let me take care of it. That’s what you pay me the big bucks for. The important thing is, you get the script done. So far it’s a one-off. If Nelly’s not happy with the product, she won’t green light the pilot. And she won’t be happy with it unless you put Robin on the team.”

  “What’s with that? Robin’s not sleeping with Nelly, is she?”

  “It’s the goniff with the ponytail she’s sleeping with. And he just happens to be Nelly’s college roommate’s stepson’s best friend or something like that. The point is, you need Nelly. And if she says you need Robin, then you need her, too.”

  I hate needing. It’s my least favorite thing to feel. Wanting—that’s different. Wanting is what makes the world go around, it gets you out of bed in the morning. But needing is the pits.

  I threaded my way through traffic on Pico, trying out a few opening lines that would convey just how angry and betrayed I felt while still leaving my dignity intact. I hadn’t come up with any when I handed my car over to the valet at Shutters and made my way to Pedals, the café on the bike path, narrowly avoiding a collision with a woman on inline skates pushing a baby jogger.

  Robin was already seated when I arrived, flirting prettily with a good-looking waiter who hovered attentively over her. She was dressed in what passes for business casual in LA—white linen walking shorts, a gauzy print camisole, and a beautifully cut black blazer that screamed Armani. We exchanged the obligatory compliments about how good we both looked—at least I was telling the truth—and then she relieved me of the responsibility of getting the first word in by saying precisely what I was thinking.

  “We don’t really understand the dynamic between these two women,” she added, and I missed a couple of beats before I realized she was talking about Amelia and Clea, not her and me.

  “What’s to understand? They’re mother and daughter.”

  “Yes, but, where is it written that they have to be?”

  “On pages 1 to 95. Not to mention the bible. Look, Robin, I don’t know what you’re trying to do here, but—”

  She looked at me evenly. “I’m trying to help,” she said.

  “You certainly have an interesting way of going about it. Taking a script that someone else wrote—using my name, my reputation, and my work—to get what? Money? An agent? A credit? A deal?” I caught the waiter’s eye. “I’ve changed my mind, I think I will have a drink after all—a bloody Mary, please.”

  “All I want is to help you get your show on the air. That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” she replied defensively.

  “I’m glad you understand that—that it’s my show. As for wanting to help—don’t you think you might have asked me before you and whatshisname—”

  “—Kyle”

  “—before you and Kyle teamed up and sandbagged me with Nelly and the network?”

  “That’s not what happened. We didn’t plan it that way. At least I didn’t,” said Robin.

  “Really? Then just how did it happen?”

  “Kyle read the script and thought his new client would be great for Clea.”

  “You showed it to him without my permission?”

  “Not exactly. It was on my night table and he picked it up and skimmed through it while I was in the shower.”

  “I see.” I wondered how long they’d been fucking each other before they decided to fuck me, and just who was using whom.

  “Look, he already knew it was in development at the network—he saw it in the trades, just like everybody else. Remember when all those AD’s and writers called you after that item ran in Variety? What’s the difference?”

  “The difference is, nothing’s final yet. We don’t have a go. And we haven’t put it out for casting.”

  “So? When did that ever stop an agent from trying to get a client in early?”

  “And which client would that be, Robin? You? Or that girl from The L Word?”

  “Her. At least, at first.”

  “And now?”

  She sighed. “Look, Sugar, I never made any secret of the fact that I don’t want to be a glorified researcher forever. Publishing is dead. The pay is awful. And I’ve been thinking about moving out here. A lot of my friends have left New York since 9-11. Besides, Kyle and I—you’ve had a few long-distance relationships yourself. You know they never seem to work.”

  “It’s gotten to that point, huh?”

  “We’ve been seeing each other for a few months, since that memorial service. Obviously, he can’t leave L.A. And if the show goes…well, I was hoping there’d be something for me in it.”

  “I was, too, Robin. In fact, I’d planned to ask you if you wanted to be involved. But that’s a long way from this hostile takeover you and Kyle have dreamed up. Not to mention turning my script into Moonlighting meets the Ghost and Mrs. Muir!”

  “It wasn’t that way, Sugar—really, it wasn’t. As a matter of fact, I thought that was a terrible idea. Amelia’s a great character. But Clea—she’s still pretty unformed. There’s not much back-story on her…even Nelly brought that up. She thinks she’s underwritten. Like, what’s her motivation? Why does she work for Amelia? She’s smart, she’s a genius with computers, she could get a job anywhere, so why isn’t she more independent? Why is she still under her mother’s thumb? You don’t see Alexa Stewart working for her mother, do you? And Amelia’s almost as controlling as Martha. If you want the younger demographic, you’ve got to make Clea a more interesting character. More like Jennifer Lee Hewitt in that movie with Sigourney Weaver and less like the Gilmore Girls. You’ve written her like a grown-up version of the daughter in Going It Alone—or like you and Jessie.”

  She was right, and her points were valid. I’d written Amelia’s back story pretty thoroughly, but I still hadn’t dug into Clea.

  “I was thinking—this is just an idea—what if it’s Clea who talks her way into the chateau and verifies that the stolen Vermeer is there instead of Amelia? And what if it’s Clea and Amelia together who convince Jean Paul to pull off one last job and steal it back? They can’t seduce him—Amelia’s too old and Clea’s too obvious. But if they play off each other—Amelia trying to charm him into it, Clea challenging and dismissive—forget it, Mother, I told you he was over the hill, he’s lost his nerve, we’re wasting our time, that kind of thing—that could work.”

  I was sifting through the possibilities while Robin raced ahead.

  “Maybe that’s Clea’s back story—she’s always wanted to be an actress, and Amelia never wanted her to be, there’s the conflict; it’s totally understandable, what mother would? She’s always going out on auditions but she never gets anywhere, but she sees this chance to show Amelia she can act, so—”

  “…she poses as the night nurse or the gardener’s daughter or something and comes back with a photo of the painting while Amelia’s still trying to figure out how to set it up—”

  “Right! The point is, she’s not just window dressing, Amelia needs her—”

  “But she doesn’t want to put her in danger, she’s her daughter…”

  “True, but she’s a lot more competent than Amelia thinks she is, gutsier, riskier. Their relationship is more balanced this way—there are more possibilities in it, especially in the other episodes. Like the one where Amelia has to find a new kidney for the sick child, but the sperm bank won’t tell the mother who the donor was—”

  “She could get in there as a potential client and get access to the files—”

  “…and in the missing microchip case, she could be—”

  “…the one who does the handover after the money’s been paid-”

  “…after they think it’s been paid…”

  I was feeling the way I do when the juice starts flowing—suddenly the script was alive with possibilities again, the pieces coming together in my mind. I wasn’t a hundred percent sold on any of the
ideas Robin had floated, but the give and take reminded me that having someone to bounce ideas off of was what I’d been missing.

  In the show bible, which wasn’t yet much more than an outline, I hadn’t filled in all the detail I’d need if the pilot went to series. I knew Amelia—she was a woman of a certain age, which in Hollywood is any female over 35, clever, charming, seductive, and still sexy enough to appeal to men, although if she ever actually sleeps with one it’s not spelled out in the script—I could just imagine the hoots of disbelief if I suggested that a mature woman actually has sex. Amelia took over the agency after her husband died, and created it in her own image; no scruffy ex-cops peeping Motel 6’s to catch philandering spouses in the act, just well-heeled, well-connected clients who were missing something they needed her to get back.

  “I had an idea about the title…” Robin stopped and looked at me hesitantly. Oh well, in for a penny…

  “Finders Keepers,” she pronounced.

  “Not bad, but she doesn’t keep what she retrieves, just a percentage of what it’s worth—”

  “Finders Fee?”

  “That’s better but it’s still not it. Let’s leave that for later and concentrate on the other stuff in Nelly’s notes”

  I didn’t realize how much time had passed until the waiter tactfully reminded us that they were about to set up for dinner.

  “So where do we go from here?” Robin asked.

  “I don’t know,” I replied truthfully. “Today was fun. I’m uh, grateful for your contributions. I just don’t like having them forced on me.”

  “You don’t have to use them,” she pointed out. “You could always tell Nelly you thought them up yourself.”

  Sure I could, if I didn’t mind covering all the mirrors in my house.

  “Look, why don’t we just let Sandro and Kyle work it out, okay? They know the Guild regs better than we do. I’m not trying to screw you out of anything.”

  “I’m not, either. I just wanted a chance to show you what I could do, that’s all. I’m not a writer, I know that…I junked the novel, by the way, it was terrible. But there are other ways I could be involved. If you let me.”

  I wasn’t quite ready to let her off the hook.

  “I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

  She wasn’t, either. “I guess that’s up to you.”

  “Which one is yours?”

  I was standing in front of the nursery window, checking out the Most Beautiful Baby competition—not that there was any, of course. I would have told Jessie her daughter was gorgeous even if she looked like Winston Churchill, but when I held Rosie in my arms for the first time, it was clear I wouldn’t have to; she was exquisite, from the feathery tendrils of soft dark hair that curled around her pale, heart-shaped face to the perfectly formed toenails on her tiny little feet.

  “The second one from the left,” I said.

  “Oh, the beautiful one,” he replied knowingly.

  “I bet you say that to… all of us.” I’d started to say, to all the grandmas, but something stopped me. It’s been a while since I really noticed a man, forever since I did that thing you do when you meet an attractive one and wonder what it would be like to fuck him.

  He wasn’t movie star handsome, but he had a comfortable, weathered, lived-in face, saved from unremarkableness by a pair of truly arresting eyes. I have only seen eyes that color on Elizabeth Taylor, whom I once encountered in the ladies lounge at Saks. They didn’t look like colored contacts, thank God—I know it’s sexist, but vanity is so much more forgivable in a woman, isn’t it? And besides, he was looking at me with the kind of frank, appraising interest no man had directed my way in so long I almost turned around to see if there was someone standing behind me.

  Back in the eighties when the Times was still publishing that “About Men” column in the Sunday magazine, which Abe Rosenthal started to show that women weren’t the only ones with feelings, they ran an essay about how invisible we are to them once we’re past a certain age, once our looks or sex appeal or aura of possibility no longer interests them. When they pass us on the street or stand next to us in an elevator or glance at us even momentarily, they don’t really see us—we simply don’t register in their awareness. That was the set-up for the piece, before the writer got to the topic sentence; recently he’d realized that the same thing had begun to happen to him. Women—particularly young, desirable women—were looking right through or past him, not even noticing that he existed.

  I couldn’t muster one whit of empathy for him, just a gleeful, venial delight—I was over thirty then, and already knew that in a few years I’d be invisible, too. But at least it wouldn’t surprise me.

  “Which one is yours?” I asked.

  “None of them,” he replied. “I just like looking at them. Thinking about all the beginnings, the possibilities, and the potential. Who they’ll be, what will happen to them.”

  “Really?”

  He was even better looking when he smiled. He was wearing a soft blue work shirt tucked into faded jeans, and his stubble was more salt than pepper. He could be a working class guy who’d just forgotten to shave for a couple of days, but I didn’t think so; his voice was educated and his shoes looked expensive.

  “See that one waving his arm around, with those big shoulders? Maybe he’ll win the Heisman Trophy in twenty years or so. And that one over there with the spit curl and squint and that prim little mouth—”

  “The one who looks like Condoleeza Rice?”

  “I was thinking about a school teacher but you’re right, there’s a definite resemblance.”

  We speculated about the other babies—“A concert pianist, that one, look at those hands—“A politician, he’s smiling already”—and then I said, “Come here often?” I wasn’t flirting, not really…unless he was.

  “Isn’t that my line?” Yes, he was. Be still my heart—you’ve just become a grandmother, for God’s sake.

  Just then Jessie padded down the hall. “Dr. Levine was just in, he said we can go, so Zach’s packing up the room and I’m going to feed her before we leave. Are you coming with us?”

  “No, I have to let Tory out of the car, she’s been cooped up for hours. And I’ve got some things to do. I’ll come by later.” After a five-hour labor, Rosie had arrived with a lusty squall a little late the previous night; when her mother was born I stayed in the hospital for almost a week, but these days drive-by deliveries are the norm.

  “Okay,” she said, opening the door to the nursery. I watched as she settled into a wooden rocking chair and nestled Rosie against her breast, very conscious of the man standing next to me. Then I blew my two babies a kiss and turned to leave.

  He walked alongside me down the corridor and followed me into the elevator. “It’s too early for dinner and too late for lunch, and you don’t even know me, but there’s a Peet’s cart out back near the doctor’s parking lot and their coffee’s a lot better than the cafeteria. How about it?”

  The elevator stopped on the first floor, and he steered me past the information desk and the front lobby and down a hall that terminated in an exit door marked “Staff Only” on the side facing the lot.

  “You seem to know your way around here,” I said, hurrying to keep up with his long strides. “Are you a doctor?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m in biotechnology.”

  “So you’re here on business?”

  “You could say that,” he replied. “But a little while ago it got to be pleasure.”

  It might have been a hot flash, or maybe it was sunstroke, but I could feel myself blushing.

  “I’m Alex—Alex Carroll,” he said.

  “Charlotte Kane,” I replied, “but most people call me Sugar.”

  When he grinned he looked ten years younger, but I thought he was around my age, give or take a few years. Despite the faint drawl in his voice, he was from Seattle; he said he’d lived in Texas for a long time. “I had a small biotech company in Austin, and when I
mmunex acquired it they got me, too. I moved up there a few years ago, worked out my contract, and left.”

  “And now?”

  “Another start-up—once you’ve done it, you’re never happy working for somebody else. What about you?”

  ”I’m in television, which is all about working for a lot of somebody elses.” I hadn’t heard from Sandro since turning in the rewrite, and now that the baby was safely here, I was starting to worry again.

  “Don’t play well with others, huh?”

  “Some others,” I said, and he grinned again.

  We drank our coffee and did that feeling-out thing where you give each other carefully edited bits of your story and try to figure out who the stranger you’re talking to is, once you’re sure he’s not a serial killer or a Scientologist. He walked me to my car and won extra points for recognizing Tory’s breed.

  “Most people think she’s a poodle,” I said as she sniffed the median parking strip and then squatted in relief.

  “I’ve had a couple of Porties,” he said. “One of them lived to be fifteen, then we got another one. They’re great dogs.”

  “Where’s the other one?”

  “In Houston,” he said. I’d noticed he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, but that doesn’t tell you much. “My ex got custody.”

  I took Tory’s dish and a liter of bottled water out of the trunk and we made small talk while she drank and peed again, agreeing that the Getty was great architecture but had lousy art, that Joan Didion got California better than any writer since Nathaniel West, that if George Bush would only do his wife instead of doing the country, not to mention the world, we’d feel a lot safer. We disagreed about whether universal medical care was a right, not a privilege, if rap music should be broadcast on a frequency only people under 21could hear, and whether if you were Chinese and ate it three times a day you’d still love Chinese food. He seemed to enjoy a lot of things that scared me like scuba diving, heliskiing, and mountain climbing; I used my O’Neill lines about jumping to conclusions and running off at the mouth, which got a much better reaction from him than they had in the hospital.