Dan Wakefield - Selling Out - A Novel

After all, even creators took breaks. Perry had rarely even rested on the seventh day, and he’d now been out here working steadily, with concentration, for more than two months. In his focus on the all-consuming project he had paid little attention to Jane, and he felt now it was time for the creator’s wife, too, to get a break.

Jane was at the table going over some contact prints with her magnifying glass.

The ungracious thought came to the creator that she didn’t look much like a creator’s wife.

He wasn’t sure what such a glorified creature should look like, but he thought something rather on the elegant side would seem appropriate. At least around cocktail time.

Jane was wrapped in the fuzzy old bathrobe she wore around the house in winter, along with the matching pink bunny slippers. Perry hadn’t seen this outfit since Vermont, where it seemed warm and cuddly. Now, here in Southern California, it simply looked sad.

The creator sat down with a sigh.

“Lovey,” he said, “I thought you were only bringing back our summer clothes.”

Jane looked up at him, then down at the tattered robe, automatically drawing it closer around herself, as if for protection.

“This is comfy,” she said.

“Mmmm.”

He paused a moment, held back his comment and asked, “Like a drink?”

“Thanks.”

Perry made them both vodka and tonics, and sat down at the table with her. She was bent over the contacts again. Perry stoked up his pipe, trying to invoke in himself a reflective mood, a philosophic attitude.

“I was thinking,” he said.

“Uh-huh?”

“Maybe we should buy some summer clothes.”

“I brought our summer clothes out. We have everything.”

“I meant new ones. You know. ‘California’ clothes.”

Jane put down her magnifying glass, took a sip of her drink, and looked suspiciously at Perry.

“What do you mean, ‘California’ clothes?”

Perry shrugged, taking a sip of his own drink and trying to sound completely casual.

“The kind they wear out here. More casual.”

“Why?”

“Why not? We’re in California, aren’t we? Shouldn’t we dress as the Romans dress?”

“What’s wrong with the way we always dressed?”

“Nothing! I like the way I’ve always dressed. Obviously. Or I wouldn’t have dressed that way all my life. But I never lived in California before.”

“We’re only going to be here a few more months. Till the end of May. Aren’t we? Is that still the plan?”

“Of course it’s the plan! You think I’d change any plans without telling you?”

“Just checking.”

“We start shooting next week. Then we go on location. I’d like to have some things to wear—you know, just some appropriate, casual stuff. Something besides my old sport jackets. They’re too damn formal for this kind of thing.”

Jane took a slug of her drink.

“You know what Thoreau said?”

“What has Thoreau got to do with this?”

“He said, ‘Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.’”

Perry took a long, cool pull of his vodka and tonic.

“Thoreau never lived in Los Angeles,” he said.

They went in to Beverly Hills and had lunch the next day, both to celebrate the fact that shooting began the following morning, and to have the little shopping spree Perry was so intent upon. He really wanted to enjoy his role in the production and felt he had to look the part, just as his colleagues did. He wasn’t out to top the flamboyant Archer Mellis with any orange silk jumpsuits, but at least he wanted to seem in the sartorial spirit of the others.

Once Ned assumed the mantle of executive producer, he switched from his Ivy League garb to the more casual, semi-military look of the working West Coast show business mogul, and even Kenton had a well-stocked wardrobe of the right stuff, clothing-wise.

Perry bought himself a fatigue jacket at a fashionable men’s store on Rodeo Drive that except for its silk lining and London label might have been purchased at any Army Navy store for around thirty bucks, but seemed a wise investment at $465. He also got three pairs of pants with a mind-boggling array of pockets and flaps and brass buttons, and a half dozen sport shirts with epaulets on the shoulders. He felt himself to be now one of the many important officers in the Army of Entertainment, a veritable George S. Patton of show business, and it was only appropriate that he look the part.

Jane could tell he was pleased, like a kid with a new baseball outfit, and she relaxed and seemed genuinely happy for him.

“They’ll never be able to tell you apart from Steven Spielberg,” she said when they went to the dark, cool bar of the Beverly Wilshire for a glass of chilled Chablis.

“Well, now what about you?” he asked.

“I’m not part of the team,” she said. “I don’t need a uniform.”

“It’s not fair for me to be the only one in the family with new clothes.”

“I don’t need anything.”

“Aw, c’mon. It’s for fun. Get into the spirit of it, huh? For me?”

She agreed to go look for something just to please him, but not on Rodeo Drive, where the prices were so outlandish. He took her to one of the nice department stores in Century City. She put on a couple of the dresses he liked that were as tight as the skirts Amanda LeMay wore, but she pulled and tugged at them uncomfortably as she looked at herself in the mirror, grimacing and frowning. She wouldn’t even try on any dress that was clingier than a sack, and absolutely refused to consider slipping into a pair of high heels. She said all this stuff made her feel like a hooker.

“This is what the top women executives wear out here!” Perry argued.

“Then thank God I’m not a top woman executive out here!”

Just to please him and be a sport, she bought a new slinky silk dress. It wasn’t really slinky by Southern California standards, but she acted like it was something wild.

They ordered ribs and cole slaw from Greenblatt’s Delicatessen that night. The idea was to eat in and get up early so Perry would be fresh for the first day of shooting. He wanted to be on the set before seven, along with the cast and crew. He didn’t mean to drink much, but found that both he and Jane seemed to be constantly refilling their wineglasses instead of talking. He was disappointed with her obstinate refusal to get in the spirit of the shopping spree, but knew the subject was best left alone.

“You always used to like what I wore,” she said suddenly.

Perry took a gulp of his wine.

“I do like it. I just don’t see why you can’t wear something different in a different place.”

“I’m not a different person.”

“Are you trying to say that I am?”

“Well, are you?”

“For God sake, are you accusing me of going Hollywood?”

“I didn’t accuse you of anything.”

“It sure sounds like it.”

“Well, I don’t like you accusing me of being a prude, either.”

“I never said any such thing!”

“You acted like it. Just because I don’t want to buy all my clothes now at Frederick’s of Hollywood.”

“That’s a lie! You’ve distorted this whole thing!”

He jumped up and went to the kitchen to pour himself a brandy.

Then they really went at each other.

The tension the next morning was so great it seemed tangible. It was obvious that neither of them had slept well the night before. He was still in the shorts he wore to bed, while she was wrapped in her old ratty bathrobe.

“Coffee?” she asked.

“Thanks,” he said.

She started to pour from the electric pot, but her hands were shaking so badly she couldn’t hold the cup steady. She put it down and turned away from him. Instinctively, he started to reach for her, then drew back, and poured himself the coffee. He took a sip and winced. It was bitter and hot. He put the cup back down on the table.