Dan Wakefield - Selling Out - A Novel

Perry thanked him, and watched as his old pal got into his low-slung Trans Am and peeled away in a blaze of expensive rubber.

That night Perry was shocked and a little suspicious when Ronnie told him Elena Allbright had invited them both to a dinner at her place the following evening.

“Thanks,” Perry said, “but you really don’t have to drag me along.”

“What does that mean?” Ronnie asked.

“It means I can hang out here and do some burgundy and watch the tube.”

“But Elena wants you to come. She got a part in a pilot, and she’s celebrating not being broke.”

“Then I doubt she wants to have people around who remind her what it’s like being down on your luck.”

Perry simply did not believe that the glamorous actress, once the embodiment of sex and power in the role of Ramona Selden, would invite an out-of-work writer who had just been fired off a picture. Especially now that she was working again herself.

“Hey, are you being coy or something?” Ronnie asked.

“Listen, I know you’re a good friend and a kind, sensitive man. I’m sure you probably asked Elena if she minded my tagging along, but to tell you the truth, I don’t want to feel like a social charity case.”

“Old buddy, you’re letting this town get to you. Elena specifically asked me if I would bring you. She likes you. She likes your work. She wants you to come to her party.”

Perry finally believed the hostess really wanted him. It was a concept he had forgotten—the feeling of being wanted, of being desired as company for others. It reminded him of the time, not all that long ago (though it now seemed another existence), when he took for granted that his presence at any function of literate people was a welcome addition. Why, back in Vermont—hell, even in some of the finest homes of Boston and New York—he was not just a plus for a hostess, he was a goddam plum .

He was glad he went. There were buckets of fried chicken, bowls of potato salad, and lots of wine and beer. There was a crowd, forty or so, a nice crowd. Perry recognized a few of them as actors or actresses who had either played some part or come to read for some part on “The First Year,” and seeing them made him feel stronger, as if he had more substance, for they knew him from a time when he was somebody. He felt lighter, more buoyant, when he talked to the ones he had known through the show.

Elena not only came over to give him her warmest smile and a comradely hug, she said there was someone there who had been a fan of “First Year” and wanted to meet its creator. Perry was pleased, of course, and when that someone turned out to be none other than Lynn Redgrave, one of his own favorite actresses, he was overwhelmed. There weren’t any other stars at the party, it wasn’t that kind of party, but it turned out Elena had once done a guest spot on the old “House Call” series that Lynn had starred in, and they became buddies. Evidently Lynn was one of the stars who would go to places just because she liked the person who had asked her. She seemed quite at home in this otherwise rather motley crew, and even with her splendid English accent she seemed what Perry thought of as a down-home kind of person. When she came over to express her enthusiasm about “The First Year’s the Hardest,” he was practically immobilized with awe and gratitude.

“It was mar velous,” she said, giving him a firm, friendly handshake and making him feel energized and warmed by the aura of her natural vibrancy. “Please do more, won’t you?”

“Well, sure, I mean, I hope I will—” he stammered.

“You will,” she said. “You must, of course!”

He almost believed he would for a moment; he felt if he could get a fix of that confidence and vigor of hers every day he really could , no matter what the odds.

Back at Ronnie’s, he felt so grateful for having been invited, for having been paid attention to, he got almost maudlin.

“I really want to thank you,” he said.

“Fuck off,” Ronnie said. “I didn’t even invite you. I got points with Elena for bringing you.”

“Well, I’m glad you got something for all you’ve done for me. I only wish I could really do something for you, too—I mean, to pay you back.”

“You’re coming up with the rent, aren’t you? That’s the deal.”

“Hell, I don’t mean that. I mean, everything’s trade-offs in this town, right? You scratch my back and I scratch yours?”

“That’s how it works sometimes, sure.”

“Well, I mean, the least I could do for you is make sure you got a part in something I got produced. I mean, I’d love to do that, it would really make me feel good to be able to do that.”

“Great. You write a TV remake of Moby Dick, I want Ahab. None of this Ishmael shit. I’ve had it with doing Ishmael.”

“I’m serious.”

“OK. If something happens like that, it happens.”

Perry took another slug of his brandy and then suddenly, unexpectedly, he burst out crying.

“What’s wrong?” Ronnie asked.

“I feel like a fraud,” Perry sobbed.

“Why?”

“I don’t really know if I’ll ever do it again. Have something on the air. I’m no damn good to you. I don’t even have any power. Nothing.”

Ronnie got up and walked over so he was standing above Perry.

“You got to get off this,” he said. “I’m your friend.”

He sat down beside Perry and put an arm on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Perry said, choking on the sobs.

“Go ahead. Spill it out.”

Perry put his head in his hands and just bawled.

Ronnie sat beside him, patting him on the shoulder.

Perry believed that Ronnie in fact was his friend, and that made him think of Al Cohen, and it made him bawl even more. He’d forgotten about friends. Forgotten about everything that mattered. Or used to matter.

On his way to see Dr. Harlow Sampson a week later, Perry’s heart started pounding faster than ever as he began to worry not about his condition, whatever it was, but whether this top internist—no doubt an Internist of the Stars—would take on his case. What if, like the Beverly Hills dentist, the Beverly Hills doctor found that Perry’s heart was pounding too fast, that it was really an embarrassment, a sign of slovenly health care over the years, and he would have to go elsewhere and try to get into acceptable shape for being taken on by a really class doctor?

Perry was relieved that at least Dr. Sampson was an older man, a courtly-looking, gentle man, with a tapered gray beard, the kind of man who might out of benevolence take on his case even if he weren’t in the best of health.

“Your resting pulse is one-thirty,” Dr. Sampson told him over the consultation glass of Perrier in his office. “The top range of normal is eighty to a hundred. So you’re right. Your heart is beating too fast. But your EKG is fine. I take it you’re in the entertainment business?”

“Yes. I’m a writer.”

“Writer, actor, whatever. The business itself causes stress. That’s your only problem.”

“Are you saying I should quit?”

“People have to make a living. Many of my clients are in the business. I can prescribe something for you.”

“What?”

Dr. Sampson was making out a prescription.

“It’s a beta blocker. It will keep your pulse down.”

“Hey, thanks. Thanks a lot.”

“Try to take it easy,” the kindly doctor said. “Next thing you know you’ll have a hit. That’s the best medicine.”

He smiled, and shook hands.

The prescription was like magic. He took the pill and his heart didn’t pound.

Perry felt calm now. He felt even more calm when he met with Mona Halsted. Why hadn’t he thought of her before? Well, the time just hadn’t been right. When he met her that glittery night at the Vees’ his head was all into “First Year” and his newly hatched feature fantasy with Vaughan. When Jane brought her up again on that last walk on the beach at Venice, Perry still was clinging to the feature dream as an immediate possibility, the jackpot that was just around the corner. Now he was more realistic. More in the mood for Mona. She was, after all, not only a sensitive and sympathetic person, she actually knew and admired his work. Oh, was he in the mood for Mona.