Carrie Fisher - Postcards from the Edge

“Oh,” said Michelle brightly. “Didn’t I tell you? I can’t believe I didn’t tell you!”

“Well, tell me now,” Suzanne demanded. “What?”

“He’s in a rehab in New York,” said Michelle, with some obvious satisfaction. “One of those year-long programs.”

“A year,” Suzanne said, shaking her head. “I’d go crazy.”

“He already went crazy,” Michelle said. “I don’t know how much crazier you can go than shooting coke all day. Do two more. Two, one, okay! One more set, then some abs and you’re through.”

“Well,” said Suzanne, “he had a lot of practice shooting steroids.”

“And he even lied about that,” said Michelle. “Like someone could get a neck like a ham with just good old-fashioned exercise. He had a neck like a ham . You need help to get a neck like that. Ready?”

Suzanne did her last set in silence, trying to concentrate on something high on the wall so she didn’t have to look at herself in the mirror. She had done eight repetitions when she started to give up.

“Go!” cried Michelle. “You’re almost there!”

“No!” screamed Suzanne, embarrassing herself and finishing anyway, then letting the weight fall with a clunk. She did several unenthusiastic sets of abs, after which Michelle walked her to her car.

At the door they met Chad Paley, the Rams linebacker. “Hey, Sunshine,” he greeted Suzanne.

“Chad,” she said, “I bet you know. Who is that big black guy over there on the shoulder machine?”

He stared into the gym in the direction she had pointed, and his face darkened. “Keep away from him,” he said, glowering. “He’s bad news.”

“Why?” asked Michelle. “What did he—?”

“He served time for manslaughter, for one thing,” Chad said. “And for another thing, he’s gay. You can see him most nights on Hollywood Boulevard.”

“Oh,” said Suzanne meekly.

“You stay away from him,” warned Chad paternally. He chucked Suzanne under the chin and strode back to the Life-cycles. The girls walked out without looking back at the silent man pumping iron for Hollywood Boulevard. “Stay away from him,” Suzanne said. “What was I gonna do, date him?”

They walked up to Suzanne’s BMW. “Tomorrow,” she said, confidently. “Legs.”

Michelle nodded. “And stick to your diet,” she said.

“I will,” said Suzanne, turning off the alarm and getting into her car.

“You will not,” Michelle said.

“Probably a little of both,” said Suzanne, starting her engine. “I will and I will not. The Zen diet.”

“And you’ll end up looking like a Buddha,” shouted Michelle over Don Henley’s “All She Wants to Do Is Dance” on the radio as Suzanne waved and drove off.

She went home to wash her hair and change clothes for her lunch with Al Hawkins, some manager who wanted to handle her career. Her friend Bob Becker had set up the lunch, and she was not looking forward to it.

She put on a little blue dress that both was comfortable and looked halfway decent. It fell exactly between her two clothing classifications: “dressing for me” and “dressing for them.” It was very hard to find a miracle dress like this, but she had accumulated three. This one had a little burn hole on the lower left side, but she was pretty sure nobody would notice.

She applied her makeup, checking on the steady progress of her blemish, and blow-dried her hair. She turned the dryer off four times while she was using it because she kept thinking she heard the phone ringing, but it never was. Then she put on some black high heels—which she felt firmly planted her outfit in the “dressing for them” category—and left for the restaurant she had selected: the Hamburger Hamlet on Beverly Drive.

About a block from the Hamlet, she found herself driving behind an enormous Bentley, the driver of which appeared to be on the phone. Staring at the back of his barbered head, Suzanne suddenly knew with absolute certainty that he was her lunch date. She tried to keep alive the possibility that she was wrong, but when he signaled his turn into the parking lot, she was overcome with dread. Could she drive around the corner to the Safeway and call the restaurant and tell Al Hawkins she was sick?

No. She’d already canceled and rescheduled this lunch three times. She had to go. “Oh, well, maybe I’ll learn something,” she thought philosophically as she handed her keys to the valet. She imagined herself smoking serenely on a pipe and gazing off to sea and saying, “Well, yeah, sure, he was an asshole, but he wasn’t your typical asshole. I really learned something that day at the Hamlet.”

The instant she walked into the restaurant she heard a loud New York voice bark, “Suzanne?” Sure enough, it was the skipper of the SS Bentley .

“Al Hawkins?” she asked meekly.

“The same,” bellowed Al, shaking her hand. “Why don’t we go to the table? Miss?” he called to a waitress. “Is our table ready? Thanks.”

Al Hawkins steered Suzanne to a table against the wall, under a mirror. He was under six feet, with a short, almost military haircut, brown eyes, a deep tan, and very good teeth—his, Suzanne guessed. He was wearing weird sunglasses on the top of his head, long thick black glasses, the kind Ferrari would make if they went into the sunglass business. He was wearing a blue button-down T-shirt, tight faded blue jeans, and neat little brown shoes. He was like a sergeant in the Show Business Corps, and Suzanne felt like some lowly private with AWOL leanings. He handed the waitress a couple of singles to get him some cigarettes and steered Suzanne like an invalid into her seat. “You sit facing out, okay? Okay,” he said. He was completely self-contained—he asked questions and he answered them. Suzanne felt superfluous.

“You’re not blond,” Al Hawkins said, fixing her with his intense glare.

“No, I never was,” said Suzanne.

“Well, you’ve never been blond in any of your films, but…” Al shrugged. “I know a lot of girls who, after a while, just… go blond.”

“Spontaneously?” asked Suzanne.

“No, they decide to do it after… Oh, I see. A joke.” Al smiled. “Shall we order?”

The waitress appeared with a pad and pencil. Suzanne ordered cottage cheese and fruit. Al ordered a number eleven, a cheeseburger with bacon and Russian dressing and French fries, and a Diet Coke. Suzanne hesitated, craving caffeine, then mustered all her willpower and asked for mineral water. The waitress left them sitting across from each other in silence. Suzanne watched Al light a Vantage as though she’d never seen it done before. She wondered if she was in the midst of an anecdote that, for reasons of proximity, she was not yet able to perceive. “You have a nice car,” she said.

“Isn’t she a beaut?” said Al, beaming as he blew out a lungful of smoke. “I had her shipped here from New York. Do you have any idea what a pain in the butt it is to ship a car?”

“I once had someone drive mine out,” Suzanne offered.

“Well,” said Al, “I would hardly trust my Bentley with a person .”

“I’ve never driven one,” she responded lamely. “They must drive smoothly or something to have become such a status symbol. I mean, a cliché doesn’t become a cliché for nothing.” She no longer knew what she was talking about, so she stopped, plunging them back into silence. Their table was becoming a cemetery for dead air.

Al gave her a thumbs-up gesture and said, “It rides like a dream .”

“Really?” said Suzanne. “That’s great.”

Suddenly, Al got to the point. “What I’d like to say right up front is how much I dislike your choice of agents.”