Carrie Fisher - Postcards from the Edge

“Pardon me?” Suzanne didn’t quite know where she was.

“When Bob gave me your number, I hadn’t known you had gotten a new agent,” Al said. “I couldn’t possibly work with Mark Auerbach. I think he’s full of shit.”

“Really?” said Suzanne, without expression. She could just as well have said “hunchback” or “toaster” for all the impact it had on Al. He was on a roll now, and she was truly incidental.

“None of my people are with the Empire Agency,” Al was saying. “I moved all my people, even Zita Farina. She’s going to be a huge star.”

Suzanne nodded and wondered how much his watch cost as the waitress mercifully arrived with their food. She stuffed a banana into her mouth and made a mental note to kill Bob Becker.

“You know what I’d do with you?” said Al, salting his fries. Suzanne shook her head, even though Al wasn’t looking at her. “I’d put the word out that you were a client of mine and we were interested in projects, and see what kind of reaction we’d get. See where you stand.” He took a big bite of his hamburger and kept talking as he chewed. “You’re perfect for a series, ‘cause you can play intelligent, and people like intelligent. We have a series in development right now that you might be perfect for.”

“Well, send it to me,” Suzanne said, more to her cottage cheese than to him. “I’ll read it.”

“I’ll send it to you when we have a script,” Al said. “It’s a show for a guy and three women. You’d be great for the younger woman, the magazine editor. Very bright, funny, down to earth.”

“I’d like to do a series,” Suzanne said seriously. “I mean, I’d be stupid not to. But I keep thinking that movies are more—”

“You’re being naive,” interrupted Al, waving a French fry dismissively. “If you can get a good part in a pilot, you should go for it.”

“Who is this guy?” Suzanne wondered. “Whether I’m being naive or not,” she said testily, “I would like to explore it a little bit before jumping into television world.”

“It’s a potentially enormous career-maker,” Al said, chewing another big bite of burger. “Remember Happy Days? Henry Winkler got sixth billing. Remember Welcome Back, Kotter? Travolta was way down on the cast list, tiny speaking part.”

Suzanne decided she didn’t want a personal manager, and she certainly didn’t want one that got this personal. People she had known for years didn’t call her “naive.” She felt defeated. She didn’t seem to want to be anything badly enough to do what was required. She knew a lot of the right people, but she didn’t know them in the right way. Something about pushing your way to the front seemed so undignified.

She liked acting, all right. She just didn’t like a lot of what you had to do in order to be allowed to act: the readings, the videotapings, the meetings, the criticism, the rejections. She was too old, too young, too pretty, too short, not funny enough, too funny… It could wear you down after a while. After a while, it became a job in itself not to take those pronouncements personally.

“I’d like to see you do a guest shot on a Miami Vice or a Cosby ,” Al was saying. “Do some really good episodic. They could build a whole show around you, and then, snap ,” he snapped his fingers, “forty million people see you in one night. But even more important,” he said, gesturing with his thumb behind his back, “ they see you.”

“Who?” asked Suzanne, looking over his shoulder.

“The industry,” he answered, exasperated.

“Oh,” Suzanne said. She felt nauseous. Al continued extolling the virtues of episodic, and when he paused momentarily, she interjected, “But not that many women go on to movies from TV. Except Shelley Long.”

“You don’t count Sally Field?” leered Al. “ The Flying Nun made her.”

“What about Norma Rae?” asked Suzanne hopefully.

“ The Flying Nun did it,” said Al confidently. “It made her.”

Suzanne didn’t want to argue Norma Rae/Flying Nun statistics for the rest of the lunch, so she got up and said with a smile, “I’m just going to the men’s room.”

“Quite the kidder, aren’t you?” said Al. “I like that.”

On her way to the bathroom she passed two women in their late twenties, who were standing by the phones and talking about how they could never live in L.A. because the nice weather all the time would annoy them. “I like seasons,” one of them said. When Suzanne came out they were still there, talking now about a mutual acquaintance of theirs. “I heard she blew Don Johnson,” said the woman who liked seasons.

When she got back to the table, Al had paid the bill. “I’m gonna keep up with you,” he said, rising to greet her.

“Okay,” said Suzanne, her chest tight. “Good.”

“I’m going to South Carolina tomorrow to visit a client,” he said as they walked to the parking lot. “But I’m going to keep pestering you about my pilot.”

“Great,” said Suzanne, desperate for her car. “I want to read it.”

“I wish you weren’t with that putz Auerbach.”

“Well.” Suzanne shrugged as her car arrived. “Thank you for lunch.”

“What lunch?” bellowed Al. “You ate like a bird.”

“I ate like a blonde,” corrected Suzanne, sliding into her seat and closing the door while Al tipped the parking attendant for her. “Thanks, Al.” She waved. “Talk to you soon.”

“Bye, sweetheart,” shouted Al. She watched him in her rearview mirror, working on his teeth and adjusting Al Junior, and imagined him nude except for a leather maid’s outfit and some nipple clamps. She waved again, then drove into the post-luncheon traffic.

She arrived for her facial ten minutes late, apologizing as she ran past the desk to the back for her pink facial robe. As she threw it on, a small dark-haired woman turned to her and said, “Susie?”

“Suzanne,” corrected Suzanne. “Yes, I’m… me.”

“This way, please,” said the woman, in a heavy Eastern European accent. Suzanne followed her into a small room. The woman turned on the light and motioned for Suzanne to lie down on the table.

“I am Marina, your skin consultant,” she said. “Will you be having collagen or a vegetable peel today?”

“Uh, vegetable peel, I guess,” answered Suzanne. She wished she had her regular facial lady, Jean, but she had rescheduled this appointment so many times in the past few days that Jean wasn’t available. Marina put a terry-cloth headband on Suzanne’s head to protect her hair, then moved some cleansing cream around on her face. She removed the cream with cotton and moved a big light over to examine her skin.

“When was your last facial?” asked Marina.

“Last month,” lied Suzanne. She had had two last week.

“You need a cleaning very badly.”

Suzanne thought she detected a note of contempt in Marina’s voice. “I know,” she said dejectedly.

“And,” said Marina, “you have one very big—”

“I know! ” interrupted Suzanne loudly. “I know,” she repeated, more softly this time. “If it gets any bigger, I’ll have to set up charge accounts for it.”

“I don’t know if I can get rid of that for you,” said Marina doubtfully. “I don’t think it’s ready yet.”

“Just do what you can,” Suzanne said. “I’ll understand.”

“Okay, then we start,” said Marina, suddenly brusque, as she moved the hateful light away. She began mixing something behind Suzanne’s head, in a little porcelain dish. “Now,” she said gravely, as she spread something creamy and strange over Suzanne’s face, “you are going to feel a very big smell.”