Bruce Wagner - Dead Stars

“Michael, please don’t tell me you’ve seduced one of the most brilliant psychiatric minds of our time into managing your career.”

“Ha! Not a bad idea though.”

“ Oooo I want to kill her!”

“I told her you weren’t all that high on the idea.”

“I didn’t say that. What I said was, I wasn’t sure I wanted to play the Angel of Death . At my age, it’s the kind of rôle that tends to typecast.”

“You know you’re right. Those Angel of Death offers are gonna start pouring in.” She swatted him. “Did you know Fosse was her patient?”

“Uh uh.”

“For years.”

“Well,” she said, resolute. “You do what you do. As it should be. But nowhere is it written that I must come round to being keen on my husband playing himself —”

“I am not playing myself .”

“— or a reasonable facsimile thereof, in a film where he dies at the end.”

“Who says ? Who says I have to die ? He doesn’t have to die . Calliope said the character could live .”

“This woman should be a studio head! Or God.”

“Try both.”

“Actors frequently confuse them. Michael… I just want you to respect my decision. If I choose not to play that part, you must promise not to bully me. Promise?”

“Point taken.”

“When I say ‘Promise?’ you’re supposed to say ‘I promise,’ not ‘Point taken.’”

“Point taken and promised.”

“That’s a gross point, I hope. Give me ten of those, and you just might have found a way into my heart.”

“I’ll need to run that past Calliope.” ( Another swat ) “I still think Heather Morris would be phenomenal in the Reinking role. As the mistress. Girl has a rockin body—”

“O shush your noise!”

( A double swat )

“Hey, come on now, don’t hit a cancer survivor. TMZ’s gonna say you beat up your gaunt, defenseless husband in front of shocked diners . Onlookers. While in a bipolar frenzy.”

“Hmm. I bet lots of women in this restaurant would like to do the very same with their fellas. You know, what’s that line from Harry and Sally ? ‘I’ll have what she’s having’!”

She was funny and fiery and could really make him laugh.

“Young Heather as your mistress, & no doubt you’ll cast some unknown hottie for your bespoke Angel of Death. You’ll be in heaven, won’t you?”

“You know who I think would choreograph?”

“Who.”

“Benjamin, Natalie’s husband.”

“He’s wonderful .”

“But you & me are going to have to hit the dance floor soon. You’re going to have to show me some moves.”

“I was going to make a Dancing With the Stars joke but it’s all becoming a bit too close to home now, isn’t it?”

“That’s Calliope’s favorite show!”

“Well of course it is. I suppose the world is coming to an end — the therapist I once revered as world-class has now completely regressed into little more than a Tinseltown svengali! How quickly they fall! She dropped like ninepins!”

“I talked to Annie—”

“Annie Reinking?”

“We’ve spoken a few times. She sent me some beautiful notes when I was in treatment, & one or two since.”

“Are they still in Phoenix?”

“Yeah. Her son’s a special needs kid—”

“Marfan. I know. She was wonderful about Dylan. Wonderful to talk to.”

“—she’s very much involved, on a national level. Raising Marfan awareness.”

“I should call.”

“Hey, when’s the gala?” he asked.

Catherine knew she was about to get her funnybone tickled. Her husband raised an eyebrow — the couple raised lots of eyebrows when they were together — transforming himself into Master Thespian, an old character from Saturday Night Live .

“Woman, I demand a reply! I am please to be informed of the time and the date of the latest gala — there’ve been so many, I’ve lost count — the latest gala celebration of… ME! ”

“If it’s the Courage Ball you speak of, Lord Master Thespian,” she said, using his favorite berserk maid-in-waiting voice. “I believe it to be the 23rd of this month. ”

“O how I love to be fêted!”

“You’ve been fêted so often, you’ve become fetid .”

He resumed his normal self.

“Y’know, we oughta have a face off — Master Thespian vs Catherine Zeta-Jones, Commander of the British Empire.”

“Let’s not. Did you know Beyoncé is taking Rihanna’s place?”

“At the ball? What happened?”

“She got terribly sick and had to cancel her tour. The doctors don’t even want her talking for 3 weeks.”

“Is Steve still hosting?”

“Far as I know. And that little girl is going to perform.”

“My Telma? My sweetheart Telma?”

“The little girl from Canada. She’s going to bring down the house.”

To Reach the Unreachable Star

Telmahad been practicing, you could hear her through her closed bedroom door, and all through the house. Gwen would stop whatever she was doing and listen, and it was nightmarish, almost more than she could bear.

Smile tho yr

is aching

☺ even tho it’s breaking…

Where was Phoebe? She called to say she was stuck in traffic, but that was half an hour ago. She didn’t know how much more she could endure—————————

. .

Mother and daughter in the kitchen. Telma starving, ladling peanut butter & jelly onto rye bread, her favorite. Bag of giant marshmallows out, her favorite. A big bowl of Hawaiian Sweet Maui onion chips, her favorite. Big open thermos of crushed ice/pink lemonade, her favorite.

She was going to sing Smile for her mom but since Phoebe was coming (supposedly) she decides to wait.

Picks up Gwen’s energy.

“Mom, are you having problems ?”

Gwen says no but her denials are becoming frayed. Old soul Telma continues to be respectful, thinking it’s to do with Daddy, they’re right around the anni of his death, so she leaves it alone. The child is the mother of the woman.

And all that.

Telephone rings.

Gwen grabs it, certain Phoebe’s calling with another update from LA traffic hell. Hoping she’ll say she was in a wreck: engine blew up, hit a pedestrian, got shot by a road rager — anything but “Be there soon.”

But it isn’t Phoebe, it’s Jesselle, the gal who’s coordinating talent for the Courage Ball…

Right then something occurs to her that is so obvious, so blatant, it unhinges. How could she have even entertained having The Conversation with her daughter before , before the Courage Ball? The recklessness of it, the lack of a sensible, coordinated plan, the flight from rational was suddenly disturbing, mostly because Phoebe hadn’t come to the same glaring conclusion independently; it was a terrible idea, cruel and unworkable, and Phoebe should have shot it down the moment Gwen voiced it. The woman she was desperately relying on was in way over her personal & professional head. Gwen shivered with the cosmic aloneness of her realization; no cavalry to her calvary would come.

Telma made a joyous leap toward the phone, pressing SPEAKER.