Dana Spiotta - Innocents and Others

Coming home and staying home was unsettling. It was impossible not to feel like a ghost visiting her old life, because everything in her house and the city seemed the same except for her. She was different, and Los Angeles made Meadow lonely for her grown-up self. All her friends were in New York.

“Meadow!” Carrie said.

“How are you?” Meadow spoke into the handset of her beige plastic cordless phone. She was stretched on the bed and starting a second glass of her mother’s white burgundy.

“It is so nuts right now. We are doing all the postproduction stuff. I can’t believe it is really happening.”

“Oh. Good,” Meadow said. “I am at my parents’ house doing nothing.”

“Why are you staying, then?” Carrie said. “Come back to New York.”

“I will. Soon. I just need to regroup, I think. Watch a bunch of movies and think.”

“What’s that you say? Watch a bunch of movies, you, really?” Carrie said. She laughed. “I wish I could be there. Even if you make me watch some real-time antinarrative film essay about Portuguese fishermen—”

“Actually I was thinking all screwball comedies. Bringing Up Baby, Twentieth Century, His Girl Friday —”

“Very tempting!” Carrie said.

“Why don’t you come here?” Meadow said. “We can watch whatever you want. A Peter Sellers festival. Woody Allen films. I’m up for it.”

“Meadow, I’d love to, but I can’t right now. I am working.”

“All right, all right,” Meadow said.

“Are you okay? Are you working on something new?” Carrie said.

“I’m fine. But I have to go.”

“Well, I am glad you called. We seriously need to hang out when you get back.”

“Yeah. And I really want to see that Portuguese fishermen movie.”

Carrie laughed. “ The Way of the Fish , you mean?”

“No, I think it’s called Scales: Eyes. ”

“ Man with a Fish. ”

“ Triumph of the Fish. ”

“ Le Sang des Poissons ,” Carrie said. “No, wait. F Is for Fish. ”

“You laugh,” Meadow said, “but I would love to see any of those films.”

As soon as she heard Carrie disconnect, she pressed the glowing call button, waited for the dial tone, and punched in Kyle’s number. She offered to pay for his ticket, and her parents let Kyle stay in her room with her. For three days after he arrived they mostly concentrated on having sex during the day while her parents were out. She enjoyed having Kyle on her bed, in her room, surrounded by her books and posters from high school. By the afternoon of the third day, even that grew tiresome.

Meadow got up and pulled on a tiny t-shirt and some panties. She rummaged in her bag for her cigarettes, then sat in a chair by the window. She folded her long legs under her, opened the window, and lit up the cigarette.

Kyle stared at her from the bed.

“What?” she said.

“You realize this is like a full-on suite, right?” he said. Meadow burst out laughing. “It is. You have a luxurious starlet bathroom and then you have a huge bedroom and then you have like an anteroom. A suite.”

Meadow shrugged and blew smoke toward the open window.

“You act like you are from the ghettos of Bombay,” she said.

Kyle yelped out a laugh.

“I am sure,” Meadow continued, “that in the privileged cul-de-sacs of Westchester, a dedicated bathroom is not unheard of.”

“Racist,” Kyle said, smiling. “And it would be a ghetto in Dhaka, not Bombay!”

“But Westchester, in any case,” she said.

“This is a different level of wealth.”

Meadow looked around, imagined the house from the eyes of someone else. It was opulent, partly because her mother had larded the place up with sumptuous, decadent decor: velvet pillows, silky carpets, chandeliers.

“I’m going to make bacon and eggs now,” Meadow said.

Later she took a long run through the hills of Bel-Air, followed by a swim in the pool with the view. Then her parents came home, and as usual, there were guests over for dinner. At first Meadow thought this was for her benefit, or that her parents were showing her off to their friends. But then she realized that this was what they had been doing since she left: entertaining. On the previous evenings, Meadow and Kyle drank too much wine and slipped away after the main course was over to watch movies in her room.

But tonight Meadow lingered because one of her father’s guests mentioned a mysterious woman, “Nicole,” who used to call men in Hollywood.

“It wasn’t just me. She called a number of men in the industry. We all used to talk about her,” said Jeremy, a screenwriter who was also her father’s client and friend.

“I think I remember hearing about her,” her father said. “She seduced men on the phone, right?”

“But no phone sex,” Jeremy said. “That was the thing. It was very personal and even erotic, but it wasn’t explicit. I mean, that’s what I heard. I only talked to her twice. I didn’t see the appeal, and I guess she felt the same way because she never called me again. But some people became obsessed with her.”

“Did she call you?” her mother said to her father. Her father shook his head.

“I believe she only called ‘creative’ types,” he said. “The snob.” They all laughed.

“Wait, wait. So she would cold-call these men?” Meadow said.

“Yes, but not really. She knew your friends. She knew everyone, somehow. She had a lot of confidence, and she was persuasive without it ever feeling that way. Jack Cusano was one of the guys.”

“Hey, do you remember Jack Cusano? We had him over a couple of times. The Robert DeMarco guy,” her father said.

“Of course I remember him. He was very cool. He told me all about working with DeMarco. And we talked about John Cassavetes, about our love for Love Streams. So Jack Cusano spoke to her?” Meadow said.

“I heard that he was really into her. For a couple of years,” Jeremy said.

“That’s surprising. He doesn’t seem like the type,” her father said.

“Did anyone ever meet her in person?” Meadow said.

“No. People tried, and she would stop calling them. And then she stopped altogether. She just disappeared a few years ago,” he said.

“I wonder why,” she said.

There was a pause at the table. Everyone looked at Meadow.

“Uh-oh,” her father said, smiling.

“What?” she said. “It’s interesting.”

* * *

Meadow hung up the phone after “Nicole” had finally agreed to meet with her. Their talk made Meadow feel a bit uneasy. It was undeniable that Nicole was reluctant; yet she sounded almost happy to hear from Meadow. She was impressed that Meadow had tracked her down. One of the men, Jack Cusano, had given her Nicole’s phone number. She took it as a sign of fate that it was a Syracuse area code, just a couple of hours from her place in Gloversville. The number didn’t work, but the phone company (once Meadow explained to them it was an urgent family matter, she was looking for her sister) was able to look up the name of the woman who had the number in the past. With the real name, Amy Anne Thomas, and the city, Syracuse, it was simply a matter of looking in the phone book.

“Hello?”

“Hello. Is this Nicole?” At the last second, Meadow decided to use Amy’s phone name, just to see how she would respond. There was a pause.

“Yes, I am Nicole.”

The minute Meadow heard the woman’s voice, she knew she had to make the film. It was a very appealing voice. And the perverse idea of doing a film about the power of a voice excited her. Meadow could feel herself drawn in right away. Meadow tried to persuade Nicole to let her interview her for a film. She listened to Meadow and then politely refused.