15
On Sunday evening Gina
George insisted – saying, “It’ll give me a chance for some American girl talk”
– on going to the airport alone to pick up Carla Ortiz.
There was no
mistaking Carla as she stepped out, pulling a large rolling suitcase, from
behind the international arrival gate. Her very youthful mestizo features, with
slightly plump high cheekbones and long, straight black hair, did not in the
least resemble Sofia’s ripe, chiseled Moorish look framed by brown curls, and
her boobs were considerably larger (though the work was not, in Gina’s opinion,
of Doc Kruger caliber), but from the waist down their builds were a close
match, and Carla’s skin tone could easily be made to match Sofia’s with the
right filter. Bill knew his business all right, Gina thought.
“Gina George,”
Carla gushed in her purest Valley Girl tone as she gave Gina a tight hug, “it’s
so super-fantastic to meet you! You’re my hero! I’ve, like, seen all of your
movies!”
“It’s great that
you could come and help us out on such short notice,” said Gina, hugging Carla
in return. Carla’s perfume was strong and quite distinctive, one that Gina had
never smelled before.
“It’s nothing! I’m,
like, between projects, and I needed a vacation anyway, but on my own I, like,
wouldn’t’ve went to Europe for just a few days. And I’m like getting paid for
this one! And I got to fly first class, and I get to stay at the Ritz! Thank
you! Thank you!” And she kissed Gina hard on the mouth.
Obviously, thought
Gina, Bill Martinez doesn’t treat his actresses like Barry Bergman does.
“Did you have a
nice Thanksgiving?” she asked as she pulled away so that they could begin their
walk toward the taxi stand.
“Oh, for sure. Did
you? But I’m so dumb! Duh! They don’t, like, have Thanksgiving here, do they?”
“No, but an
American business group had a dinner at our hotel, and they invited me. The
turkey, though, was done the way they do it here, with prunes and nuts and
stuff. It was different, but delicious!”
“But that’s just
the way my abuelita makes it for
Christmas, like, Mexican style!”
“Then you should
like the food here,” said Gina as they entered the taxi and she gave the driver
the name of the hotel. “But first,” she went on, “you’ll have a day’s work. You
should enjoy it, though.”
“So he’s, like, a
real hunk, this guy Mario?”
“He sure is.”
“Ooh,” Carla
giggled, “I can’t wait. Too bad I don’t speak Spanish that good.”
“You don’t?” Gina
said, astonished.
“Not too good. I
mean, my accent’s good, but it’s like Spanglish. My parents, like, never talked
to us in Spanish after we moved to the Valley, and we lived in a neighborhood
that was, like, mixed. I had more friends that were Jewish than Mexican.”
During the cab ride
Gina tried to give Carla an idea of the film, but Carla was either too tired to
pay attention or not really interested. By the time they got to the hotel,
ostensibly to have drinks and snacks in the bar with Albert, Mario and Sofia,
she said that she’d had plenty to eat and drink on the plane and what she
really needed was some sleep. After being introduced to Mario, however, her
preferences seemed to change drastically. She let her bag be taken to her room
and suddenly got thirsty for a beer, becoming quite animated and regaling her
tablemates with stories about previous body-double work she had done, though
without naming the films or actresses involved. “It’s confidential,” she
explained.
“In this film we
have no secrets,” Albert said. “Would you like to have body-double credit?”
Gina could read on Sofia’s face that she was hoping for a positive answer.
“I don’t know,”
Carla answered, “I never got it before, but sure, why not? Like, every little
bit of credit counts.”
“You definitely
should have it,” Sofia confirmed. She looked at her watch. “I must go now,” she
said, “Victor is waiting for me. Tomorrow I start rehearsals for a new play, so
this is our last chance to have dinner together.” She kissed all present on
both cheeks, including Carla who had prepared for a kiss on the mouth, and
left.
She had been seated
between Carla and Mario, but now that she was gone Mario moved his chair next
to Carla’s. Their bodies were almost touching.
“She’s really
gorgeous,” Carla said, looking at the disappearing Sofia.
“So are you,” said
Mario. Carla’s complexion was too dark to register a blush, but Gina knew that
it was there.
“Let me explain to
you a little what needs to be done,” Albert said to Carla. “Tomorrow morning,
when you are rested, we will go to the studio and look at the footage of the
original scene. In the finished film the scene is broken up into twelve
segments, about a minute each, that are spliced in as flashbacks, and we will
show you that part of the film, unless you want to see the whole thing.”
“Why not?” said
Carla. “I’ll watch a free movie anytime.” And she laughed. “Like, I saw two of
‘em on the flight coming over,” she added.
“I don’t think they
show my movies on airplanes,” Albert said, and laughed too. “Anyway, in this
film I plan to replace five of those segments with what we get from tomorrow
afternoon’s shooting. I think it will be obvious which ones, don’t you think
so, Mario?”
“Yes, I think so,”
Mario said.
“Sounds super,”
said Carla. “Now, they told me that in Spain you guys eat dinner real late? So
maybe I’ll go up to my room to freshen up and, like, rest up a little, and then
we can eat dinner?”
“You know,” said
Gina, addressing Carla and Mario together, “you two will be working together
real soon, rather intimately to say the least, so maybe you ought to have
dinner by yourselves, so you can get acquainted.”
Carla looked at
Mario. “Sounds good to me,” she said.
“Yes, it’s fine,” Mario seconded. “I will take
you to a special restaurant that you will like,”
he said to Carla and looked at his watch. “At nine o’clock? Is one hour and a
half enough?”
“Sure,” said Carla,
and, turning to Albert and Gina, added, “Bye, you guys. It’s been wonderful meeting
you guys, and I guess I’ll see you guys tomorrow!” With a giggle she got up and
then, as though she had forgotten something, said “Oh!” and bent down to give
Gina the two-cheek kiss she had just learned. She did the same to Albert and
Mario, who had stood up, and quickly walked out of the bar toward the desk in
order to get her key.
“She is wonderful!”
said Mario.
“I’m glad you think
so,” said Gina. “That’s what counts.”
If there was a
tinge of tartness in her voice, Mario did not seem to notice. “I need to go
home and change for going out,” he said as he stood up, shook Albert’s hand and
kissed Gina’s cheeks, with a little touch of tongue thrown in. “Good bye!”
After an extended Sunday
brunch at the International House of Pancakes – an old family tradition – with
assorted Garabedians, Hagopians, Kevorkians and Lewises, Jennifer hugged them
all, climbed into her car and drove off, heading for Los Angeles.
She had done her
best over the holiday to keep up a cheerful appearance, covering up as best she
could her sadness over Leslie. Of course she could not tell them about her. She
had never told them about having a roommate in the first place, letting them
believe that she was living alone in a studio; this had been true during her
first year in LA and was now, at least technically, true again.
She wondered why
the only comments she had received over the three days about her bright red
Spider were “Nice car!” or, in her brother Ken’s words, “Nice wheels!” Were
they all really unaware that this was not the kind of vehicle that would be
within the monetary reach of a girl working in an office to save up for
graduate school? There was no reason for them to see a red flag in the fact
that the supposed office work had, since June, been at the nondescript-sounding
BB Productions, a fact that she had communicated to them only because she had
kept her parents’ home as her legal residence and she had them forward any
official mail – from the DMV, the IRS and the like – to her workplace. Or did
they suspect something and not want to let on, such as that she might have a
rich lover? That was factually true: Barry Bergman was her lover, and he was
rich, but he was not a sugar daddy: what she got from him was not gifts but
well-earned, if generous, pay for her work.
With some time to
herself on Saturday, she had driven into the seedy section of town, and saw
that the marquee of the theater that had been her epiphany of X-rated cinema
read XXX TRIPLE BILL, and that one of the items on the bill was FRANK BOND IN
CAMPUS CAPERS. But the picture of her on the poster was scarcely recognizable,
and someone would have had to see the movie to know who Jenni Jarman was.
She would have
liked to tell someone about her life, perhaps the one who for years had been
her confidante: her slightly older cousin Rachel, who like her had been
sexually precocious – she had preceded her by six months in the gymnastics
coach’s bed, and had encouraged her to follow in her footsteps – but was now
conventionally married, with a second baby on the way. Jennifer had been a
bridesmaid at the wedding.
She realized as she
was nearing Bakersfield, with the Valley fog growing thicker, that even if she
had found some time alone with Rachel – their typical time for exchanging
confidences was while jogging together, something that Rachel’s pregnancy now
didn’t allow – she would not have told her anything, after all. Here, in the
San Joaquin Valley, she was Jennifer Garabedian, and Jenni Jarman was another
person, over the mountains in LA.
The most common
subject of confidential talk between Jennifer and Rachel had always been the
coach (they had never called him anything but “coach,” even in bed). Rachel had
for years worried that one of the many girls who had shared their experience
with him might at some point bring belated charges of sexual molestation or
even rape against him. But this had not happened – he was still at the school –
and Jennifer firmly believed that he knew better than to make advances to girls
who might ever come to feel abused. He knew how to spot those who, like them,
would feel lucky to have been initiated by someone with his expert knowledge of
the adolescent female body and psyche.
There was one thing
for which she felt thankful on that Thanksgiving: for the first time as far as
she could remember, no one had made a wordplay connection between the turkey
they had been eating and Turkey, the land where their people had been
persecuted. Even as a child, she had never flinched on hearing her paternal
grandfather’s tales of suffering on the deadly forced march through Eastern
Anatolia, which he had survived as an orphaned child. But the pun had always
made her queasy, and when she was six it actually made her throw up.
As she started the
climb up the Grapevine – those Italians sure knew how to make cars for mountain
driving! – the fog gradually turned into a drizzle. As she crossed the Los
Angeles County line, the Hispanic radio station to which she had been listening
began to fade, giving way to a classical-music station from Los Angeles. She
did not touch the tuning knob. She enjoyed the mingling of bolero and Bach in
the course of the transition. It corresponded to what she was feeling: her
identity as Jennifer Garabedian was gradually fading and being replaced by
Jenni Jarman. The feeling was intensified when, some forty-five minutes later,
she was in the San Fernando Valley, turning off onto the Hollywood Freeway
(“the one-seventy,” as LA people called it). By this time there was only one
thing that she needed as an affirmation of being Jenni Jarman: to make love
with Barry Bergman.
When she turned
into Barry’s carport, passing an unfamiliar-looking dark-green Volvo sedan that
was parked across the street, she saw that Barry’s car was there.
She carried her
duffel bag through the drizzle into the cottage, dumped it on her bed, and then
let herself into the house. Barry was not in his study, the living room or the
kitchen. His bedroom door was shut. From behind it she could
hear the sounds of
Barry doing it, probably with the Volvo driver.
Fuck it! she said
to herself as she walked into the kitchen to pour herself a drink.
Around midnight, with
Albert sound asleep, Gina put on a dress and slippers and sneaked out of their
room into the hallway. She walked its length, from one end to the other, several
times, each time of course passing Carla’s room. Since she was alone, she saw
no reason not to slow down, or even stop, as she passed it.
On the first pass
there was no discernible sound coming through the door, but the second time she
could hear some soft female moaning, gradually increasing in volume. She forced
herself to continue her walk, and on the third pass the moaning was quite loud.
She must be masturbating, Gina said to herself, probably fantasizing about
Mario.
But just as she
began to walk back to her room she heard a stifled, unmistakably male groan,
one that she by now was quite familiar with.
Mario doesn’t waste
time, she thought. But as she walked down the pleasantly heated hallway, she
looked forward to getting back into the bed that, she hoped, was still warmed
by Albert’s body.
Jenni was lying on her bed,
leafing through assorted sections of the Sunday Times that she had
brought in from the living room, trying to find news items that she had not
read in the Fresno Bee. She heard the sound of a car – probably the
Volvo – driving away, and about ten minutes later Barry knocked on the cottage
door. “Yes!” she said. Barry entered, dressed and, it seemed, freshly showered.
“I didn’t know
you’d be back so early in the day,” he said.
“That’s okay, I
didn’t either,” she answered as she sat up and took off her glasses, placing
them on the nightstand. “After brunch I just felt like I’d had enough of
Fresno.”
“I mean,” he added,
“I wouldn’t have had company if I’d known. It’s an old friend, Doc Kruger’s
wife Nancy...”
“The psychologist?”
“Yes.”
“I read her book
for a class in college! Anyway, come sit down!” she said as she patted the
space beside her on the bed.
“You see,” he said
as he sat down with an uncomfortable-looking smile on his face, “I felt that I
needed to talk to someone about the Leslie business, and she volunteered. She
was supposed to come over yesterday but couldn’t make it – there was some sort
of crisis with a client of hers.”
“I see,” Jenni
said.
Barry took a deep
breath. “But it turned out,” he went on, “that she was also going through some
sort of crisis of her own, one that, for now, I’ll spare you the details of. At
one point she asked me, ‘Am I getting old, Barry?’ And I said, ‘If you mean am
I adding years then yes, we’re all getting old, but if you mean am I getting
less attractive then the answer is no.’”
Jenni looked at
Barry. His tan had faded, and his facial skin looked puffy. He probably hadn’t
slept well, poor guy, and it showed.
And then it struck
her. He was in his forties! Like Nancy Kruger, probably. She, Jenni, hadn’t
slept well either since Leslie’s death, but on her it didn’t show.
She had always
liked older men, since the coach, her first, who was almost thirty to her
almost sixteen. And her present lover was twenty years her senior – big deal!
But, no doubt about
it, he was getting old. Older, anyway.
“And then?” she
asked him.
“She said, ‘Prove
it to me, Barry!’”
“And you did,” said
Jenni with a smile as she took his hand.
Barry smiled back.
“Did I have a choice? We had been lovers once, you know.”
“I figured,” she
said and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re sweet, Barry.”
She knew that if
she were to lie back on the bed and unzip her jeans, as she had so many times,
Barry would join her; he was certainly virile enough to be up for a union with
her in that situation. But she no longer felt like it, and the fact that he
made no moves made it easier. What she now needed was to be alone.
Since Barry’s
response was only a sheepish smile, she decided to go on. “You know,” she said,
“I’d like to read the rest of the paper. If the weather were nice I’d do it
outside, but as it is...”
“Sure,” he said,
seeming relieved, “I’ve got things to do too. By the way,” he added as he stood
up, “I’m reopening the studio on Tuesday, and we’ll probably get back to
shooting on Thursday.”
“Uh-oh,” she said,
“I’m expecting my period.”
“Then we’ll just do
the blowjobs until it’s over,” he said matter-of-factly. “And there’s non-sex
stuff too, you know. See you later!” And he closed the cottage door behind him.
She was left
feeling disconcerted. He was, to be sure, both her boss and her (non-exclusive)
lover, but she had no trouble keeping the two aspects of him separate in her
mind. Of him, on the other hand, she was not always sure whether he was
treating her as employee or as girlfriend. She wondered if Gina George had had
a similar identity problem with Barry Bergman.
Yes, the bed was still
warm. Gina lay on her side, naked and fully stretched, facing the gently
breathing Albert’s back. She moved her torso closer to him until a nipple
barely touched his skin. Albert Bosch was not a man easily aroused. He always
stayed cool while shooting the sexiest scenes, and he was known as having never
been involved with any of his actresses. But she was different. For one thing,
their relationship had been one of lovers before becoming one of actress and
director. And she, Gina George, could arouse him any time she wanted.
But she might as
well wait till morning, she decided as she yawned. “Good night, Albert,” she
whispered soundlessly as she turned away.
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