(photo by vlpg Too on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/vlpgtoo/)
The napkins have resurfaced, the plates have retreated to the center of the table and Lang Westwood is at the punchline of her story: “And I said, ‘what are my choices?’ to which she replied, ‘shoestring potatoes, macaroni salad, or deep fried okra.’ Those were my choices of vegetable. I’d hate to be a vegetarian in rural Louisiana.”
The people at the table chuckle in unison and Lang glances around with renewed disbelief. To her left sits Nora, her assistant, with those pale eyes like windowpanes. Next to her sits the writer they just hired to rework Deep Water, Jeff Bing, who, although he has a name and a respectable résumé, looks and acts exactly like a marionette. The agents sit side-by-side like a pair of foo chow dog statues and then there’s Mae on Westwood’s right wearing a girly dress, a flower in her suddenly-brunette hair, and a wide-eyed expression. From a group of well-employed and fairly successful people, one might expect a lively conversation, but this is a one-woman performance and they’re all watching Westwood, waiting for the next bit.
Lang’s watch is still set two hours ahead of present west coast time. In New Orleans last night she met an old guy named Johnny playing a trumpet on the sidewalk outside her hotel. They’d struck up a conversation about Louis Armstrong that carried over into dinner. They had a lot in common—both the eldest of five, both artists, both music lovers. Johnny was a 9th ward Katrina survivor and he told her the whole story, including how every song, every recording, everything but his trumpet had been lost in the flood. When Lang asked him how he could continue to live after that, Johnny had just smiled and pulled the toothpick from his mouth: “I just ask myself: What would water do? If you was water, what would you do? And that’s what I do.”
When Lang had lived in France or Spain, everyone was an artist—the cook, the plasterer, the florist, the homemaker; surgeons, arborists, truck drivers, amateurs, dabblers and dilettantes might all sit together comparing notes and sharing stories. But here, the biggest name headlines the conversation and Lang is struggling to oblige. While she says, “The people I met were extremely enthusiastic about our project. They treated me like a visiting ambassador or the head of some humanitarian effort…” she’s thinking that if she were to open her mouth and let loose a giant diaphanous bubble of spit, the table would probably applaud. She might simply belch or repeat her own name over and over, it wouldn’t make any difference. At moments like these, Lang yearns to be at home where she is ignored or yelled at, used as a footrest or a short-order cook. Even if she were to roast the Howdy Doody writer with her foulest language, if she licked her napkin and tried to rub some of the pink off his cheeks, he would probably just sit there grinning and bobbing his wooden head. She’s probably the only person in the room who remembers Howdy Doody. Maybe that’s her problem.
“But the beach at Grand Isle is perfect,” she continues. “ They were hard-hit by Katrina, though, so we’ll have to truck in some extra white sand and our lodgings will be a bit sketchy.” She turns to Mae. “How do you feel about less than four-star accomodation?”
Mae smiles her smile: “Beggars can’t be choosers, I say.”
But choosers can act like beggars, can’t they, thinks Lang. Why this young woman, whose face is inarguably the most recognizable face in the room, would choose to defer so completely is puzzling and irksome but nevertheless, Lang is still making up for their first meeting and doesn’t want to depose the girl again. She must bite her tongue. Maybe Mae is really as good as she seems.
While they order coffee, Lang smiles and nods though she’d like to lay her head on her plate. Everything turns in a slow clockwise spin around the bottom of her tea cup. She had to stay an extra day in Louisiana and this morning she awoke at 5:00 am to catch the plane, sprinted and dodged like a quarterback to make the transfer at Atlanta and sped home to discover that their home no longer existed. Instead of a house, there were empty frames with clear plastic skins flapping in the breeze, the sharp smell of sawdust, and sinister, hulking forms draped with tarps. She had called their names, but no one answered. Up a makeshift flight of stairs, she found the bedrooms still somewhat intact with unmade beds and piles of clothes on the floors. She found her bathrobe, the one with her name on the label, covered with cat hair and wadded up on the bathroom floor. In Elle’s room there was a collection of dirty plates and half-eaten meals strewn across the desk and in the studio, where the light coming in from the skylights filtered through air thick with dust, the faces in the giant canvases would not meet her gaze, looked over her head as if she wasn’t there. Back downstairs she discovered her cell phone needed recharging and she couldn’t locate the wall where they used to have a land line. She stood where the kitchen used to be and gripped the table-saw while waves of nausea passed over her. She popped a few extra antidepressants before she got back in the car and headed down the hill to her office and this meeting. Turns out Rosemary had an early yoga class and Eleanor had slept over at a friend’s, but Lang is still unhinged. She focuses harder on the tea leaves while the room twitches and shimmies in a crude burlesque.
Mae’s agent says, “When I saw the script I said to myself, post-Katrina New Orleans is hot. We’ve got to grab this one while the getting’s good!”
In her deadpan voice, Nora says, “All those people! It still makes me cry.”
The writer’s agent says, “We’re all very excited to do our part to help.”
They all turn to Westwood who adds, “Yes, of course. And it is a great story.”
“Well, it will be after Jeff is done with it,” the writer’s agent says. “I think we all agree it needs a lot of work. As is, it’s a bit snooty, if you ask me. ”
Mae leans toward Lang. “It is a wonderful story. I hope you’ll tell Drew when she gets here.‘’
Lang looks up from her cup. “Drew?”
Nora stares up at the ceiling. “Drew Andrew? The writer?”
Mae nods. “She’s meeting me here after our meeting.”
“Oh.” Westwood glances to Nora, who simply blinks.
Mae tilts her head to the side, fanning an overwhelming aroma of gardenia into the air, and Nora explains to the air above their table: “See, I never told her about hiring Bing here and I expect it will come as a blow. This is, like, her first screenplay, if you know what I mean.”
The writer’s agent quips: “You mean delusions of grandeur. Everyone knows you have to have a guild guy and a big name writer on a project like this.”
Westwood says, “This girl has a fresh Ph.D. in literature. She probably doesn’t know anything about that.”
“Who’s the agent?” The writer’s agent wants to know. “She does have an agent, doesn’t she?”
“A guy named Alter, I think. Benny? Billy?” offers Nora.
“Never heard of him.” Mae’s agent gives a smug little smile. “And it’s not like inventing the wheel or something, I mean, anyone can adapt someone else’s novel if it’s part of the public domain.”
The writer Bing finally stops nodding to say, “Well maybe not anyone.” He laughs like a horse’s whinny and pushes back his chair. “I wish I could stay to chat but I’ve got to go. I’ve got to get cracking on those revisions!”
The group disintegrates with a leave-taking clamor, leaving Lang and Mae to linger a few moments over their cups. When he sees that they’re not leaving, Mae’s agent stands awkwardly behind his chair.
Mae’s smile is frozen to her lips and Lang wonders what she’s waiting for: waiting for a bell to ring, or for her line to cue, waiting to be enlightened, or waiting for the blade to drop? But before she goes, Lang needs to say something reassuring. She asks Mae if she has another project lined up for the fall.
Mae puts down her cup and declares, “I’m waiting for the right script. So far, I’ve had to conform to popular taste but I think now, thanks to you, I don’t have to be so… bourgeois, you know? I might even try a character who’s ugly or unlikable or rude. Now I can finally begin to practice my art, you know?”
Despite herself, Lang finds this charming. The flower in Mae’s hair and the dress are a bit much, but the way she speaks reminds Lang of how, as a child, Eleanor would often experiment with the words the adults used. Lang remembers the three year-old Eleanor scolding her: “You are being very inappropriate!” or the four year-old holding up a plate of legos and proclaiming them “hors d’ouvre,” the first grader throwing an arm over her shoulder and saying, “So how are you feeling today, really? What’s going on with you?” Recently Elle discovered a book about anatomy and had taken great pains to slip words like “uvula” and “philtrum” and “areola” into casual conversation. Lang smiles at the sweet absurdity of such large words coming from such a little body.
For fun, she and Rosemary and Eleanor sometimes watch the tape of an interview that took place just after Lang’s first film, Fellini Dreams, opened in New York. She was 23 and wearing spiked hair and a black leather vest that showed off her breasts and biceps, looking like a cross between Joan Jett and Jimi Hendrix, sermonizing in strident tones about poststructuralist intellect and the dominant paradigm, her “reinvention of perception” and other cryptic catchphrases which Lang no longer understands and can’t even remember understanding, even though they once came from her mouth.
Rosemary isn’t a big fan of home movies. She says she prefers to leave history in the past. When Lang dusts off the old photo album or videotape and motions for Rosemary to join her on the sofa to watch Elle pump her little legs on a swing, ice a mud pie, make a bubblebath mohawk, or recite the Jabberwocky, Rosemary accuses her of being a sentimental masochist. Lang winces and turns up the volume to hear the horribly self-satisfied singsong tone the younger Lang used while speaking to their child. If she could reach into the screen, Lang would slap that smug look off her own face. She would take a permanent marker and write MORON across her forehead. Everything was easier back then when she thought she knew what she was doing, when Elle would cling to her like a barnacle, when she still believed she could do it all.
And here is Mae waiting patiently for Lang to say something nice. Of course, Lang could easily let her down. She could laugh, scoff, roll her eyes or get up to leave but there is something so optimistic about that face, the look of a child holding out her arms, waiting to be picked up and carried, a child who has just spilled something, holds her breath, waiting to see what you will do.
Lang tells her, “You know, I’ve been meaning to tell you that the more I get to know you, the more I think Jake was right. You are perfect for the part of Edna.”
Mae’s face contorts. “You really think so?”
“I really do. Edna is a bit of color in a sepia-toned world and you, well you’re Technicolor. I look forward to working with you.”
Mae’s agent hangs over the chair. “I keep telling Mae to write a memoir. Strike while the iron is hot, you know.”
Mae bats her eyes. “You of all people should know I don’t have time to write a book.”
“Of course you don’t. So you hire someone.”
Lang catches sight of a hungry-looking literary-type with a furrowed brow scanning the room near the hostess’s stand. She gulps the last of her tea. “Well, what a coincidence. This must be your writer now.” She stands up and kisses Mae on the cheek. “You know that’s not a bad idea. She might be perfect in your ghostwriter role.”
Lang makes a point of smiling at the girl on her way out the door, but she doesn’t stop to chat.
As soon as she gets in the car, she pulls out her cell phone. Elle answers with a surly grunt.
“Hey! It’s so good to hear your voice. I missed you.” There are hammers banging in the background.“Did you miss me?”
“You were only gone for a week. That’s not really enough time to start missing somebody.”
Lang laughs. “I guess it always feels longer for the one who went away. What did you do while I was gone?”
“I fell in love with my law professor at U.C. Berkeley. We eloped to Afganistan. I’m wearing a burka.”
Lang laughs. “How was the sleepover?”
“I joined their cult and shaved my head. I got a boob job. I got a tattoo of a giant bloody eyeball in the middle of my forehead. I’ve been sleeping with my shrink.”
“I can’t wait to see you. How is Rosemary? Is she home?”
“She’s dead.”
“Put her on the phone, will you?”
Lang hears her call Rosemary, then a mumble, then Elle’s voice again: “She doesn’t want to talk to you ever again.” Elle snickers. “She’s too busy to come to the phone right now but she’s looking forward to having a family dinner. We can discuss my abandonment issues tonight.”
(photo by Eric, Kathy, Macy and Noah Stevens on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevenslive/)
