CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

They kept staying with her: Libra, Lizzie, Silky, Vincent … Vincent followed her like a dog. They were afraid she might kill herself. She wasn’t going to kill herself—that was the farthest thing from her mind, for what good would another death do? But she had to be alone to think. Silky’s doctor (not Ingrid) gave her pills; tranquillizers for the daytime and sleeping pills for the nights. She preferred drinking, and while Vincent watched her, playing upbeat records and trying to think of something to say, Gerry methodically and pleasurelessly drank down a half bottle of straight Scotch every night, finished the last of her third pack of cigarettes for the day, and took her pill. She was docile, like an inmate. Why did they treat her like an inmate? It was that kid who was the inmate, the teen-ager Barrie something, who had been caught two days after the … after it happened (what had taken them so long?) and was away now in some institution, it said in the newspapers, under psychiatric care.

Elaine had come back for the funeral, dressed in black with a huge picture hat like that strange woman who put flowers on Valentino’s grave every year, and Elaine had cried and carried on as if the loss was hers. Gerry had sat there, numb, drugged, drunk, looking calm and stolid for the world to see. There were his sister and brother-in-law. Funny to see his family for the first time that way … She wanted to tear the box open but that wouldn’t bring him back.

The public had fed on him and finally killed him. It was so ironic that he, the sweetest of men, had died saying something unthinkingly hurtful that was so entirely unlike him. Ironic too that someone they had never heard of should appear from nowhere and change all their lives. If that was what being a public idol meant, then Gerry wanted no part of it any more. No more sickness, no more sick love for strangers she had helped create, no more animals living vicariously off people they could never understand. She hated her job, she hated New York, and she had to get away.

She would go to a desert island, one of those islands she and Mad Daddy had dreamed of. She would stay alone, and pretend she was with him, until time made it easier to live by herself without the fantasy. She had to tell Libra she was leaving; it was only fair. Two days after the funeral she packed and told Vincent she was going home to her parents. She picked a deserted island from an ad in a magazine and made a plane reservation by phone. Then she went to the office to say good-bye to Libra and lie a little.

“Don’t,” he said. “Please don’t.” She saw pain in his eyes and it was strange because she had never thought he cared about anybody. “Don’t go to your parents. Stay here and work. Work is the best cure. We’re moving to our new offices soon. Look, see how nice the building is? You can see it from the window. You’ll have your own office. You can decorate it any way you want to and I’ll pay for it. You don’t have to work at all while you’re decorating it. Keeping busy is the only cure, believe me.”

“I’m going,” she said. “I just wanted to say good-bye and thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”

“Don’t.”

“Well, good-bye,” she said.

“Look,” he said, “if you have to go, I have this nice little house at Malibu where Lizzie and I used to spend weekends when we lived in California. It’s open, and there’s a live-in housekeeper. You might as well use it since it’s going to waste anyway. It’s all alone on the beach, the neighbors won’t bother you. I’ll get you the plane ticket. Go there for a couple of weeks and lie on the beach in the sun. It’s nice in California this time of year. You need a vacation anyway, you’ve been here a year.”

A year? Was it a year? Just a little over a year since she’d come to New York, and so many things had happened. Time got condensed in this business. She thought about the house. It would be nicer than a hotel, nobody to bother her. Besides, she didn’t have much money saved, and even on a deserted island it wouldn’t last long.

“Stay in the house as long as you like,” Libra said. “There’s a phone, you can keep in touch.”

“No, thank you anyway,” she said. “You’ll call me every day about business, and I’m quitting. I can’t stay in your house free and not talk to you about business. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“Fair? What’s fair? Shut up.” Libra reached for the phone. “You can leave tonight. Go home and pack.”

“I am packed.”

“Then you’ll leave this afternoon. I’ll send you to the airport in my limousine with Lizzie for company. You take a cab from the airport and there’s a car at the house with the keys in it. The housekeeper shops, so you won’t starve. There are books and records at the house, a color TV set, and a small projection room with a whole library of films.”

“Just a simple little bungalow?” Gerry said, smiling in spite of herself.

Vincent came along to the airport with her and Lizzie. He had let his eyebrows grow in and was wearing his hair combed like a boy. Without make-up, in a turtleneck sweater and jeans, he looked like a very pretty faggot, but not like a girl any more. Lizzie almost didn’t recognize him. When Vincent carried her bags to the baggage scale, Lizzie said to Gerry: “Has he ever done it with a girl?”

“Oh, no.”

“Hmmm,” Lizzie said, looking at Vincent’s broad shoulders from the back, and smacked her lips.

They kissed her good-bye and Lizzie cried. “I’ll take care of the apartment,” Vincent promised. “Do you have your pills?”

“Yes.” She also had a bottle of Scotch in her airline bag. “Take care of yourself, and lift your weights every day. Don’t forget to go to the gym and swim every morning. Write to me; don’t phone, it costs too much.”

“I love you,” Vincent murmured, and tears spilled out of his eyes. They all knew she was never coming back, even though she hadn’t said anything. Gerry kissed him again.

“There’s a whole wine cellar,” Lizzie said. “Under the sink in the bar. Feel free.”

“Thank you. Good-bye. Good-bye.”

Buckled into her seat in the first-class cabin of the plane, Gerry realized it was the first time she had been alone since it happened. She wondered if the plane would crash. She really didn’t care, except it would be a shame for all the other people. They wanted to go on. She didn’t care one way or the other; she just would go on because that was what you did, that was all. She drank the free Scotches they gave her, and the free wine and champagne, washed down with a tranquillizer (one every four hours, the label said) and she fell asleep. When she woke up she was in California with a hangover.

The house was lovely and small, set high on the dunes above Malibu Beach, with a little garden in front that was sunny all day long, and its own private strip of beach. There were houses on either side, but nobody bothered her. The housekeeper, evidently briefed by Libra, kept to herself, requesting only a list of the week’s menus, which Gerry forgot to give her, so the housekeeper planned and cooked all the meals at her own discretion and did the shopping before Gerry woke up in the morning. Gerry chose Libra’s bedroom for herself because it looked out at the sea. It had a king-sized bed with blue sheets, and the colors of the room were blue and green, like the sea, with a vase of fresh flowers from the garden in a crystal vase on the dresser. In the mornings when she woke, the housekeeper brought her breakfast on a tray, and afterwards Gerry would take the morning papers, also brought by the housekeeper, and read them on the front porch in the sun. She lay in the sun for hours, with a bottle of wine by her side, stupefied with the heat and the quiet and the excellent wine (Libra always had the best of taste) and wrote crazy poems in her head. At first the poems were full of violence and hate.

There was a wood-paneled den (the one with the color TV) with a typewriter and paper in it, so she began to write her poems. They were terrible, but they made her feel better. She wrote every afternoon, half drunk, then took a nap, showered, and ate dinner in front of the television set. She watched anything. The housekeeper showed her how to operate the projection machine for the films, but at first Gerry was too numb to bother. But finally, out of curiosity and boredom, she began to show films for herself, all the good ones she had missed during the years she was away in Europe. She kept Scotch and ice by her side, and sometimes if she liked a film she showed it over three or four nights in a row. There was something strangely satisfying about seeing the same characters up there on the screen, doing the same predictable things. It was like having people in the house with her. She found a Zak Maynard film among the collection and was surprised that her professional curiosity was still with her. She showed it twice. He wasn’t such a bad actor after all. She wondered if Silky would be good in the film version of Mavis!

Silky wrote to her occasionally, although she was a terrible letter writer and could never think of anything to say. She wrote whatever news there was in New York, but Gerry was more interested in hearing from Silky than in the news, which seemed far away and unreal. Silky’s husband, Bobby, had been a hit in his first solo dance appearance on the TV special, and was going to do a summer replacement series as lead dancer, with billing. Some variety show. Silky was thrilled.

Vincent wrote too, almost every day. His news was entirely different: it was as if he and Silky inhabited different planets. He couldn’t care less what went on in New York or show business.

“Marcia the Sex Change had to go to the hospital because her silicone started to slip,” he wrote. “When she got there they made her take off her wig with the hundred and fifty falls, and she’s all bald underneath, just an old bald man. They didn’t know whether to put her in the ward with the women or the men. She said she had to go with the women because she had it lopped off. So there she was, with all those women, an old bald man, six feet four, with sliding tits. What a mess!”

Vincent was afraid to go to the bars with his new look, for fear the queens would laugh at him, so his whole life was spent on the telephone keeping up with his world. He lifted his weights, had gained fifteen pounds, grown another inch, and was becoming quite a good swimmer. “Guess what?” he wrote. “I met this really nice boy at the gym. He’s straight. He says he hates nelly fruits and drag queens. He likes me. I didn’t tell him I used to be Bonnie Parker. He would have died. He took me out twice this week, to straight restaurants for dinner, and nobody laughed or stared at us or anything. I’m letting my hair grow long like a hippie, and I’m growing a moustache. It’s funny how when I didn’t want a moustache it came in too fast, but now that I want one it’s coming in too slow. A girl flirted with me at the supermarket this morning! Poor sick freak!”

Girls were beginning to look at him. Wow! Girls would look at anything, Gerry decided, but she was still pleased. Maybe Vincent had a movie career ahead of him after all, maybe even in another year. Teen-agers liked effeminate-looking boys, they weren’t such a threat.

She noticed (on Libra’s doctor’s scale in the bathroom) that she was gaining weight from drinking so much, so she cut down to a few drinks a day and told the housekeeper not to cook anything rich. It was pleasant to be cared for, waited on, coddled. She wrote a postcard to her parents, telling them she was taking a vacation in Malibu (they never had known about her and Mad Daddy because she was keeping the news from them until after his divorce). She wrote brief letters to Silky and Vincent and Libra and Lizzie. She wrote more poems, not so angry now, sadder and more fanciful. They were just as terrible as her angry ones, but she kept them all because the growing pile of papers made her feel she was doing something besides vegetate.

She read a few magazines because they were piling up, and finally she began to read some of Libra’s books. She liked history the best because she didn’t have to relate it to anything in her life. It was another world. Libra had put reruns of all Mad Daddy’s old shows on television, so she stopped watching TV early and began to get more sleep. The pills were wonderful. She tried not to think too much. The pills made her so stoned before she fell asleep that one night she wandered into the den and turned on Mad Daddy’s midnight show. It made her hysterical and she took a bottle of Scotch and a glass and went wandering off along the beach by herself, drinking and sobbing, until she was lost.

She found herself in front of a house where a party was going on. People were running around the beach and in and out of the lighted house. A man saw her.

“Hey,” he said. “Come join the party.”

“Why not?”

She looked terrible: no make-up (she never wore any here) and all teary and red-eyed, wearing her nightgown, but she went in anyway. Everyone seemed young and tanned and pretty. They were wearing far-out clothes, and nobody seemed to notice or care that she was wearing a nightgown. They thought it was just a hippie dress. She got some ice for the Scotch she had brought, found some cigarettes, and sat on the couch, trying to focus her eyes. Some men spoke to her and she smiled, trying not to act too stoned. There was loud music, and people were dancing. Someone asked her to dance and she refused, afraid she would get sick. She got up to find more ice and suddenly there was Dick Devere, on his way from another room, looking very tan and happy.

“Gerry!” He smiled with delight. “I didn’t know you were in California. How long have you been here?”

“A little over five weeks, I think.”

He put his arm around her. Was this Dick, whom she’d once loved? She hardly knew. “How are you, Gerry?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “I’m so happy. Everything is going so well for me. My film is going to be wonderful. I’ve been investing in the stock market, and I’ve made a bundle of money. I have a stock for you to buy, it’s great …”

She drew away from him. He didn’t know anything about what had happened to her, and if he did he wouldn’t care. He went on babbling about his stock and how rich he was going to be. “I’ve bought a house in the Hills, and I have a Japanese houseboy,” he went on. “I’ve always wanted a Japanese houseboy. I’m so happy. This is my year!”

“Good,” she said absently, but he had already rushed away, leaving her standing there.

“That is a nightgown, isn’t it?” someone said. She turned and saw a boy, not a bad-looking boy, just a boy. Some movie actor, she couldn’t place him. She nodded. “Why don’t you take it off?”

She moved away from him, into another room, which turned out to be the bedroom. The lights were dim in there, and she could see couples lying on the floor, and five people on the large bed. She thought at first they had all passed out; then she realized they were having sex, all of them, in pairs and groups. There was something singularly detached and dreamlike about their actions, not entirely the result of her foggy state—it was they who were out of it, not her. Naked, they looked like strange fish underwater, perhaps octopi. Music came from a speaker on the wall. A uniformed maid came in with food and drinks, passing among the bodies as if there was nothing unusual about it. An arm reached from the tangle on the bed and took a glass from the maid.

She had run away to find a desert island and she had found it; right here, except none of them seemed to know it. Entwined, making occasional faint slurping and moaning sounds, they were as far away from each other as any shipwrecked person alone. It was odd how little it affected her, when only a year ago she had been shocked to discover Lizzie Libra going off into a bedroom at a party with Zak Maynard. But that had been people she knew … that had at least been two people who knew the other was alive.

The boy from the living room came up to her and kissed her on the ear. She recoiled, but he had his arm around her. She let him kiss her mouth, wondering if she would like it. It had been so long since she had felt a human touch, and she was so lonely … She felt nauseous and pulled away from him. He had little eyes, like a pig. He was nothing; just a body, a body that could die any minute. This room was more filled with death than the nightmare of her mind had been these past weeks, and these people were alive!

“Hey!” he said. He was drunk, or drugged, or both, and he was holding her nightgown. She heard it rip as she ran from him into the lighted living room, but she was still wearing it, it was just torn. He ran after her. “Hey!”

“You ripped my dress,” Gerry said.

“Nightgown.”

“It’s a dress. Go away.”

Another boy came up to her, trying to grab her, and she ran away from them into the bathroom. Three men were in there, standing in front of the large marble sink, fully dressed. They were so occupied with what they were doing that they didn’t notice her. All three had their pants open and their penises out on the edge of the sink, measuring themselves and marking off the length with an eyebrow pencil. One man was short and he had to stand on his toes to get his equipment on the sink. The second man she recognized instinctively from his reflection in the mirror as another of those faceless super-beauties who roam the Sunset Strip waiting to be discovered as an overnight movie star. The third man was Dick Devere.

“I win,” Dick said. “By nearly an inch, and it’s not even fully hard yet.” He began stroking himself.

“Let me do that,” the would-be-star said, and got down on his knees in front of Dick and took it in his mouth. Dick looked down and watched in bliss, his legs spread apart and his arms folded over his chest like the Jolly Green Giant.

Gerry stared at them, feeling that it was all totally unreal. The scene was like something from a dirty fresco in Pompeii—this couldn’t be the man she had loved, the super-romantic who broke so many girls’ hearts … But it was, it was Dick Devere. And all she felt was a little bit sick and a little bit sorry for him because now she suspected that no matter how much he had made those girls suffer, he was going to suffer even more for the rest of his life. She fled.

She ran out of the house, and when she was safely away she wandered the rest of the way home walking in the cold surf. The sounds and music faded away behind her. The other houses were quiet and dark, the way houses should be. The black sky over the ocean was filled with stars and a few lovely night clouds. Oh, Mad Daddy, Mad Daddy, where were you? Were you a star up there? She prayed to believe it was so. She would pick a star and it would be him, watching over her forever.

When she saw her house in the distance she was glad to see it. It seemed like her house now, a peaceful haven. It wasn’t lonely or frightening any more. The star shone serenely overhead. When she got to the house she wanted to write another poem, about the star, but she was too dizzy, so she fell into bed and was asleep instantly.

“What day is it?” she asked the housekeeper the next morning.

“May twenty-third.”

“May?” She’d been there longer than she’d thought. She tried to think of something to say to the housekeeper, to keep her there for a moment more. “How do you like working for Mr. Libra?”

“It’s a job. Is the egg all right? Too soft?”

“No, it’s fine. How long have you worked for him?”

“Since my husband died.”

“When was that?”

“Oh, six years ago next December.”

It was hard to think of conversation after so long, and the woman evidently wasn’t eager to talk. “I guess it’s boring here all alone,” Gerry said.

“No. I have friends.”

“I don’t know much about him,” Gerry said.

“Who?”

“Mr. Libra.”

The housekeeper smiled. She was a plump middle-aged woman. “I don’t know much about him either, and I’ve known him all my life.”

“You have?”

“Oh, didn’t you know? I’m his sister.”

“His sister?” She sounded so dumb, just repeating everything.

“Sam takes care of his family,” the housekeeper said. Gerry couldn’t decide if the woman sounded bitter or proud.

“He takes care of me, too,” Gerry said. “That was nice of him, wasn’t it?”

“Who knows what’s nice and what’s guilt?”

“I’m not his girl friend, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Who said girl friend? People can feel guilty about some people and be nice to other people to make up for it.” The woman shrugged.

“Who does he feel guilty about?”

“Don’t ask me. I don’t run around in his circles. Believe me, I wouldn’t live in New York if you paid me. I lived a beautiful life for twenty-two years with the same man, I have two married daughters, I don’t hang around with show people. Who knows what he does in New York?”

Who, indeed? Gerry thought.

The housekeeper took the breakfast tray. “Why don’t you take the car and go for a ride? It’s not good for a young girl to stay cooped up here day after day. Go ahead, I don’t need it. It’s not good to sit and think all the time; it makes you morbid. Go sightsee a little. California is beautiful.” She left the room, humming: a woman who had done her good deed for the day by dispensing advice, and therefore had made the world a little bit brighter. I bet he would pay her not to live in New York, Gerry thought. He does!

She dressed and took Libra’s car, which she had never driven, and drove down the Pacific Coast Highway, looking for the supermarket the housekeeper (no, it was Libra’s sister, she’d have to start thinking of her as his sister now, but it was impossible: they were so unalike), the housekeeper always went to. It must be in the other direction. She found a piece of beach with kids surfing, and she went to sit there, watching them. They looked happy, and they made her feel happy just watching them, even though none of them noticed her. They must think she was an older woman. She bought a hot dog and a Coke and ate them on the beach. What a bore the beach was! Why hadn’t she realized it before? She was so tan she looked like Silky. She couldn’t get any darker, so why roast? She’d never much liked swimming, except to cool off. She wouldn’t dream of surfing—you could drown or get a tooth knocked out. I sound like Libra, she thought, and laughed. She realized she missed Libra. She wondered who he had hired in her place, and if the girl was as good as she was. She wondered if he missed her.

That night Vincent called, collect.

“I told you not to call,” Gerry said.

“It’s collect. I miss you. What are you doing?”

“Nothing. Resting.”

“Is it boring?”

“Sort of.”

“Well, it’s boring here,” Vincent said. “I got the air conditioner fixed because it broke again. We had a hot day. The man said this is the last time he can fix it and you’d better get another.”

What do I need another for? Gerry thought. I’m never coming home. “What else is new?” she said.

“I got some pictures taken. I’m sending you one. I met this writer, he’s gay, his name is Mr. Emerald, and he says they’re making a movie of one of his books and he wants me to read for the boy. It’s sort of an effeminate boy, like me.”

“You’re not to read for any effeminate boys!” Gerry said. “Do you want to blow your whole career before you even start? I don’t want you to come out until you’re hatched. Next year, next year, when you’ve finished growing up, I’m going to make you a sex symbol. I don’t want you identified with any fruits.”

“Well, Gerry, I can’t do anything without you,” Vincent said, pathetically but not whining. “I don’t know what to do unless you’re here to tell me. I need you.”

“You just stay there and do what I told you. Tell him you can’t read for the part. Promise me.”

“All right. But he says I’d be perfect.”

“How many effeminate-boy parts do you think there are in the movies?” she said, angry. “One? Two? Do you want to work or not?”

“Of course I want to.”

“Then you’ll wait. You can play plenty of college boys—next year. Maybe even this winter. Send me that picture.”

“Okay. I’ll mail it tomorrow. When are you coining home? I miss you.”

“You’d better say good-bye—this is costing Mr. Libra a lot of money. Thanks for calling. I’ll write to you.”

“Good-bye,” Vincent said sadly.

“Good-bye. I miss you too, you silly thing. You know I do. Be good. Send me the picture.”

She hung up. The hell with him. She wasn’t his mother. She was through with the business. She made herself a big Scotch and soda and went into the projection room. There was an old movie she remembered seeing one night and she wanted to run it again. It would be great as a remake, updated a little. The lead would be perfect for Vincent. A pretty, rather shallow, innocent-looking college boy who turned out to be a psychopathic killer. Who would ever suspect Vincent with his sweet face and soft voice? Perfect offbeat casting … next year, of course. Not that she would ever get involved in any project like that, or any project at all, for that matter, ever again. She was through.

The next few days passed in a boring haze of sun, naps, her poems (they were worse than terrible! she decided, and really getting juvenile because she seemed to have run out of ideas), and half-hearted dips in the ocean. She felt as though her brain had become baked by the sun. It was hard to think of anything. Libra’s books bored her. Magazines bored her. She’d seen all the films in Libra’s film library at least twice. It was getting hot in California now, and she took long drugged naps. She was running out of tranquillizers and sleeping pills and decided to try to get along without them. She was becoming a vegetable anyway, with no one but that grouchy woman to talk to. She watched the neighbors on either side, and they seemed very domestic, with children and children’s friends, barbecues on their front lawns … very dull. She asked the housekeeper how to get to the supermarket and discovered there was a shopping center. She drove there.

There was a stationery store, so she stopped in and bought a copy of Variety. The newspapers were boring, what with all the fuss about the forthcoming elections and the conventions. It would be good to read about something else for a change. There was also a beauty parlor, so she went in and had her hair trimmed, the sun-bleached ends snipped off.

“Your hair is sick,” the man said.

“Sick?”

“Sick from the sun. You must have a conditioning treatment. Your hair is human too, you mustn’t make it sick.”

Shades of Mr. Nelson. What had ever happened to Mr. Nelson?

“I’ve never seen you here before,” the man said, slathering some ill-smelling goo on her hair. “Do you live around here?”

Where did she live? “I’m visiting,” she said.

“Now the heating cap. I’ve never seen such terrible sick hair. I will make it well.”

Now he sounded like Ingrid the Lady Barber-Doctor. What had happened to Ingrid? Probably still giving poor Libra his shots.

“Oh, Variety. Are you in show business?”

“No.”

“Your husband?”

“This isn’t a wedding ring,” Gerry said. Her heart turned over and she covered Mad Daddy’s forget-me-not ring with her other hand. Still … where was the sharp pain she had become accustomed to every time she looked at the ring? Gone. A dull ache, which would always be there, but the terrible stabbing pain was gone. She opened Variety so the man would go away.

She told him not to bother setting her hair, and just let it dry straight. She thought she looked dowdy. She was getting hopeless. But who was here to see her? After the beauty parlor she went to the liquor store and looked around, but she was tired of Scotch. Scotch was medicine, for pain. She hated the taste. She bought two bottles of champagne.

When she got back to the house the housekeeper said there had been a long-distance call from New York. Oh God, Vincent again, Gerry thought. But it wasn’t Vincent; it was Silky.

“How are you?” Gerry said.

“Fine. How are you?”

“Okay …”

“I’ll tell you why I called,” Silky said. “Libra says you’re still working for him, even though you say you’re not, so I just thought you’d like to know I’ve quit him.”

“When? Why? Where are you going?”

“Oh, all the agencies are after me—I’ll decide after I’ve talked to a few of them. I only quit old Libra today.” She sounded much different, surer of herself, even though she still had the same soft voice.

“What happened?”

“Well, you know, Gerry, I’m just sick and tired of the way that man treats me. He’s never for one minute treated me as if I’m a human being. Even my wedding … well, that was nice of him and we’re grateful, but it was really like I’m something he owns that he was showing off, something he created. He doesn’t think I have any brains at all. He thinks I’m dumb. If I didn’t have talent in the first place, I don’t care how hard he would have pushed me … well, that’s water over the bridge. Anyway, Bobby and I have gotten very interested in politics. It’s our country after all—we’re the people under twenty-five, it’s up to us to do something to make it better. That’s what I tried to explain to Mr. Libra. I just wanted to endorse McCarthy, that’s all. Somebody asked me, because I’m a name, so I said sure. I was going to sing at a rally to raise money. Everybody’s doing it for somebody. Well, Libra went crazy. He was so mad he was running around screaming and yelling, like he always does but worse, and he said I don’t belong in politics, that a star can’t have opinions, that I’m too stupid to have opinions, that I have no right … all that crap. And all of a sudden I just got fed up with him. I wasn’t afraid of him any more. I realized he only makes me unhappy and I can’t work with him any more. So I quit.”

“Wow.”

“What do you think?”

“I’m surprised.”

“No, I mean what do you think about what he said?”

“Well … I think he was wrong.”

“I knew you’d understand,” Silky said. “You have no idea how good I feel to be rid of him. When are you coming home?”

“Soon, I think,” Gerry lied.

“Good. Call me as soon as you get in and come have lunch at the apartment. I’ve fixed it up a little and it’s cute. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. Thanks for calling me.”

They hung up. Gerry lit a cigarette. Libra really blew it this time, she thought. I could have kept Silky. She’d work for me.

My God, she thought. She stubbed out the cigarette after one puff. For the first time since she’d come to California she felt alive, interested in something. How could Libra have been so stupid? He thought he was the only one who could change people, Geppetto the puppet-maker, and he never realized that life changed people, and that they could also change themselves. He’d been so sure of himself that he’d never even bothered to look at Silky and see that she was changing into a woman; she wasn’t his little girl from the gutter any more. She hadn’t been that for ages.

I thought it was the life I hated, Gerry thought, but it wasn’t the life that dealt me a blow, it was just life. Mad Daddy could just as easily have been hit by a car, God forbid, or had a heart attack. I could have been engaged to an accountant and he could have been mugged. But if it wasn’t for my job I might have been engaged to an accountant, or to nobody, because I never would have met Mad Daddy at all. I wouldn’t have not met him and not loved him for anything. I can’t blame the business for the bad thing that happened to me … but I can thank it for a lot of the good things. I can’t stay here and rot another minute. Whatever else is meant for me, I can’t let this be my life.

She went into the kitchen and told the housekeeper to chill one of the bottles of champagne and bring it to her in the bedroom. Waste not, want not. Then she called the airline for a reservation on the midnight flight to New York that would get her there in the morning, and she started to pack.

She had forgotten how lovely New York was on a spring morning. Central Park was getting green, the days would be long again, the air sometimes even smelled good. Vincent (whom she’d called from California before she caught the plane) had actually cleaned the apartment for her return, and even waxed the floors. He had hung a new eleven-by-fourteen photo of himself on the wall with Scotch tape (he wouldn’t dream of spending his own money for a frame) and under it he had printed VINCENT STONE. He was halfway to paradise now: never to be mistaken for a girl again, more easily to be taken for a very handsome young man—perhaps not too virile yet, but no more asexual than a lot of other boys she’d seen walking hand in hand with their equally asexual girl friends. No … he was more sexual than they were … Bonnie’s cuddly, animal quality lingered; he would be sexy whoever he was. She watched him while he cooked breakfast, so pleased and gratified by the changes in his appearance that she could hardly take her eyes off him.

“How do I look?” Vincent asked. “What do you think of me?”

“I’m thrilled. I don’t know whether to thank nature or me.”

“It’s both,” Vincent said, flexed a bicep, and giggled.

“Don’t ever giggle,” she said. “Please.”

“Haw, haw, haw,” Vincent said, very basso profundo, and then they both giggled.

Gerry tossed her clothes out of the suitcase onto the bed so they would not be too wrinkled, took a quick shower, and called the office to say she would be in at ten thirty.

She liked the new office building because she had never seen it before, it had no memories, it would be a new start. Everything was very modern and spotless, with the smell of new paint. The glass doors to the reception room had a small astrological sign painted on them, the scales, and above them: LIBRA, in gold letters. It occurred to her that Libra probably wasn’t his real name, that he might have invented Sam Leo Libra just as he had invented all his clients. There was so much she still didn’t know about the man, even after all this time. She was going to have to try to know him better now. It would be interesting.

Libra came out, in immaculate silky gray, his maroon hair damp and glistening, his skin smelling faintly of a cologne that was like freshly cut grass. He gave her a great smile (oh, beautiful King Kong, foolish, pig-headed genius!) and said: “It’s about time.”

He showed her the office which was to be hers, unfurnished except for a telephone and a horrid metal desk (that would have to be replaced) and took her into his office to talk.

“That nitwit I hired while you were gone is driving me crazy,” he said. “You’re lucky. But she’s too pretty to fire, so I’m keeping her on to do some of the dull secretarial work so you’ll have more time for the important things.”

Gerry knew him well enough now to know he was leading up to something—he never gave something for nothing. She waited, smiling a pretty thank you.

“Silky’s left me,” he said.

“I know.”

“Oh?”

“She called me last night in California.”

“Good,” he said. “You’re still friends. Coffee?”

“Please.”

He poured her a cup of coffee and she noticed that his office was much like his old office had been, with expensive, tasteful accessories, flowers, and the free breakfast assortment on a table. Sylvia Polydor’s picture hung over the black leather couch.

“When are you going to see Silky?” he asked.

“Probably this week. I’m to call her.”

“You call her now and see her today. I want you to get her back.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Of course you can,” Libra said. “You’re her best friend. You can get her back on the basis of your friendship. Tell her how hurt you are that she’s left the office.”

“I can’t do that,” Gerry said. “I’m sorry she’s left, but I think you were wrong to speak to her the way you did. You can’t keep hurting people and expect them to keep taking it.”

Libra glared. “And me? What about me? Don’t I get hurt? Am I inhuman? I am very hurt at Silky’s ingratitude. Without me she’d be nothing. I made her. All those stars think that when they get big they can turn around and do it all on their own. They don’t know how fast they’ll come running back whimpering for advice. She’s doing a stupid thing, a stupid thing.”

“Nobody likes to be called stupid all the time,” Gerry said mildly.

“So she took something the wrong way. She’s probably under the influence of that hustler she married. Next thing he’ll be wanting to be her manager. He’ll ruin her. You have to go to her and explain the facts of life … sweetly, of course, as you do so well.”

“What do you want me to tell her?”

“To come back. To come back because she’s your friend and you’re her friend. You know what to do.”

“Would you be willing to apologize?” Gerry asked.

“No. But you can apologize for me. That’s one of the things I pay you for.”

“All right—I’ll try.”

“You can do it. Oh, by the way.…”

She stopped at the door and turned.

“You’d better start looking for office furniture and things,” Libra said. “Charge them to me, I take it off my taxes.”

“Thank you.” Thank you for nothing, she thought, knowing it was just a bribe. She went into her office and called Silky, and arranged to see her at one thirty.

Funny, Gerry thought as she went to Silky’s apartment, she and Silky probably were each other’s best friend, but neither of them had been to the other’s apartment, ever. In this business the people you worked with became your best friends, and sometimes it was the other way around, but how little they bothered to know about each other’s private lives! When I get Silky back, she thought … No, if I get her back … we’ll have to start to know each other better on all levels.

Silky and Bobby were waiting for her in the apartment, a star-type place with a terrace. They really were a stunning couple, no matter what Libra thought of Bobby, and they seemed to love each other very much.

“Coffee or champagne?” Silky said.

“Whatever you’re having.”

“Sha, let’s have champagne; you’re back.”

Bobby brought a bottle from the refrigerator, opened and poured it. He’s very fetch-and-carry, Gerry thought, but definitely the man in this house. She didn’t know how to begin saying what she had come to say.

“What did Libra say?” Silky asked.

“About you?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” Gerry said, “he’s very sorry and he apologizes.”

“You bet he’s sorry,” Bobby said.

“I’m in a funny position,” Gerry said. “Libra feels terrible about your falling-out and wants you back, and naturally I feel terrible about losing you, too, because you’re my best friend. I think you’re absolutely right to object to the way Libra treats you, but on the other hand I think our office is in the best position to help you because we’re so good. If you did consider coming back to us I can promise you that I’ll be the buffer between you and Libra and see that he never mistreats you again.”

Silky shook her head and looked at Bobby.

“I’m going to tell you the facts of life,” Bobby said to Gerry. “Do you want to listen?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. First of all, if you’re Silky’s friend you’ll be her friend whether or not she comes back to the office, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay. Now, what Silky needs right now is not a friend, she needs a manager. If you’re willing to be Silky’s manager, then she’ll sign with you, not with Libra, with you. That means you, not Libra, not you fronting for Libra—you. You know what to do, you’ve had enough experience. She trusts you. But she wants a separate contract, with you. Her contract with Libra has run out, so you’re in the clear.”

“I think he’d kill me,” Gerry said. She drank her champagne and Bobby poured more.

“This is a tough business, girl,” Bobby said. “This isn’t a business for friends; it’s for business people. Life is tough. You have to have guts or you’re nowhere. You can’t be a little girl forever, expecting people to be nice because they like you. That isn’t business, that’s social life. You have to grow up. You have to be tough.”

“That’s true,” Silky said. She held out her empty glass and Bobby filled it.

“I think you can be tough,” Bobby said. “You’re just too used to doing other people’s work for them without taking any credit. If you can be tough enough to handle Silky’s career, and do a good job, then sign her yourself. Otherwise she goes to another agency. There’s your choice.”

I like him, Gerry thought. He’s going to go somewhere and he knows it. I can’t lose Silky. I’d be a fool if I did. He’s right. I can handle Silky and Vincent, and Bobby too, and then if Libra kills me I can have my own clients and start my own agency. I think I’m going to be sick.

“What do you say?” Silky said.

“Do you want to sign with me?”

“Yes.”

“All right. I’ll sign you. To me, not to Libra.”

“Great!” Silky said. They shook hands. Gerry stopped feeling sick and began to feel excited.

“Bobby—you don’t have a manager yet, do you?” Gerry said.

“Not yet.”

“Will you sign with me, too?”

“I’d be glad to.”

“All right, it’s a deal. But remember—this isn’t two against one; I’m handling both your careers separately.”

“You’re learning,” Bobby said approvingly, and they shook hands.

“I’ll draw up the contracts this afternoon,” Gerry said. “You’ll give me the same percentage you formerly gave Mr. Libra.”

“You’re really learning,” Bobby said, grinning. “Agreed.”

“Agreed, Silky?”

“Absolutely.”

They all shook hands again, a little high, and killed the bottle. Gerry made a dinner date with them for the end of the week, and went back to the office to face Libra.

Libra was waiting in his office. He had changed his suit and his hair was damp. “You look pleased with yourself,” he said. “I take it she’s coming back.”

“Not exactly. She is coming back, but she’s signing with me. I’m sorry, but it’s the best I could do. I’m also signing Bobby La Fontaine.”

“For what? I don’t want him for my twelfth client.”

“He won’t be. He’ll be my second client. Silky will be my first.”

Libra stood up, enraged. “Your client? What do you mean, your client?”

“She said it was that or nothing. So it’s that.”

He thought for a minute and then sat down again. “I suppose you’re right. You have a good head. I don’t mind; you can handle her. She’s gotten too obnoxious for me to bother with anyway.”

“The other thing is, I want Silky’s thirty per cent commission. She’s agreed.”

“You’re dreaming,” Libra said.

“No I’m not.”

“Then I’m dreaming. You didn’t say that.”

“I did. Silky’s and Bobby’s.”

“Bobby you can have. He’s nothing, he’s nobody, you can operate his career out of your desk drawer. But you can’t take Silky’s commission! I’ve treated you just like a daughter. I made you what you are today. What were you before I gave you a chance—a two-bit flack?”

“A publicist,” Gerry said calmly. “Thirty per cent.”

“Look at everything I’ve done for you!”

“You’re not my father and I’m not your daughter. That was my salary, not my allowance. I’m handling Silky and doing all the work, so I want the commission.”

“Presents, cars, the use of my house …”

“I worked twelve hours a day. Sometimes more. Thirty per cent.”

“Fifteen. The other fifteen is mine for overhead, the use of the office, the use of my name.”

“Your name is the last thing Silky wants.”

“You see how far you get in this business without my name. Fifteen per cent.”

“Twenty,” Gerry said.

Their eyes locked. She felt nothing, no fear, no sickness, no shaking; just a mild exhilaration at the contest. They were two business people sitting down to a business conversation. He wasn’t Big Daddy Libra any more and never would be again.

“All right, twenty,” Libra said.

“It’s a deal,” Gerry said. “For now.”

Libra shook his head. “I’ve created Frankenstein’s monster.”

“And by the way,” Gerry said, ignoring that, “while I was in California I had an idea for a package we can put together, a remake of a film I saw at your house. I’ll check on the rights. There’s a boy I want you to see. I think he’d be perfect.”

“Who is he?”

“A client of mine. His name is Vincent Stone.”

“All right, bring him in and I’ll have a look at him. Vincent who?”

“Vincent Stone.”

“You can’t go picking up clients off the street,” Libra said. “That’s no way to run a business.”

“As you told me yourself,” Gerry said, “that’s how you got started.” She smiled prettily at him and went back to her office to type up the contracts.

She buzzed the new secretary to bring in the standard forms, and typed in the changes that signed Silky, Bobby, and Vincent over to her as their publicist-personal manager. She found a rubber stamp in the desk drawer to stamp the squares where they would initial the changes. It looked a lot more professional than the piece of paper Libra had typed up himself the time he had signed Bonnie Parker, and she was pleased. Her first real clients!

She realized, then, that along with everybody else, except Libra who would never change, she had changed. She wasn’t just an experienced assistant any more, she was a business person. It wasn’t what she’d planned, or dreamed, or even thought life would be, but it wasn’t bad, either. This wasn’t the end, but the beginning. All this time she’d been working to make other people famous, but it had turned out to be her fame game too.

She found herself smiling. She’d do the office in blue and white, with a couple of kinky antiques from that place Dick had sent her to last year, and there was a Robert Indiana poster that said LOVE on it that would look nice over the couch. She certainly wasn’t going to put an oil painting of Silky over it the way Libra had with Sylvia Polydor. That might make him froth at the mouth. But an eleven-by-fourteen photo of Silky framed on the wall would be nice, and one of Bobby, and she was sure Vincent had more of the one he’d hung in their apartment. When he got some money, Vincent would have to get his own apartment. She didn’t want gossip. After all, everyone was supposed to think Vincent was a sex symbol, and it wouldn’t do for him to be shacked up with his manager. Everyone would think he’d made it in the business because they were lovers, and that certainly wasn’t the way her clients were going to get ahead.