27

The studio where they were making the commercial was one of those nondescript show business warehouses in the West Fifties. Painted on the side of the building was what looked to Melanie like a television station’s test pattern. Over the door there was a cast-iron arch the color of a penny that’s been in the street for a long time. Other than the cryptic logo on the eastern wall, there was no sign on the place, except some equally cryptic lettering on the window in the door: LBHS ENTERPRISES.

Low budget, hard sell? Melanie wondered as she pushed the buzzer,

She had dressed for the occasion, in a straight skirt and a ruffled blouse, every button of which she had secured. Her hair she had pulled back into a bun, yanking so sharply with her comb that the skin at the sides of her eyes still felt as though she’d peeled off adhesive bandages there.

Now she waited patiently at the door for the fat guy with the cigar in his mouth to appear.

But instead she was greeted by a tall, slender woman smoking a cigarillo who sidled into the door’s bar handle with her hip, then held the door while Melanie stepped inside.

“Hi, I’m Melrose Lane,” said the woman.

“I’m Melanie Chisolm,” Melanie said. “I’m expected, I think. My agent called.”

“Whose doesn’t?” Melrose said with a shrug. She was young. Twenty-five or so, Melanie thought. It took a few seconds to take her all in. She had on a black leather miniskirt, stiletto-heeled black vinyl boots, and a calico patterned sweater that was either angora or proof that there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

Melrose had a look like Cher’s, and that together with her Nancy Sinatra boots suggested to Melanie someone who had started out singing the music and wound up facing it.

Following her guide up the steel stairs, which clanked underfoot like the cashboxes of Marley’s ghost, Melanie found herself in what seemed to be a studio. At one end of the room a couple of microphones on booms appeared to be eavesdropping. Someone was tinkering with the camera. A handful of people were standing around waiting.

The Borgia princess named after the L.A. avenue introduced Melanie to a guy named Ed, who was running things. Ed was wearing a polyester shirt with views of Paris printed on it, and enough gold chains to get through any New England blizzard if he wanted to put them on the tires of this car—which was no doubt a Cadillac Eldorado, Melanie thought.

If Dick Clark had aged, he might have looked like Ed. It was hard for Melanie to pin down Ed’s look, until something about him made her think of the half pint of milk she’d left in the back of her refrigerator for almost a month.

“You’re the bug?” Ed asked her.

“That’s right,” Melanie replied.

“Okay,” said Ed. Then he hollered, “Lucille,” and informed Melanie that Lucille would take care of her costume and makeup.

Lucille appeared and led Melanie to a dressing room. It was obvious to Melanie that Lucille was one of those people in the business who had spent years treating actors more or less the way a chambermaid treats a hotel room. While Lucille was gluing feelers to Melanie’s forehead, she complained in a singsong voice about life in general, beginning with her husband’s bad knees and ending with her own diverticulitis.

“My insides are all full of these little bubbles,” she explained.

A sound like that of a muffled drain came from somewhere below Lucille’s esophagus.

“See?” she said.

When Melanie finally emerged from the dressing room, looking, she thought, like one of the roaches on the side of a Roach Motel (done in, with an X across both eyes), Ed introduced her to Sid the Carpet Maven. He was stout, middle-aged, and balding, and dressed like Ali Baba, mostly in gold lame. All Melanie could think of was Mayor Daley out trick or treating.

“This should be pretty simple,” Ed said. “I’d like to see if we could get it in less than twenty-five takes.”

“I want it right,” Sid announced.

“Relax, you’re working with perfectionists,” Ed reassured him. “Sid, here, is going to deliver his pitch,” Ed informed Melanie. “He’ll finish with, ‘At the Carpet Maven’s, you’ll be snug as a bug in a rug.’ You’ll be reclining on the rug, and Sid’ll roll you up in it. Then you’ll stick your head out—big smile—and your arm, and you’ll wave.”

Melanie looked doubtfully at the thick broadloom on the stage. One of her feelers wavered.

“I don’t know about this,” she said.

“Trust me,” Ed said. “Just lie down there and relax, like you’re on the beach.”

“Like I’m the cardboard in a roll of toilet paper?” Melanie asked.

“You want to use a Method approach, it’s fine with me,” Ed replied.

“Think of yourself as a fly on a window shade that’s about to be rolled up,” Melrose put in.

“I won’t take that personally,” Melanie said. She sat down on the carpeting, gingerly. Up from her memory came a recollection of playing on the living-room rug as a child and sneezing violently.

“This carpet doesn’t have any dust in it, does it?” she asked. “I’m allergic to dust.”

“Are you kidding?” Sid replied with surprising fervor. “This piece is factory fresh, plus it’s an acrylic. It resists dust.”

“Bring that kind of feeling to your spiel and we’ll be all set,” Ed said.

“I always knew he had it in him,” Melrose said. Sid glanced at her reprovingly. Melanie pictured Sid shtupping Melrose while Lucille waited in the wings burping discreetly; what a rich tapestry of life the theater could be.

Sid pushed his eyeglasses back up to the bridge of his nose.

“Okay, are we set?” Ed asked.

“I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Melanie said.

“Then let’s give it a whirl,” said Ed. The lights came up, and snake-charming music wafted from the sound booth.

How did I ever come to this? Melanie thought. She thought of that commercial where Madge the manicurist tells her customer that she’s soaking in dishwashing detergent, remembered hearing somewhere that Madge had made a half-million dollars in residuals from that commercial so far, and took heart in spite of herself.

Sid seemed to have caught fire. He was pacing up and down and sounded as if he were speaking in tongues.

“Shop around!” he exhorted the darkness behind the camera. “Compare! Beat our prices per square yard anywhere else and we’ll give you, absolutely free, a matching velour bath mat and toilet-seat cover!”

Melanie saw Melrose watching with the interest of someone at the scene of an auto accident. She heard Sid shouting out the bug-in-a-rug slogan. Then he whirled around—his turban was askew and he was sweating—and came at Melanie like a steamroller.

In a matter of seconds she’d been caught up in the carpet and was somersaulting sideways, her mouth and eyes full of fibers. The momentum was too great. Melanie felt a moment of free fall, then a whump that made her see stars.

The carpet had rolled off the stage.

“Oops,” said Sid.

“Cut,” said Ed.

“Way to go, Sidney,” said Melrose.

Melanie lay there in the middle of the roll smothering to death.

She heard somebody saying, “You okay in there?”

“Mmmmmfff.”

Melanie felt the rug bumping clumsily, and herself revolving. Then she was again in the light and the air. She was dazed. She sneezed explosively three times. She shook her head.

“Acrylic…in a pig’s eye,” she muttered.

“Are you all right?” she heard.

“I’m pretty good,” Melanie replied. “For someone who just went over Niagara Falls in a barrel.” One of her feelers fell off. A stagehand helped her to her feet. Melrose was standing there with her clipboard.

“Lucille’s going to have to reglue that left feeler,” she said.

“Lucille went out to get a bottle of Pepto-Bismol,” said the stagehand.

“Oh great,” Melrose said.

“I’m not going to have my left feeler reglued,” Melanie said. “I’m going to sue Ed and Sidney and Abe my agent for everything they’ve got.”

“You don’t want to do that,” Melrose said without a trace of concern in her voice. “You’ll get a reputation for being difficult.”

Melanie sneezed again. “Okay, could I just have a Kleenex then?” she said.

“Get it in makeup,” Melrose replied.

“Here,” said the stagehand. “It’s clean.”

He handed Melanie a red bandanna.

“Thanks,” she said. She blew her nose loudly.

“All right, we can set things up again,” Melrose called out as she walked off.

“Heart of gold,” Melanie muttered. She offered to return the handkerchief, but the stagehand said to her, “Keep it.”

“Thanks a million,” Melanie said.

“Are you sure you’re really okay?” the stagehand asked.

“Nothing’s broken,” said Melanie. “Except my spirit.”

The stagehand reached down, picked up Melanie’s feeler, and very gently pressed it to her forehead. It stuck for a second and then flopped to the floor again.

“Smile,” said the stagehand.

Melanie looked at this guy who was being so sweet to her, really looked at him, and all of a sudden she didn’t have to make herself smile.

“You’re very kind,” Melanie said. “What’s your name?”

“Brett,” said the stagehand.

“I’m Melanie—what’s left of me is, anyway. I’ve got to get to makeup. Lucille’s probably back already with her Alka-Seltzer.”

“Pepto-Bismol.”

“Pepto-Bismol…look, maybe I’ll see you later.”

“Later,” Brett replied with a grin.

Later was right after the fifty-two takes it took to get the commercial done to Ed and Sid’s satisfaction. At the end Melanie felt every bit as spent and hollowed out as the cardboard inside the roll of toilet paper that had first occurred to her as the definitive interpretation of this particular part.

When Brett walked over to her and asked her how she was doing, she mentioned the cardboard. And he said to her, “You know, if you make a hole in one of those with a pencil, and stick a joint in it, it makes a pretty good pipe.”

“Really,” said Melanie, “I’ve never tried that.”

“Want to?” Brett asked.