NOVEMBER 17, 2002
MY SUMMER WITH THE MOVIE STAR
CHAPTER TWENTY (Cont.)
…He stopped the car about a block from my house, since it wasn't the weekend, and I wasn't officially supposed to be with him.
"Please calm down and listen," he said, after he turned off the ignition. "You, of all people, should know how desperately hard I am working on this book. But I will try to set aside some time for you this weekend. I know it's been a long time since we had a good talk."
"Another thing," he added, "I may be having some people up to the house, a meeting of a group Carol and I belong to. I may or I may not permit you to join our discussions."
"Oh, why not?" I asked him. Maybe I would find out what Phil was hinting at when he called the group "fringe type yo-yo's. "I'll just sit there quietly. You know I won't cause trouble."
"As demonstrated by losing consciousness at Carol's little séance?"
"I couldn't help that."
"I know you couldn't, and that is exactly why I am very careful about what I expose you to now." He reached across me and opened the car door. "Now please get out, and we will pick you up at the usual time on Friday. Don't forget yoga. They bill me whether you appear or not."
"I won't forget," I said, wandering off on the sidewalk, as he pulled away. I was only a block from my house, but I was as depressed as a dog or a cat that's been let out on the top of a mountain.
Maybe it all wasn't such a total loss. When I was in the yoga class, and he was registering me, I noticed one decent aspect. All the students had on these really superb, body-revealing black leotards. I supposed they would issue me one since I had been drafted into the class, and I wondered if I would look good in it.
Just as I lit up my last moldy, and say down on the curb about six houses from my place, he came circling back in his Cord automobile, speed shifting to slow down like some crazy teenager. So I had gotten his attention,I thought. He surely caught my despair, and sense of abandonment in the car.
"Get in, Sylvia," he said.
I flicked the ciggie into the gutter and got in.
I didn't say anything about his last minute return. In fact, I didn't even look at him. I just sat down and stared straight ahead. Obviously, I had made my point, and if I knew anything about Ezra Godland by now, it was that he liked to carry the conversational ball.
"I am aware, Sylvia, that you care for me," he said. He grasped my chin, and turned my face toward him. "But I am concerned about the depth of your caring. Do you care for me, Ezra, the man, or is it Ezra, who works in pictures, and is old enough to be the substitute father you are looking for? Which is it, Sylvia?"
"It's you," I said, looking down at my lap, and carefully avoiding calling him by name. I still couldn't bring myself to call him Ezra. But Mr. Godland seemed rather inappropriate, considering the subject matter. "I have always loved you in every movie I ever saw you in, and I saw every one of them. You are my idol. I--"
He interrupted me. "That's exactly what I mean, dear child. You are discussing me in terms of my work again. My fan club already has a president, Sylvia." With that, he gave me one of his typical sidelong, terribly bored, Ezra Godland looks, which included raising one eyebrow, something I have never been able to do.
"How else can I relate to you?" I asked. "I mean I never knew you before these last few weeks, and the only chance I ever had to see you was in the movies. What was I supposed to do? Sit on your front porch and wait for you to come out the front door?" I knew I was getting smart again, which he definitely does not like. But--surprise!--he laughed.
He started up the car, and staring straight ahead at the road, asked me,
"Would you like to belong to me, Sylvia?"
"You mean get married to you?" I asked, knowing better.
"No. I am too old to marry you. By belonging, I mean in every sense of the word, 'belonging.' When I ask you to go in a pool without your clothes on, you take off your clothes. You don't stand around inside the house for an hour debating the worth of my suggestion. If I ask you not to smoke, you don't smoke. If I tell you to read a certain book, you read that book. If I enroll you in a yoga class, you don't question my good judgement. And, Sylvia, if I ask you to go to bed with me, you go. That's belonging to someone."
..And if I ask you to roll over and play dead, you roll over and play dead. And if I ask you to bring me my slippers in your mouth, you bring my slippers in your mouth. That's belonging, just ask any decent house-broken beagle. Naturally, that's not what I said to him; that's what my personal interior voice said to me.
I said, "I was going to go in the pool with you, but when I got out there you were already dressed."
"Because I knew you really didn't want to do it."
"But I did."
"That's why I have never touched you. You made it clear you didn't want me to touch you that night."
Oh God, I looked at his dear, handsome Ezra Godland profile, concentrating on the traffic ahead, and thought about him thinking I didn't want him, and I almost started crying.
"I have always wanted you to touch me. I have always wanted to belong to you," I said, sort of in a half-whisper; it was such an embarrassing declaration.
"I know, Sylvia, that's why I came back for you." he said.
I was clutching my hands together, and rubbing them like I do when I am nervous, and he simply took one of them, and held it for a moment. Then he kissed it on the palm, and folded my fingers up like I was holding the kiss inside.
"Dearest child," he said, "Do you really mean it?" Will you have faith? Give yourself over to me? Do as I say with no question, no protestations?"
"Yes," I said. "Yes, yes, I will."
That's when I noticed we were entering a rather dilapidated section of town. In fact, we were actually in downtown Los Angeles on Main Street, and I hadn't even noticed where we were going.
(To be Continued)
