NOVEMBER 28, 2002
MY SUMMER WITH THE MOVIE STAR
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (Cont.)
"Come on, Sylvia," Carol said, coming back into the den/study, after showing the last person out. "Come on," she repeated, and she playfully punched one of the typewriter keys, causing a massive typo. "Let's forget work for a change. I am so damned tired of all this excessive dedication, the book, the meetings, everything. Let's go be human. Put on a swimsuit, and we'll fall into the pool, and have some drinks, too."
"Yes, we all need a rest," Ezra, said. He had wandered in, and was shuffling through his papers like he was trying to remember what they were, and actually agreeing with being human. "Even the best work grows stale," he added.
That's exactly the way they both behaved when they came out of the meeting. Ezra acted as if he didn't give a hot damn, and maybe didn't even recognize me anymore, sitting there loyally at my post, manning my good old standard Royal until the last page was struck, and my hands were sent to Forest Lawn to be cast in bronze and immortalized.
Carol was, perhaps, a little more normal, except her cheeks were pinker and shinier than usual. Maybe somebody in their meeting told them they had been working too hard, for which I was grateful. I could use the time off, if only to avoid having my fingers placed in traction.
I was never to know what went on in the meeting that day, but it couldn't be very important because the people involved weren't movie people or exotic in any way--just the usual nice, middle-aged ladies wearing white summer shoes, with sensible Cuban heels, and print dresses with glass buttons, and belts with matching plastic buckles, accompanied by that certain blurry kind of man who carries their stuff, and hangs back, looking apologetic for having gone and done anything so gross as being born a male.
I had this sudden flash that maybe they weren't a religious group at all, maybe they were members of Ezra's and Carol's fan club. As I look back today, I am pretty damn certain that's what they were, because I think Ezra and Carol were their own religion, and having all those non-entities scraping and fawning around is what got them stirred up, and in the mood for the horrendous events of that weekend.
It seems that I am always describing what I had on, as much as what went on, but I was very clothes conscious at the time, and, as you know, extremely body conscious. So, I wore the white Latex one piece suit (a Mabs, I believe) that Carol loaned me the first time up there when she made fun of my non-existent breasts. But it really did fit now, and was almost too small across the breasts, perhaps even smashing them down a little. I tried to pull up my hair into a chignon the way Carol does because I wanted to go in the deep end of the pool, and I hate caps. I did a passable job, but it still didn't look the same. Even Ezra put on his sexy European style trunks, the closest thing a man can wear to being naked, and we did, indeed, fall into the pool.
Ezra acted like we both had ceased to exist. He just hoisted myself up on his blue water mattress, and floated around the pool on his back. Carol did a lot of grabassing, even for her. For instance, she came up behind me in the deep end, and pinched my butt, hard enough so it really hurt, and then she tore out of the pool, giggling maniacally.
"May Sylvia have some real drinks with us, Ezra?" she asked. "After all, if we were in New York, she would be almost old enough to go bar-hopping." She was standing up behind the bar/table set up, taking the pins out of her hair, and flinging it around to dry it.
Anything was all right with him. I never saw such a change come over a human being. He just kept floating around the pool on his back, moving his fingers every now and then so he wouldn't run into the sides of the pool and pierce the water mattress.
Carol went ahead and mixed up a vat of martinis, which I know now when I see the operation. Tons of gin, and very little vermouth, if you are chic and drink only martinis by the dozen. She poured three of them into the plastic pool glasses, and held one up for Ezra to see. "Come to Momma, baby, from whom all blessings flow," she called to him. She gave me mine and I said, thank you, and went over to one of the lounges to arrange myself in an appropriate pose for drinking marts by a pool. Of course I was stagy. I was having my first martini, and I was drinking it with two movie stars, which is hardly the same thing as having a nickle cup of coffee with a friend, and I was being included for a change.
Ezra came up dripping from the pool, and I looked away real fast. Honestly, you might as well go to bed with a man after you've seen him in a pair of those wet, woolen trunks, which leave none of the whole mess to your imagination. When I looked back again, he had put a towel over one of the tall stools by the bar, and had started drinking his martini. Only he didn't sip it gracefully. He just threw it down like all the other big tanks he drinks.
"Watch it, Honey," Carol said. "That's why we don't have marts every day. Remember?" But she went ahead and poured him another out of the pitcher, and he did start out a little more slowly. He still hadn't said word, and I wondered if he had these spells often, or I had simply missed out on them.
(To be continued)
