David's War. Herbert Kastle

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      Carrie really dug Vanessa, who was a knock-out for an older woman – over thirty – and wore the greatest clothes, like the pale brown, tweedy skirt-suit she was wearing now with pink-striped, man-style shirt and slouchy-brimmed, dark brown hat. Her shoes were always spikes (snakeskin today) and helped her look real tall, as did her long legs, though she was only five five, she’d confessed. She had reddish-brown hair, naturally curly, which Carrie admired. She had a wasp waist, which Carrie envied, and which made her breasts look even bigger than they were. She had great posture, a great walk, and Mr Howars’s black friend Teddy, bartender at Thomasine’s, said she could be elected the Girl Most Men Want To Walk Behind.

      She was also a good actress with a hot career. Carrie would settle for where Vanessa was at, professionally, when she reached her thirties. And while Mr Howars was no John Travolta, Carrie might consider settling for where Vanessa was at romantically, too, because, if you could forget his age, Mr Howars wasn’t bad in the looks department. And he was loaded in the bread department. Most important of all was what he could do for an actress he dated.

      He must have done plenty for Vanessa, at least before she got rolling. Now she was independent of any man’s help; she’d been in two TV shows this year that Carrie knew of. She was bound to land a continuing part, a lead part, in a new series sooner or later.

      ‘Where’s your Christmas tree?’ Vanessa asked, looking around the office. ‘It’s the eleventh. You should have one up and decorated by now. What will Mr Howars’s clients think?’

      ‘I asked him and he said he’d order one. That was a week ago. He must’ve forgotten.’

      ‘I’ll remind him. Tell him I’m here, will you?’

      Carrie said, ‘Sure thing,’ and lifted the phone.

      Vanessa always spent a few minutes with Dave’s secretary, a nice kid with ideas of getting into acting. But Carrie didn’t have a clue as to where it was at. Of course she could learn, just as Vanessa had. Learn to use the looks God had given her . . . or God and the plastic surgeon. Learn to act by going to a good school; Vanessa had suggested Estelle Harmon’s.

      But first, Carrie had to learn to walk the tightrope between poverty and prostitution that most women serious about acting knew instinctively. Working as a secretary for two years here was death on an acting career. Eight hours a day, five days a week? How could she find the time necessary to hound the agents, the casting directors, the producers and directors and men who backed the films? How could she find time to go to the parties where these people gathered; to display herself and pitch and scramble and claw for whatever advantage might offer itself? How could she go on the time-consuming and nearly hopeless cattle calls where dozens of women gathered for one or two jobs; to whatever auditions the trade papers listed; to wherever the possibility of employment might be? How could she spend as much time with a man who had the power to employ her, or get her employed, as it took? To do whatever she thought necessary to reach the single most important goal of her life – the chance to use the skills she’d developed, the spark she just might have been born with?

      Carrie put down the phone. ‘He’s on a long distance call. He’ll buzz when he’s off.’

      Vanessa nodded, and Carrie looked at her as if something were wrong. Vanessa said, ‘What is it, hon?’

      ‘Uh . . . is Mr Howars okay? I mean, is he feeling all right?’

      Vanessa played a little game with these secretaries. In all the offices she visited, and Dave’s was no exception, she cultivated friendships, invested a little time, and the pay-off was having a sympathetic – at least, not an antagonistic – contact and source of information.

      Now she used her relationship with Carrie to draw her out. And with sinking heart heard the story of Dave manhandling Johan Jitzler because of a stupid joke. Jitzler was, as Dave himself had said, critical to the packaging of his latest film, Coast to Coast, and Vanessa had a stake in that film. Dave said she stood a good chance of landing the main supporting role of the worn-out go-go dancer. Vanessa thought the part had been written for her – maybe at Dave’s directions to the scriptwriter – though she hadn’t asked for favours for several years.

      Not that she didn’t need favours. Kids like Carrie thought she had it made because they’d seen her on the tube doing the female lead in a ‘Quincy’ and a guest-star role in a ‘Mash’. But that was over a period of nine months and there’d been nothing but promises, promises otherwise. She’d never earned more than ten thousand at her acting in any one year, which was where walking that tightrope between poverty and prostitution came in; Dave’s picking up the big repair bill on her ageing Jaguar, for example.

      She listened to Carrie express amazement that Dave could have become violent. She agreed it was ‘unbelievable’ . . . but it wasn’t. Dave had been having bad moments lately – bursts of temper, and more importantly to their relationship, a lack of desire. He’d been a bull for six years, and now he was fading fast.

      She said, ‘He’s just a little overworked. Doctor Brooks will give him some of her special medication.’ They giggled together, and the phone buzzed.

      Carrie said, ‘You can go in now.’

      Vanessa opened the door. ‘Dave bunny! Three interminable days and nights apart!’ She came to the desk, smiling. The smile was natural, unplanned, sprang from the true affection she felt for this protective lover, this helpful friend, this good man whom she trusted beyond any man she had ever known. She glanced playfully at his black leather couch. ‘Is it illegal for the woman to use the casting couch?’

      He smiled, but it wasn’t convincing. ‘I’m starving. Let’s not go home. Let’s go right across the street to Thomasine’s.’

      She said, ‘Of course, I wouldn’t want you suffering from malnutrition,’ but now she was forcing the lines and the smile. Because home was where the bed was. ‘We can get together tonight, can’t we?’

      When he hesitated, she turned away, waving an arm. ‘No importante, querida. Some other time.’ Force-feeding a man your love was disaster.

      He cleared his throat in a nervous way. ‘Maybe we need a few weeks’ vacation from each other. Maybe until after New Year’s.’

      She said, ‘We might as well be married,’ laughed heartily, and walked out the door. She felt like a fool for feeling like crying.

      In David’s opinion, Thomasine’s was a mediocre restaurant with a great bar. What made the bar great was his old friend Teddy Bear, actually Teddy Brown. Teddy was in the tradition of the mythic film bartender who dispensed alcohol and wisdom at the same time. Teddy also dispensed charm to the ladies and landed a goodly percentage of them.

      A black Adonis, he called himself, except that he was sixty-one and no Harry Belafonte. His upper front teeth, lost while protecting a dancer from a drunk when he’d tended bar in a nude club, came out for ‘cleaning, spare-rib gummin’, and cunnilingus.’ He seemed short at five eight because of a strong, stocky build, was just a shade off deep black in complexion, and had receding bushy hair and an evil-looking, drooping, Fu Manchu moustache.

      He had told David that his father and brothers were ‘still in the pimping trade, back home.’ In his cups, he’d also said that his mother had been ‘the best little whore who ever rolled a redneck hot for black ass.’ She’d died in her late forties ‘in bed with a teenaged black dude. The doctor said heart attack. The black dude said too many orgasms.’

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