Picture Perfect Read online

  "I didn't go to my father's funeral," Alex said, and I started a little at the timbre of his voice. True, there was no one else in the house at this time of night, but some things were better whispered. "Mymaman called me up and told me he was a sorry son of a bitch but that it would be the Christian thing to do."

  I closed my eyes, picturing in my mind that scene from the screenplay that you are left with, of a father lifting his son into the air. I pictured Alex sitting beside his father's hospital bed. I saw the cameras rolling as he got his second chance.

  "Course, I figured since he was the devil himself, Christian charity didn't quite apply to him. I've never even seen his goddamn grave." Alex's hands ran up and down my ribs, over places he had hurt hours before. "I'm going to direct it and co-produce," he said quietly. "This time around, I want to be the one in control."

  JACK GREEN SAT NEXT TO ME WHILE A MALE STAND- IN HIS APPROXIMATE size had cameras and lights arranged around him. He was a veteran actor who'd done everything from comedy in Marilyn Monroe vehicles to the dramatic portrayal of an alcoholic that had won him an Oscar in 1963. But he could also whistle "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" through his armpit and shuffle a deck of cards with more finesse than a Vegas dealer, and he knew how to shoot the heads off the cattails that grew in the tall Iowa grass. Next to Alex, he was my favorite person on the set.

  He was playing the role of the father, largely due to Alex's persuasion, since Jack hadn't made a film since 1975. At first, it had been fun to watch the people scurrying around on the set, unsure whether they should kowtow first to Jack, the legend, or to Alex, the god. And no one could be sure how Jack would take to direction from Alex. But after seeing the first batch of dailies, Jack had stood up and turned to Alex. "Kid," he had said, offering his hand, "by the time you get to my age, you may just be as good as me."

  Now Jack raised his eyebrows, asking me if I wanted another card. We were playing blackjack, and he was the house. "Hit me," I said, tapping the top of the book we were using as a lap table.

  Jack overturned the ten of diamonds and grinned. "Blackjack," he said. He shook his head appreciatively. "Cassie, you got more luck than a three-titted whore."

  I laughed and jumped off Alex's chair. "Don't you need to get ready or something?"

  Jack lifted his head and scanned the flurry of activity. "Well," he said, "I suppose I could try to earn my keep." He smiled and tossed me his script, which to my knowledge he hadn't cracked since he'd stepped on the set ten weeks ago, although he'd yet to miss a line. He moved off toward Alex, who was gesturing to the director of photography.

  I hadn't talked to Alex all day, although that wasn't unusual. During the weeks he'd been filmingThe Story of His Life in Iowa, Alex had been busier than I'd ever seen him. There was always a line of crew people waiting to ask his technical opinion about something; there were reporters trying to get advance press interviews; there were backers to meet with about financing. In a way, Alex thrived on the stress. His career was on the line: not only was he attempting a film in which he wouldn't be seen as a traditional romantic lead, he was directing for the first time. But all the pressure seemed to take his mind off the fact that the movie he was making and the emotions he was calling forth in front of a camera were hitting very close to home.

  Alex had insisted on filming the confrontational scene between the father and son last. He'd allowed two days of filming for it, today being the first, because he wanted to catch the scene during the gloaming, when the hills and the cornfields in the distance were purpled by the sun. I watched a makeup artist step up to Jack and dampen his back with artificial sweat, ring his neck with something that looked like dirt. He looked up from her ministrations and gave me a wink.

  "It's a good thing he's forty years older than you are," Alex said from behind me, "or I'd be jealous as hell."

  I pinned a smile on my face and turned around, not quite knowing what I would see when I met Alex's eyes. I think I was more nervous about this particular scene than he was. After all, I had just as much resting on it as he did. If it was a success, it was going to make this film a masterpiece for Alex. But it was also going to change my life.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him lightly. "Are you ready?" I asked.

  Alex stared at me for a moment, and I could see all of my fears mirrored back at me. "Areyou ?" he said gently.

  When the assistant director called for silence, and the sound tape was up to speed, I drew in my breath. Alex and Jack stood in the middle of the field leased from a local farmer. They were backed by a transplanted row of corn that was much higher than it should have been for this time of year, but that was the way the prop department had turned the reality of April into the illusion of September. The first assistant director called for action, and I watched as a mask neatly dropped over Alex's features, turning him into someone who was only vaguely familiar.

  The wind whipped across the tall grass as if it had been cued, and Jack turned his back on Alex and leaned on a shovel. I watched Alex's face mottle with anger, and heard him choke on his rage until he had to speak or be suffocated. "Turn around, goddamn you," he yelled, laying one hand on Jack's shoulder.

  As it had been rehearsed, Jack slowly pivoted toward Alex. I leaned forward, waiting for Alex's next line, but nothing came. The color drained out of Alex, and he whispered "Cut," and I knew that in Jack's face he had seen his own father.

  The crew relaxed, rewinding and repositioning while Alex shrugged and apologized to Jack. I inched closer to the scene of the action, until I was standing next to the cameraman.

  When the film began rolling again, the sun had dropped, cradled by the sky before night fell. It made a beautiful picture: the vivid resentment written across Alex's face, and Jack silhouetted by the fading light, looking more like a memory than a man.

  "You tell me what I'm supposed to do," Alex shouted, and then suddenly his voice cracked, making him sound like the teenager berated by his father in the flashbacks already filmed. During the rehearsal, Alex had had his character yell through this entire scene, hoping to provoke his father. But now his voice softened until it was a whisper. "For years I figured, the bigger the better. I kept saying this was going to be the one time you noticed." Alex's voice broke. "I wasn't even doing it for me, after a while. I was doing it foryou . But you don't give an inch, do you, Pa? What did you want from me?" Alex swallowed. "Just who the hell do you think youare ?"

  Alex reached out and grabbed Jack, another move that hadn't been rehearsed. I sucked in my breath, seeing Alex's tears, noticing the way his fingers flexed on Jack's shoulders. You couldn't be entirely sure if Alex was planning to throw Jack to the ground, or if he was clinging to him for support.

  And Jack, just as surprised by Alex's action, simply stared into his face, seeming to challenge him for a second. But then he stepped out of Alex's reach. "Nobody," he said, his scripted answer, and he turned and walked out of the range of the camera.

  I ducked out of the way as the high boom the camera was mounted on swept suddenly to the left to catch Alex in profile. He stared out at the fields of corn, seeing, I knew, a muddy bayou with clinging vines, a trap of crawfish on the porch of a rotting restaurant, his father's chiseled face--a more dissolute double of his own--the image he'd fought and, ironically, had still grown into.

  The sun slid behind the fence that at this point seemed to be supporting Alex. He closed his eyes; he bowed his head. The cameras kept whirring because no one had the presence of mind to call for a stop to the action.

  Finally Jack Green stepped forward. "Cut, goddammit," he yelled. After a second of silence, the crew burst into applause, realizing they had just seen something very rare and fine. "You better wrap that one," Jack called to Alex, "because I don't get any better."

  A few people laughed, but Alex didn't even seem to hear. He moved straight from the fence through the filling darkness, pushing past people who stood in his way. He walked right into my arms, and with everyone wa
tching, he told me that he loved me.

  IN FEBRUARY, ALEX AND ISAT IN BED AT THE APARTMENT, WATCHING on television as the president of AMPAS and last year's Best Supporting Actress read off the nominees for the five major categories of the 1993 Academy Awards. It was just before six in the morning, since everything had to be done on Eastern Standard Time. Alex pretended he didn't much care one way or the other, but beneath the sheets, his feet were cold and restless.

  Alex was nominated for Best Actor and Best Director. Jack Green was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.The Story of His Life was up for Best Picture; overall it had garnered eleven nominations in different categories.

  Alex shook his head, smiling from ear to ear. "I do not believe this," he said. "I absolutely do not believe this." He rolled toward the nightstand and disconnected the telephone.

  "What's that for?" I asked.

  "Herb's going to call, and Michaela, and God knows who else has the number here. Jesus, I'll be swamped till I go to Scotland." He was going to start shootingMacbeth in a couple of weeks. He rolled back to face me, his eyes shining. "Tell me I'm not dreaming."

  I reached out to him. "Here," I said. "I'll pinch you."

  Alex laughed and pressed me back against the bed. "I can think of better ways," he said.

  Before we'd even had breakfast, Alex had been scheduled to do a Barbara Walters pre-Oscar broadcast interview. John came by to tell us that a throng of fans and reporters had set up camp outside the gate of the house. And that afternoon, when I went to the OB/GYN to confirm my twelve-week pregnancy, the doctor congratulated me, and said Alex would be hard-pressed to decide which of the day's announcements was more exciting.

  I WAITED TWO WEEKS TO TELL ALEX ABOUT THE BABY, PLANNING TO mention it the night before Barbara Walters was scheduled to interview us from the living room of the house. I hadn't told him right away, because I didn't want to steal his thunder. And it really did take two weeks for the obligatory interviews and fanfare to die down. I told myself that these were the reasons I had kept the news to myself; that it had nothing to do with the fact that tomorrow he could tell the world and give Barbara Walters the scoop of a lifetime.

  We hadn't been trying, but I apparently fell into that two percent of women on the Pill for whom accidents happen. It never occurred to me that Alex might feel the same way about having children as he had three years earlier. As far as I could tell, he had laid the ghost of his father to rest in the past, where it belonged.

  In the ten months sinceThe Story of His Life had wrapped, he hadn't lost control. He'd finished a starring role in a light romantic comedy without incident. And even during these past two weeks when tension was building all around him, he'd shown no inclination to strike out at me. It had been so long that it was difficult for me to remember that it had ever happened.

  I was nervous about telling Alex we were going to have a baby, so I took the coward's way out and decided to let something else do the speaking for me.

  I asked John to take me to Rodeo Drive, even though I never shopped there. He dropped me off a few blocks from my intended destination. I put on my sunglasses and walked to a narrow store called Waddle-potamus, filled with dangling mobiles and Steiff bears. I picked out a stretchy cotton playsuit so tiny I couldn't believe anything alive would ever fit into it. It was embroidered with a dinosaur, and I pictured telling Alex that I had tried to find something appliqued with the image ofHomo erectus but I hadn't had much luck.

  I was so excited by the time I got back to the house that I fairly flew up the stairs. I threw open the door of the sitting room and came face-to-face with Alex. "You're late," he said tightly.

  I beamed at him. "You're early." I thrust the box behind my back, hoping he hadn't noticed it.

  A muscle jumped at the edge of Alex's jaw. "You said you'd be here when I got home. You didn't tell anyone you were going out."

  I shrugged. "I told John," I said. "I had an errand to run."

  Alex hit me so swiftly across the chest I didn't have time to see it coming. Stunned, I looked up at him from the floor where I had fallen, crushing the box, its festival of ribbons.

  I did something I hadn't done in the three years this had been happening: I cried. I couldn't help it; I had believed that we'd started over, and now Alex, who had never disappointed me, had taken us back to the way it was before.

  When he started to kick at me I rolled away from him, feeling his shoe strike me in the back, the kidneys, and the ribs. I crossed my arms protectively over my stomach, and when Alex came to his senses and knelt down beside me I would not look at him. I rubbed my palms over this life I was holding like a good-luck charm. I listened to his whispered pleas, his apologies, and I thought,I hope this baby hates you .

  BARBARA WALTERS WAS MUCH PRETTIER IN PERSON THAN SHE WAS on the air, and she moved through our house with the self-assurance of a general, strategically moving furniture and flowers to make room for lights and cameras. She was planning to interview Alex for about an hour, and then she wanted me to step in so that she could ask me questions as well. In the meantime, I sat very straight next to the segment producer, trying to ignore the pain in my back and my side.

  When the camera began to film, it was focused directly on her as she gave her prewritten rundown of Alex's career, beginning withDesperado and ending with the ongoing production ofMacbeth . "Alex Rivers," she said smoothly, "has shown himself to be more than just another pretty face. From his very first feature film, and in nearly every movie thereafter, he has shied away from traditional romantic leads to play, instead, flawed and frightened men. It has set him apart from other talented actors, as has his unheard-of near sweep of the Oscar nominations with his first attempt at direction,The Story of His Life . I spoke with Alex at his Bel-Air home."

  At that line, the cameras swung to include Alex in the shot. "Many people use your name to define the word 'star.' What would you say characterizes a star?"

  Alex leaned back against the sofa. He crossed one leg lazily over the other. "Charm," he said. He grinned. "And whether or not you can get a table at the studio commissary." He shifted slightly. "But I'd rather be thought of as an actor than a star," he said slowly.

  "Can't you be both?" Barbara pressed.

  Alex tilted his head. "Sure," he said. "But one is a serious vocation, and one is smoke and mirrors, and it's hard to be considered a dedicated professional when you're labeled a 'star.' I never asked for all the trappings. I just happen to like doing what I do."

  "But unlike many actors, you weren't a struggling waiter for ten years before you broke into the business."

  Alex smiled. "Two years. And I was a bartender, not a waiter. I can still mix a hell of a Long Island Iced Tea. But no, I got very lucky. I happened to be in the right place at the right time." He glanced at me. "Actually, that's sort of been the story of my life."

  Barbara smiled at the neat segue. "Let's talk about that--The Story of His Life. How autobiographical is that?"

  For the slightest moment, Alex looked unnerved. "Well," he said slowly, "I had a father, but the similarity ends there." I glanced away, staring out the window at the storm that was gathering. We were going to tape this outside by the pool, but the weather had been too risky. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was aware of Alex feeding Barbara Walters the lines he'd fed me in Tanzania about his childhood before he told me the truth. I blinked at a streak of lightning, and I thought of how very tired I was.

  "Some critics say that you've pushed past being a sex symbol and that you use your looks to get to the chinks in the armor, so to speak--to expose what lies beneath a character." Barbara leaned forward. "What sort of chinks are there in your own armor?"

  A smile slipped sideways over Alex's face, the same smile that was going to make a million women catch their breath when they watched on Oscar night and that, even now, had my heart racing. "What makes you think I have any?" he said.

  Barbara laughed and said it might be the perfect time to introduce me, Cassandra Bar
rett Rivers, Alex's wife of three years. She waited for me to settle myself on the couch beside Alex as I had been directed to do, and then let the cameras start up again. "You two have certainly been spared a great deal of the negative publicity that usually strikes couples in Hollywood." She turned to Alex. "Is that, again, a matter of being in the right place at the right time?"

  I sat as quiet as a stone, smiling up at Alex like an idiot. "It's more a matter of not being in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said. "But then again, we're a pretty ordinary couple. We stay home a lot. I guess we don't really give people much to talk about."

  "You think viewers out there believe that you two eat crackers in bed and watch cartoons on Saturday mornings and jog on the beach?"

  Alex and I looked at each other and laughed. "Yeah," he said. "Except Cassie doesn't jog."

  "You're an anthropologist," Barbara said to me, swiftly turning the conversation. I nodded. "What attracted you to a celebrity as 'big' as Alex Rivers?"

  "I wasn't attracted to him," I said flatly. "The first time I met him I intentionally poured a drink in his lap." I told the story of my arrival on the movie set in Tanzania, and while Alex squirmed uncomfortably in his seat, most of the crew Barbara had brought with her started laughing. When filming picked up again, I leaned imperceptibly closer toward Alex, a show of support. "I suppose I don't see him as a lot of other women do," I said carefully. "He's not a celebrity to me; he never really has been. It wouldn't have mattered if he sold used cars or worked in a coal mine. He's someone I happen to love."

  Barbara turned to Alex. "Why Cassie? Out of all the women in the world, why her and only her?"

  Alex pulled me closer, and my eyes glazed a little as my sore side touched him. "She was made for me," he said simply. "That's the only way I can explain it."

  Outside, there was a roll of thunder. "One last question," Barbara said, "and it's for Cassie. Tell us what America doesn't know about Alex Rivers that you think they ought to know."

  Shocked, I stared at her, my mouth slightly ajar. The air in the room became heavier, and the rain hit like a fall of stones against the French doors. I could feel Alex's fingers digging into my shoulder, and with every breath there was a quick ache under my ribs.Well, Barbara , I could say,for one thing, he hits me. And his father was terribly abusive. And he's going to have a baby, but he doesn't even know that yet because I'm too afraid of his reaction to tell him the truth .