It was a busy time for Jim Hotaling. His friend Michael Gersh had convinced Paramount to give Promiscuity a late spring release. It would be a bright speck of counter-programming among the lumbering blockbusters. So Jim spent most of the winter on post production, re-editing the film with Nancy Gitlin, tightening the pace, making the laughs come faster. Nancy said, “I want them to see it twice, just to catch all the jokes.” There was looping to do, also. Much of the dialogue was just too hard to hear. So Stacey had to spend several days on the Melrose lot re-recording her lines to match the endlessly repeated scraps of film. Michael Gersh was often there, monitoring the proceedings, offering an occasional word of advice. He never asked about Rachel and somehow managed to change the subject when her name came up.

Editing was just the beginning for Jim. He spent weeks on the music cue breakdown, choosing the songs the wanted under the action. There was no score for the film per se and the musicians he wanted were relatively obscure and inexpensive – John Gorka and Jim Infantino, Johnny Clegg and Sam Magwana.

Then there was the sound mix, where Jim’s clinically treatable obsession with detail was inflamed by the necessity to choose and place every single background noise, every car horn and cricket, every squeak and rustle, every bump and thud.  Foley artists started off liking him and grew to hate him as he relentlessly trolled for the perfect ice tinkle or creaking bed spring. Finally he had to let it go and then it was time to argue about prints and advertising. He lost most of those battles: there would be six hundred prints instead of six thousand, four million dollars for advertising instead of forty.

But his objections were half-hearted. He was distracted. Something much more exciting was going on.

A German company called Filmwerk AG was in the process of raising four hundred million dollars for movie production in the United States. They had come to Warner Brothers for co-financing but the studio had turned them down. Every other studio had done the same thing. The consensus was that their terms were too greedy (and non-negotiable). Filmwerk had decided to fully finance their own films. They would come to the studios for distribution only, with negative pick-up deals that would make Filmwerk far more money if the movies were successful. Of course that was always the big if, and to hedge their bets they hired away the brightest executive at Warner Brothers, and the only one who had fought for the deal there.

So Bill Terhune was now running the North American operations of Filmwerk AG. For the moment he was doing it on spec. There wouldn’t be any money for salaries much less film production, until all the lenders had done their due diligence reports and signed off on the agreements. Even then it would be another ninety days before the money could be spent. It was abstract money now, but Bill had read the financial documents and was certain the company would be in the movie business by the late summer. He was using the time to line up writers and directors and the first writer/director had had called was Jim Hotaling.

“We’re back in business!,” he had shouted. And then, his best Darth Vader voice (Jim thought he was a little too good at it), “There’ll be no one to stop us this time.”

“Do I have to embrace the dark side of the force?,” he had joked. But Terhune was serious when he answered.

“Don’t kid yourself, Jimmy. That happened the day you moved here.”

Jim had a project for Bill’s company, a script he’d been pecking away at for more than ten years. Like Unfinished Business, their earlier abortive movie, it was a father and son story. But it was a more realistic attempt to deal with his primary subject matter. It was a film about a film maker, and Jim had used all his experience with independent movies. The young auteur protagonist was at war with his father, just as Jim had been; and was making a film about their relationship … just as Jim was doing. The hero of that film was engaged in the same pursuit. The three movies fit neatly inside each other like Russian dolls; but they had very different conclusions. The innermost movie had a saccharine happy ending, with Dad realizing his son’s brilliance and accepting his artist’s life. (There was even a tearful embrace at the Oscars). This movie was not greeted with the same unabashed admiration. The father of Jim’s hero was far more ambivalent, but at least they struck a wary truce by the end of the film. The outermost layer of the onion had all the stingy random bitterness of real life. Jim’s father had never offered even a contingent acceptance of his son’s ambitions; and now he was dead. He had lived just long enough to watch Jim’s career as a screenwriter fizzle. Three weeks before he died he watched one of Jim's Law & Order episodes, a lame rape and revenge outing. The old man turned off the TV and said, “This is what your career has come to. Was it worth it?”

Jim had no answer, but he had known even than that he was going to rewrite his Dad’s response some day; he wanted to put a spin of humor on his that morose dismissal.

So he wrote a new ending for Parental Guidance Suggested.

This revised last scene, a tip of the hat to Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories, was intended to break the illusion. The camera pulls back into a movie theatre. Jim and a friend are walking up the aisle as the credits roll behind them, and the lights come up.

“Too bad your Dad can’t see the movie,” the friend says.

“The last thing he saw before he died was my Law & Order episode. He hated it. He said, ‘Maybe this is one they shouldn’t have ripped from the headlines, son.’ This wouldn’t have been any different.”

“You don’t know that. You should go on John Edward with your Mom. She loves that show. You could get your Dad’s opinion … from the other side.”

“Right, I can just imagine that. ‘I’m getting something … a movie, someone has made a movie about this man, an uncle, a father – yes? He’s a cigar smoker. He’s still smoking cigars. He wants you to know that. Wait, there’s more … this is, I’m getting this strongly. He forgives you for totaling the Lincoln on Prom Night, he forgives you for marrying that horrible woman, but he wants you to know … there’s a lot of energy here, he’s adamant about this. He says … Your movie sucks. He preferred the Law & Order episode.’ And then my Mom would be on her feet whining at him, just like in the old days - ‘For God’s sake, Harry - can’t you even be nice for two minutes on the dead people TV show? In front of everybody?’ No. I think I’ll just let that one go.”

Then they walk out into the afternoon sunlight, and the real credits roll.

The script had made Bill Terhune cry. Jim could scarcely imagine that sight. It was too grotesque to dwell on. Of course Bill had his own problems with his father, but who didn’t? That was what made the script work. Everyone could relate to that slow movement from fantasy to reality, from the innermost movie to the outermost one – from the Oscar night hug to the glare of reality, with an unfixable hole in the center of things and a long afternoon to kill. 

Now at last, it looked like he might be able to make his film. He and Celia took Rachel and Stacey and Sam out to dinner at Orso and drank too much champagne and settled back to wait three months. It was okay; he had sound editors and foley artists and color-timers to torture. And in May, Promiscuity was opening at Mann’s Westwood.

It seemed like he had finally arrived, thanks to his relentless patience and his old friends.

And he was sure of it, somehow: his Dad would have finally been proud.

 

 

Rachel and Stacey rehearsed Escapade for weeks, a luxury that no studio production could afford. At the same time they were making travel plans and renewing their passports. They wanted to organize the whole film in advance, there wasn't much they could accomplish until they actually arrived in Paris.  They were set to leave April 1^st, and booked the others two weeks later.  The flights were all discount charters, and the nearest they could get to Paris was Zurich, Switzerland. It meant a delay and a long train ride, but that didn't matter.  Outside the travel agent's, with all the tickets clutched in one hand, Rachel threw her arms around her friend.

"We're really going, now - it's official.”

"And this time we'll have more to do than just eat and go shopping."

The week before they left, Rachel threw a dinner party for the cast and crew. She wanted Rafe DeMarco and Andy Bowers and their guys to meet the girls. She wanted everyone comfortable with everyone else before they started shooting a low budget film at close quarters in a foreign country.

It was an enjoyable afternoon – volleyball on the beach, an early cook-out, and everyone seemed to be having fun. Both Andy and his boom operator, a rangy, balding guy named Howard Doyle, made passes at Nina Cooper; but she had an effortless way of making unwanted men feel subhuman.

“Lint,” Doyle said later over drinks at the Formosa Café. “That’s what she made me feel like. Pocket lint.”

There were other wrong notes: Jerry Paskow, Rafe’s gaffer, drank too much beer and ate too many ribs and puked everywhere in the bathroom except the toilet. Inez wound up cleaning the mess (she always wound up cleaning the mess). Ruth Bromberg spent most of the night trying to teach Annette Pierce the Meisner repetition exercise. They were both high and it turned weird and abusive. Rachel heard fragments – “You’re being conversational – just repeat! Let it go where it’s going. You’re manipulating. You’re insisting. No,no,no. Start again.”  Annette never quite understood what was going on; and by the end of the evening she was in tears. “No one said it was easy,” Ruth scoffed. “Meisner was a bastard. But he would have thrown her out of class like that. She didn’t take her attention off herself for one second. Ugh.” Rachel wasn’t sure what was happening – she just hoped that neither of them would remember it in the morning.

The most disturbing moment happened with Emily Fritsch.

They were outside in the deepening evening. A cool wind was blowing in off the ocean and Rachel was getting hamburgers onto buns before they burned. As usual she had made the barbecue fire too big, used too many coals. The worst part was the sense of waste afterward. They sat in the kettle, chunks of expensive mesquite, glowing and abandoned; Rachel invariably felt she should be cooking more food.

“They perfume the air. That’s enough, I think,” Emily said. She had slipped beside Rachel as she worked. She took the tray to the table and returned a moment later.

“That’s so weird,” Rachel said. “I was just – “

“I know.”

“What are you saying? You read my mind?”

“Not exactly. It’s more like … I felt what you were feeling.”

“So what am I feeling now?”

“Suspicious. Uncomfortable. Annoyed.”

Rachel shrugged. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just something I can do. It’s not even considered that unusual in other parts of the world. Even here it’s not so strange. There are lots of psychics in southern California.”

“I’m sure there are. But I’m from New York.”

“I wish you trusted me more. I could help you.”

“How do you mean?”

“It’s just – I sense things.”

“Like the man who’s going speak for me when the others are silent?”

Emily smiled without humor. It looked like she was trying to read fine print without her glasses. “Yes.”

“Is he here tonight? Because I could really use him right now.”

“I’m serious. And, no. Of course he isn’t here. I didn’t want to talk about him. I want to talk about … ” She looked around and lowered her voice. “That Rafe DeMarco. He isn’t what he seems. You should get away from him.”

“I’ved worked with him before, Emily.”

“I know.”

“I’m leaving for Europe with him in less than a week.”

“He’s trouble.”

“Have you heard bad things about him?”

“No.”

“Then how -- what are you – “

“I just think you should get as far away from him as possible.”

Rachel stared at her. Stacey strolled by and asked for a hot dog. Rachel put one on the fire.

“Hold on, this will only take a minute or two.”

“I just want to get a beer,” Stacey said.

Rachel turned back to Emily. “Where am I supposed to find a new DP who’ll fly his whole crew to Europe on four days’ notice?”

“You don’t have to find him. He’ll find you.”

“Emily, listen – “

“Relinquish some control. Let the accidents happen.”

This was too much for Rachel. She felt a headache coming on. And she was ravenous. She had been at the grill working while everyone else gobbled their dinners.

“I have to eat something,” she muttered into that wide-open face.

Then she tonged Stacey’s hot dog onto a roll, took one for herself, and fled.

As it happened she had a lunch meeting scheduled with Rafe two days later. He had a lot of technical stuff to talk about. They were having lunch at Ago on Melrose and LaCienega. Rafe was a regular there. He lived in the neighborhood and had kept track of the place through various owners over the years. Most recently it had been a restaurant owned by Sonny Bono; Rafe much preferred this new incarnation, not least because there was an outdoor patio where he could smoke. Rachel pulled into the alley and let the valet guys take her car. She liked this section of Melrose, with its low buildings and by-appointment antique stores and second floor agents’ offices. It had a back-water feel, as Melrose wound its way out of West Hollywood towards the seedier neighborhoods east of Fairfax and La Brea.

 The day was hot, the inversion layer was heavy and the sky was white. The sky shone dully, like a lamp wrapped in a dirty towel. She pushed into the restaurant, glad to feel the rush of cold air.

Rafe was already there, sitting in the shade out on the patio. She was the director; they should sit inside, where she wanted to. It was a good thought, but it was a little late. Rafe had gotten here first. Besides, he needed to smoke. She shrugged, and walked out into the densely packed heat over to Rafe’s table.

He stood up and shook her hand.

“I have a bottle of wine going. Pinot Grigio okay with you?”

“Fine.”

She sat down and he poured her a glass.

“You’ll love this place. The food is great. Unbelievable wine list. And it’s fantastic for parties. There’s a big room at the back – past the bathrooms. Bobby had a wild one last week.”

“Bobby?”

“Bob. DeNiro. He’s part-owner.”

Rachel shrugged.“Can we see a menu? I’m starving.”

“I already ordered for you. It should have been here by now. This waiter’s a new guy. Looks like an actor wannabe. Probably calling his agent on his cell phone. I hate that shit. Anyway - good thing you were late. Normally that pisses me off big time, but it worked out all right today. It’s like I always say - if everybody fucks up enough, things can go pretty smoothly sometimes. Anyway … I got you risotto with lobster.”

 No one had ordered for Rachel in a restaurant she was nine years old. She didn’t like it.

“What if I hated risotto?”

“No one hates risotto.”

“What if I was allergic to lobster?”

“Are you?”

“No, but – “

“That’s what I figured. Listen, I got you the best thing on the menu. You’re gonna love it.”

“It sounds like it’s also the most expensive thing on the menu.”

“Don’t worry, I’m picking this one up. You can get the next one, partner.”

Rachel leaned back. His cologne was strong.

“Partner?”

“Absolutely. And don’t worry. We’ll get through this together.”

“What – lunch?“

“No, no – the movie. Hey’ we’ve done it before. This time it’s just going to be a little bigger, that’s all. You’ve got a DP you trust. That’s half the battle right there.”

       “I also have a script and a bunch of terrific actors.”

       Rafe shrugged.“It’s all secondary to what you see.”

“A lot of cinematographers must feel the same way you do.”

“Really? Why do you say that?”

“Because when they finally get a chance to direct they make such boring movies. Because you can’t tell a story with light, or frame composition. You need scenes, not scenery. That’s why Clerks is a better movie than The English Patient.”

Rafe grinned at her. “This is gonna be fun.”

Rachel sipped her wine, thinking that wasn’t the first word that would have crossed her mind. Irksome might be closer. Or interminable. But she knew he was a jerk. He had tried to take over the Development Hell shoot and she had let him. He had the answer to every question and she had needed all the help she could get. But things were going tro be different this time. 

The food came and it was excellent and Rafe started briefing her on the technical side of making her movie. She started taking notes, but he had a manila folder for her with everything typed up already. “Something to refer to later,” he said. She glanced through it as he talked. There was a table of contents, footnotes; even an index. Rafe was organized. In fact, he was much more organized than she was, which made her a little nervous.

She closed the file and settled in to listen.

Rafe’s first concern was the video format. He was used to shooting on NTSC, which was industry standard in the United States. But Europe used the PAL format. It ran at twenty-five frames a second which was close to film and would make the eventual transfer easier. It also had better resolution. France used another format called SECAM, but as far as Rafe was concerned that was typical of the French people who delighted in making simple things difficult and annoying.

They talked about aspect ratios and cameras. Rafe preferred using the DVCPro, which was faster and more stable than the Sony DVCAM that Jim Hotaling used. It was also more expensive.

He wanted to meet with the production designer and was somewhat alarmed to find out that there wasn’t one. Rachel was planning to wing it, using actual locations and interiors. Rafe wasn’t too happy with the idea of winging it.

“You shoot in real rooms, you wind up with a lot of close-ups,” he said. “This isn’t a short subject. It’s a movie.”

“It’s going to be an intimate movie.”

“You shoot on real location without permits, you wind up with a lot of hassles.”

“We did okay before.”

“We got lucky before.”

“We’re going to be ingenious.”

“I sure hope so.”

It went on and on – a lot of it she’d heard from him last time – his tips for preventing timecode breaks while shooting and his rules for handheld shots. He was paranoid about crossing the stage line even with a cutaway.

He knew a film recording company in Switzerland called Swiss Effects. They were experts at increasing the resolution of PAL video and transferring it to a 35 mm print. The total cost for a color-timed print was about forty thousand dollars so he suggested keeping at least that much safe in the budget. Rafe had worked with Swiss Effects before. They had a website. He gave her the address. There was more -- he was meticulous about keeping logs and painstaking about his lighting set-ups.

“The main thing I need from a director is patience,” he said at one point.

“Okay,” Rachel said. “The main thing I need from a DP is cooperation.”

“Cooperation. Right.  That’s the key.”

As the waiter was clearing the main course, Rafe was waving his hand to make a point, and he hit the kid. It wasn’t hard enough to hurt, but it made him stumble, and his tray tilted. There was a fraction of a second when the dishes almost slid onto Rafe’s lap. But he recovered.

“Watch it!,” Rafe snapped at him. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m – I was just – “

“You were just about to get your ass kicked, you clumsy little freak.”

The waiter hurried away.

“Unbelievable,” Rafe said. He blew out a disgusted breath and ran a hand through his hair as if to make sure that the top of his head was still attached.

“He didn’t do anything wrong,” Rachel said. “You practically knocked him over and he managed not drop a single dish. I think he deserves a prize.”

“Very funny.”

“Or at least an apology.”

“Right – it’s all my fault.”

“You hit him.”

“I barely touched him.”

She shrugged. “Whatever.”

The waiter passed by near their table. “Could we get some dessert menus here, please? Today?”

The waiter nodded and headed back to the kitchen. Rafe sighed again.

 “Oh yeah,” he said. “One more thing. No actors at dailies.”

“What?”

“And I don’t even want ‘em checking out the playback monitor, like that friend of yours was always doing. It screws people up, makes them self-conscious. It’s bad news, trust me.”

“Rafe … I appreciate your concern. But that’s really not your decision.”

“Hey -- I have to shoot these people the next day.”

“No. I have to shoot them. You have to help.”

“So I’m just your ‘helper’.”

“Well, yeah. Of course you are. What’s wrong with that?”

“Do I go for coffee, too?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You know what I mean. We’re collaborating, you’re doing an essential job that I can’t do myself. But I have to be the boss. I mean, that’s obvious.”

“Okay, boss.” He gave her a mock military salute. “Whatever you say.”

Rachel started to feel more comfortable after that. They had a leisurely and uneventful dessert; they talked about Europe and mutual acquaintances and the other films Rafe had worked on. Rachel was about to rate the lunch as a moderate success, when the waiter spilled the coffee. At least it was fresh coffee – and decaffeinated.  Rafe had made the waiter come back twice, once because he brought real coffee by mistake and the second time because the decaf tasted burned. The waiter didn’t even spill that much; perhaps a tablespoon at most. And Rafe was wearing jeans, not a silk suit. But none of that seemed to matter.

“Hey! What the fuck you think you’re doing?”

“I’m sorry, sir – I didn’t mean – “

“What? You didn’t mean what? You didn’t mean to spill hot coffee all over me? You sound like a fuckin child! How about this? Mean not to do it. All right? Mean to do your fuckin job.”

“Listen, I – “

“But this isn’t your real job is it? What are you? An actor? A writer? A director? Or maybe you’re a hyphenate in your bullshit dreamworld. Is that it? Are you a writer-director? An auteur? Fuckin guy can’t even serve coffee and he’s making movies! What a joke.”

“Rafe,” Rachel said. “This isn’t necessary. I’ll be glad to pay the cleaning bill for your pants and – “

He turned on her. “I can handle this.”

“This is ridiculous! All he did was –- “

“I said, I can handle this. So stay out of it.”

Rachel could feel the danger; he was about to hit someone and he didn’t care who it was. It was like those awful restaurant dinners with her mother and father when she was a kid, her father mercilessly brow-beating the waiter because his steak wasn't hot enough, sending the food back over and over again.

Rafe had turned back to his primary target.

“My advice is keep your day job, kid. If you keep it long enough you just might learn how to fuckin’ do it.”

Rafe paid the check, stiffed the waiter and stalked out through the restaurant and into the side alley for his car. He said something to the bartender, but Rachel was too far behind him to hear what it was.

 She gave the waiter a twenty dollar bill and apologized before she left.

“Can you believe that little jerk?” Rafe said as she joined him in the glaring afternoon heat. She just stared at him. She was thinking about Emily Fritsch.

Rafe lit a cigarette and dropped the match on the sidewalk. “I mean – what an asshole.”

“Funny, I was just thinking the same thing,” Rachel said. “But I kind of liked the waiter.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

A group of middle aged men on big motorcycles roared past. The staccato engine noise seemed to actually shred the air around them. Rachel grimaced; Rafe grinned.

“What a sound, huh? Beautiful! Did you know that Harley Davidson patented that engine note? It’s true. Nothing but a Harley sounds that way. What? What is it?

Rachel smiled at him gently.

“You’re fired,” she said.

“What?”

“You’re fired.”

“You can’t fire me! You need me! You’re leaving for Europe in two days! Where are you going to find another crew in 48 hours?”

She shrugged. “I’m going to let the accidents happen.”