Susan was never a particularly good actor, but at the start of the TV series, she did have a naturalness that stood out and looked good against her actor-since-birth costars. But the naturalness began to wear thin and she became increasingly self-conscious about her body, her face, the words that came out of her mouth and the overall effect she had on people. The scrutiny was a thousand times more intense than any pageant. Her encounter with Jenna at the giraffe party opened some inner sluice of her conscience, and her acting became abysmal almost overnight. She told Dreama: «It's like the part of my brain that used to allow me to do an okay acting job got all warped. It's merging with the part of my brain that makes up lies. I can just feel it. I get a simple line like, “Mom, I'm going to volleyball practice,” and it sounds forced, like it's filled with all this innuendo. My retakes per episode are up like crazy. The network thinks I have a drug problem. The cast thinks fame is wrecking my head. And the thing is, Larry knows it's all because of Jenna and keeping our big lie going, and it's kind of turning him off. And that's freaking me out and making it even worse.»
Susan guested on Love Boat. She did a walk-on part in a James Bond movie. She was on the cover of Seventeen magazine. She had her wisdom teeth removed and discovered the Land of Painkillers. She mended the fence somewhat with Marilyn. Dreama also moved to Los Angeles and into Susan's apartment. Sex with Larry cooled considerably and, as Larry predicted, she grew older.
Chapter Twenty-five
John sat beside his rescuer, Beth, in a security office adjacent to the private jet facility at Flagstaff's airport. Outside the wired-glass windows, in the warm gray air, hydro and aviation towers blinked rubies and diamonds. John was wearing clothes Beth had assembled from her husband's castoffs. His pale aqua shirt was crisply ironed and his skin was brown as if he were baking on the inside, like a bird just removed from the oven. His hair had been hacked off a few weeks before with a hunting knife in a Las Cruces, New Mexico, Shell station rest room. His eyes were clear and wide like a child's. Beth said to him, «I'm sorry about Jeanie and that tape. She's a wild one. I've never known what to do with her.»
«It doesn't matter.» said John.
Beth bought two weak coffees from a grumbling vending machine. «Here,» she said, «take one.»
«Oh — no thanks.»
«Go on.»
John held on to his coffee with the same unsureness he'd felt when holding a baby for the first time, Ivan and Nylla's daughter, MacKenzie. A fuel truck drove by in a mirage of octane. Beth said, «Your friends really have their own private jet, then?»
John nodded.
«Jeanie never would have done it if she hadn't found out about that jet.»
«It doesn't matter. Really. It doesn't.»
Beth's daughter, Jeanie, had sold the tape of John's naked climb from the ditch and the hour that followed to a local network affiliate. It would be a lead story on a nationally broadcast tabloid show the next night.
«What makes me mad,» said Beth, «is that she's going to use the money to pay for her boyfriend's car, not even her own. Dammit, she doesn't have to do that. Royce has a good job already.»
«Young people.»
«You said it.»
A shrillness called out from the black air, and John, staring at the floor, placed it as quickly as a dog recognizes the firing pattern of the cylinders in his master's engine. It was Ivan and the G3. John heard it land and then taxi. He heard the heavy metal staff doors opening, footsteps and voices: Ivan, Nylla, Doris and Melody.
«John-O?»
John stood up and tried to raise his head, but his eyes were too heavy. «John-O?» Ivan crouched down and looked up at John. «We're here, John-O.» But John couldn't speak or look up. The coffee dropped from his hand and the cheap plastic cup rattled on the floor. Nylla, Doris and Melody kissed him on the cheek and John could smell their perfumes, so kind and decent that he choked.
Ivan looked over at Beth, who was holding John's laundered clothes inside a paper grocery bag. «Are you … ?»
«Yes, I'm Beth.»
Ivan handed John over to Melody and Nylla. «Thank you for your …»
«It was nothing. But your friend here, he's in a bad way.»
Ivan handed Beth an envelope from which she pulled out a stack of hundreds. «Jeremy from my office got your address and numbers?»
«He did.»
There was nothing left to do but go out onto the tarmac and into the plane and head west. Beth said good-bye and hugged John, whose arms flailed out from him as if made from straw. The two younger women escorted John on each side up the stair ramp, and Ivan followed behind, a glen plaid jacket draped over his left arm. Soon they were up in the warm night sky, but John had yet to make eye contact with his old friends.
«Johnny,» said Melody, «can you hear me okay?»
John nodded.
«You're not on drugs are you, John?» asked Doris.
John shook his head.
Melody said, «Do you want a drink? Ivan, where's that whisky? Pour him a shot.» She held a crystal glass up to John's lips, but the taste triggered a convulsion. He felt as if his chest were being crushed by ten strong men.
«John,» said Nylla, crouching down beside him, «breathe. Breathe deeply.»
«What's going on?» asked Ivan.
«John,» Nylla continued, «please listen to me. You're having a panic attack. You're panicking because you're safe now. Your body's been waiting all this time until it felt safe enough to let go. And you're safe now. You're with your friends. Breathe.»
John's stomach felt as if it had been given a swift boot. Melody sat on the floor and held him from behind as he rocked. «Johnny? Where've you been? Johnny?»
John said nothing. He'd wanted those rocks and highways and clouds and winds and strip malls to scrape him clean. He'd wanted them to remove the spell of having to be John Johnson. He'd hoped that under a Panavision sky he'd wake up to find the deeper, quieter person who dreamed John Johnson into existence in the first place. But there was nothing any of them in the plane could say or do. They were just a few pieces of light themselves, up there in the night sky, and if they flew twenty miles straight up, they'd be in outer space. It was a quick flight and soon they were back at the airport in Santa Monica, and they drove into town.
John's old house and its James Bond contents had been sold to pay off the IRS. With his royalties caught in a legal snag, he was cashless. As though traveling back in time, John returned to his old bedroom in the guesthouse. Doris was now a living, breathing mille-feuille of ethnic caftans and clattering beads. During his first few weeks home he tried to give the impression that all was fine with him, like a defeated nation embracing the culture of its conqueror. Each day he wore a suit and tie from a selection Melody bought for him. He went without drugs. To see him on the street one would think he was swell, but inside he felt congealed and infected. He felt as if he were soiling whatever he touched, leaving a black stain that not even a fire could remove. He felt as if people could see him as the fraud he knew he was. His skin was sunburned, his hair had grayed, and sunlight now hurt his milk blue eyes, which he was unable to look at in the mirror, as if it could only bring bad news.
He tried finding shaded cafeterias in the drabber parts of Los Angeles, where there was no possibility of encountering old acquaintances. He occasionally spotted geriatric scriptwriters from the DesiLu and Screen Gems era beached like walruses in banquette seats eating Cobb salads, but he never made contact. John would sit and read the daily papers, but they held the same sterile appeal of grossly outdated magazines in a dental office reception area. He wanted to go home, but once he got there, he felt like a bigger misfit than he did out in the city. He tried but couldn't think of any single thing that might make him feel better.