IT’S LATE, BUT I OWE YOU AN ENTRY.
I’ve been working like a madwoman for PortaParty, sometimes with as many as two gigs a day. Word of mouth has done wonders for us in Bel Air and Beverly Hills, where we’ve been passed around like a favorite recipe from one rich doctor’s family to another. Some of the kids are so used to us now that they know me by name and have begun to get adventurous when I call for requests during the singing portion of the show. Last week at a dermatologist’s house, an eight-year-old girl made such an eloquent plea for “Like a Virgin” that I finally gave in and sang it sotto voce while the grownups were out at the cabana drinking decaf. I don’t need to tell you I brought down the garage.
The attention is nice, I admit, but I’m a little disturbed by the vaguely captive feeling this specialized audience gives me. Every time I perform, I feel less like a gypsy trouper and more like a court jester. I haven’t said this to Neil, of course, since he’s ecstatic about the new surge in business and attributes it largely to me, which—let’s be honest—is probably true. If nothing else, I’m a novelty, so it’s easy enough to imagine the scenario: “Can I, Mommy, please, please? Zachary had the midget lady for his birthday.”
My secret fantasy is that one day we’ll do a party for the children of, say, the Spellings or the Spielbergs, in the process of which Aaron or Steven, or their wives, or at least someone who works for them, will discover the huge talent I’m hiding under this walking bushel and offer me a contract on the spot.
Farfetched? Maybe. But a girl can dream. We’re working the right neighborhoods, certainly, and we’re bound to run out of doctors sooner or later.
Renee and I drove into Hollywood today to see The Rocketeer at the El Capitan. I was less curious about the movie than about the movie house, a huge Deco extravaganza that Disney just renovated as its flagship theater, whatever that means. They had a live show before the film, with tap-dancing ushers and usherettes in snappy uniforms singing a hopelessly hokey song about the El Capitan and those fabulous stars of yesteryear. Renee adored it. To me, the kids looked like animatronics figures, robots from a ride at Disneyland, with smiles so grim and waxen that they might have been greeting you at the gates of hell.
The Rocketeer hasn’t got much for grownups, but the audience today seemed to enjoy itself thoroughly, stomping and hooting like goons. The biggest cheer came when a gangster took a stand against the Nazis and said, “I may run a crooked business, but I’m a loyal American.”
Yellow ribbon fever is rampant. You can’t make it a block along the Walk of Fame without running into some asshole in a General Schwartzcoff T-shirt. (No, I don’t know how to spell it, and I don’t plan to learn. As far as I’m concerned, he’s just one more Mattel action doll we’ve been sold for the summer.) Even the hookers—I swear to you—are wearing Desert Storm camouflage tube tops. Whores for Oil. Bimbos Against Baghdad. It’s too surreal for words.
A billboard has just gone up in West Hollywood depicting a sleek and sinister-looking car (I forget which make), headlined by one word: STEALTH. How’s that for subtle? The people who buy this car should be issued license plate holders that say MY OTHER CAR IS A BOMBER. Look at what has happened to us: warfare has become so attractive again we can actually sell cars with it—to guzzle the gas we killed all those people for.
After the movie we went to Book City, this huge old Hollywood bookstore with floor-to-ceiling shelves. I like it because there’s always lots of stuff at eye level and because I can lose myself so thoroughly in its maze. Renee gets bored easily with this routine, so she usually runs out for a milk shake while I’m there. At least that’s what she tells me. I think she’s really checking out the panties at Frederick’s of Hollywood. She has a terrible weakness for them. All I want out of Frederick’s is a spot on the sidewalk in front, the perfect location for my star.
I found a copy of Rumpelstiltskin at Book City. I’ve been looking for a good one for ages, since it would make a fabulous movie and I’d be just right to play him. I wouldn’t mind cross-dressing one more time, as long as my face remained visible. In this new version of the fable, which I read tonight while I drank my Cher shake, Rumpelstiltskin is delicately described as “a little man” rather than an evil dwarf. Such liberal revisionism is progress only if one prefers complete invisibility to outright scorn. I’m not sure I do.
The legend was pretty much as I’d remembered it, with the poor dude getting his usual bum rap. When he’s banished at the end, having stomped himself completely into the ground, his only crime has been to establish an adoption contract and attempt to abide by its terms. The real villain of the piece, if you ask me, is that venal bitch of a miller’s daughter. Following the dwarf’s instructions, she spun whole rooms full of gold for the king, eventually luring him into marriage, knowing from the start that the fee for Rumpelstiltskin’s services was her firstborn child. Then she has the gall to act wronged when he comes around to collect. No wonder he sends her out to learn his name; she’s treated him like a complete cipher, someone whose feelings count for nothing. The book doesn’t say that, of course, but it does let you know that little guy couldn’t be bought off for all the gold in the kingdom. He valued human life above all else, which was why he wanted a child of his own so badly.
Call me a nut, but I think there’s a real story inside the fairy tale, which would make for a fascinating movie: a crusty, cantankerous but entirely human old dwarf, living on his own in the woods and longing for single parenthood.
When I explained all this to Renee, she said: “Yeah, but most people are used to the old story.”
I told her this was the old story, just another way of looking at it.
“Yeah, but, you know…it’s no fun if he isn’t…”
“A turd.”
She giggled.
“It’s not funny,” I told her sternly. “Dwarfs are always the bad guys in these things—vicious, vindictive little bastards who live under a bridge and eat children for lunch.”
“Really?” she asked meekly, trying to look serious but making a total mess of it.
“I know you’ve noticed it, Renee. Name me one nice dwarf in a fairy tale.”
After a moment of serious pondering, she screwed up her face and said: “Dopey?”
If there had been beer in my mouth, I would have spewed it at her. “Dopey?”
“Well, I don’t…”
“Good, Renee. Dopey. Good answer.”
She stared at me, slack-mouthed, apparently wondering how badly she’d fucked up.
“That’ll look fabulous on the poster,” I said, retaining my acid tone. “CADENCE ROTH IS DOPEY.” I knelt on my pillow and imagined a review for her. “‘Not since Linda Hunt’s Grumpy has there been such an Oscar-caliber performance.’”
When Renee finally realized I wasn’t mad, she giggled in relief and bounced once or twice on the sofa. “I didn’t know we were talking about a role for you.”
“Since when are we not talking about a role for me?”
“Well, I don’t see why Dopey is any sillier than Rumpelstiltskin.”
“It is. Trust me. It’s myth versus kitsch.”
I’d lost her completely.
“It doesn’t matter,” I added hastily. “It’s all just speculation.”
“Did you talk to Leonard about it?”
“About what?”
“Rumpelstiltskin.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said. “There isn’t even a script. It’s just a concept.”
“Oh.” She rose and headed for the kitchen, stopping in the doorway. “Want some popcorn?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
“Is it on your diet?”
“If I don’t have butter.”
“Oh.”
“Butter it,” I said.
She giggled and ducked into the kitchen.
“I need my animal fats,” I yelled after her. “I’ve been working too hard.”
After we finished the popcorn, Renee offered me a foot rub, which I accepted without protest. I lay on my pillow on the living room floor, stomach down and feet toward the ceiling, while she sat next to me with a squeeze bottle full of pink lotion. It was sheer heaven. (If you’d like some inkling of this experience yourself, start by imagining a massage from someone whose hands can engulf your entire foot.)
During the rub, Renee kept up a running commentary on Lorrie Hasselmeyer, a new employee at The Fabric Barn. As near as I can make out, Ms. Hasselmeyer is the only woman at the store who outdoes Renee in the doormat department—romantically speaking—which, presumably, is why Renee can’t stop talking about her.
“She’s just so desperate,” she told me.
“Mmm.” I was a little more involved in the massage than in the anecdote.
“When the guy didn’t call, she went over to his house and left a note on his Harley.”
“No.”
“She did. I swear.”
“God.”
“She was bragging about it, Cady. She thought she was being really cool.” Renee let go of my foot for a moment to replenish the lotion on her hands. When she squeezed the bottle, it made a noise like a baby with the runs. My foot felt unexplainably deserted and naked, awaiting her there in midair. When her hands finally returned, all sweet-smelling and slippery, they fit me like a glass slipper. “Too cold?” she asked.
“No. ’S great.”
“You’d tell me if I got like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Like what?”
“Like Lorrie Hasselmeyer.”
“Oh, God, yes.”
“I don’t think any guy’s worth begging for.”
“Fuckin’ A.”
Renee turned her attention to my other foot and was quiet for a while. Her thoughts hung heavy in the air, endearingly obvious, like the scent of the lotion. I swear to you I knew exactly, almost to the word, what she would say next:
“Has Neil ever…said anything about me?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know,” she said.
I hesitated, considering several routes, then said: “He’s only seen you twice, Renee.”
“Three times.”
“Whatever.”
“So what did he say?”
“He said you seemed nice.”
Her fingers stopped. “Is that all?”
“Well…he said you had great tits.”
“You’re kidding!”
I chuckled. “Yes, I’m kidding.”
“Gah, Cady, that’s not very nice.”
“Sorry.”
She began to work my toes again. “I just thought he might’ve said something.”
“No,” I said evenly. “Not really.” This sounded too hard, so I added: “Mostly we just talk about work.”
She seemed to drift away for a moment. “He’s real smart, isn’t he?”
“I suppose.” Let’s put it this way: Neil is a genius by Renee’s standards. I soft-pedaled it, though, because I know she’s in the process of fixating on him, and I’m not sure he’s ever given a moment’s thought to her. It seems like one more quick way for Renee to get her feelings hurt.