Leaving the World Page 24

  ‘It’s an Indian meal,’ I told him. ‘The food is going to smother such rarefied wine.’

  ‘This dinner will mark the beginning of our business partnership and I want it to be as special and important as this project.’

  ‘You’re talking about hawking a cheapie horror movie, not reprinting the Gutenberg Bible.’

  ‘You really know how to piss all over everything.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘Nor is your insinuation that I am being extravagant for no other reason than to be extravagant.’

  Five minutes later, Adrienne made her entrance.

  ‘Entrance’ was the apt word, though it was actually more of a performance. She showed up at our door wearing a floor-length coat that looked like a cross between a kaftan and an Afghan rug. She was very tall – somewhere over six foot – with densely curled hair, dyed virulently red. Everything about her instantly screamed ‘extremity’: the coat, the hair, the capped teeth, the huge bronze sunburst earrings, the vertical musky perfume that radiated from every pore. Then there was the matter of her voice. It was loud. Wake-up-the-neighbors loud. What made it even more grating was the way it oozed specious bonhomie.

  ‘Oh, my God, you are as beautiful as Theo said you were.’

  Those were the first words out of her mouth. Followed by: ‘And – oh, I don’t believe it – what an awesome apartment!’

  This comment came when she was still in the doorway and hadn’t yet taken in the ‘awesomeness’ of our place. But after throwing her arms around me like a long-lost friend she rushed inside and started talking in exclamation points about everything – from the color of our sofa to the ‘fabulous’ parquet floor to the ‘gorgeous’ new kitchen. And when it came to Emily . . .

  ‘Oh, you are the most absolutely beautiful little girl . . .’

  As Adrienne approached her with outstretched arms, my daughter instinctively curled herself up into a ball and turned away from this towering shrike. Emily, from the outset, always figured out who to trust and who to shun.

  Now I do realize that I am engaging in excessive character assassination when it comes to Adrienne Clegg. But she was one of those people who didn’t exactly provoke a neutral response. Within five minutes of her arrival, I was desperate for her to leave.

  But there was no way I could say that. Instead I offered Adrienne a drink.

  ‘A little Martini-wini would go down a treat,’ she said.

  ‘And do you want your Martini with gin or vodka?’ I asked.

  ‘You wouldn’t happen to have Grey Goose by any chance?’

  ‘No – good old boring Smirnoff.’

  ‘I guess that will have to do . . .’

  I headed to the kitchen and made the drinks. Then I returned to the living room where Adrienne was down on the floor, trying to bond with my daughter. She kept holding up building blocks and mouthing things like: ‘Can Emily say the letter A?’ ‘Can Emily say the letter Z?’ Being thirteen months old and unable to form words as yet, this was just a bit beyond her and Adrienne’s shrieky voice sent her into floods of tears.

  ‘Has Auntie Adrienne upset you?’ she asked, all high decibels. Emily’s response was to escalate her crying, causing me to scoop her up and whisk her off to her room.

  ‘Guess you can see now why Auntie Adrienne is never going to be Mommy Adrienne,’ she said as we left.

  It didn’t take long for Emily to regain her composure. Once out of Adrienne’s range she relaxed.

  ‘Sorry if she frightened you,’ I whispered to her. ‘She frightens me too.’

  When I returned to the living room Adrienne and Theo had both slurped down their drinks. Noting that the cocktail shaker was empty, Adrienne insisted on heading into the kitchen and making a fresh batch.

  ‘There’s no need,’ I said.

  ‘Of course there’s a need,’ she said brightly. ‘Another couple of Martini-winis and we are going to be bosom buddies.’

  As soon as she was out of the room Theo said: ‘I knew you guys would hit it off.’

  ‘Very funny,’ I said.

  ‘Hey, don’t blame me if you have no sense of humor.’

  ‘That woman is an irony-free zone,’ I whispered.

  ‘You just can’t stand anyone who’s flamboyant.’

  ‘She’s a floor show.’

  ‘And you are, as always, rushing to critical judgment.’

  ‘That’s not fair. I only want the best for you, for us.’

  Adrienne was back with the drinks.

  ‘You lovebirds having a little spat?’

  ‘No, I was just being cranky,’ I said, downing the Martini and accepting a second one. Vodka Martinis are an excellent poison. After the first you’re moderately anesthetized. After the second, numbed. After the third you’re either willing to make a pass at a fire hydrant or put up with a two-hour stream-of-consciousness monologue from Adrienne Clegg.

  Fortunately the Martinis were augmented by all that Indian food which Theo had so lovingly prepared, and by all that extravagant Bordeaux bought especially for the occasion. I just sat back and ate and drank, as Adrienne did all the talking. I learned about her ‘ultra-dysfunctional’ childhood in Vancouver, her first brief marriage to a Hollywood set dresser who turned out to be a raving homosexual (or did she lead him to conclude that sleeping with men was a smarter option?), and her stint in some Betty Ford rehab center in British Columbia to break her Percodan habit (‘At least Perc is cheaper than coke,’ she noted). I also heard about how she helped discover at least three major film directors (none of whom I’d heard of ) and about her previous professional lives in Paris and Berlin (‘I was the first film distributor to get things moving in the old East Germany after the wall came down’). And, of course, there were her ‘fabulous’ years in New York where she ‘knew everybody’.

  Listening to her wasn’t a vast strain. My brain, deadened by the vodka and the wine, shifted into neutral. I simply let her ceaseless monologue waft over me. There was something nonetheless fascinating about her self-absorption: the sheer loud narcissism of it all, the way she dropped film-industry names (‘Steven’ . . . ‘Hugh’ . . . ‘George’ . . . ) and expected you to fill in the blanks; the fact that she viewed her life as an ongoing melodrama and didn’t stop to think for a moment if it might be the least bit interesting for her audience. What did Theo see in her? Actually that wasn’t difficult to fathom, as he seemed to take perverse pleasure in her campy extremity, the way certain gay men so love over-the-top divas. Perhaps it was her wild, unbridled self-assurance that strangely impressed Theo. For someone who had a degree of intellectual arrogance – and a geeky love of pedantic detail – he often hinted that he was ill at ease in that world of pure American ambition and wondered if he would always be someone on the financial margins of life. So Adrienne – with her aura of fiscal knowingness, of being a player – was an immediate source of attraction for Theo. As the evening wore on she started to talk about how she would market Delta Kappa Gangster – and so began selling me on her ability to turn this little blood fest into a highly profitable piece of merchandise. Yes, she was extreme and narcissistic, but it was clear she could push an idea. The more she talked the more I became convinced that, yes, Adrienne could (as she and Theo promised) treble my investment in under a year. Like any canny salesman, Adrienne knew how to be persuasive and dangle the possibility of multiplying money in front of you.

  ‘I promise you this: the fifty grand you put into the enterprise will be completely guaranteed by us. What your money will do is let us travel to the big film markets – like the American Film Market in Santa Monica – and nail down big deals. With a film like this, it’s a certainty that we can sell both theatrical and DVD. I mean, this movie is a gift. A fucking great lucrative gift. I showed it to an Italian distributor friend of mine just last week and he’s already prepared to offer a hundred and fifty thousand for Italian theatrical alone. Now I know what your next question is going to be: If we’re already being offered t
hat sort of money, why do we initially need yours? The key here is the word “initially”. As the distribution sales company we get thirty percent of all gross sales – but the money is only paid ten percent down and the distributors must make good on their offer within ninety days. So what we’re talking about now is a short-term bridging loan – and one which we can repay to you once we have received the first hundred grand in deals. The thing is: not only will your investment be paid off in four months, but given your twenty percent cut of our commission . . . well, do the math, hon.

  ‘I tell you, the demand for this sort of product is endless. People want to get the shit scared out of them. People want the visceral kick of extreme violence. We’re living in a time of vapid consumerism and anemic expectations. What’s more, though everything is superficially humdrum in most people’s lives, the amount of silent rage out there is enormous. Rage at being in a dead-end job. Rage at being trapped in a sterile marriage. Rage at the fact that, for every average working stiff and middle-class office type, the money they’re now making just doesn’t cut it anymore – and they also know that there is no such thing as job security.

  ‘So with all this rage around, how do people vent it? They need some exhaust valve: online porn, shopaholism, watching extreme stuff. This is where Delta Kappa Gangster really rings all the bells: a revenge movie in which you get the visceral kick of watching all-American assholes being mutilated. I mean, ring-a-ding-ding . . . it’s a sure-fire winner.

  ‘Now Theo told me about your time in hedge funds. Look at the apartment you got out of that. What we’re offering you here . . . yeah, it’s a risk. But you’re the ex hedge fund gal. You know all about risk, hon. And you also know that a guaranteed return on investment in four months – coupled with the chance to easily triple your money within the year . . . and hon, when I say “easily” I am being prudent here . . .’

  Hon. I hated her using that term of endearment, just as I also hated so much about her excessive personality, and her need to ingratiate herself with me. After she finished her sales spiel I said little, except: ‘Well, I must think all this over . . .’

  ‘Of course you must, of course,’ she said. ‘No pressure, hon, none at all.’

  Then she manically began to tell a story about someone she knew who didn’t invest in Saw and lost out on a cool million. But . . .‘No pressure, hon, none at all.’

  We finally got rid of her around midnight. Theo was ultra-solicitous, insisting that I go to bed while he did the dishes. When he snuggled up against me an hour later I didn’t push him away. Nor did I object when I woke the next morning at eleven – it was a Saturday – to discover the house had been even more tidied up and that (according to a note he left – in easy view this time – on the kitchen counter) he had headed out to the supermarket with Emily to do the shopping for the weekend.

  I saw right through all of this. And in the somewhat clear (but rather hungover) light of day I remained more than dubious about Ms Clegg. When I Googled her, I did come across many references to her presence at assorted film markets over the years and one 2002 Hollywood Reporter item (from when she was living in New York), noting that she was ‘one of the real players in independent film sales’. Just as I also received, a few days after the dinner, a very thorough and very professional business plan from Adrienne, accompanied by a long and well-argued letter, explaining again the parameters of the investment and how, at the very worst, I would come out with the $50,000 I put into the company. Theo asked that evening if I was still dubious about making the commitment, also letting it be known that they were under immense pressure to sign up Stuart, as there were other better-established film sales companies now chasing him.

  ‘Look, it would mean so damn much to me if you would take this gamble on me . . . especially as, when we make all this money, it will provide so much in the way of security for you and me and Emily.’

  It was the first time he had ever spoken of the future in plural terms. That part of me which feared being abandoned again responded immediately to this articulation of commitment.

  ‘All right,’ I told Theo that night. ‘I’m in.’

  Adrienne called me up the next day, brimming with excitement.

  ‘I screamed and screamed and screamed when Theo told me the news,’ she said. ‘And I promise, promise, promise we will not let you down. Of that you can be one thousand percent certain.’

  She also said that it would be kind of cool if I was made an officer of the company, Fantastic Filmworks, that she and Theo were forming to distribute the film. It would mean I could come to board meetings and be kept fully abreast (and, indeed, could even influence) all the decisions they would be making about the sales of the movie.

  ‘Why not?’ I said, also thinking that it would be no bad thing to keep a watchful eye over how my investment was being handled.

  A letter of general partnership arrived a few days later. It was all very straightforward – outlining my investment, a detailed schedule of repayments and bonuses, and (this was crucial to me) a clear statement indicating that, as a member of this partnership, I would have complete access to all books and corporate decisions about the sales and marketing of the film. That evening – when, as prearranged, Adrienne came by the house for a final discussion – I made it very clear that I wanted to be kept abreast of every major expenditure made in the selling of the film and had to see full accounts whenever demanded.

  ‘No problem, hon. There will be complete transparency here.’

  Then, with several scribbles of a pen, I committed myself to a $50,000 investment in Fantastic Filmworks. As soon as the document was signed Adrienne brought out a bottle of champagne to celebrate the deal. Only this was not just any old bottle of champagne. This was a Laurent-Perrier 1977.

  ‘There was no need for such an expensive bottle,’ I told Theo later as we were getting ready for bed.

  ‘There are moments when extravagance has its place.’

  During the coming months – when Adrienne and Theo veered from extravagance to extravagance – I found myself in an increasingly enraged war of words with Theo about his profligacy.

  Until, as the arbitrary nature of things would have it, the extravagant expenditure turned into extravagant profitability. Adrienne and Theo were right on the money about their little film. It was a monster hit.

  Success can bring stability on all fronts. Success can also precipitate chaos. As I came to learn: never underestimate the need for self-sabotage when someone has finally gotten what they’ve always wanted.

  Seven

  EMILY. DURING ALL that went down over the next year and a half, the one and only great constant in my life was my daughter. Everything else around me turned very wrong – and I had no one to blame but myself. After all, by signing over all that money I’d handed them an opportunity to . . .

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. First . . . Emily. By the age of eighteen months she was already forming basic but interesting sentences, and seemed as devoted to me as I was to her. Maybe I was super-conscious of my own complex family background – but from the outset, I vowed not to visit the same toxic guilt on my daughter, and to make Emily feel that her presence in my life was simply the best thing that ever happened to me.

  Did she, as a baby, get this? Only a completely self-obsessive parent would think that. Honestly, I had no idea if I was getting it right. What I did know was that I so enjoyed every moment I had with my daughter. She never caused me trouble. Or maybe I simply decided that nothing she did was that troubling or distressing. If she knocked over the milk, if she ruined a night’s sleep, if she was grumpy and unresponsive to my attempt to cheer her up, I seemed to ride with it. That’s what surprised me the most about my response to her – the realization that nothing she asked of me was too difficult. It was revelatory, this feeling – for what it told me was the depth of my unconditional love for this little girl who also happened to be my daughter.

  She coped with my absences, never putting up a
fuss when she was dropped off at the crèche. Every evening when I arrived home she came tottering (and eventually running) towards me, announcing delightedly to Julia: ‘Mommy home!’

  Julia always went on about just what a charmer she was, and how easy it was to look after her.

  ‘She is wonderful because you treat her wonderful,’ Julia once told me in her still-shaky English.

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘Emily is wonderful because she is simply wonderful.’

  By the age of three she was picking up books and saying things like: ‘Mommy loves books – and I love Mommy.’ Or she would climb into my lap when I was in my desk chair at home, grading papers, and would try to read the words I had written on the essays.

  Every weekend, I made a point of bringing Emily somewhere cultural, but fun. The Science Museum, the Zoo, the Museum of Fine Art (she actually pointed to a Rothko hanging on one of the walls and went: ‘Nice’), even the Wiedener Library at Harvard, where a friend named Diane who worked in the cataloging department brought us on a tour of the vast array of stacks. Emily found it all a bit claustrophobic and labyrinthine, and clung to me as Diane patiently explained to her how the books found their way onto shelves and how there were shelves for books about stories and shelves for books about things that happened in the past and shelves for . . .

  ‘I write stories,’ Emily suddenly announced.

  ‘I’m sure you do,’ Diane said, beaming.

  Again I was told how poised and delightful my daughter was. On one snowy day I decided against taking the car and brought her to the crèche by the T. During the journey she happily colored away in her Sesame Street book, occasionally stopping to show me her handiwork, and an elderly woman sitting opposite me actually leaned over and said: ‘I have grandchildren and they don’t know how to behave in public and are always kicking up. But your daughter is just exceptional . . . and a great credit to you.’