Magic Hour, Susan Isaacs [life changing books txt] 📗

that I know what kind of number he was doing with Lindsay Keefe. Why are you so sure she wasn’t stepping out?”

“Because Sy could satisfy anyone.” She sat up, eyes right on me, trying to act detached, trying for a clinical look, like a woman in a white coat on TV selling April Showers douche.

If she’d worn glasses she would have taken them off and looked sincere. “Sy was extremely adaptable with women.

He could be whatever they wanted. Well, he couldn’t be six three, with a thing that went from here to Philadelphia. But he could talk dirty or romantically. He could be an animal, or he could be Fred Astaire to your Ginger Rogers. Forget real passion, or real warmth—he wasn’t capable of either.

But he could be a sensational animal, a fantastic Fred Astaire.

Or whatever it was you wanted.”

Moose came to the door and started barking. She wanted to join the conversation. I couldn’t risk letting her run out and setting off my neighbors’ dogs in the dark. So we went back inside, back to the pineap-296 / SUSAN ISAACS

ple room. I switched on the lamp, and we took up our previously staked-out positions. But since we were getting along better, I decided it was safe to put my feet up on the bed.

“What if I told you Lindsay was having a go at Victor Santana?” I inquired.

“No!”

“Well?”

“I’d say…” Bonnie gave it about five seconds’ thought.

The fresh air had brightened her eyes, cleared her head. “She probably could have gotten away with it. You know why?

Sy would never believe it.” She pulled up her legs, hugged her knees. “But if he did, that would have been it for her. He was so vindictive. If anyone—an agent, a studio executive—crossed him, he’d go on Sy’s list. Seriously, he had this mental list, including a top ten, that kept changing.

Whenever he could zing it to someone on his list, no matter what number, he would. And once you were on, you never dropped off.”

I kept thinking Sy’s vengefulness had to mean something.

Maybe he’d confronted Lindsay, worked her over about her crummy acting. Or he’d found out about Santana. Maybe she sensed he was about to do damage to her: not just fire her but try and destroy her career, let everyone know she’d lost it as an actress. Would she have gone after him then?

It added up, I thought. No. But almost.

Bonnie said: “I honestly don’t think Sy knew. He wasn’t in one of his I’ll-rip-out-her-heart-with-my-teeth moods. He was very optimistic about his trip to L.A. Very relaxed too.

He’d planned on taking the ten-fifteen morning flight, but instead he decided to go over to the set, to make nice to everybody because he knew morale wasn’t all that high. Then he called me to meet him at his place. I’d never seen it before.

He gave me the grand tour. Wanted to hear me say ‘Gosh!

Gee! My God!’”

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“Did you?”

“Sure. If you’re going to make a fuss over a house, this was the one to do it with.”

“He was relatively relaxed?”

“He wasn’t tense. He said he’d done everything but wave pom-poms and cheer on the set, and when he’d left, he could feel the change in atmosphere. Much more positive. And as far as the L.A. trip, he’d gotten copies of the screenplay to three different actresses, and he was going to take the seven o’clock evening flight, get a decent night’s sleep, and the next day he was going to have breakfast, lunch and dinner with them. He was going to make one of them an offer that same night. He told me, ‘I’m a little in the hole right now with Starry, but watch. I’m going to pull it out. It’s going to be my biggest. My best.’”

I put my feet down and pulled the chair closer to the bed: straight talk time. I didn’t like being so charmed by her. “Tell me why you threatened Sy.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Bonnie, come on. You went to see him at the Starry Night set. We have witnesses. You said: ‘Sy, you’ve just been a rotten bastard for the last time.’”

“You call this an interrogation?” Too cute. Like a snotty Upper East Side bitch.

“Fuck off, Bonnie.”

“No, you eff off. Don’t you know anything about people?

Here’s Sy Spencer, my former husband who’s been coming to my house every day, having sex with me, telling me how he’s missed me, how wonderfully human I am, how there’s been an emptiness in his life since I’ve been gone despite all the other women and he’s beginning to think he made a ghastly mistake. ‘Ghastly’ was his word. Sure, I knew it was almost all bull, but he said, I want you to come down to the set one day soon; I want you to see what I’m doing firsthand.

So I went. Okay, it might have been 298 / SUSAN ISAACS

better to wait for an engraved invitation: big deal. But when I got there, he told me to leave—so everyone could hear. I wasn’t hurt. I was furious. And that was going to be the last time he was a rotten bastard. He came over to my house later and I wouldn’t let him in. Over. Goodbye.”

“Except it wasn’t over.”

“He called about two seconds later from his car phone.

He said he felt terrible. He explained that if he had invited me on the set, it would look like we had something going, because he never took anyone to the set except big banker types. And he couldn’t afford to have Lindsay focus on me; it would give the game away, and he wasn’t ready for that yet. So he had to disavow me publicly. Naturally, he apologized all over himself and swore he was getting rid of her.

As soon as she was gone, I’d have carte blanche to visit anytime I wanted. He said he was proud of me. I’d created Cowgirl. He wanted to parade