Читать книгу Promises - Roger Elwood - Страница 12

An Oscar!

It was coveted by virtually everyone in the moviemaking business.

Carla Gearhart had placed the statuette on the mantel over her fireplace at her home in Brentwood, Tennessee almost as a talisman to ward off failure.

For a while it seemed to be working. Winning an Academy Award for Best Actress had opened up a new career for her and revived the one she had started with when she was in her late teens: country music.

What a night that Monday was, with an in-person attendance of thirty-five hundred producers, directors, studio executives and many others, as well as a television viewing audience numbering into the millions.

Betting handicappers in Las Vegas and elsewhere were loading the odds against her, in part because no country music singer had ever gone from the Grand Ole Opry to any kind of real movie stardom, but also due to the kind of role that she had played: an obsessive, control freak mother who drove her daughter to a successful suicide attempt and her husband to booze. The film was dark, sad, largely downbeat. And her competition included more than one previous Academy Award winner.

Yet she won.

Columnists, media reviewers and others speculated after the ceremony had ended that Carla had been absolutely convincing in playing a character who was utterly opposite her own personality. None of the others did anything that the Academy Award voter had not seen them do before, however well they did it.

Carla was a breath of fresh air!

The morning after the annual ceremony in Hollywood, and the winners’ parties afterward, was precisely when her agent received a dozen phone calls from the various studios as well as major independent producers, most of whom would have little to do with her before she was able to hold the Oscar in her hand, and smile.

“You’ve got no worries, Carla!” Irving Chicolte had told her over lunch that next day, less than two hours after she had managed to drag herself out of bed, the two of them now sitting at a favored table in the most coveted section of a restaurant only minutes from the auditorium. But then Irving was a master of feel-good sensibilities, and would have told her the same thing if she had just been signed to do a role in a grade C quickie.

He was a genuinely sweet man, this bald-headed, bushy eye-browed, dimpled little character, a leftover from another era, surviving, and doing it well, in an industry of cookie-cutter young Turks, some of the other agents laughing at flashy old Irving behind his back but, at the same time, jealous of the deals he was able to secure for his clients, some of whom had been with him for decades.

More honest than he was willing to admit for fear of blowing his image, Irving Chicolte turned down deals that were suspect, telling people that he could not face his cigar in the morning if he ever threw his integrity out the window. Producers and studio executives, while not themselves above shady business from time to time, found dealing with Irving curiously reassuring, which was why he still had a varied roster of clients.

But it was Carla Gearhart who invariably seemed to require a wholly disproportionate percentage of the man’s efforts. She was hardly over the hill, but her singing career had been sliding because she revealed a penchant for accepting any kind of gig anywhere just to keep working. The only time she truly felt alive and functioning as a worthwhile human being was onstage before an audience. Her act defined her as a woman, because her work was her only reason for living.

Until Promises.

The truth got through even to Carla eventually.

Irving received the script from a producer at a major Burbank film studio who had her in mind for a part other than the lead. But as Irving read it, he had some sort of hunch that she was just right for that main role. He campaigned for the change, telling the producer and the studio brass bankrolling Promises that they could not have her for any part except the starring one. And Irving was promptly told that this was a possibility but she would have to screentest for it. Irving assured them that this was fine.

His hand was shaking as he hung up the phone on his cherry wood desk in an office that was more like a plush penthouse suite.

What have I done? he thought. I must have let the pressure rot my brain. It can’t be anything else.

Two nightmares.

One that he would have to face was telling Carla about the screen test; the other was getting her to do something better than simply coast through it on the assumption that being a big name in one sector of the entertainment world made her automatically an equivalent powerhouse in another.

Irving thought he would have to battle her for days.

But when he asked Carla, she agreed right away. Not one second of hesitation! And she rehearsed like a woman possessed, almost maniacal in her determination.

The result: she got the role, and just over a year and a month later, won an Oscar for best starring role as an actress.

Finally, at lunch the following day, Irving managed enough chutzpah to ask her why she gave him no trouble when he told her about Promises originally.

“That surprised me, too,” she confessed.

“What are you saying?” he asked, puzzled. “That you don’t know why you went along easily?”

Her smile then was the most radiant he had seen for a very long time.

“Obviously something is going on here,” Irving observed slyly.

“As I look back now,” Carla said, “I guess I can think of a reason that I wasn’t aware of at the time.”

“Tell me, Carla.”

“Because it was what God wanted. There’s a verse in the New Testament that suggests God gives each of us who acknowledge our dependence on Him a certain peace that passes understanding from time to time.”

“God?” Irving repeated. “New Testament? Carla, you’re scaring me.” Carla knew Irving had been raised a Christian but his faith had long ago lapsed.

“Yes, God, my good friend. And not like that cigarsmoking old comic actor, either.”

“I never heard you talk about Him before now.”

She paused, thinking, and then threw her head back, long strands of flame red hair flowing down her back, and said, “I have met a man.”

“So what does that have to do with God?” Irving asked lamely.

“Because, I think, it’s true that heaven opened up and dropped Kyle Rivers right in my lap.”

Irving Chicolte was twenty-five years older than Carla, and looked it, while she was in her early thirties and could have played a high school or college student.

“Now, now, I feel happy for you,” he told her, the father part of him coming to the surface. “But I’ve got to ask why you have kept him a secret until today?”

“I wanted to make sure that there was something serious going on. I didn’t want to find myself hooked by his looks or his charm only to find that’s all it was.”

“Fair enough, Carla. Now my second question: How long have you known him?”

“Only a few weeks.”

He was astonished, theatrically slamming the palm of his hand down on the round wood table.

“And already he is God’s gift?”

Next, he threw his hands up in gesture of disbelief, a reaction he’d perfected over the years. Learning such gestures, especially in Hollywood, had served him well over the years.

“I’ve never met him. What’s the problem?”

“He lives in Nashville.”

“Is that all, Carla?” Irving asked, knowing all too well when she was being less than totally forthcoming.

Carla blushed as she admitted, “You got me again.”

Irving’s eyes narrowed.

“Come out with it,” he insisted. “I need to know.”

“Kyle’s gotten involved in church activities.”

Irving was surprised but took that in stride.

“The rest of it, my dear,” he probed. “I don’t condemn men who spend time in church instead of bars.”

Carla wanted to spit the words out right away instead of hesitating but she equivocated a bit until Irving demanded that she let everything out once and for all.

“And there are his college classes,” she said. “These take all morning and most of the afternoon.”

That one got through big-time!

Irving had been sipping from a glass of white wine, and was so startled that he spilled half of it on the table.

“Are you—?” he asked hopefully but with an increasing edge of chilling resignation, knowing his client nearly as well as he had his ex-wives.

Carla nodded.

“Yes, Irving, I am serious,” she said. “I will never deceive you or play some odd practical joke.”

“Tell me that, at least, he’s a senior. Please tell me that, my dear.”

“I can’t.”

She reached out, placed her right hand on the back of his left.

“He’s a music teacher at college…” she said rather sheepishly.

“Holy Mother of—!” he started to shout but stopped when he saw a monsignor, who was sitting at the next table, turn around and glare at him.

For a moment Irving was quiet, and Carla knew why. He was already planning what might be called damage control.

“I can imagine what the tabloids will do with this if…when they find out,” he said, an old stutter long ago conquered threatening to resurrect itself. “But then, if you never see him again, the chances are—”

Carla knew the routine, knew the kind of pressures Irving was going to put on her so that she would cave in and do what he wanted.

“I will not stop seeing Kyle,” she said firmly but without raising her voice.

“Is he that good in bed, Carla?”

She might have slapped anybody else who would talk to her like that but she knew Irving Chicolte as well as he knew her, and she had come to accept such outspokenness as evidence of his honesty, even if it said a great deal about his lack of taste.

“We’ve not beentogether that way,” she said.

“Soon, I’m sure,” he muttered.

“No, Irving, now stop it!”

He cleared his throat and added, “But, dear, dear Carla, that’s what everyonewill be saying. You’re deceiving yourself if you think otherwise. At this point in your career, do you want people suspecting that you are running around with a college kid? It might send the message that you couldn’t get anybody your own age.”

Carla knew that Irving would not beat around the bush when she told him. And she was prepared.

“He teaches at a college, Irving. He’s not a student,” Carla replied patiently. “There’s something else,” she added.

“Not again!” he exclaimed. “You’re going to tell me that he’s got a prison record, but you love him despite everything.”

“Irving…” she tried to say.

“How can I ever explain this to our friends, let alone our enemies, of which there are a few in this town?”

“Irving, please!”

“Don’t you realize what is happening to your career now that you are an Academy Award winner?”

Carla reached out and put the palm of her hand over his mouth.

“Irving, enough!”

He quieted down.

“Any more surprises?” he asked, fully expecting that she might have a few more up her sleeve.

“He’s younger than me, yes. But not all that much. And he’s gorgeous,” she said, “and the absolute best male country music singer I have ever heard. I want you to meet Kyle Rivers, and see if you agree that he could be very big.”

“Is it love, Carla,” Irving asked cynically, “or a career opportunity?”

She had been all in favor of her agent’s renowned outspokenness until he said that.

“If I didn’t find you so adorable,” she said, “I’d fire you right now.”

“If I didn’t think of you with so much affection,” he told her, “I would go without protest, sighing with relief all the way to my attorney’s office, my dear.”

“So, will you go?”

“To Nashville?”

“Yes, Nashville.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“With less than the greatest anticipation.”

“Why do you say that, Irving? I’ve not seen quite this attitude coming from you before now.”

“I think, in your present state, you would find a hog caller good enough to audition for the Metropolitan Opera!”

He smiled at her, then added, “Will I like this Kyle Rivers, Carla? I mean, really like him?”

“You will find him charming and talented.”

“Is it love, Carla? Can you be sure? I couldn’t bear to see you hurt.”

Carla smiled softly, her eyes shining. He had his answer.

Car horns were honking.

“We’re blocking the driveway,” she said. “Let’s go, Irving.”

He half smiled, nodded and drove away.

“I’ll ask my secretary to make the travel arrangements,”

Irving said as they approached his office where one of her own cars was parked in the building’s garage.

“The Opryland Hotel would be fine.”

“When should we plan on going?”

“This is Monday. How about leaving on Thursday?”

“Roxie and I could make it earlier, if you want.”

“Okay, Wednesday would be fine.”

He was getting out of the car when Carla reached over and grabbed his sleeve.

“Irving?” she asked.

“Yes, Carla?” he said, sounding a bit weary.

“Can I tell Kyle when I call him later?”

“About us coming? That would be fine.”

“No, about your prayer need.”

He hesitated, then acknowledged, “I haven’t had a Christian offer to pray for me or my loved ones lately.”

“I am now a professing Christian, Irving.”

“For how long?”

“Just a few weeks.”

“You might get over it soon then.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said sincerely.

He kissed her on the cheek, then got out of his car and walked up the sloping driveway to the pavement outside. His shoulders were slumped, his walk shuffling.

“Irving!” she shouted. “I love you!”

“Yeah, yeah,” he replied, waving back at her, and then was gone from sight, swallowed up by the glare of the sun as he emerged from the relative darkness of the garage, an aging veteran of the Hollywood entertainment world, able to make the most arrogant stars and studio executives dread his ire but now tired of going to “war” every day and being so wired at night that a restful sleep is something he cherished almost as much as life itself.

Carla called Kyle as soon as she was inside her apartment, which was more like a miniature mansion, with black Italian marble floors, white imported furniture and a large crystal chandelier.

“Did you go and tell Irving that you and I were getting married?” he asked.

She knew that Kyle, always a model of directness, would ask that very question.

“I didn’t have the nerve frankly,” Carla replied honestly.

“He’s been so much a part of your life for so long. Shouldn’t you avoid giving him any surprises?”

Carla had been asking herself that same question.

“I want him to meet you first,” she said a bit defensively.

“If that’s what you think is best.”

Not again! her mind shouted. You keep doing that.

Again and again…sometimes when Kyle was acquiescing too readily, it seemed as though this indicated weakness on his part, or that he was afraid of losing her if he disagreed about anything. She had never found indecisive yesmen very attractive for long.

“I wish you would stop that,” she told him at last.

“What, Carla? Stop what?”

“Always giving in to me. You really can disagree with what I say, you know, and it won’t mean that we are going to split up.”

“I know that.”

As always, his voice disarmed her. The first time they spoke weeks before, and during that conversation, the circumstances were not any different. Kyle’s deep, warm voice had an amazing effect on her. It was not harsh at all, as though coming from some macho football hero whose vocal cords had been affected by chewing tobacco and booze, but, rather, an inexpressibly sexy one that seemed almost like a caressing hand. But she was determined not to let it detour her from finding out what she wanted.

“Then why did you leave it up to me again?” she asked, trying very hard not to sound peevish.

Carla knew how much she was gambling by confronting him just then.

“Irving is your agent, your friend, has been for all these years,” he stated. “How can I help you with a man I’ve not even met?”

That made sense but the same voice she loved to hear was also one that showed naked emotion, making it easy for her to read, and so she asked, “Is there something more, though, Kyle, now if not other times?”

“Yes, there is. Maybe I am afraid of losing you. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve lost someone I loved,” he admitted.