"Okay then, Sooz, it's time for whackies!"

Rudy, sensing a trophy, slunk into a shooting angle be-hind Susan, then in ta.s.sels, while Chris called out, "Wait! Yourta.s.sels are a mess." With the fingertips of one hand he held her nipples in place while using his other hand to rake the tinsel."There."

"Thank you, husband."

"We Brits are so dominant, so forceful."

"Sun's almost up," called Nash, the drummer.

Susan moved into position. Far across the vast geographicalsore, the first c.h.i.n.ks of sunlight were breaking through the horizon's rock. Susan shouted, "Foreplay!" and walloped theKinder Egg with such force that it vaporized and fell intothe canyon as a mist. Rudy's flash coincided with the sunriseentering into her eye, and she wasn't sure which was which.The photo was a winner: faded child star now in second bloomas rock-and-roll mama.

"Ravishing," said Chris.

"You liar. You just like me because I got you a green card."

"You just like me because I let you sing backup vocalson tour."

"That's not true. I love you for the 10K a month you put intomy savings account."

"You just love me for the manliness of my member." Chrisdropped his trousers and wagged his hips back and forth, estab-lishing a lewd pendulum as the crowd on the roof shrieked inunison.

And so went life ontour. Susan was alpha road-rat on the North American tour of Chris's band, Steel Mountain, the highly caste-conscious temporary family fueled by drinking, smoking,copious drugs and arcade games inside buses that stank of theghosts of a hundred previous bands.

Susan married Chris two years after the network canceledMeet the Blooms, and her TV career vanished in a puff of dust. Herthen agent-manager-lover, Larry Mortimer, phoned her withnews of the cancellation while she was in Guam shooting aj.a.panese commercial for a lemony sports beverage called PocariSweat ("Hey team-lets Pocari!"). Larry was getting bored withTV and had just entered the world of rock management and had connected Susan to Chris.

The match had its pluses and minuses. Chris had money andSusan did not. Her earnings from her years in TV had beensquandered and lost by her mother and stepfather, a fact thatshe had laboriously kept out of the media. Also, Chris wasgay, information that would surely have given surprise to his head-banging musical const.i.tuency. Above all, Susan was stillin love with the Catholic, divorce-phobic Larry Mortimer.

While once it had been easy to find reasons to be aroundLarry, now Susan needed a better pretext-marrying Chris toland him a green card restored her to Larry's inner-circle.The green-card deal with Chris seemed like just the ticket,and for a while it worked. But when Chris wasn't touring, he lived .in London. Susan stayed in California, the partnerless weeks and months adding up across the years.

She lived byherself most of the time, in Chris's s.p.a.ce Needle-like orbatop a pole that had the distinct aura of having been handeddown from a long succession of emotionally adolescent, newly monied entertainment people. It had filthy s.h.a.g carpets in long-discontinued colors, appliances that probably hadn't workedsince the dawn of TV dinners, and the impending sensationthat the Monkees would pop in through a window at anymoment and burst into song. In the s.p.a.ce Needle, Susan real-ized that the phone really didn't ring too often, and whenit did, it was for Chris. Any scripts Larry sent her were fort.i.tty flicks. Their phone calls were many: "Oh, come on, Larry.We can do better than this. How hard can it be to land a TVmovie?"

"You're rock and roll now, Sue.You need to be aYoung Mom for TV movies. You know-two kids-those new minivans peo-ple are driving. Fridge magnets. People read about you and Chris and the rest of those gorillas trashing a Ramada on a tour and it scares them off."

"I'm unbankable, Larry. Say it."

"You're crazy. I send you a dozen scripts a week."

"Slashers and t.i.tties."

"That's not true. They're entry points."

"Entry to nowhere. I'm stereotyped as either the sucky littleBloom daughter or the s.l.u.tty rock b.i.t.c.h."

"I'm not going to have this conversation, Susan, because itgoes nowhere."

"Don't hang up, Larry."

"Take acting lessons. Karate. Put on that blue lace numberyou wore for me down in Laguna Niguel and give Chris a peek.It's so hot, he'll switch."

"You liked that negligee?"

"Liked? Ooh-Susan."

"I looked hot in it?You didn't act like it."

"I've got worries."

Larry went quiet. After a while, Susan said, "Can you comeover tonight?"

No answer.

"Good-bye, Larry." She slammed down the receiver and it rangalmost simultaneously; she picked up the phone and barked,"h.e.l.lo."

"Suzie, if you're going to be such a s.h.i.t about a simple littleringy-dingy, then I needn't waste my time here."

"Hey, Chris. Larry's being a jerk. Where are you?"

"At a chic little Kensington soiree, and it's so lofty I feel faint.I'm hiding in the library right now."

"Whose party is it, Chris?"

Guess.

"I'm not in the mood to-"

"Think 'palace.'"

"No!"

"Yes."

"Oh G.o.d. Oh G.o.d. I can't believe I'm going to ask you thequestion I'm about to ask: what's She wearing?" Susan's preoc-cupation with Larry's dwindling role in her life, for the mo-ment, was deflected.

"Steal me a pair of Her shoes and I'll never de-alphabetize your tapes ever again."

Chapter Six.

Two weeks after John had left Cedars-Sinai, he was physicallyrestored, but his old life and its trappings felt archaic, slightly silly,and woefully inadequate to meet the changes he felt inside-as if he were now expected to play CDs on a wobbly old turntablewith a blunt needle. He kept trying to see his life as Susan sawit, or rather, how his life might seem to the woman in his vi-sion, whose ident.i.ty remained unknown. He was thumping out tuneless rhythms as he walked through the f.u.c.k-hut's slate andaluminum walls. Yes, he was experiencing a type of freedom as-sociated with no longer caring about keeping up the appearanceof wealth, but with this freedom came a rudderless sensation,one that made him giddy, the way he'd felt as a child as hewaited for week upon agonizing week for the postman to de-liver a cardboard submarine he'd sent away for-a device thathad promised to take him far away into a fascinating new realm,but which upon arrival was revealed to be as substantial and aswell constructed as a bakery's cardboard cake box. But ahhh, thewaiting had been so wonderfully sweet.

The sun had set. Another day was over. He'd spent the morn-ing speaking with a lawyer inquiring about his will. He'd spentthe afternoon at City Hall doing some paperwork. He was still thumping when the doorbell ran (two bars of Phillip Gla.s.s), It was the twins Melody had promised. He sighed and buzzedthem into his polished-steel atrium. "I'm Cindy," said the sister in the pink angora sweater with bare midriff. "And I'm Krista,"said the other in green. They looked at each other, smiled, andoverstated the obvious: "We're twins!"

"Yeah, yeah."

He showed them the living room with its suede walls andpanoramic windows exposing a constellational view of the citylights below. "Can I fetch you drinks?" he asked, inwardly not-ing how many times he'd asked this same antique question.

The girls exchanged looks. "Just one," said Krista.

"That's all we're allowed," added Cindy. "Jack Daniels if you have it. With maraschino cherries. I just adore them."

"Why just one drink?" John asked.

More looks were exchanged: "We've heard you can be de-manding," said Cindy, to which Krista added, "We're going toneed our wits here."

"Wits?" said John. "Oh G.o.d, relax. Sit down. Look at the view.I don't want anything. Wait. Yes I do. I just want to talk."

"That's okay. We get that all the time," said Krista.

"What-guys who only want to talk?"

"No. More like guys who don't want to feel like they're con-sorting with h.e.l.l-bound floozies, who believe that a cozy chat beforehand will absolve them of moral contagion."

John looked at Krista: "Absolve them of moral contagion?"

"I'm an educated woman," said Krista.

Cindy said, "Krista, don't."

"Don't what?" asked John.

There was a pause: "Don't be smart."

"Why not?" John asked.

"It's a turnoff to customers."

John howled. "You can't be serious!"Krista said, "Mention politics or use a big word and a guy de-flates like a party balloon."

" Now you've done it," said Cindy.

"You've done nothing," said John.

"I've got a degree in organic chemistry," said Krista. "That'sthe study of molecules containing carbon."

"Thank you, Madame Curie," said John. "What about you,Cindy, what do you have a degree in?"

"Hot nourishing lunches," Krista inserted quickly.

"I have a degree in nutrition. Florida State University, cla.s.sof'97."

"Phone the n.o.bel Committee," said Krista.

"Krista, just can it, okay?"

"So what are you two baccalaureates doing in a f.u.c.khouselike Melody's? There must be test kitchens all over America beg-ging for a team like you two."

"Very amusing, Mr. Johnson," said Krista. "We both want toact. In high school I did Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat-in drag, no less." John's heart was sinking. "I'm good. So'sCindy.

And this kind of thing just pays the bills."

"Look," said John, "you've gotta know that if you hump oneof us producer guys, you've humped all of us-which meansthere's probably all kinds of other junk you've done that the En-quirer's going to zoom in on like a smart bomb the moment youget a walk-on part in a cable-access slasher. You won't even get ajob as a body double in a Cycle dog food commercial."

"We'll take that risk."

"Okay," said John. "You guys want to do some actingtonight?"

Cindy winked at Krista: "Sure. And by the way, Bel Air PI wasgreat. I saw it three times in a row in Pensacola this spring aftermy wisdom teeth got yanked."

"How do you want us to act, Mr. Johnson?"

"Oh Jesus. How about normal."

This remark drew a blank.

"Normal?" Cindy asked. "Like housewives? Like people wholive in Ohio or something?"

"No. Be yourselves. Talk to me like I'm a person, not acustomer."

"We can do that," said Krista, communicating with Cindy inwhat appeared to be their personal Morse of winks. "Yes-let's."

And so the three of them sipped drinks and watched the citylights for a moment or two.

"My panties feel too tight," said Cindy.

"And my sweater's too hot," added Krista. "I'm so hot. I'mgoing to have to remove my sweater."

"Cut!" John was upset. "I don't mean normal dirty talk. Imean normal. Like we're talking in a restaurant and there's nopossibility of s.e.x."

The twins had heard rumors at Melody's about some ofJohn's kinkier scenes. Maybe this was how they started out.

"I'm going to freshen your drinks," John said, "and thenyou're going to tell me about yourselves. How you got to whereyou are now. Your life if it was a movie."

"More like a beauty pageant," called Cindy as John jiggledwith bottles and crystal gla.s.ses.

"I was Miss Dade County," said Krista.

"And I was Miss United Fruit Growers," added Cindy.

"And we were both Junior Miss Florida Panhandle," continuedKrista. "One year apiece, one right after the other, but because we're twins people weren't sure if we were technically the sameperson.USA Today did a thing on us. It's real scary how evil thepageant circle is."

"Tell me," John said, returning with the drinks.

"Oh! Where to begin?" said Cindy. "At birth, I guess. Theimportant thing is to have a hungry unfulfilled mother who needs a piece of herself up there on the winner's dais beingbathed in adulation. There's no such thing as a child star by her-self. Child stars exist only in conjunction with a stage mother.Earth and sun."