Read Online Angels All Over Town by Luanne Rice - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Luanne Rice
Tags: Fiction
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soap opera, but its scope was greater than that of most soaps. It demanded more of the actors; its plot lines were not as contrived as other soap plot lines. “Truthfully,
Beyond
has the most artistic integrity of any soap opera today,” Chance told me that afternoon. “We strive for something one usually finds in film or even theater. We are not pap.”
I sat beside him on the cozy rose-red banquette and popped fish eggs against the roof of my mouth with my tongue. Chance’s perfect hand rested on the tablecloth beside mine. His nails were clipped straight across; he wore a weighty gold crest ring on his pinky finger. Occasionally he would turn to smile at me, and I would see a softness in his wolf eyes. I found myself leaning forward, to see whether he wore a wedding band on his left hand. He didn’t, but I knew that meant nothing. Many Juilliard professors were married and didn’t wear rings. With dessert we had Russian tea in a glass, and I found myself in the middle of an elaborate fantasy. Chance Schutz would take me to his apartment in his limousine and invite me upstairs to continue discussing his offer. We would lounge on a glove-soft leather sofa. I envisioned yards of heavy brocade draperies at the floor-to-ceiling windows, soft lamplight, classical music on the stereo. Chance would say, “If you want the part, there is only one thing that you must do…”
Instead he handed me cab fare and told me to think things over. Then he hurried off to meet his wife, who taught a pottery class at the New School, leaving me to pocket the money and take a subway home. Riding through the tunnel beneath Seventh Avenue, I tried not to think about my fantasy. Only a daughter of James Cavan would expect sex demands from every man she met. I felt ashamed of myself. Chance Schutz cared about artistic matters, not sleeping with actresses. He had described in loving detail the sort of pots his wife created: huge, cockeyed things that looked like umbrella stands and spittoons. I began a new fantasy in which
Beyond
’s cast members were like a family, with Chance Schutz and his wife as the loving, benevolent parents. Before I reached my stop at Seventy-second and Broadway, I had already made my decision: I would take a screen test for
Beyond the Bridge
as soon as Chance Schutz could arrange it.
We set it up for the following Tuesday. I walked from my apartment to the studio on West Fifty-sixth Street, growing more nervous with each passing block. I was to read a scene with Stuart MacDuff, the actor who played Paul Grant, Delilah’s soap opera father. Paul Grant was a former bank president as well as the mayor of Mooreland. Delilah, his middle and favorite daughter, had run away from home five years earlier. During her absence she had been a victim of the white slave trade in Singapore, rescued by a ship’s captain who had turned out to be the first transsexual Rhodesian, and finally returned to Mooreland. The scene I read for my screen test was the first meeting between Paul and Delilah Grant in five years.
DELILAH (
anguished
). Dad, don’t you know me?
PAUL (
hesitating
). Not…Delilah?
DELILAH Yes, I’ve come…home.
PAUL (
embracing her
). Oh, Delilah, Delilah. You don’t know how much your mother and I missed…And now your mother is dead. I have remarried. (
Slaps his head, looks deeply into her eyes
.) But all that can wait. You
are
going to stay?
DELILAH (
shy, eyes downcast
). If you’ll have me. If you’ll forgive me.
PAUL Darling, forgive you? These years have been hell for us, not knowing. Tell me everything.
DELILAH Oh, Dad, they’ve been hell for
me
. I didn’t really mean to run away, you know. I just had to think, to be alone for a few days. (
Becomes agitated
.) That man, that man—I’ll never forget…
PAUL (
embracing her again, this time roughly
). Don’t talk, don’t think. We’ve all the time in the world for that.
Art Panella, the director, told me I had played the scene with
Beyond
has the most artistic integrity of any soap opera today,” Chance told me that afternoon. “We strive for something one usually finds in film or even theater. We are not pap.”
I sat beside him on the cozy rose-red banquette and popped fish eggs against the roof of my mouth with my tongue. Chance’s perfect hand rested on the tablecloth beside mine. His nails were clipped straight across; he wore a weighty gold crest ring on his pinky finger. Occasionally he would turn to smile at me, and I would see a softness in his wolf eyes. I found myself leaning forward, to see whether he wore a wedding band on his left hand. He didn’t, but I knew that meant nothing. Many Juilliard professors were married and didn’t wear rings. With dessert we had Russian tea in a glass, and I found myself in the middle of an elaborate fantasy. Chance Schutz would take me to his apartment in his limousine and invite me upstairs to continue discussing his offer. We would lounge on a glove-soft leather sofa. I envisioned yards of heavy brocade draperies at the floor-to-ceiling windows, soft lamplight, classical music on the stereo. Chance would say, “If you want the part, there is only one thing that you must do…”
Instead he handed me cab fare and told me to think things over. Then he hurried off to meet his wife, who taught a pottery class at the New School, leaving me to pocket the money and take a subway home. Riding through the tunnel beneath Seventh Avenue, I tried not to think about my fantasy. Only a daughter of James Cavan would expect sex demands from every man she met. I felt ashamed of myself. Chance Schutz cared about artistic matters, not sleeping with actresses. He had described in loving detail the sort of pots his wife created: huge, cockeyed things that looked like umbrella stands and spittoons. I began a new fantasy in which
Beyond
’s cast members were like a family, with Chance Schutz and his wife as the loving, benevolent parents. Before I reached my stop at Seventy-second and Broadway, I had already made my decision: I would take a screen test for
Beyond the Bridge
as soon as Chance Schutz could arrange it.
We set it up for the following Tuesday. I walked from my apartment to the studio on West Fifty-sixth Street, growing more nervous with each passing block. I was to read a scene with Stuart MacDuff, the actor who played Paul Grant, Delilah’s soap opera father. Paul Grant was a former bank president as well as the mayor of Mooreland. Delilah, his middle and favorite daughter, had run away from home five years earlier. During her absence she had been a victim of the white slave trade in Singapore, rescued by a ship’s captain who had turned out to be the first transsexual Rhodesian, and finally returned to Mooreland. The scene I read for my screen test was the first meeting between Paul and Delilah Grant in five years.
DELILAH (
anguished
). Dad, don’t you know me?
PAUL (
hesitating
). Not…Delilah?
DELILAH Yes, I’ve come…home.
PAUL (
embracing her
). Oh, Delilah, Delilah. You don’t know how much your mother and I missed…And now your mother is dead. I have remarried. (
Slaps his head, looks deeply into her eyes
.) But all that can wait. You
are
going to stay?
DELILAH (
shy, eyes downcast
). If you’ll have me. If you’ll forgive me.
PAUL Darling, forgive you? These years have been hell for us, not knowing. Tell me everything.
DELILAH Oh, Dad, they’ve been hell for
me
. I didn’t really mean to run away, you know. I just had to think, to be alone for a few days. (
Becomes agitated
.) That man, that man—I’ll never forget…
PAUL (
embracing her again, this time roughly
). Don’t talk, don’t think. We’ve all the time in the world for that.
Art Panella, the director, told me I had played the scene with
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