The way Hank envisions the scene, Leigh’s there too. It’s not just standing in the corner and watching Hank make it with Liu, but actually participating. Not sex but dialogue. Though Hank makes it clear pretty quickly he wouldn’t mind if things get a bit more “intense.”
“Seriously,” he says. “There are no limits to what we can do. It’s our film. We’re remaking something that was totally taboo-busting in the seventies. If we make this chaste it will mean nothing. We’ll be soiling Warhol’s name.”
Leigh looks to Marchesa, her personal assistant.
Marchesa wags a finger at Hank and says, “We’re not doing porn.”
Hank looks appalled. “I wasn’t suggesting…”
Marchesa repeats, “No porn.”
“Let’s just get this done,” Leigh says.
It takes another fifteen minutes to get everyone in place and then the cameras are rolling and Hank is doing his best strung-out drifter. Liu truly is manic. She has no scripted lines and is totally channeling Andrea Feldman. She’s even got the nasal New York grotto accent down pat. And Leigh, after two or three takes, is back into character and feeling pretty good about her performance. There is another person in an animal suit, this one a shabby-ass cat. The cat is lounging on a divan by the punch bowl and pretending to lick its ragged paws.
Leigh asks Marchesa what the deal is with the animals.
Marchesa, face illuminated BlackBerry blue, says, “Probably just Hank being arty. You know how he likes to slum it up with the performance crowd.”
“They’re freaking me out.”
“You need something for that?” This is the first time Marchesa has looked up from her phone in hours. Her face reads sincere and concerned.
“No. I’m ready to shoot.”
The scene calls for Liu to talk Hank into bed and she’s good. Hank looks genuinely intrigued. The cameras follow them to the floor of the apartment where he’s taking off her shirt and sliding his hands into her spandex pants as she’s moaning and slipping her tongue in and out and in and out of his left ear. Ten people, all under the brightest lights imaginable, crowded around and staring at Hank getting it on. And Leigh’s still in frame; she’s standing over them. At first she’s doing her scripted dialogue. Talking about acid and money and finding a “hole to crawl into” but after a few minutes she abandons the script and just stands there mute.
There are two cameras running. One is trained on Hank and Liu, and the cameraman is getting in close. The other is in Leigh’s face, close enough that she can practically smell the sweat of the kid manning it.
The lens picks up the smallest pores on Leigh’s nose.
The quiver in her cheek.
She closes her eyes. Seems to swell with emotion. The cameraman doesn’t breathe; he wants there to be no skips. No beats in the film. He wants this moment to be captured perfectly. There is a tension in the air. A small saliva bubble hangs precariously on the cameraman’s lower lip. The hairs on the back of his neck stand rigid.
There is moaning coming from the floor.
Leigh’s eyes are trained offscreen. Staring at the threadbare cat and fucked-up monkey sipping mai tais on the divan. Framed in the harsh light, her features are flattened and softened. She looks angelic. Unspoiled. The cameraman, his brain whirling from lack of oxygen, imagines that this shot, this single take, will earn him an Oscar.
The cameraman is about to pass out when Leigh turns to the camera, her eyes cold, distant, and she says, “I can’t do this.”
She walks out of frame and the cameraman chokes on his first breath.
The moaning continues, the rest of the crew huddled in even closer, and no one but the panting second cameraman seems to notice that Leigh has left. She stands outside the huddled mass and lights a cigarette. The cameraman walks over befuddled, holding the camera limp at his side.
“Why are you out of the shot?” he asks.
“I’m just not into it,” Leigh says. “Sorry.”
The cameraman gives a half smile. “Hank’s gonna be pissed.”
“So?”
“Just telling you.”
The cameraman walks back over to the huddle. The moans are increasing in frequency and tempo. Leigh heads to the kitchen to get something to drink. Marchesa and Marie, the Sengalese makeup artist, are snorting coke off a mirror on the stove and gabbing.
“You want any?” Marchesa asks Leigh.
Leigh shakes her head.
“Sounds pretty crazy in there,” Marie says.
Marchesa is texting. “I thought you were in this scene,” she says, not looking up from her phone. “If not, there’s an art opening at Otto’s in like thirty minutes.”
Leigh says, “I’m beat.”
Marie snorts another line and then rubs some coke on her gums. She smiles at Leigh and asks, “Everything okay?”
Leigh shrugs. She opens the fridge and dips her head inside. “Is there any wine? Never mind, I found it.”
She settles down at the black kitchen table with an opened bottle of dolcetto. She swigs from the bottle and some of the dark wine spills down her chin and onto her dress. “Fuck it.”
Marchesa pipes up. “You hear about Anise Miller’s dinner Friday?”
“Of course.”
“I can’t believe she had the gall to show up with Brooke Marshall. With all those things the Post’s been saying about her grandmother and the way they’ve got her doped up, feeding off her. Disgusting. They say it was Anise’s statement of support or something.”
“Brooke Marshall’s always been a bitch, Marchesa. That’s why Phillip Englehard was brought in. He’s basically overseeing her life.”
“And her poon.”
“You said it, I didn’t. Do either of you know what the deal was with those animal suits?”
Marie says, “You know Hank, probably just extras for something later.”
“I have to say I’m disappointed,” Leigh says. She’s sketching Marchesa and Marie on a napkin, the pen cutting through the cheap paper. The ink bleeding.
“Why?” Marchesa asks. “Want me to say anything?”
“No. This just isn’t the outlet I was looking for.”
“It’s indie.”
“It’s not enough freedom. I thought it’d be a chance for me to get more involved, maybe have a say in how things went. You know, be involved in the creative end.”
“I’m sure they’d be open to your input.”
“I know. But I don’t want it to be just input.”
Marchesa brings the conversation back around to talking about her boyfriend, Carsten, and Leigh decides to head out. “Tell Hank, sorry,” she says.
Marie asks, “Can we see that sketch?”
Leigh hands it to her. “Not very good.”
Marie looks it over and then hands it to Marchesa. She grimaces and says, “I’m not really that bony, right?”
Leigh shakes her head. “See you.”
Marie and Marchesa wave, but neither sees her to the door. The valet brings around Leigh’s Range Rover and she hands him a ten. He nods and says, “Have a great night.”
Leigh,