One night back in 1986, Susan came within an eyelash of being introduced to John Johnson at a party Larry Mortimer had thrown. Larry was eager to showcase Susan and to network her with as many people as possible.Meet the Blooms was riding high, and of the eighties crop of «It Girls,» Susan was the one most coveted by the networks.
For some reason there was a giraffe at the party. Susan heard somebody ask why, and someone else replied it was to help plug a disastrously overbudget chimp comedy that had tanked that weekend on 1,420 screens across North America. Susan was standing with people from Johnny Carson's production company. It was then that she noticed John speaking with that toilet-mouthed lady from Disney — Alice? — something about an Oxford don and a punt — and Susan deemed John dateworthy, and that he would be even more so once he had a few years to …ripen. She was going to ask Larry for an introduction when a woman on her right said, «Hel lo, Susan Colgate.»
Susan turned to the speaker who was, according to the framed photos on Larry's desk, Larry's wife, Jenna Mortimer, lovely, with hair like spun black glass, baby-doll features, dressed in a black chiffon evening dress that featured the linebacker shoulder pads of the era. This look, combined with a flash of teeth, created an aggressive posture.
«Hello — Jenna — Mrs. Mortimer. Hello.»
«It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Susan.»
«Oh — nice for me, too. How did we ever get this far without being introduced? Shouldn't Larry have done this, like, an hour ago at the very least?»
«Cuckoo, isn't it?» said Jenna. «Larry can be so forgetful. Such a business this is.»
«Larry's always talking about you.»
«I'm sure he is.» She motioned toward a buffet table. «Have you had something to eat?» She was making it clear that she was the hostess. Susan was overeager to sound like an appreciative guest and she blurted out a dumb lie: «Yes, I had some cheese.»
«But I'm not serving any cheese.»
Susan was flustered.
«Is your mother here?» asked Jenna, knowing full well that Susan lived on Larry's Kelton Street property. The truth was that at that exact moment Marilyn was scouring the streets of Encino hoping to find Don's car, hoping to find Don inside a bar with a slut, knowing there was a far greater likelihood of simply finding Don with a bottle, which was somehow worse.
«No. It's a lovely party. Really beautifully done.» Susan felt mature using the words «beautifully done.» It was the way she thought rich people spoke.
Jenna looked around. «It is, isn't it?»
«And the giraffe!»
«The giraffe just ate the neighbor's prize Empress Keiko persimmon tree. There'll be hell to pay tomorrow.» She looked at Susan appraisingly. «Clear shoes and nude hose — trying to lengthen our legs tonight?»
«An old show dog trick. Miss USA Teen, 1985.»
«Miss Nevada, 1971.»
«No!» Susan smiled. «What a racket, huh?» She found herself beginning to like Jenna.
«Oh yes. The crap I spouted during those pageants,» Jenna said.
«I always thought the good thing about being Miss Wyoming was that I'd get to go last when they called out the states. You know, the letter W — and that I'd get to see the other girls' ramp-walking errors, and learn from them.»
«Did you ever win Miss Congeniality?» asked Jenna.
«Me? Never. I should have won Miss Why Am I Here?»
«I always got Miss Congeniality.»
«Did you?» Susan was curious.
«Those nuns. Catholic school. They nabbed me when I was young.»
«I didn't go to religious school. We're hillbillies in our family.»
«The thing about Catholic school is that they manage to make you put a smile on absolutely anything.»
«Yeah?»
«Everything.»
Susan now understood where Jenna was working the conversation.
Larry saw the two women talking and bolted their way. «Jenna! Susan! I've been waiting for the special moment to introduce you.»
«No doubt you have,» said Jenna.
«Larry,» said Susan. «I didn't know that Jenna used to be a show dog, too.
Jenna said, «It was actually me who put Larry onto you. I read about you throwing your crown back in their faces. I wanted to send you a box of roses and a trophy. I figured it'd take a personality like a freight train to pull off a coup like that.»
«You ought to meet my mother, the locomotive.»
Larry wanted to get the two women apart. «Susan,» he said, «I want you to meet this producer named Colin. He's from England, but he's still useful to us over here. Jenna, can I steal usan away from you?»
«I have a choice?»
Larry flashed teeth and escorted Susan toward the patio doors. Susan called back, «Bye, Jenna — nice to meet you.»
Larry moved her around a corner and said, «Christ.»
Susan said, «Larry, I can't see you anymore.» Her body began to feel as though it were rising upward like a helium balloon. A string had been cut.
He wiped his forehead with a paper doily from a table of mineral waters. «We'll talk about this tomorrow.»
«Yeah, we will.»
Larry stood still and appraised Susan's face. «You're young. It'll pass.»
«But I don't want it to pass.»
«It's called getting older. I'll send you the coverage on it.»
«Ryan O'Neal's here,» Susan said to change the conversation.
«I'll introduce you.»
And so the evening went on. Susan drank German mineral water — Sprudel-something, with a name like a pastry — and swished the water about inside her mouth, almost burning her tongue with bubbles — it tasted geological. She watched Larry squirm and lie to the people around him who were squirming and lying right back.
«Susan, this is Cher.»
«Hello.»
«Susan, this is Valerie Bertinelli.»
«Nice to meet you.»
«Susan, this is Jack Klugman.»
«Great. Hi.»
«Susan, this is Christopher Atkins.»
«Hey.»
«Susan, this is Lee Radziwill.»
«Hi.»
The party felt like it went on all night, when, like most film industry functions, it actually ended around nine. She couldn't have known that the party was to be her high-water mark within the entertainment world's social structure.
The morning after the giraffe party, a car from the production company picked Susan up at 6:30A .M. She sat in the back seat, memorizing her lines for the day. She performed her role. She stood for publicity photos with her TV parents and siblings. She had a fight with Larry and dead-bolted him out of the Kelton Street apartment. Days passed. Her strength passed. She let Larry in. She disgusted herself. She'd built no other substantial friendships during her TV blitzkrieg. It was either back to Larry or careen into outer space, and she couldn't face that. Any discussion of Jenna or divorce led to a brick wall which Susan acknowledged with the ever more edgy tag line, «Excuse me, Larry. Pope on line three.»
Susan was never a particularly good actor, but at the start of the TV series, she did have a naturalness that stood out and looked good against her actor-since-birth costars. But the naturalness began to wear thin and she became increasingly self-conscious about her body, her face, the words that came out of her mouth and the overall effect she had on people. The scrutiny was a thousand times more intense than any pageant. Her encounter with Jenna at the giraffe party opened some inner sluice of her conscience, and her acting became abysmal almost overnight. She told Dreama: «It's like the part of my brain that used to allow me to do an okay acting job got all warped. It's merging with the part of my brain that makes up lies. I can just feel it. I get a simple line like, “Mom, I'm going to volleyball practice,” and it sounds forced, like it's filled with all this innuendo. My retakes per episode are up like crazy. The network thinks I have a drug problem. The cast thinks fame is wrecking my head. And the thing is, Larry knows it's all because of Jenna and keeping our big lie going, and it's kind of turning him off. And that's freaking me out and making it even worse.»
Susan guested on Love Boat. She did a walk-on part in a James Bond movie. She was on the cover of Seventeen magazine. She had her wisdom teeth removed and discovered the Land of Painkillers. She mended the fence somewhat with Marilyn. Dreama also moved to Los Angeles and into Susan's apartment. Sex with Larry cooled considerably and, as Larry predicted, she grew older.