Skin Deep

quickly, like someone expecting a raw fish across the face, and there was a general scurrying behind the cameras as people ducked into position. New banks of lights snapped on, and Toby and the actress came down the walk, the actress looking professionally apprehensive and Toby looking genuinely sympathetic. They paused in the hot spot of light and passed some dialogue back and forth, and then Toby patted the woman on the shoulder, gave her his most dazzling smile, and sprinted down the walkway to a long, low black vehicle I hadn't paid attention to before, something that was both high-tech and anthropomorphic, like a cross between a torpedo and My Mother, the Car. He opened the door, looked back over his shoulder, and then climbed back up the walkway while people frantically reangled lights and the camera was moved. Someone else closed the door of the vehicle, using a cloth so he wouldn't mar the shine. Toby reached out and almost touched the camera lens and then drew his hand back until his finger touched the tip of his nose. The cameraman nodded.

'His close-up,' Janie said. 'Here comes art.' There was a brief delay while the reflectors were brought around, and Toby snapped his fingers impatiently and said something unpleasant to the woman. 'He's telling them to get their asses in gear,' Janie said, watching. She glanced back over to the people behind the rope across the street. 'He really hates standing out here with all these yokels staring at him.'

'Then he should have been a plumber.'

'He is,' she said. 'He's an emotional Roto-Rooter.' As they arranged things for Toby's close-up, Dixie Cohen joined the tired-looking woman and the photographer. The woman was smoking a very long cigarette, and Dixie looked worried. The photographer took refuge under a long black cloth that covered the top of his camera and motioned Dixie into camera range in front of the blue roll of paper. Dixie stood there dolefully, the world's least likely stand-in for Toby Vane. Meanwhile, up on the walkway, the real action had recommenced.

Toby and the actress came back down, found the light, and Toby traded in his sympathetic expression for a million-dollar grin. This time he squeezed the woman's arm reassuringly before jogging on down to the torpedo. Then, leaving the car door open again, he waved off the efforts of the director to bring him back and came toward us as the entire group around the cameras stared after him. One at a time, the lights went off. The actress stood there, looking lost.

'That's enough of that,' Toby said as he joined us. 'You'd think it was something worth watching. Stunt double's next, right, sweetheart?' he said to Janie.

Janie glanced at her clipboard, but by the time she looked up again, Toby was already gone. 'Right,' she said anyway. 'You asshole.' She looked up at me almost guiltily. 'A girl's got to express herself,' she said.

Toby reached the forlorn little band gathered in front of the roll of blue paper. He put his arm around Dixie's neck, clowning for the still camera. Dixie tried to pull away and then submitted in a resigned fashion. He even smiled. It was the complicated smile of a confirmed pessimist who's just been proven right by being sentenced to death. The big stand-in, John, had ambled over. He stood there, loose-jointed, watching.

'Hey, champ,' Toby called to me. 'Come over here and meet some people.'

'His master's voice,' Janie mumbled.

'Ease up, okay?' I said. 'I'd like it if we could stay friends.'

'Champ,' Toby said. 'We're being a little rude here.'

'Go to it, champ,' Janie said. Feeling like the Incredible Shrinking Man, I went over to Toby, who had slipped an arm around the youngish woman's waist.

'My man,' Toby said, daring me to contradict him, 'this is the extraordinary Betsi, with an i. Betsi with an i is the photo editor of one of America's favorite magazines, a magazine you probably read every day of your life. And this is, um, this is Betsi's photographer.'

'Bert,' said the lanky man behind the camera.

'Who said that?' Toby asked. 'Do I need to be told the photographer's name? Bert here is my favorite photographer, champ. I asked for old Bert, didn't I, Betsi?'

'Sure, Toby,' Betsi said mechanically. 'You always ask for Bert.'

'Always,' Toby said, 'unless I ask for someone else.' He pinched the skin beneath Betsi's blouse. 'Simeon here is supposed to keep me out of trouble. What the hell? Somebody has to do it.'

'And good luck to both of us,' I said.

'So what do we want here, Bets?' Toby turned his attention to her. 'The usual head-and-hunk shots, or something special? And where's the mirror?'

'In the car,' Betsi said. 'Bert-'

'Not going to do anyone much good in the car, is it?' Toby said. 'Are you busy or something, Bert?'

Bert scurried off to the station wagon and came back lugging a full-length mirror, which he set up behind the camera.

'There I am,' Toby said, passing a hand over his hair. 'Let's go. Forty minutes, no more. These clothes okay?'

'Fabulous,' Betsi said a little nervously. 'Couldn't be better.'

'Does the film have to age or something?' Toby impatiently asked Bert. Bert ducked his head under the cloth draped over the back of the camera and went to work.

For the next fifteen minutes or so I got a crash course in star making. Toby worked the camera as though it were a long-distance telephone line over which he was talking to a wife he'd been deceiving for months. He teased it, flirted with it, arched his brows at it, gave it the smile of the century. Before every shot he checked the mirror. Bert's head never emerged from the black cloth. The people across the street edged closer, and Betsi lit one cigarette off another, stubbing out the old ones against her shoe with ravaged-cuticle fingers. Dixie stood uselessly on the side- lines, now and then asking Toby to check his hair in the mirror. Big John just watched silently, his mouth hanging open and his hands opening and closing on air.

Bert emerged from the black cloth like a Muslim woman renouncing the veil. He looked up at the sky, checking the light, and said, 'That's enough heads.' He pulled the camera back three or four feet.

'Toby,' Betsi said, 'we're going three-quarters now. Can you give us some profiles?'

'Which side?' Toby took a quick look at the mirror, giving a quick tug at the skin on either side of his eyes.

'Up to you,' Betsi said.

Janie spoke from behind me. 'At least twenty minutes,' she said.

'I asked you which side,' Toby said to Betsi as if Janie didn't exist.

'Really, Toby, it doesn't matter. You're the boss.'

'But you're the genius, darling. Come on, just pick your favorite side of old Toby.'

Betsi looked flustered. Then she took a vehement drag on her cigarette and said, 'Left.'

'Left?' Toby's eyes widened in surprise. 'What's the matter with you today, Betsi? You want to shoot my left side?'

'Okay, okay, then, the right.' Betsi was blushing deeply now and fiddling with the teddy bear pin. Bert had stepped away from the camera, staring down at the grass as if it hadn't been there a minute ago.

'Watch this,' Janie whispered. 'It may be educational.'

'Just a fucking minute,' Toby said to Betsi. 'There's a principle here. I'm giving you this session because you need it, right? And I expect a little protection in return.'

'Left,' Betsi said desperately. 'Wait, I mean right.'

'Do you see this lip?' Toby demanded, tugging at the swelling. 'Courtesy of my buddy Simeon, here, I might add. You donate your contact lenses to Greenpeace or something? Shit, if you can't see that, how do I know you can see the best shots? How do I know this isn't going to turn up in the Enquirer?' He framed a headline with his hands, ' TOBY VANE GETS TRASHED AT LAST. I've got a little puffiness here, to put it charitably. What're you going to do, Bets, put it on the cover?'

'Toby,' Betsi said desperately, 'you know I'd never print a bad shot of you.'

'Yeah, right. And I promise I'll pull out in time. The check is in the mail.' The photographer had stepped back up to the camera and pulled the black cloth over his head to work on focus. 'Just a minute, you-Bert-you, whoever you are. We shoot when I'm ready and not before.'

'I'm sorry,' Betsi said. 'I'm double sorry. It's just that you look so good right now. . '

'I look like fucking Rocky Graziano,' Toby said.