Work Text:
Collision Course
by Susieq
You're in trouble...and you know it. He looks as good as he smells, always crisp and clean, as though he's been sailing off Santa Monica on a sun-splashed day in late May in those exquisitely-tailored clothes he can't afford, but always wears. In the back of your mind, you beg Artie. "Forgive me for what's happening...I let it, with eyes wide open...."
It had really begun snowballing that night with Joe wanting to know more about you, as though taking a break from writing had been his excuse for having his perfect mouth perched against your twitching nose, the one you'd spent three hundred smackers to perfect. It still isn't ideal enough for movie close-ups and assorted footage, but it was for his lips to pay homage to as you stood quivering in the possessive hold he'd had on you. He kissed your pert beak the way snowflakes alight on one's eyelids. Before returning to the writing, by way of the mock-up of Washington Square for the Movie 'The Heiress,' he pointed out that if the movie script had a hope of getting done, you'd better stay two feet away from him.
You're quite the writing team, and the pair of you make the cute, attractive couple you've overheard folks remark when you thought no one was paying attention. Not long after that night of strolling through Paramount's deserted back lots, he called you on your inattentiveness. Joe and you were in your cramped office, plugging away with the box office smash-in-waiting that would earn him everything he's dreamed of since hitting Hollywood, and you too. You thoroughly meant it when you told him it's really more fun on the other side of the camera.
Draped over your typewriter, you were lost in thought, but not with the subject at hand...punching up the dialogue for the screenplay's outspoken heroine. You had stopped typing long ago.
"Hey, what's the matter?"
You'd been bogged down with love-charged thoughts of your being head over heels in it with the sun-kissed hunk staring at you with hung-dog eyes, sweetly calling your name with the gentlest of looks on his manly face.
"Betty, wake up!"
You were there, with him, but not really there, there. Instead, you'd twisted in the swirl of your mind's eye being marooned with Joe on a tropical island...you, having never seen a man handsomer than he in his Hawaiian shirt the color of strawberries and mangoes against a background of gracious navy blue. Being in love never felt so right.
He had whistled, trying to wrest your attention back to where it belonged, at the task at hand, commingling your talents to produce something commercially saleable. "Why are you staring at me like that?"
You came to. "Was I? I'm sorry."
"What's wrong with you tonight? What is it, Betty?"
You couldn't tell him, but you knew you couldn't keep it from him. He'd moved into your heart and pushed Artie halfway out.
"What is it you've heard? Come on, let's have it." He had smiled at you, looking faintly on edge and gloriously edible.
Why was he edgy? You were the one on pins and needles.
Flawlessly timed, you left the desk and walked outside; he wasted no time following you to the balcony. Your heart heavy, you started to cry, as though you heard Artie whisper in your ear how he had wanted you to join him in Arizona so he and you could get married out there, married and it would only cost two whole dollars!
Was that relief you heard when he'd said, "Stop crying--you're getting married. That's what you've always wanted."
*Yes, but not to Artie*, you inwardly whined. *You're the man I want, Joey. It will always be you,* you embraced with desire, raw and urgent, choking your heart along with your mind. "I don't want it now," you'd said, tamping down compunction that delighted in seeing how dirty it could make you feel.
"Why not? Don't you love Artie?"
Like a brother, sure, and it was time you confessed; something had happened, indeed.
"What happened?" Joe asked, the suspicion you saw him harboring, rife on his expressive, loveable face.
Relief had washed over you when you finally admitted, "You did..."
What happened next hadn't been a complete surprise when he crushed you to himself, jailing you in his eager arms, making escape virtually impossible. Had you really wanted to? Those arms were promptly upstaged by his lips, burning with ardor, scorching and smothering yours; you never wanted them to surcease. You got your wish. The flame of passion had burned hotter than you've ever felt it, bent on consuming any shred of reserve and hesitancy you had.
Before rushing headlong into madness though, you had whimpered and Joe abruptly stopped undressing you. He murmured something about your being twenty-two, not totally over his best friend, even though you'd said marrying Artie was out, and he was a heel for trying to take advantage like this, despite your offering no resistance. It had been tough for him, looking you in the eye, and he'd made a fuss about driving you home in the '29 Isotta Fraschini, or as you fondly call the limo, the 'old dinosaur,' so you went quietly. He kissed you, a much chaster kiss than the ones he'd plied you with at the studio, goodnight in the car.
He had left you with the impression that if he told you enough times that everything was going to be all right, it would be, although he'd balanced it out by saying that he had no right feeling about you the way he did. He just couldn't help it. He was all wrong for you, but he said that the look in your eyes, your breath, touch, offered redemption in its purest forms. You hadn't had the heart to say that you didn't think going on with the script was a good idea. You'd kept silent, having heard his tone of voice plead for making this work, and he hadn't meant just the script. You wanted to believe him, and by the time you were back at your apartment, you had told yourself you should.
"Hey, Betty, that you?" Connie greets, her mouth sounding full of whatever she's chewing.
"Yeah, Con, it's me. Better be, right?"
"How's the writing going?" She slips out of the kitchenette, looking inquisitive in a non-obtrusive sort of way; she's good with that.
"Fine...just fine..."
"Any closer to birthing that humdinger of a drama you two are cooking up?"
There's drama all right, but it's all too real. You're an inch away from being dead tired, and the fatigue has nothing to do with pounding words onto a piece of paper, breathing life into fabrications of two imaginations interfacing. Connie apes at you and goes back to what she was doing before you arrived. You sigh, removing your coat and passively think...*you're a good kid...but Joe's a temptation to be bad*.
Not long after changing into a dressing gown, you reflect. It's ongoing reflection while you peer at yourself in the bathroom mirror, brushing your teeth, remembering what it felt like having his warm, soft lips kiss your nose. You wonder whether you would have let Joe have his way with you if that wave of self-incrimination hadn't walloped him. *Nice girls don't*, you ruefully think. *Artie's been after me ever since we got engaged, but I made it clear not before we're married, and he got that I meant business. Not even if the guy takes my breath away the way Joe does without his even trying*, you impose, surmounting whatever what-ifs your touchy conscience hurls at you.
The phone rings and you hear Connie say, "Betty, here's that weird-sounding woman again."
You study her with her hand covering the mouthpiece and you cringe. "What is this anyway?" you toss querulously at your suspicious looking roommate as you take the receiver, wondering what all the hugger-muggery is about. "This is Betty Schaefer."
Along with the first strange one, this makes two in the space of an hour. She'd called before you had returned home, Connie giving you the lowdown. Miss Mystery had identified herself as a "conscientious party" who had, "Miss Schaefer's interests at heart," and had promptly hung up.
She feels it's her duty to drill you on Joe...how much do you know about him...where he lives, how he lives...what he lives on as if that's any of your business.
Is it?
"Who are you? What do you want," you storm because as she begins fidgeting with paltry details, it's dawning that she might be implicated in blackmailing the man you love and it makes your blood boil. She rambles on and the more she talks, the angrier you become. 'Spare you a great deal of misery...too young to suspect there are men of his sort...doesn't live with relatives nor with friends in the usual sense of the word?' You see red. "What business is it of yours anyway?" Just where does she come off, dropping rude innuendoes and crude allegations about Joe, your Joe, the charmer who's won your heart? Did you need to hire a private detective first, then have your guy follow through with a sworn affidavit before you chanced falling hard for him these days?
'...Ask him again...'
And before you can say a word in rebuttal, Joe's on the phone.
"Joe--where are you?" The pit of your stomach bottoms. "What's this all about?" He says you're to come to where he is, at 10086...it's a Sunset Boulevard address, so you can see for yourself. Is he in trouble, in all likelihood, through no fault of his own, after hiding something he thought he couldn't tell you and now it's put him squarely in harm's way? Once you hang up, your heart racing, you ask Connie if she'll drive you.
.oO.Oo.
Tonight seems darker than usual as you and Connie, driving in her cream-colored coupe, hunt down 10086 Sunset Boulevard, where Joe supposedly lives. He never said he lives there; you just assume he does. Point of fact, he's never told you where he lives. Once you had the notion that he must have had a bungalow in Santa Monica. Why a place by the beach? His gorgeous tan, of course. As this nocturnal search goes on, you come to think that he's never brought up the subject of his residence. Assumptions were all you had.
The mystery woman's words repeat in your head: "He does not live with relatives, or friends, in the usual sense of the word. Ask him...ask him again."
Connie is scouring for house numbers. "Here's ten thousand seventy-nine, Betty. It must be over there."
She's got the greatest eyes, you award, like an eagle's; you can barely make out the houses by streetlight. Close work is wreaking havoc with your vision lately. She turns into a driveway, stopping in front of its entrance where a few steps lead to a stylish compact portico.
You're torn; you want to go inside, but you're not sure you want to know what's inside.
"Betty, let me come along with you. Please."
Connie's more than just your roommate, she's become a close friend; you're practically sisters now. There's no mistaking the concern her voice conveyed. Sounding appreciative, you calm, "No." You hope your smile is convincing. "I'll be all right." You shut the car door and head for the mansion's main entrance. *This is some place*, you can't keep yourself from thinking, although there's a creepiness about the panorama you can't shake. The thought of Joe living here intrigues you and worries you too. You ring the doorbell unable to control the noticeable tremor in your hand.
It isn't long before lights bathe the immediate area you're standing in and you hear Joe's voice command an unseen someone, "It's all right, Max. I'll take it."
You hear Max go along. "Yes, sir." Joe opens the door while you discern Max deferentially stepping back as though he's been deprived of being allowed to perform a favorite chore.
Your heartbeat steps up in league with your heightened sense of curiosity. Joe, looking coolly cheery seeing you here, greets, "Hello, Betty."
Hovering on the threshold, deliberating whether to stay or bolt, you blurt exactly what's rattling around in your mind. "I don't know why I'm so scared, Joe." You breathe in tightly. "Is it something awful?"
Cooler than a room full of cucumbers packed in ice, he bids, "Come on in, Betty." You obey, like the good little girl you think you are. You scarcely feel him putting his arm around your shoulders. You're half-listening which can be chalked up to your bemused state of mind. "...they were making eighteen thousand a week, and no taxes. Careful of these tiles. They're slippery. Valentino used to dance here."
That name recaptures your imagination; 'the Sheik,' here, in his heyday. You hardly feel like Agnes Ayers, his co-star, who vanished from the silver screen altogether with the advent of sound. "This is where you live?" you insinuate, eyeing him incredulously.
"You bet."
Just when you thought the pit of your stomach couldn't drop lower, it surprises you and you fight to keep the forefront from spinning. "Whose house is it?" you vent.
Joe steers you until you're standing in Norma's obscenely spacious living room. *Brother*, you regard. It's like something straight out of the silent movies era, and that thought jars you back into reality.
"Hers..."
You're not in the mood for twenty-questions. "Whose?" Joe's nonchalance is working your nerves. Can't he see that?
"Just look around...there's a lot of her spread about. If you don't remember the face," Joe flaunts for your benefit, "you must have heard the name of Norma Desmond."
Bits and pieces click into place. "That was Norma Desmond on the phone?"
He ignores that as though you should have figured it out for yourself. "Want something to drink? There's always champagne on ice, and plenty of caviar."
"Why did she call me?" you press.
Smugly, he replies, "Jealous."
*Jealous*...you balk. Jealous of someone she's never met? *This is absurd*, you grump, and scowl.
"Ever see so much junk? She had the ceiling brought from Portugal. Look at this." He tugs on the nearby rope within reach to reveal the projection screen beneath the picture. "Her own movie theater."
Determined to cap his cavalier approach, you clinch, "I didn't come here to see a house." The sooner you get out of here the better. "What about Norma Desmond?"...the faded movie star whose name sets your pulse racing.
As though immune to your gravity, Joe goes on. "I'm trying to tell you. Eight master bedrooms. A sunken tub in every bathroom. There's a bowling alley in the cellar..."
You are fuming--his attitude is enough to gag you. *You've got to get out of here*, you inwardly bark--but not without Joe.
And still he drones on. "It's lonely here, so she got herself a companion." Your ears perk up, hearing this. "A very simple set-up. An older woman who is well-to-do, a younger man who is not doing too well.... Can you figure it out for yourself?" he rests, rolling his eyes in the most 'who-me?' way.
Can you, and what you've come up with leaves a nasty taste in your mouth which runs all the way to the back of your dry throat. "No," you sullenly answer.
Sounding accommodative, Joe supplies, "All right, I'll give you a few more clues."
*Don't bother!* the angry woman inside you rails. You've heard all you want to hear; it's time for concrete action. "No! No! I haven't heard any of this! I never got those telephone calls. I've never been in this house!" You've got your bullying face on. "Get your things together. Let's get out of here!" You're certain Joe must hear the savage beating of your heart complementing the searing flash of bright color you feel splashed across your face. If it's a fight this Desmond woman wants, then it's on--here and now.
"All my things?" he says, sounding the hallmark of coy, and his eyes play the part oh so well. "All the eighteen suits, all the custom-made shoes and the eighteen dozen shirts? And the cuff-links and the platinum key-chains...and the cigarette cases?"
*Quite the materialist, are you, Joe?* you badger, refusing to believe he really cares about all those silly trappings. "Come on, Joe." Your entreaty had a decided edge.
Callously, he puts it on the line. "Come on where? Back to a one-room apartment that I can't pay for? Back to a story that may sell and very possibly may not?"
If he'd struck you full on with the back of his hand across your mouth, it couldn't have possibly hurt more than what he'd said and how he'd said it. Fighting to squelch tears welling up, unable to focus on anything but getting Joe away from this house and the 'manipulatrix' who owns it, you choke out, "If you love me, Joe...."
Through a sigh, he patronizes, "Look, sweetie, be practical. I've got a good thing here. A long-term contract with no options. I like it that way..."
You stop listening after that. Oh, you may have heard one or two more things. But with your spirit crushed, coupled with Norma's haunting advice of wanting to save you from misery overshadowing, you can't bear hearing him. Heavily, you admit, "Joe, I can't look at you anymore."
"Nobody asked you to."
Nearly swooning, you turn away from him so he misses the triumph of your tears; he sees you cry, you've lost, and you have. You've lost your heart to a man who has broken it to pieces. A user, who cares more about being another woman's plaything--no--there was a much stronger word, and Connie had used it not long ago when she was going on about women of a certain age who kept men much younger than themselves. Joe Gillis is Norma Desmond's 'Boy-Toy.' The debacle staggers you, and you might very well faint here and now.
"All right, baby...this way out."
His words, laced with indifference, staunch your tears. What *did* you see in him? Everything you never imagined you could find in one man, and you're half-tempted to belt him a good one so he'll come to his senses and leave with you. This has become some wooden sequence, happening, but falling far short of reality. He has escorted you to where you came in, the elaborate entrance. Just an inch shy of sounding altogether matter-of-fact, Joe says, "Good luck to you, Betty. You can finish that story on the way to Arizona. When you and Artie get back, if you two ever feel like a swim, here's the pool." With the flick he gives the switch that is close by, the inset lights of the pool illuminate its still water. The lighting is glorious with the dark garden as a stunning backdrop.
You're feeling distinctly ill. Your eyes, fill with tears again, and your head aches. Your heart is beating so hard you wouldn't be surprised if it fights its way out of your chest so it can show you just how messed up it is. Keeping true to your word of not being able to look at him, you don't as you flee, running as fast as you can away from your consummate deceiver.
Which is why you miss the sorrowful look etched in Joe's face...
Connie's car looms before your eyes and you come to a dead stop.
"Betty!" she cries, but it isn't her voice you hear. Your inner voice is reaming you out. *A real woman doesn't back down--not when the man she loves with everything she's got really needs her*. You face around to the way you've just come knowing that you're as stubborn as he is cruel. Cruel? Or was what he fed you all an act? He knows it's over between you and Artie, but they are best friends... Was this his way of bowing out so he could avoid being a cad through and through? Okay, so as he said..."maybe it's not very admirable..." his being 'kept' by the aging film legend. At least he came clean, at last. He hasn't been doing very well, you nurture. In Hollywood, fluff capital of the world, anyone coming from nothing could easily get carried away by the glitz, glamour and good times if it was dangled carelessly enough by a willing dangler. You dangled too, but you're not Norma Desmond.
You're humble, sincere Betty Schaefer, working stiff, head-over-heels in love with your writing partner. Isn't Joe worth a second chance?
"Betty!" Connie shouts again to your retreating back.
*Yes he is*, you defend, *and I'm giving him one*. Your tears thoroughly dried up, you call back, "It's okay. I forgot something!"
"What, for heaven's sake?"
"The next best thing to you, Con," you hurl at her, and are on the run again, back to the screen legend's palatial home where your prince, perhaps somewhat tarnished, awaits. You hesitate at the entrance, wondering if Joe locked the gate. *What more can you say to him*, you sharply reprove. Trembling, you recall that he said he hadn't asked you to look at him anymore. Did love come under that heading as well? You refuse to accept that his feelings for you have calloused, that he has cauterized all desire for you.
You push through the entrance but when you hear the first shot ring out, with the accompanying sound of glass shattering, you freeze. Who fired? Joe...Desmond...or that henchman look-alike...what was his name? You think hard, oh, right...Max. Strenuous breathing gets you moving again; running, you're in time to see Joe just entering the garden with a suitcase in one hand and his typewriter in his other. You can't be sure if he heard the shot; he isn't acting as if he has...his back is to the mad woman with a gun, whom you've got an unhampered view of, as he fearlessly strides on, leaving her behind!
Looking frazzled, Norma Desmond is taking aim, siren-like intent murderously in her wild eyes.
Your mouth flies open, your arms convulsively shoot up and you caterwaul--"Joe! Look out! Duck, duck--she's trying to kill you!"
Shocked surprise mires itself on his face; clearly, he's startled, but as though some unseen switch was thrown, he obeys by throwing himself to the ground, plummeting like an unleashed wrecking ball.
The shots Norma fires in rapid succession fail to find their mark. Joe is hugging the ground and you are screaming at the top of your lungs. Before you're fully aware that Connie has joined you, you see Joe crawling on his belly for the pool. His would-be killer stalks him like the deranged lost soul she is.
Joe, having slunk into the floodlit pool, is nowhere to be seen. Hid by the shadows, you and Connie watch her creep to the pool in search of her escaped lover, and you pray that Joe can hold his breath long enough to keep himself alive.
"Let's see if I've still got an arm," Connie susurrates into your ear. Before you can guess what she means, her shoe is a missile whose trajectory solidly connects with Desmond. Clearly, she's taken aback, but not enough so she drops the weapon, without a doubt though, she's disoriented. "Darn!" Connie fumes, about to launch her other shoe.
Desmond fires the gun into the pool and your heart stops. "Please, Joe, please be alive...please," you desperately spill, feeling Connie's arm pull you against her side.
"Betty...who's that?"
You open your eyes. Your voice thick with relief, you reply, "Max."
He's just grappled the gun from Desmond's hand and she crumples to the ground like a worn-out paper doll.
"He's disarmed her," Connie breathes; you wrench yourself free from her vehement grasp.
Your mission in life is now learning Joe's fate. You race up to Desmond and Max, but veer away from them, making a beeline for the pool, and you fear. You fully expect to see it vividly tinctured with your hapless love's blood.
"Get out! Get out," Norma demands, shrieking it. "You don't belong here!" Then, she babbles, "Stars are ageless, aren't they? No one leaves a star!"
You turn a deaf ear, your eyes combing the pool for Joe who is nowhere to be found. It's small comfort that his body isn't floating on the motionless water's surface. You strain to make out if he's at the bottom. You wheel around and angrily fling at Desmond, "If he's dead--if you've killed him, I'll see you get the chair--count on it!"
Norma looks at you as though she thinks you've lost your mind. You know you haven't when you hear a familiar voice allay, "That won't be necessary, Betty, I'm not pressing charges."
"JOE!" You can't believe your ears or eyes.
After hoisting himself up out of the pool, he casts pitying eyes Norma's way, then tries, but isn't wholly successful, not to stumble his way to you. He lets you bear some of his weight since it's easy to see he's shaken. "You were hit," you gasp, seeing bloody staining coloring his left upper arm. A slit of fabric is missing from his jacket.
Shaking his head, he insists, "It's nothing big. Just grazed."
"Leave--now," Max barks, stalwartly caring for his shaky ex-wife, leading her towards the house.
Joe simpers at the pair and you nod. This time when you say, "C'mon, Joe," he offers no resistance, and by the look in his eyes alone you can tell that words aren't enough to express how glad he is that your being stubborn suits him just fine.
Before the relics of a by-gone era enter their sanctum, Connie bursts onto the scene, and she isn't alone. Two policemen are with her. "They came in response to a neighbor hearing shots," she clues.
"Okay, folks...what goes on here?" one of the officers asks, bumping his cap back to scratch his head.
Artfully, Joe responds, "Max, why don't you handle it, the way you always do...this is where I came in."
You feel his arm around your waist tighten, which makes you smile.
"You're hurt, Mister," the other officer notes.
"I'll live," Joe maintains...and he alleges close to your ear, "thanks to you, darling."
"Anytime, dear," you selflessly volunteer, and are likewise in a hurry to leave this unsavory chapter in his life behind, but not before he ushers you into his arms and kisses you which makes those other kisses feel like they were practice.
Joe and you begin leaving, with Connie retrieving his cast-offs, the suitcase and the typewriter. In the distance, Norma can be heard jabbering, "There's nothing else, just us and the cameras and those wonderful people out there in the dark... All right, Mister DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up..."
"Think you'll like Dayton, Ohio better than here?" Joe proposes. "Being the wife of a lowly copy editor?"
"Less tinsel, less star-struck, less dementia...heck, what do you think?" Nimbly, you toss, "This is the stuff Hopper and Parsons bloat on." Affectionately, you tell Joe, "We can finish that screenplay anywhere as long as we're doing it always...together."
Smiling, with your knowing it's the genuine article, Joe simplifies, "That's my girl."
"And don't you forget it!"
"Miss Betty Schaefer, I love you."
"Hooray for Joe Gillis!"
As you and Joe, with Connie bringing up the rear, go through the entrance for her car, he teases, "Here's looking at you, kid..."
"No," you lightly object, "Here's living for you."
End