Death of a Blue Movie Star

hair was pulled back in a ponytail, which made her round face somewhat less round. In addition to the watches, Rune wore three pieces of jewelry—a double-terminated crystal on a chain, a single fake-gold earring in the shape of the Eiffel Tower and a silver bracelet in the shape of two hands clasped together, which had been broken and soldered together. The little makeup she had put on that morning had vanished in the sweat of the August afternoon and the spewing water from an open hydrant on Thirty-first Street she couldn’t resist dunking her head under. Rune wasn’t much for makeup anyway. She did best, she felt, with the least attention. When she got elaborate with her looks, she turned sophisticated into clowny, svelte into whorish.
    Her theory of fashion: You’re short and occasionally you’re pretty. Stick to the basics. T-shirts, boots and dinosaurs. Use hair spray only to kill flies and to paste things into scrapbooks.
    She rubbed the cold beer bottle against her cheek and sat down at the desk.
    The L&R office was a good reflection of the cash flow of the company. Gray steel furniture, circa 1967. Peeling linoleum. Stacks of yellowing invoices, storyboards, art directors’ annuals and papers that had grown the dense fur of city grit.
    Larry and Bob, her bosses, were Australians, documentary film makers, and—Rune’s opinion on most days—maniacs. As producers of commercials for Melbourne and New York ad agencies they had developed something more than their massive artistic egos; they were, in their own words,
accurate
words, “bloody fucking good.” They ate like farm animals, belched, lusted over blondes with big boobs and indulged in gloomy moodiness. In between doing TV commercials they now produced and shot some of the best documentaries that ever ran on PBS or England’s Channel 4 or at the Film Forum.
    Rune had wheedled a job here, hoping some of their magic would rub off.
    It was now a year later and not much had.
    Larry, the partner with the longer beard, walked into the office. His uniform of the day: boots, black leather pants and a black, blousy Parachute shirt, every button of which his gut tested.
    “About bleedin’ time. Where’ve you been?”
    She held up the Schneider lens she’d picked up at Optirental in Midtown. He reached for it but she held it from his grasp. “They said you’re behind on your account—”
    “Me account?” Larry was deeply stung.
    “—and they wanted a bigger deposit. I had to give them a check. A personal check.”
    “Right, I’ll add it to your envelope.”
    “You’ll add it to my
pocket
.”
    “Look, you can’t keep being late like this, luv. What if we’d been shooting?” He took the lens. “Time is money, right?”
    “No, money is money,” Rune countered. “I’m out some and I want you to pay me back. Come on, Larry. I need it.”
    “Get it out of petty cash.”
    “There’s never been more than six dollars in petty cash since I’ve been working here. And you know it.”
    “Right.” He examined the lens, a beautiful piece of German optics and machinery.
    Rune didn’t move. Kept staring at him.
    He looked up. Sighed. “How fucking much was it?”
    “Forty dollars.”
    “Jesus.” He dug into his pocket and gave her two twenties.
    She smiled curtly. “Thank you, boss.”
    “Listen, luv, I’ve got a big pitch meeting going on—”
    “Not another commercial, Larry. Come on. Don’t sell out.”
    “They pay the rent. And your salary. So … I need four coffees. One light, one regular, two sweet. And two teas.” He looked at her with a gaze of refined kindness, forgiving her the sin of asking for reimbursement. “Another thing—I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need it, but me sports coat … you know, the black one? It’s at the cleaners and I’ve to go—”
    “No laundry. I’m a production assistant.”
    “Rune.”
    “Write it down and read it. Assisting with production. Does not mean assisting with dry cleaning.”
    “Please?”
    “Produce and laundry. Very different. Night and day.”
    He said, “Let you use the Arriflex next time out.”
    “No laundry.”
    “Jesus.”
    She finished the beer. “Larry, I want to ask you about something.”
    “I just gave you a raise.”
    “There was this bombing? In Midtown. A porn theater got blown up.”
    “Not a place you frequent, I ‘ope.”
    “I walked by just before it happened. It looks like this religious group did it. Some right-wing fanatics or something.