She doubtless had a closet full of Donna Karan suits, but she came to
the door in pre-faded jeans and a striped sweater.
A successful publicity agent, she was petite, with dark hair and eyes
and an obvious don't-bug-me take on life.
"Come on in. My nanny's here to help keep Kevin out of the way." She
was sounding like she'd gotten her old spunk back, or so it seemed at
first. "I've completely cleared the living room."
I looked around the place, now a vision of setup pandemonium. "You're
sure this is all right?"
"Well . . ." She was biting at her lip. "Maybe we ought to talk first,
okay? But come on in. I'll probably do it. Maybe I just need a good
reason to. . . ."
As her voice trailed off, I found myself mining my brain for a sales
point. Finally, out of the blue, I settled on one. "Because you're
totally crazy?"
She laughed out loud. "Not a bad start. I live in total madness. It's
the definition of my life."
I laughed too and looked around. No kidding. Her loft apartment was a
wild mixture of stairs and galleries and levels--unconventional in
every way. Also, it had a lot of in-your-face decor, outrageous
posters, and African fertility masks, signs of a wonderful, irreverent
personality. Then too, stuffed animals and toys were strewn all over.
"I can't really afford the rent," she declared, seeing me survey the
place, "but I need the space for Kevin. I've just joined Bloomingdale's
Anonymous. Twelve steps to shredding your charge plates."
Her nanny, a Jehovah's Witness from Jamaica named Marcy (who reminded
me of a cuddly voodoo doll, complete with cornrows), was bringing
Carly's little boy Kevin down from his bath in the upstairs bathroom.
He was definitely adopted, sandy-haired and peachy, nothing like
Carly's dark, severe strands and Mediterranean skin. When Marcy put him
down, he tried to walk, and I felt my envy ratchet upward a notch. He'd
just started taking tentative steps, at eleven months old, and there
was still a Frankenstein quality as he strode stiff-legged, arms out
for balance.
I walked over, picked him up, and gave him a kiss. He looked like a
Scandinavian travel poster, a cherubic vision, and I felt a great void
growing where my heart had been. Then Marcy reached out and pried him
from me. I hated to let him go so much I almost pulled him back.
"You're so lucky," I said to Carly, feeling a surge of yearning. "He's
great."
"You know," she said, "I've been thinking about that 'no disclosure'
thing Children of Light made me sign. That's their name, by the way.
Like a vow of silence about them. They seemed pretty serious about it."
Dear God, I thought, don't let her chicken out. Don't, don't.
"So, we won't mention them. Just never use their name."
She stood a minute, mute, and then her eyes grew determined. "No, I've
got a better idea. I like you. And I think more single women ought to
know about adoption. So you know what? I think I'll use their name all
over the damned place. I paid what they asked, and for that I ought to
be able to do what I want. What are they going to do? Come and steal
Kevin back?"
Then she sighed and stared at me. "Maybe, though, you could run through
again how exactly we fit into this movie."
I liked to tell the story to people, just to get their reaction. There
are always moments of doubt in the film-making process when you wonder
if the audience for your picture is going to consist entirely of your
immediate family, your backers, and your creditors.
"Well, as I tried to explain before, it's a fictional construct
intended to feel like a documentary, about a career slave named Gail
Crea who's based on a hundred women I know. She's got a great career,
manages fund-raising for a major museum, and work is going great. But
then one day she finds herself suddenly daydreaming about babies,
envying mothers. She yearns for someone to take care of, has a
recurrent dream she's stealing a baby out of a carriage on the street.
It's demeaning."
"God," Carly said, "I know exactly what you're talking about. I've been
there. Have I ever."
The truth was, I also knew it all too well. It was poignant and
demeaning at the same time.
"Anyway, Gail's focused on career all through her twenties, and by her
late thirties she's become a serious professional. But her personal
life is still on hold. She 'meets people' at work, or some other way,
and she has a couple of long-standing relationships that finally crater
because the guys, make that commit-ophobes, 'need space.' Along the
way, there're ghastly fix-ups and dismal dinners with what seem like a
hundred thousand misfits. She becomes the Dating Queen of New York, but
eventually she realizes all the men she's meeting are either assuaging
their midlife crises with some pneumatic bombshell named Bambi, or
they're divorced and whining and carrying a ton of emotional baggage.
The fact is, she's become the sensible, successful professional she's
been looking for all this time. This all sort of seeps in as back
story."
I perched on a stool at the breakfast bar and looked down at my jeans,
and noticed that a rip was starting in the crotch. Shit, back to
cottage cheese. Those horrible eight pounds I could never get rid of.
I crossed my legs. "Finally, after she gets a couple more promotions,
she wakes up one morning and realizes she's never going to have a
family. All the stable, rational men have disappeared. Like there's a
black hole or something. Nothing's left but the walking wounded. She
concludes it's actually easier to get a baby than a decent guy--which
is what she starts trying to do. High concept: This picture is about
how adopting a baby can enrich the life of a childless human being and,
not coincidentally, bring joy to an orphaned infant."
I remembered when I'd first pitched it to David Roth of Applecore. His
response had been; "Definitely art-house. Probably never get past the
Angelika. A wide release is gonna be three screens where they serve
iced cappuccino."