nights together. Who knows what would have happened. Instead, he’d hung up and quickly called back. When she didn’t answer, he told her voice mail that she was a shallow, stupid cunt who didn’t want him in L.A. because she needed to be free to fuck strangers if she wanted to keep working. Then he drank half a bottle of bourbon and called to apologize, again to her voice mail. A week later her sister moved her things out. Eddie never saw Martha again.
Except, of course, that he saw her everywhere. The blind detective show was canceled before it finished its first season, just as Eddie had expected. But another one quickly followed, also as Eddie had expected. This time Martha was the star. Dr. Drake was the youngest but most gifted member of a team of intensive-care doctors. She had some kind of special power or intuitive gift, could lay her hands on people and discover what was wrong with them, like a human MRI. Since a medical procedural in which all matter of illness could be diagnosed and cured by the laying-on of hands would not make for much drama, the gift was an inconstant one. It was never explained why it worked when it did or why it didn’t when it didn’t.
The show was an incoherent mess, lacking even the most basic internal logic. The dialogue was occasionally sharp or funny, but just as often sloppy and melodramatic. After watching the first few episodes, Eddie assumed that it too would be gone before it finished its first season. Five years later it was still on the air, the most popular scripted show on TV. To Eddie this was inexplicable. Naturally he’d tuned in every week, in the early years, but he was a special case. It couldn’t be that everyone found the show as utterly ridiculous as he did, that they all watched only because of her. Yet the more he saw, the more convinced of this he became. Martha’s beauty and charm were sufficient to keep millions of people engaged with a show that wasn’t just poorly written or schmaltzy but that on the most fundamental level didn’t make any sense. Was she a doctor or some kind of shaman or what?
Even if he avoided NBC, which aired Dr. Drake, she was liable to turn up on another network, plugging a late-night spot. The new twenty-four-hour celebrity news channel, Entertainment Daily, seemed to devote more than half its coverage to Martha. He could turn off the TV, but she was everywhere online. He couldn’t even read the New York Herald in the morning without seeing her in some ad. If he put down the paper and went outside, she was on the side of the passing bus. Phone booths that no longer had working phones seemed now to exist only to taunt Eddie with her image. Eventually he learned to do what everyone else apparently did, which was to believe that she wasn’t actually real. In this way, she became for him what she’d already become for the rest of the world—not a human being at all, but a vessel into which could be poured all of his longing and his hope and finally all of his disappointment.
This was the worst part about watching the clips: they made her the old Martha again. It had been seven years since Martha left—he’d now been with Susan nearly as long as he’d been with Martha—and he’d trained himself to look at her on TV without thinking of those days. But here he saw her as he had known her and the public had not, before she was Dr. Drake. Of course this was just what would make the video interesting. Perhaps interesting enough that Morgan would spend some money on one of these innocent clips of the two of them talking. Eddie could already imagine the Dr. Drake chat boards filling up with obnoxious comments about what a lousy actor he’d been, but he could live with that if everything else worked out.
He clicked on another file, and there was again the brief blankness of the screen before it started up. The picture was different this time, the view shaky. The camera was off the tripod, presumably being held by Eddie himself,
Except, of course, that he saw her everywhere. The blind detective show was canceled before it finished its first season, just as Eddie had expected. But another one quickly followed, also as Eddie had expected. This time Martha was the star. Dr. Drake was the youngest but most gifted member of a team of intensive-care doctors. She had some kind of special power or intuitive gift, could lay her hands on people and discover what was wrong with them, like a human MRI. Since a medical procedural in which all matter of illness could be diagnosed and cured by the laying-on of hands would not make for much drama, the gift was an inconstant one. It was never explained why it worked when it did or why it didn’t when it didn’t.
The show was an incoherent mess, lacking even the most basic internal logic. The dialogue was occasionally sharp or funny, but just as often sloppy and melodramatic. After watching the first few episodes, Eddie assumed that it too would be gone before it finished its first season. Five years later it was still on the air, the most popular scripted show on TV. To Eddie this was inexplicable. Naturally he’d tuned in every week, in the early years, but he was a special case. It couldn’t be that everyone found the show as utterly ridiculous as he did, that they all watched only because of her. Yet the more he saw, the more convinced of this he became. Martha’s beauty and charm were sufficient to keep millions of people engaged with a show that wasn’t just poorly written or schmaltzy but that on the most fundamental level didn’t make any sense. Was she a doctor or some kind of shaman or what?
Even if he avoided NBC, which aired Dr. Drake, she was liable to turn up on another network, plugging a late-night spot. The new twenty-four-hour celebrity news channel, Entertainment Daily, seemed to devote more than half its coverage to Martha. He could turn off the TV, but she was everywhere online. He couldn’t even read the New York Herald in the morning without seeing her in some ad. If he put down the paper and went outside, she was on the side of the passing bus. Phone booths that no longer had working phones seemed now to exist only to taunt Eddie with her image. Eventually he learned to do what everyone else apparently did, which was to believe that she wasn’t actually real. In this way, she became for him what she’d already become for the rest of the world—not a human being at all, but a vessel into which could be poured all of his longing and his hope and finally all of his disappointment.
This was the worst part about watching the clips: they made her the old Martha again. It had been seven years since Martha left—he’d now been with Susan nearly as long as he’d been with Martha—and he’d trained himself to look at her on TV without thinking of those days. But here he saw her as he had known her and the public had not, before she was Dr. Drake. Of course this was just what would make the video interesting. Perhaps interesting enough that Morgan would spend some money on one of these innocent clips of the two of them talking. Eddie could already imagine the Dr. Drake chat boards filling up with obnoxious comments about what a lousy actor he’d been, but he could live with that if everything else worked out.
He clicked on another file, and there was again the brief blankness of the screen before it started up. The picture was different this time, the view shaky. The camera was off the tripod, presumably being held by Eddie himself,
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