CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Los Angeles, 1959

I called the studio. A click, a transfer, a receiver lifted—and I heard Malcolm’s voice. “Look, you’re probably busy—” I started.

He interrupted, a brisk, work quality to his voice. “That depends, I guess. Are you calling to say goodbye?”

“No,” I said quickly. “I wanted to share some good news.”

He seemed pleased when I told him—asking me questions about when it would run, and when I told him they were introducing the doll at the National Toy Fair this year, he actually laughed. “Perfect timing—you’re on your way,” he said.

He wasn’t taking the lead, so I did. “I would like to see you again,” I said, adding, “to say a proper goodbye.”

“Well…”

For a frozen moment, I thought he might say no.

“This afternoon, this evening, or both?”

I laughed. “Just maybe I’ve had enough of beaches, all that sand—”

“Dinner, then. At one of the best restaurants in town.”

“Which one?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet.”

“What’s your favorite?”

“Pink’s Hot Dogs. Sorry. But you and I, we’re going deluxe.”

I laughed again, hung up, and glanced at Kathleen, who was staring out the window with an odd expression on her face. It was gone so quickly I barely registered it; in fact, I wondered if I had imagined it.

We shopped that day; I was more lighthearted than I’d been about it for a very long time. Kathleen coaxed me into trying on some Oscar-worthy gowns in Bullocks, but I couldn’t see past the daunting price tags.

“Okay, I’m not giving up.” She disappeared from the dressing room and came back ten minutes later with an armful of blouses, all creamy white silk and edged in lace. “And a black skirt,” she said, tossing one my way. “I have one just like it at home, but let’s see how it looks with the top.”

I plucked out one blouse and pulled it over my head; the silk molded to my body, and I was already in love with it. The sleeves were sheer, so light they seemed to float by themselves. It was perfect.

I laughed and twirled in front of the mirror, suddenly thinking: my mother must have done this, at least once, and at this very store, and had she felt the way I felt now? Maybe this was where she had bought her dress for that glittery night when we all three attended the Academy Awards. I could see it again: Mother’s beauty, my father’s genial exuberance, all framed against the color and light of a fairy-tale moment. And that brought back, even more vividly, my memory of Ingrid Bergman that night. How awkward I had felt, stumbling into a private conversation between her and her husband. And how gracious she had been, surely knowing I was mortified. I could hear her voice again—calm and soothing. If she hadn’t been my hero before, she would have become my hero then.

“You look gorgeous,” Kathleen said. She collapsed into one of the chairs, grinning. “Good thing, because I’m shopped out.” She glanced at her watch. “I have an appointment to show a house in about an hour, but there’s plenty of time to get you home.”

“No,” I said, surprising myself, “I think I’ll just walk around this part of town for a while. Maybe look at some of the old places we went.”

“You and your parents?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Remember this isn’t New York; it’s too far to walk home. I’ll pick you up at three o’clock, in front of the store?”

“Sure, I’ll be here.” I had a sudden restless desire to be alone. To walk the streets, look around, maybe remember a few good things.

I said goodbye to Kathleen and wandered to the front of the store, stopping abruptly at the perfume counter. It was as magical as I remembered: mirrored glass trays filled with dozens of elaborately designed crystal bottles lined counters that sparkled under the glowing chandeliers. I inhaled deeply—and realized I was inhaling Mother. She loved perfume. It made Father sneeze, so she didn’t wear it in the evenings. But when I was a child, she would dab her favorite scent on in the mornings, even before my father had backed all the way out of the driveway to head for work. Then she would wink at me and put a tiny drop behind each of my ears. When did she do that? How old was I? I remember feeling very grown-up. And now I couldn’t remember what scent she had loved.

A brisk wind stirred to life as I left the store and walked down Wilshire. I pulled my raincoat tighter, and remembered how uncertain Mother had been about the mink coat Father gave her that first Christmas in our new house. She had pulled it from layers of frothy tissue and held it up, eyes wide.

“But, Gabriel,” she almost whispered, “it doesn’t get cold enough here for a mink coat.”

“That hasn’t stopped every woman in Beverly Hills from owning one,” he said with a grin. We coaxed her to try it on. When she did, it enveloped her. She looked like a mountain bear.

“Where did you go, Vannie?” he teased.

She giggled from inside that ridiculous coat. So she had a sense of humor, at least sometimes. Maybe there were more instances, but I had tuned them out. Memories are like that, I had read somewhere. If they don’t fit your storyline, they vanish from your mind. An unsettling thought.

It felt good, walking and thinking; it felt good not to be on a cold subway platform, waiting for a late train. It felt good to be spending time with Kathleen. And it felt good to know I was looking forward to dinner with Malcolm tonight.

I kept walking; moving one foot after the other had a way of making life seem less shadowed. I passed a delicatessen my father used to praise for its tongue sandwiches, which made Mother shiver. I peeked in the window; it was full of people, mostly men and old ladies, and they all were eating some kind of sandwiches, probably either tongue or pastrami, which sounded good to me. My father took us here once in a while on Sundays after Mass. Mother would sit quietly, munching on a bagel with cream cheese, while I tried to pretend I loved tongue. It was best smothered in mustard.

I actually reached for the doorknob, then hesitated. Anyone who lived in New York knew West Coast delis were inferior, always had been been, always would be. It made me smile to think how my father used to wave his sandwich in the air and scoff at “East Coast snobbism.” I didn’t want to risk finding out East Coasters were right.

I finally stopped daydreaming and glanced at my watch. Almost three o’clock—time to hurry back.

“So how was it, strolling around the soulless heart of your old hometown?” Kathleen said. She had that bright look in her eyes that I knew meant she probably had closed a sale while I was thinking about bagels and pastrami.

“Do you remember my mother’s mink coat?”

She laughed. “That fur thing where you couldn’t see her eyes? I sure do.”

“She ended up using it as a coverlet on chilly nights.”

We laughed together, and in that blithe mood, we climbed into the car, drove away, and somehow decided to pay one final visit to Saint Ann’s Academy.

“Why not?” I said.

“Why not, indeed?”

It wasn’t quiet this time. We could hear from somewhere the dull, rhythmic thud of a wrecking ball hitting masonry; closer to us, the whine of electric saws and shouts of workers. “Listen,” Kathleen said as we walked up to the tennis courts. “If it wasn’t so atonal, it might be music.”

We could both smile at that as we stared again at the abandoned court. It was, if anything, crumbling even faster now than at the beginning of the week, Kathleen pointed out. But, surprisingly, it didn’t trigger in me this time the same sharp sense of loss. One goodbye had been enough.

“Let’s see if the auditorium is still intact,” I said.

“You’re nostalgic for Pride and Prejudice? You were quite good as Mr. Wickham.”

“No, I want to take a last peek at Miss Coultrane’s classroom.”

We walked over to the auditorium, which seemed to be sagging into its foundation, though no demolition equipment was at work yet. Most of the seats were gone. It was peaceful, wandering the space, remembering.

“Remember how Ingrid Bergman fascinated everybody when she came here?” I said. “She was amazing, totally invulnerable. Beautiful, and always gracious.”

“I never understood why she fell in love with Rossellini,” Kathleen said.

“She must have thought he was a great filmmaker—otherwise, why would she have made more movies in Europe with him?” We were falling comfortably into our old gossipy mode, but without our beloved movie magazines to feed it.

“Maybe he’s the only director she could work with after everything,” Kathleen mused. “I read Ingrid and Rossellini were always short of money. Did you hear what he said when they broke up?”

I lifted an eyebrow inquiringly.

“He said what nobody understood was, she always felt like a bird in a cage—she wanted to be without roots.”

We were walking into Miss Coultrane’s classroom now; I hesitated. “Does that describe me, too?” I said.

“A little.”

As I stared around the room, I heard other voices—my own, my classmates’, Miss Coultrane’s. Where would she be if she had lived? Probably still sitting in that graceful spindly chair of hers in some other school, spending her time teaching young girls how to enunciate, how to use words to build confidence, how to grow. I stood at the open door of the basement classroom; Ingrid’s remembered voice came through, true and clear. The thrill of hearing her become Portia for just a few brief moments—Miss Coultrane and I had shared that.

“Miss Coultrane believed in me,” I said. “I was lucky to know her.”

Kathleen squeezed my hand; she didn’t try to reply.

We backed out of the school parking lot in silence. Suddenly Kathleen pulled on the brake, stood in her seat, and shouted, “Goodbye, Saint Ann’s! We won’t forget you!” A dump-truck driver shoveling dirt and other debris into the truck bed stopped and stared at us, startled. We drove away, relishing the wind in our hair, shouting out the Saint Ann’s alma mater, or at least most of it; we couldn’t remember all the words.

Malcolm appeared at the door in a suit and tie, looking startlingly put-together. He thrust forward a bouquet of tea roses and said quickly, “These aren’t for you, they’re for Kathleen. And my mother didn’t pick them out this time.”

“So I don’t get an orchid in a plastic box?” I teased.

“I like roses better.”

We stood there for an awkward moment, grinning at each other, replaying that long-ago scene.

“Okay.” Kathleen came up behind me and opened the door wider. “Good to see you. Those are for me, you said?” Smiling, she reached for the bouquet. “Thanks, Malcolm. I love tea roses. Have fun this evening.”

“Pushing us out?” Malcolm said as I rushed back in to grab a jacket.

“Just remember your curfew and be home by midnight.” She gave us both a grin and shut the door.

It did feel strangely like a first date. I kept stealing glances at Malcolm as we drove, expecting to see somebody different, somebody not at ease in good clothes, somebody trying to—what?—impress me? But that wasn’t happening.

“You haven’t asked where we’re going,” he said.

“Where are we going?”

“Well, at first I leaned toward something like the Polo Lounge, or Chasen’s, but I don’t like to do a lot of celebrity watching. And it would look like I was trying to impress you, which is ridiculous—you’ve probably been in those places dozens of times, starting when you were in diapers.”

“Not quite,” I murmured. I couldn’t restrain a smile at the idea of my proper mother making me eat my spinach at the Polo Lounge.

He glanced quickly in my direction as he swung left onto La Cienega. “Then I thought of concentrating on the food. I remembered how much you liked hamburgers, so I figured, what about a good steakhouse?” He pointed out the window. “So here we are, Lawry’s Prime Rib.”

I knew the place; it was still painted in the familiar salmon pink and green that had made Mother roll her eyes a few times, but I had always liked it. It held no bad memories. “Perfect,” I said. “My father loved it.”

The booths were as cozy as I remembered them. We ordered drinks, and as we scanned the menu, to my astonishment, I was talking again. I told him about the nuns, about the memories triggered by the buyers of my old home, about actually beginning to believe I could break out professionally—

“You had stopped believing that?”

Had I? “I think so.”

We ordered the prime rib and a second round of drinks, and I talked more—about New York, about peeking in the window of an old Wilshire Boulevard deli, about my new blouse, about Mother’s perfume—I’m quite sure I stopped long enough to eat dinner.

“I’m sorry,” I finally said. “I’m talking too much.”

“No, you’re not. You’re bringing yourself up-to-date.”

“You make it easy to feel safe.” These words, coming from my own lips, didn’t quite astonish me.

“Jesse”—his voice was suddenly tender—“are we ready for each other?”

I took a deep breath. “Maybe we are,” I said.

“Is that an invitation?” he asked quietly.

I thought about it, gazing at him. What was I resisting? The answer was so simple.

“Yes,” I said.

His arm slipped around my shoulders—steady pressure, pulling me close. The heat of his body mixed with the heat of mine. He released me gently, signaling for the waiter with his other hand. “Check, please,” he said.

We only made it as far as the car.

We were barely seated when he took me in his arms and kissed me, deep and full. I felt myself relax into him, holding back nothing of what I was feeling. In a lazy, delicious way, we began exploring each other without hesitation.

“Not the best of places for this,” he said.

“It’s high school, I guess,” I murmured, but neither of us pulled back. Nothing seemed to matter—not the infernal gearshift stick, not the bucket seats—nothing.

“I’ve waited for you for a long time,” he said.

Maybe I had been waiting, too. I held on tight, touching this man, this unexpected lover, and, really, the gearshift stick didn’t get in the way at all.

It was at least ten minutes before either of us spoke again. Then, slowly, reluctantly, we began untangling ourselves. He kissed my face gently. “I guess that takes care of high school,” he said. He looked out the window, almost as if seeing the other parked cars for the first time. “In a parking lot, no less. Good thing nobody called the police.”

I didn’t answer right away. Then, “I’m wondering if we did it to prove we could.”

“Maybe,” he said, curling a strand of my hair around his finger. “Does it matter?”

I thought about that, and felt a release. “I guess not,” I replied.

He stretched, smiling lazily. “Now that we’re adults, what comes next?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I do. I want to make real love to you—you know, in a real bed.”

I couldn’t resist a laugh. “I’m not against that,” I said.

“I’ll be in New York in a few weeks on business,” he said. “Maybe, if you feel the same way then…?”

“Oh, don’t be so proper,” I said. I reached over and kissed him lightly on the lips.

“I could be just getting your signals better, but I have the feeling you want to ask me a question,” he said.

“So you’re clairvoyant.” I studied his face. “Okay, here it is—if you knew why I was invited to the Academy Awards, is there a reason you couldn’t tell me?”

“I was wondering why you didn’t push on this,” he said. “The answer is, I didn’t know. I think I do now, but I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll find out tomorrow.”

“Is that ominous?”

“No. If it were, I would warn you.”

“You are maddening, you know.”

“Of course I am—I’m a lawyer.” He turned on the engine and put the car in gear, then looked at me, his familiar grin in place. “If you aren’t too annoyed by now, are you still up for meeting in New York?”

So—did I trust him? Decide.

“Yes.”

He smiled.

“Okay—and I trust you.”