Hollywood, July 1940
Goodbyes
The telephone jangled. Lola had decided not to spend the night at Orson’s because she wanted to sleep late, and Orson had to get up at the crack of dawn. He was at work on his first feature film, Citizen Kane, and he had an early appointment at RKO to discuss some ideas with Herman Mankiewicz, his cowriter. However, Lola had no movie projects, and she was tired. By then, she was living with Orson, but she’d rented a small apartment off Sunset Boulevard for times when she wanted to get away and be alone.
The phone clanged again. “Por Dios,” she groaned. “Who’s calling at this hour?”
It was probably Orson, she thought. Maybe he wanted to run an idea by her, or maybe he just wanted to tell her how much he loved her. He’d been so insistent lately, ravaging her with kisses the moment he came through the door, pulling open her blouse, grabbing at her breasts. The gentle lovemaking of their first encounters had transmuted into raw appetite.
He called incessantly. “I just had to hear your voice,” he would say. “I called you before and you didn’t answer! Where were you, Lola?”
“I was out by the pool with my mother,” she would say when she didn’t want to tell him the truth—which was that she just didn’t want to talk to him. “We didn’t hear the phone. I’m sorry, darling.”
The phone rang a third time, and Lola reached for the receiver.
The voice on the other end was distraught, but controlled. “Just now,” it said. “Just a while ago. The doctor said it was a heart attack.”
“Why didn’t you call me right away, Mami?”
Lola ripped off her nightgown and tossed on a shirt and slacks. Then she called me.
“Mara, please, I need you. I’ll pick you up in ten minutes. Wait for me in front of your door.” She’d forgotten that she’d practically thrown me out of her house... Cedric’s house... the last time I’d visited her, about six months before. But I didn’t hold grudges...not for long. I knew Lola was going through difficult times—no work and an inappropriate lover she felt uncomfortable about, even though she said she didn’t. He was too young for her, and she knew it. Someday he would leave her for a new starlet with baby-soft skin, and she knew that, too. I asked Gabe to take the older girls to school and Lexie to his parents’ place.
“I thought you’d decided not to jump and run every time Lola snapped her fingers,” he said reproachfully. “She hasn’t called you in months!”
“She says it’s an emergency. We’ve been friends for so long, Gabe. I really have to go.”
He shrugged and didn’t say anything more.
I dressed and went outside to wait. In less than ten minutes, Lola drove up in the Cadillac she’d bought herself for her birthday, and we headed for Santa Monica, where her parents had lived ever since her father moved to the States from Mexico. She told me about her mother’s phone calls in the car.
We found Doña Antonia sitting in the shadows, shades drawn, reciting the rosary. Lola collapsed onto the sofa next to her and prayed with her through choked tears: “Dios te salve, María. Llena eres de gracia...” I stood there watching them. I hadn’t said the rosary in years. “Catholic peyote for old ladies,” Tía Emi always said.
“I brought Mara with me for moral support,” Lola told her mother. “Where is he?”
“In his bed. Dr. Contreras is making arrangements to transport the body to Mexico so he can be laid to rest in the family plot.” She paused and stared at her rosary beads. “The same place I will lie when my time comes.”
“Oh, Mami. No, don’t talk about such things.”
“The Lord calls each one of us to Him when He wills.”
Lola sat down next to her mother and laid her head on her shoulder, but Doña Antonia pushed her gently away. She had her own grief to deal with. She’d been married to Jesús Leonardo Asúnsola over thirty-five years. There had been ups and downs and long separations, but still, he’d been her life’s partner. Now he was gone. That had to sink in. It would take time.
Lola held out her hand to me. “Thank you for being here with me,” she murmured.
Hand in hand, we walked to the bedroom. Don Jesús Leonardo looked as though he were sleeping serenely. His puppet lines had softened. His forehead was smooth and moist. Lola eased herself onto the chair by his bed and watched his chest, as though expecting him to suddenly inhale. I sat on a stool by the vanity and listened to the drip drip drip of the faucet, the buzz of a bee outside the window, the hiccoughing inhalations of Lola’s breath. Everything was as before. The drip, the buzz, the expanding and contracting of her lungs. The continuum of the universe. Only hours before, Don Jesús Leonardo was part of all this. Now he was gone. The thread between life and death was so fine, I thought, so fragile.
Lola was no longer crying. It was as if her tears had coagulated in her chest. I was stopped up, too. I felt as though a wad of glue were wedged under my breastbone.
Doña Antonia came into the room. “Go get some rest, Gatita,” she said. “We will have a memorial service here in Los Angeles, and then the funeral in Mexico.”
She placed her arm around Lola’s waist. They’d forgotten I was there.
They stood together immobile, like the painting of the Virgin and Saint Anne in our parish church. Mother and daughter embracing, a single, inseparable unit. Light filtered through the window, illuminating their faces. Two women, one still young, the other aging, both with pained expressions, comforting one another. Mother and daughter united in grief.
I sat there watching them. A dull ache was growing in my breast. Lola was right when she said I was jealous. I was jealous, but not for the reasons she thought. Not of her fame and money, not of her spectacular love life. No, I was jealous of her closeness with her mother.
My own mother had recently died, and I felt nothing. How could I feel anything? I didn’t know her. In a way, I didn’t even believe in her existence. She was some mythical figure. Saint Anne was more real to me than her. Saint Anne had a face and a family and a story. My mother didn’t even have a name. And my father…God only knew who he was. Lola and Doña Antonia had come together to share their sorrow because a man had died, a real, flesh-and-blood man, Don Jesús Leonardo, father and husband. They remembered his touch, his lips on their foreheads. They remembered his smile, his anger, his passionate political opinions. They remembered his pride in Lola’s first successes. Now they had the comfort of weeping together. But I... I didn’t have a father. I was like Jesus, sin pecado concebida. Or maybe conceived in pure sinfulness—in a drunken orgy, a chance encounter, or a rape. Who knew?
I turned away, counted my blessings. I had Gabe, the kind of strong, devoted, caring husband Lola had never had, and four beautiful little girls. My envy seemed petty and pointless. I pushed it out of my mind.
Lola was quiet as she drove me back home.
“You’re a true friend,” she said, when we got to the door. “I don’t know how you put up with me, but I’m glad you do. I couldn’t get through things like this without you.”