After she graduated from high school in Chicago, Roy’s mother had gone to the University of Texas in Austin. When he was ten, Roy asked her why she had gone to college so far away.
“Your Uncle Buck was training to be a pilot at the Naval air station down there and he thought it would be a good idea for me to get away from the nuns and our mother. I was very shy. I’d spent ten years in boarding school being bossed around by the sisters and the priests, I’d never been on a date alone with a boy.”
“Did you like Texas?”
“The girls were nice but sometimes they played tricks on me.”
“What kinds of tricks?”
“Oh, one time at breakfast instead of two sunnyside up eggs they put two cow’s eyes on my plate. But I liked how blue and enormous the sky was and singing ‘Deep in the Heart of Texas’ and ‘The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You’ at the football games.”
“How long did you stay there?”
“Almost two years. My brother washed out of pilot school and got stationed in Philadelphia. He and Diana were married by then. My girlfriends talked me into entering a beauty contest at the university and I won. I was offered a modelling job in New York, so I went there and stayed with my Aunt Lorna and Uncle Dick.”
“Aunt Lorna’s the one I punched in the eye when I was two.”
“That’s right, when she came to Chicago to visit. She and Uncle Dick had a beautiful house on 65th Street off Fifth Avenue. I was making my own money for the first time so I didn’t see the point in going back to college.”
“I got sick, though, so after a few months I came back to Chicago and spent a few weeks in the hospital being treated for a severe case of eczema. The doctors said I had a nervous condition and should avoid stress. Eventually I went back to work modelling furs for wholesale buyers in the showroom at the Merchandise Mart. I was only nineteen then. That’s when I met your father. He was twenty years older and knew how to take care of me. Boys my own age didn’t. So I married your dad and we honeymooned in Hollywood and Las Vegas. He arranged a screen test for me and his friends out there introduced me to some movie stars.”
“Like who?”
“Oh, Errol Flynn and William Holden were the most famous ones. And that terrible Lawrence Tierney.”
“What was terrible about him?”
“He was forward with me at the studio but then your dad’s friends let him know the score and he apologized.”
“I didn’t know you could have been in the movies.”
“I couldn’t act, Roy, I didn’t have any experience, so nothing came of it. Hollywood is full of pretty girls. I had fun, though. Your dad had business to do in Las Vegas so we spent quite a bit of time there. In those days everyone stayed at the El Rancho, it was the place to be before Ben opened his hotel.”
“Who was Ben? Was he a friend of Dad’s?”
“Yes. He was murdered in Los Angeles while we were with his girlfriend’s brother in Vegas.”
“Who killed him?”
“They never found out. When you’re in business, it’s easy to make enemies. People never know who their real friends are, anyway.”
“I’ve got real friends.”
Roy’s mother smiled at him. She had beautiful teeth. They were sitting at the kitchen table and she patted him on his hand.
“Of course, Roy,” she said. “I wasn’t talking about you.”