Best to Laugh: A Novel (5 page)

“Of course she does,” said my grandmother, pulling me up the stairs. “And by the way, I absolutely love your hair.”

The compliment softened whatever barricades the usher might have put up, and in no time my grandmother and I were behind the curtain.

“Miss Wheaton!” barked my grandmother, as if she were the producer of the show, and the stagehand could do nothing but point.

We followed his finger down a hallway and stood in line with a dozen people. When Heidi Wheaton and another woman emerged from her dressing room and saw us, the comedian whose features were naturally doleful looked even more miserable, promptly turning the other way. The woman with her laughed and taking the comic by the shoulders spun her around to face us.

“I had fifty people waiting for me backstage in Portland,” the actress whined, “and this is all you can scrounge up?”

She didn’t seem thrilled to go down the reception line, but she did, offering a tired smile as people thanked her for a magical evening, telling her they didn’t know when they’d laughed so hard, etc. After she had signed an autograph for a radio deejay, she shook hands with my grandmother, who said, “Miss Wheaton! My granddaughter here is just as funny as you are! Any advice you can give her?”

“Yeah,” she said in a monotone. “Life’s a shit sandwich. So only eat the bread.”

M
Y
GRANDMOTHER
FUMED
as we walked to the bus stop.

“What kind of advice was that? Honestly, I didn’t expect her to be so crude. Yes sir, Miss Heidi Wheaton has lost a little luster in my book! Would it have killed her to tell you something a little more sensible?”

“I still can’t believe you said that to her! That I was just as funny as she was!” Feeling almost tipsy from all the laughing I’d done, I laughed again.

“Well, you are—when you want to be!” She tucked her hand in the crook of my arm. “Oh, Candy, remember all those nights we’d watch Johnny Carson and you’d put on your own little show for me, all those times when you told me that when you grew up, you wanted to make people laugh?”

“Grandma,” I said, my spirits taking a dive. “I . . . I was just a kid then.”

After extending his Happy Hour into Sloppy Hour, a man in a rumpled suit and skewed tie stumbled past us, and my grandmother shook her head at the spectacle.

“And all those school plays and talent shows, oh kid, when you’d steal every scene you were in! And Candy, did I tell you—I just read about this tavern in St. Paul that started hosting comedy nights, and I think you should go down there and—”

“Oh, Grandma, I—”

“—I don’t have to tell you how proud I am of all the hard work you put in at the U—good heavens, graduating early!—but now that you’ve got a degree, well, maybe it’s time to finally indulge your old dreams a bit.”

Torn between telling her to shut up and bursting into tears, I pressed my lips tight so I couldn’t do either, and as we waited for the bus I seethed with anger and resentment that my grandma dare bring up my old dreams—dreams I didn’t dare bring up myself.

T
HE
THING
is, Heidi Wheaton’s advice had a profound influence on me. Not right away, and not the stuff about the shit sandwich, which, as far as pithy sayings go, didn’t strike me as all that pithy. But weeks later, on a stormy summer’s night that brought me to a crossroads of terror and absurdity, it seemed only fitting that Guptula, her yogi character, appeared in my head along with the words that would be my own secret power mantra, my life saber. And when Charlotte’s apartment offer came just days later—well, like I said, it’s all about timing. Time, as my cousin had said, to get a life.

W
HILE
H
OLLYWOOD
THROBBED
with Friday night energy, I cocooned myself in that pool, in competition with nothing but my own pleasure, swimming back and forth, back and forth, each somersault turn launching me, in an explosion of bubbles, toward the other side. Dolphins understand the mood-brightening effects of a playful swim—you can’t fake smiles like that—but my buoyancy was more than physical.

I had gone from a life so stuck that sorting my sock drawer qualified as excitement
and
accomplishment to moving into a Hollywood Boulevard apartment and mock sword fighting with its handsome building manager. I’d turned into such a hermit that the surprise was I hadn’t grown a full beard and a preference for flannel shirts, yet in one afternoon I had met more than a dozen people, at least one who already felt like a friend.

Not wanting to snort water up my nose, I had to force myself not to laugh as I did another flip turn. I knew of course that I was in a confined space, a tiled rectangle, but it was the craziest thing—I felt as if a tether had been cut, and I was swimming without boundaries.

8

I
N
AN
OFFICE
BUILDING
ON
H
IGHLAND
A
VENUE,
I asked the temp agent if she were named after Zelda Fitzgerald.

“Nope. Zelda Kleinman, my mother’s best friend. Although I do have an uncle who worked on the Paramount lot the same time as F. Scott Fitzgerald did. He said they went out for drinks a couple times.”

“Your uncle went out for drinks with F. Scott Fitzgerald? I love F. Scott Fitzgerald! He could make a whole poem out of one sentence.”

Zelda shrugged. “I prefer less poetry and a little more connection to the characters.”

I knew a good debate didn’t have room for personal attacks so I restrained myself from asking aloud,
Are you crazy?
and we proceeded to have a nice conversation about books before the temp agent was reminded by her secretary that her
3
:
20
was waiting.

“I like to send smart people to my clients,” said Zelda, clicking her pen like a detonator. “Ergo, I think you’ll do just fine by us.” She looked at the calendar that was spread across her desk like a giant place mat. “I don’t have anything at the moment, but when I do you’ll hear from me.”

Chip, my next interviewer, declared me “impressive.” The contestant coordinator of
Word Wise,
he offset his boyish freckled face by dressing like the tenor in a barbershop quartet, in a bow tie and suspenders, his red hair slicked back and shiny.

“You got a perfect score on the general knowledge test,” Chip said, peering at me through his horn-rimmed glasses. “That’s something of a rarity, even with our caliber of contestants.”

I smiled modestly, not about to explain that I had the opposite of test anxiety, and that anytime anyone gave me a pencil and a time limit, I was in heaven.

“
Word Wise
prides itself on its erudition,” he continued. “Anyone can play
Password
or
Pyramid
or
Wheel of Fortune
—he practically spat out these last three words—“but it takes erudition to play
Word Wise.
”

I smiled, sucking in my cheeks and lowering one eyebrow in an attempt to look erudite.

“Now, we certainly don’t frown on ‘bubbly,’” he said. “After all, we don’t want the viewing audience to fall asleep. But we don’t insist our contestants jump up and down like maniacs, either. Just show genuine enthusiasm.”

“I can be genuinely enthusiastic.”

“I believe you can,” said Chip, marking a little check on the paper in front of him. “And your Orien—your Asian angle’s a good one. We don’t get a lot of Asians.”

L
ATE
THAT
AFTERNOON,
Zelda phoned to tell me she had placed me at Beat Street Records for an “open-ended assignment” beginning the following week and Chip called to tell me I had made the
Word Wise
cut and was to report for taping on Saturday morning. There was no one at the pool to share my good news with except Robert X. Roberts and June, both of whom had surrendered to the arms of Morpheus; the
Variety
over Mr. Roberts’s face fluttering as he snored and Binky the brown-teared dog guarding June from his perch in a hot pink tote bag. I celebrated by swimming forty laps.

The buildings of Peyton Hall—mostly stuccoed and green-shuttered four-plexes—formed a rectangular perimeter, open at the front on the Hollywood Boulevard side. Walking back from the pool, I usually took the sidewalk flanking the east buildings and then turned down the front walk to my four-plex, but being that I was now a person who sought out adventure, I occasionally walked past the big pillared brick building in the center back and made a loop around the buildings on the west side. Taking this route now, I passed a dense rectangle of shrubbery and promptly ran into an old lady.

“Oof!” she said as we collided.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” I said as she staggered back into the shrubbery, dropping her woven string bag.

Dressed like the matriarch of some Eastern European gypsy caravan, the woman peered at me from her perch in the greenery.

“Here, let me help you,” I said, reaching for her.

“Bah,” she said, waving me off, and when she was fully vertical she brushed off the sleeves exposed under her cape.

“I didn’t see you!” I said. “It seemed like you just popped out on the sidewalk and—”

The woman nodded her head toward the string grocery bag.

“You will carry that for me,” she said in an accent thick as borscht. “Yes?”

“Of course,” I said, and after picking it up I turned to follow the woman who was already motoring down the path, her skirt swishing it like a broom.

I had figured the old gypsy I had collided with had to be Madame Pepper even before we passed the gargoyle planter and crossed her threshold with the Welcome? mat, and when she took the string bag from me, I stood awkwardly on the small woven rag rug that served as her foyer, wondering if I’d been invited in or dismissed.

It was jarring to step out of the light of a summer evening and into the gloomy glamour of what looked like an Old World apartment with accents provided by an addled Hollywood set designer. The furniture reflected no decorating trends popular within the past century, and even in the worst of circumstances Scarlett O’Hara would never have deigned to make a dress out of the heavy velvet curtains that hung over the parlor windows, brown and nappy as the backside of a flea-bitten bison. Dozens of autographed
8
x
10
s of old film stars crowded the walls so that only glimpses of the tropical wallpaper were visible underneath; a palm frond unfurled like a magic carpet underneath a picture of Joan Crawford sitting on Franchot Tone’s lap; pineapple leaves formed a spiky tiara from the top of Norma Shearer’s head.

“Why don’t you go home?” came the old woman’s voice from the kitchen. Having been given my answer—I was being dismissed—I turned toward the door.

“Get some clothes on, and when you come back I will have tea made.”

“Okay!” I said brightly, adjusting the towel I wore like a shift. I wasn’t being banished after all.

“
I
HOPE
YOU
LIKE
BLACK
BREAD,”
said the old woman, setting a silver coffee service on the table in front of the horsehair sofa. “Black bread and tea with honey—is good for what ails you.”

Glenn Miller was playing on the console record player but at a volume so low that “String of Pearls” seemed less a jaunty dance tune than a tease. In a narrow gold vase on top of the upright piano, a stick of incense unfurled a scent that managed to smell both musty and sweet.

“Zo,” said the woman, touching the knot of her beaded shawl. “I am of course Madame Pepper and you are the girl who was wanting to borrow a cup of sugar, yes?”

“How did you know that?”

“I am fortune-teller,” she said, fingering a tress of the long gray hair that trailed out from under the scarf she wore like a pirate. “Also, Melvin Slyke told me.”

She poured a cup of tea and handed it to me. “He is your neighbor, yes? He is hoping you someday make that cake, and that when you do, he will get a piece. I too would accept same. It’s not so common that a young person makes cake.”

“I love to bake,” I said. “My grandmother taught me . . . well, not so much taught me—she was no cook—as allowed me. So yes. Absolutely. When I bake my next cake, you will definitely get a piece.”

I knew I was nattering, but how was I supposed to have a normal conversation with someone who announced, “I am fortune-teller”?

Madame Pepper cut a thick slab of bread and slathered it with a half-inch of butter. I followed her example; the bread was good and yeasty with a chewy crust, and as the two of us sat eating and drinking to the companionable clink of silverware and china, I began to relax. That is until the seer looked at me from under the awning of her eyebrows and said, “I could read your fortune but it might frighten you.”

“Really?” I said, coughing a bit.

“Yes. Some people don’t like to know what lies ahead. Mr. Gable, for instance—”

“—the King of Hollywood,” I said, hoping to impress her with my grasp of Hollywood history. “I couldn’t believe when the apartment manager told me Clark Gable used to live here!”

“Now and then, when he needed to stay in Hollywood,” said Madame Pepper. She stirred milk into her tea and fussed with the pot of honey, signals I took to mean,
You interrupt me, I make you wait.
Silence hung heavy as the drapes before she spoke again.

“His home-home was a big ranch in Encino. Now, as I was saying, Mr. Gable, he always tell me, ‘Magda,’—not many I give permission to use my given name!—‘Magda, even if you see a bus hitting me tomorrow, don’t tell me of it. I only want to hear the good stuff.’”

“Who else did you see?” I asked, a cub reporter wanting the full scoop.

“See? I saw many.” She spiraled a hand in the air. “Anybody who was anybody came to see Madame Pepper. Still do. Most wanting of course
to know not their fates so much as their fates in Hollywood.” Her hooded eyes squinted at me. “You are wanting to be an actress? Because I am seeing cameras.”

Even though I thought she was as much a clairvoyant as I was a go-go dancer, my scalp tingled.

“Well, I . . . I am going to be on a game show this weekend.”

She slapped the carved wooden arm of the sofa.

“Bingo. Although I am seeing for you more than one dinky little game show. Which is odd because I am not needing to look to the future to see you have none as Hollywood actress.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said, a flush warming my face.

“You don’t have looks for Hollywood actress,” she added, in case I wasn’t insulted enough.

“Okay, then.” I patted my mouth with a yellowed linen napkin. “Thank you very much for the—”

“Sit, sit,” she said, only she pronounced it “Zit, zit,” and I, who’d been preparing to make a run for it, zat.

As she smiled, remnants of dimples flashed in her sunken cheeks.

“There are reasons to be touchy, but truth should not be one of them.”

I didn’t disguise rolling my eyes; if she were going to continue to cut me down, I wasn’t going to censor my reactions.

“And what if I don’t believe that what you’re saying is the truth?”

“In general, or as a predictor of the future?”

“Take your pick,” I said.

A low guttural laugh crawled up her throat.

“I like you, I am seeing that,” she said, nodding. “But it is of no concern to me whether or not you think I am fraud.”

“I didn’t say you were a fraud.”

“In so many words, yes. And I was saying nothing against you, only against Hollywood. You are pretty in your own way, and you could have the acting talent of Sarah Bernhardt, but if you are not pretty in their way, forget about it.”

“I’ve seen actresses who look like me in the movies,” I said, defensively.

“Yes, tending to markets or laundromats. Or on that
M*A*S*H
show.” She shook her head. “Not for you. You are too big a star.”

I came very close to doing a spit take. As it was, I coughed and sputtered and felt tea warm my sinuses.

“Sorry. I just thought I heard you say I was ‘too big a star.’”

The old woman smiled, understanding that I was not confused but only wanted to hear her repeat what she’d just said.

“You heard correctly. And now you are thinking, ‘Oh, maybe I judged Madame’s abilities a little harshly,’ yes?”

“No,” I said, causing her to snort again. “But, well . . . what do you mean?”

Madame Pepper’s bracelets jangled as she arranged them on her wrist.

“Maybe you should hire grammar teacher.” She wiggled her awning of eyebrows. “To spell it out for you.”

A
NY
KID
WHO
LOOKS
A
LITTLE
DIFFERENT
gets called names—when I was in the first grade, a big red-faced sixth grader raced over to me on the playground and with chubby hands on his hips asked, “Hey, what are you—a gook or something?”

Occasionally subject to names like Chink, Jap, or Slant Eye, I’d usually ignore them—at least outwardly—but didn’t when a boy sitting next to me in seventh grade science asked me if I was related to Charlie Chan.

“Yes, I Charlie Chan,” I said in an over-the-top Asian accent, “and you Number One Stupid Shit Head.”

The boy gaped at me, and it was obvious from his wounded expression that my response to his slight joke was way out of line.

“Geez, I just—”

“Stupid
Stupid
Shit Head,” I hissed, before sleepy Mr. Sonneborg looked up from his desk, swiveling his head trying to detect the noisemakers.

Now the word
star
had been used by a Hollywood fortune-teller in regards to me, and as I alternately skipped and ran back to my apartment, a maniacal giggle burbled in my chest. Madame Pepper was right in thinking I thought her a charlatan, but still, even a charlatan can’t be wrong all the time.