Best to Laugh: A Novel (9 page)

15

F
RANCIS—HE
insisted all of us dispense with the Mr. Flover and call him by his first name—was the consummate host, piling reheated and tasty spaghetti on our plates and passing around a big wooden salad bowl with the directive, “Mangia! Mangia!”

“My father was in Italy in World War II,” said Frank (who’d also given me permission to drop the adjective Blank) as we sat at the heavy oak dining room table. “He orders this from Two Guys on Sunset because he says it tastes closest to the spaghetti of his old Italian girlfriend.”

“Maria Donatelli,” said Francis, sighing heavily. “What she could do with oregano—well, when you youngsters get older, I’ll tell you what she could do with oregano.”

“Tell us now!” said Mayhem.

“You’re too young,” said Francis, with a resigned shake of his head. “You wouldn’t know what to do with the information.”

“Pop, we’re older than you were when you joined the army,” said Frank.

“Ah, but we were older back then. God forbid if any of you were in the army now—why, I wouldn’t trust any of you boys to load a peashooter, let alone a rifle.”

As Frank, Mayhem, and Ian defended themselves against this egregious slander, I helped myself to another piece of garlic bread.

This was the side dish to our late-night dinner—good-natured insults and boasts and laughs—and everyone held out their plates for seconds and thirds.

“
H
EY,
C
ANDY,”
Mayhem asked, after slurping up a strand of spaghetti. “Do you know you’re eating with a Hollywood legend?”

“Please, please,” said Frank, “I can hardly be called a legend. Maybe a legend-in-training—”

“—aw, shut yer pie hole. I’m talking about your old man.”

“You ran a night club, isn’t that right?” I asked Francis.

“A night club,” said Mayhem. “That’s like calling Disneyland an amusement park.”

Ian rolled his eyes. “Disneyland
is
an amusement park.”

“You know what I mean. Tell her, Mr. F.”

“Well, it is true,” said Flover the Elder. “ I was fortunate enough to own the Bel Mondo, from right after the war until 1958.”

“That’s when Sunset Strip was full of night clubs,” said Frank. “You know, the kind that wouldn’t let you in if you weren’t wearing a tie or a corsage.”

“Yes,” said Francis, looking with bemusement at his son in his mohawk and torn and pinned black clothes. “All the clubs—Ciro’s, the Mocambo, the Clover Club, the Trocadero—had a certain dress code and our patrons were happy to honor it.”

“Tell her some of the people you booked, Pop.”

“Oh, Buddy Rich, Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, Martin & Lewis, Billie Holiday . . . any of these names mean anything to you?”

“Pop, come on, it’s not like we were born yesterday.”

Mayhem nodded. “I love all those people, man. Especially Sinatra. I’ll bet he’d have been into punk if he’d been born later.”

Francis smiled. “He was a bit of a scrapper back then, that’s for sure. Not at all adverse to using his fists.”

“Pop’s got this idea that punk’s all about picking fights with people,” Frank said to me.

“Well, it is, sorta,” said Mayhem. “Except we smack people around with our music.”

“Precisely my point,” said Francis. “In my day we wanted to romance people, woo them, entertain them. Smacking was the furthest thing from our minds.”

“For us,” explained Ian, “smacking just means waking up. That’s all we want to do—wake people up.”

There was a whiskery sound as Francis scratched his throat. “But isn’t it nicer to be woken up with a caress than a scream?”

When Ian asked me what I was into, my self-censor light flickered amber, but instead of braking I raced through it.

“I want to start doing stand-up comedy.”

“Stand-up comedy,” said Francis. “Well, I’ll be!”

“That’s radical!” said Frank.

“Make me laugh!” ordered Mayhem.

Impulsively obeying his order, I lunged out of my chair, and two inches from his face, riffed on the lyrics the band had sung/screamed at the Masque.

“Hey, asshole! You suck, I don’t—why should I?”

Standing on the precipice of the brief silence that followed, I wondered if I should apologize, but stepped back when the hush was broken by laughter, Mayhem’s the loudest.

A
FTER
DINNER
we were invited to “repair” to the living room, where Frank urged his dad to tell us some stories of old Hollywood.

“Old Hollywood is Cecil B. DeMille directing silent pictures,” said Francis. “I was part of a far more recent Hollywood.”

“Every Sunday people would come over to our house in Beverly Hills,” said Frank. “People who worked in Pop’s club, celebrities—”

“—yes, everyone got along wonderfully—in fact, my cigarette girl JoAnne met Roger Wilbert—”

“—he was a movie composer,” explained Frank. “Won a couple Oscars. He always used to pull out a quarter from behind my ear.”

“That’s right, Roger fancied himself a bit of a magician,” said Francis, chuckling at the memory. “At any rate, after brunch we’d always play Charades or games of that nature, and that’s when they fell in love.”

“How do you fall in love playing Charades?” asked Mayhem.

“You’re right, it wasn’t Charades. This was a game in which you’d be given an emotion—for example, happiness—and you’d have to say the first thing that came into your mind. And I’ll never forget this, the word given to Roger Wilbert was
awestruck,
and Roger, looking directly at JoAnne, said, “The first time I saw your face.”

“Aww,” said Mayhem.

“Apparently, JoAnne was impressed. They were married three weeks later in my backyard.”

“Let’s play that game now,” said Mayhem. “Give me an emotion!”

“Dipshittedness,” muttered Ian, but louder he said, “Okay, Mayhem, what’s your answer for awestruck?”

“That’s easy!” said the wiry and wired rhythm guitarist, jumping up. “The night I saw the Sex Pistols at Winterland. They were unbelievable, man! Cracked the world wide open for me!”

He played an invisible guitar, his strumming hand moving in a blur, his other hand wildly running up and down the fret board.

“And now,” said Francis gently, once it appeared the soundless concert might go on a bit longer than we cared to attend, “now, Mayhem, you choose a person and an emotion.”

“All right,” said Mayhem, making a final grand circle with his hand. “Here’s one for you, Candy—fear.”

“When I used the bathroom at the Masque.”

“Wow,” said Mayhem. “You’re braver than I am.”

Thinking myself clever to bring in the band’s name, I looked at Frank and said, “Despair.”

Frank’s expectant expression sagged, like someone had let the air out of his face. He looked down at his hands and stared at them for a long time before saying, “Living with my mother and that fucking Phil.”

The mood in the room darkened as if a light switch had been turned off, and I berated myself (
Good suggestion, Candy!
) as we sat in the dark for a long, uncomfortable moment.

“I was depressed then, too,” said Francis softly.

“Uh, aren’t we playing a game here?” asked Mayhem. “Come on, Frank, save the sob story for later. Throw someone another emotion!”

The muscles at Frank’s jaw bunched and unbunched and I held my breath, thinking he might be just as motivated to throw a punch, but instead he gave a half-smile and looking at Ian said, “Sickened.”

“The day Mayhem auditioned for the band,” said Ian lightly.

“Oh man,” said Mayhem, pulling an imaginary dagger out of his heart. “That was cruel.”

“Honesty often is,” said Ian, and to Francis, he said, “Jubilant.”

“Easy,” said the elder Flover looking at the younger. “The day I got my boy back.” The father and son exchanged looks, and then Francis added, “And, the first time I did a buffalo scuffle.”

“A buffalo scuffle?’” said Mayhem. “Sounds like something they warn cowboys about.”

“Excuse me for just a second,” said Francis.

He disappeared into his bedroom, and when he returned he was wearing tap shoes that clicked against the wood floor.

“This, Mayhem, is a buffalo scuffle.”

His feet were suddenly in motion and, for a man his age, at a pretty good rate of speed.

“Different from a buffalo pull back,” he said, demonstrating. “Which of course is not the same as a double pull back.”

We watched entranced, as he dug, shuffled, brushed, balled, and
changed. He didn’t char the floor with a burning energy, but what he lacked in youthful vigor he made up for with a smooth and innate grace that if bottled would have been sold among luxury goods. In between calling out the names of the steps he demonstrated, he hummed “Tea for Two,” and when he was finished, he dipped his knees in a little bow.

“Wow, Pop, that was great!” said Frank, and the only one not in agreement was the tenant below us, who was either very tall or used a broomstick to pound on the ceiling a volley of protesting thumps.

A
FTER
THE
PARTY—AND
it had turned into a party—I sat on my cousin’s plaid couch in the darkened living room, looking out at Hollywood Boulevard through the opened window. It was late enough that the only traffic was an occasional passing car, and most of the lights in the apartment building across the street were off. The odd quiet of a metropolis tucked in and put to bed lay heavy in the air, and I hugged my knees to my chest, holding on to a strange amalgam of feelings, of happiness, gratitude, wonder. Wow, how had I gotten to the point that I could feel that combo?

A flash of movement caught my eye and I leaned forward to watch an animal sauntering down the middle of the street. I assumed it was a dog, but as it drew closer I saw from its full bushy tail and fox-like body that it was a coyote—a coyote loping down Hollywood Boulevard. I leaned farther, watching it make its way west, maybe toward its den in Beverly Hills or its girlfriend’s lair in Malibu, until it faded into a shadow.

16

W
IN
B
AKER,
the guy who marinated in suntan oil, had gotten a part on a soap opera and had brought all necessary equipment and ingredients to whip up celebratory daiquiris poolside. The blender whined as
it chopped and pulverized ice cubes and pineapples and rum, and Win filled plastic cups with what looked like slushy urine samples. While doling out drinks was a nice enough gesture, it was basically a bribe: accept my liquor, I get to hold court. Ten minutes of listening to Win Baker expound on Win Baker was an exercise in monk-like patience; twenty minutes, and the monks were reconsidering their vows of forbearance.

“I’ve got a six-month contract, but my agent says it could easily get extended if my character catches on.”

“Catches on what?” I said. “Fire?”

“Now that I’d watch,” said Ed.

I was on a chaise longue between Maeve and Ed.

“Over a hundred guys auditioned for this part,” said Oily Man, who stood posing with his drink like a product model. “And that was just in L.A.! My agent said more than three hundred read for it in New York.”

“What’s the name of the show again?” asked Maeve, “
As the Stomach Turns
?”

“No,” said Ed. “
The Guiding Blight.
”

Win smiled like a babysitter who hates children in general and his charges in particular.

I smiled back and said, “
The Edge of Trite.
”

“
All My Bastards,
” said Ed.

“
Ryan’s Hopeless.
”

“Yeah, those would all be big hits,” said Win and, having tired of our adolescent wordplay, turned his back to us.

“Actually, it’s
The Break of Dawn,
” he informed Joanie, whose breasts spilled like overripe cantaloupes out of her too-tight bikini bra. “It’s been on the air for over twenty years.”

“Oh, yeah!” said Sherri Durban, whose own string bikini was missing a few knots. “That’s the show with the Nat and Nikki storyline!”

“Exactamundo,” said Win. “More people tuned into their wedding than watched the Apollo moon landing.”

Ed sighed. “And the decline of Western civilization continues.”

It was smoggy, but the all-powerful California sun burned through the hazy skies, and after Ed leaned back in his chair, I followed his cue, basking in the autumnal heat.

On the verge of dozing off under that Big Top of smeary sunshine, I opened my eyes, feeling the energy change around the pool. Someone had arrived who made even Robert X. Roberts take the newspaper tent off his face and sit up and take notice.

“Ma!” said Maeve, standing up and waving her big-muscled arm. “Ma, over here!”

As the actress strolled around the pool toward her daughter, a flurry of whispers filled the air like a cicada’s hum. “That’s Taryn Powell!” “That’s the star of
Summit Hill
!” “That’s Taryn Powell!”

“Ma, what are you doing here?” asked Maeve, stooping to accept her mother’s kiss (or facsimile thereof; her lips didn’t touch Maeve’s cheek).

“My friend Sharla,” said the actress, and here all ears pricked up, understanding she was talking about her costar, and former Miss America runner-up, Sharla West, “wanted to show me her new kitchen renovation—my God, it’s like a fucking mausoleum—marble, marble everywhere, and anyhoo, I thought as long as I was vaguely in the neighborhood, I’d swing by and say hello.”

It was as if a new Ice Age had blown into southern California and everyone, including myself, was frozen in place, staring at the woman whose television show was always in the top-ten weekly ratings. Maeve had told me her mother was fifty-seven (“But it’s a state secret—you’ll be killed if you tell anyone else!”), but Taryn Powell’s body underneath its pink nylon running suit looked as lean and supple as someone half—or a third—her age. She wore white-framed sunglasses, a silk floral scarf around her black hair, and around her fingers, wrists, and neck, jewelry with a high number of karats.

“Ma,” said Maeve, extending an arm toward Ed and me, “these are my friends—”

“—Hello!” said Win, bounding toward us. “I’m Win Baker, a big fan, and an actor, too. I just got cast in
The Break of Dawn
and—”

“Congratulations,” said Miss Powell, giving his extended hand a quick shake before turning her back to him. Win stood for a moment, his mouth slack, and realizing he’d been dismissed, he turned away and said loudly, “Joanie, let me tell you what the casting agent said about my reading!”

The movie star peered at me over the top of her sunglasses.

“You’re Candy, aren’t you? I saw you on
Word Wise
! You were so good, and it’s my absolute favorite game show. So ‘erudite,’ as they say! I’ve been on several myself, but I tell my agent, ‘Clint, don’t you dare book me on
Word Wise
because I’d make a complete fucking fool out of myself!’” She smiled, showing the famous dimple on the left side of her face. “Excuse my fucking French.”

“And Ma,” said Maeve, “this is Ed.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Ed, standing up, and I felt like a bad-
mannered lout for staying in my chaise longue, but stupefaction had pinned me to it.

“Likewise,” said Taryn Powell, in a flirty tone that suggested that underneath her sunglasses she was batting her eyelashes. “Say, listen, have you kids eaten? If not, why don’t you all get dressed and I’ll take you out for lunch? Let’s all meet at Maeve’s in—” she glanced at her diamond-studded watch—“twenty minutes?”

Not needing an answer, she turned and everyone she passed stared at her, emotionally—if not physically—curtsying and bowing.

“Why Robert X.,” she said, as the old director stood to greet her. “Still a bathing beauty, I see!”

A
LL
OCCUPANTS
IN
OUR
BOOTH,
except for me, were a little tipsy. My grandma would be furious if my recollection of lunch at the Brown Derby with Miss Taryn Powell was fuzzed up by liquor. She’d want every single detail, from the stars’ caricatures hanging on the Great Wall of Fame, to the waiter’s regal bearing, to what Taryn ate (she picked at a Cobb salad), to how she looked without her sunglasses (still great, but older), to how she treated the staff (friendly but at no point did you forget who was in charge), to the constant intrusion of fans. So while everyone slugged down Bloody Marys, I demurely sipped iced tea through a straw and pretended I didn’t notice everyone staring at us.

Taryn (“Either call me that,” she had said, “or ‘your highness’”) had been regaling us with the story of making her first picture.

“There I was, nineteen years old with only a Miss Ypsilanti credit to my name, and the first day on the set my knees were shaking so hard I thought the sound man was going to ask where the fucking mariachi band was. I only had two lines—‘What’ll you have, sir?’ and ‘The cherry pie’s good’—and yet when I opened my mouth, could I even get that first line out?” She shook her head. “Not a word. Not a whisper. The only noise on the whole set, other than my shaking knees, were the poor director’s sighs. If I hadn’t been sleeping with him, I would have been fired for sure.”

“Ma, please,” said Maeve.

Taryn giggled and elbowed her daughter. “Oh, they know I’m only joking.” She leaned conspiratorially toward Ed at the other end of the curved banquette. “Actually, I’m not.” She winked, took the plastic skewer out of her drink, and with her shiny white teeth dragged off the olive. With it bulging out of her cheek, she said, “I do remember feeling pretty
demoralized, though. That’s when my friend Anne Angelo—God, she was the greatest actress but could never catch a break—anyway, it was after that day on set that Annie told me to see Madame Pepper.”

“Oh, Miss Powell,” said a woman whose frizzy puff of hair was Exhibit A in the case against home permanents. “Would you be so kind as to pose for a picture with me? The gals in my bridge club would just go nuts.”

“Certainly,” said the actress, and as the woman squatted next to the end of the banquette and leaned into Taryn, a man wearing a lime green leisure suit instructed them to say, “Cheese” and took the picture, a blue light fizzling from the flashcube.

“Thank you so much,” said the woman. “I’ve been a fan of yours ever since you were in that movie about Mt. Kilimanjaro, with William—”

“You’re too kind,” said Taryn. “And please greet your bridge club for me.”

The woman backed away, bowing, as if she’d just had an audience with the pope.

To us, Taryn made a face, as if asking, “What are you going to do?”

I was anxious to pick up the conversational thread. “Were you talking about Madame Pepper who lives at Peyton Hall?”

“But of course. How many Madame Peppers do you suppose there are?”

“Mom’s been a client forever,” said Maeve.

“I didn’t know that,” I said.

“Sure, that’s how I came to move into Peyton Hall. Mom had asked Madame Pepper to let her know if she heard about any vacancies when I was looking for an apartment, and she did.”

“You never told me that!”

I, on the other hand had told Ed and Maeve all about my meeting with the Romanian seer, with the exception of her calling me a star, which I had come to believe had been her idea of a joke.

“Maeve’s a little guarded sometimes,” said Taryn, reaching out to stroke her daughter’s thin blonde hair. “I think she’s suffered having a mother whose personal life is nothing but fucking fodder for the tabloids.”

“Ma!”

“Sorry,” she said, patting Maeve’s forearm. This might have been accepted as a conciliatory gesture had she not added, “My God, it’s like feeling up Charles Atlas.”

“I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” said Maeve, hoisting herself out of the booth, and as the three of us watched her stomp off, Taryn said, “I’d have thought she might consider that a compliment.”

Ed was next to excuse himself, and he veered toward the men’s room. Seeing an entry point, a man with a sweaty, bald pate and wearing a red poppy lapel pin got up from his table and race-walked to ours.

“Excuse me, I hate to bother you—”

“Oh, no you don’t,” said Taryn, a tease in her voice.

“I’m such a fan of yours, I’m wondering, would you sign this matchbook?”

At Taryn’s nod, he handed her the matchbook and watched as the actress signed it.

“Taryn Powell’s signature on a Brown Derby matchbook,” said the man. “This is going to be worth some big money someday.”

“Don’t forget to send me my cut,” said Taryn.

She winked and as the fan pocketed the matchbook she was able, with a slight turn, to convey to him that their social exchange was over.

“Isn’t Maeve looking well?” she said, draping one arm on top of the banquette. “I am so glad she’s growing out her eyebrows. Maybe Marlene Dietrich could get away with seven hairs per eyebrow, but not my Maeve!” She jabbed at the ice cubes in her drink with her skewer. “You know, Candy, she really values your friendship.”

“She does?”

Sighing, Taryn shook her head. “Poor kid’s been lost for so long.”

“I . . . I don’t think she seems lost now.”

“You don’t think a twenty-nine-year old woman who spends hours a day lifting weights is lost? I mean, to what end? Where’s the career in that? Or the point?”

Uncomfortable now, and feeling disloyal to Maeve, I was trying to figure out how to change the subject when a tiny flash of light exploded.

“Fucking moron,” whispered Taryn, as the maître d’ raced over to scold the tourist brandishing a camera across the room. “Let me tell you what I’d like to do—I’d like to follow that sow into the john and snap a photo just as she’s settling her big ass onto the crapper.”

I had to laugh. Serena Summit, the character Taryn Powell played on
Summit Hill,
was so refined she’d rather choke than use words like “crapper,” let alone “ass,” or, heaven forbid, “fucking moron.”

Taryn laughed too and then tapped my wrist with the long nail of her pointer finger. “Now how’s about we talk about you. I was very intrigued when Maeve said you’d seen Madame Pepper. She hasn’t taken any new clients for years.”

“I’m not a client. I only saw her once.”

The star of big and little screens waggled her olive skewer at me.

“Comme ci, comme ça. The fact that she invited you into her apartment is an honor few people realize. She won’t even see Maeve—she’s got a rule that she won’t read family members. She says the ‘cross wibrations geet too hay-vay.’”

I smiled at the actress’s pretty good imitation.

“So Maeve tells me you’re doing stand-up comedy.”

I flushed. “Well, I hope to, but I haven’t—”

“Where’re you performing?”

“Uh, nowhere yet, I’m still writing my act.”

“Well, I can’t say you’ve picked an easy field,” said Taryn, her words steamrolling over mine, “but really, if showbiz were easy, everyone would be in it, n’est-ce pas?” She drummed her nails on my wrist. “Just don’t make yourself a stranger to our dear Madame. She doesn’t give her time freely to just anyone. My God, her client waiting list is about three miles long.”