I'll Love You When You're More Like Me (8 page)

My own little future Wharton was telling me he wasn't going to follow in my footsteps for anything in the world, and I was telling him back: You don't have to. If you don't want to, there's Wylie, or Warren or Wilbur, or . . . on and on.

“How's my grandmother doing?” Ethel Lingerman said while Charlie held open the car door for her. She was carrying an open can of Schlitz, and she flopped herself down on the front seat of Charlie's small red Fiat.

“Hi Harriet. Hi Wally. Well? How's she doing?”

“She's resting comfortably,” I said. “She's gone to her great reward.”

“Is a cat sleeping with her?” Ethel asked.

“No, the dog from next door is,” I said.

“The rumor is cats sleep in your coffins with the dead people,” Ethel said, taking a long swallow of beer.

“Pork Chop died last year and Corned Beef was run over by our ambulance this spring,” I said. “So that just leaves Gorilla.”

“I hope he's not in with my grandmother because she hates cats.”

“It's not a he, it's a she,” I said. “Your grandmother won't even notice.”

“I think it's high time we stopped making these sorts of jokes,” said Harriet. “These sorts of jokes are in very poor taste.”

“Get her,” Ethel said to Charlie. “It's my grandmother.”

Ethel was a Clairol redhead in a pair of tight red slacks with some kind of pink halter above them which exposed her middle and pinned back her enormous melon-shaped breasts. She had two pairs of earrings on each ear, one which dangled down past her hair, one rhinestone stars that nestled against her lobes. She had on a lot of blusher, and gobs of gooey black mascara, plus eyeliner.

Harriet became suddenly vastly interested in the scenery as we rode toward The Surf Club, staring at it intently while she pulled at her fingers in her lap. Charlie started a long monologue on Dance Day, which was a tradition every year at the end of the summer in Seaville. The Kings and Queens of Dance were crowned the evening of Dance Day;
all day long there were dances of every kind performed on the village green. Charlie was trying to whip up some interest in the contest; Charlie was always trying to be someone in Seaville besides The Resident Fairy.

“I'd like to think of a superoriginal dance to perform,” said Charlie.

“Boy, will my grandmother roll over in her grave when she knows I was out with you tonight,” said Ethel. “Where'd you get the car?”

“I saved for it,” Charlie said. He worked for Loude's Landscaping, digging holes and planting trees for six dollars an hour.

“I hear Lauralei Rabinowitz and Maury Posner are going to do the Charleston in that contest,” said Ethel. “Do you ever see Lauralei around anymore, Wally?”

“That's all over with,” said Harriet, grabbing my hand with the fingers she'd been pulling, to prove it.

“I wasn't asking you,” said Ethel. “I was asking Wally.”

Harriet stabbed my stomach with her elbow, holding my hand in a viselike grip. “That's all over with,” I said.

“Oh my my my, we have a parrot along with us this evening,” said Ethel. She thrust her can of Schlitz back under my nose. “Polly want a beer?”

“Polly would probably catch something grotesque from that beer can,” said Harriet.

“Polly would probably catch something grotesque from that beer can,” I said.

Ethel slapped her knee and laughed and held the beer can up to her mouth, swallowing chug-a-lug.

“Don't play into her hands that way,” Harriet whispered to me. “What's the matter with you, anyway, Wally?”

“Every time I eat at your house I get confused,” I said. “I feel like I'm going to suffocate or something.”

“We won't eat with our kids,” Harriet told me. “I don't like a big crowd around the table anyway.”

8. Sabra St. Amour

“The in place with the locals is a place called The Surf Club,” Lamont Orr said after we'd finished eating charcoaled steaks out on the deck. “How about popping in there for a while later?”

“Oh shush and listen to these words,” Mama said. She had on a tape of Frank Sinatra old favorites. She shut her eyes and moved her face in heartfelt frowns while Sinatra sang “A Foggy Day in London Town.” The new Elton John tape Lamont had brought us for a gift still had its cellophane wrapper on.

Lamont stuck his feet out and admired his Roots shoes. Then he put his right arm up on the arm of the director's chair and admired his wrist hair, and his gold Cartier signet ring.

Lamont was a walking/talking borrower of other people's glory. He always wore the little knit shirts with the Lacoste alligators on them, the Frye boots, the Gucci loafers, the Burberry sweaters, everything had someone's famous label or signature or symbol on it. When he spoke he often began sentences with “I think it was Camus who said,” or “As R. D. Laing once said,” or “Wasn't it Freud who said—” Lamont never seemed to wear anything or say anything original.

If you went out to dinner with Lamont in a restaurant where Lamont faced a mirror, you lost Lamont for the whole evening. He was always watching himself in the mirror.

He seemed to always shop until he found just the right shade blue to match his eyes, or rust to match his newly curled hair. He used QT so he was bronze all winter, and in the summer he was Mr. Wonderful on any beach with his tall, lean, brown body.

Something inside Lamont told him that he was hated by nearly everyone, so Lamont invented these psychological games and tests to help people forget they felt like barfing when he was around.

The first time he ever came on the set, he must have sensed Mama's overprotective nature right away. He completely ignored me and got her all involved in drawing a house. What kind of a house, Mama asked him and he said any kind she wanted to, and Mama got out this piece of paper and worked on this house through most of my rehearsal. Then Lamont studied it like he was some big-shot psychologist, interpreting one of those Rorschach inkblot tests. He frowned and
tsk-tsk
ed over it, and finally he said, “You are a very warm person, very warm, because look at all that marvelous chimney smoke. Some people draw chimneys with no smoke coming out and some people don't even put chimneys on their houses, but you are a person of extraordinary warmth. I can tell that instantly.” Then he told her she was someone who liked people because she had sidewalks leading up to her house, and she made it easy for people to visit her because she had doorknobs on the doors, and she was an optimist because there was the sun
drawn over the house. By the time he was finished telling her about herself, Mama was leaning so far over toward his director's chair, she looked as though she was about to spill into his lap. He reached out and pushed back a lock of her hair which had fallen forward, and it was as though someone had hit Mama over the head with a mallet. Mama straightened up and stared at him and thanked him for “administering the test” (Mama always got terribly formal when she was seething inside), and that was the last time Mama went anywhere near him, unless he was near me. Then she bird-dogged him.

It was Fedora's idea for Lamont to come out to Seaville and talk with Mama and me about the storyline. He was supposed to renew his acquaintance with us and get our ideas, and see if we could all work it out.

He was being diplomatic by not bringing up anything about the show his first night in town; he was pretending he'd been planning to come out that way all along, and delighted to know we were in the vicinity.

When the Sinatra tape was finished, Lamont tried again. “Everybody says the in place with the locals is The Surf Club.” Lamont didn't even know anybody in Seaville besides Mama and me, but if he read about something in a newspaper or magazine, or heard just one remark, he always said “everybody says” or “they say” as though he had his fingers on the pulse of the world.

“Do you want to whip over there later for some action?” Lamont asked.

“How about a little action, keed?” Mama said to me.

“You go,” I said.

“Not without you,” Mama said.

“We don't have to make up our minds right away,” Lamont said.

Mama got up and began clearing away the dirty dishes. “Please don't talk about me while I'm gone,” she sang out.

“Why don't you leave the dishes?” Lamont said. “Just leave them in the sink?”

“Why don't I oink?” Mama said. “Why don't I run around on four legs with a curly tail?”

Lamont laughed and laughed at that and Mama carried out the plates.

Lamont studied his manicure for a moment, holding his fingers up in front of his eyes. Then he said, “If you had to spend the rest of your life in a prison or in a hospital, which one would you choose?”

“Why?” I said.

“It's a test,” he said. “I gave it to your mother while you were dressing.”

“I'd have to think about it,” I said.

“Take your time,” he said.

“Whose test is it, your test?”

“It's a famous psychiatric test,” he said.

“What did you say?”

“You have to answer first.”

“A hospital,” I said.

“I said a prison,” he said.

“What's a hospital mean?”

“People who say a hospital are usually passive types. They like to be waited on. They're choosy. Fussy. They like their comfort,” Lamont said.

“What about people who choose a prison?”

“Ah!” Lamont said. “They're aggressive. They like discipline.
They try to get along with most people. They feel guilty. They scheme.”

“Are you giving her the test?” Mama yelled in from the kitchen.

“What did Mama say?” I said.

“She said a hospital, too,” Lamont said.

“I said a hospital,” Mama said. “What did you say, sweetheart?”

The thing about Lamont was you couldn't concentrate too long on how you wished he wasn't around. He always found a way to distract you.

The Surf Club was packed with people of all ages. It was right on the dunes about seven miles down from our beach house. Lamont and Mama and I were squeezed between some teenagers and a big cigar-smoking, red-faced man and his wife. The man was wearing a T-shirt which said “AM I GLAD I MARRIED PEARL COHEN!” They were drinking champagne to celebrate their twenty-second wedding anniversary. Lamont began a conversation with them right away.

Mama looked across the table at me and said, “Isn't this fun?” She had to shout to be heard.

When our drinks came, Lamont was reading the cigar smoker's palm and Mama paid the bill.

“Are you having a good time?” Mama asked me, cupping her hands to use them like a megaphone.

I smiled back at her, and we sat opposite each other for a while watching the dance floor.

About ten minutes later, Wally Witherspoon went dancing by with this short, black-haired girl.

I put my hand up to cover my profile, and sat there sipping my ginger ale. I felt funny about speaking to Wally. Mama didn't even know I'd met him. She didn't know I'd lost the bracelet or he'd found it. It really wasn't like me to keep secrets from Mama. I think the only reason I did was because I didn't want her to have a moment's worry about the bracelet, if I could help it. Then I just got into it, and it seemed easier not to mention it at all. Mama wouldn't have understood my offering to take someone she didn't even know to a movie.

The reason I asked him was because I knew Mama was driving Fedora down to Huntington that next day. I thought I could repay Wally that way for returning the bracelet to me. When he said he couldn't make it, I waited a few beats to see if he'd suggest another time or something besides the movie, but he didn't. I'd never asked a boy to go anywhere with me. I felt as though I'd made a tremendous goof. I felt like Mama, too, offering to pay for everything all the time. Mama was always saying to people, “Let's all go out for dinner—my treat!”

I felt like an old “lonely at the top” cliche, the superstar-whose-phone-never-rings sort of thing. I even had the idea he might have told his friends about it, that maybe they'd all had a good laugh over it.

While I watched him dance, out of the corner of my eye, I remembered the man who owned Current Events teasing him about someone named Harriet. I supposed that was Herself. She had this smug little air of self-possession about her, but she was ordinary: pretty, but not beautiful, what Mama'd call run-of-the-mill. I couldn't help wondering why he wouldn't even go to a movie with me, what
there was about her that made him so loyal. For all I knew I was the victim of my own publicity, believing all the lies which weren't true: a dud posturing as more, the pits thinking she's the mountaintop.

Right at that point the band stopped playing, and the leader stepped up to the microphone. “Tell me more!” he shouted.

My stomach did a flip.

Mama gave me a little wink, and Lamont held up his palm and clapped one hand against it silently.