Seeing Stars (26 page)

Ruth watched the tense set of Quinn’s shoulders and his sullen expression. She’d heard stories from Bethy and Allison about some of the boy’s antics, but she took most of them with a grain of salt. He was obviously a gifted actor, and with that degree of talent often came eccentricity. Laurel exclaimed over the excellent dinner rolls that Quinn had brought; Allison ran over to Mimi and threw her arms around Mimi’s neck, thanking her extravagantly for the delicious turkey. Still, the atmosphere at the table was clearly strained. Quinn ate silently and with his mouth not quite closed. At one point Ruth caught Bethany’s eye and Bethy returned a brave smile. Ruth hoped Bethy didn’t develop indigestion; she tended to be sensitive when she was around people who were out of sorts with one another.

For Bethany’s sake, Ruth and Hugh had been trying very hard since Hugh’s arrival yesterday evening to convey a festive mood, despite the fierce argument they’d had over his coming to LA at the last minute instead of Bethy and Ruth coming home the way they’d planned. On Tuesday evening, Mimi had called to tell Ruth that Bethy had a callback for a costar role on
That’s So Raven
the next afternoon, one hour after their flight was scheduled to leave. Mimi thought Bethy might have a good shot at booking it, and though it was a small part, landing a Disney role could lead to other, more sizable things, so Ruth had called Hugh and told him she’d made a reservation for him on a flight down because they couldn’t come home after all. He had objected strenuously, but Ruth had simply said that this year wasn’t like other years and required flexibility from everyone, and Hugh had said, I know that, and Ruth said, Then let’s do our best to enjoy the holiday, and that Mimi had invited them to dinner, to which Hugh had said, My God, is there anything that woman does
not
have her hand in? and Ruth said she thought it was nice that they’d been invited instead of being left to shift for themselves, and Hugh had said bitterly that they wouldn’t
be
shifting for themselves except for Mimi, and Ruth had sighed deeply and said, This is getting us nowhere; and on that they agreed.

Through Hugh’s intervention, Helene was invited to spend the holiday with several widowed friends from Hadassah, but she complained bitterly to Hugh that she’d never thought she’d be left to spend a major holiday with leftover women. Ruth had made a point of telling Hugh over the phone that Helene was welcome to come with him, but he said she said she didn’t feel welcome. If they’d really wanted her there, she said, they’d have asked her in time to get a plane ticket at a decent price.

Now, perched on a chair with one wobbly leg, Dillard asked Hugh about his dental practice and then Angie and Ruth had a lively discussion about which casting studios were their favorites, and Mimi weighed in with her own opinion, and in no time at all Ruth realized, to her relief, that dinner was done.

W
HEN THE GROUP BROKE UP LATE THAT AFTERNOON,
Dillard offered Quinn a ride home, Angie having told him that Jasper and Baby-Sue’s apartment wasn’t all that far from theirs at the Grove. The boy seemed reluctant at first, but Angie and Laurel chimed in, and it was a rare person of the male persuasion who could resist those two, at least in Dillard’s experience. So, armed with the leftover beer and a sizable package of turkey and stuffing, they all climbed into Dillard’s Hummer and set sail for Laurel Canyon.

“I thought that was real nice,” Dillard said affably to no one in particular. “If you can’t be at home, why, I’d say that was second best. Where’s your family, son?”

“Seattle.”

“Never been there,” Dillard said. “I’ve heard it’s mighty wet, though. Georgia’s got the heat, of course, but it’s got blue skies most of the time, and that balances things out, in my book.”

Quinn made no comment. When Dillard looked in the rearview mirror, the boy was looking out the window with an unreadable expression. “Your folks come down here often? I bet they’re real proud of you.”

“Nah. Not that often.”

“No? Well, that’s a shame. I’m driving us all back to Atlanta next week, auditions or no auditions. A family’s got to make time for itself. These girls used to do a pageant a month, but we always said December was off-limits and put up a big ol’ tree in the living room—we’ve got fifteen-foot ceilings we had built especially—and Angie and Laurel decorate the whole house, top to bottom. Too bad we’re so far away, because it’s something to behold.”

“Oh, Daddy,” said Laurel.

Dillard just grinned. “I know, baby girl, I embarrass you.”

“Yes, you do,” said Laurel, but she was smiling.

“Well, anyhow,” Dillard went on, “I think it was a nice Thanksgiving. You going to call your folks, son, and wish them a happy holiday? I imagine they’re not feeling right, having Thanksgiving without you.”

“Yeah, I guess I’ll give them a call,” said Quinn.

O
NCE THE
B
UEHLS HAD DROPPED
Q
UINN OFF THEY DROVE
in silence until Dillard pulled into their space in the parking garage. Then, in the most casual way, Angie said to Dillard, “You know, I’m sleepy from all that food. I haven’t eaten that big a meal in I don’t know how long. I think I’ll lie down for a little while and take a nap.”

In the front seat, oblivious, Dillard took Angie’s hand in his big paw, raised it to his lips, and kissed it. Laurel stiffened. The only time she’d ever known Angie to nap,
ever
, was a year ago, when she’d been so sick Laurel had thought that she was dying.

Chapter Sixteen

T
HE WEEKS BETWEEN
T
HANKSGIVING AND
C
HRISTMAS
were, in Ruth’s opinion, the most tedious, if not the most downright deadly, of their entire stay in LA. First Holly Jensen, Bethy’s agent, left town for a two-week cruise around the Aegean Sea; then Donovan Meyer canceled his last class before the holiday and announced to Mimi that he was going to Aspen. Even Mimi seemed bored. So though it cost them a few hundred extra dollars to change their tickets, by December 4—the first day of Hanukkah—Ruth and Bethy were guilt-free and on their way home.

It was Bethy’s first trip back since they had moved to LA in September. She ran through the house, exclaiming over everything—the living room furniture, the posters on the walls of her room, the ordinary fixtures in her bathroom—as though she’d been gone for years.

It felt exactly the opposite to Ruth. Though her quick trip home several weeks ago had clearly felt like a visit, an abnormality, now that they were
both
here it was as though a portal had been opened to an alternate life in which they’d never left, except that the cupboards were once again bare. She and Bethany made a run to Costco the day after they got home, stocking up on items in quantities that had defeated Hugh when he contemplated buying them. When they’d gotten home and had unloaded the car, Ruth began putting together a pot roast. Bethy hoisted herself onto the kitchen counter and watched Ruth cut up vegetables. She stole a carrot and munched on it, ruminating. “I miss home.”

Ruth looked at her.

“I know, but it doesn’t feel the same. I mean, it looks like home, but it doesn’t feel like home anymore. Nothing
happens
here.”

“Things happen,” Ruth said. “Rianne got a job.” Rianne was helping out in her aunt’s pottery shop, wrapping holiday gifts.

“You know what I mean.”

Ruth nodded. She knew what Bethy meant.

“She has a boyfriend, by the way,” Bethy said, punching the plastic tip of her shoelace in and out of the ventilation holes in her sneaker.

“She does?”

“Some boy named Winslow Levy. He’s new here. I guess he just moved from Bladenham.”

“Winslow,” Ruth said. “Like Winslow Homer the painter?”

Bethany shrugged. “I guess. Weird name.”

“No weirder than Allison Addison or Bethany Roosevelt.”

Bethy smiled. “Yeah.”

Ruth handed her a carrot and a carrot peeler. Bethany started shaving carrot peelings into the sink from her seat on the counter. “She thinks he’s cute. She has pictures of him on her phone.”

“Is he cute?”

“I don’t know. He’s okay. But most of the time she talks about stuff that’s happened in school, and I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

“That’s natural. You’ve been away.”

“I know. It just makes me feel bad.”

“Like an outsider,” Ruth guessed.

“Yeah.”

Ruth traded Bethy the peeled carrots for four unpeeled potatoes. “Yukon Golds,” she said.

“What?”

“The potatoes. They’re Yukon Golds.”

“Oh.” Bethany stared at the potatoes.

“Peel,” Ruth said.

Bethany began to add potato peelings to the pile of carrot shavings in the sink. “Don’t you miss it?”

“What, LA?”

Bethy nodded.

“Honey, we’ve been home for only a day and a half,” said Ruth. “And anyway, when I’m there I miss Daddy. They both have their pitfalls.”

“I miss him, too.”

“Not half as much as he misses us.”

But Bethy was thinking about something else. “I was wondering if maybe I could ask Allison up. Like, for a week. She’s in Houston, but she says she doesn’t want to stay there.” She lowered her voice to a stage whisper, even though there was no one home besides her and Ruth. “I think she’s cutting herself again.”

She had told Ruth about the box cutter and Allison’s arms. Ruth had been horrified. “Why do you think that?”

“I just do. Her stepdad doesn’t like her very much. I mean, he isn’t very nice to her and stuff. Plus she says her mom doesn’t stick up for her when he’s mad at her.”

Ruth smiled a little. “Second marriages are never simple.”

But Bethy didn’t care about that. “So can I ask her? I know she’d really really want to come.”

“Was this her idea?”

“No,” Bethy said firmly—too firmly. Which meant it probably was.

“We’ll see.”

“That means no.”

“It doesn’t mean no, it means I want a minute to think about it.”

“Okay.” Bethy looked at the wall clock. “There. That was a minute.”

Ruth sighed. “All right. But only for a week. She’ll want to be home by Christmas, anyway.”

Bethy said, “How long do you think we’ll be here?”

“I don’t know,” said Ruth. “Until just after New Year’s, probably. It’s partly up to Daddy.”

Bethy nodded gravely. “You mean because of his having diabetes.”

“That,” Ruth acknowledged. “But he also likes to have us here, so we won’t leave until we really have to. He gets lonely.”

“I wish he’d move to LA.”

“I know, honey, but he’d have to give up his practice here and find one down there, and God knows he’d have some competition.” It was a running joke of theirs that there was a dentist on every street corner in Studio City, and all of them were running specials on tooth whitening.

“Yeah,” said Bethy. She put the last peeled potato on Ruth’s cutting board. “So I can ask her?”

Ruth sighed. “Yes. Go ahead and ask her. One week.”

“Yay!” Bethany jumped off the counter and skipped off to the den.

“
One week!
” Ruth shouted down the hall.

T
HEY MET
A
LLISON AT
S
EA
-T
AC
A
IRPORT THE FOLLOWING
Friday. The girl stood out even in the midst of the mass of travelers surrounding the baggage carousel. Tall and willowy, she wore a pair of oversize sunglasses and carried over her shoulder a new buckled, riveted, belted, cinched, glazed leather tote that had probably cost as much as Ruth’s monthly food allowance. With the sunglasses on, she could have been anywhere from eighteen to thirty-five; men sized her up as they walked by, and more than one woman looked back at her as she passed. By contrast, Bethy looked like the young girl she was as she raced across the baggage claim area squealing.

The girls hugged extravagantly; Allison twirled Bethy around. “I’ve missed you so much!” Ruth heard Bethany say.

“I know!” Allison put her sunglasses on top of her head and looked around. “So this is Seattle?”

“Well, it’s Sea-Tac,” Bethany said. “Where we live is about forty-five minutes from here.”

“I can’t wait!”

Ruth remembered Mimi telling her once that although Allison looked like a sophisticate, the only place outside of Texas she’d ever been was LA.

At the carousel the girls had spotted Allison’s suitcase—big enough to hold a body, but with wheels, thank God—and hefted it off the carousel. Ruth thought of the steamer trunks that movie stars and celebrities had once traveled with. God knew what Allison had packed, to take up so much room. Ruth had visions of a microwave, small TV, and other light appliances.

“We’re ready, Mom,” Bethy panted. She and Allison towed the suitcase between them. “She brought only this one bag.”

Ruth gave Allison a hug. “Welcome to Seattle, honey.”

“We’re going to have the best time,” Bethy said.

“Oh, I know,” Allison said; and then, to Ruth, with heartbreaking simplicity, “Thank you so much for inviting me.”

When they got home, Ruth watched her move from room to room, taking it all in: the oak bookcases and built-in china cabinet and cheerful barnyard watercolors on the living room walls; Ruth’s ceramic pieces on the coffee table and fireplace mantel; the deep window seat at the end of the dining room; the braided rugs and warm fir floors throughout the house. There was a troubling wistfulness about the girl—exactly what you might expect, Ruth thought, from an orphan. Or from a girl who had too many houses and too few homes.

A
CCORDING TO FAMILY TRADITION
, F
RIDAY WAS SPAGHETTI
night in the Rabinowitz household. Ruth made her from-scratch marinara sauce with sausage and meatballs, plus garlic bread and a salad, and the girls made up an extravagant dessert using a graham-cracker crust, chocolate pudding, half a melted Hershey’s bar, a half cup of crushed peanuts, a touch of Kahlúa (Ruth’s contribution), and lots and lots of Cool Whip. Poor Hugh would have to settle for a sugar-free pudding cup.

On a whim Ruth said, “Girls, let’s use the silver tonight, how about that? Honey, go into the pantry and bring out Nana’s flatware.”

Bethy and Allison retrieved a heavy oak box lined in flannel. “Whoa,” said Allison when Ruth opened it up. “This is all silver?”

“Sterling,” Ruth said, pausing to look. “It’s pretty, isn’t it? We hardly ever use it, though, because it tarnishes too fast. In my mother’s day, people had more time for that kind of thing, polishing silver.”

Allison turned the pieces over and back, examining them minutely. “Well, I’d use it all the time.”

“Would you?” Ruth smiled. “You two can set the table, please. Bethy, use the cloth napkins.”

“We never use cloth napkins,” said Allison.

Ruth wasn’t clear on whether she was referring to her mother’s house or Mimi’s, so she just said, “Sometimes it’s nice. Especially when there’s company.”

“Oh, I know,” said Allison quickly.

The conversation around the dinner table was lively. Ruth believed in honoring her guests with the conversational spotlight, so she asked Allison about her house in Houston.

“It’s huge,” the girl said, wiping her mouth neatly with her napkin and tucking it back in her lap. “It’s probably like two of your houses. He’d just finished building it when he and my mom met. There’s a home theater, which is cool, and a swimming pool that has this bubble you can put over it in winter, except that the water’s still freezing. Plus he has a workout room. With weights and stuff.”

“It sounds lovely,” Ruth said.

“I guess,” Allison said indifferently. She turned to Hugh. “May I have the bread, please?”

It surprised Ruth that the girl had such excellent manners. Whatever the particulars were of her home life, someone had either raised her right or she was a very quick study. Bethy had told her once that Allison’s mother had been a stripper before she married her current husband. Ruth never got a straight answer about whether or not the mother had ever been married to Allison’s father, who, anyway, seemed to be long out of the picture. And the mother had probably been a stripper because she couldn’t make enough money doing anything else. Ruth had heard of girls—women—putting themselves through college that way. Just because you were a stripper didn’t mean you were a bad or immoral person. Ruth thought it was important to remember that.

“You have very nice manners,” Hugh was saying as he passed Allison the bread basket. “Our Bethy could get a few tips.”

“Thank you. Mimi sent me to this etiquette school last year, where they teach you which side the fork goes on and which is your bread plate and stuff like that. How to say
please
and
thank you
.”

“Well, whoever it was did a good job,” Hugh said. “Your mother must be very proud of you.”

Allison smiled at him enigmatically and wound up a fork-load of spaghetti using her spoon as a backstop. “She doesn’t understand why I don’t work more. She thinks actors just work all the time, like it’s no big deal to book things. She says Mimi isn’t trying hard enough to sell me.”

“Do you think so?” Hugh asked her. “One thing I’d have to say is the woman seems to have excellent sales skills.”

“I know—she’s really good,” Allison agreed. “She’s one of the best managers in LA. She’s been written up in a bunch of magazines and stuff.”

“Oh?” said Hugh. “I wasn’t aware of that.”

“You should hear her on the phone, Daddy,” Bethy chimed in. “She isn’t even that polite. She just calls the casting directors up and tells them who she wants to audition for stuff, and they usually say okay.”

“Usually,” said Allison.

“Usually,” agreed Bethy.

“Well, you girls are in a hard line of work, that’s for sure,” Hugh said.

Allison shrugged. “We like it, though. Don’t we?”

“A lot,” said Bethy.

“Well, sure,” said Ruth.

W
HILE SHE DID THE DINNER DISHES
, R
UTH WATCHED
Allison and Bethany playing something on their twin Game Boys, curled side by side on the living room sofa. They had their arms linked; now and then, a forehead quickly touched a forehead. Once, Allison planted a loud, smacky kiss right on the top of Bethany’s head, the way Ruth sometimes did, and Bethany smiled, shy and radiant that this beautiful creature had chosen her.

“It’s really nice here,” Ruth overheard Allison tell Bethy.

“It’s fine. I mean, it’s not fancy or anything, like your house.”

“I meant your parents. Your mom seems pretty stressed down in LA, but she’s different here. And I like your dad.”

“Yeah?” said Bethy.

“Yeah,” said Allison, and Ruth could tell by the tone of her voice that she really meant it.

W
HEN
H
UGH OFFERED TO MAKE THE GIRLS PANCAKES ON
Sunday morning—despite the fact that he couldn’t eat them himself, because what was the point of pancakes without syrup, and sugar-free syrups just weren’t the same—Allison offered to help.

“Well,” Hugh said. “I’ve never had a helper before. It’s pretty much a one-man job.”

“I could make bacon,” the girl offered. “Do you have any? I always make it at Mimi’s.”

The truth was, he wasn’t all that eager to be alone with the girl. He couldn’t shake the memory of her backing him into the sofa corner in Mimi’s greenroom. Still, she was only a little older than Bethany, and she was trying to be useful, which he applauded. So after consulting with Ruth, he dug a package of turkey bacon out of the refrigerator and handed it to Allison. “It’s nasty stuff, though, I warn you,” he told her.