Seeing Stars (40 page)

I
N THE KITCHEN AS SHE WAS PULLING TOGETHER A CHEESE
and bread and crudités tray that would pass for dinner, Laurel drifted through her favorite beauty pageant memories. Angie, dressing her up in a princess dress, patent-leather pumps, and a stiff itchy slip, high ponytail and spangles in her hair. Angie, stroking on Laurel’s lipstick from Laurel’s own little makeup case, applying mascara and blusher and saying to Dillard, “Isn’t she a little angel girl? Oh, take another picture, honey,” and Dillard kneeling down on hotel lobby carpeting from Alabama to Tennessee to squeeze off shot after shot with his professional-quality, auto-wind camera. Angie, saying the same thing to her at every pageant, as Laurel waited in the wings: “Show the Lord you’re listening.” The first time she said it Laurel asked her what she meant, and Angie said, “He has blessed you with beauty inside and out. He has big plans for you, honey, and if you’re listening to Him, He’ll help you excel at whatever you do.”

So Laurel had smiled for the Lord and the judges, had learned to dance and sing and comport herself in a way that was both poised and vivacious. And over the years she
had
excelled on the pageant circuit, winning Little Miss titles in her town, county, and, almost, her state, where she’d been second runner-up. So when Angie got sick, Laurel had felt she could rightly ask a favor of the Lord in return, and find that
He
was listening. She had put in years of unceasing toil by then, not only in pageants but also in acting classes, talent competitions, and promotional events at shopping malls and for civic groups. In Hollywood she had sung songs about boxed macaroni, praised the superior quality and durability of paper towels, and eaten chicken and hamburgers and chocolate chip cookies with a glad heart because surely these would prove her godliness. Theatrically, she’d finally booked a four-line role on
CSI
; a one-liner that had later been cut on
Unfabulous
; and, her crowning achievement, a flashback that was almost heartbreakingly poignant, though silent, as a young Francine on a made-for-TV movie, in which she, as Francine, walked down a country lane and into a flowering apple orchard with her father, who would soon lose his life on the battlefields of France during World War II.

In all, in eight months Laurel had booked more jobs than anyone else in the studio: eighteen commercials, infomercials, industrials, and PSAs, as well as the three theatrical roles. And she showed no signs of slowing down. The more sallow and exhausted Angie looked, the more Laurel forced herself to bloom.

On every set, in secret, she’d asked the PA whether Angie could have the most comfortable chair, the dressing room with a couch, the one closest to the bathrooms, because she was terribly sick. She varied the explanation, saying Angie had kidney disease or congestive heart failure—things that were clearly serious without being contagious, though she never once said cancer. And the PAs always came through, especially in the last months when all you had to do was look at Angie to see that something was very wrong. Oblivious, Angie constantly marveled that people treated them so nicely on set, always arranging the schedule so Laurel was one of the first actors to be signed out at the end of the day. Angie never once caught on, a fact that Laurel was more proud of by far than any of the work she did for the camera.

She’d felt certain, given all she had done, that He would hear her.

But in the last month she’d watched Angie become more and more exhausted, and though her mother thought she was keeping the terrible bruises on her arms and legs covered, Laurel saw them every night after Angie fell asleep, because she checked on Angie at midnight—set an alarm for that express purpose—and pulled up the covers, smoothed a pillow, listened to her mother’s breathing. And the bruises leaked from beneath sleeves or pant legs until they began to run together. Still, Laurel had hung on to hope, had tried to convince herself that this didn’t necessarily mean that Angie was dying.

Except, of course, she
was
dying, and it mattered not at all that they weren’t nearly ready.

And that was a bitter, bitter pill. That was the Lord’s slap, His disapproving judgment, not only of Laurel but at Angie’s expense. Angie was dying because Laurel didn’t know how to do the Lord’s bidding. Trying, evidently, didn’t count.

So when Mimi Roberts called and told Angie that Laurel had booked a small role in
After
—as a pious girl whose sole contribution to the movie was to tell Buddy that at least his mother was joyful because she was in heaven—Laurel began to scream. She screamed and screamed until Angie called 911 and they gave Laurel massive doses of Valium and when she finally stopped screaming, she told Angie she was done. And nothing Angie could do or say would change her mind.

B
ETHY’S AUDITION WAS ALL THE WAY DOWN IN
S
ANTA
Monica at Westside Casting Studios, which Ruth hated because it meant they had to take the 405, highway to hell. Ruth and Bethy arrived twenty minutes late because they’d been hungry, said screw it, and stopped to grab a burger at a McDonald’s a couple of blocks away. The studio waiting room was full to bursting with African American girls. Something was up. They were trying to decide whether Bethy should even bother to sign in or just call Mimi, when a casting assistant with ear gauges and crazy, shoe-polish-black hair hurried over shaking his head.

“Wait, wait, wait. Please don’t tell me you’re here for Charmin, because the ad agency’s going in a different direction. Didn’t your agent tell you? We called everyone this morning.”

“
Crap,
” said Ruth.

But the casting assistant was already rushing away. “Next group, please, where are you?” From across the room Ruth watched him say to some of the girls. “No, there should be only four of you. No,
four
. You’re five. One of you is in the wrong place.” He culled a girl from the group and ushered the rest into the audition room, where, from the sound of it, they were being asked to burst into song. Ruth looked at Bethy and Bethy looked back and they shrugged their shoulders and walked out.

Ruth called Mimi from the car. “So did Holly call to tell you the toilet paper commercial call was for black girls? Because we just got down here and unless Bethy can suddenly pass, we’re fucked.”

“Let me call Big Talent,” said Mimi.

Ruth sighed. “What’s the point? Crap, crap,
crap
! It just took us two hours to get here, and it’s going to take us three hours to get back because it’s rush hour.”

“
C’est la vie,
” said Mimi.

“Whatever,” said Ruth. Normally she’d have been livid, but at least they’d had something to do while Ruth waited for her cell phone to bring them more bad news from the north.

A
N HOUR AND THREE QUARTERS LATER, THE CALL CAME.

“She has a mass,” Hugh told her. She and Bethy had ground to an absolute standstill eight miles short of the 101.

Ruth felt her chest get heavy. “What does that mean? Does it mean cancer?”

“We won’t know until they go in.”

“So they’re going to operate.”

“They already are. They took her into surgery half an hour ago.”

“Oh, honey,” Ruth said.

“What’s going on?” said Bethy.

“Hush,” said Ruth.

“We should know more in a couple of hours.”

“
Damn
it. All right, well, let me know as soon as you do.”

“Mom, what’s going on? Is Daddy all right?”

So while they crept toward the 101 at two miles an hour in heat so high that it could take your breath away if you didn’t have air-conditioning, Ruth told Bethy about Helene. She tried to sound chipper and hopeful but Bethy, who had always been able to sniff out a rat, burst into tears and refused to be consoled. Ruth let her cry it out. Then she started to talk, and she didn’t stop until they’d reached the 101 about half an hour later. She talked about how hard it was on Hugh to have them here; and how, even though he loved them and missed them, he didn’t see any way that selling his Seattle practice and coming to LA made financial sense; and how there was Helene to think of now, too. She talked about how much it was costing them to live in LA, and how much harder it was to book things than they’d ever imagined, even though Bethany was an astonishingly good actor whom Hugh and Ruth were so proud of there weren’t even words. She talked about what diabetes really entailed, and how a diabetic’s outlook was as important as his medical care, and how Hugh was trying very hard to take good care of himself, but still. She talked about how Bethy was missing a lot of what being a teenager was all about—school plays and pep rallies and going with friends to the mall and, later on, proms and dances. By the time Ruth merged onto the 101, she realized what she’d just done with no forethought whatsoever: she’d made a case—a well-thought-out, articulate,
compelling
case—for leaving this place behind and going home.
Really
going home. And the more she talked, the calmer Bethy became, and
that
was the first thing that had really surprised Ruth in days.

“Talk to me,” she said.

“About what?”

“What do you mean, about what? About everything I just said. About the idea of going home. Does it upset you?”

Bethy nibbled on the end of a lock of hair. “Not really.”

“No?”

“No. I mean, not if Daddy needs us. And Nana.”

“But this is your dream, honey. I know that.”

Bethany shrugged.
Shrugged.

“No?” said Ruth.

“No. I mean, yes. Yes, it’s my dream. But if Daddy and Nana need us at home, we should do that.”

“Don’t you want to think about this? It’s a huge decision.”

“That’s okay,” said Bethy, and Ruth could tell she meant it. “I mean, I know this was exciting and stuff, especially at first, but it’s not like I thought it would be. I thought I’d be working all the time. And I miss, like, everything. I mean, I miss having real friends and stuff. School.”

“Honey, if we go home now, we might never come back.”

“Yeah.” Bethy shrugged again, looking out the window. “That’s okay, though. Hey, can we do Bob’s for dinner?”

And just like that, with exactly that little anguish, it was over—Hollywood, LA, everything. Damned if they hadn’t hit the psychic’s fork in the road and known all along which way to go.

T
HE ONLY CAR IN THE STUDIO LOT WAS
M
IMI’S
. B
ETHY
folded her arms across her chest and said she’d wait in the car. Ruth started to argue with her and then, abruptly, she gave up, putting all the windows down and saying, “If you stop sweating or you get light-headed, honk the horn immediately, and I mean immediately, because it’ll mean you’re getting heatstroke.”

“I won’t get heatstroke,” Bethy said.

Inside, Ruth was greeted by Tina Marie and then by Allison. The little dog, apparently unmoved by the smell of Ruth’s shoes, returned to Mimi’s office leaving a trail of piddle behind. “Tina Marie!” Allison called after her. “You come back and clean that up!”

She looked at Ruth, looked away, took a deep breath, and said, “I miss you and Bethy. Like, a
lot
. I know I did a bad thing. I don’t even know why I took it, and then I lied about it. I’m really, really, really sorry.”

“The spoon? Oh, honey,” Ruth said. She pulled Allison into a hug. “Thank you. I know this was a hard thing to do. We’ve missed you, too.” And to her surprise, Ruth meant it.

“I
know
,” said Allison.

Ruth coaxed her into going out to the parking lot and talking to Bethany while Ruth poked her head in to see Mimi—who was, of course, on the telephone. She signaled for Ruth to sit in the visitor’s chair and hung up a minute later. “Is she still going back to live with her mother?” Ruth said, gesturing vaguely over her shoulder to indicate Allison.

“No,” said Mimi. “She’ll be staying here.”

“Oh! Well, that’s good, then,” Ruth said. “Listen, I’m probably going to have to go back to Seattle again. My mother-in-law’s having some kind of medical crisis. We don’t know much right now, but whatever it is, it’s not good.”

“You’ve been having a tough time,” Mimi said, which was the closest thing to kindness she’d ever shown Ruth.

For a minute, Ruth felt incipient tears. She concentrated on breathing through her nose until the feeling passed. “It’s being so far away—it makes everything turn into such a bigger deal. Anyway, here’s what I wanted to ask you. If we went home—I mean Bethy, too—would it be that bad?”

“What do you mean, if you go home? You mean for the summer?”

Ruth nodded vaguely. “Well, or for, you know, a break. To reevaluate.”

“That’s up to you. Bethany’s turning, what, fourteen?”

“In June.”

“Yeah. If you’re going to take a break, this is probably a good time to do it, with summer coming up. Episodic season’s over, and feature films are pretty much cast already.”

“So it wouldn’t hurt her chances.”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Okay,” said Ruth, standing.

“Just let me know what you decide,” Mimi said, already turned back to her computer. “Let me know and let Holly know, so we can book her out.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Ruth.

Out in the parking lot, Allison was leaning way in their car window, talking to Bethany. By Allison’s body language Ruth gathered that things had gone well between them. When the girls saw her, they talked her into taking Allison with them to Bob’s for dinner, where they chattered like magpies right through dessert, giving Ruth a racking headache. The shy waiter was nowhere to be found, which was probably just as well since Ruth had a consuming desire to tell him about Helene and the decision she and Bethy had just made to go home. Like he’d miss them. Like he even
recognized
them. Would anyone miss them? Yes—Vee Velman. After dinner Ruth dropped the girls off at CityWalk for a movie, pulled up a rickety patio chair by the apartment’s scummy pool, and dug out her phone.

“Okay, here’s the thing, and it’s creepy,” she told Vee. “Your Viking psychic got it right. My mother-in-law’s in the hospital with some kind of brain tumor. I’m going to have to go home again.” She watched leaf debris, a plastic water bottle, and half a potato chip bag scud across the pool in a light breeze.