The Actor and the Housewife

by Shannon Hale

  A singing telegram! she thought. It’s not my birthday, but what an unusually sweet prank for Felix to—The music dipped with some heavy bass. The officer removed his jacket. Becky put it over her head and waited in blindness until the performance was over. She was only a little sorry to miss it. From their hoots, the female crew members had sounded sincerely entertained.

  But mostly Felix and Becky were model children, who sat quietly and made faces at each other behind the director’s back. There was plenty of time for this. Wally liked to have Becky on hand as the screenwriter, ready for a powwow or to rewrite a line, so even though her acting part was small, she was there as much as Felix.

  “You are more than just my liver now,” he said as they ate lunch in the dining tent. “You’re also my spleen.”

  “Spleen? Which stands for . . .”

  “Seriously Platonic Lovers and Emotionally Empathetic Neolo-gists.”

  “Neologists?”

  “Because we’re creating new words. Look, it wasn’t easy to come up with something for ‘N.’ ”

  “Seriously platonic lovers . . . How long did it take you to come up with that one?”

  “Fifteen minutes and an online thesaurus.”

  “It’s good. I like it.”

  “Be a good girl and I’ll make you my pituitary gland.”

  One time the script girl asked Becky, “So, what’s the deal with you and Felix?”

  “We’re bestest chums,” she said.

  The script girl shook her head as she walked away. “That is so frig-gin’ cool.”

  Becky nodded happily, not because she thought it was that cool, but because she was pleased with her use of “friggin’.”

  Felix returned to his star chair, his eyebrow arched meaningfully. “You shouldn’t look so satisfied, Mrs. Jack. Do you know what friggin’ stands for?” He answered his own question, tossing out a word even Melissa wouldn’t use in Becky’s earshot.

  “Watch your mouth, young man. What would your mother say to such language?”

  “ ‘Pish posh,’ probably. She used to say that a lot.”

  Used to . . . Becky knew Felix was an only child—his father had left him and his mother when he was a boy and died a few years later in Spain. Since his mother was his only family, Becky assumed she must be more precious to him than scones. Her death would be appalling. “I’m sorry, Felix. She passed on?”

  “No—at least, I don’t think so.”

  “Oh! Oh? But you used the past tense there.”

  “I don’t know what she’s saying currently, as I don’t see her anymore.”

  “Anymore what? Anymore this year?” Becky felt a small earthquake rock her chest. “Felix, when is the last time you saw your mother?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Felix . . .” she said with warning.

  “I’m counting . . . fourteen, fifteen—”

  “Please don’t tell me those are years. Assure me that those numbers aren’t years.”

  Felix groaned. “This isn’t going to end well for any of us.”

  “But she’s your mother; you’re her only little boy. She must be devastated! This is catastrophic. How could this happen? What happened?” She was on her feet, clutching her heart.

  “Nothing. Sit down. We had a row when I was at university, that’s all.”

  “Felix . . .”

  He grabbed the arm of her shirt and pulled her back into her chair, his gaze mindful of the watching crew. “Calm, quiet, silence, I beg you. Anyone could be a tabloid spy.”

  This was not the sort of thing they usually discussed, but still Becky asked, in a whisper now, “Will you tell me?”

  Felix glanced at the crew setting tracks for the camera, as if judging how much time he had left.

  “We had a spat, and after she remarried—”

  “No, start from the beginning. Or Celeste will tell me her version. You know she will if I ask—she can’t help herself.”

  Felix groaned. “Right. But—fine. So. My mother was intense. Piano lessons, singing lessons. She was always there, hovering over me, constant. Until I was ten, we slept in the same room.”

  “Oh, Felix.” Becky’s heart was aching for this mother somewhere.

  “Don’t be dramatic. She cared less about me than how the neighbors saw her, determined to prove to them that she was a good mother even without a husband. Despite the forced culture and odd home, I did all right in school, mostly because I was a decent footballer. But she didn’t know how to mother a teenage boy. I attended Cambridge and she’d call me several times a day. When she came to visit for the fourth time in the Michaelmas term, I . . . well, I fought with her. I was nasty. I wanted to knock her away.”

  “What did you say?”

  He shrugged, his eyes on the director of photography, who was helping secure the camera to a dolly. “It wasn’t so much ‘what’ as how. She claimed I was being ungrateful, listing all the things she’d given up for me, including marriage. There’d been a bloke by the name of Herbert, a real pillock. She said she would have married him, but I hadn’t liked him and she always put me first. So I told her to let off and go marry Herbert, and I’d be happier if she did.”

  “And then? You made up and lived happily ever after?”

  Felix chucked Becky’s chin with mock gusto. “That’s right, princess.”

  “Did she marry him?”

  “Yes, she married the pillock. They came to opening night of a play I did in London. Herbert wasn’t impressed. I had a cast party to get to and couldn’t stay. Herbert hates London, it turns out. So I stayed in London for many years.”

  “And you didn’t visit home? You didn’t call?”

  “After a time, neither did she. It was the best for both of us.”

  “Felix—”

  “Mom!” Sam came running for her, flinging himself onto her lap, his arms around her neck. He was the number-one most snugly kid she’d ever known, and she needed it right then; her insides were roiling with the thought of a mother somewhere, for fifteen years missing her son. Becky nestled her face into Sam’s hair and breathed in, smelling chlorine.

  “You’ve been swimming?”

  “Yeah, there was a floating alligator and me and Hyrum made it attack Polly, and she swam all around screaming, but she was just teasing. Do you think we could get a real alligator?”

  The rest of the Jack family was right behind, Mike done working for the day. Several crew members (the ones Becky was particularly fond of ) shouted hello to their regular visitors. Fiona went off immediately to confer with the wardrobe mistress, who let her leaf through costume design books and try on dresses. Felix greeted Polly, transparently relieved for the diversion, and the two of them sang a duet for a crew member’s personal video camera.

  Becky sat Mike in her “star” chair and gave him a shoulder rub while he and Wally talked golf, making a tee-off date for Wally’s exclusive country club. Mike couldn’t stop beaming about it.

  “Hey, you weren’t this excited about the time we went golfing,” Felix complained.

  “Are you kidding?” said Becky. “He made a ‘My Day with Felix’ album, and taped in his scorecard and a blade of grass that had stuck to his shoe.”

  Mike shrugged. “It’s just that I figure Wally actually knows a five iron from a putter.”

  That made Felix laugh. Becky smiled to hide the pain—or rather, the plotting.

  She was on the phone with Celeste that evening.

  “How do we reunite Felix with his mother?”

  “Rebecca, it’s a lost cause. But . . . perhaps not for you.”

  Biddie Callahan-Coxhill was living in Devon, Felix’s hometown, married to the aforementioned pillock Herbert. So Becky wrote a letter:

  Dear Mrs. Callahan-Coxhill,

  My name is Becky Jack. I’m a friend of your son Felix and his wife Celeste. I am also a mother. I’ve had the honor of knowing Felix for about six years, and I know he has a very good heart.

  I was a
ghast to learn recently that he hasn’t been in communication with you for a number of years. At the risk of meddling, I have hopes of reuniting you two again. Slowly might be best for Felix, would you agree? I’d thought if you could write a letter to him, that could be a start. If you felt so inclined, I think he might be ready and happy to hear from you. I’m attaching his mailing address in Los Angeles.

  I don’t know the details of all that has transpired, but I hope you can forgive Felix. Every boy needs his mother.

  With many hopes,

  Becky Jack

  She told Celeste to keep an eye out for a letter. Celeste reported a few weeks later.

  “It came! And he opened it. I watched him read. Once he muttered your name.”

  “Was he angry? Amused? Annoyed?”

  “Annoyed, I would say. But he did not tear up the letter. And he does tear up things sometimes, so that’s good?”

  “That’s very good.”

  Becky didn’t inquire further, proving a restraint that Mike called “legendary.” But Celeste suspected that Felix did write back.

  Felix gave Becky some knowing looks, smoldering with accusation, but besides that, nothing really changed—at least, not for the worse.

  The fourth week in production, Becky was in makeup. Cynthia, the makeup artist, was dusting Becky’s face with an unseemly amount of powder when Felix hopped onto the counter and began to twiddle with a brush. In the mirror, Becky caught the brief look of happy longing in Cynthia’s eyes before she pretended Felix wasn’t there, giving the star the illusion of privacy that all makeup artists apparently learn in the trade. It made Becky smile. At her best guess, all the women on set were a little in love with Felix.

  “So,” Felix said. “I just heard from Larry. They offered me the lead

  for a new picture, One Thousand Bedrooms. Seems the story of my karaoke performance spread about town.”

  “Ooh, there’s singing? What’s the story?”

  “It’s a biopic, but Larry says the script is good, puts a real twist on the story, doesn’t get bogged down in covering every detail. Says it’s funny too. It’s about Dean Martin.”

  Becky inhaled sharply then began to cough out powder while exclaiming, “Yes! You have to do that. You are so loungy. And you’ll get to sing. Felix, what a perfect role for you. If you don’t take it, I might punch you. Again.” Becky looked at Cynthia in the mirror. “I hit him once, and he assured me that it actually hurt.”

  “Oh yes, she has a mean right hook. Don’t buy the innocent-housewife act.”

  Cynthia smiled politely.

  “Felix, I’m really excited about this one. You’ll be so great. You can do impersonations, you can do comedy and drama, you can sing. It’ll be a Felix Callahan showcase.”

  “Or it could be disaster.”

  “Not a chance.”

  He rubbed the brush back and forth across his fingernail. “Would you take a look at the script? Give me your professional opinion?”

  “What?” she said, replaying his question in her mind, searching for buried sarcasm.

  “Your professional opinion, as a screenwriter.”

  She stared. Cynthia had to press a finger against her cheek to make her turn her face back around. “You want my opinion?”

  “Of course I do.”

  Something had changed. He’d never considered her a real screenwriter before and never asked her opinion on anything. She knew he adored her in a with-a-side-of-onions way, but there were areas in each other’s lives they just didn’t poke at. This was so startlingly new that Cynthia had to stop working with her blush brush until the color faded from Becky’s cheeks.

  “Sure thing,” Becky said casually. “I’d love to. You bet.”

  Felix hopped off the table and said, “I’ll call Larry. See you on set.”

  “Okay.”

  Becky glanced at Cynthia’s expression in the mirror. She wished the incident had happened in private. Curse those observant makeup artists!

  That night she read the Dean Martin script while Mike snored in bed beside her. It was brilliant. She knew it was brilliant because she couldn’t wait to turn each page and not one line irritated her and begged for rewriting.

  She handed it back to Felix the next day.

  “Do it,” she said.

  He flipped open his cell phone and speed-dialed his agent. “Larry? Felix. Becky says go.”

  And that quickly, he was resolved to it? Becky thought. All he needed was her opinion?

  Something had changed.

  But she didn’t ponder it. Becky wasn’t much of a ponderer in any case, not when there was so much to do. Days off with her family were one long, wonderful vacation. Days working were scores of hours with her best friend.

  Every day when she got her call sheet outlining the schedule for tomorrow, she felt relieved that the last scene wasn’t up yet. She was preparing on the sly, hoping a rush of confidence would overtake her and she’d look back and laugh at her anxiety. What, me, worried about kissing Felix? Ha!

  Time ticked forward.

  In which Becky readies for the kiss

  Becky had thought she had been as prepared as possible for moviemak-ing, but some things took her by surprise.

  • She had a stand-in, basically a professional doppelgänger whose job was to represent Becky on set while the crew set up lights and cameras. Her name was Barb, and she looked a lot like Becky’s reflection in a fun house mirror. Becky always smiled and said hello then hurried on her way. Barb had a lazy eye and a snarly smile. Barb was creepy.

  • The waiting! The time to set up a scene, do the take, do it again for a different camera, and again and again. And then waiting while the crew prepped the next scene. She’d never hung around so much in her life. She played a lot of cards. Also, we mentioned the donkey in the trailer. The donkey’s name was Earl. It’s not as difficult to rent a donkey for a day in Los Angeles as you might think.

  • The food was really good. And that meant more gym time. Dang.

  • Whenever another actor joined her and Felix in a scene, Becky had to reapply deodorant every hour. Acting opposite Stockard Channing? You’ve gotta be kidding! Four years with Uta Hagen wouldn’t be enough preparation.

  • Acting with Felix was even better than singing with him. He was brilliant. He carried her, he relaxed her, he made it fun. But what would prove her greatest challenge was creeping ever closer . . .

  One Friday evening, the assistant director gave Becky Monday’s schedule—they were shooting the finale, out of order, as moviemaking often required. They hadn’t yet filmed the scene where Hattie discovers Lionel’s lie and decides to leave town, or the sequence of Lionel racing through the city trying to find her and stop her, leaping over tumbling fruit stands, buying a little girl’s bicycle to race down the sidewalk (that sort of thing), finally hopping a train to discover Hattie absent but her daughter and his assistant running away together to Sea World. So he rushes to her apartment and finds her torn between what her mind and her heart are saying, but she lets him in to see what might happen next. What happens is—they kiss.

  Why, oh why, did she write that?

  Of course back when she blithely composed the script, she never dreamed that she herself would be the one doing the smooching. And when she rewrote some scenes to lessen her part, she didn’t even think to touch the kissing scene. It just felt right.

  Becky believed the kiss was the magic moment a romantic movie reaches for, works toward, finally achieves. Sure, there were the love stories where two characters were jumping into bed the first half hour, sucking each other’s toes, removing clothing to reveal glistening skin. Becky preferred the story where two people connect, there’s the electricity, there’s the compatibility, there’s everything there that should make them the happiest couple in the world, except for . . . [insert insurmountable obstacle here]. And because of that obstacle, they grow, they change for each other, toward each other, until in the end, all it takes is that final s
ymbolic climax, an exquisitely simple physical manifestation of their love, their surrender to each other, their union—the kiss.

  She’d angled the entire story to lead to that kiss, so it had to be just right. She could appreciate those directors and screenwriters who like to play with the formula to see what they could make out of it. But there was something so lovely, so perfect, about that classic ending that when done well was enough to make even the hard-hearted sigh and believe in the kind of love that promises to go on after the credits roll.

  The kiss not as flirtation but realization. Kiss as epiphany. Kiss as completion.

  That was the goal, anyway, the lovely vision she’d had when typing on her computer. Actually carry ing it out was another matter. Acting, she’d discovered, was so much harder than just showing emotions you’re not feeling. Merely speaking lines in a convincing way was a trial. Not to mention being interesting to watch. The toughest thing to do? Laugh. Laughing for real. Tough.

  The second hardest thing to do? Kiss beautifully.

  Have you ever watched real people make out? Saliva, tongues, teeth clanking, noses rubbing—blech. Becky was not at all confident that she could kiss on film and allow it to be a beautiful moment instead of a wince-fest. So she’d been preparing for weeks. First she made a list of her favorite movie kisses of all time:

  • One Fine Day, when, after the actually quite horrible day, Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney finally find each other in a scrumptious kiss.

  • Willow. That’s right, Willow, when Val Kilmer kisses Joanne Whaley in the tent, leading up to her kissing him in the middle of a sword fight. Even that long black wig couldn’t diminish Mr. Kilmer’s appeal.

  • Spider-Man. The upside-down kiss just looks so yummy.

  • Empire Strikes Back, between Han Solo and Princess Leia. “I like nice men,” she says. “I’m nice men,” he says. What girl wasn’t in love with Han Solo?

  • An Officer and a Gentleman, at the end when Richard Gere carries Debra Winger. Say what you will, but it’s a classic.