Best to Laugh: A Novel

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Best to Laugh: A Novel Page 28

by Lorna Landvik


  AN ACTRESS NAMED GWEN CLARK who had starred as the second lead in a ’60s sitcom about a veterinary clinic was hired to play Gwen McGillicutty, the befuddled, upper-crust director of The Sorta Late Show, and Harry Jansen, a big, brawny guy, got the part of my sidekick, Harry Chest. The other regulars included Mac Mork, the stoned cameraman, and Rose Williams, a new comic I had met, who played the depressed makeup girl, Rose Blush.

  At the first read-through of the finished script, a constant thrum of excitement coursed through my body, so much so that I would fold my arms across my chest just to keep myself planted in my chair. The laughs were full and frequent, especially when we got to the parts we’d marked improvisational.

  “So tell the audience a little bit about yourself, Harry,” I said, during one of our improvised couch chats.

  Examining his fingernails, Harry said casually, “Well, you know, Candy, I was quite the big man on campus. I was first in my class at Harvard.”

  “You went to Harvard?”

  “Yeah, baby.” With his fingers entwined, Harry stretched out his arms and cracked his knuckles. “Harvard Barber College. It’s in Pomona.”

  Gwen was great at playing the addled, out-of-her league director Gwen and was no slouch as an improviser, either.

  “Mac,” she said to the cameraman, “you can come to work stoned, or you can come to work not stoned, but you can’t do both.”

  “Whatever,” said Mac.

  After the actors left, we writers conferred with Melanie and Claire.

  “So the monologue changes every day,” said Claire, reading from her notes.

  “Yeah,” said Mike. “We’ll change things just to keep it topical.”

  “We’ll have set pieces,” I said. “For instance, Rose will also play the zoo expert, Mac’ll be the playboy actor, and Gwen’ll be the tone-deaf torch singer.”

  “Yeah, and we’ll all act in the commercials,” said Mike.

  “We think it’ll be fun for the audience to see us playing different roles,” I said. “Plus it’s cheaper than hiring a bunch of actors.”

  “Cheaper,” said Melanie. “I like that. This is going to be so fun.”

  She wasn’t going to hear a dissenting voice from any of us.

  AFTER THE RUN-THROUGH, I was walking back from the bathroom when a hummingbird collided with the back of my shoulder.

  “What the hell?” I muttered, wondering what had torpedoed me, figuring the likelihood of a hummingbird attack in a theater was fairly slim.

  Looking behind me, I found an airplane fashioned out of a piece of cardboard, its nose slightly damaged from its impact with my deltoid. It was fine and sharply folded, but it wasn’t its sleek construction that got my heart pumping, but the message scrawled on it.

  “Dinner . . . and?”

  Mike appeared from the corner he had ducked behind after launching the aircraft. He stared at me and I stared at him.

  “What about Kristin?” I asked, finally.

  Mike shrugged. “Kirsten and I broke up.”

  “You did?”

  “I moved out. Into an apartment two blocks from the Formosa.”

  “I love the Formosa,” I said, feeling a little light-headed. “Maybe we could go there for dinner.”

  “And . . . and like I said, my apartment’s two blocks away. We could have dessert there.”

  45

  “CANDY!” came the less-than-dulcet tones of my cousin’s voice over the telephone. “What’s this Grandma says about a ‘talk show show’?”

  “I’m in a show about a talk show. It’s opening in two weeks.”

  “Where at?” asked Charlotte, the way an investigative detective might question a suspect she’d rather slap.

  “At the Swan Theater.”

  “The Swan Theater? I saw James Taylor there!”

  There was a long pause, and in it I imagined her exhaling out of her nostrils smoke that had nothing to do with a cigarette.

  “So how’ve you been?” I said, figuring as long as she called me, we might as well converse.

  “I’ve been just fine,” she said, her voice clipped. “I’ve got a callback tomorrow for a hairspray commercial.”

  “Congratulations. I hope you get it.”

  “You do not! You never want me to get anything!”

  Other than left field, I had no idea where this sentiment came from and had no response, which was fine, as Charlotte wasn’t done talking.

  “Why is everything going so good for you? Why do I have to struggle when things just fall into your lap?”

  I slumped on the couch as if my spine had suddenly dissolved.

  “Things just . . . fall into my lap?”

  “Of course they do! You’re the one who’s always been Grandma’s pet! You’re the one who she spent so much time with! Who got to live with her—”

  “Because my parents died!”

  Charlotte’s words fell over mine. “Who could never do any wrong in her eyes! Even when you were a big druggie, it was always ‘Candy this’ and ‘Candy that,’ and now it’s ‘Candy’s got a big show she’s putting on!’ And you know what really pisses me off? I’m the reason you’re in Hollywood! I’m the one who gave you my apartment! Do you think any of this would have happened to you if I hadn’t given you my apartment?”

  My heart forgot its regular rhythm and was galloping like a spooked horse.

  “First of all, I wasn’t a big druggie—I just smoked a lot of pot, okay? And secondly, you didn’t give me your apartment. I sublet it, remember? As a favor to you!”

  “Hah! I can’t believe it! I sublet it to you as a favor!”

  “Hah!” I said, mimicking her. “You don’t do favors unless they benefit you!”

  “You just can never thank me, can you? Is it because you’ve always been jealous of me? Well, guess what: I can’t help it that I’m what you’ve always wanted to be! I can’t help the way I look, can’t help that I’m blonde and blue-eyed!”

  My heart was now Sea Biscuit, straining for the finish line.

  “Don’t you mean bland? Bland and blue-eyed?”

  I heard a gasp and then a click, and dropping the receiver in its cradle I promptly burst into tears. When the phone rang again, I snatched it up, ready to hear Charlotte’s apology, ready to offer mine.

  “Hello?” I said, my voice hopeful, even through its thickness.

  “Candy? What’s the matter?”

  It wasn’t Charlotte, unless she was very good at impersonations.

  “Oh, Mike!” I said, “I just had a terrible conversation with my cousin!”

  “Is your grandmother all right?”

  “My grandmother? No, not that kind of terrible—everything’s fine with my grandmother. It’s just that she—” My last words bobbed on the wave of a sob.

  “Candy, I can hardly understand you,” said Mike. “I’m coming over, okay? We’ll take a walk, okay?”

  I sniffed. “Okay.”

  “EVEN THOUGH WE DON’T EXACTLY GET ALONG,” I said, after having recounted the entire phone conversation, “we still love each other. Or so I thought. I mean, we’re cousins! We grew up together!”

  Mike pulled me closer to him as two young women trotted by us on horseback. We were up in Bronson Canyon, in an area that had been the location of many shot-in-L.A. Westerns, hiking up a path toward stories-high rock outcroppings.

  “But I didn’t know that she hated me!”

  “I don’t think she hates you, Candy. Sounds to me like she’s jealous of you.”

  “You haven’t seen my cousin.”

  “I’ve seen her picture in your apartment.”

  “And you don’t think she’s beautiful?”

  “Not like you.”

  “That’s a good one.” My laugh was bitter. “I’m a lot of things, but beautiful is not one of them.”

  Dropping my hand, Mike enveloped me in his arms.

  “You are beautiful, Candy. You have the most lovely mouth.” He kissed it. “And the cutest nos
e.” He kissed it. “And the most beautiful, soulful eyes.” He kissed my right eyebrow, then my left, and when he was finished he stepped back, holding me at arm’s length, appraising me. “You have the shiniest hair I’ve ever seen, and the most perfect body ever assembled. In one word, well, two: you’re beautiful.”

  I had to laugh. “No, I’m not. But thank you.”

  “Yes, you are. And you’re welcome.”

  A man sporting a crew cut, tennis shoes, and stretchy shorts that looked like underpants approached us, his face, pate, and bare chest slick with sweat.

  “That’s an attractive look,” I whispered as he raced by, his breathing laborious chuffs. “One you should think about.”

  “Good idea. Forget the tuxedo—on opening night I’ll wear a Speedo and my old purple Keds.”

  “Opening night,” I said, my voice dreamy. “I can’t wait.”

  We walked farther, my hand in Mike’s back pocket, his in mine.

  “Charlotte’s right about the apartment, though,” I said. “If she hadn’t come out here, and then needed a subletter, where would I be? Would I ever have done stand-up? Be ready to open a show that has my name in the title? No! I’d still be at the pie shop, asking if you’d like to try today’s feature.”

  “I would, thanks. With whipped cream. But come on, Candy. You kept up the rent on your cousin’s apartment and then took over the lease, and for that you’re going to give her credit for your whole career? Give me a break! And quit asking yourself those stupid questions. ‘What if I would have done this?’ ‘What if I hadn’t done that?’ The thing with those what ifs is, you’ll never know. Don’t waste your time with them.”

  “Thanks, doc,” I said, pinching his butt.

  “Hey, I charge extra for that.”

  I took a big inhale, loving that in the middle of Hollywood the air could smell of nature, of dirt and weeds . . . and of horse manure.

  “Yikes,” I said, sidestepping the freshly dropped briquettes.

  We walked in the cooling air, as shadows spilled over the surfaces of the rocks.

  “I wish my mom could see the show,” I said softly.

  “I know you do, Candy. But maybe she can.”

  “You believe that?”

  Mike shrugged. “I might. Who knows? You forget my grandfather was a Lutheran minister.”

  “The one who puts on his boxers first and then his tie?”

  “No, the Lutheran minister one. He usually wore a clerical collar.”

  “So you believe in Heaven?”

  “Absolutely. But in my heaven, after the angels have put in their time playing harp all day, they get to relax a little. They climb off their clouds and head to the nearby peanut gallery, where they drink beer and get rowdy, waiting for the next good act on Earth to take their shot at entertaining them.”

  “Oh, great. So now I’m picturing my mom heckling me from on high.”

  “Not heckling. Laughing. Applauding. Yelling at all the other angels to shut up, ‘cause my daughter’s on!’”

  “No, she wouldn’t say it like that.” Demonstrating how my mother would tell a group of boisterous angels to put a lid on it, I said, “Prease, prease, no talk! Candy on! My daughter Candy on!”

  “What would your dad say?” said Mike.

  “Oh. Oh . . . I don’t know.”

  “He’d probably say, ‘Yeah! That’s my girl!’”

  “I don’t think so,” I said, my throat thickening.

  “You don’t think so, but you don’t know.”

  Mike bumped my hip with his, but it wasn’t until we’d walked for a while that I bumped his hip back. I was surprised at the wave of sadness that had washed over me—not at its strength but its lack thereof. It was like standing under a shower that had always released a torrent of water and now only mustered a trickle.

  I hooked my finger through Mike’s belt loop and he did the same to mine, and we continued sauntering down the road where Hopalong Cassidy and Gene Autry had in days gone by sauntered.

  46

  “DID I TELL YOU how fantastic you look?” Mike whispered.

  “A couple times,” I said. “But don’t let that stop you.”

  Finally, I was attending a special-enough occasion to wear the black dress Madame Pepper had bought for me.

  “He’s right,” said Ed, overhearing. “You look great, Candy.”

  “Amen,” said Taryn. “A dress like that’s an investment, and you invested well.”

  “If everyone can stop talking about Candy’s dress long enough to remember it’s my party—” here Maeve winked at me—“I’d like to make a toast.”

  Maeve cleared her throat and held out her glass. “To the man I always dreamed of!”

  “To the woman far better than my dreams!” said the man next to her.

  “To grandchildren—eventually!” said Taryn.

  We were at Marconi’s, an ornate-bordering-on-kitschy Italian restaurant, to celebrate the news of Maeve and Egon’s engagement.

  “Maeve’s father used to take me here when we were dating,” confessed Taryn, the party’s host. “And I thought since Maeve’s getting married—”

  “—Ma,” said Maeve as her mother’s voice broke.

  “It’s just that I’m so happy for you!” said Taryn. “Despite my crappy influence, it seems you’ve found true love!”

  “To true love,” offered Sharla. “To true, supportive love.”

  The last part of her toast was directed at Ed, with a smile that veered more southward than north.

  “So you’ve set the date?” I asked Maeve.

  “We’re not sure.” She was nestled—not easy for a big woman like Maeve—under the arm of her betrothed, with a permanent grin plastered across her face. “But we’re thinking late fall.”

  “And she plans to live in Munich!” said Taryn. “What am I supposed to do with my baby so far away?”

  “It’s just for a couple of months, until Egon finishes his studies,” said Maeve. “You can come and visit anytime you like.” She looked at the rest of us. “She’ll love the attention: Summit Hill—or should I say, Die Spitze Summit—is huge in Germany.”

  “Yes, very popular,” said Egon. “My mother—it is her favorite program.”

  “My future son-in-law comes from a woman of taste!” said Taryn.

  “So, Mike,” said Sharla, aiming at him a full-wattage smile, “tell us all about your show!”

  “It’s not my show,” said Mike, taking my hand. “It’s Candy’s—”

  “—he’s the bandleader,” I explained. “He plays trumpet, and he’s our top writer.”

  Mike laughed. “When did I get that promotion?”

  “Top in quality. The pay grade remains the same.”

  “Maeve has said it is about a chat show, ja?” said Egon. “I am finding this very interesting, a theatrical play about a television chat show.”

  “We hope others’ll share your opinion,” I said. “But we’re pretty excited.”

  “What are you going to do about guests?” asked Taryn.

  “We’ve got a regular cast who’ll play different—”

  “—because I’d come on the show. I’d be one of your guests.”

  “You would?”

  “That would be great,” said Mike.

  “I’d come on, too,” said Sharla. “I love the stage. In fact, I just did a staged reading at the Westview Playhouse last month. Ed saw it, didn’t you, honey?”

  Ed nodded. “She was incredible.”

  “Not to change the subject,” said Taryn, looking at Egon’s plate, “but I just realized my future son-in-law ordered exactly the same cheese manicotti dish that Maeve’s father always ordered!”

  After our plates, smeary with sauce, were taken away, Joanie Welles took the microphone off its stand at the front of the restaurant.

  Our fellow Peyton Hall tenant wasn’t our waitress but had come to the table earlier to say hello, and Ed had explained to everyone that he had heard her sing
at the restaurant several years earlier. He didn’t elaborate as to what he had thought about her performance or her desire to be bigger than Streisand.

  Joanie took a deep breath, and the tops of her breasts puffed out over her peasant blouse.

  “First, might I say it’s an honor to sing to a group that includes Taryn Powell and Sharla West—” here the other forty or so diners in the restaurant, who’d been sneaking looks at our table all evening, applauded, and the Summit Hill stars modestly dipped their coiffed heads—“and it’s also a pleasure to sing to my friends—one just got engaged! So here goes.”

  A guy I’d earlier seen carting bus tubs sat down at the piano and played a glissando and a few chords, and as Joanie Welles raised the mike to her mouth, Ed pressed the side of his knee to mine.

  “I’ll bet you a hundred bucks it’ll be a Streisand song,” he whispered.

  “Pee-pul,” sang Joanie, and if Ed and I pressed our legs together any harder, someone’s femur was going to snap.

  Maeve shot us a knowing look as we steeled ourselves not to laugh, but as Joanie continued the song, it was apparent she could not only carry a tune but caress it.

  Her voice was sweet and true, and because she seemed to believe the words she sang, you believed them, too.

  The diners gave her a hearty ovation, and when she approached us, hat sheepishly in hand (singing for her supper, indeed), she looked as if she were going to cry.

  “I was so nervous singing in front of all you!”

  “You shouldn’t have been,” said Taryn, taking a crisp fifty-dollar bill out of her leopard-skin wallet and dropping it into the hat. “You were wonderful!”

  “Joanie,” said Ed. “I . . . I don’t remember you singing like that.”

  The waitress made a face. “You saw me when I was just starting out. When I might have taken my Streisand worship a little far.”

  “I loved your version of ‘People,’” said Maeve.

  “That was what I had to figure out,” said Joanie. “My version. When I tried to sing like Barbra . . . well, I’d just get so intimidated. And when I’m not comfortable singing, I tend to go a little flat.”

  Sharla opened her zebra-striped wallet, and when Ed took out his, she said, “Don’t worry about it,” dropping three twenties in the hat, casually glancing at Taryn to make sure her costar noticed whose big tip was bigger.

 

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