A Thing of Beauty

by Lisa Samson

  And that’s it. I just need one out of four to work out. Good odds.

  “Fiona,” Randi calls. “Make it loud enough and entertaining enough and don’t mind my eavesdropping, and we’ll call the tab clear.”

  “You got it, Ms. Begonia.”

  Make these interviews a good scene for an eager viewer? That I can do.

  The dragon bell slams against the door, and a man lumbers in wearing a black suit and a red silk tie with matching pocket scarf. His eyes, set deeply beneath hooded lids and fine gray brows, dart and come to rest on me. If that isn’t a wig, well, okay, but then he’s pretty bold to wear his pet ferret as a hat to a place that sells food.

  Randi sighs, picks up her puzzle book, and leans back against the counter. But I see that little grin lift the corners of her full lips.

  This should be a piece of cake.

  I wave Mr. Weisenheim toward my table.

  After a particularly annoying interview with self-professed genius Ellen Reinbacher, Bartholomew Hipschman fails to show, so my second latte and I sit at one of the counter stools, and I doodle while Randi pencils in her Sudoku book.

  “So, Fia,” she says, looking down through the reading glasses held up by her nostrils, pencil poised like a harpoon over the puzzle. “Why are you renting out a room in the first place? Has it gotten that bad?”

  “Jessica, I guess.”

  She turns her eyes up to me. “Really? Why would she want you to rent out a room?”

  “Oh, she’s never said anything about that one way or the other. I’m being forced into a preemptive strike.”

  “Over what?” Randi raises an eyebrow. “What’s the dish?”

  Randi is always interested in this gossip, not because any parents of mine are a concern of hers. That would be lovely if that were the case and maybe it is, but I’ll never be able to know because Jessica and Brandon are movie stars.

  “Both Jessica and Brandon called two nights ago,” I say.

  Randi holds up a finger, then picks up tongs and digs in the pastry case for a cheese Danish with chocolate drizzled across the top. She drops it on one of the many mismatched plates she finds at Sunday yard sales and sets it in front of me. “Spill it. That Danish comes from Peacock’s so it better be good.”

  Oh. It’s one of the most expensive bakeries in Canton. But this is Greektown. She could have gotten some serious baklava from Greektown Bakery for half the price.

  But I don’t say this because Randi loathes the fact that I eat sweets from the rising of the sun to the setting of the same and look about as robust as a punk rocker, and she does the same and looks as maternally built, despite the leather, as the Italian-Catholic lady at the dry cleaner next door who had eleven children back when she was doing that sort of thing.

  I lower my voice. “Jessica called to say they’re getting a divorce again, but not really.”

  She leans in and whispers, practically mouths the words, “Publicity stunt?”

  “You got it.”

  “I don’t know why they don’t just go ahead and do it, Fia. I mean, really. They haven’t actually lived together in well over twenty-five years.”

  Seven years after I was born.

  The parents share one of those Idaho ranches Hollywood movie stars buy. Jessica resides in a large chalet-style house overlooking the river that borders their property. Brandon pretends he’s some kind of trapper and lives on the back five hundred where it’s rocky and rugged and elevated enough that he can sit on his front porch with binoculars and see who comes and goes from Jessica’s digs. At least according to Jessica he does.

  I find that hard to believe because nobody comes and goes from her digs. Also, Brandon hates boredom and, judging by his exploits, is not easily amused.

  “Why the publicity?” Randi asks, giving in and plucking herself a pastry too.

  “New film for Mom. Some movie where she’s an aging writer who is also a new mother-in-law, and the new daughter-in-law happens to be the daughter of the boy in high school she never got over.”

  “Oh, gag. Is Gary Kenny the . . .” The Danish hovers in the air.

  “Yup. And she’s the new aging face for Rev-Up Cosmetics.” I drop my forehead into the palm of my hand.

  “What about your dad?”

  “He said nothing about the divorce one way or the other in his message. But he’s working on some alien movie right now. And not the cheesy kind either.”

  She shakes the tongs at me, Danish still dangling between the jaws. “Well, it is Brandon Hume. One doesn’t normally associate him with cheese.”

  True.

  “The whole thing is on a sound stage in London. Poor, poor man.”

  “My heart bleeds,” Randi says with a smirk.

  One of the things I miss the most about acting is going to London all the time. I found as many excuses to be there as possible.

  She grabs another plate for herself. “He staying at the apartment there?”

  “Yup.”

  She shakes her head and tsks. “And here you are, interviewing people in my coffee shop to rent out a room.”

  “Yup.”

  “Divorce is a messy thing.”

  Extra meaning expands Randi’s words. Because my divorce was an exception to the rule as most divorces go, and it caused a media sensation when it happened. But anyone with any deductive reasoning skills wasn’t surprised when I divorced my parents at sixteen. I knew everything about everything, being a child star with too much admiration and too little real affection heaped on her like burning ice. And now only a handful of people know what happened to me once I left Hollywood.

  “I’m still not getting why this has anything to do with you renting out that room.”

  “She’s got a book coming out this summer, Randi. A memoir. A tell-all. About my youth, my divorce from them, everything from her perspective. She told me she pulled no punches and that the day of reckoning has come for all of us. ‘We deserve to tell the truth of our lives no matter who it affects,’ she told me.”

  “Meaning you.”

  “Yup.”

  “Still not sure where the rented room fits in, Fia.” She cocks her head toward me. “Now, I know I’m not the Hollywood type and all that, but—”

  “I’ve scheduled an interview with Deborah Raines.”

  “Really? Like, a real journalist type?” Randi grins. “Whoa.”

  Deborah Raines’s first big interview was with Liz Taylor after her divorce with Richard Burton was final, and she’s been conducting them ever since. She doesn’t let people get away with pat answers and cheerful evasions. That’s what I need. Someone serious.

  I can’t believe she said yes.

  “Jessica’s given me no choice. I won’t go the rest of my life with the world thinking it was my fault. She gets away with the things she does because nobody will stand up to her.”

  “I can see that. But what about the rent?”

  “I need the money to get myself fixed up. The hair, the makeup, a new outfit that the public has never seen before. Luxury transportation up there and a few nights at the St. Regis. It’s going to cost a small fortune.”

  She picks her puzzle book back up. “I’ll bet. But don’t the networks pay for the travel expenses?”

  “Not the kind I’m going to need to make the impression I want. And let’s be honest, Randi, we all know who is doing who the favor here.”

  I turn to sit back down.

  “Fia?” Randi calls.

  I turn around.

  “What if you don’t do the interview?”

  I shrug and shake my head. “Life as usual?”

  “And is that so bad?” she asks.

  Yes. Yes, it really is.

  Two

  Back at my little table, trying to forget Randi’s question, I listen to Brandon’s voice mail a second time. I’m gathering this movie is different, probably because he isn’t playing a German. Brandon is German-Jewish, which explains why his amazing, blond good looks coordinate
especially well with military uniforms. I don’t know if he’s even bothered to count how many Nazi roles he’s performed, but I’m sure it’s at least fifty. He won an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Reinhard Heydrich, the infamous architect of the Final Solution to “the Jewish problem.”

  The only reason I bring this up is because the costume is folded neatly and framed, complete with SS lightning bolts, and hanging over the mantel in his den.

  Who does that?

  He attempted to make me believe he did it to “never forget.” But really? I think it’s okay to forget the Holocaust when you’re sitting by the fire having a glass of brandy and listening to your favorite Beethoven sonata. In fact, I think you should. There are plenty of times throughout the rest of the day to remember the bad things of this world.

  The next interviewee shows up at my table just as I shut down my phone.

  Judging by the gentle looks and overall demeanor of this new interviewee, however, I’m reasonably sure he would not only refuse a Nazi role, but if, under pain of death, he was forced to play it, would immediately burn the uniform afterward.

  Wait.

  He’d probably disassemble it and fashion it into something for practical use. Like a pot holder, or a dog bed.

  First of all, after conversing with Randi, he bought a cup of coffee for himself and a latte that he now hands over to me. Second of all, he asks how I am doing, and I can tell he means it.

  “Trying to butter me up?” I ask.

  “Is it working?” He sits down.

  I take a sip and nod. “It’s not hurting. That’s for sure.”

  “I’m Josia, by the way. Y-E-U. Yeu. Last name.”

  “Fia Hume.”

  “Pleased to meet you. I was listening in on your interviews,” he says. I roll my eyes and he laughs. “Takes all kinds, but some kinds are easier to take than others.”

  Unlike an actress with too much Botox, Josia is one of those men with an age ranging anywhere from thirty to sixty. I’d pencil him in between fifty and sixty, but only because his eyes tell me I should. Gray, like mine, his remind me of the benign cloud cover of the overcast days I love so much. The force of the sun is comfortably hidden but your bike ride isn’t spent fearing a downpour any second. It’s not going to rain. You know it. It doesn’t even smell like rain.

  “So what keeps you occupied, Mr. Yeu?”

  “Josia, if it’s all the same to you.”

  I like his hands. They’re purposeful hands, hands that do things, I’m sure. He might actually be handy to have around the house.

  “Okay. So what do you do?” I ask again.

  “I’m a designer and a craftsman.”

  Nailed it.

  He continues, “Or, if you prefer, I own a forge where I make doors, fences, fireplace screens, gates, and the like. And sculptures when the time permits.”

  “A blacksmith?”

  “Partly, yes.”

  “Are you temperamental like a lot of artists?” Because I’m all too aware of what that kind of malarkey looks like.

  His smile is like a splinter of sunshine, waking up the gray of his eyes. “Not a bit. I enjoy the temperament of an auto factory worker who only ever wanted to be an auto factory worker, a man who enjoys his job all these years later and likes to grill out and go bass fishing on the weekend. And . . . he loves dogs and has three of them.”

  Laughter bursts out of me before I can remember I am a temperamental artist.

  Randi’s head jerks up from her crossword puzzle, and a look, at once mystified and pleased, passes over her face.

  “I’m an artist too, which is why I ask.” Well, kind of. That’s the plan, anyway.

  “Well, that’s just beautiful.” He leans forward and places his hands flat in front of him on the table, then turns them upward. “Tell me about your art.” By his tone, you’d think I just told him I successfully endeavored to save an entire village from starvation and he wants all the details.

  “I . . . don’t know, Josia. I spray-paint things I find. And sometimes I put together things I find.”

  “Always with things you find?”

  “Yes. Or can get real cheap at that thrift store down on Howard. Know the one?”

  “Oh yes!” He sits back in his chair and curls his hand around his cup. “The one that sells building supplies, furniture, and what have you?”

  “That’s the place. Have you been there?”

  He shakes his head.

  I almost say, “Well, we’ll have to go over there someday.” But . . . bite my tongue!

  Maybe I should tell him to forget about the room. He’s too nice and I might actually find him sitting in my kitchen. I don’t want him in my kitchen. What would be next? The parlor? The dining room? Meals for two? Would you mind picking up the toilet paper for me on your way home from work?

  That painted line down the hallway seems better and better.

  Then again, due to the same niceness, sticking to the rules might be something that comes naturally to him. I need to know a little more.

  “So, do you own your own forge? Because that would explain you being here at this time of the day.”

  “Yes.”

  Randi shakes her head with a grin and gives me one of those “Go on now!” waves.

  “But,” he continues, “I like to think of it as sharing it.”

  I’ll bet he only eats foods that aren’t genetically modified too. “You have other artists there?” I ask.

  He nods, the same splinter of sunlight illuminating coarse white hair that was all once as red as the hair by the nape of his neck, hair that probably hasn’t been barbered for a good six months or so. “Several. And apprentices too. But they come and they go for the most part. A lot go when they realize how much concentration and belief it all takes.”

  “Belief? That’s an odd word choice.”

  “Not at all. They have to believe they can do it, that what I’m showing them is the way in which to forge iron.”

  “Why would they doubt?”

  He shrugs. “Mostly because it’s convenient, I think. I’m not doing anything new, that’s for certain. They get there thinking they’ll stand around and drink water and watch. But I throw them right in. It’s the best way to learn.”

  Two more old men from the old guard table enter the shop with hair that looks like somebody trimmed it with pinking shears.

  He shrugs. “I don’t ask them to do anything I’m not willing to do myself. So it’s not like I have them there for just the grunt work. We all do it all. That’s the way it works at my forge.”

  “Well, as long as you don’t try to do it all at my house, we should be all right.”

  He sits back in his chair. “Would you mind explaining what you mean?”

  “The room rental?”

  He briefly closes his eyes. “Ah, yes. All right. I should probably hear the house rules before we make any decisions.”

  And just like that, the interview turns around.

  The fact of the matter is, a world of Weisenheims and Reinbachers waits to share my house, but I don’t want them; I want a friendly man like Josia Yeu. It doesn’t matter that I’ll rarely see him; the thought of Josia being around my house feels like the best-case scenario, and I can’t tell you why. He just feels like the walking embodiment of “this is the way life’s supposed to be!” The man who might have coined the phrase “No man gets to the end of his life and wishes he had spent more time at the office.” Only he came to that conclusion with plenty of time left.

  I expound the rules, even digging the floor plan out of my tote bag and smoothing it on the surface of the table between us.

  He nods as I talk, remaining calm as I explain.

  “Why do you need this room anyway?” I ask, folding up the plan and tucking it back in my bag. “You don’t seem like a room-renting type of person. Did you lose your home? Your forge is still in business, right?”

  I see Randi grin.

  “It sure is. I lived in a sm
all house, a glorified shed really, on the property. Built it all myself, but goodness, it was beautiful. Do you like an Asian aesthetic?”

  “Definitely. Clean. Pleasant proportions.”

  “Then you’d have liked my home. Unfortunately, so did the flames.”

  “Oh no!”

  “I had only been living in it for a few years, but I felt very isolated. It was quite depressing before it burned down. In that regard, I suppose I can say it was for the best.”

  “What about your students?”

  “They mostly have lives outside the forge. Except for Ted. He lives on the premises in a spare room in the main building. And I just haven’t the heart to tell him to go somewhere else so I can use the room. He’s a fine person, young still, with a really good heart. If you ever meet him, you’ll see what I mean.” He pauses. “Not that you’ll ever meet him. But if you did.”

  “I see.”

  We both pause to sip. He smiles into my eyes, knowing I’m feeling the awkwardness of someone displaying an openness to which the other person is closed. Even in this, he assures me I can feel the way I’d like. No big deal.

  He drains his cup, then sets it at the far right corner of his side of the table. “So all I want is just a room. I’m at the forge from before sunup to ten most nights. It’s really just a place to lay my head. I think our needs will coincide perfectly.”

  “You want to see it first? I mean, most people would want to see it first.”

  He shakes his head and scratches his chin. “Doesn’t matter. I can live anywhere there’s an open door for me to enter, or at least a key is provided. You’ll barely see me.”

  I feel a little disappointed. No nice conversations, no passing on the sidewalk?

  Oh, he sits there so relaxed. One leg crossed over the other. Sipping his coffee again and looking out the window. He leans forward as he looks at the metalheads. Then he looks at me. “You’ve got to love young people these days.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “They advertise who they are. It’s not like everyone dresses the same anymore. I’m glad the world’s like that. Makes it easier to meet people where they are, don’t you think?”

  Meeting people where they are? Who wants to do that? “I guess so.”