by Allan, S. H.
Bobby had laughed. Fine words for someone who spent his career pretending to be Italian, he almost said, but didn’t. It hadn’t been Soren’s choice to perform as Silvestro Sardini, and that decision, among other things, was what had eventually doomed his career.
Sure enough, as Bobby rounded the corner, he saw Soren in the swimming pool, his body hidden just beneath the shimmering surface. He emerged with a splash, his dark hair gleaming in the sun. He pushed it back, out of his face, and swam over to the ladder. “Oh, Freya,” he said in a loud, theatrical voice. His accent was very strong, even after all this time. That was another large part of what had finished him in show business, before he was even thirty-five years old. “I am thinking someone is watching me.” Freya thumped her tail lethargically from her position beneath a palm tree, her huge head resting on her paws. “I am hoping this person has no ill intentions.” Still not looking at Bobby, he pulled himself out of the pool, the water streaming down his body. His formfitting black bathing suit clung to his body, from the straps on his shoulders all the way down to the hem, halfway down his muscular thighs.
Soren was thirty-seven years old now, and in Bobby’s opinion, he was as earthshakingly handsome as when he’d filmed his first picture at twenty-one. That film was called The Italian Gentleman, and Bobby had seen it, dragged to the cinema in Orange Tree as a reluctant chaperone to his older sister Gertie and her boyfriend. Soren had walked onto the screen, and at that instant, that precise moment in time, Bobby knew he wasn’t like other boys and never would be. He also knew he wanted to be an actor. He never thought he would meet “Silvestro Sardini” in person, let alone fall in love with the man behind the stage name. Let alone have that man fall in love with him.
Soren bent and took a towel from the deck chair. He ran it over his body, then threw it backward, in Bobby’s direction. Bobby emerged from between the trees and said, “You shouldn’t go swimming on your own. What if you got a cramp?”
“Then Freya would be heroically jumping in to rescue me. Isn’t that right, Freya?” Freya yawned. Soren turned, beaming at Bobby so brightly, Bobby wanted nothing more than to kiss him, right then and there.
But it was dangerous. They were in their own backyard, sheltered by trees and hills, but they still weren’t entirely safe. Some yellow journalist had hired a plane to fly over Pickfair, Bobby had heard, and snap pictures of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford unawares. It was disgusting, a flagrant breach of privacy. Bobby wasn’t Douglas Fairbanks or Mary Pickford, but he still couldn’t risk it.
Instead, Bobby went over and slid open the glass door. Soren followed him into the conservatory, and there, amid the plants, Bobby embraced his wet lover.
Soren hugged back, then planted a kiss on Bobby’s cheek. “How was the interview?”
“Eggs in coffee.”
“Good.” Soren smiled. “You are hungry? Lupe is leaving us beans and rice for dinner. I am telling her, ‘Lupe, this food is very good, but is always giving me the….’” He made a noise that could only denote flatulence in any language. “So Lupe is saying, ‘Then maybe Mr. Carling is staying away from your backside tonight, ya?’”
“Soren!” Bobby blushed, his face heating all the way up to his ears.
Soren laughed uproariously, as if this were the best joke he’d heard in years. He looked at Bobby and stopped, although the grin remained on his face. “It is only a joke, Bobby. Lupe is my friend.” Bobby understood that, but she was also their maid. And if anything ever went wrong, if they ever needed to part ways for any reason, then she knew a great deal more about them than was safe. “She is telling me she is wishing her husband was as romantic as you. Or her son. Marco is having the troubles with his wife again.” Soren shook his head sadly. “But do not be worrying, Bobby.”
Bobby did worry. Not about Lupe’s son’s marriage, obviously, but about them, about him and Soren. He always worried, because they had so much to lose. Soren had already lost it, for other reasons, but he didn’t seem at all concerned about what could happen. “I am getting dressed,” he said, carefree as always. “Then I am having dinner. With you, I am hoping?”
Bobby nodded. Soren disappeared through the conservatory door into the house. Bobby followed, going over to the sideboard in the living room and pouring himself a large, stiff predinner drink.
A piano sat in the corner of the room. It was Soren’s, but photographs of Bobby’s family were arranged in silver frames on the top. Behind that, on the wall, hung framed posters of Soren’s films, The Countess and Road to Rome and The Italian Gentleman, where it had all begun.
Soren’s story was far from unique. Bobby knew that, but it still broke his heart every time he thought of it. Soren was a handsome man and a great actor, able to convey worlds of emotion with one look or one gesture. He did more with his face than most actors Bobby knew could do with their whole bodies, including their voices, but people wanted to hear actors speak, and that was what killed Soren’s career. He couldn’t speak, not in the way the studios wanted. “I am not sounding American” was how Soren explained it. “Or even Italian, and I am not looking Swedish. So, it is good-bye, Soren.” He didn’t seem particularly upset about it. When Bobby asked him why he wasn’t furious, why he hadn’t broken down completely over this injustice, he just smiled. “I am having you, ya? So maybe, that is all I need. Maybe I can be your….” He hesitated, like he always did when approaching a new word. “Your mistress. That is what Lupe is teaching me.”
“Lupe needs some English lessons herself,” Bobby replied, but he was touched all the same. He could be everything for Soren, if that was what Soren wanted. It just wasn’t fair he had no other choice.
When Soren came back downstairs, he was dressed in a crisp white shirt and neatly pressed trousers. Despite her sense of humor, Lupe was an excellent housekeeper, there was no denying it. She was a good cook as well. Soren reheated her beans and rice on the stove, and Bobby said, “Maybe we could drive up the coast this weekend.” Bobby was well-known, but he wasn’t Clark Gable. There were still fishing villages where no one recognized him, places they could rent a room in a run-down hotel and mess up both beds before they left, so everyone could pretend they’d both been slept in.
“Or maybe,” Soren replied, stirring the pot, “we are going to Orange Tree and seeing your family.”
“We can’t do that.”
“You are always saying this, but I am never understanding why.”
Irritation flashed through Bobby. “What do you expect me to do? I can’t introduce you as my….” He didn’t even know what word to use. “Mistress,” he finished with a smile. He hoped that would defuse things a little. Soren smiled back, but the fuse was still there.
“You are introducing me as your friend, of course. That is what we are always saying.”
“They would see through me.” He couldn’t fool his mother. He never could. One day, when he was fifteen years old, she’d come into the bedroom he’d shared with his two brothers. Bobby had been on the bed, reading a book. Dickens, probably, or Nathaniel Hawthorne. He’d been that kind of boy. For the longest time, his mother stood at the door; then she’d come forward and hugged him tightly.
“I will always love you,” she said, alarmingly. “No matter what.” Then she was gone. Bobby had bought her a new house when he became famous. The second biggest in Orange Tree, after the mayor’s. He’d bought houses for all his brothers and sisters too, and cars, and toys for their children, but he couldn’t go visit them. Not with Soren, and he didn’t want to be parted from Soren, not even for a day.
“You are embarrassed.” Soren reached for the plates. He ladled out the beans and rice, adding a golden-brown tortilla to each plate. Lupe must have baked them as well. They certainly hadn’t been there in the morning. “Because I am an old man.” The smile on his lips told Bobby he was teasing, but he replied anyway.
“You’re not an old man.”
“I am.” He brought the dishes over to the table. There was
a formal dining room, with a long table and a candelabra, but they rarely used it. Most of the time, they ate here, in the kitchen. Bobby sat in his usual place, in a brown wooden chair facing the window. He looked out over the green hills dotted with palm trees. They were far enough from their neighbors that there wasn’t a single other house in sight. “Thirty-seven years old.” Soren sighed dramatically. “Old enough to be your father.”
“Not unless you were extremely precocious.”
“I am a cradle taker.”
“Cradle robber.”
“See?” Soren grinned triumphantly. “You agree.”
“You’re ridiculous.” Bobby picked up his fork.
“And you love me.”
“Yes.” Always. Soren went back and picked up a bottle of wine. He filled two glasses and brought them over to the table. He sat down across from Bobby, raising his glass.
“Jag älskar dig också,” he said, as if he were proposing a toast. Bobby knew better than that. After nearly two years, it was one of the few Swedish phrases he’d picked up. I love you too. Bobby took a sip of wine and reached for his fork.
After dinner, they went into the living room. Freya came in from outside, wedging herself beneath the piano as Soren sat playing. It was a new tune, something jazzy, and Bobby found himself tapping along with his foot as he sat on the sofa, looking over a new script.
“That’s really good.” Bobby said. “What is it?”
“‘You Do Something to Me’. I am getting it yesterday.”
“And you already know it?”
Soren shrugged. “It is not a difficult piece.” For Bobby, it would have been. For Bobby, it would have been impossible. All of Soren’s sheet music was incomprehensible to him, nothing but dots and lines covering a page in seemingly random patterns. Soren was a wonderful pianist, though. It was what he had trained for, he said, until “I am getting the sore feet”—“Itchy feet,” Bobby corrected—“itchy feet and am coming to America.”
Bobby closed his eyes, letting Soren’s music wash over him. The new script was nothing special. It was another cowboy picture, this one about a Texas ranch hand in love with the ranch owner’s daughter. The standout scene was going to be a twenty-minute cattle stampede. Bobby, of course, wouldn’t be filming that. He wouldn’t even be on set. It would all be done by stuntmen. The picture would make a fortune, Joseph Goldstein promised, and Bobby would be more popular than ever.
Bobby wasn’t a fool. He knew what he was and what he wasn’t, but still, it would have been nice to do something different for a change. A serious drama, or even a screwball comedy.
Soren stopped the jazzy tune and went into something more classical. A minute or two in, Bobby recognized the song and smiled. Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8, the only song—apart from “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “It Had To Be You”—he ever recognized. Soren had been playing it when they met.
It was at a studio party at some big producer’s house. Bobby couldn’t even remember who’d hosted it. He’d just been signed on by the studio. He was excited and nervous and desperate to make a good impression. The younger actors and actresses, the ones of his age, were all outside, flirting and drinking and threatening to throw one another in the swimming pool. Bobby stood around gamely for a while, but he got bored. He ventured into the house. He heard music coming from another room, and following the sound, he found a man playing the piano in the living room with a knot of middle-aged ladies gathered around him.
The man was very good, Bobby could tell right away, and he was handsome. His hair was black, slicked back with pomade, and he wore a beautiful black suit. As Bobby moved closer, he caught a glimpse of Soren’s face and realized at once who he was.
Bobby felt both sick and elated. This man was why he was here, he was why he’d come to Hollywood rather than staying in Orange Tree, working at the filling station with his brothers and married to the girl next door. Silvestro Sardini was, in fact, the very reason Bobby first realized why he was so vehemently against the idea of the girl next door. Bobby wanted desperately to meet him, but at the same time, he longed to run away.
As a compromise, he stood there, frozen in place, until the music stopped. Silvestro Sardini threw up his hands theatrically and laughed. “That was wonderful, Mr. Sardini,” one of the women said. She was around Bobby’s mother’s age, buxom and broad with a diamond pince-nez. Mr. Sardini smiled at her and said, “You are being very kind, Mrs. Hoffstetter, but I am telling you, it is nothing.”
“You are too modest.” Beneath a veneer of icy politeness, Mrs. Hoffstetter sounded personally insulted. Mr. Sardini began to play again, a more modern tune Bobby recognized as a Charleston. Mr. Hoffstetter, a tubby bald man Bobby had often seen around the studio, came in. He said something to his wife and took her elbow. They moved off, out into the garden, and Mrs. Hoffstetter’s coterie of ladies-in-waiting followed. By the time Mr. Sardini finished the song, Bobby was the only one still there, clutching his drink in his hand, his heart hammering.
Again, Mr. Sardini finished with a flourish. For a long moment, he sat without turning around. Bobby was in agony. He didn’t know whether he should slip away or speak up. It was Mr. Sardini, finally, who made the decision for him. “I am feeling,” he said in that unusual accent, “that somebody is watching me.”
“I’m sorry,” Bobby blurted out.
Mr. Sardini glanced over his shoulder. “You are not needing to apologize. Please, come and sit with me.” He indicated the piano bench. Bobby wanted nothing more; at the same time, there was nothing he desired less. After an awkward pause, he went. He sat backward, his legs facing the other direction from Mr. Sardini’s.
“I really like your pictures, Mr. Sardini.” It sounded stupid, the gushing of a mindless fan, but he had to say something.
Mr. Sardini beamed, as if he found it a true compliment. “Thank you. Then you are knowing that Mr. Sardini has not made a picture for quite some time.” Three years. A lifetime in Hollywood. “And now, I am calling myself by my real name again.” Nearly everyone took stage names. Bobby wasn’t surprised to learn Sardini was one, although he was surprised when the man continued, “Soren Sjovold.” Bobby blinked. He had never heard those sounds from anyone’s mouth. “It is Swedish.”
“You don’t look…,” Bobby began, then stopped himself.
“It is true.” Mr. Sjovold sighed dramatically. “I am not having the beauty of a Garbo, but not everyone in Sweden is so fortunate.”
That wasn’t what Bobby had meant, not at all. He felt himself floundering. “Whereabouts in Sweden are you from?” he asked, reaching desperately for some inoffensive question. Mr. Sjovold blinked, and Bobby wondered if maybe it wasn’t that inoffensive after all.
“No one is ever asking me this before. You are knowing Sweden?”
“No.” Bobby barely had any concept of where it was.
Mr. Sjovold smiled. It was different than before, bigger, and seemingly more genuine. Bobby felt a bloom of warmth begin in his chest and spread outward, filling his body. “I am from Göteborg. In the west. It is a very beautiful city. I am missing it sometimes. But I am not missing the weather.” He nudged Bobby slightly, his shoulder bumping Bobby’s. Bobby took a sip from his wineglass, forgotten in his hand. He needed fortification. “Where are you coming from?”
“Orange Tree.”
“It is sounding very beautiful.”
“Not really.” It was a small town, like a thousand other small towns in California.
“You are an actor?”
Bobby nodded. “I’ve made two pictures. They aren’t out yet.”
“I am looking very forward to seeing them.” Mr. Sjovold’s smile grew. Bobby hadn’t thought it possible. “But I am needing to know your name, so I am not missing them.”
He hadn’t even introduced himself. Bobby wanted to crawl under a rock, or under the thick Persian carpet on the floor. “Sorry. I’m Bobby Carling.”
“I am being pleased to meet you, Mr. Carling
.”
“Bobby, please.”
“And you are calling me Soren. You are liking my music?”
I am liking you, Bobby thought. “Yes. You play very beautifully.”
“Then I am playing something very beautiful for a very beautiful young man.” Soren’s expression didn’t change, but Bobby could see the question in his eyes. It was flawlessly done, without a trace of the awkwardness and embarrassment and potential for disaster that usually accompanied that always dangerous, unspoken question.
“That sounds wonderful,” Bobby said, feeling like the luckiest man in the world.
Two years later, he still felt that way. He tossed the boring ranch hand script aside and stretched his arms over his head. It was dark outside; he looked at the window, but all he could see was the room, reflected back at him. Freya stood up and padded off toward the kitchen. Still playing, Soren said, “You are having the melancholy, my love.”
“No, I’m fine.”
Soren stopped and turned around. “There are many things you can be hiding from me, darling Bobby, but not the melancholy. You are forgetting I am Swedish.”
“All right.” Bobby sighed. “I’m just a bit….” He didn’t even know the word for it. Bored? That sounded stupidly ungrateful. He had everything he’d ever wanted, much more than he deserved. There were thousands, millions, of people who’d give their eyeteeth to be in his place.
Soren came over to the sofa. Bobby lifted his feet, and Soren sat down and pulled Bobby’s feet into his lap. “You are a bit….”
“I don’t know.” Bobby rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I’m just tired, I guess, of playing the same thing over and over again.” Including those two pictures he’d done before he met Soren and the one he was filming now, Bobby had starred in nine pictures. In every one, he was a cowboy or a soldier or, on one occasion, a pet shop salesman in love with some beautiful woman far above his station. The first time he picked up his scripts, he could predict the outcome from the very first page. He was always right. “I’d like to do something different.” But he’d never be given the opportunity. He had his role to play, offscreen as well as on, and the studio would never allow him to step out of line.