The Biograph Girl

by William J. Mann

  She looks up into his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m working on a script for a dramatic film,” he tells her, the passion in his eyes evident.

  “A dramatic film?”

  “Yes. Of course, when I’m done, I’ll let you read it.”

  She blinks a few times. “Ben, I didn’t think that was your area of expertise. I thought that Richard was the writer, that it was Richard who’s written screenplays.”

  He tenses. “Do you think I can’t because my brother can?”

  She squeezes his hands and lifts them to her mouth. Without even thinking she kisses his cold fingertips. “Of course not, Ben. Of course you can do it.” She pauses. “I’m just … curious … how you’ll portray Flo.”

  “I’ll show you a draft when I’m finished,” he says. “Okay?”

  She nods.

  He kisses her cheek quickly. “Good night, Jean,” he says.

  “Good night, Ben.”

  He winks once, then goes through the door to his own room.

  Jean sits back down on the couch.

  Just be careful of how much you share with my brother.

  “Oh, Ben,” she says in a small voice as the sea crashes below her in the still night.

  “Hey, didja hear Florence Lawrence is making an appearance over at McDonald’s?” the radio shock jock asks his cohort.

  “No, I didn’t,” she responds.

  “Yep. They’re launching a new special sauce for the Big Mac. Tartar sauce with ant paste!”

  “Damn fool,” Richard says, switching off the radio.

  “She’s become the butt of all his jokes lately,” Rex gripes. “Everybody seems to be doing her. Letterman, Leno, Conan O’Brien. You fell asleep last night, but I stayed up to watch Saturday Night Live. They did a whole skit, with Cheri Oteri playing Flo, forcing ant poison on all the residents of a nursing home so she could escape.”

  “Oh, that’s funny,” Richard says sarcastically.

  “Actually, it was, kind of,” Rex admits, shamefacedly.

  Richard sighs. “She’s all over the Internet. There’s a ton of Web sites devoted to her. Xerxes even set up her own home page.”

  “Well, no doubt about it now,” Rex says. “Flo’s back. Having a Web page is a sure sign of ’90s fame.”

  “This is even more,” Richard says, handing over a newspaper to Rex. It’s a supermarket tabloid, The Weekly World Report.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Rex says, scrunching up his face.

  The headline:

  FLO LAWRENCE REALLY DID DIE IN 1938; CURRENT INCARNATION IS CLONE, SCIENTISTS REPORT

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Bridgewood,” says Detective Lee, nodding his head, “or should I say, Miss Lawrence?”

  Flo just smiles.

  Go ahead, Flo, Jean thinks. Say it. Say what you always say.

  “You can call me anything you want, except late for dinner.”

  But she doesn’t, of course. She just sits there, worn-out. Detective Lee takes the seat opposite her. Jean watches him carefully. This time, her instincts aren’t helping. She can’t read anything about this man. He seemed friendly enough when he called yesterday morning, requesting a meeting. At first Jean hesitated. She hadn’t been able to get Flo to talk about Molly yet. Flo had been stubborn, sticking to her line that there was nothing to tell, that the hospital just made a mistake. When Jean persisted, Flo grew agitated and flustered; Jean backed down reluctantly.

  So she told the detective that they were leaving for San Francisco in a matter of days, that they really didn’t have time to talk with him right now. He countered by saying he’d come to San Francisco and interview her there. Jean didn’t want to give the impression they were trying to avoid him—even if they were—so she consented to a visit today, for just a half hour. “Flo gets awfully tired,” she told Lee. “I’m sure you can appreciate that. She’s one hundred and seven, after all.”

  Immediately after she hung up with Lee, Jean called the diocesan office back in Buffalo. “Get Carla out here right away,” she insisted. The lawyer flew out on the red-eye last night and now sat primly at Flo’s side, her knees sharply held together, her hands folded in her lap, watching Detective Lee as closely as Jean was watching him.

  He seems to sense the eyes on him. “Don’t worry,” he assures them, first Carla and then Jean. “I’m not gonna bite her.”

  “She’d bite ya right back,” Jean tells him.

  At least, the old Flo would have.

  “May I videotape the interview?” Ben asks.

  “I don’t mind,” Lee says.

  “Absolutely not,” Carla says, quickly and efficiently. She glances over at Ben. He just swallows, shrugs, and sulks a little over by his tripod.

  “I just want to ask a few questions, Miss Lawrence,” Lee begins. “Just a routine matter.”

  Flo nods. She spreads her floral-print caftan over her knees and laces her fingers together when she’s finished. Her big blue eyes look straight at Lee.

  He gets right to the point. “Any idea how this girl they dug up was misidentified as you back in ’38?”

  “I don’t know how the hospital did things,” she says.

  “How’d you hear about it?”

  “Hear about what?”

  “That she’d been identified as you and that you were declared dead.”

  “Flo,” Carla says, “remember what I told you. You don’t have to answer any question you don’t want to.”

  She smiles. It’s a weak smile. Tired. “It’s all right, dear. Let’s see. I believe I read about it in the newspaper. A few days later. I was in a diner. Yes, a diner on the coast highway. I was traveling, you see.”

  “Traveling to where?”

  “San Francisco,” she tells him, and she breaks out into a broad grin.

  “Why were you going to San Francisco?” Detective Lee asks.

  “To start a new life. Have you ever wanted to do that, Detective?”

  There it is, Jean thinks giddily. A flash of the Flo I love, challenging her inquisitors, turning the tables.

  Lee smirks. “I’m asking the questions here, ma’am.” He pauses. “But yes, actually.”

  “Well, that’s what I was doing. And then I picked up the newspaper to see I’d been declared dead. Well, you can see how that just pushed me along.”

  He nods his head. “So you had no prior knowledge that this was going to happen? None at all?”

  “No prior knowledge,” she says.

  She’s telling the truth, Jean thinks. She’d know if Flo were lying about something. Everything she’s told him has been truthful. Truthful without revealing the full truth. Jean marvels at how canny Flo can be.

  “Do you know the name Margaret Butz?” Lee asks suddenly.

  Jean sees Flo’s face change. No one else could have noticed it. Only Jean. It was as if Flo were an electric sign and someone had just unplugged its cord. The power just went off behind her eyes. She continues to look directly at the detective but there’s no life in them. They’re dead.

  “Miss Bridgewood,” Detective Lee says. “Margaret Butz? Any recognition?”

  “I didn’t know Margaret Butz,” Flo says finally, her voice tight.

  Of course not, Jean thinks.

  She knew Molly.

  “You sure? I’ve checked the city directories. They say she lived with you on Westbourne Drive.”

  “It was a very, very long time ago,” she says, her voice softer now. Her head drops forward just a little.

  “I think Flo’s getting tired,” Jean says. “Will there be anything else, Detective?”

  He looks long and hard at Flo. “No. Not for now.” He stands. “It’s been a great honor, Miss Bridgewood. I thank you most kindly.”

  She manages a small smile as he shakes her hand.

  Ben sees him out.

  Carla looks up at Jean. “Who’s Margaret Butz?”

  “Do you want to tell us, Flo?” Jean asks.

  She seems
so weary. Her sparkle fades in and out so quickly these days.

  “Why do they always ask about her?” Flo asks, in a low, tremulous voice. “Why do they always want to know about my life before, not after?”

  She lifts her old eyes to meet Jean’s. Jean can see such sorrow there, such longing. Such truth, too. “What do you mean, after?” Jean asks. “After what?”

  “After I left. After I became me again.”

  “Tell us about that then, Flo,” Jean says kindly. “I want to hear about what came after.”

  But Flo just closes her eyes. She doesn’t open them or speak again for the rest of the day.

  Richard sits on the deck, staring up at the moon. He can feel the boom-boom-boom vibration from the clubs down on Santa Monica Boulevard. The whole night seems to pulsate with energy: the reddish glow over the palm trees in the indigo sky, the slightly electric edge to the chirping of the crickets. Richard keeps his eyes on the moon, a burning white hole in the dark celestial ceiling.

  He feels guilty about his decision. The disappointment had been clear on Rex’s face.

  “Nooker,” Richard had cajoled, “I’ve seen your show in New York.”

  “But I’ve added stuff,” Rex replied. “It’s not the same. You’re always there for opening night. You’re my good-luck charm.”

  “Sweetheart, things are breaking wide open with the Flo story. I’ve got to be there if I’m going to write a book.” His eyes had pleaded with Rex for understanding, but Rex had only looked away.

  Why did he have to be so goddamn sanctimonious? Richard could see it in Rex’s eyes: the disapproval he felt for how involved Richard was getting. He thinks it’s just the competition with Ben, Richard tells himself. He just can’t understand what a reporter’s duty is. How the story gets in your blood, in your dreams—how you’ve just got to ride it like a wild pony until it’s tamed. He just can’t understand that because ultimately he doesn’t understand me.

  Even as the angry thoughts rush past his brain, Richard’s begrudgingly aware of another voice telling him he’s being absurd: Of course Rex understands you. He understands you better than anyone else. That’s why you love him. And why, at this moment, he’s pissing you off more than you can express.

  Maybe he just needs to get away for a bit, Richard thinks. Maybe all this time together, twenty-four by seven since coming to L.A., has left him a bit weary from Rex’s unspoken accusations.

  And what might Rex’s accusations be if he spoke them? Richard feared not just obsessiveness about Flo and Ben’s involvement—but maybe something else, too.

  Now that is really absurd, Richard tells himself. This stupid flirtation he was having with Scott—it’s nothing. Nothing at all. Most of it’s just been in his mind anyway, just a stupid diversion from everything else.

  Okay, sure, maybe I’m still getting used to the fact that the new drugs might not be the miracle cure, free of complications, that we’d originally hoped for. That didn’t mean—

  An image of Scott at the gym, lying on his back, grunting and sweating as he presses two hundred pounds, passes through Richard’s mind.

  —that I have any desire for some silly blond ex-boyfriend ….

  “Jesus,” he groans, running his hand over his face.

  All right. So maybe he did have some desire. Maybe he did think about what life might be without pills and medications, without the ever present fear of relapse and the looming promise of death. I need to get away, he tells himself, for the hundredth time that night. I need to be away for a while.

  Hey, I’m doing this for him as much as for me, Richard thinks. How does he think I can continue to afford our standard of living? If he wants goddamn skylights put in that town house, then he’d just better hope I write a good enough book that’s going to bring in an advance worth something.

  And the story was breaking wide open. Lee had announced this morning—first on an interview on the Today show and later in an Associated Press story—that he had a lead on the identity of the body exhumed from Florence Lawrence’s grave. He had done the research, found her name in the directories, just as Richard had.

  “Her name might be Margaret Butz,” he told Matt Lauer. “She was reported missing in February 1939 by a guy she lived with. He said she came from Iowa. That’s all the information we have.” He was hoping that Margaret’s family might come forward.

  Oh, someone will come forward, Richard thinks. There are a lot of gold diggers and wackos out there.

  And Flo will be in San Francisco as of tomorrow. Richard had to be there for her reaction. Sister Jean had promised he could talk to her again.

  Rex would just have to understand.

  Below him, a gaggle of West Hollywood clones has arrived to sit around the pool. Their arms are draped across each other’s shoulders. Some are shirtless, some wear white tank tops, all have amazing bodies, tight cutoff shorts, and boots. They’re swaying drunkenly, singing some Cole Porter tune. Richard can practically smell the testosterone in the air.

  But there’s something else he smells, too. He sniffs, looks around him. Behind him, the room is dark, a tiny red orb glowing faintly over the kitchenette counter as a night-light. Rex had gone to bed about a couple of hours before. Richard wonders if he left the coffeepot on.

  But it’s not coffee he smells. It’s something more acidic, heavier. He stands, walks back into the room. He looks around among the dark blue shadows, but sees nothing. The moonlight cuts a slice through the darkness, glinting off the metallic stools at the kitchen island and the clock on the wall. It’s five after midnight.

  Richard checks the burners on the stove and the coffeepot. All off. He sniffs. He smells it again.

  Sweat.

  Like a locker room.

  Then he senses the movement on the couch.

  “Nooker?” he whispers.

  From the shadows, he hears Rex clear his throat. Richard hurries over to the couch. Rex is lying there naked, his arm over his head. He’s drenched.

  “Rex,” he says. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I just got really hot in bed. I came out here.”

  “You’re all wet,” Richard says, touching his clammy torso.

  He feels the old familiar cold terror raise the flesh on his arms. “This can’t be night sweats,” he breathes. “Not again. Not anymore.”

  The panic speeds through his body. He can almost visualize it, like a diagram of his veins and arteries suddenly going from red to blue, terror replacing blood.

  Rex sits up. “Calm down. It happens, Richard. Sometimes it still happens.”

  “Jesus Christ, let me get you a cold cloth,” he says.

  He jumps up, finds a dishtowel, wets it under the tap. He brings it back to the couch and begins applying it to Rex’s face and wrists.

  It’s just like before, he thinks. Those nights. Those terrible nights when I thought Rex was going to leave me. It can’t be happening again. It can’t. But the lump on his back…

  “This is impossible,” he says out loud. “You don’t have any more virus in your system! It’s gone!”

  “It’s not gone, Richard,” Rex says, a little exasperated. “Why do you keep insisting it’s gone even when you know it’s not?”

  “Okay, so I mean it’s undetectable,” Richard corrects himself.

  Rex sighs. “Not even that anymore, sweetheart. I got my latest viral-load test results in the mail. It’s about 300.”

  Richard stops patting Rex’s wrists with the cloth. “How can that be? How can you be loaded again?”

  “I’m not loaded. It’s just that the old tests couldn’t detect levels below 400. Now they can. You’ve got to have less than forty copies of the virus to be undetectable now.”

  “Jesus,” Richard says. He feels his whole body stiffen. He has to force the words out with his tongue. “So what the fuck does that mean?”

  Rex smiles. He reaches up and places a hot hand on Richard’s cheek. Richard grabs it, holds it there. “Sweet
heart, nothing’s changed,” he tells him. “Stop worrying. Just because they can detect the virus doesn’t mean the drugs are failing. Treatment failure is indicated by a viral load that continues to rise. There’s no need to think it’s going to rise beyond this. It’s probably been 300 all along.”

  “But these sweats …”

  Rex shrugs. “Maybe just nerves. People do get sweats, you know. Especially actors the night before a show.” He rests his head against Richard’s chest. “But you can be sure I’m going to tell the doctor about it.”

  “Oh, baby,” Richard says, stroking his hair. “What’s it all mean?”

  “It means the same thing this fucking virus has been teaching us all along,” Rex tells him. “That life is a goddamn crap shoot. I know guys who take their meds religiously and still get sick. Others who screw up all the time are healthy as hogs.”

  He’s cooling down, Richard tells himself. His skin is cooler now than it was just a few minutes ago. I’m sure of it.

  “Nooker, I’ll stay for opening night,” he tells him.

  Rex looks up at him and laughs. “Oh, knock it off, Richard,” he says.

  “No, I mean it. I don’t know where my head was at. I can go to San Francisco the next day. Things will hold till then.”

  Rex pulls away from him, leans into the back of the couch. A spill of moonlight highlights his face and body. Still so beautiful, Richard thinks. Still so perfect, even with the softness to his waist and lump hidden on his back.

  “Richard,” Rex says, “I don’t want you to stay unless you’ve really thought about it. I don’t want you staying just because you freaked out finding me here on the couch. I’m not going to die, Richard. Don’t stay because you feel sorry for me.”

  “No, that’s not it, really.”

  “Oh, no? Then why, Richard? Is it because you’ve realized your pursuit of this story has become an obsession? Because you’ve realized you’ve lost all sense of perspective around it? That you’ve become a one-man Florence Lawrence brigade?”

  Okay. Here it comes. Richard girds for it.

  “Look. You need to hear this. That old lady trusted you, Richard. She told you a secret she’d kept for sixty years. Okay, you’re not to blame for all the media excess that’s happened. Maybe you’re right to pin that on Ben. But the fact is, Richard, you’re not doing anything to stop it. You’re actually part of it. You’re following them around like a dog after a circus, hoping the clowns will toss you a bone.”