Love in the Loire

by David Leddick

The women . . . my mother, Nina, Edwina . . . were all very attractive women but none of them a type to be supported by or pampered by men. They were beautiful in their own very individual ways, but to a large part because of the thought and care they had given to their clothing, their appearance, their . . . what can you call it . . . their manner? Their inner beings had created their outer being, and they had chosen beautiful men for their lovers.

  The men . . . Graham, Glenn Elliott, Steve . . . were truly beautiful. Beautiful as nature rolled them out. Of course they take care of their bodies and their skin, but they make no attempt to dress in a fashionable way or to be especially witty or entertaining, although they frequently are. They are simply there. And these are the kind of men these women have selected, because surely it is the women who have selected the men. The men have waited for someone to come for them.

  And is my relationship with men more similar to the women in these situations? I think so. People admire my appearance, but I can never be vain about it because it is very much an expression of me, and I don’t think words like “beautiful” and “ugly” apply to the manifestation of personality. Perhaps I am beautiful, but I do not perceive it in that way, and it is my perception of it that counts. That can be the only reality for me.

  So why didn’t these women select men who were successful in business, or medicine, or politics? Men who sought power? Men who were similar in personality or goals? Although one has to admit that men like Malcolm Forbes or Rupert Murdoch are not exactly sexual turn-ons. I had to ask my mother.

  Which I did as we walked back to the hotel, through the small winding streets of Cornichons. Edwina walked ahead with Glenn Elliott and Steve on either side of her. I could see there was a certain amount of electricity between Glenn and Steve but also knew it would come to nothing. But it made me wonder if Glenn Elliott was still fooling around on the side or not. Dangerous to do with AIDS and all. If he gave my mother AIDS, I would kill him.

  “Mom, I was looking at all of us sitting around the table at dinner having such a good time and I wondered why women like you and Nina and Edwina, before she became a lesbian, chose handsome men who very much need you. Rather than some great tycoon of business,” I said.

  My mother looked at me as we passed under a streetlight. She was wearing a pink linen dress, a color she usually never wore as I remember. Very Jackie Kennedy. “Edwina’s a lesbian?” she said. “What next? I mean, what are lesbians coming to? They used to all look like professional wrestlers who could beat you to a pulp with one hand and wore lumberjack shirts. Look at that. Ultrachic. I like her. But that is something like saying you like Mount Hood. Or Niagara Falls. As though she cares.”

  “There was Coco Chanel. She was a chic lesbian. Though I think Edwina’s much nicer. So why did you never want to fall in love with a great tycoon?” I said.

  “Honey,” she pulled my arm closer to herself, “you don’t decide to fall in love with someone in the first place. You either do or you don’t. And as to why women like myself are fools for beauty? I guess we want to run our own lives. So we are not attracted to someone who will take care of us. You pay a high price for that. Always having to cajole and coerce. It has a big effect on your sexual relationship. The feeling that you should never say ‘no.’ I would hate to ask someone for the money to buy a new dress. And to have all your jewelry be someone else’s choice? I don’t think I could handle that.

  “And I don’t think I fell in love with Glenn because of the prestige of having a handsome lover. Husband. I fell in love with his physical presence. I want to be with that beautiful presence all the time. It is curious. And I think my love for him is kind of an aura he wants to be in. Our love for each other is quite different, I think. But it is truly love. Here we are at the hotel. I love him for who he is not for what he can do for me. I think that wraps it up. I don’t need him. I love him. In his entirety. Just as he is right now. I think I will go in and sleep with him. You’ve caused me to think very seriously about him. My good-looking husband.”

  We all kissed good night. I kissed Glenn Elliott on both cheeks. He shook hands with Steve. He was wearing a blue blazer and open white shirt. Definitely a looker.

  “You should ask Glenn,” my mother said. “And Edwina. I’d like to know myself what they would have to say. And, of course, Nina.”

  Edwina said, “What does Hugo want to ask us?”

  “He’s doing research on the nature of love,” my mother said.

  “Well, there’s a question. I’m still doing research myself,” Edwina said. She looked at me. “We’ll talk.”

  I went back to Steve’s room with him. As soon as we entered the room before he could turn on the lights I pushed him down on the floor and started taking off his clothes. He didn’t resist. He seemed to understand I really needed him that night.

  More Red Mill Rehearsals

  Something was brooding over Cornichons. Thunder rolled constantly in the distance. Sudden showers drenched the narrow stone streets. The clouds, usually so placid and low hanging like great flocks of white, woolly sheep, now stacked high. It would be easy to think of the gods perched at their peaks, readying themselves to hurl down bolts of destruction upon us. Even the air felt uneasy.

  Because of the sudden rainstorms, rehearsals were impossible at the fake mill on the edge of the Abbey property. We had to do all of our rehearsing in the riding arena/theater. There was plenty of sitting about, and it gave me a chance to talk to Edwina, who had come to the rehearsal.

  She was wearing black slacks and tee-shirt and a large gold bracelet, sitting with her legs crossed in the front row watching the rehearsals. I joined her there when the cast took a break.

  “Why do women like your mother like men like your stepfather?” she said. “Interesting question. What’s your real father look like? Was he something of the same type?”

  “A little,” I said. “But I think she was swept off her feet by his glamour. Money. Brazil. She was a young model. She most likely thought they were logical next steps for her. I don’t think there was that same level of choice. She thinks that women who want to run their own lives want to enhance that life with a beautiful, amusing man. They don’t need to be protected.”

  “I think that’s partially right. But my own feelings are that it’s more spiritual. I think after you have the life you pretty much want here on earth your choices lead you toward the ideal. The kind of perfection and beauty that perhaps exists on another realm. Another life. If you think that beyond this shabby, patched-together kind of existence we have here lies something more ideal, you may want to partner with someone who has a hint of that beauty and ideal in themselves. I think certainly the kind of woman that men wish to keep by their side have that perfection. The perfection that you see over and over again in paintings and sculpture since art began.

  “This is probably the first time in history that many women have not had to be dependent upon men, and they, too, can choose their life partner. Why shouldn’t they, too, reach for the sublime? Women aren’t all just about propagation and nurturing, you know. That’s just a phase. Fundamentally, humans are humans, with some small differences in plumbing. Don’t you think so?”

  I said, “Women seem to be able to grow up. Men don’t. That worries me about myself. I think gay men pursue beauty because they just don’t want to grow up. Can’t grow up.”

  “No, no, no. I think gay men and women have a lot to say to each other that hasn’t been said yet. We’re all programmed, but I think it’s more obvious to women because we have the monthly menstrual cycle, the nine-month pregnancy period. We’re stuck with these things that clearly say to us, ‘Honey, you’ve been programmed.’ So it’s easier to see that many of our feelings aren’t particularly us, but just our femaleness. And a lot of us don’t have the feelings we’re supposed to have. I have never wanted to have children.

  “Men don’t recognized their programming. They think that need for power, for domination is really them. It’s just
a primal need to be secure.”

  “You don’t feel something tug at you when you see a little baby?”

  “Please. All little babies look like yesterday’s breakfast. Where did anyone get the idea that a little red, squally mess was pretty? That’s just an agreed-upon convention that’s completely untrue.”

  I told her, “I have no particular desire to have children. I don’t really understand gay men who want families. Gay women I can’t speak for.”

  Edwina said, “When you look around at heterosexuals and their families, it’s quite clear everyone would be a lot happier if they didn’t have children unless they really wanted to. Most people grow up, don’t know what to do with themselves, are dismayed at the challenge of putting a life together, and throw in the towel. Get married, have kids, and turn over the responsibility of having a meaningful life to the kids. No wonder children hate their parents. I’m trying to have a meaningful life all my own. I don’t need children to make it meaningful. It’s quite meaningful without them.”

  “Edwina, you frighten me. Do other people think the way you do?” I said.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never asked them. All I know is that I hate that stupid bourgeois idea that family life is the ideal and that everyone should strive for it. It’s quite recent, you know. It certainly wasn’t idealized before the time of Queen Victoria. And she got the idea from her husband, Prince Albert. It’s so German. If it wasn’t for Jil Sander and Fredrick the Great, I’d give up on the Germans altogether,” Edwina said. I could tell she felt she was talking too much. And wanted to watch rehearsals again. The cast was beginning to come back on stage.

  “It’s true, isn’t it? Before Queen Victoria, the ideal was to get dressed up and go out. And enjoy paintings and theater and literature and music and sex and food and fun. Nobody thought it was much fun to stay home and play with the children. You hired servants to do that,” I said.

  She said, recrossing her legs, “I could talk to you forever about it. I’d love a cigarette, but I’m not going to have one. It’s so bad for the skin. And then World War II idealized the teenager.” She directed her attention to the stage. “Oh, look. Who’s that handsome guy? Is that your boyfriend who was at dinner last night? I don’t know why we all want to pursue beauty, but he’s definitely worth pursuing.”

  I got up to go back on stage. “I didn’t even ask you, Edwina. Is Cranston Muller the director you used to work with. Did he recognize you? Is that Len Muller?”

  “Much changed, but that’s him. I’ll go up and speak to him after you’ve finished rehearsals. He may not be all that glad to see me. I did know him when.”

  We continued with rehearsals. We had the show nailed. I was singing well. Steve was singing well. E. L. was singing very well. Even our little leading lady was keeping up with us in a very professional way. Kitty was very pleased with us and was acting as kind of a buffer zone between the cast and our director. Cranston seemed to be willing to accept our performances without too much pickiness. He certainly knew he wasn’t going to have any confrontations with Kitty Carlisle Hart. He’d invited her here, after all. And I’m sure he wanted her to go back to New York saying that she had enjoyed working with him.

  We had it all ready for opening night except for that escape scene on the windmill itself. Kitty knew we were concerned about it and spoke to Cranston from the stage when we got to that point.

  “Cranston, did I tell you how we did this scene in the original production?” she called to him where he sat in the middle of the empty audience.

  “Yes, Kitty,” he called back in a pleasant tone of voice. “I’m hoping we can manage the original staging plan, but we’ll have to do it tomorrow when it isn’t raining.” I wasn’t feeling encouraged. I’d seen him being very jolly with Cass Brewster, slapping shoulders and guffawing at Cass’s witticisms, when we’d been out at the tower setting up the scene. Cass was making an effort to be winning, and Cranston was sensing there was a chance he could be getting laid. None of that harbinged well for Steve and me once we started flying around on the arms of that windmill.

  When rehearsals were over, I took Edwina over to introduce her . . . or rather, reintroduce her . . . to Cranston Muller.

  She said, “It’s so very nice to meet you. You’re doing such an amusing job with this musical. And, of course, you have such a wonderful talent to work with.” She slipped her arm around my waist. “I think we may have worked together in the past. I was an advertising creative director at the Campanella Company, on Nixtrix.”

  He said, embracing her, “Edwina, of course. Who could ever forget you? The best commercials I ever did on television were with you. You were an inexhaustible source of ideas.”

  They smiled at each other. “I often speak of you. Do you remember we were planning a beach scene in the south of France? And the beaches are so terrible there. Just a lot of little stones. But we’d heard of a real beach at the edge of the Camargue, near Arles, and we drove forever to get there, and then when we got there, it was an endless line of beach cabanas? Shoulder to shoulder, for miles and miles. And we drove down in our convoy of jeeps with models and hairdressers and makeup people and wardrobe and there were those awful little canvas huts every foot of the way to the very end. And when we got there, you got out of your jeep and came over to mine and said, ‘I know, I know, I know. But with your talent and my ability to improvise, we’ll think of something.’” They both laughed.

  Edwina said, “And now you’re doing this charming show. And you’ve created this wonderful Festival here in France. All of your dreams have come true.”

  Cranston looked at me. “Well, not all of them.”

  Edwina continued as though he had said nothing. “You always wanted to do serious work, Len. Does anyone still call you that? Cranston has a wonderful ring to it, but we always knew you as Len. And you had all that magnificent hair down over your shoulders.”

  “That was the eighties, Edwina. I like to think that I’m not that person anymore,” Cranston said. “Cranston is my middle name. I changed it when I was directing Len Cariou in a show. I thought two ‘Lens’ were confusing.”

  “Do you ever hear from Mimi Fandango?” she asked.

  There was a long silence as Cranston studied her face. Edwina had a perfectly pleasant expression which remained unchanged as Cranston looked at her. Finally he said, “Why do you ask that?”

  “Because it’s a mutual acquaintance. I met him when I was in California. Oh, perhaps ten years ago. It was curious because in conversation your name came up,” she said.

  “No. No, I haven’t kept in touch with Mimi. That was back in my wild and crazy days. Well before I knew you. I was an aspiring actor in Hollywood then. I must go. It was great seeing you.” He pecked Edwina on both cheeks and rushed out. He didn’t look at me.

  “What was that about?” I asked.

  “I was just doing a little protective blocking for you, my dear,” she said. “Just in case you don’t want the attentions of Cranston Muller.”

  “Even though you were being nice I could tell you weren’t really being nice,” I said.

  “I’m a little sensitive to the casting couch mentality because of the stories I have heard from Angela. Cranston used to be in the porn business himself. Angela told me. He worked under the name of Otto Fellatio.”

  “And Mimi Fandango?”

  “He’s the big director at Eagle Productions, the big porn studios. He directed the early Otto Fellatio films. And they were films, not videos. This was way back.”

  “Graham was talking about Eagle Productions the other night. His cousin is coming to visit, and she got the number from them. They knew where Graham was.”

  “Len . . . Cranston . . . Muller must have called them. When I knew Mimi Fandango ten years ago, he . . . she . . . always talked as though they were very good friends.”

  “Is Mimi a man or a woman?”

  “A man who wears Chanel and Versace. He doesn’t fool anybody, and I don’t t
hink he’s even concerned about it. He had a big crush on Nina. The older you get, the stranger the world will look to you, Hugo.”

  “A raging heterosexual in a Chanel suit.”

  “Let’s just hope he doesn’t show up here. I only wanted to give you the Otto Fellatio information to tuck into your hip pocket. You will never have to use it. The fact that you have it will keep your director from breathing down your neck. He’s got that Giant film to dangle in front of actors’ eyes.”

  “I think that’s scheduled for E. L., don’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Let’s go over to Nina and Graham’s. Angela should be down tonight. We’re going to stay until you have your opening night. You know I won’t miss that.”

  Fluffy and Mitzi

  “Please come with us, Hugo,” Nina said. They were going to Loches to see the château. They, being Nina, her mother, and her son Freddy, whom everyone is now calling by his childhood name of Fluffy, and his recently arrived girlfriend Mitzi. “We’re going to Loches because of the dungeons. I wouldn’t dare suggest any other châteaux as the kids would find it all so boring. They even find being in France boring. The dungeons will at least make them think of horror movies.”

  I seem to be fated to visit châteaux any time I have a free moment. I haven’t done my laundry for two weeks, and if Nina knew I was standing before her not wearing any underpants, she might have been surprised. I just didn’t have any clean ones.

  I sat in the back of the Peugeot with Fluffy and Mitzi. Nina’s mother sat up front with her. Nina said she wasn’t feeling awfully pregnant and could drive with no problem. Mitzi sat between Fluffy and me. Mitzi has been something of a surprise to all of us. We knew Fluffy’s girlfriend was black. But because he is tall and robust, we all imagined Mitzi would be equally tall and would come striding into our lives as though she were plunging down a runway. Wrong. Mitzi is short. Mitzi is pudgy. And Mitzi is English. Who knew?