Curse of the Kissing Cousins

by Kelner, Toni, L. P.

  “That would be great,” the twins said in unison, then giggled. They really were too perky for words—Tilda was already regretting her tentative invitation, and it was time to change the subject.

  “Who do you write for?” Tilda asked Lawrence.

  “I’m a freelancer too—I’ve written for People, EW, Hollywood Reporter, occasionally some TV work. Keeps me on the road a lot, going back and forth between New York and L.A.”

  “Who sent you here? No offense to the late Mrs. Kendricks, but her funeral seems a little low-profile for People.”

  “True, but I’m sure I’ll talk them into printing something—I was a big fan of the show myself.”

  “No kidding,” Tilda said, warming to him. “Tell me, which character did you—”

  Before Tilda could finish her screening question, Gabrielle called out, “There’s Mr. Munch. Mr. Munch!” She clattered over, with Gwendolyn in pursuit.

  “I guess they’ve heard the rumor,” Lawrence said.

  “What rumor is that?”

  “There’s talk that Munch is trying to resurrect Kissing Cousins.”

  “There’s been talk about that since the week after the show was canceled,” Tilda said dismissively.

  “True, but with the publicity the show is getting these days, people are returning Munch’s calls for the first time in years.”

  “That’s ghoulish.”

  “That’s show business. That whole curse thing is great press.”

  Tilda sighed heavily—if Munch was a ghoul, what did that make her?

  Lawrence said, “Come to think of it, didn’t that curse story break in Entertain Me!” He snapped his fingers. “Harper! You wrote that story.”

  “I did,” Tilda admitted. “I’m surprised you read it.”

  “Have to keep an eye on the competition. I’ve never written for Entertain Me! but you never know in this business.” He looked over at where the twins were enthusiastically sucking up to Munch. “Anyway, it’s starting to look like there’s life in the idea after all, and you know no producer ever let go of a good idea.”

  “Or in this case, a lame one.”

  “Then you’re not a fan of the show?”

  “I love it, but I know good from bad.”

  “The show should never have worked as well as it did,” Lawrence admitted. “Chemistry in the cast, I think. Are you still working the curse angle?”

  “Something like that,” Tilda said, realizing there was no good reason to try to explain her view of the cursed title, though she did briefly consider the possibility that her epitaph would be “Concocted the Curse of the Kissing Cousins.” “Right now I’m hoping to meet with the rest of the cast members.”

  “Are they here?”

  “Two are. The soloist at the funeral, and that man standing next to Munch. But the last one—Mercy Ashford—is still AWOL.”

  “Are you sure she’s not here?” he said, scanning the crowd. “I’d think she would be, under the circumstances.”

  “Apparently nobody has seen her in years.”

  “Really?”

  Tilda nodded. “I’m hoping to get in touch with her for my article.”

  “Do you have any leads?”

  “I’ve got a couple of things that look promising,” Tilda said, which was exaggerating to the point of fiction, but she hated to admit the truth to a fellow reporter. She saw Katie Langevoort heading out of the church. “Excuse me, but I’d better go talk to people while I can.”

  “Work comes first of course. By the way, I was planning to take the twins out for lunch after this winds down. We could make it a foursome.” Lawrence had a glint in his eye that said he wasn’t thinking about tennis.

  Though he’d fallen, just barely, on the right side of the line between sleazy and amusing, Tilda shook her head. She still had Vincent’s memorial service to cover. “Thanks, but I’ve got to get back to Boston.”

  “The Hub of the Universe,” Lawrence said, proving he had been listening after all. “Let me give you my card.”

  She accepted it, and gave him her own before making her way through the crowd to Katie Langevoort, or rather Kathleen Owen. Langevoort the child actress had been blonde and cute. Owen the singer was blonde and voluptuous, and had traded the pink ruffled dresses she’d worn on camera for a dark Chanel suit.

  “Ms. Owen? I’m Tilda Harper. I interviewed you by phone for Entertain Me!”

  “Oh, yes, Tilda.” The woman offered her hand for a brief clasp. “How nice to meet you in person. But call me Kat.”

  “Your singing today was lovely.”

  “Thank you so much. I was so upset about Holly that I was sure my voice would crack, but the Lord answered my prayers and helped me give a good performance.”

  Tilda blinked twice before responding, “He certainly did.”

  Kat dimpled and said, “I’m sorry. Y’all aren’t used to bringing the Lord into every conversation up here, are you?”

  “Not unless I’m talking to a priest,” Tilda said.

  “It’s an occupational hazard for me. People in the gospel biz are full of prayers and hallelujahs and all that. But a day like this surely puts a strain on my faith. Holly was so young, and to die the way she did . . . It’s hard to understand His plan, isn’t it?”

  Tilda nodded.

  “Anyhoo,” Kat said, “it was mighty nice of you to come pay your respects.”

  “Actually, I’m working on a story,” Tilda was forced to admit.

  “No sin mixing business with other obligations,” the singer said cheerily. “At least you’re not hovering around with cameras and microphones. What angle are you using this time around?”

  “I won’t be sure until I talk to everybody. That’s one reason I came today, hoping I’d see you and the others.”

  “Well, Noel Clark is right over there with Mr. Munch, and I see the twins too. At least, I think that’s them—haven’t seen them in a coon’s age.”

  “That’s them. What about Mercy Ashford?”

  “If she’s here, I haven’t seen her, but I don’t know that I’d even recognize her. I haven’t laid eyes on her since the cast party at the end of our last season.”

  “Is that right? Then you don’t know where she is now?”

  “No idea. It’s a shame too. I always liked Mercy—she was a couple of years older than I was, but always had time for me. I used to get a lot of hate mail back then, mostly from kids thinking I was just like my character. Mercy would try to get to the mail ahead of me and toss out the nastier letters. When a bad one did get through, she’d keep me from brooding over it.”

  “People do sometimes blur the line between an actress and the character.”

  “I suppose it’s a compliment, in its way. When we did live appearances, it was even worse. If I’d known then what I know now, I’d have played it up, had some fun with it, but then I was just upset that people didn’t like me. Mercy would always stick close by me and explain to everybody that I was nothing like Felicia. She made a point of saying so in interviews too. I really looked up to her, and when the show ended and she promised to keep in touch, I was so young I believed her. It hurt my feelings that she didn’t.” She shrugged. “That’s the industry, love you today, don’t know you tomorrow.”

  “It must be a relief to be in the gospel business, where people aren’t so insincere.”

  Kat hooted. “Honey, you haven’t ever had your back stabbed until it’s been stabbed by a so-called preacher woman in blue silk choir robes. Hollywood is right civilized compared to what goes on in the gospel business.”

  “Really?” Tilda considered the notion. “Would you be willing to let me interview you about it?”

  “That might be fun. But I don’t guarantee to name names—I’ve got a living to make.”

  “Understood. I’ll see if I can get an editor interested, and get back to you.” Again the exchange of business cards, and Kat started down the church steps.

  Tilda stopped her to say, “Oh,
one other question. I went over my notes before I came down today, and I was wondering about something. I know you changed names after leaving acting.”

  “Langevoort is kind of a mouthful,” Kat said. “Owen is my middle name.”

  “I get that. But what about your accent? You didn’t have one when you were working on Kissing Cousins.”

  “I had to train myself out of the drawl for Hollywood, but I let myself use it now.”

  “What drawl?” Tilda asked. “You were born in Revere, Massachusetts.”

  Kat looked around to see if anybody else was listening. Then, in the thickest North Shore accent Tilda had heard in a long time, she said, “Tilda, you think anybody wants to hear a gospel singah from Reveah? Get outta heah!” Then she winked, and said, “Bye now,” just as sweetly as any Georgia peach.

  Tilda saw that the twins had managed to cut Noel Clark off from Irv Munch, so she took the opportunity to approach him. “Mr. Clark? Tilda Harper, from Entertain Me!”

  “Tilda, of course, so wonderful to see you again.” He too had perfected the air kiss, as he demonstrated.

  Noel Clark, with his tight blond curls and determinedly trim figure, could be considered the greatest success story of the Kissing Cousins alumni—he’d played Antoine on the soap opera City Hospital for over twenty years, making him the only cast member to have landed another series. Admittedly, his role was that of a chauffeur to the show’s wealthy Valeria family and the lines he got in an average episode were engrossing bits like, “Will Madame be visiting her cancer-ridden child in the hospital today or making a rendezvous with her latest himbo in his skanky love nest?”

  Tilda made the appropriate remarks about the sadness of the occasion, and Noel made the appropriate responses. Then she said, “It must be comforting to see Katie Langevoort and the twins from the old days.” She made a show of looking around. “Is Mercy Ashford here too?”

  Noel smiled sardonically. “Mercy never was one to be bothered with her old friends, not even their funerals. I know I shouldn’t gossip, but . . .”

  “Would you prefer to keep this off the record?” Tilda offered, knowing what his answer would be.

  “No, no, I trust you.”

  In other words, he wasn’t willing to risk losing a mention in a magazine.

  He said, “It’s just that some people in the industry will give you a hand up, and others won’t. After Kissing Cousins shut down, Mercy got a feature almost immediately. Well, I got a copy of the script and there was a part that I would have been perfect for—absolutely perfect. So I called Mercy and asked if she could put in a good word for me with the director, but next thing I know, Mercy walked off the set and left me high and dry. Can you imagine?”

  Actually, Tilda could, having just heard from the twins that he hadn’t bothered to help them get work, but then again, the twins couldn’t act and Noel, though no Laurence Olivier, was a solid character actor. So she clucked sympathetically and said, “Do you know what happened to make her leave the movie that way? It sounds so unprofessional.”

  “Completely unprofessional,” Noel said. “And that’s not the least of it. I mean, have you ever heard of an actress who didn’t bother to let her agent know where she was going?”

  “No, never.”

  “Well, that’s what she did. We had the same agent back then, you see.”

  “Ariel Tomilyn?” Tilda said, remembering the name from her research.

  “That’s right. Apparently Mercy didn’t even talk to Ariel personally. She just left a message with Ariel’s assistant. Naturally, the first thing Ariel did was try to get in touch with her to find out what was going on, but it was as if the woman had disappeared off the face of the earth.”

  “Really?” Tilda said.

  He nodded. “Ariel called me, she called the rest of the cast, she called everybody—she was desperate to find her. But she never did.”

  “That’s strange. Do you have any idea why Mercy would have left like that?”

  “Not a clue. But wherever she went, she had plenty of money.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “According to Ariel, Mercy had some money coming in for something or another—I think it was some print ad work—but by the time the checks cleared, she was gone. Later on, when there were residuals from Kissing Cousins—not a fortune, but nothing to pass up either—Mercy never once came looking for her money. Ariel put it in escrow with the agency—she’s dead now, and I imagine the agency still has the money.”

  “That’s very strange,” Tilda said. Presumably Mercy had made a lot more acting than Tilda did freelancing, but she still couldn’t imagine anybody walking away from money that had already been earned.

  “So, are you working on another story about the show now?” Noel asked, knowing where his bread was buttered.

  “I am,” Tilda confirmed.

  “Then let me just say that Holly Kendricks was one of my dearest friends, and I feel her loss more than I can possibly say.” He looked pointedly at Tilda’s hands, as if wondering why she wasn’t taking the words down.

  “More than you can possibly say,” Tilda repeated after him, as if she were memorizing his speech. “Thank you. I’ve still got your contact information if I need to get in touch for more background or quotes.”

  “Great, great. And, well, I know it’s tacky to mention it here, but you may be interested to hear I just got a heads up from one of the writers at City Hospital. It seems that I’m going to be getting a lot more airtime in the story line they’re kicking off later this month. Significant airtime.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Tilda said, though he’d said the same thing every time she’d ever spoken to him. As far as she could tell, he said it in every interview he’d given for the past twenty years, almost as long as Irv Munch had been pushing for a revival of Kissing Cousins. “I know Holly would have been delighted—when I interviewed her, she said she watched City Hospital faithfully because of you.”

  “Really? I didn’t know that. It’s been so long since I talked to her . . .” He honestly sounded touched. As if in some karmic payback, he said, “Could you also say that I think Holly was a fine actress, and that it was the industry’s loss when she left Hollywood for marriage and family.”

  “Marriage and family,” Tilda repeated, again pretending to memorize it. “Got it.”

  Noel instigated another air kiss, but before he could make his exit, he stopped and asked, “Tilda, do they sell Sky Bars in Connecticut?”

  “I’m not sure.” At some point in her research on him, she’d found out that Noel was addicted to Sky Bars, a candy bar made by the New England Confectionery Company in Revere, Massachusetts, and she’d mentioned it in her article.

  “I just thought I could pick up some, since I’m in New England. Of course, I’ve got plenty at home,” he added with a satisfied smirk. “When the fans found out I couldn’t get them in LA, they started sending them by the case. Isn’t that amazing?”

  Of course, Noel could probably have found the candy somewhere in LA or he could have ordered them on the Web, but what he really enjoyed was the fact that devoted fans were willing to send the candy to him. It wasn’t just the money—though it’s always partially about the money—it was the ego boost of knowing some poor schlub in East Arm Pit had gone to the trouble of buying a box of the things and shipping it to Noel at his own expense.

  “You could check at a Store 24,” she suggested.

  “Good idea. Ciao!”

  As Noel made his exit toward the parking lot, Tilda idly wondered if he ever found himself automatically getting into the front seat of cabs and limos after all those years playing a chauffeur.

  The crowd was considerably thinned out by then, and though she would have liked to have spoken to Irv Munch, by the time she’d disengaged from Noel, the producer was climbing into a car. The twins were gone too—Tilda saw Lawrence White escorting them toward the church parking lot. So it was time to make her own exit.

  Chap
ter 6

  I never had any problems with stalkers or anything like that.

  Kissing Cousins fans are the best! The only thing is . . . Have

  you ever heard of “slash” fiction?

  —HOLLY KENDRICKS, QUOTED IN “CURSE OF THE KISSING COUSINS,” ENTERTAIN ME!

  TILDA tried to smooth out some of the wrinkles from her skirt when she got out of her car at Vincent’s house in Cambridge, and wished her eminently suitable shoes were more comfortable. As she walked up the sidewalk to the rambling house Vincent had inherited from his parents, she wondered if she’d gotten the time wrong. Though Vincent had said over a hundred people were expected, there were only four other cars parked nearby, and one was Vincent’s. She could tell from his vanity license plate: FANBOY. Some people might have car-pooled, cabbed it, or caught the bus, but even so, she’d have expected more cars.