by Jill Zeller
Hank gazed at his mother, unbelieving. She thought this stalking starlet was Connie? That was why she was so nervous lately? And then it came to him. He had muffed his assignment to uncover the reason Connie was upset.
“This?” Hank handed the paper back to her. “Mom, c’mon.”
To his surprise Mom threw the paper onto the couch beside her. She had been steadily reading through the tabloids, Variety, the Times, looking for angles and news. Always thinking how to apply any little happening to boost the twins’ act.
“Then I want you to find out.” Snatching the pack of cigarettes from the coffee table, she pushed newspapers aside, looking for her lighter.
In a moment of daring, Hank pulled out Susan’s lighter, snapped it open and held it out to Mom. Glancing at him in a startled way, she accepted the light, blew smoke into the air.
“I thought you quit smoking.”
“I did. I keep it around as a reminder.”
One of Mom’s eyebrows went up. Then she went back to her papers; snagging an unstarted crossword puzzle.
“She’s in her room.”
Hank waited, unsure now, but determined. He remembered Dad’s voice, softly worried.
Mom filled in three words with her gold ball point. She looked up at him from under her eyebrows, both eyebrows up now, her best intimidate-the-witness look.
“The other night,” Hank said, the confidence he always felt as he left Susan’s beginning to slide away, sucked away. “You were going to tell me something?”
“Yes, well, it can wait.” Mom scribbled in another word, looking down now, at her puzzle. “Just go talk to your sister, please.”
Hank knew his chance was gone, but he lingered, walked over to the mantle. Nothing filled the space once occupied by the little marquis. The smooth stone was free of dust, the walls rising whitely and curving into the high ceiling. He looked at the marquess, hands resting on her bustles, white wig glinting with a pearl-like glaze.
“You know, you are right. She’s Messian, from Dresden, worth about $1000.” Hank thought of the photograph of his grandmother, the same flat, unlovely face as his father. Did you despise your husband, just like Susan said? And the Girl said that, too.
“How do you know?” His mother’s voice was pointed, sharp.
“A friend. Someone who knows about this kind of stuff.” Hank touched the pale blue skirt, rippled with faint colors like motor oil in water.
“Don’t touch that.”
The same tone as Susan, a mother’s tone. Someone accustomed to giving orders.
“Just, don’t. We don’t want to lose her, too.”
“Don’t you think that was strange? It jumping off the mantle and then the call comes?”
Mom snorted, sighed abruptly. “Hank, quit bothering me. Go talk to Connie.”
The Girl’s finger tapped the photo, touched the marquess’s dress in the same place Hank just had. This close and pale, a beautiful finger, tracing a line down the photograph, across the bedspread, and onto Hank’s hand.
“Mom, do you remember a girl, with dark hair, pretty, who I knew in high school? She used to come over here, a lot, I think. It’s so weird, but I can’t remember her name.”
No answer came. Turning, Hank looked at Mom, and he saw, before her eyes flicked back to her paper, that she had been staring at him, and had she, for a moment, looked afraid?
“You were always bringing girls home. No wonder you can’t remember all their names. I certainly couldn’t.” The funny catch was back in her voice, as if her jaw froze a split second before every other word.
The marquess gazed back at him from under black blots signifying lashes. She was prettier than the dour woman in the photograph, the one that the Girl said was hoping she would outlive the old man, but bitterly never got her wish.
Seven
Connie was in her room, door ajar, and turned from her place on the bed to watch Hank enter after he politely knocked. He always knocked before bursting into either of the twins' room as he used to before he was ten.
Connie wore dungarees, a big plaid shirt that once, and still perhaps did, belonged to Dad. She had tied up her hair in a bandana, the way Susan did, the way women who used to work the war factories did. If there were no extra rehearsals, unlike Carl who disappeared down to Hollywood to loiter with other young actors in restaurants and bars, Connie kept her Sundays private and alone, a day of contemplation and relaxation that had nothing to do with God.
“What do you think of this dress—for me, that is?” She thrust a magazine across the bed, and he sat down on the bed to see. The room was stifling hot, sun burning invasively through her closed French doors to her balcony which faced south west. Connie was always cold. In the drawing, a lanky, curvy woman looked over her shoulder in a soufflé of a dress, poufy sleeves and full, busy skirt.
“It’s hideous,” Hank said.
Connie seized the magazine, flipped to the next page. “Just what I thought.” She rattled through the pages, the same way Mom rattled through her papers.
“Where were you last night?”
“Out.”
“No!” Connie gave the word a sarcastic inflection. Closing her magazine, she sidled closer to him. Uneasiness stiffened him, but he pledged not to move away, just look her full in the eye.
“You are too cute,” she said, poking his chest. “You have a girlfriend. Admit it. I can see it on you.” Bringing her face so close to his that he could see tiny hairs on her upper lip, she whispered, “You’re fucking her.”
Hank gazed back at her, hoping his face was fully blank, hoping the warmth he felt spreading up his neck was not visible as blotches of uneasy color.
“Mom wants me to talk to you.”
Rolling her eyes, Connie shifted backward, lay down, slung an arm under her head. “About what, for god’s sake?”
“She’s worried about you, I guess. And you’re more wound up than a hop head trying to dry up.”
That made her grin. “OK, you can tell her this. Someone has been talking to me about my career—someone very high up and powerful. He says I should ditch the duo dancing act and branch out on my own.”
Maybe she had slept with Cedric Sigfried. But that didn’t alarm Hank. What did alarm him was what Carl would do when he found out. He already caught the scent of change in the air.
“Why haven’t you told Mom yet? She’s your business manager.”
“I’m going to.” Connie turned onto her stomach, stuck her bare feet, toes painted tomato red, into the air. Hank couldn’t help noticing the smooth line of her butt under the dungarees. “When the time is right.”
Shifting in the bed, Hank crossed his ankles like a yogi, turned his back to her. “Is that why you hit the roof the other night?”
There was a silence. When Hank looked over his shoulder to see what she was doing, he saw her studiously cleaning her nails.
“Yeah, sure, whatever you like.”
“I thought I was your favorite brother.”
She rolled again, touched his knee. “You are, Hank, you are. Carl is such an asshole sometimes. You have no idea.” Her face took on a stony look and Hank wondered if it was for his benefit, because somehow it didn’t look real, just as her voice hadn’t sounded true or convincing of anything.
“You’re wrong about that. I have an idea,” Hank said, leaning back on his elbows. But was Carl really more cruel than any other older brother? Connie had her moments as well.
There was another question he wanted to ask, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He thought he knew why she blew up the other evening. He thought he knew that her moods and disquiet had nothing to do with menstruation or the chance to do a solo act. The thing was, Mom expected an answer. What was he going to tell her?
“You do have an idea, don’t you, poor little brother.” She leaned on one elbow, watched him, her lips smirking, her eyes—what were they saying? What had they always said? What challenge was she laying down before him?
&nb
sp; She said, “This girl you are seeing, she took your cherry, didn’t she?” A frown cycled through her face, then caught up in a smile. “You’re such a pretty boy. You don’t know how lucky you are a girl seduced you before one of the multitude of Hollywood queers got to you first. Carl and I hear them whispering about you, whenever you tag along with Mom to the studio.”
“Don’t think they didn’t try.” Hank started to slide off the bed, but Connie playfully tugged at his shirt. Pulling free, Hank turned to look at her. She lay with her head on her elbow, reaching up to him like a pinup girl, the top several buttons of her shirt undone.
“So, if you don’t want to tell me what’s really the matter,” he said, making a point to keep his gaze pinned to her face. “I guess I’ll have to make something up.”
Her eyebrows drew down in a scowl. Picking up the magazine, she rolled it and put it to her mouth.
“Why does there have to be something else wrong?” she asked through the tube, her voice low and hollow, ghostly.
Shaking his head, Hank turned and walked away. The magazine hit him square between the shoulder blades and fluttered like a shaggy bird to the floor.
Eight
Waiting in the car under the Veteran’s Hospital porte cochere, Hank turned off the wiper blades. The inside of Susan’s car was like a submarine, alone in the depths full of sea creatures. Rain fell steadily all day, and night claimed territory early under the steel gray clouds, darker than the hulls of military ships moored at Long Beach.
A few hours ago they had made love. Susan was fiercer with him, pushing him down, getting on top, digging nails into his skin. Silent, unmoving on the drive to the VA hospital, she stared out the darkening window at rain and lights and pedestrians getting soaked on the sidewalks.
Hank ran his fingers around the cold steering wheel. The balmy days had been shoved out of the way by this cold, damp Pacific storm, as if Joseph himself were blowing in with it, bringing with him a searching despair.
Nervous, more nervous about meeting someone than ever before, Hank had only seen Joseph once by accident arriving early, a slim, red-haired young man, extraordinarily pale, striding down Susan’s walk and turning north along the sidewalk. About to turn into Susan’s driveway, Hank coasted, slowed, stopped, pretended to be checking something on his bike, and watched Joseph walk quickly, nothing like the way Hank thought a shell-shocked soldier might walk on his way to a visit with an Army psychiatrist.
Cars came and went while Hank waited, picking up patients and employees. He strongly wished for a cigarette. He knew there was a pack in the glove compartment, and he had Susan’s lighter in his shirt pocket. But he had promised, when she gave him the lighter, that he would quit. Taking it out of his pocket, he flipped it open and closed, liking the soft metallic click it made. A moment later there was a tapping at the passenger window.
Susan was outside, gesturing for him to get out to help her. He did so, circling the back of the car, to where an orderly stood holding Joseph’s wheel chair.
Hank saw the back of Joseph’s head, red hair lank and unwashed. As he came beside the wheel chair, Joseph looked up at him.
“You’re the friend. Nice to meet you—Joseph Chagall. My sister Susan of course, you know, and this is Sebastian, my manservant.” His voice was smooth and quick. Red stubble coated his jaws and chin and he thrust out a white hand, thin and fine.
“Hank Cleveland.” Hank took the hand gently, but the responding grip was tight and sudden.
“Hank. For Henry? You do resemble Fonda, don’t you think, Suze?”
“Let’s get you inside the car, Joseph. It’s cold out here.” Susan held the back passenger door open.
“OK, Mr. Chagall, here we go,” said Sebastian the orderly, if that was his real name. “If you would hold the chair please, sir.”
Hank held the chair and Susan held the door as Sebastian expertly lifted, twirled and settled Joseph in the car. Plaster casts encased Joseph’s legs up to his calves, and he slid backward as Sebastian lifted both onto the seat.
Glancing at Susan, hoping to catch her eye and give her a comforting smile, Hank was disappointed. Susan wouldn’t look at him at all, focused on her brother, her face masked with worry. She seemed genuinely concerned for her brother; a special love passed between them, the kind of love Hank never felt for his brother and sister. He had hoped to see chagrin or impatience on her face, but was not satisfied, and instantly felt bad about wishing to see it.
Joseph set up a constant chatter as Hank drove them home. Sitting sideways in the front seat, looking at Joseph over her shoulder, Susan listened, and even laughed at one point, a startling thing, because Hank very rarely heard her laugh out loud.
Hank listened to stories about other patients in Joseph’s ward, fellow veterans like Joseph. Hank was a young teenager during the war years—he still was, technically, but he thought of himself as much older. Connie and Carl volunteered at the USO entertaining sailors from Long Beach. But Hank stayed remote—he didn’t, like many of his friends at school, keep maps on the wall or track the movements of the forces scrambling for territory in Europe and the Pacific.
“So, sister, what kind of old battle-axe have you hired as my minder? A stiff-necked old maid with sponges made of porcupine quills?” Joseph had a cigarette, and to Hank’s astonishment Susan lit it for him. The smoke smelled wonderful.
“Oh wait, I know, an over-muscled young man with the Charles Atlas course in his back pocket, and a gentle voice, and eyes like dried figs.”
Susan shook her head. “I have no idea. It’s a surprise. We shall both be surprised.”
“Oh, I get it. A nurse in a tight white uniform jumping out of a cake, with two huge hypos, one in each hand.”
Hank’s irritation grew. He wanted Joseph to shut up, for the ride to be over, to get back on his bike and get home. Even the nuthouse atmosphere of his own home would seem like a beach in Hawaii compared to this.
Arriving at Susan’s bungalow, the problem of getting Joseph into the house became apparent. The nurse had not yet arrived; she—or he—was expected any moment, the poor soul having to finish out a swing shift at the hospital before schlepping over to Susan’s to care for a neurotic moron. Hank voted strongly for the porcupine sponges.
Hank understood why Susan needed him. It was not for emotional support or because she liked to gaze into his face. She needed muscle to get Joseph settled in in case the nurse wasn’t here. No nurse was here, so, they settled on crossing their arms with Joseph sitting between them and stumbled up the stairs.
Joseph was surprisingly light, and Hank could feel bone under the emaciated muscle of Joseph’s butt. The guy was as skinny as a broom. Having already taken the wheelchair into the house, they settled him in. The effort was fairly easy for Hank, but Susan looked wrought, her chin frozen with breathless pain. She was fit, perhaps, but small.
Joseph expertly wheeled his chair back and forth over the braided rug, clanking into the coffee table.
“Hank, you are a paragon of youth. I would like you to be my nurse.”
“Sorry, my duties lie elsewhere.” Hank glanced at Susan as she flopped down on the sofa, and this time, she did meet his eyes. Her sharp little glance warmed him, and if Joseph saw it and drew a conclusion that was all too evident, Hank was glad for it.
Joseph said, “I fear, dear sister, that we shall have to make accommodation for this, my steel-wheeled assistant. Let’s see, can I even get through the door into the kitchen?” Whirling the chair around, knocking into chairs and tables, he aimed for the dining room doorway and made it through, all the while talking about removing the walls with a sledge hammer.
It took all Hank had not to pull her to him, close, and lick her skin. Her hair had fallen over one eye, her eyes rimmed with a sadness he could not identify. Tipping his head, he gave her a questioning glance, but she shook her head quickly, once, twice, as Joseph wheeled back in.
“Mr. Atlas, I don’t suppose you would bring in my s
mall, inadequate bag of belongings, a mere toothbrush and razor, which as you see, I haven’t used in days.” Joseph gave him a friendly smile, lines deepening around his mouth, his eyes, the same chocolate-color as Susan’s, self-deprecating in a way that might otherwise be engaging.
“Sure.” Hank went to the car, his soul chewing on a chunk of jealousy that distressed him. Susan seemed to really like Joseph’s company, enjoyed his stupid prattle. A paper bag containing underwear, the aforementioned toiletry items, and a book, one of those blank books writers use, was on the floor of the Packard. Curious to open its pages, Hank would have liked to see into the soul of this little brother. Maybe here was the key to Susan.
But he took the bag inside, set it down on the coffee table. Susan had gone into the kitchen, probably to get something pulled together for supper. Joseph lit another cigarette; smoke enveloped him like a magician, and he smiled as he saw Hank.
“Thank you, my good man. A useful friend. Susan needs a good friend. I, unfortunately, am not it.”
Hank didn’t know what to say. He shrugged. He wanted to go into the kitchen to be with Susan. He wanted to go into the garage with her and let her show him what she had been working on, the horse and tiger and swan.
“I guess I better be going.” He could pass through the kitchen. His bicycle was leaning against the back porch in its usual place. “Nice to meet you.”
Joseph nodded, sucking on his fag. A weary grayness had flowed over his face, of pain and something else. Hank felt a little sorry for him. He had no idea what Joseph had been through in the war. And his ankles probably hurt like hell.
“Same here, Mr. Fonda. Hope we can repeat the experience under better circumstances.”
In the kitchen, Susan was merely making coffee. Hank wondered if the nurse would be expected to cook meals, too. He slid his hands around her waist, felt her stiffen. She pushed his hands away.