Queen of the Oddballs

by Hillary Carlip

  What had we done? This was two weeks before Christmas, the end of a decade, and change was slapping us both in the face.

  Luckily Christmastime was one of the busiest times of the year for me since I also had a job delivering singing telegrams. Day and night I was racing around town as a singing, tap-dancing fruitcake with little time to think about Daisy, who was leaving after New Year’s, or about Ann, who I hadn’t seen nor heard a peep from since that night at Fiorucci, a whole week earlier. I’d lie awake late at night and wonder. If this thing with Ann was really “magic,” why’d I feel so damn shitty?

  Then one ominously cloudy Thursday morning a letter arrived in the mail. On a sixties greeting card it read: “We must meet for cocktails soon to discuss these anxieties I have. Somewhere discreet. The press is on to us.” The card was signed “Ann,” and was covered with lipstick kisses. At the bottom, in tiny print, she’d written: “It’s better with Betty.”

  I was a goner.

  “Is the enclosed discreet enough?” I wrote back, including an ad for a restaurant on a quiet Malibu beach. “No one will ever find us there. Be on the southeast corner at 4:00 p.m. Monday. Wear dark glasses and carry a white object.”

  That Monday in Malibu, Ann and I sipped fruity cocktails decorated with parasols and maraschino cherries and watched the cloud-obscured sun set over the ocean. We held hands under the table and said very little.

  We drove to her house and it began to pour. We listened to Brian Eno’s Music for Airports and couldn’t keep our hands off each other. It’s just so different with women rather than men, Livvy. Curves instead of angles, flesh instead of muscle, excitement building into a soft won’t-you-come-in rather than a hard how-do-you-do.

  Ann asked me to stay that night. I had never wanted anything so badly, but I didn’t want to throw it all in Daisy’s face, so at 2:00 a.m. I drove home. By the time I arrived Daisy was so angry anyway, she chased me around the house with a hammer. I survived, unbludgeoned, but needless to say, we slept in separate beds.

  The next day, for the first time ever in a relationship, I lied. I know, I know. I hated doing it, Livvy. But how many times had Daisy lied to me? I’d lost count.

  We were in the kitchen, the hammer safely in the toolbox. We both had dark circles under our eyes. “I’m working late tonight—and I have an early telegram tomorrow all the way on the West Side,” I told her. “So I’m gonna stay at my parents’ house.”

  “Fine,” she said. She seemed to believe me.

  “Besides,” I added, “we obviously need some space.” At least that part was true.

  I drove to Ann’s. At long last we climbed into her bed together. Our touch was electrical, alchemical. I lost all sense of time and place, aware only of skin on skin, moving and melding into one body awash in the currents of espionage.

  From that night on, every journal entry I wrote began with “OH MY.”

  The week between Christmas and New Year’s was confusing. I slept at Ann’s a few more times. Daisy and I spent New Year’s Eve together, mostly crying and saying good-bye to the decade, and to all we had gone through together in it.

  Three days later I drove Daisy to the Burbank Airport, where, under the late afternoon shade of palm trees, warmed by a balmy winter wind, we said our last good-byes.

  I drove home, climbed into bed, and cried myself to sleep. I awoke the next morning with my heart still aching, but also with a tinge of excitement over the newness that was about to unfold. But I had to be patient. Ann was about to leave for a two-week trip with her girlfriend.

  That night I drove to her place and handed her a going-away package. It included a bottle of invisible ink for her to write me secret letters with—“I’ll keep the activator pen”; several love notes written on magician’s flash paper—“They go up in smoke after you read them”; and a stamped metal token I’d made for her at the Santa Monica Pier. It read “Ann + Betty.”

  She then, totally unexpectedly, surprised me with a package of her own.

  My hands were shaking as I opened it. Inside I found pink stationery embossed in gold lettering that read: “Better Believe It from Betty,” a red fur pen with raspberry-scented ink, and—most exciting—a toothbrush, which I was instructed to leave at her house. We shared another passionate night and in the morning, neither of us wanted to let go.

  The next week with Ann gone, I felt lost. I’d been working fourteen-hour days on the Xanadu shoot, delivering singing telegrams day and night, and spending time with two lovers. Now I was suddenly faced with little work, no lover near, and for the first time in my life, I was living alone. I eagerly waited for the mailman, who arrived every day empty-handed. Everything I read made me think of Ann—like The Diary of Anaïs Nin: “All unfulfilled desires are imprisoned children.” Every song I heard reminded me of her—especially Rickie Lee Jones singing, “I will miss your company.”

  The following week the mailman finally appeared—an oasis in my Hollywood Hills desert—with letters. Every day. Ann wrote on stationery that was the same style of the “Better Believe It from Betty” paper, but embossed in gold on the top of hers was “Ann’s-xieties.” I was deliriously happy reading of her cabin fever and of how much she missed me. And even though she said she was confused and worried, she still signed all her letters with lines like, “I can’t wait to see you,” “Your Ann,” and “Freezing in snow and burning for you.”

  I was at the top of the roller coaster, feeling exhilarated, but still prepared for the free fall that comes after those highs—so far they’d been a feature of life with Ann. But the fall would have to wait. Ann returned home with great news. She had told her girlfriend about me, and they’d finally broken up.

  We spent the next two glorious weeks together. Even when we were out and she drank enough to let loose that nasty, bitter side, she was still the most exciting person I had ever been with. One night we decided to meet at a club, both in complete disguise, and “pick each other up.” Another night we went to the Queen Mary—not the boat, but the female impersonator club. And each night we ended up in my bed or hers.

  Then came the Xanadu wrap party at Flippers Roller Rink (where you looked fabulous, per usual, Livvy!). Ann said she’d meet me there. I nearly choked on a “disco cheese ball” when she walked in…with her supposed ex-girlfriend!

  I’ll tell you, Livvy, meeting the “other woman” face-to-face did me in. I wasn’t messing with a concept—I saw a human being. One that I’m sure I’d been hurting. It totally freaked me out.

  The next morning I called Ann and told her that if she was still seeing her girlfriend, we were through. By nighttime she showed up at my door, swearing she and the girl had broken up, for real. She had just taken her to the wrap party, she explained, because she felt guilty. Ann whisked me away to the Pickwick Drive-In movie theater. I have no idea what film was playing. Let’s just say we didn’t watch much.

  Later that week I picked up a Hollywood Reporter and read that a major network was looking to cast regulars for a variety show: “Dancers who can swim needed to perform synchronized swimming routines.”

  I dared Ann to audition. She did. And she landed the job. Little did I know her rehearsal schedule would require her to wake up at 3:30 every morning, which took away a few more hours of our coveted time together.

  The night before Valentine’s Day, Ann came to my house to sleep over. After a beautiful evening together, she informed me that she had to spend the next day with her “ex.” “I’m just trying to be nice to her,” she explained.

  “On Valentine’s Day? Isn’t that maybe sending her a mixed message?”

  I wasn’t sure if I could take any more of this, but I still gave her an art piece/valentine I had spent the previous week making for her. She loved it, but she had nothing for me except a sweet thank-you kiss that turned into more. When I woke at 6:00 a.m. on Valentine’s Day, Ann was gone.

  Stuffing my disappointment into my Cupid costume, I prepared for my busy day—delivering a recor
d-breaking twenty-eight singing/ tap-dancing telegrams. Just as I was about to walk out the front door, I spotted something on the living room table. Piled high were gifts from Ann, each one wrapped in red paper with tiny white hearts. As torn as I had been, I once again fell completely and deeply. Not so much because of the brilliant gifts, oh, and they all were, but because Ann had waited without a word and surprised me so.

  Over the next month Ann was as unpredictable as ever, and I was growing more and more nauseous riding the roller coaster with her. Still, whatever reservations I had always melted with her touch.

  “Betty,” she said one night as we sat down in my living room to watch the premiere of her variety show, “I’ve just felt so guilty this whole time.”

  I braced myself.

  “I’ve decided to try and make it work with my girlfriend. I don’t think I can see you anymore.”

  I was no longer on the roller coaster, Livvy. I was now on the Tilt-A-Whirl, hanging on for dear life. After dropping the bomb, she left my house with only a hug good-bye—a kiss would have been too risky for us both. And that was that.

  For the next few weeks all I could do was weep and ponder what I had done. Was it right to end my three-year relationship for what now seemed like just a fantasy? Did I really think I’d end up being in a long-term relationship with someone where we didn’t even call each other by our real names? And what is magic anyway? Even if it is up to us to believe in and manifest what we want, is what happens after that in our hands? Obviously, once we attain our desires, there are no guarantees. And maybe most of the time we don’t even know what our true desires are. I guess all we can do is put one foot in front of the other and let destiny reveal itself.

  Ready for this, Livvy?

  Less than two months later, my clothing designer friend Greg calls and cries excitedly, “Dollllllll, I totally met someone for you today. I was buying shoes and put them on hold so you’ll come back with me tomorrow and meet her.”

  “Where?” I ask.

  “Fiorucci. She’s the manager.”

  “Wait, you mean Danielle?”

  “Yes.”

  That’s right, Livvy. Danielle. The juggler’s ex. Ann’s old ex.

  Then, that very night, before I’d even gone with Greg to Fiorucci, which we’d arranged to do the next day, I go to Peanuts (a women’s club you might have heard of, Liv—just in case the rumors about you ARE true!). I walk in, and there, standing at the bar as if divinely choreographed in a routine way more impressive than any in Xanadu, is a charming girl with intense green eyes who looks awfully familiar.

  “Who’s that?” I ask a friend.

  “Her name’s Danielle.”

  I say hello, and within minutes we’re joking, laughing, talking as if we’ve known each other forever. And that’s the night that Danielle and I begin a relationship that’s still going strong today, almost a year later.

  So you’re right, Livvy. You do have to believe in magic. And if all your hopes survive—destiny will arrive.

  We can never be certain what magic looks like, but thanks to you, Livvy, I’m a believer.

  Love,

  Hillary Carlip

  P.S. I’m sorry the London Evening News said Xanadu was “the most dreadful, tasteless movie of all time” and Los Angeles magazine described your acting as “having the range of a mannequin.” Despite the bad reviews, I hope you continue to believe in magic!

  Fall

  1980

  I’m unable to audition for more movies, since the Screen Actor’s Guild goes on strike. Less than two weeks after the strike ends, former SAG president Ronald Reagan is elected president of the United States.

  Three hundred fifty million viewers tune in to find out “Who Shot J.R.” A month later, we learn that Mark David Chapman, a deranged fan, shot, and killed, John Lennon.

  I use a whole sheet of legal paper to make a note to remind myself to try the newly released product by 3M—Post-its.

  CNN launches the first all-news network, just in time to watch the U.S.-supported Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, invade and attack Iran.

  I see a new band called the Go-Go’s perform in small clubs as they try to get a record deal.

  A fire at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas kills eighty-four people, and Toxic Shock Syndrome claims the lives of thirty-eight women. The hit TV show Happy Days is in its sixth season.

  Danielle’s roommate, a gay twenty-year-old named Freddie, is very sick with a suppressed immune system, yet no doctor can figure out a diagnosis for him.

  Fifteen-year-old Brooke Shields seductively whispers in a commercial, “Nothing comes between me and my Calvins.” The ad is banned.

  I hang out with my new “buddy,” Kristy McNichol, whose show, Family, goes off the air.

  Jack Haley Jr.’s Coat Closet

  On a breezy, mesquite-scented autumn night, I pull up to Jack Haley Jr.’s lavish West Hollywood home in the hills north of Sunset Boulevard. The parking valet, a young Latino in a pink vest, pink bow tie, and pink cap, whisks open my door.

  “I’ll only be ten or fifteen minutes,” I tell him. “Can I just leave my car in front?”

  “No problemo, but if it’s longer, I have to move it.”

  “It won’t be.”

  I step out of the car, and when the valet catches sight of my ensemble—gold-trimmed black cancan dress encrusted with sequins, black fishnet stockings, gold lamé gloves, and a large black feather rising from the side of a jeweled headband—he lets loose a big, cartoony wolf whistle.

  “Ay, Mamacita! And I thought my work getup was out there!”

  “You look good in pink,” I tease as I reach into the backseat and retrieve my concertina—a kind of miniature accordion—and a basket filled with a long loaf of French bread, a round of cheese, and an apple.

  I balance on shiny spiked heels, walking up the red brick driveway, its cracks grouted with grass. When I miss a brick, my heel squishes deep into moist, dewy green. Noise spills from inside the house like a soundtrack to a party—glasses clinking, guests chatting—reminding me of the cocktail parties I’d hear from my childhood bedroom and smell on my mother’s breath when she later tucked me in.

  I gather my nerve, ring the doorbell, and wait.

  A slender, blond man wearing a paisley ascot opens the door. “Shit, you’re early,” he whispers theatrically as he grabs my arm and whisks me down the hallway, careful to make sure no one sees me.

  “It’s ten o’clock, I’m right on time,” I whisper back.

  “Well, we’re not ready yet, come on.” He leads me to a door. I assume the door opens to a den where I will wait, stealing a glimpse of framed photographs from Jack Haley Jr.’s life—him sitting in a director’s chair on the set of his hit film, That’s Entertainment; with Liza Minelli on exotic vacations during their five-year marriage; his dad as the Tin Man on the set of The Wizard of Oz.

  But no. I’m taken into a coat closet. The man closes the door behind us both. He’s pressed up against me in the small, dark space, and I can smell vodka on his breath and mousse in his hair.

  “Sorry, but everything started late,” he says. “We had a disaster in the kitchen. If you’ll just wait here a bit, I’ll make it worth your while.” I feel him fishing for something in his pocket, and then a flame appears, hissing from a gold lighter. It illuminates the twenty-dollar bill he holds.

  “I guess I can wait a bit.”

  “Thanks a lot.” He hands me the twenty dollars and slips out, quickly shutting the door behind him. I hear a man in the hallway say loudly, clearly for the benefit of the other guests, “Well, Mark, it’s about time you came out of the closet!” Partygoers laugh.

  I put down my basket and concertina and lean against the cologne-scented jackets and perfumed-tinged furs. In the three years since I began delivering singing telegrams, I’ve experienced many odd situations, but hiding in a coat closet is a first. While almost all deliveries go smoothly and on time, I have discovered that when I’m made
to wait, it’s usually for a delivery to a celebrity. And working in the heart of Hollywood for Live Wires Singing Telegram Company, I’ve had my share of celebrity recipients.

  Tonight David Niven Jr. has sent me to celebrate a double birthday for Jack Haley Jr. and star of stage and screen Tony “The Name of the Game” Franciosa. Like his friend Jack, Tony had married and divorced a legendary actress—in his case, Shelley Winters. When I get out of this closet, I will perform my most popular telegram, the “fabulous, fantastic, fiery, frenzied, famous Fifi DeLune,” a sequined French cancan girl who delivers comedy patter while she juggles, sings a song appropriate for the occasion, then leaves the recipient with a mini French feast, which she also juggles.

  When delivering singing telegrams I mostly perform my own characters and original material: a fortune-telling gypsy, a nagging wife, a Salvation Army zealot sent to cocktail parties to encourage the recipient to “repent,” a scheming Lucille Ball, a stewardess taking recipients on a “trip” through their lives, a nagging Jewish mother, and a porn director who comically leads the fully-clothed recipient in scenes from their “latest film.” I also do specific holiday characters created by Live Wires: a leprechaun for St. Patrick’s Day, a fruitcake for Christmas, a baby for Mother’s Day.

  I know it’s not like performing on television or in films, but at least I’m not waitressing while I wait for my big break. And since I often perform for studio heads, producers, casting directors, and stars, I figure delivering singing telegrams could very well lead to something bigger. Jack Haley Jr. is a successful producer, and who knows who else is at this party. So I guess it’s worth the wait. Even in this closet.

  After ten minutes, I hear footsteps approaching. Finally. I adjust my strapless bra, make sure the feather in my headband’s standing straight. I pick up my basket and concertina. I’m ready. The knob turns, and Mark opens the door a crack. He pokes his head in and whispers, “Just a little bit longer. Can I get you a drink?”