Woman Enters Left

by Jessica Brockmole

  June 4, 1926

  Today it’s my turn to keep AL away from the sickroom. Carl is in there with Eth and both are talking. I suppose it’s good. She’s telling him all about the journey. He’s telling her about the divorce. I catch words here and there, floating out through the open window. No one sounds angry. Sad, maybe. But we’ve all gotten too quiet for anger.

  Later

  After a while he came out and took my place at the checkerboard. Eth was sleeping, he said; she’d worn herself out with talking. I couldn’t ask him, not with AL sitting right there stacking up the red checkers into a tower, but I asked, Better? He nodded. I told her everything, he said. Before I even said a word, she forgave me.

  AL tugged on his sleeve, asked, What, Daddy, what? but he looked over her head at me. Now, he said, it’s your turn.

  June 5, 1926

  Today, I thought I was supposed to be playing tennis with AL. So did Carl. When we went looking for her, she was stretched out on top of her mother like a blanket. Her dark head was tucked under Ethel’s chin and she didn’t even turn around when we walked into the room. Mom was cold, she said. Beneath her cheek, the sheet was wet. Will you help me?

  And we crawled in, Carl and I, on either side. We’d been trying to keep this little girl from the sickroom, to keep her from watching her mother die, to keep her from suffering alongside Ethel. If we’d been paying attention, we’d have seen that Anna Louisa had been suffering quietly on her own.

  So we climbed in that narrow bed with Ethel. Carl on her right, me on her left, and AL stretched out on top. Between us, Ethel was hot and shaking, but she brought a hand up to rest on her daughter’s head. You smell like sunshine, she said, and for the first time, she cried.

  June 6, 1926

  Help me with a bath, Ethel asked.

  I knew it wouldn’t be like last time, that warm corner of an afternoon in the tent. We had a real bathtub, for starters. Running water. Thick towels. Marjorie even gave me a bottle of rose water to pour into the steamy water.

  When I helped her undress, it was with tenderness. It was love, but love far from that bare moment in the tent. All of the wanting in the world, but this here was needing.

  Her leg below the bandage was angry, red, and weeping. She was so thin, I could see hollows under her collarbone.

  I laid towels down in the bottom of the bathtub for her to sit on and helped all of her but her right leg into the rose-scented water. I tried not to look. Not at the little hints of curves left on her wasted body. Not at the flushed skin stretched over sharp bones.

  Not what you were picturing, is it? she asked.

  I almost said no, then stopped. I realized what she’d said. As if she knew. As if she’d known all along. I looked up and met her eyes.

  You don’t need to tell me, she said.

  But those words that had frozen in my mouth a thousand times between here and New Jersey, they thawed. Tell you what? I asked. That I love you?

  The words echoed.

  She smiled and she touched my cheek and, there in that steamy bathroom smelling of roses, I didn’t need her to tell me either.

  June 7, 1926

  This morning Ethel was having trouble breathing.

  I brought my notebook and started reading to her the script I’ve been writing. It’s about two friends driving across the country in a jalopy, I said. There were flat tires, rainy campgrounds, the occasional bottle of cheap gin. Love simmering beneath the surface. Sickness chasing them like a headless horseman. But the friends, they were happy. Whatever came next, they had this time together.

  Every now and again, Ethel took the notebook from me to reread a line. Once she took my pencil, and shakily added one of her own. I had to keep stopping to let her catch her breath. I had to stop to keep her from hearing the tears in my voice.

  I went to get her a cup of tea. When I came back, she was curled up around my notebook. It’s not finished.

  Of course not, I said. We still have more story between us, don’t we?

  She didn’t answer.

  Doc Robinson gave her a little morphine and her eyes grew dreamy after that. Before she slipped off to sleep, she took my hand and pulled me down close. Her lips brushing against my ear, she whispered, Write me a last scene.

  I sat by the bed, holding her hand with one of mine, the pencil with the other. She slept and I wrote the last scene she deserved.

  She never got to read it.

  June 8, 1926

  I gave Ethel a bath again. This time Carl helped. We washed her and dressed her, by mutual consent, in the knickers and blouse she’d worn the past couple of weeks.

  We worked slowly. I knew once it was done, once she lay under the acacia tree out back, that I’d have no reason to stay. Carl knew it too. He’d be for New Jersey, for a quiet house with AL, and I’d be for California. So we worked slowly, needing those last few moments with her, but also with each other. I remembered what AL had said the other day, about refusing to say goodbye. Maybe that’s what we were doing.

  I’ll keep in touch, I said, more with politeness than conviction.

  He didn’t let me get by with politeness. You said that when I joined the army.

  Back then, it had been petty jealousies. I hadn’t written because I’d wanted to forget him. I’d wanted Ethel to. Of course she didn’t. She missed him and I never even knew.

  I hadn’t believed that love was infinite. That it doesn’t diminish with distance or time. Hearts can bruise and go on beating. I’m sorry, I said.

  I spent years without one of my best friends, he said, and will spend a lifetime without the other. Please say you will.

  I will.

  June 10, 1926

  I didn’t open up my notebook again until I was standing in front of the Pacific Ocean.

  I drove from Nevada with hands shaking, fear gripping me around the middle. I couldn’t even say what I was afraid of.

  Maybe it was what awaited me in California, the uncertain abyss of work, apartments, friends.

  Maybe it was knowing who I was.

  Maybe it was the quiet car. The loneliness.

  Or maybe, probably, actually…it was a future without her.

  I drove until I heard the ocean and then I got out and walked onto the beach. From one coast to the other. I left my shoes on the sand and walked until my toes touched the water. Each wave pulled a little of my fear and washed it out to sea.

  And I opened my notebook.

  Flipping through all the journal entries and their painful yearning, through the pages of my script, I found that Ethel had left something behind.

  On the very last page, in faint letters, she’d written an echo of that note passed in class all those years ago. “Holding your hand, I suddenly wasn’t as scared.”

  And, just as suddenly, neither was I.

  Chapter Eighteen

  1926

  Scene: Campground somewhere between the desert and the ocean. Browns and yellows and oranges beneath an impossibly blue sky. Sounds of distant conversation, rattles of pots and pans, a lone dog barking. By the angle of the light, it’s late in the afternoon.

  A Model T stands in the middle, doors open. On one side of the car, BERYL kneels next to a campfire, peeling boiled potatoes into a pot. On the other, FRANCIE sets up a slanted tent, attached to the roof of the car. Both are in well-worn travel clothes—knickerbockers and brown blouses. Francie has a bandanna tied around her neck. Beryl’s is tied around her head.

  Beryl hums as she cuts potatoes over the pot. Francie works silently. She seems deep in thought. She doesn’t notice a pole starting to fall until it lands on her toe.

  FRANCIE

  (swearing)

  She is clearly not a woman who swears often. In fact, she looks embarrassed.

  BERYL

  (laughing, glancing back over her shoulder)

  Be careful. You only have ten of those.

  FRANCIE

  (forcing a smile, even though she’s clear on the other
side of the car)

  Sorry.

  Beryl stands and brings her most recently peeled potato around the car.

  BERYL

  You okay?

  FRANCIE

  (Her smile becomes genuine at the sight of Beryl.)

  Yes.

  BERYL

  (unconvinced)

  Well, (with a sudden wink) try not to get any splinters. I have to get these potatoes finished.

  She moves back to the campfire and her humming. Francie drops her smile. They face the wings, backs to the Model T.

  FRANCIE

  (finally)

  Beryl, (hesitating) you sure you aren’t going to regret it?

  BERYL

  Dinner? No. You know my feelings about mashed potatoes.

  FRANCIE

  Be serious.

  BERYL

  Fine. Regret what?

  FRANCIE

  Running after the car with your suitcase.

  BERYL

  (hands stilling, just for a moment)

  Of course not. We weren’t finished with our adventure. I still haven’t seen the Pacific Ocean.

  FRANCIE

  I know, but—

  BERYL

  (almost offhandedly)

  Oh, I wouldn’t abandon you, Fran.

  (pouring milk)

  We’re in this together.

  FRANCIE

  I know, Beryl. I know that.

  (leans against tent pole and looks across to where Beryl is on the other side of the car)

  But that’s not what I meant. Not when I left the ranch.

  In this draft of this script, they’ve left the dude ranch, all those wooden cacti and scenery flats and lights with amber gels. The curtain didn’t fall, the applause didn’t thunder, the orchestra didn’t soar into a finale. In a theatrical bit of repetition between acts, Beryl chased the offstage sound of a car engine. And, scene.

  FRANCIE

  (repeating)

  That’s not what I meant.

  BERYL

  Then what did you mean?

  FRANCIE

  Do you regret running after my car that very first time? At the start of this whole thing?

  BERYL

  (stills with potato masher in hand)

  The start? When did it really start?

  FRANCIE

  (without thinking)

  1908. We were ten.

  (without noticing the quiet on the other side)

  You’d come to try out for the class play I’d written—maudlin, preachy thing that it was. None of the boys wanted anything to do with it, so you marched to the front of the room and said you’d take the part of King Henry. Truth be told, I was too scared of you to say no. Scared, impressed, envious. Infatuated.

  Beryl starts at the last word.

  FRANCIE

  That was the start. Do you remember? After that, we were inseparable.

  She stares across the space between them, as if she can see through the car. Beryl’s face is anguished.

  FRANCIE

  Are you still there?

  BERYL

  Yes.

  (shaking her head and standing)

  I remember. That silly play.

  (She applies wire masher to the pot of potatoes and milk.)

  Ha!

  (with unnecessary vigor)

  You’re right.

  FRANCIE

  I am.

  (straightening)

  You didn’t ask.

  BERYL

  Ask what?

  FRANCIE

  (quietly)

  What it was that started that day.

  Beryl does not respond. She busies herself putting mashed potatoes into a ceramic bowl, adding butter, adding salt.

  Francie stands straight and squeezes her hands together. She looks like she might pace in front of the tent. She looks like she might duck inside under the canvas and not say another word. If the scene had been real, she might have. If they’d really been here, with nothing more difficult than a Model T between them, Francie might have lost her nerve, the way she had at all of those other campgrounds in all those other scenes.

  But this scene is her last chance. It’s her only chance. She wrote it to say what she needs to say. To give herself more time. After all, she’s the only player left on the stage.

  So in this version of this scene that played out in her head hundreds of times, Francie doesn’t hide in the tent. She steps around the car. She crosses to where Beryl stands by the bonfire with her ceramic bowl. And she kisses her.

  FRANCIE

  That’s what started the day you stepped in front of me and declared you’d be my king. That.

  Beryl drops the bowl of mashed potatoes.

  This is the place for a monologue. Something long and suitably romantic. Something that reveals decades of wistfulness, asks for decades of promises. In this script, the future’s as long as the script writer’s paper. On the page, they have eternity.

  But the monologue would be unnecessary. It’s become a silent movie, close-ups of emotions on faces and gestures that speak louder than words.

  Beryl breaks the eye contact first and bends to wipe off her shoes. Francie waits a moment, then goes back around the Model T to where the second tent sits folded. She begins to unfold. On the other side, Beryl picks up the broken halves of her bowl. She’s humming “California, Here I Come.” Francie smiles and puts the second tent back in the car.

  The curtain, now, can fall.

  Chapter Nineteen

  1952

  It’s right there on the front page. MOULIN ROUGE PICKETED BY LEGION MEN.

  The continuation on page nine isn’t as leading as that headline. There were only a handful of picketers at the premiere, largely unnoticed by the swanky crowd and the hundreds of fans waiting for autographs. John Huston didn’t give them a second thought. The pictures make it look awful, though. Placards with John’s name, and Jose Ferrer’s. Words like “ban” and “Communist.” Louise feels sick to her stomach.

  “More coffee?” the diner waitress asks, but Louise waves her away. When her hash and toast arrives, she can’t eat it. She reads the rest of the paper, but keeps coming back to those photos.

  The waitress looks over Louise’s shoulder when she comes to clear the table. “Nasty, ain’t it?”

  Louise pushes the plate of uneaten hash away. “It is. To step out of your car on premiere night, already nervous about the critics, and to encounter this.” She stabs a finger at the newspaper. “Poor John,” she says, mostly to herself. “Poor Jose! He looks positively bewildered here.”

  The waitress is staring over her coffeepot. “I meant those actors. Nasty Reds, parading around like they’re real Americans.” She picks up Louise’s mug, accidentally sloshing coffee onto the newspaper. “It ain’t right.”

  Though she’s never done it before, Louise neglects to leave a tip.

  —

  It was nine months ago when Arnie first got wind that he’d been named.

  Louise had been in the kitchen, frying up a mess of steak and potatoes for Arnie, when the doorbell rang. Maybe it was Pauline with a pie or the paperboy collecting. They weren’t expecting anyone, not this close to supper.

  It was neither. When she came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, it was to Arnie and a Western Union boy on the front porch. Arnie was chuckling over a telegram and ignoring the messenger, who was all but holding his hand out for the anticipated tip. Louise picked up her handbag and fished out a nickel.

  “Oh, this one is worth a dime.” Arnie handed over the telegram, and retrieved another five cents from her change purse.

  It was from Charlie, but addressed to Arnie.

  WE SHOULD GET TOGETHER BEFORE YOU HEAD OUT OF TOWN. LUNCH WITH R. KENNY?

  “Did he spoil the surprise?” Louise asked. It was two weeks until their anniversary. “Where are we going?”

  “This is the kind of surprise that needs spoiling,” Arnie said, and she knew it wasn�
��t a weekend in Palm Springs or anything nice like that. “Sorry, kiddo. It’s just Charlie being clever. Sending me codes through the telegraph.”

  Charlie had never sent her a thing in code. “So secret lunches with my agent and whoever ‘R. Kenny’ is. A girl might get jealous.”

  Arnie stopped his chuckling. On the front walk, the Western Union boy was very slowly pocketing his two nickels. And Louise realized suddenly that the code wasn’t as secret as all that.

  “R. Kenny. Robert Kenny. One of the lawyers for the Hollywood Ten.” She lowered her voice, suddenly sick. “Oh, Arn. What did you do?”

  The messenger took his delivery log out of his bag. Next door, Pauline waved over the top of her watering can. Arnie took Louise’s hand and pulled her into the house.

  “I was going to tell you at some point,” he said, shutting the door, “honestly I was, Lou. I mean, I figured I’d be named at some point….”

  “ ‘Named’…” she whispered. She sank against the cool of the door.

  “Listen.” He put his hands on her shoulders, held her against the closed front door. “I fronted for Sid. That script about the girl in the peach orchard? He wrote it, passed it to me, and I put my name on it. Charlie was letting me know that I’ve been found out. HUAC has my name. Charlie’s message, about Robert Kenny and being out of town, he was warning me to take it on the lam. A subpoena’s coming my way.”

  If Arnie hadn’t been holding her, Louise would’ve slid down to the floor.

  “Lou? Did you hear what I said?” He let go of her shoulder and touched the side of her face. “Talk to me.”