Girl Act

by Kristina Shook

  “When are you going to get married?” he asked.

  “Married?” I said, annoyed as I shook my head like a mad dog. Didn’t he notice that I was single, without an acting job or my own home?

  “You’re single, how do you think I got this way?” I added, in fully-mean spirited tone, I couldn’t stop myself. Go figure.

  He didn’t hide the fact that my words stung. He slid three unopened letters across the Dunkin’ Donuts table.

  “These came from the pen pal, but as you know, I only open the mailbox once a month. They were forwarded from Helen’s former address to mine,” he said.

  “It’s a wonder you have a roof over your head, what with paying your bills late each month,” I snapped. He stood up and glared at me.

  “I always overpay the amount due, if you must know, daughter,” he said as he left.

  I watched him unleash Twist from the pole— and I know I should have raced out and apologized, but it would have been a forced gesture and I needed time to cool off.

  After that I took Shadow on a walk through the Mount Auburn Cemetery. It’s such a wonderful place to stroll through. Sure, there are graves with old headstones and fancy monuments, but it’s peaceful. I knew my aunt hadn’t bought a plot, because she didn’t believe in being buried. I figured she’d want her ashes scattered in the Charles River or shipped back to Iowa; she still had a friend her age who lived in her hometown.

  I looked around, hoping for some sign—something to make me feel not so angry and not so scared. Having only three years until I turn thirty made me feel anxious and apprehensive. Would I ever get married? Where would I live? Would I still be an actress? Then I saw it, the Purple Finch. They look like sparrows, only with a light purplish color. This one was eyeing a female Finch. I swear they were flirting. And suddenly I felt as if Jill and Finch’s spirits were hovering over me. So I stood there holding Shadow’s leash, watching them.

  LOVE was the message that I got from the birds. I had been turning love away and acting like a bruised apple-doll instead of a woman. Okay, so I made a vow right there and then to just act with love, to think love, to be love.

  When I got back to Laurel’s house, Tristan had finished the canopy and was painting it white. He had bought the wood to build an outdoor bar that Laurel had not only wanted for the wedding, but to keep as well. I stared at the wood like it was something important because Tristan was so proud of it, and I kept my vow to act ‘loving’ at all cost.

  “Does your family do woodworking?” I asked, softly. Tristan laughed.

  I couldn’t have asked a more stupid question. His father was a prominent financial investor, along with his other two brothers, and he was from a very well-to-do London family. He had traded money for wood, and it made him happy.

  “Does your father approve?” I asked, deciding that I had to keep trying.

  “If my brothers weren’t both finance investors, he’d have an issue, but two out of three sons, not a bad return on his paternal investment. It all comes down to ROI’S,” he said, with louder laugh.

  I watched him: he seemed filled with happiness, much more than I’d experienced.

  ‘Change yourself,’ I said inside my head, a chant I repeated ten times. He glanced at me and then went back to the white paint. I was about to head inside when he said, “Hey, your new brother’s here, he’s taking a nap on the couch. Looks as if he hasn’t slept in days, so I told him to get some shuteye. Don’t wake him up.”

  “Is that an order?” I asked. He turned and double winked at me.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your Aunt Helen, if you want to talk about it, give a shout,” Tristan said.

  Wow, he meant it. Cool, a brother and a British roommate, I wasn’t really all alone after all. And there was my father, who I knew I owed a gigantic apology to. Still, I decided to put that off for a day, because my father has a thing about timing—he trusts things that aren’t rushed. Also, I wasn’t sure how to apologize. Should I just say sorry in person? Or write a note and slip it under his door?

  Shadow was camped out near Tristan and I went around front to take packages inside because there were packages that needed to be taken inside. My cell phone rang. It was Paloma, so I sat on the front steps and listened to her talk.

  “I’m going to Argentina to shoot a film with him. I’m playing a gun-toting-rebel- whore,” she blurted out, laughing.

  “I’m not jealous, I’m excited for you!” I said, because I was. Paloma’s my first best friend and my NYC friend. Laurel’s my second best friend and my New England friend.

  “Do you think he’s the one? Is he Romeo?” I asked.

  “I hope so, I’m ready to be a sexy wife,” she said.

  Then she told me about the white lace underwear she had bought, because she was going to do ‘it’ with him for the first time in Argentina. It was the longest she’d ever dated a guy without having sex, and she told me that so far, it was the best challenge she’d given herself.

  “But what if he’s not good?” I asked.

  “Then I’ll teach him. Still I’ll be glad I held out because we’ve had so much passion, kissing, hugging, and cuddling. I’m hooked,” she said.

  Paloma really is one of the coolest women I know.

  “Diego has a serious girlfriend,” she told me. He had skipped dating and just jumped into it.

  “Wow, everything is happening so fast,” I said, in amazement.

  “She’s got the same thing, too,” Paloma said. She won’t say the words herpes or cancer—anything ‘medically’ serious; she always calls it the ‘thing’.

  I clicked off my cell feeling happier. I mean, she was really carrying out the vow to fall in ‘true’ love, and hopefully forever.

  Then I unlocked Laurel’s front door and carried in the four large boxes. They were from Pier 1, and Tristan had signed for them. I texted Laurel about the boxes and left them in the hallway before going into the living room to peek at Gabriel who was fast asleep on the couch. He looked extra-skinny, but his acne was almost gone. His black knapsack was on the floor, a jacket next to it.

  So I sat in the kitchen, waiting for the tea kettle to boil. I was going to drink tea and just be quiet. I still couldn’t believe that I had spotted the Purple Finch. There aren’t many birds I recognize, aside from pigeons. Okay, Bluebirds, Red Robins and Red Cardinals, but nothing past that. It was a sign—a sign I so needed. I had lived my life looking for signs mostly in movies—I pinched myself on my cheeks, something I do every now and again just to remind myself that I am alive, really alive. The kettle whistled and I sprang up to get it.

  Then Gabriel walked in. He had circles under his eyes, his hair was messy, and he seemed sad. “Hi, bro,” I said, as I poured myself a cup of tea. He slid a mug near mine and I filled his. We sat at Laurel’s square red table. Neither of us spoke, as we sipped our tea. The silence made us notice the sounds in the kitchen, like the grandfather clock her father had put in the far corner, the drip of the sixty year old sink, and the hum of the fridge. It was an old, comfy room, wallpapered in an English horse and buggy design, one of Laurel’s mother’s ideas. I liked it.

  “She’s slipping away,” Gabriel said, not daring to look at me. I could hear it in his voice; he wanted to cry, but he wouldn’t, or he couldn’t.

  “Can you let her go in peace?” I asked. It just came out of my mouth.

  He looked at the grooves in the table and then I did, too.

  “Yeah, yeah, I can,” he said a few minutes later. I finished my tea because I was trying not to talk.

  “Do you like puzzles? Want to complete one with me?” he asked.

  “You bet, bro,” I said.

  Then I followed him back into the living room. He pulled a puzzle box out of his knapsack. I looked at the picture on the cover, a vintage Ford Model-T. I couldn’t believe it, because my grandfather (on my mother’s side) had learned to drive in one, and later he had saved up and bought one. It was a classic. I had always bought vintage car
s in LA; they never lasted more than a year, but who could turn down a 1960 Chevy Bel Air (pale baby blue), or a 1975 Mercedes 450 SLC (chocolate brown), or the last one, 1974 240 DL Volvo Station Wagon (hunter green).

  “I love classic cars. They are the beauty of Los Angeles. In that climate you can drive them everywhere,” I told Gabriel as he opened the puzzle box and dumped it out on the rug—a 1000 puzzle pieces.

  As we started in on it, I thought of that great scene in the classic movie Citizen Kane, where the wife is working on a puzzle in the huge, stark, mansion living room, and she’s bored to death.

  “You’ve seen the movie Citizen Kane, right?” I asked, expecting a yes, followed by the classic ‘rosebud’ mention.

  “No,” Gabriel said. Oh, no, my new brother had uttered his first movie ‘sin’.

  Not seeing Citizen Kane is like not knowing about Elvis, or that Key Largo is in Florida, or that Warner Brothers is in Burbank. It’s like not knowing that Marilyn Monroe was sexy; like not knowing how to add one plus one, or how to use a YoYo or build a tower out of playing cards, etcetera, and etcetera.

  “You’re seeing it tonight,” I told him, like any sister would.

  “I’m game,” he said, and then went back to working on the puzzle.

  I keep five DVDs with me at all times. They currently live in my suitcase. The famed ‘gossip’ about Citizen Kane is that it was based on William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper tycoon, and that ‘someone’ found out that ‘Rosebud’ was his pet name for his girlfriend’s clitoris. Who knows if it is really true, but I like to think that is. FYI, if you haven’t seen it yet, the word ‘rosebud’ is not used the same way in the movie.

  “You do know who Orson Welles is, right?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t going to have to fully educate my new brother.

  “He’s the actor/director/writer guy that got fat like Marlon Brando before he died, right?” he asked.

  Okay, not really the way I like the great Orson Welles to be remembered.

  “Shut up,” I said.

  Gabriel snickered, like any punk brother would. “Yeah, well you should see Searching for Sugar Man; it’s about a humble musician named Rodriguez, best ever. But it’s a documentary, if you’re open to those.”

  “I’m open, maybe I will,” I said. Suddenly having a sibling you can joke with, even argue with—well, it’s beyond amazing. Go figure!

  Finally, Tristan came in with Shadow trailing behind him and plunked down next to Gabriel. Six eyes on a 1000 puzzle pieces are totally necessary. An hour later I had to stop myself from shouting, “Wow, can my life please stay like this,” because I felt happy just being there with the three of us, plus Shadow. As if I had a new family—one that I wanted.

  25

  WORDS

  Gabriel stayed up watching Citizen Kane in the living room, while I sat on Laurel’s bed, still wide awake from having finished the 1000 piece puzzle with the guys, a task which lasted well into the early hours. I dumped Aunt Helen’s heaviest Trader Joe’s bag out on Laurel’s canopy bed. Her bedroom had been re-done in the style of an African safari, which her parents had taken her on when she turned twenty. They had exposed Laurel to a terrific life of travel and adventure; no wonder she wanted to marry an international man.

  Okay, so I haven’t been to Europe yet, and I know, at twenty-seven, it’s a total embarrassment. Paloma had been to Puerto Rico three times as a teenager and now she was going to Argentina. How do I find ‘true’ love, get engaged, get married, and travel the world by the time I’m thirty? How?

  I looked at the pile of pen pal letters. I counted them. There were nine. Then I looked at a clump of words sewn as patches that my aunt had made for me. I couldn’t believe it. Now I knew why the bag was so heavy. I read them out loud to myself: ‘DREAMS UNLIMITED’ and ‘BALANCED’ and ‘ACT AS IF’. The fabric letters were all cut from various colorful clothes, and she had pinned them across heavy denim strips. The letters really stood out. All I had to do now was to sew them across my pants and a few jackets.

  Okay, so Laurel’s got really expensive good taste. She buys everything from fashion shows and sample sales and everything is current. Paloma is a mix of 14th Street-meets- Macy’s. She buys knockoffs and no one would ever guess it. Paloma and Laurel met once, but I’ve kept them as separate friends and they both like it that way.

  I dumped out the second TJ bag, and out came a stack of brightly colored envelopes that had my initials on them. They were filled with magazine cuttings about furniture, gardening, and other ‘homey’ stuff. Leave it to my aunt to save magazine clippings for me. At the bottom of the bag was a brand new jean jacket with the words ‘I AM MYSELF’ sewn across the back of it, and inside it was To Cassidy from your pen pal Helen.

  I rummaged through my Chanel bag and found the letter she had written that my father had given me. My hands were shaking. She wrote the following:

  Dearest Vivien,

  Please go see Cassidy; she’s only sixteen and she’s a bright girl, and I want you to give her my goodbye letter and the blue jean jacket. I hope it fits her. Please give her her letters back, I wouldn’t want her to think that they were tossed out in the trash, as I very much enjoyed reading every single letter. What a pleasure it was for me to open my mailbox and find a pen pal letter waiting for me. I hope letter writing will last forever, even with the next generation and the next. Oh, dear me, I do hope so. Please give her my best and make sure she’s good and safe. Love your Aunt Helen.

  I folded it back up. My aunt had been so selfless. I suppose it was disrespectful, but I decided to read all the letters Cassidy had written. I only did it because something in my mind kept nudging me to read them, all of them. Okay, maybe being delirious from a lack of sleep made me decided that or maybe it was just my curiosity to hear the voice of a sixteen-year-old.

  I picked up the stack of letters, written with red ink, in all capitals, all in order. The first letter was about being sixteen, living in Chelsea and going to high school there, wanting to become a dental hygienist and really wanting to have a cat, but her stepfather said no. She had two stepsisters, both were in middle school. Her mother didn’t work. This was more of an introduction letter, and she had drawn a picture of herself on the back, which showed a teenage girl, kind of chunky, in pants, a sweatshirt, with shoulder length hair hanging over her face. It didn’t seem as if she was trying to draw herself as all that happy.

  I was almost ready to read number two, but I fell asleep.

  Oh, what a dream I had—the late TV creator, Aaron Spelling, (90210, Melrose Place, and Dallas, just to name-drop a few of his mega television hit shows) was still alive and was in a Hollywood hotel room, and I was meeting with him about creative ideas. All of a sudden, he pulled opened a bottom drawer of a dresser.

  I asked him, “What if a world opened up that you could enter, whenever you pulled the drawer open?”

  And Aaron Spelling said, “Where love lived in full motion.”

  Then the dream ended and I woke up to see Tristan walking into Laurel’s bedroom and looking down at me.

  “Hey, can you help me out?”

  I sat up and blurted out my dream.

  “Yeah, well, I’m not building drawers, but I am building an outdoor bar and I need a steady hand to hold some wood while I cut it,” he said.

  So I got up, raced into the shower, and then headed down stairs and out into the yard to hold the wood very still while he cut it correctly. The bar was to be curved and seat at least six. Nothing was going to be left to chance for Laurel, with the help of Deeda, who had thought of everything.

  “This is going to be amazing!” I said.

  “No worries, I won’t tell her you’re jealous”

  “Listen, smart ass. Okay, so I was jealous, but I’m not now. I’m really excited for Laurel,” I said, as he went back to trimming the wood without my help.

  Gabriel was up and heading back to see his mother. He had been staying at the Harvard Inn in a small single room that h
ad been rented for him in the hopes I guess, that he wouldn’t drop out, and in support of his inevitable loss.

  “Stop back anytime, any hour,” I said.

  And Tristan echoed, “That’s an order, mate,” and Gabriel sauntered off with his black knapsack over his shoulder.

  I headed into the house, racing upstairs to the stack of pen pal letters because I wanted to get through most of them in one sitting. Shadow stared up at me and I said, “You don’t need a walk, you’re incredibly spoiled by the British roommate and me, but you can have a dog treat.” I gave him a rawhide to chew on and he wandered off happily. Wow, what an easy dog.

  Letter number two was Cassidy thanking my aunt for writing to her and saying how much it meant, and that if she told her any secrets, would my aunt promise never to tell. It was such typically teenage stuff that it amused me. Pen pal letters number three and four were all about having to baby-sit her stepsisters, because her mother was going places with her new husband, how she was staying up late to finish her homework, and how she wanted to visit my aunt, how she’d never been to Cambridge (only to Somerville once to that Target because her mother wanted something that the Everett one had run out of). How she couldn’t wait for my aunt to write again; that even though she had Facebook, Tumblr and email, she liked letter writing better.

  Letters five and six talked about her future and moving away, and how she was trying to get good grades so she could get into a good dental school. She thanked my Aunt Helen for advice on homework and goals and asked when she could visit her in Cambridge, and how she had one good friend, but she had gossiped about her and now they weren’t friends.

  I was about to open pen pal letter number seven when Tristan walked in and sat down next to the pile.

  “These love letters?” he asked.

  I laughed, and explained to him how I had thought they were, but that my aunt had befriended a teenage girl in Chelsea as a pen pal. And I opened letter number one again and held up the red ink drawing for him.

  “This is her self-portrait,” I said. Tristan took it from me and looked it over.