So then I knew Mr. Pierce and Miss Luchino were in trouble with Miss Unger and Momma was in trouble with Mr. Pierce and Miss Luchino and I was in trouble with Momma and everybody else.
Things didn’t get better and by Friday Mr. Pierce said this was the worst week of his directing career d—n all of you meaning the whole cast. Miss Clement had three migraines (spell?) in one week and Mr. Pierce said I’d probably brought that on because Miss Clement hated violence of any sort (after four husbands and all that hate you can understand why). Then Ricky (that’s Rick McPherson who plays my teenage brother even though he’s 23 but looks younger) lost lots of money at the track (which is where they race horses and bet money on them) and wanted his salary in advance but Mr. Pierce said No that had happened once too often. I thought poor Ricky he was once a child actor like me and sometimes he makes me laugh about things but Momma says he never was a real star like me so what does he know and we have nothing in common even though I should always be polite. But I like him a lot anyway because he can’t ride a bike even now at 23 years old. But I don’t want to grow up like Ricky and lose all our Future at the track. I heard Miss Luchino say to Mr. Pierce that it was an addiction (spell?) like booze (which is getting drunk). Which reminds me that to make everything worse, Papa (that’s not my real father you remember diary he’s dead but this is Lance Harris who I call Papa because he acts it) well Papa came to rehearsal “drunk as a loon” Miss Clement said right out loud. I don’t know what a loon is but it must be drunk, because Papa was very happy and lifted me up and kept throwing me in the air and I loved him even if his breath did smell a little like our apartment building hall. And then he threw his arms around Mr. Pierce and called him “Sid darling” and Miss Luchino said sharp to Momma Get that kid off the set.
So you see it was a very terrible week, diary, even if we are really a happy family on our show. Momma says it’s a miracle we got through it. But we did. And there’s no more time to tell you about school or anything else which was all the same as usual anyway.
You see why I apologize to you for paying you no attention all this time but I couldn’t get to you. And now there’s never going to be a Perfect Record of writing in you every single day ever again because that’s been ruined for all time and this terrible week has ruined my Perfect Chart for all year.
I really really had wanted to write in you every single day for the rest of my whole life, and now I’ll never be able to do that. I’m really sad about that. I’m so very sorry, diary. Forgive me and please try to understand.
Apologetically (spell?)
Julian
Dear Diary,
I know this time I missed two days but at least it’s not a whole week even if I did skip all by my own fault and not from losing a privilege. But it’s just not the same now that I can’t say I’ve never missed a day because I had to miss that whole week. It’s not perfect anymore. But I still love you diary don’t think I don’t. If I was allowed to I would even show you to Jewell because then she could see from the earlier stuff I wrote in you that I had liked her all along for real and she wouldn’t think I had joined in to help Benjy and Roger. But I’m not allowed to do that and I’ve “butted in enough” like Momma says. Besides, I haven’t seen Jewell down by the tracks or playing in front of her little wood house since that day, and I don’t know if she’s hiding or moved away or maybe even died from being beat up by those dumb stupid idiot bullies upstairs I still hate them and always will. Momma and Liz go on having coffee together but us kids don’t go up or down to play together while they do it. So something good came out of the terrible week anyway. But I hope Jewell’s not dead or hurt bad and Momma says I have a tender heart but I should know better than to butt in and she says trust her she’s sure Jewell is fine because nobody could run like that and be hurt. But Hamlet gets a mortal wound (which is the kind you die from) and goes on and fights more and even kills a few people and gives a long speech to the audience all between the time he gets hurt and the time he finally dies and while all this is happening he knows he’s dying. It’s very very sad and it makes me worried about Jewell no matter what Momma says. If her family moved away like Liz told Momma they should, then I’ll never even know if Roger and Benjy gave Jewell a mortal wound or not. But Momma says there’s nothing I can do. And she’s right, because I’m not allowed to.
I don’t want to write in you anymore right now, dear diary, and I hope that doesn’t hurt your feelings. Sometimes after Momma has worked a long time at the stocks that are going to make us rich she gets that deep line in her forehead that she likes me to smooth out for her but not at those times because she says it’s nothing really she’s just “depressed” (sp?). That means sort of sad like you sometimes get after the show is over or when you go to an audition but they say they’re looking for somebody younger or older or not so blonde or different. You sort of know what it is you’re sad about but the sadness is bigger than one thing and spreads over lots of things. So that’s why I don’t want to write anymore for now, I think. It must be I’m depressed.
I apologize, diary,
Julian
Dear Diary,
I know I skipped again, four days this time. But Momma says I have a busy schedule and there are more important things to pay attention to and if I don’t write in you every single day she says it’s alright. I hope you think so, too.
There’s no big news that’s happened anyway. It’s been warm for this late in October which is nice because I like to put off wearing my leggings as long as possible. I hate hate hate them but I’m not old enough to wear tights and we can’t afford to have me catch a cold, not after the way I already got us into trouble even up to calling in Miss Unger about my face.
The scratch is disappearing, which makes Pietro glad and also Momma and everybody else too. But I’m sort of sorry because it reminded me every time I looked at myself in the mirror how I gave Roger a bloody nose and how Jewell and me fought like the Amazons in the Greek myth book even if Jewell might not ever know I was fighting on her side or might be dead by now of a mortal wound. Roger and Benjy just walk around free when I think Roger at least should go to jail because he might have murdered Jewell you never know. I won’t speak to him or Benjy anymore and Momma says that’s okay even if it does make her life difficult with Liz.
So the only big news I guess is that we had the cast party for a whole day out at Miss Clement’s country house in Connecticut (I know that’s right because I looked it up. If I use the dictionary for words I’m not sure about then maybe Momma won’t have to check in here for spelling mistakes). We have the cast party every year but it’s always in the summer so we can all go swimming in Miss Clement’s pool. But this summer we never had it because Miss Clement’s fourth husband was sick with something. (I think maybe she poisons them like Gertrude did her husband in Hamlet because they always seem to disappear. But Momma says No they just get divorced although she says she wouldn’t put it past Miss Clement to poison a person). Momma doesn’t like Miss Clement. But she’s always very polite to her because after all Miss Clement is the Star of our show even if I am more popular with our hundreds and hundreds of viewers and get the most fan mail of anybody, Miss Luchino says.
So this year we couldn’t have the cast party until now and nobody could swim in the pool which was alright with me because I don’t know how to swim anyway and you never know you could drown like Ophelia did.
But there still was water in the pool because Miss Clement likes to swim for her constitution (looked it up!) which means not the Declaration of Independence, diary, but her health, and so she swam right into early October when it was warm and the pool still hadn’t been drained out yet. Miss Clement is a magnificent (looked it up) actress and it’s no wonder she’s famous and has been on the stage on Broadway and in London too because she sort of acts all the time even out there at her country house where she says she “lets her hair down.” (Not really, diary, she keeps it pinned in a bun on top of her head like al
ways, that’s a saying that means she doesn’t have to act at the country house, but I think she does at least when anybody else is there I bet even all the husbands.) So Miss Clement stood there in her hostess gown and when Mr. Pierce had so much booze he fell into the pool she wasn’t even worried about Ophelia (he can swim) but just stood there with her right hand up to her throat and her big blue eyes open very wide and sort of sang out (Miss Clement can carry a tune and has perfect pitch and used to sing with Noel Coward who was very famous and is old now and maybe dead) anyway she sort of sang out “Sidney! I am appalled!” But everybody laughed and he climbed out and Rose (that’s Miss Clement’s maid who is a Negro lady) got a big towel for him and then he even had another drink.
Ricky played pool (not the water kind but a game with sticks and balls on a table) all day inside with Abe who is our assistant (spell? No, l.i.u!) director and who I love. He always calls me Hey Kid or Trooper or just Julian but never The Baby because he says that years don’t count and I’m the oldest one on the set. Which is very nice because I get tired of always being the youngest everywhere. Miss Luchino sat in a deck chair by the pool and kept shouting inside to Ricky that if he was losing his next week’s salary he could go to hell before she’d plead for him again with Darlene. (Darlene is Miss Unger’s first name but nobody not even Mr. Pierce calls her that except only Miss Luchino and Miss Clement and the men from The Sponsors when they visit the control room on Show Day.)
Everybody was having a good time and Momma sat off to one side like she’s always careful to do because you don’t want anyone to think you’re one of those awful stage mothers like other kids in the business have. She drank lots of coffee and talked with Betty who’s our script-girl lady and Helga who’s the wardrobe lady. Helga comes from Hungary and got out before the communists (l.i.u!) came, by the skin of her teeth she says. And Momma even said I could go for a walk along the forest path all by myself (Miss Clement told her it was “perfectly safe” and not to be “overprotective” (l.i.u.) so what else could Momma do but let me go. I whispered to her that I’d wear my sweater and my muffler and only go a little way and come right back, and I’d gone that path a year ago together on a walk with Momma at the last party so she knew it really was okay and not in woods or anything jungley (?) but just a sort of field with trees back of the house and the pool.
And so diary I had a whole walk in the country all by myself! It was magnificent. I saw a skunk! (But I didn’t scare it I stood perfectly still until it went away so it didn’t put out its smell.) I saw a brown rabbit for just a minute. I wanted to pick a flower but I didn’t because you never know there could be poison ivy or something and then I’d get us all into trouble again. So I stuck to the path and looked up at the red and yellow leaves, and when I squeezed my eyes almost shut the sun made sparkles (l.i.u.) like the air was a green color. There were lots of birds but you couldn’t see them, only hear them. I stood like a statue and didn’t move a muscle like you have to do when being fitted for a costume or if you’re posing for a picture where they use a long exposure. But here I stood still just because I didn’t want to scare off the birds or the forest or anything. I pretended to myself I was part of the forest, a tree or a wild creature (l.i.u.) just being there. It felt real and I loved doing it. And except for the birds singing and the leaves sort of Shhhing when they fell in the green color air it was so quiet, as quiet as the library. Even if Mr. Pierce does despair of me because he says I’m such a hopeless city child (he grew up in Montana which is mostly not cities) Momma always tells him not to worry about me I’m doing just fine and as usual Momma is right because I sure was doing fine all by myself on my first walk alone through the country.
So I kept to the path and remembered my promise to Momma and turned around after a while and came back. Well, to tell the truth, diary, I would have gone on a little more, but I saw something funny through the trees up ahead and I knew better than to butt in. Pietro was there. He is our makeup man who fixed my scratch remember? He really grew up in Brooklyn but is called Pietro instead of Pete because it fits a makeup man better and besides he lived in Rome for three whole years. He is nice and very funny and makes me laugh and calls me his little Garbo. (She is a famous actress who doesn’t talk too much, not like me!, in fact she hardly talks at all but is very famous and not dead yet). Pietro was there up ahead through the trees with Lee, who is Miss Clement’s house-boy which means he takes care of her house like Rose takes care of her. I like Lee (who isn’t a boy but old, about 25 or even more and who always sneaks me Cokes) and of course I really like Pietro a lot and I was going to run up and say Hi to them but I didn’t. It was funny. Not funny ha ha but funny strange. Pietro was on his knees in front of Lee and Lee’s pants were down around his ankles even his underpants. You could see Lee’s bare bottom white in the sun against the brown tree stems or whatever they’re called. Lee’s head was sort of thrown back and he made sounds like he was in pain. So then right away I knew Lee had been bitten by a snake or some other poisonous thing and Pietro was trying to save his life by sucking out the venom (l.i.u.) like they tell you in first aid books and on TV. I knew Pietro would be very brave about saving somebody’s life because he is gentle and tall and handsome. But I hoped he would remember you had to spit out the poison and not swallow any or you could die after you saved the other person.
Anyway, I knew better than to butt in. Besides if there were snakes in that part of the woods I sure didn’t want them to bite me and they might too because I am shorter than Pietro and nearer to the ground. When Momma and I play tickle she sometimes acts like a giant and she says in a loud voice “Ho! Tender baby flesh! Yum yum!” and of course I know Momma is just playing so I laugh but I sure didn’t want the snakes to think I was tender baby flesh because the snakes would not be playing. Also I didn’t know if a person could suck out the poison from two people one right after the other or die themselves and so Pietro might not be able to save me if I did get bitten and then what would I do? I might die of snake poison or ruin the cast party and get Momma and me into trouble again.
So I just turned around very very quiet like in the library and pretended I was an Indian walking through the woods in my moccasins (l.i.u.) without cracking a twig. And I made it all the way back to the house and the pool without a sound.
It was a magnificent walk and Momma said she was proud of me. But when I whispered to her about the snake bite and maybe we should tell the others and call for the ambulance because Pietro might not have got out all the poison you never know Momma said very fast No and not to mention it to anybody that she would take care of it and I should forget I’d ever seen Pietro and Lee in the woods at all. I tried to explain to her how important it was but then I’m trying to get back at least to near Perfect on the chart so I stopped because one of the things on the chart list is Not to Argue. So that was that.
Momma was right as always and I should have known better. Because sure enough a little while later Lee and Pietro came up to the pool but not together and since people were coming and going in and out of the house nobody even asked where they’d been or wondered if they’d been dead or alive (which Lee almost was, dead I mean, if Pietro hadn’t saved him). Lee didn’t mention the snake bite and he looked okay. Pietro didn’t mention it either, and I knew that was because Pietro would never brag and I guess he made Lee not tell everybody how brave Pietro had been too. I think Pietro is a good man. He took me to a ballet once on a Saturday afternoon because he knows a lot of the dancers.
Anyway so that’s the big news. And Momma and me went back early by train even though we had drove out in one of the cars along with Helga and Betty. But the grownups were staying later and I felt sorry that Momma couldn’t stay with them because after all she is a grownup even if she is my Momma. But I had to be got back home early and somebody had to take me and so of course it was poor Momma. She said she didn’t mind a bit and she would rather be with me than anybody in the whole world anyway.
We had a nic
e long train ride which I love because Momma reads the newspaper or a magazine and I can just look out the window at things going by and think. You can’t think very much at home because there’s always homework or the script or something to do or else you should be sleeping your beauty sleep. But there’s not much you can do on a train because it bounces too much to write your homework clearly. You can always be running your lines over in your head to save time but sometimes you can just stop and think a little. So I looked out the window and thought a little and then I guess I fell asleep because I woke up with my head on the windowsill which was all dirty and Momma said I was a filthy-faced muffin and what was she going to do with me? But I knew she wasn’t mad or anything, so I didn’t complain when she took out a hankie and spit on it and rubbed my face clean. I always hate hate hate when somebody even Momma does this to me and I wish they’d at least let me spit my own spit on the hankie if there has to be spit on the hankie at all when there’s no water around. That way I would be smelling my own spit on my face while it dries instead of somebody else’s spit at least. But I was too sleepy to care much so then we got home and went to sleep.
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