by John Rowell
But a rap on the door stops me. She shoots me a quick look as if to say: Get back in character, kid. You’re still working here.
Mr. Arnaz pokes his head in.
“Hi’ya sweetie,” he says to Miss Ball, and goes over to kiss her.
“Desi,” she says, offering her right cheek to be pecked, but not getting up from the table. “A damn good show, didn’t you think?”
“Yeah, no problems. Everything looks good.”
“Desi, this is one of the showgirls. Wilma. I’m sure you noticed her. The prettiest one out there today, if you ask me. Did you get to meet her?”
He looks at me and smiles. “Well, no, I didn’t. How do you do, Wilma?”
And I give him the fish hand. This is getting easier.
“That’s funny,” Lucy says. “I could’ve sworn I saw you giving her the eye while I was talking to Herbie. Coulda sworn it.”
Mr. Arnaz feigns a little shock, and then says to her, all sincere: “Come on, sweetie, you know me better than that.” But that has to be a lie, because the way he’s giving me the once-over now, it’s like I’m the hog and he’s thinking about bacon for breakfast. He straightens his tie and grins.
“No, I don’t think I saw you before, dear,” he says to me, “but I’m glad to meet you now. Say, Lucy, is this the girl you met at the party? The one you told me about?”
“Yeah, that’s right, this is the one. I don’t even know why we pay the casting people. I find all the best ones myself. If my television career doesn’t work out, I’m gonna become a talent scout.” She exhales a big puff in the direction of the ceiling, not taking her eyes off our little scene for a minute.
“You do know how to pick ’em, sweetie,” he says, grinning at me even bigger now. I can’t believe how he’s staring me up and down, with a big old gleam in his eye like the men at the barbershop back home get when they paw all over the new girlie calendar. And right here in front of Miss Ball, too! I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised, though—I read in Modern Screen that Mr. Arnaz is known all over town as a womanizer and that he’s been known to cheat on Lucy. He sure is charming, though, and real handsome, I gotta admit that. I didn’t know too many Latins back in Alabama. My heart skips a little beat just knowing he’s looking at me, even though, for the moment, I’m a girl, and a pretty one, and I know that’s the reason he’s looking.
“Yeah, well,” Miss Ball finally says, real sarcastic-like.
And she gets up from her makeup table and looks us over—or, she looks at him looking me over. My heart is beating so fast now that all I can think is I wish I were home in Hollinsville, sweeping up for my uncle at New and Used Pontiac. Anything but this.
“Will you two excuse me a minute?” she says, and starts out of the dressing room. “I won’t be long.”
“Sure, sweetie,” he says. His back is to the door, and I’m facing it—and him—and I can see Miss Ball leave. She doesn’t shut the door completely, though, just leaves it cracked against the frame, which I notice, but Mr. Arnaz doesn’t. He doesn’t even turn around to look. I wonder if I should tell him.
“Wilma,” he says, touching me lightly on the arm. “That’s a pretty name.”
“Thank you,” I say. What else would I say?
“A pretty name for a pretty girl. We like having pretty girls on the show, you know. Helps with the ratings.” His hand starts to stroke my arm a little, up and down, while he grins. Of course he’s still in makeup too, and, up close, he looks older than he does on TV. But handsome, definitely handsome. I hope he won’t notice my breathing.
“You’re kind of excited, aren’t you, Wilma?” he says. “You’re … you’re breathing very fast.”
“Yes sir. Well … I’ve never met a movie star before, I guess.”
He chuckles, and grips my arm even more tightly. “Television star, dear,” he says, and he pronounces it tale-a-visshun. “Television is everything now.”
“Yes sir.”
“Wilma …” he says, moving in closer. “I’ll bet a pretty thing like you has lots of dates. Do you? Maybe you even have a boyfriend. Do you have a boyfriend, Wilma?”
I figure I’m not lying if I say yes.
I say no.
“Well … someday, I think, some guy will be lucky to have you, my dear. Very lucky.” And he leans in to me, and smiles, then closes his eyes. His hand moves from my arm around to my back, and he pulls me into him. Ohhhhhh …
And after what must be the longest kiss I’ve ever had with anyone, I finally see, over Mr. Arnaz’s black, brilliantined hair, the door opening slowly, and, of course, Ol’ Red standing there, smoking a cigarette and smirking. I’m almost sorry she’s back so soon.
“Well, whaddya know?” she says.
Instantly, Mr. Arnaz pulls back. He doesn’t even turn around to look at her, doesn’t even say anything. He just looks at me with an oh well, I tried smile on his face.
“Hi’ya, sweetie,” he says, and I don’t know if he’s talking to her or to me.
“Can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I?” she says, coming in and shutting the door behind her.
“Now, Lucy,” he says. “Wilma and I were just having a little chat.”
Mr. Arnaz doesn’t seem to be at all upset that he got caught, which seems real odd to me. In Hollinsville, when this sort of thing happens, when a wife catches her husband with a floozy, somebody usually ends up hauling out a gun. It’s true, I guess, what everybody back home is always saying about the “wicked ways” of Hollywood.
“A little chat,” she says. “Gee, I guess I should be surprised, but I’m not.”
“Come on, Lucy,” he says. “It’s just a kid here.”
She smirks. “You can say that again.”
He goes to kiss her now, but she pulls her cheek away.
“Don’ be mad, sweetie,” he says, then winks at me.
“Oh, no,” she says. “I’m not mad.” She turns to me. “Do you think I should be mad, Bill?” I don’t know what to say, I’m just trying to keep all this straight: I’m Will, but Miss Ball thinks it’s Bill, and Mr. Arnaz thinks it’s Wilma. I have no idea which one I’m supposed to be now.
“Bill?” Mr. Arnaz says.
She laughs. “That’s right. Didja ever know any showgirls named Bill, Desi?”
“Huh?”
“I didn’t think so. All right, kid. Well done. You can take off the wig now.”
I look at Miss Ball. Then I look at Mr. Arnaz, who has definitely lost his big grin from a minute ago.
“Go on,” she says, more forcefully.
And right there in front of them, I take off my showgirl hat and wig, and peel off my eyelashes. I feel like somebody having to strip so he can be examined.
“Holy fuck!” Mr. Arnaz shouts. “What the hell—”
“Desi!” says Lucy, clapping her hands. “Isn’t it wild? We had us a genuine transvestite showgirl! How about that, sweetie? And you thought she was the bees knees! Didn’t you, hon? So tell me, darling,” and she puts her arm around me, around my bare shoulders, like a mother would her son, or her daughter, “is the boy here a good kisser? Is he? Jesus, he’s so pretty, I ought to kiss him myself, come to think of it.”
And Miss Ball breaks up in big guffaws, laughing and smoking and coughing, laughing and smoking and coughing, all at the same time. Mr. Arnaz can only stare at me and shake his head and say “Jesus Christ!” in his Cuban accent, and it’s just like on the show when Ricky gets furious at Lucy for spending too much money on a hat or a dress or some such thing. I feel like the room is starting to spin, and I look from her back to him back to her and then finally down, staring at the floor because seeing my reflection in Miss Ball’s mirror, half in makeup and half out of it, is starting to make me feel sick to my stomach.
Mr. Arnaz is real angry now, and he’s muttering practically a chorus of angry Cuban-sounding words. He gives me one more hot, mad look before turning to leave. He slams the door hard, and he’s gone, like that, without saying g
ood-bye or anything.
Miss Ball is still laughing.
“Hey, thanks, kid. Thanks for everything,” she chokes out, smoking the last of her cigarette.
And I realize that’s my cue …
And I exit.
Back home in Hollinsville, I used to get beaten up a lot. No surprise there, I guess. For screwing up some stupid football thing in gym class, for refusing to take off my underwear in the gym showers. For being caught buying Photoplay and Modern Screen at the drugstore. At least I always had Mama and Daddy to go home to; they always listened to me, always made me feel safe, even if they didn’t really understand me either. Just being at home made me feel like I was a long way from the ugly schoolyard and the dirty locker room.
Of course home is a long way from Hollywood, too. Sometimes I can’t believe I’m here, and sometimes I think I should never have come, because I’m so far away from my family, and Hollywood just seems to get stranger by the day. But I also wasn’t gonna miss that bus to Los Angeles when it came my way, either … I couldn’t stay in Alabama for the rest of my life and never take a chance on being a movie star, I just couldn’t.
At least Arthur is here, even if my folks are not, and while it’s different, it still means having someone to go home to, somebody I can feel safe telling stuff to, even crying in front of. When I’m away from him during the day, I think about him all the time … soon after I met him, he started coming into the flower shop where I had just gotten a job—he would pretend he was on some business errand—and at the time he was working for Milton Berle as one of his personal assistants. A gopher, he called it. He started asking me to go out for Coca-Colas with him after work, and then we started going for drinks at clubs, and then, later …
I never thought I’d be in this position, to have another boy in my life like this, another boy to be with all the time, day and night. I love seeing Arthur’s naked body next to mine in bed at night, or in the shower in the morning. I want to be with him all the time, and I know he wants to be with me, too, even if I know sometimes he thinks I’m just a stupid, backwoods kid. And even though I want to be a movie star more than anything, I want to be with Arthur almost more than that. He laughs at me when I tell him these things. He says: “You’re in love with me, ’Bama Boy.” And I think that’s true; I think this might be what love is, I think this might be like what Mama and Daddy feel about each other, like what Aunt Eugenia and Uncle James feel. It just takes some getting used to …
In school, I got called names like “mama’s boy,” “queer,” “fag”… Is this what they meant? Because if it is, well, I guess they were right. I always figured I probably could feel this way about another boy; I just never figured another boy would ever feel this way about me. And Arthur does; Arthur says to me: “You’re in love with me, ’Bama Boy. And I’m in love with you, too. Who loves you, ’Bama Boy? Who loves you?”
After I tell Arthur about my day on the I Love Lucy set, he says to me, “You mean he didn’t say ‘Ay yi yi yi yi’ and slap his face?” We’re in his bed, or our bed since I mostly live here, in his small apartment in West Hollywood, instead of my room at the downtown YMCA which I rented when I first got here. We’re in our usual position: me in his arms, my head resting on his shoulder; as I stare down at his hairy chest, he keeps his hand on my head, twirling my hair.
“No,” I say. “I don’t think he does that in real life.” I’m a little tired of talking about this, but Arthur can’t seem to get enough of it. At first, I thought he was jealous of Miss Ball’s attention toward me, but now he seems to be enjoying the joke part of it, which kind of galls me. Truth to tell, the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’m not too happy about being on the short end of Lucille Ball’s joke either, but I figure I did get a few things out of it: some money, a chance to be on TV, and a big, wet kiss from a handsome movie star. No—a television star. I didn’t tell Arthur too much about the kiss.
“And that dyke, that dyke put the moves on you!” he says. “That’s the funniest fucking thing.” And he starts guffawing all over again. “A dyke thought you were pret-ty,” he says, in like a child’s singsong, and he laughs so hard he starts to cough. God, I think, he sounds like Lucy.
I wriggle out of his arms and turn over on my side, facing the nightstand. I reach for a cigarette; after today, I’ve finally decided to take up smoking.
“Can we just stop talking about this now?” I say as I light up, and I know how ticked off I probably sound. “I have to go back to the flower shop in the morning, and I’m tired.”
“Oh, OK, I know … I’m sorry, Willie,” he says after a second or two, and leans over on top of me. “Hey, ’Bama Boy. I’m sorry, buddy.” He kisses me, on the cheek. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I just thought it was funny, that’s all.”
“Funny. OK.”
“Hey, look, I’m proud of you. You got a real job in show business. On the number one television show in the country. That’s really something, you know.”
“Yeah, I know, only I can’t tell anybody about it, so big deal.” I’m smoking, but not inhaling. That way I don’t cough like an amateur, or like a kid.
“But you’ll always know. You’ll always know Lucille Ball personally picked you to be on her show. How many people can say that?” And he kisses me, and la-las the I Love Lucy theme song quietly in my ear.
“Shut up,” I say. But then he slides his hand down to my chest and begins stroking it lightly. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. He kisses me, right over my heart. “God, you’re so smooth,” he says, with a hoarse catch in his voice.
I accidentally inhale a puff of cigarette and start to choke.
He looks up at me, then reaches over to the nightstand for his glasses, so he can see me better. “What are you doing? Since when do you smoke?”
“I don’t know,” I say, still coughing. “I picked it up … on the set.”
He lifts his fingers up to my mouth and takes the cigarette away, and stubs it out in the ashtray.
“Jeez … look at you … you’re getting so tough. ’Bama Boy is growing up.”
“Yeah, that’s right, he is,” I say back. “’Bama Boy is growing up. What’s it to you?”
“Oh, Christ, you’re too much,” he says, sliding over to his side of the bed. “Go to sleep.”
“Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. Good night to you too.”
He turns over and looks at me. “Hey, Willie … who loves you?” he whispers, and it always makes me smile when he says that, even if I’m ticked off. Usually, I don’t answer him, I just let the words hang there in the air for a second or two. He probably doesn’t think I appreciate it enough, that he says that to me, and maybe I don’t, or maybe I just don’t show it, but inside I really am glad he keeps saying it. I’m more glad for this than for anything else, if I’m being honest. And then he sings his own words to the Lucy tune, which is so corny, even I can see that, and I’m from the damn sticks.
“I love Willie, and he loves me, we’re as happy as we can be …” he sings in my ear.
“Don’t quit your day job,” I say, rolling my eyes.
But then he can’t resist la-la’ing one more chorus of the Lucy song into my ear, real quiet and hushed, like a lullaby—a Hollywood lullaby: “I love Willie, and he loves me …”
And just before I drift off, I whisper to him: “That’ll never play in the valley,” and then I’m all the way out, on the way to dreaming, as I do every night, about the movies.
CONNECTICUT, 1993
The phone rings in the back of the shop, right in the middle of my increasingly futile attempt to persuade Claire Tillinghast and her daughter Marcy to choose coneflowers and freesia instead of daffodils and asters for Marcy’s bridesmaids’ bouquets. Already, they are in the throes of High Panic, and the wedding is nine months away. I should be used to brides and their mothers by now; but, then, how do you ever get used to the sight of silly rich people working themselves into a frenzy over an altar arrangement? The phone rings
again.
“Excuse me, ladies.”
They continue to sort through the catalogs, and I close my office door.
“Old Lyme Flower and Foliage,” I say into the receiver, a phrase that comes as natural to me as breathing.
“Uncle Will?”
“Well, well, Mr. Toby. How are you?”
“I’m good. Is this a bad time?”
“No. As a matter of fact, it’s the perfect time. I was in bride and mother-of-the-bride hell, and here you are, come along to rescue me. You’ve heard me rant about the Tillinghasts.”
“Oh yeah,” he says. “You and those crazy Connecticut WASPs. Listen, I was wondering if … if it’s convenient and you’re not busy, if I could come up this weekend? I really need to get out of the city, and I … well, actually I have a new … I’ve been kind of seeing this guy, you know, kind of a new guy and all, and …”
“Oh. And?” My nephew is the most lovable boy in the world, and the most transparent.
“And … I kind of told him about the Lucy thing. And he’d like to see it. Don’t hate me.”
I close my eyes and suppress an exasperated sigh. “Oh, Toby. I’d love to have you, but must we do that? You’ve seen it a million times. Tell your friend he can rent it in any video store in Manhattan.”
In the other room, I hear Marcy shriek: “Oh God, Mother! Orchids?!”
“Gee, thanks,” Toby says quietly, and immediately I realize what a jerk I’ve been. Jerk! I’d forgotten how much of a kick he gets out of that damn thing. As I start to formulate some kind of apology, Toby graciously picks up the slack. “I want him to meet you,” he says. “It isn’t just about the video.”
“Oh, Toby, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. Forgive me? Please?”
“Of course. So can we come?”
“Yes, and I’ll cook. Pasta, lamb, sun-dried anything, whatever you want.” He starts to protest, politely, so I cut him off. “No, no, I was an ass, so now I have to make amends.” I know this child so well, I can actually hear him smiling on the other end. “How’s Saturday?”