by Kit Reed
She writes those sexy little books about God, so crowds collect like flies on a road kill because, who wouldn’t want to touch the hand that’s been in touch with God? People do it, but not people you know. She can walk down our streets undisturbed, although when Gloria saw her out in front of Tazewell’s Realty that first day, she could swear the woman had look at me written all over her.
Of course Gloria is not our most reliable witness. Even though she’s a published writer, she is not all that popular, while Ashley Famous has all those fans driving her into seclusion. They follow her everywhere with misty eyes and wide, wet smiles. Bill says everybody has a cross and this is hers.
Our Reverend Anthony wrote a book about her, which is how they got friends. Bill fought his way to the platform when she got that medal, waving the book with her picture on the front. “Oh,” she shouted, “how lovely,” but by that time fans were stampeding like a herd of leeches and Bill had to rescue her. She thanked him with the saddest smile and said, “Sometimes you just get tired.”
The thing is, if you’ve touched the hand and God just happens to drop in on you, the last thing He wants is to fight off gangs of rapt admirers, Bill says, so she’s going into seclusion—here!
Bill is dean over at the college so he stepped up and invited her, to do what, we aren’t certain, but there you are.
She’s bought the Eversons’ boathouse which is odd, since we will do anything to keep our houses in the family; we owe it to our children to say nothing of the generations that came before, but you’d have to be one of us to understand. We’re not pointing any fingers, but this is the first piece of riverfront property to pass out of family hands in two centuries and Grant didn’t consult Bunk Schuyler at Historical Preservation before he sold.
Never mind. Schuylerton could use a little pizzazz, and it is well known that celebrities like Ashley Famous have creative, fascinating friends who would probably love a weekend in the country, especially with summer coming on. She’ll want to invite gangs of poets and artists, who are bound to be more exciting than certain people around here, which will definitely perk up our social lives. We can’t wait to be invited—that is, if she takes to us.
The question is, where to start with her? We won’t intrude and we never, ever overstep—no screen captures in the IGA parking lot, we promise, no cell phone shots at Luther’s Drug Store even though we’re dying for our friends to know. Uninvited drop-ins and cold calls are out; when a person’s keeping the line open for God, who are we to interrupt? We don’t go where we’re not invited and our kind doesn’t gawk, it’s just not done.
When we do meet her we’ll be discreet, we will! Guess what. We have a secret. Guess what. It’s you.
Oh, but she said something odd to Jack Tazewell when he was showing the boathouse. “I think the most interesting things in the world are sex and religion, don’t you?”
So, should we lock up our husbands or what?
We don’t mean to fret, but if we happen to run into her, is it all right to say hello?
It’s hard to know. But we are looking forward to meeting her, however it comes about, Ms. Famous and whichever husband she has this time around. We hear that there have been several, but never mind. We’re very forgiving here. We’d let you into our hearts quicker than we’d let you into our homes.
We just haven’t figured out how to let her know she has friends here in Schuylerton.
Beth and Gloria and Jeannie Chandler and I have been going home by the river road after lunch at the club, checking for signs of life. So far all we’ve seen is Grant Everson glowering over his rose bushes as we come through his gate; when he pops up with the hedge clippers we wave our fingers and laugh: la-la, Grant, you’re the one who sold the boathouse, now look. Evanoaks is not your private property now.
Rich as she is, you’d think Ashley Famous would have the boathouse crawling with painters and decorators, God knows those books make millions, but the new mailbox and fresh geraniums in the cut-out truck tire planter are pretty much it. Well, that will all change once we’re friends; we can tell her where to shop for all the best things. If only we’d come upon her planting something in the front yard; if only she’d hear our car in the turnaround and stick her head out the front door to see who’s coming, then we could all smile and wave, hel-looo. Of course she’d wave back and if we caught her smiling we’d pile out of the car and make friends, but we’ve cruised the boathouse four times this week and we haven’t seen a trace.
With anybody else, we’d start with the chess pie or the hot cross buns, but you don’t take food to a star, not even the apple basket from Creech’s Orchards with Elva Creech’s jams and homemade maple sugar leaves; usually casseroles and deep dish pies are great conversation pieces, but even the mocha cheese-cake from Tempest’s Teapot is just wrong.
With a best-selling author who can’t stop winning prizes, where do you start? It’s not like Gloria would know.
We hear she’s very reclusive. Maybe she’s like us, standoffish, but only with people she doesn’t want to know.
We hear she’s a lot of fun at parties, if you can only get her to come.
We hear that sometimes she can get a little wild.
Then why is she so damn difficult, when all we’re trying to do is welcome her to Schuylerton?
Bill warned us that she doesn’t warm up to just anybody, but Bill is infuriatingly smug just because he happened to write a book. We’re not just anybody, which he knows, and if he won’t tell Ashley Famous who we are in this town, then how do we let her know?
Should we sidle up to her in the supermarket and start the discussion about cheeses or tell her which produce to avoid? A few words and she’ll understand who we are. So, can we get friends by showing her the farmers’ market or should we offer her our cleaning lady or should we just come right out in the open and give a party for her?
What if she hates parties and doesn’t want to come?
What if she loves parties and doesn’t want to come?
What if she wants to come, just not to our house?
Would she come if we gave it at the club? Does she really hate parties, and does she know what an honor that would be? Outsiders can live here for generations without seeing the inside of the Schuylerton River Club. Bill says the last thing she wants is to feel crowded and we don’t want to make her self-conscious so it should sound casual, “If you happen to be around,” even though we’re putting on the dog. When she gets to the club and sees how much fun we’re all having she’ll know how lucky she is: we know you’re big and important but in our own way we’re important too. Of course she’ll invite us back, if we can only get her to come.
We could probably start by reading her books, but who has the time? Should we fake it and send her admiring notes? Naturally we’ll have them laid out on our end tables when she comes over and after she notices, of course we’ll ask her to sign—unless that’s gauche. We bought them all, what more does she expect?
Unlike my friends, who dropped theirs in the tub or left them out on the clubhouse porch in the rain, at least I tried. My Richard thought it was foolish, sitting up in bed improving my mind when he thought we should be doing something else, and was it my fault I got bored and fell asleep between the pages, or hers? To tell the truth, her stuff is all too airy-fairy for me—beautiful, but neither here nor there. So it just won’t do to barge up to her on Broad Street with that gooshy Ashley-fan smile, babbling, “I just loved your book.” I hate being false even when it’s working, and if there was a quiz, I’d die.
Mirabile, Stephanie Parrish makes the big breakthrough. Yesterday our Ms. Famous tripped on the old boot scraper outside Fanueil Flowers and all her shopping bags went whoosh, so Stephanie got down and helped her pick up her stuff.
Of course she was grateful, and all the while Stephanie was taking note of the items: which face creams, what shade of lipstick, whose bread; hand-knit sweater from Erdrich’s with those lambs on the front plus, from Ezekiel’s of all things, canned
smelts. She thanked Stephanie three times, but that was it. It wasn’t like Ashley Famous invited her back to the boathouse for coffee, or to have lunch at Tempest’s before she headed home.
In fact Beth was the first to speak to her, and it wasn’t exactly a conversation. She saw her in Ezekiel’s, lined up for bagels on Sunday morning just like everybody else but with dark glasses and a kerchief pulled down, so we wouldn’t know. Beth just went right up to her. She smiled as nicely as she could without being smarmy and spoke. “Excuse me, but aren’t you …”
And in the name of Edith Wharton, who used to live around here and I’m sure was a lot more gracious, Ashley Famous said, “No.”
That set us back.
But we have discovered that she is a very sweet person and tremendously vulnerable, which Mariel Edmunds learned when she braved the Hudson in Jake’s little boat after Beth told us about it at brunch. She cut the motor and glided in tactfully, so to look at her, you’d think she was quietly fishing in the marsh and accidentally drifted in without noticing how close she was, which is how she caught our world-class new neighbor weeping out on the end of Grant Everson’s dock.
Well, one thing led to another—empathic grimaces, little waves—and Mariel scooted up the ladder and, respecting her privacy, sat on the end of the dock next to Ms. Famous, but not too close. She stayed quiet as the tomb while they both stared out at the channel until finally the sight of this star sitting there with tears streaming was more than Mariel could bear and she had to ask, “Are you all right?”
Imagine all that and then guess what this person with a brilliant career and gobs of honors and every man she ever wanted revealed in that thrilling, smoky voice she uses on TV. Not a damn thing. She said, “It’s just so beautiful.”
Although she’s not one of our nearest and dearest Mariel is a masterpiece of self-control; without turning a hair she dropped her own voice six feet to wherever Ashley Famous keeps hers and said, “Yes.”
We all know you don’t cry along, it’s hypocritical. Mariel just sat there and Ashley Famous just sat until she got over it and sprang up like a cat after a shower. She went skipping back to the house in her pink sneakers, calling back so carelessly that Mariel couldn’t believe her ears. “Come again.”
Mariel did not gush, “Oh, thank you.” We’re better than that. She put on our best Schuylerton River Club drawl, “But never without calling first.”
So we were in. Well, not all of us and not that minute, but this was the start. Mariel waited a good long time and then she dropped by the boathouse and asked Ashley Famous to the River Club for brunch this Sunday after church, don’t dress up, we’re just country people here.
We’ll all drift into church the way we do every week but we’re a little twitchy: what to wear, what to wear? In addition to his duties at the Episcopal college, where nobody knows what Ashley Famous will be doing for all that money, Bill Anthony is the rector here. When we told him she was coming he said of course, she’d already promised because it was his loaves-and-fishes sermon this week. So we could have seen her up close anyway, and without being beholden to Mariel, but who knew?
Besides if it hadn’t been for Mariel, we wouldn’t know that Ashley Famous and religion are … how did she put it? “Boy, is that a contradiction in terms.”
When she dropped by to invite (“I would have called, but I went off without your number …”) she scoped the boathouse interior, and she’s not part of our foursome but Mariel is very good at detail. Tacky was only the beginning, she moved on to “neo-Goodwill.” Patchwork quilts covering a multitude of sins, she said, inspirational motto painted on velvet, nicely framed and hanging over the fireplace and, oh my God, a pillow needlepointed with the praying hands. Plus, she told us, for an icon, she doesn’t dress very well. She wore more or less what we wear except in all the wrong colors, Mariel said, borderline shabby, who would have guessed? Nothing went with anything else, and that was the least of it.
She positively exuded pheromones, how did Mariel put it? “She may be all about God but she talked like a sailor rolling into a bordello after years at sea, all that with her nice husband sitting right there!”
Indeed, we have to wonder. That tight T-shirt and flowered jeans she wore to church and to the club after, never mind the straw cartwheel hat and pink lizard clutch. She’s the kind who can’t tell when she’s pitifully underdressed, and the husband was cute. Younger, in that obvious way, with a sensitive mouth and cultivated hair. There were so many people on the lawn around Ashley Famous that day, half my friends and all our men fetching this, offering her that, that I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the husband, so I sat down next to him on the porch.
It didn’t take much to draw him out.
A poet, he told me, smoldering nicely, he’s one of those sandy boys who tan so fast that the body hairs shimmer, no question what she saw in him. He’s adorable. I probably shouldn’t have asked where to buy his books but when I saw his face I made up for it by reading the one poem he had tucked in his shirt pocket. Something to occupy him while Ashley holed up in the loft because, he said, and he wasn’t complaining, she needs to get with God before she can face church. It’s clear he adores her but I could see how hard it is for him to write with that big old shadow of greatness looming over him. At the end he invited me to come over and he’d read to me and I promised I would. His name is Archbold, from some fine old family, which is interesting because now that we see her up close it’s clear that Ashley Famous comes from somewhere south of quality. Arch, he said, just call me Arch. Sweet boy, but who knows how soon she will tire of him, or what he will do then.
We think certain thoughts about handsome young men but we always go home to bed with our husbands, most of us, even so. But among our tennis foursome, I alone had been invited, even though it was by Arch and not his first-ever and only wife, at least so far. Whatever happens, he’s entitled, the woman has been married four times.
In fact, Gloria was next to visit, and she wasn’t even invited. Of course Gloria thinks of herself as a fellow professional, which gives her the right. She just bellied up to the door and introduced herself to Ashley Famous, writer to writer as it were, as though they were equals and Ms. Famous had to ask her in. In Schuylerton, maybe they are equals; in local matters Gloria has the edge, but otherwise, no. The prizes alone, money, passionate fans in droves, but it wasn’t very kind of Ms. Famous to point it out.
Which—we finally got it out of Gloria, who is livid—she did. She told it like a sad story, but Gloria knew. Oh, Ashley Famous was dripping with self-pity, but Gloria knew.
She’d have to be drunk out of her mind or beaten senseless not to know. She says a little of both. Too much wine in strong sunlight bouncing off the river, it put her off her guard. She let herself imagine they were friends. Gloria is a giving person so she said kindly, “My contact at Valley TV would love to come talk to you, he’s doing a show on writers living on the Hudson and I thought …”
Then wasn’t she surprised. Gloria was knocking herself out to be helpful, and Ashley Famous rose right up and bit her in the ass.
“I don’t like being famous,” she said, sudden as a slap in the face.
“It’s only local TV.”
It was too late. This Ashley’s voice went back to that deep place. Her face got all pink and she went on like an angry kindergarten teacher explaining to a stupid child. About that time Arch, who had been hovering, faded away like a painter’s wet wash of a failing sky. “I don’t like it at all,” Ashley Famous said to his back, and there were tears standing in her eyes.
Gloria tried for a snappy comeback but all she managed was, “I just thought.” Then she read that face and gave up.
“People keep writing books on me, they’re making a whole movie about my life, they want me to narrate the Bible on PBS; they won’t leave me alone! Everybody wants to send me presents and force me to take their prizes; they all want me to bless them or something, when all I want is to be left alo
ne!”
Gloria was about to go there-there when Ashley Famous got all holy and condescending. “But you wouldn’t understand.”
Gloria blinked the way you do when a strobe light flashes and you have no idea where it’s coming from.
“You wouldn’t know,” she said to Gloria. Unfortunately, that’s true, but she didn’t have to rub it in. “You would have no way of knowing how very, very hard it is to be as famous as me. The things people tell you, the things they ask you to do.”
By the time she was finished laying out the tribulations of a literary icon, she had Gloria backing away on her hands and knees, anything to get out of there. She clamped the insides of her mouth until they bled so she didn’t accidentally apologize for something she hadn’t done, and when she could manage, she stood up. “Oh,” she told Ashley Famous when she could bring herself to speak without screaming, “I would never give him your number without permission.” Then she more or less tugged her forelock and left without ever once losing her temper and telling the truth, which was that she only said it to be nice.
Gloria says that behind all that sacred, holy stuff Ashley Famous is not a nice person, but of course Gloria is biased. People say mean things about Mother Teresa too.
Beth and I are here to tell you that Gloria is wrong. Ms. Famous is an inspiration, as we discover as soon as we and Ashley start spending quality time. I personally have been invited, and I take Beth along to ride post so Arch won’t get in trouble for inviting me.
I just don’t want Ashley to think there’s anything funny going on between her husband and me and there isn’t, attractive as he is. Even though she isn’t expecting us she’s glad to see us because naturally any friend of her Archie’s is a friend of hers but as it turns out, her Arch just left for a reading in New York.
She waves us inside with an industrial-strength smile. It’s bright enough to be seen from the back of any hall and Beth and I can’t help thinking, No wonder everybody loves her because this time, it’s shining for us.