HOPE FOR CHANGE... But Settle for a Bailout
Page 28
“Feel like I never left the army,” said Lori, dropping her bag with a heavy thump.
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Anekee, wearing only panties, lay on her side on the twin bed, the soft weight of her enormous breasts spilling onto the pillow she had propped under her shoulder to support her upper body. One hand gripped Larry’s enormous, flaccid penis, occasionally squeezing.
Larry lay next to her, his head near her feet, and wearing only a tee-shirt. His hand rested lightly on her calf, as he talked. “I think it will be a success,” he said.
“Your advisor is right,” said Anekee, as she squeezed and hoisted Larry’s penis. “Much is technical. It must be easy for the log on or no woman will come back.”
“True,” said Larry, running his hand over Anekee’s leg.
“Don’t we feel like an old married couple?” said Anekee.
They both laughed.
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“The sun is too much,” said Emma, holding Gina’s arm. “Too bright, still.” The two took a slow, veering turn, curving away from the balcony doors to instead walk slowly towards the studio.
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Ralphie stepped into the entryway of Larry’s apartment, as Anekee and Larry played with a small child.
“To the airport?”
“Thank you, Ralphie,” said Larry. “I’ll help with the bags.”
“No need,” said the nanny, entering the living room from the bedroom. She and Ralphie moved the suitcases, car seat, stroller and other items out, as Larry and Anekee continued playing. The child looked up to Larry and smiled.
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“So you can let me inherit the whole mansion and turn it into a park,” said Larry, leaning close to his father’s ear, “or you’ll just have to pull through. The only way you’ll ever be able to yell at me again is to live. I don’t care.... it’s up to you.”
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Lori Lewis was alone in the pool and, aside from her coach, who Larry had paid to fly out with her, was alone in the entire aquatic center. As she touched the wall of the pool at the end of eight laps, the coach clicked a stopwatch. Lori, breathing deeply, stood in the water, hanging onto the wide, blue floating divider between lanes.
“You could make the 400, too,” said the coach. “You’re pushing up against Adlington’s times.”
Lori climbed out, shook her legs and rotated her arms like a windmill. “One more,” she said.
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Larry sat at his computer, typing in a chat window.
“Omar, I need your help. I can pay anything, so think of this as a job. It involves Anekee.”
“Omar is typing,” read the chat window.
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“Dude,” said Ed, over speakerphone, as Larry lay on his bed. “Can I go to Denver with you all?”
“It’s Omaha and I’m not buying you an airplane ticket,” said Larry, breathing in the scent from the pillow Anekee had laid on.
“Fly?” said Ed. “C’mon, dude, you got a frickin’ limo. You’d save a ton just running the car out and back.... You, December, Gina, Lawrence, me... the movie people.”
“Maybe all them, but not you,” said Larry, hanging up.
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Lori and her coach carried their trays to one of the scores of tables in the vast cafeteria. The two sat down at a table with a pair of buff, young blondes. “Hey,” said Lori, as she and her coach sat.
“Coaches have to be accompanied by athletes,” said one of the blondes.
“Yeh,” said Lori, “that’s me.”
“You’re competing?” asked the second blonde.
Lori and her coach exchanged glances. “400 and 800 freestyle,” said Lori.
“How on earth did you qualify… for the… Nationals?” asked the first.
“San Diego.”
“But you’re so old,” said the second.
“Yeh, well, whatever,” said Lori.
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Larry and Ralphie sat in the driver’s compartment of the Lincoln, looking out towards the Queen Mary. A string of lights hung far above the three illuminated red-and-black smokestacks.
“So what’s your plan for life?” asked Larry.
“I go home each night, park the car in the garage, kiss the missus and forget about the world,” said Ralphie. “If I can keep doing that, life’s good.”
“So, it’s like, wake up and make it through the day?”
“Is there a better alternative?” said Ralphie.
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Lori broke through the water, as her coach stared at the stopwatch.
“The form is suffering.”
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December typed as subscribers vied for her attention.
“Gonna go see my soldier competing to get into the Olympics!” she wrote, as a subscriber with the ID
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My phone buzzed and I ignored Larry’s call, as I had every call from him that day. I dialed my voicemail. “You have… 12… new messages... and... 3… saved messages…. First message… ‘Lawrence, yeh, this is Larry. Will you come with me to Nebraska and be part of Team Lori? It’s all on me. Please….’ To hear this message again….”
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“Oh, look,” said the buff, blonde teenager, walking past Lori and her coach. “It’s that old lady.”
Lori, standing next to the starting block as they walked past, grunted.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Closing Doors
“No, Ed,” said Gina, as she sat at a small telephone table, with an ancient rotary-dial, black Bell telephone. “I don’t want to be pressured to do that anymore.” Gina listened, and repeated the word “no” several times, before saying “goodbye.”
“Is all well?” asked Emma.
“Ed thinks he owns me, and we are not even going out,” said Gina. “I said yes to driving to Nebraska, but only because you said you will be okay, and Larry is going.”
“You have to cheer for me,” said Emma. “The friendship with Lori is the best thing ever to happen in my grandson’s life.”
“Ed will expect, expect, expect.”
“Oh, ignore him,” said Emma. “Borrow my hearing aid and tell him it doesn’t work.”
“When he turns on the charm, he’s hard to ignore.”
A solid knocking came from the main doors to the suite. Gina crossed the living quarters and, on her return, escorted Lena Martins and the emissary from the Royal Ballet, who wheeled an exquisitely-made steamer trunk.
“It would… have been… really great,” said the emissary, “if the chairlift… had been working.”
“Remind me to give you the key, so they can use the lift when they leave,” Emma told Gina.
“Mrs. van der Bix,” said the emissary.
“Not Mrs., if you please,” said Emma.
The emissary stammered.
“She never married,” said Gina.
“I am sorry.”
“I suppose I am, too,” said Emma. “Think of all the sex I missed.”
Gina laughed.
The emissary pointed to the exquisite trunk. “First, a gift,” said the emissary, motioning like a game show model to the trunk, as Lena set about to open the trunk, from which she pulled out a folded projection screen and an ornately-crafted folding table, on which the emissary placed the ancient gray-metal projector. Lena handed the emissary a box, which, when opened, contained four identical clear-glass bulbs.
Lena slid open a drawer of the chest and produced a metal film canister, which she carried to the projection table. After carefully placing the bulb into the projector, the emissary took the film can from Lena and threaded the 16mm film.
Gina went around the room, closing the drapes to the studio, bringing the room to near total darkness. Gina and Lena carried the sofa near the Victrola so it joined a second, as the emissary erected the sparkling-silver projection screen, opposite the sofas.
“Lena, sit with me,” said Gina, motioning to the sofa they had carried. They made themselves each in
stantly at home, as the emissary ran the projector bulb and adjusted the frame, before turning the projector to “fan” and awaiting the next, clearly important step.
Emma sat on the sofa with the two women, between them, and waited.
Lena turned to Emma, who sat upright, and unmoving. She turned to the emissary, standing at the projector’s side, awaiting a next step.
“And, yes, begin,” said Lena, and the lamp of the projector glowed.
A black-and-white film, shot inside an elegant theatre, showed a troupe of dancers, in simple costume, performing their work, bathed richly in glorious lighting, photographed at masterful angles and captured on film still vivid in its crispness, despite having been shot 75 years earlier.
Dancing in the center of the production, and clearly the center of the film, was Astrid Ullagård, then, and finally, Principal Dancer, as she was for each of the years Harald Lander convinced her to return to their shared apartment in Købnhavn, where they ate cake at the teahouse visited by the Royal Family and rode bicycles past the King’s castle.
“It is amazing,” said Lena, “that Miss Lewis… she is Astrid.”
“It’s the shoulders,” said Emma.
“What?” asked Lena.
“Lori has shoulders,” said Emma. “So did my mother. They made her look cold and stern.”
A few feet away, alive on screen, Astrid was the master of her powers, and, with the closing bow, a soul unleashed, a flower in full blossom.
“It’s uncanny,” said Lena.
For fifteen minutes, images flickered, as the projector gave a crackly orchestral soundtrack that filled the room. On completion of the first reel, the emissary turned the projector to fan and silently stopped the take-up reel and threaded the film to rewind.
“Sunshine, please, Gina,” said Emma.
“Of course, Emma Mathilde,” said Gina, stepping up and walking to one wall. She gently pulled open heavy inner drapery that left delicate, full-length, faint yellow outer drapes, glowing from the afternoon sun.
The emissary lifted the reel off the projector and placed it into the opened film can, covering the can and placing it into the partially-opened drawer.
“No more, thank you,” said Emma.
The emissary stood next to the steamer trunk.
“No more?” asked Lena.
Gina stepped forward from the window, standing alongside the Victrola. She wound the handle and dropped the needle onto Enrico Caruso.
“Thank you, Gina,” said Emma. “I would much rather hear music, then watch a film.”
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“I wish I had been there,” said Larry, pouring a glass of lemonade, from a pitcher Gina had squeezed and prepared. He sat back in the upright lounger on the balcony, sipping lemonade, but leaving the pitcher on the table, next to Gina and Emma.
“Bitter soda never tastes sweet,” said Emma. “Now, if it had been my father in the movie.”
“They left the films and the trunk, but took the projector,” said Gina. “A courier will come for the films in one year.”
“The trunk was a gift,” Emma said to Gina, “but send the films to Lena. The courier can collect them from her.”
The three watched a pelican hover and then plunge with a splash into the sea.
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“Hal-lowww,” said the man carrying a camera on his shoulder, as he entered the foyer of the studio with Lena. “Tres… Tres von Sommerberg…. The director... from Denmark.”
“Gina Milan,” said Gina, “Miss van der Bix’s personal assistant. Do you have the contract?”
Tres looked at Gina. “Contract?”
“This is a film, correct?” asked Gina. “Do you shoot film without agreements?”
Lena and Tres convened to a whisper. “This now is Larry’s production. We expected he would have documents for us to review,” Tres said, smiling weakly.
“Please have a seat, while I confer with Miss van der Bix,” said Gina, motioning Tres and Lena to the sofa next to the Victrola. She walked through the French doors into the living quarters, where Emma was having coffee. “I’m going to have them sit for a while,” said Gina, pouring a cup of coffee for herself.
Stepping back through the French doors ten minutes later, Gina approached the filmmakers. “I’m very sorry,” said Gina. “There are no contract documents. You will have to return tomorrow.”
“We have a production crew of eight people, flying in tonight,” said Lena, standing.
“We have a ten-day window for a seven-day shooting schedule,” said Tres. “Please, I beg you, not a whole day.”
“I see,” said Gina, motioning for the two to again sit. “Excuse me,” she said, closing the French doors, after walking into the living quarters. Ten minutes later, she again entered the studio. “Miss van der Bix will be with you shortly. Would you like natural light or with drapery pulled?”
“Drapery – like it is – is really nice,” said Tres. “No changing it for me.”
“What about Miss Lewis? Can we shoot her scenes?”
“Miss Lewis is training to qualify for the Olympic team.”
“For the marathon?”
“Swimming.”
“May we speak to Larry?” asked Lena.
“Perhaps when he is here,” said Gina, walking to the Victrola, winding the crank, and dropping the needle on The Charleston, which filled the studio, as she stepped through the French doors.
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Emma sat immobile in a director’s chair Gina had brought inside from the balcony and set such that about a third of Emma was still in soft shadow, but she mostly enjoyed a warm, rich natural light that gave the appearance of a resting angel.
“These records,” said Emma, lightly waving to the Victrola, “they shatter spectacularly,” said Emma, as Lena filmed. “I threw many at my mother the night she found out about Calvin.” Emma swept an arm across the studio. “All over the floor. She roared more about records then my heart, my body, my future…. how could I ever tell her what those boys and men did as they pulled my arms and legs? Carrying a child was enough for her to call me a dula.”
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A nurse entered silently and checked Calvin’s monitors, as Larry stayed close to his father’s ear. “His vitals are better these last few days, so whatever you got going,” said the nurse, “keep it going.”
The nurse left.
“I know at the beach that one time I tried to kill you, but I promise, this time, it’s not me,” said Larry. “And Anekee… I’ve lost sleep to her, too. Anyway, I’d be okay with you living. We both pretty much hate each other, so it’s no big deal if you make it. That’s the only way you’ll live long enough to yell at me again, anyway…. By living, you know.”
Calvin’s jaw was motionless. His cheek did not twitch.
“Damn,” said Larry. “Why am I paying cash for you, Dad, if you’re not gonna even try?”
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December typed into the chat box on the “Miss Milkshakes” live site, as her stream showed her in a silver tube top, sitting at her computer.
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Lori climbed out of the water, the only swimmer in the aquatic center. The coach held open a towel, which she silently stepped into. A few moments later, the towel dropped to the pool’s edge, the coach held open an
ankle-length, fuzzy-lined body windbreaker.
Lori and the coach walked into the night’s air, each gasping slightly as they walked with their heads looking up to a sky of stars brightly glowing above them.
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Larry sat at his grandmother’s kitchen table, watching Gina swish and circle through the kitchen, preparing vegetables and a spiced sour cream dressing for Emma. Each time Gina passed Larry, she would turn slightly, to smile or acknowledge him. His phone rang.
“Hello, Lawrence,” said Larry. “You never call me. Must be important.”
“It is, Larry,” I said, as I sat in my parent’s living room, looking onto the ocean. “It’s something I’ve needed to say for awhile.”
“That you want out?” said Larry.
“What?” I said, stunned. “How could you know?”
“How about this,” said Larry. “You stay with me for the next couple of months, long enough to fire Ed and go with December and me for the swimming trials – and maybe London – and I’ll give you a million dollars, and you can leave.”
“You would pay me… a million dollars… and after London, I would be done?” I said. “The London Olympics will be completely done by the middle of August….”
“Stick it out til Oct. 1, okay? The new calendar quarter, for me, and for Lori, then you’re done, a million bucks, okay?”
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“I can draw up exit agreements,” said Emily, mustard on her fingers and a glob of pastrami dangling from her French roll. “But a million dollars? For what? How can that be justified?”
“I don’t have to, right?” said Larry, eating a pepper.
“If there is discernible labor, then an exit agreement that includes severance has flexibility,” said Emily, reaching for napkins. “If the figure is high and the work low or non-existent, authorities are more likely to view the million as a gift, and then you’d pay $350,000 in tax.”