HOPE FOR CHANGE... But Settle for a Bailout (36 page)

.

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.

.

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.

.

“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.

.

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.

.

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.

.

Lori broke through the water, as her coach
stared at the stopwatch.

“The form is suffering.”

.

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
urged her to pull her breasts out of her top.

.

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….”

.

“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 instantly 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.”

.

“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.

.

“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.

.

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.”

.

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?”

.

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.

wrote, “why the long
face, baby”

wrote, “go away sitko
or ill iggy u.”

“lift ’em out”

“incredible size r they
real?”

“mr. magnum would make
u feel better”

“my god”

“yer done we re over
I m done with u”

“can you pull em out?”

“wrong answer baby i
say when we’re done”

“ud look good in a
cowboy hat”

“i got me a soldier
sitko, we r done done done.”

“oh ya pull em out.”

.

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.