Best to Laugh: A Novel (13 page)

23

“
C
ANDY,
YOU’RE
KIDDING
ME,
RIGHT?”
said Solange when I confessed as much to her. “You don’t strike me as that big a baby.”

“I’m not a baby, Solange, it’s—”

“—you are if you don’t get back on stage. Everybody bombs, Candy. That’s the nature of show business. That’s the nature of everything.” Sitting on the blue futon, she leaned forward and picked a copy of
Radio & Records
off the reception area coffee table. “Look at that,” she said, flinging the magazine at me. “Brass Jar, a Beat Street band, on the cover.”

“I know they’re on the cover, Solange.” The particular issue had been greeted with much fanfare in the office.

“But what you don’t know is I saw them last year at the Whiskey. Where people were booing them. Where a few bottles were thrown. Where they bombed.” Her smile was of the told-you-so variety. “And now they’ve got a hit album and they’re on the cover of
Radio & Records.
”

“Well, that’s great, but—”

Solange snapped open a copy of
Billboard.

“And you should read this story about Timber Line. It took them ten years and two lead singers before they got a record deal.” I ducked as she hurled the magazine at me. “So I’m not really interested in excuses.”

T
HE
problem, I thought as I skated east on Hollywood Boulevard, was that once I finally got on a stage, I was certain I could do nothing but succeed. That sounds vain, dumb, and ill advised, but to go from my old life to my new one had demanded that I take a huge leap of faith. Which I had done . . . without considering the consequences of a crash.

Stop it,
I scolded myself. Solange was right:
Everybody bombs once in a while—it’s the nature of show biz.

Hot winds rattled the halyard of the pole in front of the bank, and the fabric of the flag shook and snapped as if it were in the hands of an angry laundress.

“They’re the Santa Anas,” June had informed me when I helped chase down her bratty dog. “That’s what Binky’s trying to run from, the spookiest winds in the world! They’re blamed for everything from sparking fires to inspiring serial killers.”

Hot and sweaty when I got to the bank, I switched my skates with the shoes I had in my backpack and got into the short line at Lincoln Savings, idly wondering how long I could go without tapping my game show savings.

An angry voice intruded on my reverie.

“Well, that’s bullshit! Something’s got to be off on your end!”

There was a whispered request asking that the aggrieved customer keep his voice down.

“Why should I when you can’t perform simple math? Now let me speak to the bank manager!”

At the end of the counter, behind the far window, I could see the chagrined face of the young teller facing the irate customer, who, by voice and dapper suit, I recognized was Francis Flover.

“Don’t just sit there like a peon—get me the goddamned manager!”

I was shocked; this was not the vocabulary or manner of the kindly, gracious man I knew.

“Sounds like someone’s not so happy with his interest rate,” said the guy ahead of me in line.

The woman ahead of him chortled.

“Or maybe he didn’t get his free toaster when he opened up a savings account.”

As the two customers yukked it up, I turned around and left.

There were several big concrete planters on the small plaza the bank shared with the Toy Tiger, and I sat on the edge of one, still needing to cash my paycheck but wanting to avoid the embarrassment of Francis
seeing me. It was the second strange incident I’d witnessed relating to him, the first taking place the previous weekend.

I had just gotten my mail and was climbing the stairs to my apartment when Melvin Slyke’s door opened.

“Dad, it’s not just using your car—that man’s going to run you out of house and home!”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” said my neighbor. “It’s just pocket change, Nancy. Pocket change!”

“But he’s got a really big pocket!”

“Nancy, sweetheart, I appreciate you coming over, but please, it’s not your place to tell me how to spend my money.”

“But it’s my business to protect you from a shark like Flover!”

Melvin Slyke’s daughter stepped onto the small landing just as I slipped unobtrusively—or tried to—into my apartment.

“Thanks for coming over, honey,” I heard Melvin say and seconds after I heard his daughter galumph down the steps, there was a knock at my door.

“Sorry you had to hear that,” said Melvin.

I shrugged, not knowing exactly what to say.

“Nancy had no right to say those things and I wish you hadn’t heard them. Here’s the thing. Francis has seen better days—who hasn’t?—and if I can pay him for the odd little job that doesn’t hurt his pride, what’s the harm in that?”

“No harm.”

“Exactly. And if I want to take him out for dinner now and again or lend him my car, what’s the problem?”

“That little silver sports car is yours?”

Melvin wiggled his bushy eyebrows.

“You probably pegged me as a sedan type, right?”

N
OW
F
RANCIS
F
LOVER
PUSHED
OPEN
the bank door as if he had a personal enmity toward it. While he wasn’t quite stomping, he was a long way from skipping, and when the hot wind picked up the vent of his suit jacket, he swatted it down.

There was a tour bus in the intersection and as Francis crossed the street, I wanted to shout, “Hey, there’s a piece of Hollywood history right in front of you!” but of course I didn’t, there being enough nuts shouting things on the Boulevard as it was.

What had set him off like that? I realized everyone had their bad days, but Francis was a consummate gentleman, one who called a teller “Miss” and not “peon.”

Seeing this side of him, I felt bad—bad for him and bad for me. I didn’t like being disappointed by someone I wanted to look up to.

The night had started off with such promise. Dad had taken the night off—imagine that!—and Grandma was giddy as she served the birthday dinner she insisted on making. As the three of us shook salt and pepper on our limp unseasoned green beans and sawed away at our well-done steaks, we laughed and joked, acting uncharacteristically like a loving family.

My grandmother had allowed me to make and frost my own cake, but she’d insisted on decorating it, writing in a pink-gel icing, “Happy Sweet 16
^th
!” When it was presented to me, ablaze with candles, I thought,
It is, it is!
and when my dad slid a little box across the table, my heart thrummed.

I untied the ribbon slowly, prolonging the sweet moment, even as I wanted to rip at it like a dog smelling a bone wrapped inside butcher paper.

Opening the box, I’m fairly certain that the thrumming—and my heart—stopped.

“Oh, Dad,” I said, picking up the silver locket nestled in the cotton batting. Its thin chain ran between my fingers like a long silver tear. “It’s beautiful.”

“Open it up,” said my dad, his voice rusty.

With my thumbnail, I pushed open the locket’s clasp and seeing the lovely smiling face of my mother, I burst into tears.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” he said.

His words were a slap and I howled my hurt.

“Arne,” said Grandma softly, “Arne, it’s just that—” but my dad wasn’t
interested in my grandmother’s explanation, and he barreled into the living room. A moment later we heard the front door slam.

I found myself at a strange junction, a place where humiliation, sorrow, and anger met, and my tears dried in that hot, choked place. I didn’t understand my own wild reaction at seeing my mother’s picture, and I sure didn’t understand the reaction of my father.

“What a jerk!” I said, practically spitting. “What’s the matter with him?”

“Candy,” said my grandmother softly, “he’s just—”

“—a total jerk! He barely ever mentions mom’s name to me, and then he gives me this locket with her picture in it, and I’m not supposed to be a little floored?”

“You’re right, he did overreact.” My grandmother’s head was not so much shaking as vibrating. “And I honestly don’t know what’s the matter with him.” She picked up the necklace’s chain, sprawled on the table like a silver spill, and rubbed her thumb against the locket. “But I think he was scared . . . scared by your reaction.”

“I don’t care! He should have at least tried to make me feel better!”

“If it would do any good, I’d bust him in the snoot,” said my grandmother and her words, her prescription for dealing with my father was so inane, so futile, that we couldn’t help it, we laughed.

It was the last birthday present I was to ever get from him, and even though we never spoke of it, I knew it gave my dad pleasure seeing me wear the locket every day. I’d still be wearing it, but to my everlasting shame and regret, one night after a keg party, I woke up to find it gone.

I
HAD
PLANNED
on spending the rest of my lunch hour at the Beef Bowl or browsing the aisles of JJ Newberry’s, but I was bummed out after seeing Francis and thinking of my Dad, and having lost the taste for Chinese food or dime store junk, I skated back toward Beat Street Records, the hot wind blasting me in the face as I slalomed around the inlaid stars and upright tourists.

24

“
W
HAT
ABOUT
THAT
PLACE?”
asked Maeve, pointing.

“Looks good to me,” said Solange. “Okay with you, Candy?”

I nodded; my senses flooded.

We were walking along Olympic Boulevard, a street whose shop signs were written in Korean characters and underneath them, what I could read, their English translations.

“Korean Bar-B-Q!”

“Nam’s Liquor Bar!”

“Jung’s Pharmacy!”

While there were white, black, and Hispanic people on the street in Korea Town, they were a minority amid the people who looked like my mother, who looked like me.

“You all right, Candy?” asked Solange.

“It’s just so weird. I have never, ever been around so many—” I trailed off, not having the words.

Solange laughed. “Of your people? Imagine how I felt when I first went out to Compton after having grown up in Fresno.”

“Or me,” said Maeve. “I went to dance school for years, but it was only when I went into a gym with barbells that I felt like I was home.”

Noticing the look Solange and I exchanged, Maeve laughed.

“Okay, but it was kinda like what you’re talking about.”

Flanked by my friends, I was steered into Kee’s Bar & Food, and after the hostess told us there’d be a slight wait, we headed toward the bar.

“
W
HAT
DO
YOU
RECOMMEND?”
Solange asked the bartender as we straddled the red leather barstools.

“What’s the occasion?” asked the young Korean, in unaccented English.

“We went to this club on Western for open-mike night,” said Solange. She tipped her palm toward me. “See, my friend here is a comedian and we were going to watch her perform.”

“Really?” said the bartender.

“Only the sign on the door said, ‘Closed for remodeling,’” said Maeve.

“But we still want to celebrate,” said Solange. “And because Candy’s mother was from Korea, we thought this might be a good place to bring her.”

I sat hunched like a cretin, hands tucked under my thighs, embarrassed and yet stifling an urge to guffaw.

“My mother’s from Korea, too,” said the bartender with a smile. “So’s my father. Where was your mom from?”

“Seoul,” I said. “But I . . . I don’t know a lot about her. She died when I was little.”

He nodded in sympathy before asking, “Ever heard of Soju?”

In a choreographed move, Solange’s, Maeve’s, and my head moved from side to side. It was all the answer the bartender needed.

“Now, because you’re at a bar and I’m serving you,” he said, placing three shot glasses in front of us, “this is a moot point. But if you were at a table, with friends or relatives, you wouldn’t fill your own glass. It’s against tradition.

“Take your glass,” he instructed next, “and hold it in both of your hands. That’s a sign of respect.”

We did as he advised, and holding a green bottle with Korean characters on the label, the bartender filled our shot glasses.

“What’s your name?” asked Solange.

“Bill. Now, usually people drink this in one shot. In fact, you can even call out, ‘One shot!’—it’s sort of like, ‘Bottoms up.’ If you don’t think you can drink this all in one shot, you can call out, “Pan shot!” which means ‘half-shot.’ So what do you think?”

“One shot!” I hollered and guzzled down the drink.

“One shot!” echoed Solange and Maeve, both of them mimicking my shudder when they swallowed their drinks.

Bill looked at us approvingly and held up the bottle again in invitation. The three of us shook our heads, with a certain amount of force.

“If we drink any more of that, we’ll need to hire a rickshaw to get us home,” said Maeve. Her eyes widened as she swiveled on her stool to face me and then Bill. “Oh geez, was that a stupid thing to say? Because I didn’t mean anything, I just thought because we were in Korea Town—”

“Ladies,” said the hostess, approaching us, “your table’s ready.”

“Perfect timing,” said Solange.

A
FTER
SCANNING
OUR
LAMINATED
menus, crowded with photographs, the lines and dashes of Korean characters and their English translations, we ordered several dishes and as we waited for them, I told them how I was reminded of my grandmother.

“She used to take me to this Chinese restaurant in downtown Minneapolis—it was about the only place she knew I could see some Asians.”

The Nankin had big tasseled menus, rice paper wall hangings, and hostesses in traditional Chinese dress, and we considered ourselves very cosmopolitan as we made clumsy stabs at Subgum Chow Mein or Beef Broccoli with our chopsticks.

“Didn’t they have any Korean restaurants there?” asked Maeve.

“None that we knew of,” I said.

“What surprises me,” said Solange, taking a sip of the tea that had been delivered, “is that this is your first time down here. Like I said, when I got to L.A., it was such a relief; I mean, there were whole neighborhoods, cities where black people were in the actual majority. Didn’t you want to rush down here to be with your own people?”

“If I wanted to be with my own people, I’d probably rush down to Little Scandinavia, if there were such a place.”

“Really?” said Maeve. “That’s who you relate to more?”

“That’s what I grew up with. That’s what I know.”

“So you don’t feel Korean?”

“Feel Korean?” I shook my head. “No, I look a lot more Korean than I feel Korean.” I doodled on the tablecloth with my fingernail. “But the way I look doesn’t really match.”

“Match what?” asked Maeve.

“The me inside.”

“Candy,” said Solange, “it’s the rare person whose outside matches up with who they are inside.”

“I’ll bet yours does,” said Maeve.

Solange’s laugh was big and true. “Oh, right. On the inside, I feel like I’m the finest—I’m talking Lena Horne in her youth; the smartest—Barbara Jordan testifying before Congress; and the wildest—Angela Davis rallying the troops—woman to walk this earth. Does that match up with how I seem on the outside?”

“No comment,” I said, regarding my friend with her carefully processed hair, who wore a prim, round-collared blouse, anchored with a tied grosgrain ribbon.

“I get what you’re saying,” said Maeve. “The me underneath this
doesn’t match this.” She flexed her biceps. “The me inside is a blobby little baby, with no muscle mass at all.”

“We’re all blobby little babies inside,” said Solange. She took a sip of tea, studying me over her cup.

“What?” I said.

Tilting her head, Solange’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Did you know the club was going to be closed tonight?”

“No! I was excited! Excited that you were going to see me perform.”

“Since you neglected on purpose to tell us about the first time,” said Maeve.

“Are you ever—”

“Here we are,” said the waitress, and I silently thanked her intrusion as she set on the table steaming bowls and plates filled with bright vegetables, swirls of noodles, piles of meat, and we happily, and audibly, ate for several minutes.

“Oh my God,” said Maeve in between bites of dak galbi. “I love this stuff. Did your mom cook like this, Candy?”

“That’s what my grandma tells me, but I don’t really have any memory of it.” I spooned onto my plate some of the spicy chicken and noodle dish Maeve was lapping up and waited for the usual wash of sadness to come over me. I sat back in the booth, surprised.

“Wow. I don’t know what it is about this place, or you guys, but usually when I talk about my mom, I feel like crying, but right now I don’t.”

“That’s good,” said Maeve, passing me a plate of barbecue spareribs. “I used to not be able to talk about my mom without feeling like I wanted to punch someone in the face. Now I only want to pinch them.”

Her words hung in the air for a moment, like a scent we were trying to identify.

“My therapist says that’s progress,” said Maeve.

“My mother and I get along great,” said Solange, once we had settled into a post-laugh relaxation. “Except that she’s constantly bugging me to get married.”

“I’m sure that’ll happen,” said Maeve, “when the right guy comes along.”

Solange shrugged. “The right guy could come along and I’d be totally uninterested. It’s the right girl I’m waiting for.”

In the silence that followed, I wondered how to respond, and I know Maeve was doing the same.

“
Girl
?” I said finally. “Don’t you mean
woman
?”

The unflappable Solange seemed, for a change, flapped.

“Then it’s okay with you?” she said, her voice small. “Do you still like me?”

“‘Like you’ in what way?” asked Maeve, planting her big chin on her curled fist.

“Yeah, are you coming on to us?” I said. “Because if you are, I have to tell you—and I think I speak for Maeve, too—I could never date someone who wears grosgrain ribbons as an accessory.”

Maeve shook her head. “Why would I want to date my second grade teacher?”

Solange stared at her plate for a long moment, tugging at one of her inflamed ear lobes.

“Thanks,” she said finally. “I’m glad you know. My mother still doesn’t, and it kills me.” She let go of her ear and slumped back in the booth. “Whew.”

“Whew’s right,” I said. “And I thought I was the one who had a hard time letting people in.”

“We do what we do to protect ourselves,” said Maeve. “But lately I’ve been thinking secrets do less to protect us than . . . to stifle us.”

Solange and I looked at her as if she had just sung “Edelweiss” in a voice purer than Julie Andrews.

“I know, I know,” said Maeve, laughing. “I’m smarter than I look.”