Best to Laugh: A Novel (28 page)

48

T
HE
REPORTER
FLUFFED
HER
HAIR
and ran a fingernail between two teeth, but when she was given the signal, she was camera-ready.

“I’m standing here with Melvin Slyke,” she said earnestly, “long-term resident of Peyton Hall, the Hollywood Boulevard apartment complex that’s slated for demolition.”

“Not if we’ve got any say about it!” said Melvin, leaning into the reporter’s microphone.

“Yeah!” chorused the group of tenants standing under the Preserve Hollywood Landmarks! banner we had erected on the front lawn.

“Yeah!” agreed Maeve and I, seated at a table offering the chocolate Preservation Cupcakes! we had spent a whole morning baking.

“Tell me, Mr. Slyke,” said the reporter, studied concern settling on her face, “what’s so important about this place? Why get in the way of progress?”

“Progress?” said Melvin, waving his arm. “Take a look around you! You think a high-rise, a big tall box could ever match this graciousness, this oasis we’ve got right here?”

“But Mr. Slyke,” said the reporter, “the complex isn’t even fifty years old; certainly not historic in—”

“I’ll tell you what historic is,” said Melvin. “A place of grace and elegance that housed and continues to house a Hollywood community! Not just big stars like Clark Gable or Shelley Winters or Claudette Colbert, but directors, soundmen, costumers, screenwriters. Me, I was an animator for years, and my neighbor, Francis Flover, was the famous night club impresario—”

“But how do you really expect to stop the complex owner from doing what he’s rightfully entitled to?”

“We’re standing up for what’s rightfully right!” said Melvin. “This place deserves to stand! Hollywood residents, call your city councilwoman and tell her Peyton Hall deserves historic landmark designation!”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Slyke,” said the reporter, and turning her
bright, professional smile on for the camera, she said, “Reporting live from Hollywood, this is Deena Lynde.”

A
FTER
FOLDING
UP
THE
CARD
TABLE
and taking down the banner, I presented Melvin with a cupcake.

“They all sold. But I saved this one for you.”

He kissed the frosting and licked what remained on his lips.

“Nice job, Melvin,” said Vince Perrogio. “We’re going to get this place saved yet!”

Sherri Durban nodded and shook a cigar box. “And Candy, your cupcakes brought in a hundred and eight dollars!”

“Not just my cupcakes. Maeve helped me.”

“Don’t tell my trainer,” said Maeve. “He doesn’t even want me in the same room with sugar.”

Carrying Melvin’s card table up the stairs for him, I stood at the landing as he fumbled with his door key.

“Melvin, you don’t seem so excited about the rally. I thought it went over really well.”

“I was hoping for that reporter from the
Times
to come.”

“Well, we had that one from
L.A. Weekly.
”

“True, true,” said Melvin, and turning the key he pushed open his door.

“Just put the table right there, if you don’t mind,” he said and after I leaned it against the wall, he added, “Don’t mind me. It’s just battle fatigue. I’ll get a good night’s sleep and wake up rejuvenated and ready for action.”

“Remember, we’ve got a three-tiered plan,” I said, mimicking the nasal voice of Baines Wallem.

The lawyer who’d taken on the case to save Peyton Hall as a favor to his old friend Melvin had assured us that he was going to (1) tie everything up with injunctions, (2) petition City Hall about historical landmark status, and (3) get as much publicity as possible.

“That’s right,” said Melvin. He kissed my cheek. “And thanks for the cupcake, honey.”

“We will prevail!” I said, using Melvin’s favorite saying.

“Darn tootin’.”

Shutting the door to my own apartment, I settled myself on the plaid couch, fingers laced behind my head, staring up at the rattan wallpaper plastered to the ceiling. How many actors, comics, writers, directors,
dancers, and musicians had lain prone while reciting their lines or jokes aloud, plotting their scripts, framing their shots, choreographing numbers, or humming a few bars while under the Tiki hut? How many Hollywood dreamers had gazed on the embossed palm trees on the dining room walls and the real ones out the window, cooled themselves in the pool, instructed drivers giving them a ride home to “pull up by the green neon sign”? A shiver skittered up my back. I couldn’t bear the idea of losing this place. I had not only made the best friends of my life at Peyton Hall, I had made the life I’d always wanted. A life I loved.

A
MUSICAL
CALLED
Waiting . . . for Godot!,
based on the less-punctuated play, had been on the Swan Theater’s schedule, but the first composer quit and the second composer was close to that, complaining to Melanie Breyer that there was no way his music could support, let alone be enhanced by, lyrics like, “Why, oh, why, is that Godot / so very, very interminably slow?”

The
Waiting . . . for Godot!
team’s failure to come up with mutually satisfying music and lyrics was our success; we were extended, filling the slot of the show whose desire to combine the existential with entertainment had not been met.

At the loose production-meeting-cum-brunch Claire held at her house every Monday morning (our day off), we discussed many things, including which stars, from the many requests that flooded her office, we’d have on the show.

“You know what Mia Lennox’s agent told me?” Claire said, passing me a bowl of fruit salad. “She said, ‘Being on the
Sorta Late Show
is like being on
Dean Martin’s Celebrity Roast.
It might be a little painful at times, but everyone loves to do it because they get to show people that they have a sense of humor.’”

“I didn’t know Mia Lennox had a sense of humor,” said Mike, of the notoriously vain actress whose father was the movie producer Curtis Lennox.

“She was terrible in that movie about that talking dog,” said PJ, dousing her scrambled eggs with hot sauce.

“Still, that movie did huge business,” said Claire. “And I think it’s pretty flattering that her agent said that.”

“I say no to Mia Lennox. Let her be content to be in her father’s next blockbuster.” Melanie’s tone was harsh, and noticing our response to it she blushed.

“Sorry,” she said, “It’s just that . . . well, as an heiress myself, I guess I’m kind of sensitive to people succeeding in the family business without actual effort. I’ve met Miss Lennox a few times and, believe me, she doesn’t just expect things handed to her on a silver platter, she expects them to be placed on her lap so she doesn’t have to do any heavy lifting.”

I admit it gave me a sense of power to know I could veto someone, too. I was pretty open to whatever guest Claire and Melanie wanted to have on, although when Sharla West’s name came up, my answer was immediate: nope.

“I don’t like her,” I said simply, “and I don’t want to pretend I do.”

We had a guest star on an average of twice a week, and while we had to work hard to rescue Chase Peavy, who might be at home in teen-marketed movies but who froze onstage, generally our guests were good sports and able to easily milk whatever laughs were to be found in the material we wrote for them. We had tried to get Heidi Wheaton (wouldn’t that have been a personal coup?), but she was in London with her one-woman show, the same one-woman show my grandma and I had seen. A costar of hers from
Yuk It Up!
was available, however, and said it would be a distinct pleasure to improvise with us.

“Say, Harry,” I said to my sidekick, “guess how many Emmys Carol Ernhart’s been nominated for?”

Harry shrugged. “Don’t really care. Their whole voting system’s corrupt.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I’ve never been nominated for one.”

“Well, Carol’s not just been nominated four times, she’s won once! So let’s bring the Emmy winner out—ladies and gentlemen, Miss Carol Ernhart!”

The large woman, dressed in a caftan embroidered with little reflective discs, raced out onto the set and flung herself into Harry’s lap, surprising the applauding audience, as well as Harry and me.

We’d been told by Carol’s people to “expect anything,” and we were not about to let a little surprise slip us up.

“Baby doll,” said Harry, “I’ve missed you, too!”

With a look of disgust, Carol unpeeled the arms Harry had clamped around her.

“You’re just like them!” she said, moving to the other side of the couch, nearest my desk.

“Carol,” I said, “who? Harry’s just like who?”

A loose rule in improvisation is that rather than ask questions, you provide information, but thinking Carol had a particular direction she wanted to go in, I decided to ask the questions that would help get her there.

“You know,” said Carol, “the same people who are after you!”

I waited a beat, for her explanation of who these people were, but when it didn’t come, I said, “Oh, those people. The Most Beautiful Women in the World judges.”

This got a big laugh from the audience; Carol Ernhart was a large woman, and while she wasn’t homely, she had a lot of expressions that made her look as if she were. And I certainly didn’t have an attic full of Miss America sashes and tiaras.

“Yes,” said Carol nodding frantically. “And they’re in cahoots with Those Searching for the Brain Closest to Einstein’s.’”

“E equals mc squared,” I said.

“Shh!” said Carol. “They’re backstage right now! And their aim is to find all of us incredibly beautiful and supremely intelligent women for their own devious purposes!”

“I’ll see about that!” said Harry, rushing backstage.

“Should I be worried?” said Gwen, from the other side of the stage.

Mike, in the music pit, stood up and offered a resounding, “No.”

Harry rushed back onstage. “Girls, girls, you’re safe! Totally safe! They got their directions mixed up—they thought they were on the set of
Let’s Make a Deal.
”

The audience laughed at Harry’s reference to a game show that did, for a fact, feature beautiful women who posed by curtains, doors, and prizes.

“Of course!” said Carol. “Everyone knows that the women on that show all have Ph.D.’s in either physics or rocket science.”

This inspired Rose to come onstage and strike a pose.

“Hi,” she said in a cheery voice, “before I show you what’s behind Door #2, let me share the exciting news that I’ve rewritten the Pythagorean theorem.”

We had a high old time, and at the end of that particular show we took our bows with Carol Ernhart to resounding applause.

This wasn’t uncommon. My grandmother and Sven had seen the first week of shows, and while it was thrilling to hear Grandma’s voice inciting everyone to stand up and shout, “Bravo!,” after they went back to Minneapolis the audience was still shouting bravos and we were still getting standing ovations. Which was a whole ’nother thrill.

49

I
TOOK
A
LONG
SWIM
before I gave Madame Pepper a ride to the airport. Typical for the early hour, the pool was empty and the water had the sting of chlorine not carefully measured. I liked that, though—it made it seem more of a cleansing ritual than exercise, although why I thought I needed to be cleansed I had no idea. Maybe I just liked the smell of bleach.

The air was gray and misty, a secret to those who’d wake up later to a bright and sunny Los Angeles that had burned away the moisture, and for several laps I did a languorous backstroke, feeling the heavy water under me and dewdrops on my face.

“
Y
OU
TAKE
HIM,”
she said to me, as she closed the door to her Hollywood apartment for the last time. “He is good guard dog.”

I looked at the gargoyle planter with its teeming jade hair and promised I’d give it a proper home.

“Nice car,” said Madame Pepper as we loaded her luggage in the Ford Cougar I’d gotten several months earlier.

“You say that every time I give you a ride.”

“Fine,” she said with a sniff. “Although I am not complimenting you, I am complimenting your car.”

I drove west on Hollywood Boulevard.

“You are not taking freeway?”

“Nah. La Cienega. It’s nicer. And just as fast.”

“I don’t want to miss my flight.”

“You won’t.”

We drove for a long time in silence, and it wasn’t until we had turned onto Stocker Street that Madame Pepper said, “Zo, the show’s good?”

“It’s been extended. Again.”

“You must take it on the road. I’ll be the first in line to see it in Vienna.”

Madame Pepper had taken her brother Gavril up on his open invitation to come live with him and his family.

“Unfortunately, I haven’t heard of any plans for an international tour.”

Hearing the whine in my voice, she said, “You’re going to do fine without me, Candy.”

“Is that a belief, or a prediction?”

A long moment passed and I looked over at her. She was squinting out the window, her arms folded, her heavy eyebrows a ledge over her face.

“Okay, now you
are
scaring me.”

“Why? You don’t believe in what I do.”

“No,” I protested, “I believe you’re very good at what you do.”

I matched the old woman’s smile with one of my own.

A pickup truck whose side panel read “Palmdale Dates” sped by in the right lane.

“Someone needs dates stat,” said my passenger, and that she knew—and used—the word
stat
made me laugh.

“Zee, I too can be comedian.”

“A lot of people can,” I agreed.

“Yes, but to be funny onstage is a separate talent from being funny in real life. And vice versa. Will Hoover was my client,” she said, of the comic who’d had a very successful sitcom about a hapless jewelry store owner. “And not once, never, did he make me laugh in my home.” She shook her head. “But is not good to speak of clients.”

“But is fun,” I said, in her accent.

By the time I was on Century Boulevard and nearing the terminals, I started blinking back tears. Madame Pepper reached over and patted my arm.

“I feel the same way you do, Candy. Only I am not a crier.”

P
ULLING
OVER
NEAR
THE
P
AM
A
M
SIGNS,
I put on my car flashers and helped the traveler load her old-fashioned leather luggage onto a cart.

“I could park. I could park and come sit at the gate with you.”

“No. I don’t like the good-byes that go on and on.”

“It’s just the good-byes I don’t like,” I said, and a rush of emotion and all that I was losing made me open my arms and grab my friend. “Who am I going to see matinee movies with?”

“Matinee movies are fine to see by yourself,” she said, squeezing me
tight. “But you will miss me at C.C. Brown’s when you don’t have my hot fudge sundae to pilfer.”

“Will you write to me?”

“If you’ll write me back.”

Releasing our hug, we held each other’s elbows, and I saw a sheen of tears in the old woman’s eyes.

“Aha!” I said. “I knew you liked me!”

“Like you? Bah! Like a rash! Like a toothache! Like a shot with a big long needle!”

“I love you, too.”

Now there was more than just a sheen of tears in her eyes, but she dispensed of them quickly with her thumb and forefinger.

“Allergies.” She unclasped her purse and searched for something inside it. “Zo,” she said, taking out her wallet. “How much do I owe you?”

“For what?”

“For ride to airport?”

“Madame Pepper, you insult me. Put that away.”

With a smile, the old woman honored my request. A businessman rushed past us and we stepped aside to give more room to a mother dragging a duffel bag and little boy with equal impatience.

“Perhaps then you will accept as payment, oh, an answer to a certain question?”

“A freebie fortune? Great!”

Her lips pursed in a semi-smile. “Ask me anything. Anything at all.”

“Okay.” Thinking this was not a time to bunt but to swing hard, I asked, “What is the meaning of life?”

The seer put her fingers to her temple and after a moment, nodded her head.

Opening her eyes, she said, “You decide.”

“I decide what the meaning of life is? And you had how many clients paying you how much money for gems like that?”

“Well, every now and then I throw in a little abracadabra. I can tell people the plain truth, but everyone always wants the abracadabra, the clairvoyant flash that will cause the goose bumps.”

“Goose bumps would be good.”

“For that, listen to Maria Callas sing ‘Sinfonia.’”

“Fine. Good-bye, you old gypsy.”

“Good-bye, you young wisenheimer.”

We both held our arms out, and as we met in a final hug, she said, “Just remember, Candy,” and then whispered a few words into my ear.

L
EAVE
IT
TO
THAT
OLD
ORACLE
to really be tapped into the spirit world, to lift the veil that separates the known from the not-so-known, to take messages from sprites and angels . . . or not. I mean I must have let the words slip at some point during our many conversations, right?

That she had repeated
my
secret life saber had flabbergasted and delighted me, and on the drive home from the airport I laughed like a crazy person, to the point of being a highway menace.

L
IKE
THE
FIRST
DOMINO
TAPPED,
Madame Pepper’s departure started a chain reaction I did not like at all.

“You can’t go,” I said, when Frank told me he was packing up.

“The rent’s a lot cheaper where me and Mark are going,” he said, and in response to my questioning look, he added, “Mayhem. He’s going by his real name now.”

“Why?”

“He got a new day job. With an advertising agency. He says nobody wanted to hire anyone named Mayhem.”

“What about the band?”

“Oh, we’re still playing. We’ve got a late set at the Frond on Saturday. You and Mike could come by after your show.”

“So where are you and May—uh, Mark—going to live?”

“Not far. We got a place on Cherokee. Our landlord’s in the band Night Noise, so he’s cool about making noise.”

“Especially at night, I’ll bet.”

“Ha. I hope you’re funnier than that in your show. Which reminds me, can I get some more comps? I know you’re sold out, but you still gotta have some comps, right? I’d really like to see it again Friday night, but this time with my girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?”

He twirled the chains looped on his jeans.

“You don’t have to act so surprised.”

“Well, shouldn’t I be? I haven’t heard you say anything about a girlfriend.”

“Yeah, Paula. I just met her. At the Roxy. And if she’s gonna become
my girlfriend, I’ve got to impress her. So I thought I’d take her to your show.”

“Can’t beat flattery. There’ll be tickets at the will-call.”

O
NE
DAY
AFTER
DROPPING
OFF
MY
RENT
CHECK,
I saw a tenant carrying a spotlight down his front steps.

“Bastien!” I said, racing up to him. “You, too?”

The photographer’s shrug was languid and, I thought, very French.

“I need my home life to be calm so that my work can be wild. I cannot live with this uncertainty.”

“Bastien, Melvin is planning another meeting with our city councilwoman—”

“Candy, you know what I know: it is a lost cause. A beautiful cause . . . but a lost one.”

Joanie Welles, whom we invited to sing one night on
The Sorta Late Show
(fun!), found a little cottage up in the Hollywood Hills, and June was moving into an apartment a block away.

“I can’t bear to go any farther,” she said, looking more disheveled and patched together than usual.

Coming from the pool, I had seen her struggling with a twine-tied cardboard box and offered to carry it. It smelled like B
ENGAY
and whiskey.

“And Binky,” she said, walking in her funny tiptoed way toward the garages. “This is the only home Binky’s ever known!”

The mangy dog was tucked into its hot pink tote bag and looked at me dolefully, brown tears smeared under its eyes. I would have reached out to pet it if I hadn’t known its penchant to nip.

“God,” she said, as she opened the trunk of her beat-up old Chevy Nova. “Not only do I feel like it’s the end of an era, I feel like it’s the end of
my
era.”

She sniffed and I offered a consoling pat on her skeletal arm.

“Don’t worry,” she said, and she was standing so close to me that I could see her thin lips underneath a purple smudge of lipstick. “I’m not going to cry. I haven’t cried since Lizabeth Scott got the part I should have had in
I Walk Alone.
Now that one hurt.”

M
ELVIN
TOOK
EVERY
MOVE
PERSONALLY.

“Don’t they know that the more we stand united, the likelier it is that
we win? If a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, well, then we’ve got a damn flimsy chain.”

I had brought him a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies and quickly realized the short-and-sweet delivery I had planned was a pipe dream. He had insisted I come into his apartment to look at his most recent flyer.

“What’s this?” I asked, picking up from his worktable a picture of Bugs Bunny with boxing gloves.

“Inspiration,” said Melvin. “I drew it during the Looney Tunes Lockout, when we were fighting Warner Brothers for the right to unionize.”

“Looney Tunes Lockout? Did you win?”

“We sure did. And you know why? Because we stuck together. Why can’t people realize that what seems impossible isn’t if you’re willing to fight for it as a team?”

“There are still a lot of tenants left.”

“You’re right.” He took a cookie off the plate. “I just get a little disheartened sometimes.” Taking a bite, he grunted his pleasure. “You make these for the troops, Candy, and no one’ll want to leave.” He took another bite, and another, and after he’d eaten two cookies, he handed me a flyer on which he’d drawn Cupid holding a house key. The hand-lettered words said, “Love Peyton Hall? Then Don’t Give Up On It! Meet by the pool Sat. morning at 10!”

And then my kindly neighbor, who liked nothing more than to talk, told me it was time to go—didn’t I know I had a show to rest up for?