Crowned Heads

by Thomas Tryon

  Later she saw Rosalia in a hammock near the office, under the tree where the parrot lived. Cradled one in each arm were Sashie and a Mexican child, looking happy as Rosalia sang a song and they sang along with her. From inside the office Lorna could hear the plock plock of Steve Alvarez’s typewriter. When Rosalia went back to work Lorna left the library and walked over. She gave each child a hug, then had the little Mexican get out of the hammock until she got in, the way Rosalia had been, and then coaxed the Mexican child back in and put an arm around each of them, telling Sashie she mustn’t be afraid of the stingray. Oh, Sashie said, she wasn’t afraid; but Lorna was. Well, Lorna said with a nervous laugh, it was such a big thing, and so unexpected. She gave them hugs again, but the children wriggled and the hammock swung uncomfortably. She tried singing to them as Rosalia had, but they didn’t like that and they scrambled out, leaving her alone in the hammock. Steve Alvarez was standing in the office doorway, watching. One of the dogs came ambling by and she called it to her and made a great show of petting it; then the dog went away, too.

  The excursion boat had brought some new guests: four young men from Los Angeles, tennis players en route to an important match in Mexico City. Lorna thought they couldn’t be much older than Jeffrey, but she wished Jeffrey were more like them. They were all very good-looking, with healthy, lean bodies and exuberant spirits. Miriam Seltzer evidently thought they were good-looking, too, for when Lorna came out on the beach next morning, she saw the young men playing volleyball, and Miriam had stationed herself by one of the net posts, applauding the game. She sat with her knees up but spread, showing the crotch of her bikini, and she kept one hand dangling in front of her, which rather than obscuring the area only called attention to it. She was the most vulgar type.

  Lorna talked with one of the boys later that afternoon. She stayed under her umbrella with a towel covering her knees, reading. The tallest of them came over and introduced himself. Very polite. His name was Bud, and he asked if they could all have her autograph for their girlfriends back home; she said she would be happy to oblige.

  She was waiting at the bar, wearing her shocking-pink Pucci and her white sandals and the pearl earrings Brownie had bought her in Japan during their reconciliation trip. They all came in with Bud in the lead, wearing shorts and alligator shirts, and they reminded her about the autographs. She was prepared, had brought her own pen and four eight-by-ten glossies, which she signed individually, pretending not to notice the other guests watching. There were lots of jokes and good-natured fun, and she accepted the boys’ invitation to sit at their end of the family table. After dinner, when the other three, Gil, Dick, and Barry, went to the bar, she and Bud stayed at the table having coffee and watching the moonrise. Emiliano was tending bar, so she laughed a lot and was animated, bending forward over the candle so it caught her features, and sometimes touching Bud’s hand to emphasize a point. Then she grew serious, leaning her cheek on her hand and looking out toward the bay with a faraway expression. Why so pensive? Bud asked. She shook her head. Oh, she replied, I was just thinking. She talked about meditation and how very much it was helping her, and he listened with interest. Then she allowed herself to be persuaded to join the others in the bar, and she watched Emiliano making drinks; he seemed not to notice at all how much the center of attraction she was. She allowed Bud to put his arm around the back of her chair, and she turned several times and spoke in his ear—the music was quite loud—her lips brushing against him, and then she let Emiliano see that several times Bud had taken her hand.

  She thought she would make herself conspicuous by her absence during the flamenco, and asked to be excused. She stood at the edge of the patio, looking out across the beach and the bay, with the flames of the tiki torches leaping around her, the breeze lifting the corners of her Hermès scarf, and thought she made a pretty picture. Naturally Bud came after her and begged her to stay. No, she laughed, she had to get her beauty sleep. Aw, he said, you’re too beautiful, you don’t need sleep. But she prevailed, and he walked her back to her cabaña. It was then that he mentioned that he knew Stan Wyckoff. Lorna felt a sharp chill at the mention of the name, but passed it off lightly. Ah, she said, how is Stan? She didn’t care at all for the way Bud laughed; obviously he’d heard something. On the cabaña patio he tried to kiss her, but she pulled away from his arms and said a firm good night.

  Later she could hear the flamenco music and the clatter of Emiliano’s heels on the floor and the staccato clap of his hands and his Spanish cries. The passion of the dance. She creamed her elbows and performed her other nightly beauty rituals, put on her nightdress and got into bed. She read by the kerosene lantern, absently rubbing the “frownie” paste-on between her eyebrows. Finally she went to sleep. She was awakened by footsteps along the walkway, then a light rapping at her door. It opened and she saw a dark shape. Hi, Bud said. She could tell he was drunk. He came to the bed and looked down at her. She had cream on her face and curlers in her hair; she told him to leave, but he sat on the edge of the bed. She drew away and when he leaned down to her she struck him, telling him to go. I’m not that kind of person, she told him. Aw, come on, he said, he knew Stan, didn’t she get it? She didn’t have to be so careful—he wouldn’t tell. He left only when she threatened him with Steve Alvarez. Okay, he said, laughing; he’d be around if she changed her mind.

  Next morning they were over near the horse palapa, where the three secretaries sat, and they all played volleyball. Miriam Seltzer was with them, and they lunched together, and went to the village in the afternoon. They laughed a lot, and made a very cozy group. That evening they were at the bar, drinking coco locos. Lorna put on her blue caftan and went for a solitary walk along the beach, stopping now and then to examine something the water had washed up. She ate alone that night, resuming her solitary window table, and bringing her book with her. She thought Bud might have apologized for his behavior, but he didn’t, and Miriam was dancing with him after dinner. Lorna returned to her cabaña, and whenever she went out onto her patio she could see them, over on the beach on blankets, smoking pot in the moonlight. Very romantic, she didn’t think.

  The next morning she awoke feeling irritable and with a headache. She didn’t go to breakfast, but sat on her patio, needlepointing. She knew she ought to meditate, but somehow she couldn’t concentrate. There were some plantain leaves hanging down, partially obscuring her view, and she had asked the gardener several times to cut them, but in mañana style he had neglected to do it. She tore them away, and when the gardener came by he saw the leaves on the walkway. He looked at them, then picked them up and carried them away. Later, Steve Alvarez spoke to her about breaking down the plantain trees. She didn’t care for his tone and told him as much. She decided that despite Cupie, she definitely didn’t like Steve. She knew the type—sharp and opportunistic—and she didn’t like the elaborate pains he took in referring to “L.A.,” saying what a wild place it was and that he knew a “lot of people” there. The implication was clear: Bud had said something to him about the Stan Wyckoff business. She had noticed that Steve’s hands often trembled; he drank a lot, and she’d heard about how northerners went to seed in the tropics; all those coco locos. She didn’t like him at all.

  Next day at lunch she heard talk among the tennis players and the secretaries of taking a ride up the mountain. She hurried to Pedro, the horse man, to reserve a mount, since she had never seen the view, but found that all the horses were taken; she would have to settle for a burro. The party was already starting by the time she had changed into her jeans, and she clambered awkwardly onto the beast’s back, with no way of showing what a good horsewoman she could be. Miriam had a horse, but jogged in the saddle like a sack of potatoes, and made the mistake of wearing shorts, which only revealed how fat her thighs really were. They were all up ahead, while the burro plodded patiently behind with some day-trippers off the excursion boat, and she had to listen to their talk all the way up the hill.

  The view was most spe
ctacular at Pat O’Connor’s house, or across the way at the Tashkents’. When they got there, Lorna stayed aloof from the others, preferring to absorb the splendors of the vista alone, until Bud came over. How ya doing? he asked, trying to be friendly. She adopted a cool attitude. When he asked what the matter was, she demanded to know what he had said to Steve Alvarez about her. He denied having said anything, but she didn’t believe him. She moved away, trying to hear what Pedro was explaining to the group in his bad English about the high peak, the Sleeping Maiden—something about the conquistadores arriving, and a legend about a temple which they had plundered, and how in bringing the gold down, some greedy Spaniards had drowned in the river, which was why it came to be called the River of Gold. Lorna was more interested in the view—you could see the lagoon filling, and the thatched roofs of the hotel, and she could pick out individual figures. One she had already recognized, Emiliano in his white trunks. He had been talking with some people on the beach; now she saw him come around behind the kitchen and enter the cinder-block cubicle he shared with his brother, Benito. He did not come out again, but then Lorna saw someone who was unmistakably Rosalia going in where Emiliano had already gone, and not coming out either.

  The party was already mounting for the descent when Lorna turned away. The sun was hot, her legs were sore, and she regretted having wasted her time on the trip. She regretted the burro more. As slow as it had been coming up, the creature was maddeningly balky going down. He jolted her over the rocks, causing her to sway and lurch, and she was glad she was last in line so no one could see her. Up ahead was Miriam, riding beside Bud, and of course they were laughing. She was more certain than ever that Bud was talking about her.

  She had dropped well behind when, from around a bend in the trail farther back, she heard the nicker of a horse. Turning, she saw the man called Ávila, coming down the path; she urged her burro to the side, to let him pass. The great brim of his sombrero was tilted downward over his brow, shadowing his eyes, but he tipped it as he went by, and drew his lips back from his teeth, showing the gold. He said nothing, but went on, a donkey following, and on its flanks hung two softly jogging cloth sacks, under which were curving shields of leather. Not birds, she thought; snakes. Her burro shied as Ávila went by. Then, when he had gone, the burro trembled all over and refused to move, but only stood in the path, twitching his ears. The others were going on; shouting for Pedro, she got off and tried to tug the burro into motion. She found a stick and shook it in the animal’s face, but it wouldn’t look at her. She was close to crying, and then she did cry, and hit the burro on the rump with the stick. It moved, but not much. She went on hitting it and crying until Pedro rode back and grabbed the stick out of her hands. He ordered her into the saddle, and took the reins, and the burro followed along docilely behind the horse. She didn’t look at the others when they caught up to the party, and she tried to explain about the snakes, and the man called Ávila.

  By the time they got back to the hotel she knew everybody had heard how she had hit the burro with the stick. She sat on her patio and tried to meditate, but she was in an agitated state. At the cocktail hour, Bud and the other tennis players came out of their cabaña and went along the walkway, none of them looking at her. She sat, burning with shame and hot resentment. She hadn’t meant to hit the little beast, only it wouldn’t go, what was she to have done?

  She was surer than ever that Bud had leaked information about the Stan Wyckoff scandal. Of course it was all true, so what could she do? They had been deeply involved, she and the baseball player, and when the Perkies people had got wind of the affair they had made it known that they didn’t want their spokeswoman linked with a black man, a prominent and married one to boot. She was crazy for him, but even if he’d been free, he’d made it clear that he wouldn’t marry her. People said it was her mother who objected, but it had been his; her son was not going to many a white woman, no matter how famous. The scandal erupted at a public function. Stan was being honored as Player of the Year at a banquet at the Ambassador Hotel, and it was during the after-dinner speeches, when the jokes had become broader and the talk rougher, that Lorna Doone made her appearance. She was got up like a kootch dancer, in spangled bra and tights, she wore a black Afro wig, and her body was covered with brown make-up. She sauntered casually up to the dais, where the honored guest, her lover, sat, and stood before him, one hand on her hip, the other toying with the curly wig. Well, Stan, she said, am I black enough for you now? She took a drink from the table and dashed it in his face, then turned and just as casually sauntered from the room.

  Effective, but it scotched the Perkies contract. People talked about it for weeks.

  She never understood why she did the things she did. She was not proud of her past, merely grateful that she had got away with it for so long. Nor was she particularly ashamed; it was the way she was, that was all. The front she had put up for so many years hid many secrets, ones even Confidential had never managed to expose. What if they had printed the true story? She had had her first sexual experience at thirteen—not so early, as it turned out when she had compared notes with other women. There was never any notion of love from his side; he had taken, she had given. Once, then many times. After him others, older, more grown up, sophisticated; they took, she gave. Lorna Dumb.

  In high school, since she twirled a baton in the band, she came in contact with a lot of athletes; she became a sort of “sports enthusiast,” and obliged each of the teams through the seasons, football in the autumn, hockey and basketball in winter, baseball in the spring, and for extra measure there were counselors at a camp up in Malibu; she “saw” to them all. Lorna Doone, the all-American cookie. Later she spent a lot of time in Errol Flynn’s trailer; he’d told her that he wanted to see how the cookie crumbled. But what went on in the trailer didn’t hit the papers, never got beyond gossip on the set, and her mother never knew.

  She had been with the industrialist for four years before Sam, and no one would have believed what went on behind the wall, beyond the manicured lawn and neat flower beds. If Hedda or Louella knew, they never printed it. But she was used to gossip. The scandal over Stan hadn’t fazed her; she planted herself firmly at prominent tables in the Polo Lounge or at the Brown Derby, daring anyone to laugh at her. They hadn’t; only behind her back, but she was used to that, too; anyway, who cared what people were saying over their Cobb salad at the Derby?

  Still, somewhere along the line it had dawned on her what a fraud she was. Lorna Doom.

  She sat watching the fishing boats come in, hand pressed against her breast, feeling the flutter. Peace, she thought; peace. But where was it? Day by day she could sense it departing, like a bird within grasp suddenly eluding her. When she went to have her shower the water was cold, and she had to shout for the boy to come and light the fire under the boiler. He came, eventually. Fortunately she didn’t have to face anyone in the dining room over the burro incident, for she was to dine at Joan Taylor’s. She put on some of her prettiest things and walked up the beach. There was the usual crowd at the yacht club, sitting out on the deck, and bobbing at their moorings the usual boats, the Molly g, the Alrae, the Paradiso from San Francisco, the I Dream of Jennie. She saw, leaning on the rail, the club’s owner, an American called Jack. She stopped and asked him about the regatta. He told her there had been a series of bad storms in the California Gulf, and that the boats in the race had been forced to shelter at Cabo San Lucas until fairer weather. When would that be? she asked. Jack didn’t know; who could tell when storms might blow themselves out? She said she was expecting friends, the Sandlers from La Jolla. Yes, Jack knew the MorryEll, but he had no idea when they might be arriving.

  Jack smoked French cigarettes, which he had flown in from Martinique; she suddenly found herself engulfed by their aroma. She still had not smoked since leaving Los Angeles, but she stopped at the cash register and bought a pack of the same brand.

  She was surprised to find the Tashkents at Joan’s house, and
she thought, Oh, God, one of those evenings. But Bob proved a good host, warm and friendly, and no one made any bones about the fact that there was a movie star in their midst. The Tashkents—her name was Ethel, his Irving—were diffident, and careful not to look at Lorna for too long at a time. She was glad she’d worn her jade necklace, and let the older woman admire it. Ethel had one of those comical Yiddish accents, and it turned out that the Tashkents came from Santa Monica, too. Before retiring, they had owned Tashkent’s Select Kosher Deli at the beach, close to where the young Lorna Doone had gone to school at Santa Monica High. Tashkent, Tashkent; Lorna tried to remember. No, sorry, she couldn’t recall Tashkent’s Select Kosher Deli.

  Joan was interested in knowing what Fedora was really like; Lorna disappointed her by saying they’d never met, none of their scenes were together and Fedora had remained hidden in her hotel room during most of the filming of The Miracle of Santa Cristi. Inevitably the name of William Marsh came up; she didn’t like talking about Willie, but since they asked … He had been one of the most prominent figures in Hollywood for many years, and since his success in the Bobbitt films, one of the most popular and beloved. It was perhaps a blessing that Bee Marsh had died last year, and hadn’t lived to see the tragedy; or perhaps if she had lived, it never would have happened. The others, of course, were well acquainted with the details of that ghastly night last summer; the papers had been full of them for months.

  Upon arriving, Lorna had accepted only her usual pre-dinner glass of wine, which she drank right down, and then, because it was, she said, a “special occasion,” she allowed herself to be persuaded to have one of the frozen margaritas the others were having, and which Bob Somers made so well. She interested herself in Bob, taking his arm and drawing him across the room away from the others, admiring the work he had done on the house. And all with his own hands? Remarkable. She was in awe, she said, of a man who could do things. Why, he ought to have been an architect. Bob said he preferred fishing.