Flavor of the Month

by Olivia Goldsmith

  Mary Jane stood there in the bleak little room, staring at the note. He fucks me, quotes Blake to me, and blows me off! she had time to think before the tears began.

  12

  The strangest interview I ever did was a brunch with Theresa O’Donnell out at her Bel Air mansion more than a dozen years ago. I showed up with a photographer for an “at home” shoot. It was the first time I had been to Theresa’s home and the first time I met Lila Kyle.

  Theresa was decked out in one of those lacy bed jackets and silky pj’s. The kid was in a matching outfit. But so were Candy and Skinny, the two dummies that were featured on Theresa’s TV show at the time. And the luncheon table was set for five. Cute gag, huh? Except the dummies were served, too. And they spoke up throughout the meal. Theresa was a fairly good ventriloquist, but it was Lila I watched. The kid—she was five or six then—acted as if this were the most natural thing in the world. She called her mother “Lovely Mummie” and had perfect table manners. Meanwhile Candy picked on her. So did Skinny. And Theresa intervened when it got too rough.

  I can’t remember what provoked the final incident—I think Lila didn’t want to finish her fruit cup. Theresa said she had to. Lila pointed out that Candy and Skinny hadn’t eaten theirs. Theresa smiled, overly sweetly, and said it was too bad. Lila would still have to. So Lila dumped her fruit cup on Skinny’s lap.

  And Skinny called the child “a little cunt.”

  I often wondered what the rest of life was like for that little girl in that big house. But I didn’t see her again until her birthday party almost five years later.

  Lila remembered the party. It was a turning point in her life. And now, in the quiet of Aunty Robbie’s house, as she faced the question of what she wanted, the party kept coming back to her.

  Lila had given it a lot of thought. At least for her it was a lot. And when she tried, really tried, to think about what she wanted, what she wanted more than anything, it was to be a star. A powerful, important star. A star a lot bigger than her mother, or even her father, had ever been.

  She wasn’t sure if she could act—she didn’t even care. She knew that what she could do was get people to look at her, to want to know her, to be interested in—no, fascinated by—her. It had happened to her before—she knew she could hold a room. She remembered her moment onstage, in the room full of stars at that party, when she sang “The Loveliest Girl in the World.” She remembered the feeling in the room. Everyone stopped. They only wanted to watch her.

  She shivered. Her mother’s theme song gave her the creeps. She hated it. Lila Kyle knew that she was born to Hollywood royalty. But, like Princess Anne, or Margaret, or even poor Queen Elizabeth herself, Lila also knew that lineage didn’t ensure happiness. Still, she wasn’t going to wind up like Nancy Sinatra or her brother Frank, like Julian Lennon, or even Jane Fonda, who had never exceeded the reputation of her father. She, Lila Kyle, would be important in her own right.

  Years ago, she recalled, she had sat before the mirror at the vanity table in her bedroom, watching Estrella’s reflection as the woman stood behind her, when their eyes met. Perhaps they hadn’t looked one another in the eye since then. “It’s your tenth birthday, that’s all I know,” Estrella had said, in answer to Lila’s question. “That’s what your mother say.” Estrella had turned Lila around while she inspected her from head to toe.

  “But it’s my eleventh,” Lila remembered she had continued to insist. “I was ten last year.” Lila wanted to cry but was afraid to ruin her makeup. Aunt Robbie had warned her about that all week, when they were rehearsing. “And eleven is too old for bows in my hair,” she told Estrella once again. The woman shrugged. At times like that, Estrella still pretended she couldn’t understand English.

  Lila had been sure—positive—that she had been ten years old on her last birthday, the year before. Why were Lovely Mummie and Estrella saying she was only ten years old this year? Lila remembered her other tenth birthday. She remembered it so clearly. Unlike this birthday, there had been no big birthday party, only birthday cake with Aunt Robbie and Estrella, because Lovely Mummie and the girls had been too busy working.

  But that was before Mummie’s TV show was canceled, which must be a terrible thing, because Mummie had yelled all the time since then, and it was getting harder to understand when she spoke, even in her normal tones. Lila didn’t know what “canceled” meant, but it sounded worse than sickness, or even death. And Mummie and Aunt Robbie acted as if it was. And so did the girls at Westlake. “Your mom’s show was canceled,” sneered Lauren Caldwell. “Some big star.”

  Estrella tightened the bow in Lila’s hair and gave her a gentle prod. “Now,” she said, “perfect.” Estrella placed the brush back on the blue-mirrored vanity table and waddled to the door. Before she closed it behind her, she said, “Lila. Listen to Estrella. For the last time, you’re ten years old, and your mother say you got to have a big bow in your hair. Please,” she added, “don’t ask questions. Promise?”

  Lila had considered Estrella’s request, then nodded in agreement as she always did. Even though Lila didn’t really like Estrella, they both wanted the same thing: to keep Lovely Mummie happy.

  Alone, Lila ran to her bedroom window and stood on tiptoe looking out, hoping that it wouldn’t put cracks across the front of her new black patent-leather shoes. She strained to see the occupants of each of the limousines as they were pulling up at the door of her mother’s house. As the cars disgorged their well-dressed occupants, Lila practiced naming the famous persons she recognized: “Miss Taylor, Mr. Stewart, Mr. Peck,” she murmured. Her mother insisted she be polite and greet every one of the party guests by name. Some were famous, and she knew them from movies or TV, but the others were harder. And even more important. She had to get them all right. Mr. Sagarian, Lovely Mummie’s agent. Mr. Wagner from CBS. And her business manager. And lots of fat, bald guys. All grown-ups, she thought. Lila didn’t really have any friends at school, but, still, since it was her birthday, she wished some kids were here.

  For Lila, it was a relief that there weren’t as many parties as there used to be, back when Lovely Mummie was working. Lila could remember how she used to long to be with her mummie and Candy and Skinny on TV. Every Friday night, Lila would sit before the TV, watching her mother’s show. She often played at being Cinderella: she had two mean stepsisters and a wicked mother who wouldn’t let her go to the ball. Theresa O’Donnell Presents “The Candy Floss and Skinny Malink Show.” Why couldn’t she be on television with them? The Theresa and Lila show. Without stupid Candy and Skinny. Lovely Mummie might let her, if she was very, very good tonight, and if they got another show.

  Except Lila wasn’t so sure she wanted to anymore. Mummie was home all the time, and sometimes Lila wished she weren’t. It wasn’t so much fun to be with her mummie. Maybe it would be different, though, when they got their new TV show.

  “This is important,” Theresa had said to her, over and over, as Theresa made the party preparations while rehearsing Lila. “If we can get Jack Wagner or one of those rat bastards interested. I’ll just move to CBS and start over. Update the concept. Cut back on Candy and Skinny. More skits. Less singing. And bring you on. Wholesome. A family show. Like the Osmonds. No one wants these cops and westerns for their kids.”

  Lila liked the idea of cutting out Candy and Skinny. She hated the two puppets. When she’d been a little girl, Lovely Mummie had told her they were real—her real sisters. Now Lila knew they were only puppets, that Mummie made them speak, but even now, at eleven—she was sure she was eleven—she sometimes wasn’t certain that the two were not alive. Still, she had done all she could in rehearsing and rehearsing with Mummie and Aunt Robbie to try to take their place, and that night she would do it.

  Though all of it happened years ago, Lila would never forget a moment of it. She had left the window and run to the guest room, on the other side of the house, to look out once again at the decorations around the pool. Japanese lanterns were strung
between trees, gently swinging in the warm evening breeze. The surface of the pool was dotted with cork disks holding lighted candles in clear glass containers, with scented gardenias floating among them. White-jacketed waiters were already moving through the colorfully dressed crowd. The sound of their chatter urged Lila down the stairs to join the fun, but, instead, she returned to her room to wait to be summoned, as she had been told.

  She sat down in her rocker, and looked over at Candy Floss and Skinny Malink sitting at their usual seats at the tea table, both of them smiling like they didn’t have a care in the world. Easy for you, she thought. “I’m the one that’s got to be good tonight,” she told them, part proud, part frightened.

  The dummies’ heads were tilted slightly, and Lila could see the place where her mother’s hands went behind the dolls to manipulate their mouths and extremities. She’d never noticed that when she was little. Before, when she was little and stupid, she used to think they were real, that they were really her sisters. But that had been a big fat lie. A joke her mother called it. Ha ha.

  Candy Floss and Skinny Malink had been part of her mother’s life long before she had been. “I love these two as much as I love you,” she’d say.

  Lila sat and rocked, closed her eyes and tried to remember her lines and the movements her mother and Aunt Robbie had gone to so much trouble to teach her. She was sure she had everything right. She leaned across and arranged Skinny’s and Candy’s dresses just so, then fluffed her pink dress around her, taking care not to lean back too far for fear of crushing the big bow at the rear.

  She jumped as she heard her mother, coming down the hall to her room, calling her name. “I’m here,” Lila called.

  “Girls, I’ve come to take you down to entertain our guests. Oh, how pretty my little babies look.” Was Lovely Mummie slurring her words again? It made Lila shiver. Mummie patted both dolls’ heads, then turned to Lila. “Let me look at you,” she said, and frowned. Theresa O’Donnell watched as Lila turned slowly in front of her, waiting uneasily for her mother’s comments.

  “Lovely, just lovely,” Theresa finally said, her frown dissolving into her TV smile. Lila breathed out and smiled, too. “How do you like my hair, Mummie?” Maybe she could take the stupid bow out. “Estrella put a big bow in it.”

  “Perfect,” her mother said, “Exactly the right touch. Now, if only you weren’t so goddamn tall.”

  Mummie looked more closely. “But what’s that?” she asked, pointing to a locket. “A necklace? Take it off. Candy and Skinny don’t have necklaces, so that’s not very fair, is it?” Theresa stood and reached over to pat the dummies. “Don’t mind,” she told them. “Lila’s taking it off now. Aren’t you?”

  Lila bit the inside of her cheek as she unclasped the locket Aunt Robbie had given her for luck. She put it safely in the top drawer of the bureau. Oh, God, why did Mummie still talk to the dummies? Why did she still pretend like this?

  “Lila,” her mother said, becoming very serious. “There are a lot of people here who are very important to me. I want you to make Mother proud of her little girl.” Turning to the dummies, she hummed, “And my other two little babies always make me proud.” She kissed each doll on its painted wooden cheek and demanded of Lila, “You are going to be perfect, aren’t you?” Lila saw her mother take Candy’s hair in her fist and pull very hard, while keeping her eyes on Lila. She could almost feel how that must hurt. For once, Lila felt sorry for Candy, and, unconsciously, she reached up to her own hair. Lila whispered, “Yes, Lovely Mummie.”

  Then Theresa released Candy’s hair, and gently patted it back into place.

  “Smile, girls, we’re on now,” Theresa said as she took the dummies, each in the crook of an arm, and walked very carefully down the stairs, Lila trailing behind. Please, Mummie, don’t trip again, she thought.

  “I hate these fucking stairs,” Lila had heard her mother mutter. “Elegant, my sweet Irish ass. Cross of Christ!”

  As they reached the main floor, Theresa paused and took a moment to command the attention of the crowd. “Hi, everyone. Tonight I’d like you all to meet my other little girl, Lila, who will be making her debut right here with us.”

  Candy leaned forward and said, “Her debut and retirement in one performance.”

  “Candy, that’s not nice,” Theresa scolded the puppet.

  “Not nice but true, it seems to me,” said Skinny on the other hand. The crowd laughed, and Lila’s heart quickened at the sharp barbs from the two. This hadn’t been in the rehearsals. She wanted to tell them to shut up, but then she remembered that it was her mother who’d said those things. And it was her mother who’d told her over and over: “Don’t be mean to your sisters, they’re your bread and butter.”

  “She wouldn’t be Theresa O’Donnell’s daughter if she couldn’t sing and dance with dummies, would she?” Mummie said. Everyone laughed again and looked at Aunt Robbie Lymon, Mummie’s stooge on the TV show. “No, no, everyone, not that dummy,” she laughed. “Now, please, come with us into the ballroom.”

  Lila walked up to the raised platform at one end of the room and was helped up by Aunt Robbie, who whispered to her: “Hey, kid, don’t worry about anything. Just do it like we rehearsed.”

  Sitting on a small chair next to her mother, Lila waited until Aunt Robbie finished playing the introduction. Candy and Skinny each sat on one of her mother’s knees, their heads turning, scanning the crowd. The music stopped, and Theresa spoke.

  “Skinny, Candy, who’s that other pretty little girl sitting on the stage? Is she with you?”

  Skinny and Candy looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. “I don’t see any pretty girl on the stage,” Candy said. “Do you, Skinny?”

  “Nope,” Skinny said. “I just see you and me pretty little girls, but I don’t see no other pretty little girl.”

  Lila’s toes tingled cold in her shoes. This wasn’t the opening to the act. Mummie had forgotten the opening. Oh, no. Oh, my God. Aunt Robbie had told her what to do if her mother forgot her lines.

  “Well,” Lila said, “I see one pretty little girl and two dummies.”

  Both of the dolls turned their heads to Theresa at the same time, then toward Lila. She was aware of the laughter from the audience and was surprised at how good that made her feel. She noticed how her voice sounded in the big room, and made a point of remembering to speak to the back of the crowd, just like Aunt Robbie had taught her.

  “Excuse her, folks,” said Skinny. “She’s hoping for a notice in Variety.”

  “I’m not the one whose acting is wooden,” said Lila. The crowd laughed again. Lila preened. But Lovely Mummie looked flustered.

  As the routine continued, more or less according to the script, her mother forgot some lines, but Lila filled in. She got caught up in her interchange with Candy and Skinny. She remembered to hold her head just like dolls did, just as she had imitated so many times while sitting in front of the television set. She moved her jaw just like Candy, and kept her arms immobile like Skinny, while reciting her lines. Then, at last, it was over, and all she had to do was sit there while her mother sang her famous song.

  When Aunt Robbie began to play the music for Mummie’s song, Mummie just kept on smiling. It was a strange smile. The audience murmured, a sound like wind in the orange trees. Why wasn’t Mummie singing? She was supposed to sing her song, “The Loveliest Girl in the World.” Aunt Robbie began the intro again, and Lila understood what he was trying to say to her. So, desperate, Lila began to sing her mother’s closing song. She sang so hard, she didn’t notice that the whole room had grown quiet, and every face was on her, even her mother’s. She sang with all her heart the famous final words of the song. Lila had never rehearsed it, but she had watched her mom’s movie Birth of a Star so many, many times that she knew it perfectly. When it came time for the last bar, for the high note, she closed her eyes and made it easily.

  When she opened her eyes and looked at Aunt Robbie, he was standing at the pia
no, applauding. The audience suddenly came alive, shouting, clapping, and whistling. I did it! she thought. I remembered every word and motion and then, when I had to, I even remembered Lovely Mummie’s song. And they like me. She looked toward her mother, a smile of achievement on her face. Her mother looked back at her without expression, holding Candy and Skinny down by her sides…like dolls. She never did that. Lila was confused, but continued to bow to the audience and accept their applause.

  Then, at last, Mummie stepped forward, stood next to Lila, smiled broadly, and bowed. She led Lila off the stage, turned, and took the last bow alone, holding Candy and Skinny in her arms like infants. Ignoring the cries of the crowd for an encore, she said, “Thank you, everyone. It’s past the girls’ bedtime. But you will be seeing us again.” Floating on a cloud, Lila waved as her mother led the way through the crowd.

  Mr. Wagner put his hand on Theresa’s arm as she was passing, and the audience stopped chattering to listen. “Jack, darling, how nice of you to come,” Lovely Mummie said so everyone could hear, kissing him on the cheek. “What did you think of our little family entertainment?”

  “A perfect performance. It gives me an idea for a TV show. Interested?”

  Theresa smiled broadly at Mr. Wagner. “We’re always interested in television, Jack. We’d love to do another show, wouldn’t we, girls?”

  Lila’s heart jumped. Did he mean her, too?

  “I mean Lila, Theresa. The kid’s a natural. We’d start her with a half-hour after school, see where it goes.” He leaned down toward Lila. “How about it, kid? Want to have a television show?”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Wagner”—remembering to say his name. Then she saw the expression on Lovely Mummie’s face, and knew that something was wrong. “I mean, I don’t know. I’ll have to ask my mother.” She just knew that she had better get away from Mr. Wagner, and not hear any more about a television show. She could tell that Lovely Mummie didn’t think it was such a good idea.