Best to Laugh: A Novel

by Lorna Landvik

  My anxiousness was aided and abetted by the coffee I glugged down, and when the phone jangled, I practically yelped.

  “Ciao, Candy!” came my cousin’s voice.

  “Hi, Charlotte,” I said, without the exclamation points. “You know, it would have been nice if you told me in advance when you were coming in because now it’s going to take me awhile to get there—what airline are you on, by the way? My friend Ed says it takes about forty-five—”

  Charlotte’s laugh interrupted my scold.

  “Candy, I’m not in L.A., I’m in New York!”

  “Huh?”

  She laughed again.

  “It’s so wild! We were all set to come back, but then on our last day of work, Cray got a ship-to-shore phone call from his agent! Telling him he had a big audition for Bellwether—you know that show about the crime-solving English butler? Anyway, they’ve written in a part for the new Scottish constable and Cray auditioned for it two days ago. And guess what, Candy? He got it!”

  “Well, that’s great—”

  “—and I met his agent and he’s agreed to represent me, too! He says I’m perfect for commercials! Isn’t that fantastic?”

  “Wow. Yeah. Congratulations.” I took a deep inhale; it seemed I’d been holding my breath. “Does that mean you won’t be moving back here?”

  Charlotte laughed again; honestly, it was as if the girl were being tickled.

  “Not for a while. Who knows—maybe not ever, if things work out. I mean, I might as well give Broadway a shot while I’m here, so if you don’t mind keeping up the sublet for a while–”

  “—no, no, I don’t mind, but what about your—”

  “—great! And we’ll figure out what to do with the car—anyway, ciao!”

  I kissed this bearer of most excellent news before setting the receiver in its cradle and racing through each room—my rooms!—in a happy hoppy dance.

  Charlotte wasn’t coming back! She was going to stay in New York where her boyfriend with the weird name got hired on one of the crappier TV shows dumbing up the airwaves! I was staying at Peyton Hall!

  26

  12/12/78

  Dear Cal,

  Progress has been made! My second time on stage (at Pickles, a deli in Glendale with an open mike) and I didn’t bomb! I didn’t kill either—but still: I DIDN’T BOMB. Only Ed was able to come, and he proved an astute audience member, telling me I raced through my lines (good to know; I’ll slow down) and that sometimes I sounded apologetic rather than really believing in what I said. (Same thing that Mike guy said.) So I’ll take the criticism and use it to get more of what I got tonight: laughs!

  WHILE THE FIRST FRIEND I had made in Hollywood was always generous with his advice and counsel, he had offered surprisingly little about his personal life of late. When he told me about Sharla West calling to invite him to a screening the night after they met in Taryn’s hot tub, his voice had been tinged with the awe one might expect from a novitiate meeting the pope or a tourist describing his first visit to the Grand Canyon—at sunset—but further updates lacked the details I was dying to hear.

  “Has Ed told you anything about his weekend in Catalina?” hollered Maeve.

  “Only that he and Sharla were going there,” I hollered back.

  “You should hear what she told Mother.”

  Thwack.

  “Do tell.”

  Splat.

  “According to Sharla, they barely left their hotel room.”

  Thwack.

  “No,” I said.

  Splat.

  “She’s definitely the pursuer here,” said Maeve. “I mean, she’s the one who first asked him out.”

  Thwack.

  “I know. Ed was giddy over that.”

  Whoosh.

  “That’s it,” Maeve said as I failed to return the ball. “I win.”

  It was late afternoon and we had tromped up to the Hills, a piece of wilderness one block north of our complex. Once an estate, the house had burned down to its foundation and on its vast and overgrown grounds was a cracked and weedy court on which Maeve and I were playing tennis. Maeve was a graceful and powerful player who smacked balls with such force my impulse was to dodge them rather than attempt returning them. She was out of my league skills-wise, but I was just as competitive and made a rallying effort to give her at least a semblance of a game. The balls I hit had half the velocity of those she sent over the net, but let the record show I almost won a set. We had played in steely, concentrated quiet, but by the end of the game, when Maeve’s victory was more than assured, we had relaxed enough to gossip.

  After gathering up the balls, she pulled up her T-shirt to mop her face. I was impressed by the volume of her perspiration and told her so.

  “Thanks for noticing. But don’t think it’s because you pushed me too hard. I’m just a sweater, that’s all.” Sighing, she shook the back of her damp dyed-blonde hair with her fingers.

  “Not only do I get to be tall and awkward with a face that favors my professor father more than my movie star mother, but I get to sweat more than other people!”

  “Maeve,” I said, hearing that familiar warble in her voice, “don’t even start. We’d just gotten to the good stuff—Ed and Sharla—remember?”

  Her sniff was guttural, but she nodded.

  “So what else did your mom say?”

  “Well,” said Maeve. “She says Sharla can’t stop talking about Ed—in the dressing room, on the set, at the commissary—it’s all Ed, all the time!”

  “And it’s our Ed she’s talking about?”

  “Our one and only.”

  Maeve put the lid on a can of balls and picked up her racket, and we began walking down a path narrowed by tall grass and weeds.

  “I tell you, it gives me encouragement,” she said, whacking at a weed with her racket. “I mean, Ed wasn’t having much luck dating—and yes, he made a big mistake in not dating me—but now, now he’s getting it on with the star of Summit Hill!”

  “‘Getting it on with,’” I said, laughing at the expression.

  “And get this,” said Maeve, targeting another weed with her racket. “Sharla told my mother Ed’s the most sensitive lover she’s ever had!”

  “No!”

  “Those were her words!”

  We giggled like two junior high girls whose health teacher has just announced today’s class will focus on human reproduction.

  “Now, Mother made me take a vow to not tell anyone, so you’ve got to do the same.”

  I held up my racket. “On my honor.”

  We followed the path down the hill and toward Fuller Street, whacking at the snarled weeds like landscape architects on speed.

  IT WASN’T UNUSUAL to hear shouts and exclamations coming from the Beat Street offices.

  “‘Genie Girl’ is #2 with a bullet!”

  “We’ve got the Brass Jar on Midnight Special!”

  “Rolling Stone wants Summer Stephenson for a cover feature!”

  If I were to shout out announcements pertaining to my particular office milieu—“The copier’s working again!” or “I updated the Rolodex!”— I doubt it would be received with the same sense of excitement.

  More than once, Ellie Pop, who loved the record industry, asked me if I knew how lucky I was to have the opportunity thousands of people would have killed to have.

  “Really?” I had asked the tenth or so time she said this. I was wrestling with packing tape as I boxed up promotional albums to send to a radio station. “Thousands of people would kill to get yelled at when they put someone on hold? Thousands of people would kill to make and then cancel lunch reservations or sign the UPS delivery forms?”

  Crossing her arms in front of her suede-vested chest, Ellie Pop smirked.

  “You know what I mean. To work in the record industry.”

  “Which for me,” I said slowly, as if speaking to someone who didn’t share my native tongue, “means listening to people yell at me when I put them on hold, ma
king and canceling lunch reservations, and signing UPS delivery forms.”

  Still, for a temp job, it had its perks, and as the hours of my last day at Beat Street ticked away, I felt a little sad.

  “So what should we see?” said Solange. We had decided to honor the occasion of my upcoming unemployment by seeing a movie, and she was sitting on the futon with the newspaper spread before her, looking through the listings. “California Suite or Superman?”

  “Ahh,” I said, “to laugh or to lust, that’s the question.”

  “Isn’t it always. Or we could go foreign and see—”

  The front door swung open and the small reception area was filled with a flurry of people—Neil, Ellie Pop, two worried-looking men in suits, and in leather and stacked-heeled boots the small and shaggy-haired Danny Day, whose debut album Daybreak had just been released.

  “I told you,” he was saying in a nasally Cockney accent, “I ain’t gonna do no interview wif no fuckin’ Albert Ray!”

  “But he’s got the biggest radio program in southern California!” said Ellie Pop. “More people listen to—”

  “—I don’t care! And what the—” Danny Day made a face as if he had just stepped in dog poop, barefoot—“what the bloody ‘ell is that?”

  Everyone froze and the twangy cowboy music we’d been listening to seemed to increase in volume.

  “Uh, that’s Spade Cooley,” said Solange, rushing to turn off the stereo.

  “Is that what kind of record company I’m wif?” said Danny Day. “A fuckin’ record company what’s playing fuckin’ hillbilly music instead of my record?”

  Thrusting a pointer finger at Solange, he said, “Get me somefink to drink!”

  Neil’s laugh was tinged with discomfort. “Danny, you’ve met our office manager, Solange, and this of course is Candy—”

  “—did I ask for a bloody introduction? All I want is a fuckin’ drink! Somefink with whiskey in it!”

  The curtain swished open as the tiny tyrant and his followers pushed past my desk and Ellie Pop, sotto voce said, “Never mind, Neil’ll take care of him.”

  I was often called on to dispense coffee and sodas to visitors on the main floor, but Neil worked the bar that was upstairs in his office lair.

  The thing was, we’d been playing Daybreak a lot in the office; it was a great record that featured hard-driving rock and roll and soulful ballads, several of which I’d find myself randomly humming.

  “How can a jerk like that make an album like Daybreak?” I said as Solange tucked her cowboy cassette into its case.

  “I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt. You know, he’s an insecure artist; he’s surrounding himself with the wrong people, etc., etc., but the simple fact may be that he’s a jerk.”

  “Yeah, but really: I get tears in my eyes every time I hear the title track. And ‘Next to Me’—that’s going to be a classic.”

  Shaking her head, Solange pulled at one of her perpetually inflamed earlobes.

  “Why do you keep wearing those?” I asked, as she winced.

  “Because of jerks like Danny Day.”

  “Huh?”

  “Take a look up close,” she said, leaning close to me.

  I stared for a moment at the round little earrings I had always assumed were studs.

  Squinting, I saw that the globes weren’t entirely round but had tiny lines and ridges in them. “Why, they’re—”

  “—black power fists,” said Solange. “I don’t generally point that out to people—they’d think I was some sort of radical, looking to start a riot.”

  “That pretty much describes your personality,” I said.

  She smiled.

  “But they do help me,” said Solange. “It’s like wearing armor that no one can see. They protect me and make me feel stronger—even if they do make my ears itch like crazy.”

  27

  December 20, 1978

  Dear Candy,

  Our first Christmas apart! I sure miss you, girl—and all the good smells that would be coming out of the kitchen if you were here. Mrs. Clark brought over a fruitcake, but it’s not the same thing.

  Candy, thank you so much for the Summit Hill photo with all the actors’ autographs! I get such a kick telling my friends that you’re a friend of Taryn Powers and Sharla West! (Oh kid, did you see last week’s episode where Serena Summit announced she wanted to adopt the quadruplets the family maid is carrying, not knowing the father is her own son?! Where do they come up with this stuff?)

  Say, Pug Amundsen down the block got a snowblower and he’s so tickled with it that he’s offered to do my whole walk and driveway after every snowfall! So don’t feel guilty about not being here to shovel me out!

  All for now,

  Merry Christmas from your loving

  Grandma

  P.S. Don’t spend your Christmas check all in one place!

  I HAD BEEN INVITED by Solange and Maeve to join them in Fresno and Beverly Hills, respectively, and while I would have happily sat at the large dining room table of Solange’s extended family, sampling her grandmother’s famous deep-fried turkey and her Aunt Onie’s cornbread stuffing, or enjoying Taryn’s catered dinner before retiring to the media room to watch her guest appearance on a holiday special, I nevertheless had to decline, having already RSVP’d “oui” to the Flovers.

  “We don’t have a real plan or anything,” said Frank. “I mean, we’ve never been really good at Christmas, but we’d like to spend it with you. I mean, if you’re available. If you’re not, that’s cool. Because I don’t—”

  “I’d love to,” I said, cutting off what sounded like the beginnings of an apology.

  IT GAVE ME PLEASURE to share my baked goods with my Peyton Hall friends (my select group had gotten a windfall of four kinds of Christmas cookies, prompting Melvin to propose marriage to me), and occasionally I popped over to Francis’s with home-cooked dinners; it gave me an excuse to get in the kitchen and fool around with a few more ingredients than the sacred five (sugar, flour, eggs, butter, and vanilla). He and Frank were grateful almost to the point of embarrassment.

  “Hey, guys, it’s just meatloaf,” I’d say in response to their oohs and ahhs.

  Once I brought over a pot roast dinner and popovers, inspiring Francis to say, “This would have been featured on the Chef’s Best menu at the Bel Mondo.”

  It wasn’t satisfaction borne out of self-righteousness I felt when making these meal deliveries; I enjoyed the cooking as much as they enjoyed the eating. And I liked being around a father who so easily loved his kid, and vice versa. It was all so new to me.

  “I’ve got my cousin’s Maverick,” I said, while throwing around ideas as to how to spend the holiday. “We could go somewhere.”

  “Good idea,” said Frank. “Let’s drive up to Seattle. I’ve always wanted to see Seattle.”

  “Frank, Seattle’s nearly a thousand miles away,” said Francis.

  I nodded. “I was thinking more of a day trip.”

  “How about the beach?” Francis asked. “Let’s pack a picnic basket and sing Christmas carols on the beach!”

  Frank shrugged at me. “Pop forgets he’s Jewish.”

  “So’s Irving Berlin!” said Francis. “So’s Sammy Cahn and Mel Tormé! So we’ll sing from their canon—‘White Christmas’ and ‘Silver Bells’ and ‘The Christmas Song!’”

  THE BULLYING WIND blowing at Will Rogers State Park yanked at our blanket and we laughed wrestling with it, jubilant when we finally pinned the blanket to the sand, winning the match.

  “How come everything else is blowing around but your mohawk?” I asked Frank, and it was true, his blue spikes remained upright and unbending in the gusty air.

  “Extra glue,” he said.

  The picnic basket was stocked with roasted potatoes and chicken, a cranberry-orange relish, garlic green beans, and something that flummoxed my fellow picnickers.

  “What is it?” asked Francis, as I held out a container piled with pale spe
ckled cylinders.

  “Lefse,” I said. “Sort of like a Norwegian tortilla, except it’s made from riced potatoes. They’re rolled up with butter and brown sugar inside.”

  Sampling one, Francis judged the pliant wrap to be, “Tasty. Odd . . . but tasty.”

  “My Aunt Pauline sent me a batch. She makes it every year.”

  Frank was enjoying a second helping when he said, “Hey, look.”

  We followed his nod to see a woman in a long skirt standing at the water’s edge.

  “Isn’t that what’s-her-name?” he asked, his cheek bulging.

  Having no idea who what’s-her-name might be, I directed my squinted gaze at the figure who kicked her feet slowly through the froth of ebbing waves.

  “Yes, it’s Aislin,” I said. “Jaz’s wife.”

  A sharp shrill whistle cut through the wind like a knife, and I looked to see the elder Flover with two fingers in his mouth.

  The figure on the beach turned and, holding one hand above her eyes, looked in our direction and when it appeared she recognized us, waved.

  Francis scooped air with his hand in a “Come here!” gesture, and, nodding, Aislan jogged toward us.

  She looked lovely, blooms of color spreading across her cheeks, her blue eyes bright.

  “A Christmas picnic on the beach!” she said, collapsing easily on the blanket, tucking her legs under her skirt. “How lovely!”

  Her tone validated what we were doing; yes, a Christmas picnic on the beach was lovely.

  “Eat,” I said, filling a plate and handing it to her.

  And she did, with a rapaciousness that rendered the Flovers and me semi-mute, speaking only to offer, “Have more cranberries,” or “Would you like more lefse?’”

  She signaled that she was done by swiping the paper napkin roughly over her mouth and using it to squelch a burp.

  “A thousand apologies,” she said, flushing. “But it was so good!”

  “I’m glad you could join us,” I said. “I’m just . . . surprised to see you here. Is everything . . . okay?”