“Well, he is a communications major,” said Frank, and our laughs were echoed by those of Lily and Nate as they struggled to throw one another into the deep end of the pool.
THE DECEMBER NIGHT HAD FADED GENTLY, as December nights in southern California do, and Ed and I were the lone holdouts, the two who didn’t want the party to end.
“This reminds me of the night we—”
“—sat out at the pool at Peyton Hall,” said Ed, nodding. “The night I broke up with Sharla.”
With our hands tucked under our thighs, we dangled our legs in the tepid water.
“I just saw her in a Lifetime movie,” I said. “She was playing the feral mother of a scorned bride.”
Ed laughed. “I’m glad I missed that one.” He shoved the water with his foot. “Hey, speaking of old actors, did you see Jaz in that Masterpiece Theater series? He played the butler.”
“Not just the butler. The diabolical butler. He was great. I was so happy to see him.”
“And what about that cousin of yours? If she had a career, I’ve missed it.”
“Ahh, Charlotte. She married some big-shot hedge fund guy and got a huge settlement when they divorced. I guess he’s in jail now, and she’s in Miami, with a boyfriend who wasn’t even born yet when we were living at Peyton Hall.”
The night-blooming jasmine was our tender and melancholic perfume as we talked about Aislin, Joanie, Bastien, and those who had joined Francis Flover: June, Robb, Vincent Perrogio, Robert X. Roberts, and my favorite animator/union organizer, Melvin Slyke.
“And get this,” I said, “Frank told me Mayhem—uh, Mark—cashed in the stock options from his advertising agency and now he’s sailing around the world!”
We laughed, delighted by life’s twists and turns and the surprising way people seize them.
“Maybe he’ll run into Terry,” I said. “I just got a postcard from her last week. She’s teaching kick-boxing in Sao Paulo!”
I then told my old friend of the latest installment of my recurring dream about Peyton Hall.
“Well,” said Ed. His sigh was long. “It was a magical place.”
“Really, you think that? I mean, I do, but I didn’t know you did.”
“If magic is possibility . . . or the unexpected . . . no, if magic is an invitation to possibility and the unexpected, then sure, Peyton Hall was loaded with it.”
LOREN AND LILY are a few rows behind us in the plane, and I resist the temptation that I’ve already given in to several times—to turn around and wave to them. They are adults, after all . . . and what adults! Loren’s getting his master’s in music composition at the University of Minnesota and Lily’s a sophomore at Columbia, studying economics, of all things. They’re smart and kind and fun, and I have no idea how I spawned them.
The flight attendant, who looks like me—or me thirty years ago—gives me a glass of tomato juice and smiles.
“Are you traveling for business or pleasure?” she says in a soft voice, solicitous of my sleeping (snoring) seatmate.
The question throws me, but after a moment, I say, “A little of both.”
This trip is Mike’s Christmas present to me, inspired by our son’s computer research. Loren wasn’t able to find any living relatives of my mother but he cyber-managed to track down a woman who worked with Jong Oh at the metal stamping factory in Seoul. We’re meeting Hana at a teahouse on Itaewan Street, the same street on which the looped bicycle rider that was my father plowed into the sober pedestrian that was my mother.
The accident that started it all. The accident that my bloodied mother could have stomped away from, hurt and angry, but instead chose to react to with a little joke. The joke that led to a courtship, to marriage, to me.
I open my leather-bound calendaeium and write the words that fill my heart, the phrase I’ve found that has now superseded Best to laugh as my life saber: Maykmyneahdubbahl.
Nah, just kidding. Of course, it’s Thank you.
Acknowledgments
PEYTON HALL WAS A REAL COMPLEX on Hollywood Boulevard, one that I lived in and, like Candy, still dream about. It was old-school Hollywood, and some tenants had been around Los Angeles since the 1930s and were always happy to talk about the golden days when the very air—so fragrant with orange blossoms—made them nearly tipsy. Most of the characters in this novel are made up or composites, but two are based on real people: Herman Hover, who ran Ciro’s for a time, and his son, Ian Hover, who introduced me to punk rock. Thanks to fellow tenants Sharon Orfeli, Eddie Fields, Jeff Slyke, Mike Sobota, Todd Everett, Aben Kandel, Oliver Ferrand, Peter Chaconas, Art Fine, Kari Haugland, Larry Becker, Kathy Bick, and to those I knew only by their first names, Des and Katie, Sherri, June, Judy, Anne, and Michael.
Thanks to Bev Baz, my singing partner during our morning drives to work at the Playboy Mansion.
To all those in the business of comedy: it’s a noble profession, and I’m honored to have worked with so many people whose goal it is to make people laugh. Those in San Francisco and Los Angeles include Freaky Ralph Eno, Andy Garcia, Dana Delaney, Rick Overton, Gail Murray, Dan McVicar, Gail Matthias, Rachel Lovey, Jamie McGovern, Danny Mora and Robert Aguirre, Jason Micheal Passorelli, John Bates, Kevin Nealon, Fred Asparagus, Sam Kinison, and Brian Bradley. Big huzzahs to comedy impresario Dudley Riggs, who’s given scores of funny people a place to be funny. As part of his Brave New Workshop touring company, I performed in Midwestern towns and cities with Mo Collins, Mark Copenhaver, Melissa Denton, Steve Schaubel, Danny Schmitz, Greg Triggs, and Tom Winner, whom I thank for the kinds of laughs that work out your abs better than sit-ups. Also on the Riggs home stages and others, I have had great fun working with Lee Adams, Laura Adams, Renee Albert, Doug Anderson, Leslie Ball, Mark Bergran, Bill Bliseath, Ken Bradley, John Brady, Andrea Beutner, Michelle Cassioppi, Dennis Curly, Jim Detmar, Rob Elk, Maile Flanagan, Beth Gilleland, Peter Guertin, Marshall Hambro, Leon Hammer, Robyn Hart, Cheryl Hawker, Judy Heneghan, Kimberly Hofer, Michelle Hutchison, Drew Jansen, Brian Kelly, Wendy Knox, Rich Kronfeld, Tom McCarthy, Kevin McLaughlin, Gene Larche, Priscilla Nelson, Steve O’Toole, Mary Jo Pehl, Melissa Peterman, Stevie Ray, Dan Rooney, Joel Sass, Dean Seal, Kirsten Seal, Barb Shelton, Peter Simmons, Wendy Smith, Peter Staloch, Dane Stauffer, Denise Sumptor, Sandy Thomas, Jeff Towne, Nancy Walls, Mike Warren, Kevin West, Wayne Wilderson, and Phyllis Wright. Apologies and free drinks to those funny people I inadvertently left out.
For giving me a regular slot all these years, I thank Kim Bartmann, Kristin Van Loon, Bryon Gunsch, Barb Otos, and the staff of the fabulous Bryant–Lake Bowl.
Big inestimable thanks to the University of Minnesota Press.
To my family: thanks for the continuous laughs.
Lorna Landvik is the author of ten novels, including the best-selling Patty Jane’s House of Curl, Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, and Oh My Stars. She has performed stand-up and improvisational comedy around the country and is a public speaker, playwright, and actor, most recently in her one-woman all-improvised show, Party in the Rec Room. She lives in Minneapolis.
Best to Laugh: A Novel Page 33
