The Music of Your Life

by John Rowell

  The Dirt Devil and I race out onto Highway 17, which mostly cuts through scrubby pine woods filled with yaupon trees and droopy Spanish moss and oleander and that ugly pampas grass, which I say is the Devil’s weed because it’ll just about cut the pure-tee hell out of you if you as much as touch it. Between the hollowed-out places through the trees, where little roads have been built, you can see, in the distances, the ocean on one side, the Intracoastal Waterway on the other. Two years ago, Highway 17 was named in the Guinness Book of World Records as the site of more roadkill per mile than any other highway in the Southeastern United States. And the Duck Island Chamber of Commerce, bless their hearts, actually quoted that in brochures, as if that might be some kind of attractive feature to entice vacationers to come to Duck Island! Imagine that as a selling point for potential tourists: Come on, Joyce, let’s take the kids over to Duck Island this summer so we can sun, surf, and eat some good roadkill. I’m convinced that all the local Rhodes scholars who don’t work at WAVE work at the Chamber of Commerce.

  Seventeen leads out to Surfside Beach, which is where Charlotte lives in her veritable, though now slightly decaying mansion, which was part of her take in her last divorce. Charlotte funds much of what goes on at the Playhouse with her own money, which is why she directs and stars in everything, and probably why the local critics resent her so much. She has finally started doing character parts, though, which is a good thing since she is way too long in the tooth to keep playing things like Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes, or—get this—Eliza in My Fair Lady. Stephen Brickles said they should have retitled it My Fairly Over the Hill Lady.

  Soon enough, of course, the Dirt Devil and I encounter road-kill: a long, thick copperhead snake smashed and strung out across the highway. My grandmother Florence Moss died at the age of eighty-eight from being bit by a copperhead that was hiding behind a refrigerator on her back porch, and people rudely said that there was something ironic about that, seeing as how she was already so full of poison anyway. I worry sometimes that I carry what my mama calls the Moss family’s “mean gene,” but I think I have more of what Daddy says is the craziness from Mama’s side of the family, the Rideouts. During my self-imposed exile, I thought a lot about killing myself, maybe not like I actually was gonna do it, but more like the ways you can do it. When I was a child, about eight, my mother actually did, as they say, “make an attempt.” And of course, with my nose for drama, I was the one who found her. One hot summer Sunday, Mama trotted out of the house completely naked, but sober as a judge, and lay down on an entire, thriving village of fire ants in our backyard—just lay there waiting for them to eat her alive, or whatever fire ants do. Stark naked, except for her bedroom scuffs and big Jackie Onassis sunglasses. I followed her out there. She looked like a female version of Gulliver in Lilliput, tied down and trounced upon, not by Lilliputians but by the ugly, red, fire ants. I asked her what she was doing, and she said, “I’m just taking a nap, Talbert John, you just run along. Mommy loves you. These fire ants don’t bother me.” And I began to cry and then I tried to brush the ants off her body—I had never seen her naked before that I could remember—and I kept brushing and trying to get her to get up and the ants kept coming back up but she wasn’t helping me get them off, and then I started to scream for Daddy to come help me—“Daddy! Daddy, come here!”—and out of the corners of her eyes behind the sunglasses, I could see big tears starting to roll down, mingling with the rivulets of sweat on her cheeks and neck because it was so hot, and that’s when Daddy found both of us, and made everything all right again. To this day, people still whisper: “That’s Loralee Moss. Tried to kill herself once by lying down on a village of fire ants.” I keep trying to forget about certain bad events in my life, but the more I try to forget them, the more they just keep playing back over and over in my head. As Mama herself would say, “That’s the way the Devil works.”

  I get to Surfside Beach and to Charlotte’s driveway, which is about a half-mile long leading up to the mansion, the site of many good cast parties in which I was cheered and toasted as the Dustin Hoffman of Duck Island Playhouse. (Charlotte would always say, “Oh, I guess that makes me the Meryl Streep!” to which I always wanted to say “You mean Meryl’s grandmother,” but I never did, I just took the high road.)

  I pull in behind Charlotte’s black Lincoln Continental (which she also received as part of her last divorce settlement) and I’m thrilled to see that Charlotte’s personal assistant slash maid, and my friend, Printemps Decoupage, is here. Printemps’s car, an old Volkswagen bug, is parked next to the Lincoln, and I happen to know Charlotte doesn’t really think that is appropriate with regard to the employer-employee relationship—she thinks Printemps should really park around to the side—but that is all a part of Printemps’s newfound “Woman of Power” assertiveness. Five years ago, Printemps was known by her birth name, which was Delores Jackson, and Delores was perfectly happy to identify herself as the maid of the richest white woman in town. That, of course, was just fine with Charlotte Watkins too. But then four years ago this fall, Delores went down to New Orleans to take care of her aunt who was sick, and while she was down there, she met this drag queen in the French Quarter who called himself/herself “Printemps Decoupage.” Delores began spending all her time with the original Printemps, who was still working in the drag shows, but who was dying of AIDS.

  Now what I think is that Delores actually fell in love with Printemps, although she’s never told me that, exactly. But Printemps was good for Delores, and gave her lots of assertiveness talks about living up to her true potential and stuff, and he/she told her to stop referring to herself as a maid and to think of herself as equal to her employer, and when Printemps died that winter, Delores took his/her name as a kind of tribute, and came back to Duck Island a new woman, all empowered and full of righteousness and everything, and had her name legally changed to Printemps Decoupage. And boy, if you don’t think some of the white people around here had a problem with a formerly shy little black girl transformed overnight into an assertive, beautiful, empowered African-American woman with an exotic name … I, of course, thought it was magnificent. Printemps is a walking Oprah/Sally Jessy/Ricki Lake show rolled into one, and I think she’s totally fab.

  Charlotte’s front doorbell is musical, which means it plays the first few notes of some randomly selected show tune when you push it. And I always play “Name That Tune” with myself when I come here. Before pushing the doorbell, I say, “Well, Jack, I can name that tune in … five notes.”

  (“Well, name that tune!”)

  I push the doorbell and I hear a slow, legato Da-da da-da, then a quicker da da da da, da da da da da …

  “‘If I Loved You …’” I say, hearing the clock tick.

  (Studio audience applauds, and I win the Sarah Coventry jewelry.)

  Naturally, it’s Printemps who answers the door.

  “Hey, Printemps,” I say cheerily.

  “Well, if it isn’t Eve Harrington,” she says. (Printemps learned the gay reference vocabulary from the drag queens in New Orleans.)

  “Shhh … don’t let Charlotte hear you say that. She might think it’s true.”

  “Talbert John, honey, do you think Miss Lady has forgotten that you stole all, I mean all, her thunder in Nunsense ?”

  “Well,” I say, with a trace of Eve’s effrontery, “I can’t help it that I’m so fabulous, now can I?”

  Printemps harumphs disgustedly, but I know she gets a kick out of me and my me-ness, because I’m the closest thing she has around here to some of those boys she got to know in the French Quarter.

  “Is she home?” I ask.

  “Yes, honey, she’s home … come on in.”

  Printemps ushers me into Charlotte’s grand foyer, with its clean, shiny floors of enormous black and white terrazzo pattern and Louis Quatorze gold chandeliers hanging from cathedral ceilings.

  “Girl, you’ve done a good job of these floors,” I say, as innocent as Huck Finn walking in
to the Wilkes’s house.

  She immediately cuts me a slice-and-dice look, then arches her back, feline-style, and glares at me, but mockingly.

  “No, no, child, you will not come in and insult Printemps with your little plantation-style jokes,” she says, wagging a long, exquisitely manicured finger at me. “Printemps will personally see to it that you are offered only chorus roles at the Playhouse from here on out.”

  “I was never in the chorus,” I say.

  “Yes, honey, but there is a first time for everything.” And we burst out laughing.

  And I love her for this next thing, which she whispers: “I’m sorry you were depressed, honey. I understand. We all get the mean reds, baby.” (The drag queens must’ve turned her on to Truman Capote too.)

  “Thanks, Printemps. I missed you.”

  “Yes, child. All the children miss Printemps when Printemps goes absentia from their world. I’ll summon Miss Charlotte.”

  I poke around in some of Charlotte’s rooms, because I know she likes to keep people waiting and it will be a while. Prominently featured on many of Charlotte’s walls are huge, blown-up photographs of her stage performances, most of which have been in community theaters of North Carolina, but you would think, if you didn’t know any better, seeing these dramatic photos, that Charlotte has had a theatrical career on the world stage to equal Helen Hayes’s. There’s Charlotte in A Moon for the Misbegotten, Charlotte in Streetcar, a younger Charlotte as Daisy Mae in Li’l Abner, and—oh, God—the infamous Charlotte as Eliza Doolittle in My Fairly Over the Hill Lady.

  “Is that my darling little Sister Mary Amnesia?” I hear Charlotte intoning from the foyer, her rich voice embracing me.

  “That would be she,” I call out, as if giving an onstage cue to an actress about to make her entrance from the wings. Exactly.

  “Hello, darling!” she says, sweeping into the room, big and grand, arms outstretched, with an affected flourish that suggests she has been studying Diana Rigg a little too closely while watching imported BBC programs.

  “Hello, Charlotte,” I say, kissing her first on one offered cheek, then on the other.

  She is wearing a black cashmere sweater and black cigarette pants plus low-heeled black pumps. Somewhere along the way someone told Charlotte: “Actresses wear black.”

  Her hair is dyed red, and she is in full makeup, even though it’s early afternoon. Printemps has told me it takes Charlotte two hours to dress and make up for the day, even when she isn’t going anywhere. Charlotte is always quoting people who say she resembles Arlene Dahl or Cyd Charisse, which is why she keeps her flat brown hair red, and why she goes Full Glamour even on weekdays. When she’s performing, she gets to the theater four hours before curtain to begin getting into costume and makeup.

  “Come in, come in,” she says, hooking her arm in mine and leading me into her living room, walking slowly and deliberately, but full of inspiration, like Auntie Mame escorting her nephew Patrick up the stairs in her New York apartment.

  “Talbert, Talbert, I’ve been on the phone all morning with the members of the board, it’s just exhausting! You of all people know how I try to bring the very best kind of culture to this town that I possibly can, and … well, it’s so sad, really. All they want is Neil Simon this, Rodgers and Hammerstein that. Now, mind you, Messieurs Simon and Rodgers and Hammerstein have been very good to me in my time, but, Lord, I just think we should do some Mamet, some O’Neill, some … I don’t know. Rent. We should do Rent!” She looks at me intensely, right in my eyes, but in the way of someone who’s been directed to look at someone like that. Funny how all of Charlotte’s gestures read suspiciously like over-rehearsed stage business.

  “What do you think, Talbert?”

  We are in her main living room now, decorated to the hilt with antiques and gaudy, overstuffed, floral-print sofas.

  “Well, Charlotte, I think it might be a while before Duck Island is ready for Rent. But that’s just my opinion.”

  “Oh, no, you’re right, you’re right, you’re so right,” she says, looking away suddenly, then releasing a heavy sigh. “I just dream big, Talbert, that’s just the way I am, the way I’ve always been. Dream, dream, dream! The bigger the better! Let nothing stand in my way! Well … a house full of photos and memories. You can’t take that with you when you go, can you?” And she gives me a “forlorn” smile and “sadder but wiser” eyes.

  If I didn’t know better, I’d think Charlotte was preparing to play Madame Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard, getting ready to leave her precious mansion for the last time.

  “Now, sit down, sit down,” Charlotte says, suddenly breaking the mood and plopping down briskly and businesslike, putting her glasses on and looking at me. “Printemps said you had something you wanted to discuss with me.”

  “Yes, I have an—”

  “Oh wait. Oh, Talbert, I’m so sorry, I just remembered. You’ve been sick, darling.”

  I look down at the floor. I didn’t want to have to talk about my self-imposed exile with her; I figured she was probably way too lost in her own world to care, or even know, about my period of absentia.

  “Well, yes, but I’m better now,” I say.

  “Was it that nasty Hong Kong flu or something? I hear it’s just terrible.”

  I know Printemps wouldn’t have told Charlotte about my taking to my bed for fear and depression, so I just go along with whatever Charlotte thinks it might have been.

  “Yeah, the flu. It was awful. But I’m better now. Now listen, Charlotte … I’ve had an idea.”

  “Yes …”

  “I have something in mind to adapt, and then stage, for the Playhouse. I think it could be a big hit.”

  A long, meaningful pause. “Oh, I see. And what would that be?”

  “I want to write and direct a new adaptation, my own, obviously, of The Little Prince. You know it, don’t you? The book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry about the little prince who—”

  “Oh, yes, of course,” she says. “Of course I know The Little Prince, darling. Hmmm … well, that’s cute …”

  “It’s a wonderful story,” I continue. “I mean, I think it is, and I think it’s great for adults as well as children. And it would give a talented local child a chance to make his stage debut, and that would be great publicity for the Playhouse. I know a child who can do it, too. He’ll be wonderful. And we could have a few songs also, like, turn it into a mini-musical. Billy Squiers, the organist at First Methodist? He’s always wanted to write the score for a musical.”

  She takes her glasses off and leans back, staring up at the ceiling, biting on one of the earpieces of her frames, “listening” and “contemplating.”

  “Well, it’s an idea, certainly … it certainly is an idea,” she says, finally. “When would you want to do it?”

  “It would take me just a couple of months to write it, maybe not even that. I have a lot of time on my hands.” I say this because I suddenly remember that I no longer have a job at Bledsoe Real Estate.

  “Yes … yes … well, I love that you’re thinking about things like this, Talbert. Really, such initiative. Such ambition. Of course, I’d have to see the finished product before I could show it to the board, and probably it’s a little late for the upcoming season. But why don’t you write it, darling, and we’ll have a look.”

  She kind of slaps her hands on her thighs, as if to signify that this meeting is over. I can tell my idea about The Little Prince doesn’t really excite her. I should have known better. I should have approached it from the angle of “There will be a wonderful part for you …” I feel a cold sweat break out on my forehead, and even though I haven’t sold my idea in the best way, I still think I can convince her. I keep going.

  “I really have a vision about this, Charlotte. I really think it could be quite a good show …”

  “Oh, yes, I’m sure it could be, darling,” she says, standing up and motioning for me to do the same. “Now you just work on it, and in six months, whene
ver you feel it’s ready to be looked at, you just let me know. All right? And thank you, thank you, Tal-bert, for all your work for the Playhouse. We’ll have to get you onstage again soon, won’t we? You were such a big hit with the press as Sister Mary Amnesia.”

  Printemps appears in the doorway, as if on cue.

  “Charlotte, Dick Buttry is on the phone for you.”

  “Oh, I have to take that. Talbert,” she says, leaning over and kissing me on both cheeks, “thanks so much for dropping by. Good for you, darling, good for you. You keep me posted on your little project.”

  And she breezes out of the room with a cursory, “Thank you, Printemps,” making a big deal of pronouncing it very French: Prawwnnn-tauuuun. I’m sure that she still refers to her as Delores when Printemps isn’t around to hear her.

  “How did it go?” Printemps asks, walking me to the door.

  “Like shit, basically,” I say.

  “Now, little one, don’t you get discouraged by Miss Lady and her shenanigans. You know better than that. Listen to Printemps. Where would Printemps be if Printemps allowed Charlotte’s foolishness to undermine the exquisite glory that is Printemps Decoupage?”

  “Printemps would still be Delores Jackson.”

  “Yes, honey, and we know Delores is dead. Delores is long gone. There is no Delores, only Printemps. And there is only Talbert, too, you remember that. You get out of Talbert’s way so Talbert can take care of Talbert, do you hear me, child? Believe, honey, believe in the power, the possibility that is Talbert.”

  And she kisses me good-bye and goes back in, I presume, to continue cleaning Charlotte’s house.

  3:20 P.M.