Chapter 15
Arlene fretted, darting around the kitchen, finding herself in her mother’s way every time she tried to help. “Ach, Lena, go sit down, it will be fine.”
“But, Mama, I want to help.” Arlene smoothed her hands against the green gingham apron her mother had sewn for her. It was faded now and had countless grease spots. But she would wear it until it fell to pieces.
“Okay, fine, you want to help? Set the table.” Her mother grabbed a set of the familiar blue-willow-patterned plates from the cabinet above the sink and thrust them at her. “I’ve been cooking since before you were born. Shoo.”
The smell of the squash on the stove and the chicken-fried steak in the skillet replaced the knot of dread in Arlene’s gut with one of hunger. Her mother had come from Ireland, but her father had grown up in the American South before moving to California as a teenager, and Pauline Morgan hadn’t taken long to learn how to make her husband’s favorite meal.
Why had she invited Don for dinner? She needed to keep her distance from him, keep things strictly professional. But he hadn’t seen her mother in a decade, and the way he talked about her family warmed Arlene’s entire being, as if she’d cuddled under the coziest of blankets.
“Lena,” her mother called from the kitchen. “Make sure you put Don next to me.”
Lena laughed. “Of course, Mama.” This was why she’d invited him. Because she knew her mom wanted to see him. And who was she to deny the woman who’d given her everything? Who she loved most in this world.
She ran back into the kitchen to grab silverware from the drawer, narrowly avoiding her mom who was hunting in the cabinet for salt and pepper. Arlene’s hands shook as she reminded herself that fork and left had the same number of letters. It didn’t matter how old she got; she didn’t think she would ever not need to do that. The table was set before she knew it, and for lack of anything better to do, she started pacing back and forth next to the table. Her mom came to the doorway and leaned against the wooden archway, watching her with a look of bemusement on her face. “Lena, you’re going to wear a hole in the carpet.”
“Sorry.” She stopped dead in her tracks.
“Why are you so nervous? You’ve seen him every day for the last two weeks.”
“Yeah, but that’s work.”
Her mother gave her a knowing look. “And so? This is home. He’s been a part of it since you were a girl.”
“Not for a long time,” Arlene protested.
“You think time matters? You’ll see. The second he’s here, it will be like it always was.”
That was what she was afraid of. Her mom must’ve seen that she was still a ball of nervous energy because she insisted that Arlene help her batter the steaks in the kitchen. Arlene was grateful for it. Doing something with her hands always made her feel better, useful. Gave her somewhere to direct her energy.
She wished she hadn’t been so honest with her mother the night before production had started. Even telling her that she had invited Don for dinner had sparked a hopeful gleam in her mother’s eye. Pauline Morgan knew perfectly well why her daughter was nervous. She just wanted Arlene to admit it out loud. Well, she wasn’t going to.
Before she knew it, the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it!” Arlene ran to the front door, wiping her hands on her apron. She twisted the top lock and pulled open the door, finding Don standing there, holding a bouquet of yellow roses and wearing a sheepish grin on his face.
“I see we both brought flowers.”
“What?”
He pointed at her face and Arlene reached up to feel the dusting of flour that had settled across her cheeks and her nose. “Oh, gosh, sorry. I was helping Mama in the kitchen.”
She rubbed at her face with her palm, and Don laughed. “Now, you’re making it worse. Here, let me.” He tucked his flowers beneath the crook of his arm, grabbed her chin with one hand to hold her face steady, and gently wiped at her cheek with the handkerchief he’d pulled from his pocket. She was suddenly very aware that this was the closest he’d been to her since the day they’d kissed on set.
Their eyes met and he held her gaze, looking at her with great care and something else she couldn’t quite place as he gently cleaned the flour from her face. She could lean forward an inch and she’d be kissing him. There was a part of her that wanted to do it to see how he’d react. To feel that zing of electricity she’d felt when he’d held her in his arms on the soundstage. But that had been acting on Don’s part, and now she was doing what she’d always done. Letting herself get carried away by a daydream. Besides, all she wanted was to be able to have a cordial professional relationship on set. Friendship again, maybe, if she could trust herself to stop imagining things like leaning over her mother’s threshold and kissing him.
“Thank you,” she whispered, unsure of what to do with herself.
“Don’t mention it.” He winked. He dropped his hands and the spell was broken. “Now, where’s my favorite girl?” he called out.
Her mother poked her head out from the kitchen. “Don Lazzarini, is that you?”
“It’s Lamont now, Mama,” Arlene reminded her. She knew now how much Don hated his old name. She’d always suspected that’s why he’d changed it, but he’d confirmed it on Friday, and her mother didn’t need to be dredging up the past. But Don hardly seemed fazed by it.
“Aw, I’ll always be Don Lazzarini to you, Mrs. Morgan. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He stepped into the house, and Arlene’s mother rushed to greet him, drawing him into a hug. Arlene smiled absentmindedly. She knew that those hugs were the best feeling, a balm for the world’s ills. Don seemed to be soaking in the effect for all it was worth.
At last, they broke apart and he presented the flowers, now slightly crushed from the vigorous hug. “These are for you, Mrs. Morgan.”
“Pauline, please.”
“Oh, I couldn’t. You’re Mrs. Morgan. If I called you Pauline, I’d have to rap my own knuckles for the impudence.” He turned and winked at Arlene again. Arlene knew her mother was eating it up.
“And you remembered!” her mother crowed, burying her nose in the bouquet.
“Of course I remembered. Got stuck enough by the thorns on your yellow rosebushes as a kid. How could I forget?”
The memory of a day long ago came rushing back to Arlene. They’d been ten years old at the time. Don was making up a dance step, and Arlene was attempting to be his partner and failing. She’d leaned back as he tried to dip her, and they’d both fallen into one of her mother’s rosebushes. Arlene touched her fingers to the small line above her eyebrow, the scar left by a thorn. She caressed it, as if merely touching it would thrust her through space and time back to that moment. Don gave her a knowing look, and all at once, it was too much for her. Having him here. Standing in her living room. Giving her mother flowers. Inviting him to dinner had been a mistake. This house held too many memories of what he’d once been to her. What he’d never even known he’d meant to her.
“I’ll get those in some water.” She grabbed the flowers and rushed to the kitchen, bracing herself against the sink as she filled a vase. She needed to pull herself together. She straightened and looked out the window, cheerily covered by yellow eyelet curtains. Outside, a cinder-block wall the color of salmon stared back at her. That wall circled the entire yard, surrounding the property that the Morgans and the Lazzarinis had once shared. At one time, the patch of grass, the two clotheslines, the collection of rosebushes, and the cracked pieces of cement that comprised their backyard had been Arlene’s entire world. But it wasn’t anymore. Arlene had yearned for something bigger, and she’d gotten it. No, she’d earned it. That was exactly what Don had done too. The difference was she hadn’t forgotten where she came from.
But had he forgotten? Ten years, and he’d remembered her mother’s favorite flowers like it was yesterday. He’d never called. Never written. Even when she had needed him most. He claimed he’d received her wire too late to do anything about it. But what about the years before that?
Had he thought of her the way that she had thought of him? A line of music or a silly joke used to send her thoughts careening in his direction. She’d been so certain he hadn’t. That the last thought he’d spared for any of them had been the moment he waved goodbye to her at the station. But at dinner the other night, he’d seem contrite, like he had truly missed her. And her parents. He was holding something back. She could feel it niggling at her. There was something he wasn’t telling her. What if that something was why he’d disappeared from their lives? What if she was wrong about him and his arrogance and his disregard for her and the entire Morgan family?
“Ach, Lena what are you doing?” Her mother leaned across her and turned off the faucet. The vase was overflowing.
“Sorry, sorry, I was just thinking.”
“Always daydreams with you.”
“No, no, I was worrying about a scene in the picture.” Arlene grimaced. But her mother gave her a knowing look. She’d never been able to keep anything from her mother. For starters, she was a terrible liar.
But Arlene was saved from trying to explain herself when the doorbell rang again, and the house was flooded with the noisy sound of her brother, Bill, his wife, Nancy, and their two boys. By the time they’d quieted everyone down, made sure Grandma got all her hugs, and wrestled the boys into chairs at the table, dinner was ready.
“Here, Donnie, you sit next to me.” Pauline smiled. Don had already gone to take the chair next to Arlene on the other side of the table by the wall.
“Oh, but—”
“No, please,” Arlene interjected. “She asked me to set you a place next to her. It would really make her night. I know she wants to hear all about what you’ve been up to.” Don bit his lip, and she could tell he was feeling a bit awkward. Did he feel guilty about his protracted absence?
He went around the table, next to her mother’s chair. But then he grabbed at the chair on his other side. “Won’t you sit here then, Arlene?”
“No, that’s Dad’s chair.”
A potent quiet fell over the room and no one spoke for a moment. Arlene and Bill eyed each other nervously, waiting for it to send their mom into tears. Pauline hadn’t let anyone sit there in three years. It stayed empty to remind everyone who should still be at their table. But Pauline Morgan was not about to disappoint a houseguest, and she surprised them all. “I think he’d like you to sit there, Lena.”
Arlene blinked back tears. God, it still felt so raw. “I don’t know if I—” she whispered to the floor.
Don pulled out her father’s chair, the ghost of Patrick Morgan still present in the wear of the wood on the legs, where the heels of his work boots had rubbed it raw. The weight of his body evident in the compressed fluff of the seat cushion. She looked up at Bill, at Nancy who was smiling supportively, at the boys who had no idea what was going on, at her mom who was nodding at her, and finally at Don. “ It’s okay ,” he mouthed.
She took a breath, came back around the table, and sat down. Don took his seat beside her. Under the table, his hand grabbed hers. She squeezed back in silent thanks. This was what she’d needed from him before. His support. His reminder that things would be okay because he was there. The strength of his hand holding hers made her feel like she could soldier on through anything.
But this was an illusion. A moment of nostalgia. Because he hadn’t been there. He said he’d never written when her father had died because he thought it was too little too late. But that was a paltry excuse. It would’ve never been too late. To know he was mourning this loss too. That he understood the pieces of her heart that were missing, because they were the same parts of his heart that had cracked and broken. They’d both loved her father. But only one of them had never forgotten him. Don had failed her, her entire family. He’d disappeared. And thinking he wouldn’t do the same thing again once this picture was done was folly. So, she let go of Don’s hand.
Bill grabbed for the chicken-fried steak, while Nancy struggled to convince the boys to let her put some squash on their plates. “Nothing green,” Bobby said, pouting.
“Darling, it’s delicious, I promise,” Nancy tried.
Bobby crossed his arms and clamped his jaw shut. Fred, wanting to be just like his older brother, followed suit. Nancy sighed, and Arlene suppressed a laugh. If the boys knew it was funny, it would only encourage them.
But to her surprise, it was Don who intervened. “Boys, don’t you want to grow up big and strong?”
Bobby and Fred stared at Don, a mix of awe and consternation on their faces, as if they weren’t entirely sure who this strange man was and why he was telling them what to do.
Fred looked nervously at Bobby for approval, before quickly nodding his head. “Of course we do,” added Bobby. “I’m going to be big and strong like my daddy. And then I’m going to work on Daddy’s boat.”
Nancy grinned at their side of the table. “He’s really got a thing for boats right now.”
“Oh, so you want to be a sailor?”
Bobby gave Don the stink-eye, and Arlene shoveled a piece of steak into her mouth to prevent herself from laughing. “So what if I do?” he grumbled in his little-kid voice.
“Well, do you read the funny papers?”
Now quick to abandon any pretense of following his brother’s lead, Fred jumped in. “Sure we do. Mommy reads them to us whenever we ask her to.”
“All right then, do you know who Popeye is?” Both of the boys nodded, but Bobby still looked suspicious. “Well, Popeye always eats his spinach. And spinach isn’t even as tasty as squash. So, if you want to grow up big and strong like Popeye, and your daddy,” Don added, grinning at Bill, “then you’ve got to eat your squash.”
Bobby still didn’t look convinced, but Fred quickly took a bite and his eyes lit up. “Mommy’s right! It is good!”
Bobby reluctantly reached for his fork and joined in, taking the tiniest bite. “S’alright, I guess,” he mumbled. But Arlene noticed Bobby put a bunch more on his fork with his next bite. She moved her knee and nudged Don’s leg, urging him to look at Bobby’s fork. Don gave her the slightest of winks.
“So, Don, what have you been up to the last ten years?” Bill asked, his mouth full of food. Don choked on the large bite he’d just taken.
“Bill!” Arlene yelled, as she slapped Don hard on the back. He coughed hard as she made contact, and he wheezed his way through a piece of steak that seemed to have gone down the wrong way. The last thing she needed was for her leading man to asphyxiate at her mother’s dining table.
“What?” Bill raised his hands defensively. “A guy disappears for a decade, maybe you want to know what he’s been up to.”
Pauline interrupted. “Hush yourself, Bill. You know what he’s been up to. He’s been dancing in New York. You see the newspaper clippings on the fridge every time you come over. Which is every day.”
Bill rolled his eyes. “Okay, sure, you’re some New York hotshot. But what I mean is, what have you been up to? How come we haven’t heard from you in a decade? Why didn’t you come for Dad’s funeral?”
Arlene turned beet red, and she stretched out her foot and kicked Bill under the table.
“Ow!” Bill yelled.
Don squeezed her leg under the table as if to tell her that it was okay. But she flushed at the way his hand on her thigh made a whisper of excitement run down her spine. Her body was betraying her in all sorts of ways.
“I, uh, don’t really have a good excuse. I was young and stupid, and I didn’t want to think about my past and everything I was determined to leave behind. And then, by the time I did want to fix things, it was too hard.”
Arlene’s hackles rose. Sure, she’d heard this excuse on Friday night. But something about it didn’t sit right with her. Again, she had the sensation that there was something Don wasn’t telling them. Maybe if she still thought the worst of him, she would’ve accepted his paltry excuses at face value. But he’d surprised her these last few days. Standing up for her with Harry. The ease of his company at dinner on Friday night. Bringing her mother flowers. The man who had done these things didn’t seem like a guy likely to cut himself off from all the people who’d loved him, merely because a lot of time had passed.
“Frankly, I didn’t think I’d ever come back to California,” he continued. “There wasn’t much left for me here. I had a Broadway hit. I’d made a success with my dance partner.”
“Eleanor Lester,” Pauline muttered under her breath, making a face as if she’d eaten something sour.
Don laughed. “I see where Arlene gets it from.”
Arlene buried her face in her hands. Her family was determined to humiliate her.
“Gets what from?” Pauline asked with genuine confusion.
“Arlene makes the same face whenever she hears the name Eleanor Lester.”
Pauline smiled and preened, looking quite pleased with herself. “That’s because Lena knows that Lester woman is not good enough for you.”
“Mama, stop. That is not why.” Though she couldn’t exactly think of a better reason for the time being. “Besides, Don kicked Eleanor off our set the other day. Not me.”
“Only because I got to her before you did,” he teased. Her mouth hung open and a puff of air, a shocked little “oh,” escaped from it. Because Don was right. She had been seconds away from telling Eleanor Lester to get off her soundstage when Don had intervened first.
“Well, that’s not because I have any objections to Eleanor Lester as a human being,” she groused, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms. “It’s a closed set, that’s all.”
“Whatever you say, Arlene.” Don grinned, clearly not believing a word she said, and reached for his fork.
“Why don’t you call her Lena anymore?” Pauline interjected. “All this Arlene, Arlene, Arlene. She wins an Oscar and you decide she’s too good for her pet name?”
“Mama, I asked him to, all right?” Arlene glared at her mother. God, this dinner had been a terrible idea.
“Oh, so it’s you who’s too good then.”
“Mama, stop it.” If Arlene could’ve vanished into thin air at that very moment, she would have. Why had she invited him here? She had thought if she invited him back to this part of the life they’d once shared, it would establish a détente between them, making everything smoother on set. But so far, it felt like she’d only made a bigger mess.
“Mrs. Morgan…” Don started. Her mother made a noise. “Er, Pauline. Arlene is my director and she has to be in a position of authority on set. Of course, I can’t go around calling her what I called her when we were kids.”
She could kiss Don right now. She really could. Out of gratitude. No other reason.
Her mother harrumphed and reached for her wineglass. “I suppose that makes sense. I don’t like it. But it makes sense.”
Don chuckled, but he stopped at a glare from Bill. “So if you thought you weren’t ever coming back, why did you?” Bill asked, a piece of food wriggling in his mustache as he spoke. Arlene wished very much that the ground would open up and swallow her whole.
“Well, it’s not every day a guy gets asked to be in pictures. And it’s even rarer to do it with his childhood best friend behind the camera.”
Arlene’s mouth went dry, and she struggled to swallow the bite of steak in her mouth. “Wait, you knew before you got here that I was going to be directing the picture?” She’d assumed he’d only figured it out when they’d written it up in Variety . That when he’d gone radio silent on all of them he’d stopped paying attention to Arlene or anything in her life.
“Of course I did. It was why I said yes. Well, and the money wasn’t bad either.”
The admission hit her like one of the sandbags they used to keep the lights secure on set. He had known when he’d signed his deal that she’d be directing the picture. Had known and agreed to do it because of her. What did that mean? Did it mean anything?
“I followed your career while I was in New York. Well, what I could. The papers don’t exactly write about the goings-on of movie stars’ assistants. But I read every inch of newsprint about Reno Rendezvous . I listened to the Oscars on the radio in my Broadway dressing room. I shrieked so loud when you won that the stage manager thought someone important had died. I told you that you’d make it in the pictures someday. And I was right. I’m just the lucky mug who gets to witness it. So, when Harry’s talent scout mentioned you were directing The ‘It Girl,’ I knew it was time to come back to California.”
She suddenly wasn’t very hungry anymore. The solid ground beneath her feet that she needed as his director was crumbling under her as they spoke. The only thing that kept her from giving in to…whatever this was, was the reminder that Don had abandoned her. That he’d never looked back, never thought of her once in ten years. But now he was saying that wasn’t the case. That he’d been reading the papers for signs of her success. Celebrated her Oscar victory.
She didn’t know if her heart could take the sudden burst of hope this ignited in her. Because she and Don working together as a team was what she had wanted for so long. She’d been avoiding it, not wanting to fall back into her girlish fantasy because she had believed that Don had forgotten her. That he cared only for his own dreams—and once he achieved them, he couldn’t be bothered to remember who he’d left behind. But what if that wasn’t true at all? What if he had thought of her every day, the same way she had thought of him?
“Can I be excused?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but threw her napkin in her father’s old chair and sprinted through the kitchen and out the back door to get some air.