Best to Laugh: A Novel

Best to Laugh

Also by Lorna Landvik Published by the University of Minnesota Press

Mayor of the Universe

Best to Laugh

A Novel

Lorna Landvik

U
NIVERSITY
OF
M
INNESOTA
P
RESS

M
INNEAPOLIS
•
L
ONDON

Copyright 2014 by Lorna Landvik

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by the University of Minnesota Press

111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290

Minneapolis, MN 55401–2520

http://www.upress.umn.edu

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Landvik, Lorna.

Best to laugh : a novel / Lorna Landvik.

ISBN 978-1-4529-4329-9 I. Title.

PS3562.A4835B47 2014

813'.54—dc23 2014013927

The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.

In memory of Betty Lou Hensen,

one of the funniest,

and for Lori Naslund,

my first comedy partner

Contents

Prologue

Part I: 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

Part II: 30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Prologue

A
BLACK
COCKTAIL
DRESS,
decorated with a smattering of sequins across the neckline, hangs like an art piece on my bedroom wall. Although the integrity of the seams might be compromised, I could probably still squeeze into it, but for me the greater pleasure is looking at it every day and remembering its lessons.

For that same reason, I have two pictures of Hollywood Boulevard in my bathroom, right above the towel rack. One is black and white, circa the 1940s, and in it bulbous limousines are lined up in front of the Roosevelt Hotel. A party has spilled onto the sidewalk and its celebrants are women draped in fur and men in top hats and tails. Some raise champagne flutes and one man holds a lighter, its flame a dot of fuzz. A swirl-haired woman leans into him, her cigarette held in a gloved hand.

The other photograph is in color and shows a blurred wrecking ball about to smash into the side of a white stuccoed building, much of which has already been knocked down. A jagged plaster and wood border frames all that remains of the second floor apartment: a wall decorated with deftly drawn caricatures, hulking silhouettes, and the odd coffee stain.

I keep the pictures and the dress on display because they remind me of the vagaries of life: what’s up can take a tumble, what’s down can bob up, and sometimes what glitters
is
gold.

When I lived on Hollywood Boulevard, its heyday had long passed and a tired seediness had settled in—the tuxedos threadbare, the fur stoles gone to mange, and the champagne bubbles long since popped. Buses belched smoke where limousines once idled, and a tourist was more likely to have a personal encounter with a pickpocket than a movie star.

Still, the lure was the Boulevard’s reputation and not its reality, and people came from all over the world to study the cement prints in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, comparing the delicacy of their fingers to Marilyn Monroe’s or their shoe size to Gary Cooper’s; to photograph the names on the pink, black, and gold stars on the Walk of Fame; to rifle
through the revolving rack of postcards at Highland Drug and sit at the counter, sipping cherry sodas as they wrote their “Wish you were here’s” in dozens of languages.

And there I was, watching movies and eating popcorn at Grauman’s, roller-skating down the Walk of Fame on my way to work, and buying my toothpaste and tampons at Highland Drug. Wonder of wonders, this international Mecca was my neighborhood.

M
Y
ALL-TIME
FAVORITE
TEACHER,
Mr. Meyers, thought it important for his sixth graders to know that English didn’t just spring up on its own but contained the seeds, the pollination, the crossbreeding of the ancient languages.

“
Calendar,
for example, comes from the Latin word
calendaeium,
which means
account book.
So think of your calendar as a ledger,” he said, presenting us with mimeographed and stapled datebooks. “Only it’s not money you’ll keep track of spending, but your days.
Make them count.
”

“Are these like diaries?” asked Dale Ferguson, roughly fanning the pages of his booklet. “What am I supposed to write in a diary?”

“Pretend you’re writing to a friend,” said Mr. Meyers. “A friend who’s really curious about who you are.”

Dear Cal,
I wrote, already feeling chummy.

My name is Candy and I can’t wait to tell you everything. If you asked a bunch of people to describe me in one word, they’d probably say FUNNY. Or maybe GORGEOUS, ha ha. I love to read, write, cook, and swim, although not at the same time.

Too bad Dale Ferguson is so dumb, because he sort of looks like Illya Kuryakin in
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Only a lot younger.

That first entry began a habit that continues to this day. I am a dedicated accountant and keep an active ledger.

On the day I moved into the apartment that would be my home for three and a half years, I wrote
Yahoo! Yippee! Yeehaw!,
a big contrast to the dark and scary scribbles I’d written just weeks earlier.

No one steps up to life’s banquet, holds out her tray, and orders, “Grief, please!” but as a child I was served a heaping helping of it and burped up for years its bitter aftertaste of sadness. Just weeks after I had reached my lowest point, my nadir, my rocky bottom, I came to live on Hollywood Boulevard, a place that could have easily confirmed life’s cru
elty, misery, and general crappiness. Instead, it’s where I found everything that matters.

So whatever the slop being ladled out, learn what I’ve learned: most buffet lines have a dessert section, and if you just keep going you might get to the good stuff, the happiness cupcakes, the parfaits of joy. And if you can’t find them, demand to see the manager.

Part I

1

1978

O
F
THE
UNTOLD
MYSTERIES
in this great wide world, the one confounding me at the moment was why none of my neighbors stocked what I considered a kitchen staple. In fact, from Maeve Mullman’s reaction, you’d have thought I was asking to borrow a kilo of heroin.

“Are you aware that sugar is
poison
?” she said, hogging the doorway, as a six-foot female bodybuilder is wont to do. “Are you aware that sugar’s responsible for everything from cancer to sexual dysfunction? Never forget, your body is your temple!”

As she slammed the door in my face, I murmured my thanks and apologies, all the while doubting the purity of worship going on in
her
temple. I mean, it was fairly obvious from her East-German-world-champion-swim-team physique that steroids were a part of her daily bread.

Melvin Slyke, the geriatric animator, told me he ate most of his meals at the Denny’s on Sunset, but he might be able to scrounge up a packet or two of Sweet ’N Low.

“My daughter takes it with her coffee,” he explained. “Every weekend she comes over to make sure I haven’t keeled over, and we have a cup of Sanka—she thinks I can’t handle caffeine—and while I take mine black, she’ll sweeten hers up to high heaven. She’s got concerns about her figure, see, so she’s always got a purseful of fake sugar and—”

“Well, thanks again,” I said, backing away from the conversational sinkhole I sensed opening up.

“You could always try pepper.”

This stopped me in my tracks. “Uh, I’m baking a cake.”

Melvin’s gray dentures made a clicking sound as he smiled.

“
Madame
Pepper. That’s what the lady calls herself.” He widened his eyes, which were already Mr. Magoo-magnified behind the smudged lenses of his glasses. “She’s the type of person who’s always got whatever you need. She’s over in the end building. Upstairs.”

Satisfied that all business had been taken care of, he shut his door. A second later, it creaked open.

“Tell her Melvin Slyke from
Maxie the Minx
sent you,” he said. “And when you bake that cake, bring me a piece, will ya? My daughter never brings dessert.”

O
UTSIDE
IN
THE
SMOGGY
CARBONS
choking the late summer air, I regarded the sign perched on the scorched grass of the front lawn.

It read, in fancy green neon script, Peyton Hall, and it was into this complex I had just moved. The upstairs apartment that was now my swinging (one can dream) bachelorette pad was rented out by my cousin Charlotte, who had been cast in
Vegas on the Adriatic!
and whose home for the next three months was a
1
,
400
-passenger cruise ship.

Only five days earlier she had called me.

“Okay, what’s the favor?” I asked, knowing that on the rare occasion my cousin telephoned, it wasn’t to chat.

“I was only going to ask how you’d like a chance to trade in your boring life for the excitement of Hollywood.”

Both insulted and intrigued, I said nothing.

“All right, I do need a favor—but it’s as big a favor to you as it is to me. Bigger even!”

She explained that her need to get a subletter just might coalesce with my need to get a life.

“Because, come on, Candy—how long are you going to live with Grandma anyway? Geez—you’re twenty-two years old!”

When I told her I needed time to think about it, Charlotte conceded, “Fair enough. Call me back in half an hour.”

My grandmother was having coffee with Mrs. Clark next door, but I didn’t need to consult her to know what she’d advise. Despite a long string of losses by Team Candy, Grandma had never stepped down from her position as head cheerleader, and this news would have her shaking her pompoms, urging me to, “Go, Candy, Go!” It was the same cheer that blared inside my head, but as an expert in the art of self-sabotage, I wasn’t used to flinging open the door when opportunity knocked. Most often, I pretended I wasn’t home.

But as the saying goes, timing is everything, and my cousin’s offer came at exactly the right time, which is why I was here in Hollywood, looking for sugar. I wanted—no, needed—to bake a cake. It had been a long time
since the needle on my personal Thrill-O-Meter had cause to tremble, but stuffing a backpack with summer clothes and boarding a plane to California had made it sweep across the dial, and that was something deserving celebration.

T
HE
HOT
AIR
FELT
HEAVY,
as if the zillions of smog particles had weight, and I stood on the brick sidewalk that led to the back apartment buildings, debating which direction to go. Melvin Slyke had said the end building, but the big complex, comprising two-storied four-plexes, had several ends. I headed east, toward the building manager’s office.

Jaz Delwyn had given me a little history of the place yesterday, when I picked up the key and introduced myself as Charlotte’s subletter.

His eyes were arresting because of their color and condition—crystal blue and extremely bloodshot—and they scanned the length of my body, undressing me as he addressed me.

“Peyton Hall,” he said in a British accent, “was rife with stars in the ’
40
s. Not like the Garden of Allah, certainly, but at least this place is still standing. Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Shelley Winters; they all had pied-à-terres here, and Douglas Fairbanks designed our Olympic-size pool, which Johnny Weismuller—certainly cinema’s greatest Tarzan—was always splashing about in.” The building manager took a deep drag of his unfiltered cigarette and allowed me to bathe in his exhale. “By the way, did I tell you I’ll be playing Errol Flynn in a movie about his life?”

His smile was one I’m sure he practiced in front of his mirror—jaunty, attractive, but not infused with any particular sincerity.

“Wow, that’s great.”

“You do know who Errol Flynn is, don’t you?”

“Sure.”

Watching old movies with my grandmother had given me a basic knowledge of Hollywood legends, and holding one hand high, with the other I mimed a sword thrust, in homage to the swashbuckling star of
Robin Hood
and
Captain Blood.

“En garde!” said Jaz, blocking my imaginary sword with his own and for a few strange moments we indulged in a pretend duel on his front steps.

Now he didn’t answer the doorbell I nudged with my thumb, and when I saw a woman heading down the center brick walkway, I loped down the steps.

She was tugging at the pink leather leash of one of those tiny white dogs whose breed I can never remember.

“Excuse me,” I said, catching up to her. “Do you know where a Madame Pepper lives?”

Wearing a floral sundress whose daisies had long since faded, the woman lifted the unraveling brim of her straw hat and peered at me through sunglasses whose frames were missing several of their rhinestones.

“Yes, and I could also direct you to one Mr. Salt in El Cerrito. I won a cha-cha contest with him at the Ambassador Hotel in the winter of ’
51
.”

My semi-smile reflected my uncertainty as to how to respond.

“It surprised the hell out of me, considering the length of Mr. Salt’s feet,” said the wizened woman. “But turns out those size-thirteen boats really knew their way around the harbor.”

The furry white dog with goopy brown tears matted under its eyes yawned a squeaky bark, as if reminding its owner they were on a walk.

“Yes, my little Binky-Bink,” she said, smooching her lips, but her baby talk stiffened into sarcasm when she addressed me.

“As for you,” she pointed west with a grand flourish, “you can find the great Madame Pepper on the Fuller Avenue side, last building, second floor. There’s a little troll on her landing.”

“Thank you, uh—”

“June. Like the month. Although disposition-wise, I’m more a February.”

“Oh. Well, nice to meet you, June. I’m Candy—”

Turning her back to me, she reverted to baby talk, promising the yappy little furball a stop at Rin Tin Tin’s star if he behaved himself, and as she lurched away in a funny tiptoed walk I shut my unhinged jaw and headed toward the apartment whose occupant I hoped might provide me with a simple cup of sugar.

On the landing, next to a gargoyle planter from whose head a bonsai jade tree sprouted, I stood on a mat whose printed Welcome message was editorialized with a question mark. I dropped the heavy brass door knocker twice.

“Not available!” a sharp voice announced from behind the door, and I made a hasty retreat down the stairs, before any snarling dogs were unleashed or warning shots fired.

Your loss,
I thought, not about to be daunted by some crank too lazy to open the door. I had places to go, people to meet, and if nobody would
assist me in my cake-making venture . . . then I’d go check out the pool. It was a brand-new me; I was that flexible.

I
WAS
A
HAPPY
CHILD
and there are photographs that corroborate this; in a black-and-white one whose serrated margin reads, “Candy—
1
week old,” I’m wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in my mother’s embrace. I look toothlessly blissful, as if my smile were an expression of joy and not a reflex of something more prosaic, like passing gas.

There’s a snapshot of me at my third birthday party, merriment and frosting smeared in equal measure all over my face. One of me dressed as a cat for Halloween, my painted-on whiskers crinkled by my wide smile. Another of me as a four-year-old with a quartet of cousins at a family picnic, caught in the middle of a laugh, my head tipped back. I’m the only one of the foursome who looks thrilled, but my delight is not the only contrast between me and the shining examples of Nordic youth that are my kin.

It was at that same picnic I first met my cousin Charlotte, who informed me that I had funny eyes. Turning to her mother fixing her plate, she asked, “Mommy, why does Candy have such funny eyes?”

Even though her comment stung me, I assumed curiosity and not malice inspired it. Thinking,
All you have to do is look at my mom, dummy,
I nevertheless waited patiently for my aunt’s reply.

“Uh, Candy’s mother is from Korea,” she said, dumping a spoonful of Sloppy Joes on the bottom circle of a hamburger bun. “Koreans have . . . uh, different-shaped eyes than us.”

My Aunt Lorraine’s visit was the reason for the picnic; this was her first trip back to Minneapolis after living in Wyoming for years. She had brought her two children, Todd and Charlotte, but not her husband, who was a whispered topic of conversation between her and my Aunt Pauline.

It was the first time my dad’s middle sister had met me and my mother, and her reaction to us was the subject of another whispered conversation, this one between my parents and held post-picnic in the car, where they had made the erroneous assumption that I was asleep in the backseat.

“I tell you, she no like me. She no like me a bit,” said my mother.

“Jo, everyone likes you. You just have to give her time. Lorraine’s got a lot on her plate right now.”

“What that mean?”

My dad paused for a moment, understanding that in speaking with my mother, a time-out for translation was often needed.

“That means she’s got an awful lot to worry about right now.”

“Not with those yum yums! She no have to worry about nothing!”

My dad’s low rich laugh filled the car.

“Shh!” said my mother, laughing too. “Don’t wake up Baby!”

I kept my eyes shut; even as I wanted to join in my parents’ high spirits, it was one of those times when the bigger satisfaction came from reveling quietly in their enjoyment of one another. It made me feel safe, like when my mother called me “Baby.”

The happy child photographs—if I wasn’t grinning in them, I was laughing—ended when I was five and a half and my mother died.

There is a snapshot I came across last winter that someone (probably my Aunt Lorraine) had the lack of grace to take. In it, I’m sitting at a table in a church basement, so hunched with sadness that my chin’s nearly touching the tabletop. Because of the way I’m seated and because the photograph is black and white, you can’t tell that I was wearing a red-dotted Swiss dress with a sash and flouncy petticoat, a dress that caused me great shame, making me look as if I were going to a birthday party instead of my mother’s funeral.

“That was such a terrible day,” said my Grandma Pekkala, anchoring me with her arm as I stood at the kitchen counter. I had promised to make the North Stars’ number-one hockey fan a fancy dinner in celebration of the Stars’ win over the Islanders and when opening her rarely used
Better Homes and Garden
cookbook, I had found the photograph tucked between two pages featuring Beef Wellington and Beef Stroganoff recipes.

I stared at the picture, reliving the awful memories it conjured: the surreal fear and confusion of waking up to my father’s howls and seeing men lift my mother onto a stretcher and race her out of our apartment; the wallop of pain and shock that had struck me hours later, when my dad staggered into my grandmother’s kitchen to tell me that my mother had died. By the time of her funeral service, those feelings had frozen into a numb coldness, only to be disturbed by the itchiness of my petticoat and the fits of rage that made me want to kick or punch someone—specifically my cousin Charlotte who, after enjoying the luncheon the church ladies had put on, said, “Good Jell-O.”

My life had caved in like a rotted shack and all she could say was “Good Jell-O?”

“I have no idea how that picture got there,” said my grandma, but as she reached for the photograph, I pressed my thumb on it, so hard that a crescent of white appeared high on its nail.

“I want it.”

There was neither Beef Stroganoff nor Beef Wellington that night; instead I took the picture and a bowl of cereal downstairs to my basement bedroom, the rattle of pipes and the clunk of the furnace accompaniment to my muffled sobs.