Authors: Beth Gutcheon
“Then find a date.”
“You are the most overprotective mother I ever saw,” said Amy fondly, when at 6:05 that evening she opened Eloise’s front door.
“
Et la plus belle!
” Rae exclaimed, coming up behind her. “Va-vavoom!”
Carter, blushing a deep pink, stood on the doorstep with an odd entourage. She was wearing the red ribbon sweater Rae had given her and all the makeup Jill had made her buy, and a pair of black velvet pants in a surprisingly slim size, and she did indeed look amazingly glamorous.
“And good evening, Miss Flora,” said Amy. Flora, clutching Carter’s hand, was wearing a pink dress with a sash and a lace collar, and carrying a Barney.
“This is Romie,” Carter said, introducing the plump African-American girl who stood behind Flora holding her jammie bag and her backpack stuffed with toddler supplies. “And this is Jerry Carter.” The very tall, heavy-featured man, handsome in a Boris Karloff kind of way, tipped his head to them, and everyone shook hands.
“Is Laurie here?”
Five Fortunes / 307
“Just got here. She’s upstairs changing.”
“How is she?”
“Exhausted.”
“But all right?”
“You’ll see,” said Amy. “When it’s showtime, she will glow. And Trishie is all ready for you,” said Amy to Flora. “Come this way.
You girls are going to have your supper in Trish’s room and Romie will help you, and you know what Trishie has? A big tank of tropical fish…”
To Carter’s complete astonishment, Flora was peacefully going off toward the stairs holding Romie’s hand. Suddenly she stiffened and turned back to look at Carter. Carter smiled at her and waved.
“Have fun, little one.” And Flora went.
“I don’t know how Amy does it,” Laurie said to Carter. She was putting on her lipstick and looking into the mirror, talking to the image of Carter lounging on the bed. “She was in Idaho for a week, she knew people I hadn’t met in living there my whole life. There’s an old boyfriend from high school who’s turned up; he’s mad about her. Half the movers and shakers in Boise are old beaus of hers from college, or married to her sorority sisters. Or they
were
her sorority sisters. And the same thing happened here. She’s been in Los Angeles one day; there’s nothing she can’t get done.”
“She’s a piece of work,” said Carter.
“I’ve got a great team,” Laurie said. “If the whole thing ends with the primary, I’ll still feel lucky I tried it.”
There was a knock on the door, and Amy came in. She had dressed in a black silk crepe sheath that made the very best of her very good figure, while looking rather demure.
“You ready?”
Laurie nodded.
“How’s the headache?”
“Better.”
“Are you sick?” Carter asked.
“I’m a delicate flower,” Laurie said. “I hate the days I don’t get any exercise, and Cara had her nightmare last night, at three in the morning.”
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Both Amy and Carter knew about daughters with nightmares.
“Well, if you need anything, there will be about eighteen doctors in the house, and Eloise has a pretty complete pharmacy going in her bathroom.”
Laurie smiled and shook her head. “I like the concept. I knock back a handful of pills and go down to give my ringing speech on Character.”
Laurie gave her ringing speech on Character at the end of the cocktail hour. Standing in the garden beside Carter at the edge of the crowd, Jerry watched with a professional eye.
“She is really good,” he said to Carter, who was applauding loudly.
“Isn’t she?”
“I mean,
really
good. She could go a very long way.”
Carter turned to look at him. Jerry was a hard man to impress.
“How long a way?”
“She could go a long way. She could make people believe things they haven’t believed for a long time.”
“Why, Jerry Carter. You’re going all gooey-eyed.”
“I’m always telling you, I’m a deeply tender person. I’m just misunderstood.”
Partway through dessert a waiter bent discreetly to Eloise’s ear.
She was wanted in the kitchen.
“Of course,” she said, smiling smoothly, knowing that this was it, the disaster she had been waiting for. The plumbing was overflowing. The cook was on fire. “I’ll be just a minute,” she said to her dinner partner, who was in any case deeply absorbed by the pretty young starlet on his other side, the one with the
belle poitrine
who was married to that sharp Business Affairs fellow from Disney.
Squeezing past waiters garnishing plates with candied lemon peel, Eloise made her way into the kitchen. Beyond a tower of stacking racks holding wineglasses, she found Amy talking to a waiflike creature who on second glance proved to be one of the most famous women in America.
“Oh, Eloise. This is Megan Soule,” said Amy with a straight face.
Five Fortunes / 309
Eloise took the offered hand. The Movie Star was wearing a silk scarf around her famous hair, and a long black raincoat over her evening dress. She was carrying a gym bag. Behind her was a young man in a dinner jacket holding a sheaf of music.
“How nice to meet you,” said Eloise, shaking the famous hand.
“I’m sorry to be so stupid—tell me your name again?” Megan said.
“Eloise Strouse. I live here.” The Movie Star smiled and looked around at the cooks and waiters who were bashing into each other all over the kitchen while pretending not to stare at her.
“Can we get you something?”
“Oh god. I’ve already had about five Inderals and I don’t think it’s doing any good. I can hardly swallow.” She also could hardly talk; her voice trembled, as if she might weep.
“They take some time to kick in,” said Amy.
“Do
you
get stage fright?”
“Paralytic with it,” said Amy, smiling.
The Movie Star looked at her warily. She took several deep breaths.
“Is there somewhere I can do my makeup?”
“Right over here,” said Eloise. “I’m afraid it’s not very grand.”
The guests had moved into the room overlooking the garden, the room Eloise would forever after think of as “the front salon.” The credenza thing had been removed and a portable bar set up with port and liqueurs and designer waters. Fancy folding chairs with silent hinges and padded leather seats (“Annelise knows how to find these things,” Amy said) had been set up forming arcing rows around the two big chairs in front of the piano. There was an immense mass of flowers in a vase on the table beside the chair to which Eloise escorted Laurie. The guests were finding seats, and giving orders for coffee and drinks, and there was an expectant thrumming buzz of talk as people finished their dinner conversations.
“How are you holding up?” Amy whispered to Laurie.
Laurie squeezed the hand Amy laid on her shoulder and smiled at her briefly. “A-OK,” she said.
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Amy turned and stood facing the guests. Laurie, sitting in the big wing chair beside her, poured a glass of water. For a moment Amy thought of the ashen, depleted woman she and Jill had met in the Japanese tub. She glanced down at her friend, with her high color and straight gaze, her straight, strong posture.
The audience began to draw themselves to order and attention.
Amy began.
“Have you all got everything you need? Water? Coffee?”
There was a contented murmur.
“I know you’ve all had a chance to talk with Laurie Lopez, and there will be a formal question-and-answer period in a little while.
But first I have to report a change in the program. You may have noticed a certain absence of Senator Lorenz here tonight. There’s a reason. She’s in Washington.”
There was a buzz and rumble of whispered conversation. Washington. Well, but…? Before speculation and bad temper could settle in, Amy went on.
“She sends her sincere apologies. There was a vote in the Senate late this afternoon that she couldn’t miss. In the meantime a friend of the candidate has very kindly agreed to take Senator Lorenz’s place.”
The accompanist walked in carrying his music, and took his place at the grand piano on the far side of the fireplace. There were whispers and some polite laughter. Oh shit, some wannabe lounge act.
But when the next figure entered, there was sudden and complete silence, followed by waves of applause.
Half the people in the room owned every album she’d ever made.
Some had seen her on Broadway before she had made her first movie.
Every single one of them remembered her first Academy Award speech, for which she was mercilessly teased for years after. And every single one of them knew she hadn’t sung in public in over ten years.
Jerry suddenly touched Carter on the knee and left his chair.
No speeches, The Movie Star had said. But she stood in front of them with no microphone and no fancy lighting, a walking symbol, a moving target, for everything people loved and loved to hate about superstars and celebrity.
Five Fortunes / 311
She stood with her hands folded in front of her. Eighty-some very alert faces looked back, taking in every detail of her.
She’s put on a pound or two since her last movie, thought more than one lady, studying the curve of the abdomen under unforgiving silver lamé.
There’s a line or two around the mouth, thought more than one plastic surgeon. And the very beginning of a softness along the jawline.
She can’t be as young as her publicists say, thought a number of others. Who makes her up for the camera?
She took a deep breath and smiled that amazing smile.
“Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking,” she said, and the room filled with knowing laughter, “I
would
like to say one thing,”
she went on. “I will never forget the spectacle of Jimbo Turnbull baiting Ella Steptoe during her confirmation hearings. Ella Steptoe tried to make a difference and she got hammered for it. I don’t want that to happen to Laurie Lopez. I could have sent in my check, but I figured if she’s brave enough to take on Jim Turnbull, I’m brave enough to do this.”
She let go with a four-minute version of “Mood Indigo,” and when she was finished, the applause and foot stamping could be heard on the next block. This was known, and reported over and over in the papers the next day, because by then the house was surrounded by paparazzi. Someone in the kitchen had been unable to resist a bragging phone call.
As the applause boomed, Jerry slipped back into his chair beside Carter. In answer to her questioning look, he tipped his head toward the back of the room, where, turning, she saw Eloise’s daughter, Trish, and Romie with Flora in her arms. Flora was clapping with excitement, though Carter doubted she knew why, and Romie was hopping up and down.
“By the time the set was over, the whole kitchen staff was in the back of the room,” Carter said. She and Jerry were still talking the evening over in the private darkness of the moving car. They had driven Romie home, a girl considering a career change from dental technician to permanent nanny. Flora was asleep on Carter’s lap.
Jerry had
312 / Beth Gutcheon
promised to defend her if she were arrested for not using a car seat.
And it was very nice to have Jerry to do the driving. And Jerry to talk to.
He pulled up in front of the house and turned off the ignition.
“Don’t get out, I can manage,” Carter said. Jerry was already coming around to her side. He opened the door. Carter made an attempt to gather up Flora’s bags and Barney and then sat, looking puzzled.
Jerry leaned over and gently extracted Flora from her armful of burdens. How
do
you get out of a car with both hands full and your arms around twenty-four pounds of baby? Flora woke briefly, then settled onto Jerry’s shoulder, and Carter hauled herself out of the bucket seat. Together they walked to the door, which Carter unlocked. She settled the baby’s things inside the door and Jerry passed Flora over.
“Thank you, pal,” Carter said. She smiled at him in a way that made him duck his head shyly.
“You’re welcome.”
“Tell Graciela I thank her too, for the loan.”
“I will.”
“I hope she won’t be sorry she didn’t come when she hears what happened.”
“Serves her right,” he said. And after a brief moment, “Good night, then.”
“Good night. Thanks again.”
She went inside and he heard her lock the door against the night as he shambled down the walk toward his car.
I
daho. God’s country,” boomed the baritone voice on the sound track. Lloyd Prince, wearing fishing gear and holding a fly rod, sat in the stern seat of a canoe, his useless legs tucked away out of sight. Behind him was a flooding brook, with soaring mountains and blue sky in the middle distance.
“Like you, I love this state,” said the candidate to the camera. “I moved here so I could raise my family the way our founding fathers intended.”
He swiveled, whipped his rod two or three times, and lightly cast into the lake. He turned back to the camera.
“My opponent has called me a carpetbagger…”
“I did not,” said Laurie. “The editor of the
Idaho Courier
called you a carpetbagger.”
“Shh…” said Lynn Urbanski.
“…because I didn’t grow up in Idaho.” He deftly reeled in his line, then turned back to the camera.
“Now we learn that my opponent’s campaign is being heavily funded by out-of-state money, from special-interest groups in Washington, New York, and California,” Lloyd informed the camera, looking saddened. “People who are in favor of abortion and against prayer…”
“In favor of choice, you moron, NO one is in favor of abortion…”
said Amy.
“Shshsh…” said Lynn.
313
314 / Beth Gutcheon
“…who want to have more influence on the senator from Idaho than you do.”
He turned to face a second camera, and gave a wide, well-coached smile.
“I want to be your senator, not because I grew up here, but because my children are growing up here. I want to keep this state for them, the way God intended it to be. When you send me to Washington, I’ll be beholden to no one but you. The Idaho voters.” The music swelled.