The Actor and the Housewife (12 page)

“Felix Callahan is inside my house,” Becky said through tight, conspiratorial lips as she unstrapped Hyrum from a back seat.

Jessie grinned. “Really? Can I—” She glanced back at four impatient five-year-olds waiting to be carpooled home. “Never mind. Are you going to bring him to the potluck to night?”

“Possibly.”

Jessie raised her eyebrows. “Wow, you are daring. I won’t complain, though, since I’ll get to sneak a peak.”

Becky herded Hyrum through the front yard and into the house at a record speed of three minutes even, and reintroduced her five-year-old to her friend.

“Look how long my tongue is,” Hyrum said, sticking it out with a
bleh
noise twelve inches from Felix’s face.

Felix recoiled. “Ooh. Long. Yes.”

It really was impressively long, Becky thought as she tidied up the family room before Mike got home. She herself often bragged, “You should see my Hyrum’s tongue. He could catch a fish with it.” She was sorting toys into their boxes, only half aware of the continuing conversation on the couch.

“Look how long my tongue is.
Bleh
. . .”

“Yeah, that’s a proper tongue.”

“Look how long my tongue is.
Bleh
. . .”

“You mentioned that before.”

“Look how long my tongue is.
Bleh
. . .”

“Er . . .”

“Look how long my tongue is—
bleh
. Look how long my tongue is—
bleh
. Look how long my tongue is—
bleh
. . .”

“Becky?”

She popped up to attention. “What? Oh. Yes, Hyrum, we all see how long your tongue is. It’s impressively long. It’s catastrophically long. It’s amazing! Go play in your room please.”

Hyrum needed no further incentive to be alone and trotted off . Felix cleared his throat.

“So, that’s the chip off the old block, eh? He’s . . . er . . . what am I supposed to say now?”

“You’re supposed to exclaim about how smart and good-looking and clever my son is and say you wish he were your very own.”

“Right. Yes. Your son . . . has a very long tongue.”

“Why, thank you, Mr. Callahan! You are all compliments today.”

“Hmph.”

“I really am glad you’re here, grumpypuss.” She leaned over and nearly kissed Felix on the cheek, as she might have done to one of her children, but stopped herself short, ruffling his hair instead. It was stiff with gel. “Ouch! Your hair just stabbed me.”

“Uh, hi there,” Mike said from the doorway.

“You’re home early!” Becky went to him, this time delivering a cheek kiss that she didn’t have to pull short. Mike’s presence filled up the house, relaxed Becky’s bones, and made her realize she’d been more anxious about having Felix there alone than she’d guessed. But the next day was Saturday and Mike would be home, so the problem was temporarily solved. “Felix is going to stay the weekend. Isn’t it great?”

“Yeah.” From Mike’s reserved expression, “great” wasn’t the word he would have chosen. But he shook Felix’s hand and smiled. “Welcome.”

“Dada, Dada, Dada,” Sam was chanting as he toddled over.

“Actually, I thought I’d get a hotel,” Felix said.

“No, stay here. That’s great, that’s fine,” Mike said, holding Sam upside down by one ankle and swaying him back and forth to evoke the maximum amount of squeals.

“The girls will camp out in the basement,” Becky said. “They’ll love it, and I know you’ll be in heaven in Fiona’s twin bed with
Little Mermaid
comforter and matching shams.”

“
Little Mermaid
comforter?”

“
And
matching shams. We don’t cut corners here, mister.”

Felix offered an impossibly fake grin. “I can scarcely wait for night to fall.”

Becky left the men in the family room to get to know each other while she finished up the zucchini bread and changed the sheets on Fiona’s bed. When she peeked from the kitchen, Mike was on the sofa playing with Sam. Felix was on the love seat flipping through a magazine.

Becky rolled her eyes and hand-washed the mixing bowl. For years she’d yearned for a dishwasher. She’d never had one, not in her parents’ home, not in college or her first apartment with Mike. Then for Mother’s Day 1991, a brand-new Maytag dishwasher in almond (to match the fridge) with a fat red bow! She wiped down the front of it at least once a week just to make sure it still shined.

But half the time, she found herself hand-washing the dishes anyway. The warm water, the suds and strokes—it was meditative, like pruning rosebushes or folding laundry. She entered a Zen state, taking chaos and filth into her hands and turning it into order and cleanliness.

So she washed and thought. Felix was in the other room. She felt a little patter of excitement like she did whenever Mike first set up the Christmas tree. Yeah, Mike clearly wasn’t in on the whole patter-of-excitement part. But it was good for him, she thought, as she ran the spatula under the faucet, sending suds bubbling down the drain. It was good for a man to be reminded that his wife was interesting to other people. Last night she’d worn her deliciously satin pajamas to bed and he hadn’t so much as touched her knee.

Felix was here. And the sweet, warm scent of zucchini bread filled the house with contentment.

The girls came home. Fiona at age eleven was unimpressed with the actor and soon absconded to the basement with
Classy and Fabulous
, a photograph-heavy biography of Coco Chanel. Becky had been mystified by that choice, but her rule was her kids could pick out their own library books. Polly, enchanted by Felix’s accent, scooted closer and closer to him on the couch until their sides touched. Felix tried making faces at her, but she just stared. He cleared his throat.

“Polly’s second-grade class has been learning folk songs,” Becky said. “Felix, would you sing ‘Danny Boy’ with her?”

Polly’s voice was dry and soft, and always made Becky think of buttercups because her mother had once remarked, “If buttercups could sing, they’d sound like Polly.” Felix sang softly as well, and his robust man’s voice on harmony and her little-girl sweetness on melody was breathtaking.

They finished, and Polly snuggled in closer, hugging his arm. He looked at Becky and mouthed, “I am in love.”

“I knew you would be,” she said.

Polly was Becky’s secret weapon. Add the duet to Sam’s laughter, and Becky was feeling quite triumphant. She turned to share her happiness with Mike, but he’d already decamped to the office to make work calls. He didn’t pop up again until the whole family was readying for the potluck dinner at the church building.

“Sorry we’re not having a family dinner for you to night,” Becky said. “But Mike’s in the bishopric in our ward and—”

“Slow down, you’re speaking Mormonese.”

“He’s . . . there’s no professional clergy in our church. All the members take on different volunteer jobs and we switch around from time to time. He’s in the bishopric, which is three people who oversee the entire ward. A ward’s like a parish, you know, a certain neighborhood that all meets together as a congregation—”

“You’re quite bad at this.”

“I know! There’s just so much lingo! When we have an hour, I’ll give you Mormonism 101.”

“Your excuse to try to convert me to your secret, cultish practices.”

“You wish. Anyhoo, because Mike’s in the bishopric, he needs to be there. I’d let him go alone and the rest of us could stay home, but I signed up to bring zucchini bread. And besides, I know how much work the Activities Committee goes to for these nights. I teach Sunday school now, but I used to be on the committee and I’d really like to support them.”

“Of course. I’ll tag along to night, get an insider’s view of your life. It will be a delight.”

He was wrong.

In which two worlds collide, taxis are not
readily available,
and no one learns a helpful
moral

“Mom, can I bring my Game Boy?”

“No, Hyrum. Fiona, put on your shoes please.”

“I can’t find my pink ones.”

“Just wear your brown ones, sweetie.”

“Eee, eee!”

“We’re eating in a minute, Sam. Polly, I asked you to take off that tutu. Shoes, Fiona.”

“I can’t find my pink ones.”

“Just wear your brown ones. Hyrum, if you’re ready, wait for us in the car.”

“Can I bring my Game Boy?”

“No, just go please. Sam, careful, don’t—!”

“Uh-ooooooh.”

“Aw, Sam, what a mess. Fiona, can you toss me that rag?”

“I’m looking for my pink shoes.”

“Wear the brown ones, Fiona.”

“Eeee!”

“We’re going to eat at church, Sammy. Careful, don’t walk in the—great. Sam, take off those socks.”

“NOOOO!”

“We need new socks, these ones are sopping with milk. New socks, Sammy.”

“NO! EEEEE!”

“Here’s a banana. Hyrum, I thought I told you to get in the car.”

“I’m just finishing this one game.”

“No, get moving. Lovely twirling, Polly. Now just twirl your way out of that tutu. Fiona—”

“I’m looking for my pink—”

“Fiona Jack, for the love of all that is holy, WEAR YOUR BROWN SHOES!”

“Found ’em!”

Four kids shoed, seated, and strapped in, Becky sat in the driver’s seat and exhaled.

“Alrighty,” she said with a bright smile. “Off we go!”

Felix was gaping. “How do you stay sane? Not that you are sane in the strictest sense, but you are functional, and I cannot fathom how.”

“What, that? You get used to it. I mean, what if I had four children who stood quietly in a row waiting to be told what to do?
Cree-py.
Well, some days I think I’d trade a few toes for that miracle, but long term, no thanks. Give me kids with a little verve any day.”

“You are a goddess.”

Becky wished Mike had heard that. Some days he came home and gave her that look—you know, that “I’ve been out earning money while you have nine free hours, and I come home and the house is a mess and I have to wonder what have you been doing with your time” look. Some days it made her want to throw her body over the sticky linoleum and weep with shame; some days it made her want to slug him in the jaw.

As she turned to back up, Becky noticed that the minivan smelled strongly of french fries. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken the kids through a drive-through and gotten fries to qualm their troubled little souls. How could the smell still linger? Were there fries hiding under car seats, stowing away under benches, squished beneath floor mats? And when was she going to have time to check?

There were lots of things Felix’s presence made her notice—how tiny the houses were in her neighborhood, how unkempt many of the lawns. At the entrance to their development was a low brick wall with scripty metal letters spelling out somerset estates. When she and Mike had been house shopping, she’d thought the name of the development completely lovely, evoking at once a dreamy English countryside and something ancient and regal. Now, she squirmed.

A block later, he cleared his throat. “Somerset Estates?”

“Yeah, I was hoping you hadn’t noticed.”

The ward potluck was held in the church’s “cultural hall,” which was an indoor basketball court with a stage at one end and wide doors connecting to the kitchen. She found Mike, but he was chained to a conversation with the elderly and apparently angry Brother Brunson, so he just greeted her with a nod and returned his attention to the ranter.

Her heart gushed to see him. There was no one better in the room to take care of what ever the problem was than her Mike.

White and pink plastic sheets covered round folding tables, with centerpieces of elaborate tole-painted wooden daisies on beds of intricate paper grass—the kind of homemade art that would make Martha Stewart shed tears of envy. It was clearly Christine’s doing. Last spring they’d had an Under the Sea–themed party, and Christine had created a twenty-foot-long humpback whale out of construction paper and hung it from the ceiling.

“Hi Becky!” Christine rushed up, her hands full of paper petals that left a clumsy trail behind her. “What do you think of the centerpieces?”

Becky almost said, “What, they don’t spin in circles and sing ‘It’s a Small World’?” But sarcasm-as-compliment would be lost on sweet Christine, so she said, “They are so gorgeous I still can’t catch my breath.”

Christine was staring at Felix’s face, then down to his left hand, which didn’t bear a wedding ring. He never wore his ring when in production. Christine was single, forty-three, and of the steamroller personality when looking for a mate. That was the word she would use—
mate
.

“Uh, Christine, this is Felix, a friend of the family, who’s staying with us for a few days.”

“He’s staying with you?” Christine was standing on her toes. “For a few days? You come to dinner at my house tomorrow. Tomorrow night. I insist. I’ll have a feast prepared. I’ll see you at six.”

“Er,” Felix said.

Becky had a sudden instinct to throw herself in front of her friend, as if he were an allergy-prone boy facing a hive of angry bees. “Christine, we’re busy tomorrow night, actually, and—”

“Sunday then. See you at six!” She scuttled away before any protest could reach her ears.

Felix whispered, “Which was she, Arsenic or Old Lace?”

Fiona, the only Jack child who hadn’t wandered off to play on the stage, was snickering. When had her little girl grown up enough to understand adult social situations?

“Fiona, don’t you want to run along and play?”

“Not really.”

“Run along now,” Becky said with emphasis. Fiona rolled her eyes and stalked off . “Felix, I’m sorry. I should’ve called you Rufus or something.”

“Just tell me, what is that?” He pointed to a huge punch bowl filled with orangish-green liquid, blobs of unknown origin floating on the soapy surface.

“That’s . . . that’s . . . it’s a drink. Probably Sprite and orange juice with lime sherbet.”

Felix’s eyes widened. “By the ghost of Hamlet’s father . . .”

“It does look pretty revolting, now that you mention it. Why don’t we find a table?”

Felix was still holding the bag with the six loaves of zucchini bread and he dropped them off on the buff et tables. A woman with salt-and-pepper hair in a heavily sprayed helmet-do turned to take them. It was Kirsten Nutter. Stop, Felix, Becky wanted to warn. Halt! Desist! Danger ahead! But Felix was already in physical contact with that darling, lovely, meddling woman.

“Let me help . . .” Kirsten paused. She stared, her mouth open. “You’re famous, aren’t you? I know you.”

“Er, I’m a friend of the Jack family. I’m just—”

“You’re Felix Callahan! I didn’t know you were LDS. That’s so fantastic that you’re LDS!”

“I’m not . . . I’m just . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m a friend of—”

Kirsten grabbed a young, blonde woman by the arm. “Look, look, did you know that Felix Callahan was LDS? I’d heard that Steve Martin was, but I didn’t know—”

“You are?” The blonde squinted and adjusted the infant in her arms. “But your last movie was rated R.”

“I . . . I’m a friend of—” Felix started.

“Well, don’t bother him, Kirsten,” the blonde said. “I’m sure he doesn’t want to be fussed over. I hope you feel at home, Brother Callahan. Have some punch.” She handed him a cup of the punchlike concoction with an extra lump of melting green sherbet.

“Were they accusing me of drug use?” Felix whispered as Becky hurried him away.

“ ‘LDS’ stands for ‘Latter-day Saint.’ They think you’re Mormon.”

“Ah. That’s just . . .”

“Tabloid-worthy?”

“I doubt even the tabloid readers would believe that.” He was staring at the lumpy punch in his hand with undisguised horror.

“And yet in Layton, Utah, it’s no doubt already considered fact. I wouldn’t be surprised if the news has reached as far as Ogden. We are a hopeful lot.”

She spotted the shivering ’fro of her friend Jessie across the cultural hall and rushed Felix that way. Becky was extremely fond of her fellow ward members, and it just wasn’t fair that he’d met some of the quirkiest among them right off . Jessie would balance things out.

Jessie would balance “Jessie! I want you to meet my friend Felix.”

Jessie stood up to shake Felix’s hand. “It’s great to meet you. And you couldn’t have picked a better friend than Becky.”

“Likewise, I’m sure.”

“Jessie studied dance at Juilliard and was a member of the Martha Graham Dance Company before she gave it up to have children,” Becky bragged.

Felix glanced at the five-year-old girl engrossed in a coloring book at the table then turned back to Jessie. “You gave up professional dance to have children?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“And moved to Layton, Utah.”

“Well, yeah, my husband’s job brought us here.”

“So . . . congratulations?”

“Um . . . thanks?”

Becky considered smacking Felix, but she could see he didn’t mean to be offensive—he was sincerely confused. She cleared her throat.

“Jessie’s youngest is in school, so she decided to go back to work and just started with Ririe-Woodbury, this really amazing local dance company. She’ll be choreographing a piece for their upcoming show.”

“Ah,” Felix said.

“Yeah . . .” Jessie said unsurely. “It’s . . . it’s nice. I feel very blessed. I mean, it’s hard to have it all, but I’m doing my best.”

“That’s all anyone can do, I suppose.” Felix spoke like an automaton programmed to sound almost interested.

“That’s the truth. So . . . what do you think about Utah?”

“The mountains are lovely. My wife and I skied in Park City last year.”

“Oh yeah, Park City’s beautiful. So . . . I think Becky mentioned you have an apartment in New York. What neighborhood?”

“Upper West Side, near the park.”

“Nice. My first place was in the West Forties—not so nice, but it was New York. I still miss it.”

“It is a unique city.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

Both Jessie and Felix were looking at Becky now, expecting her to save them. Her mind blanked, and she smiled with so much teeth she felt like an alligator.

“Becky, tell me you brought your famous zucchini bread,” Jessie said.

“I did indeed!”

“I’d better grab some before it’s all gone. Nice to meet you, Felix!” And Jessie scurried off .

After that, Becky picked out a far-flung table in the corner, placed Felix with his back to the room, and decided to keep him to herself. She even filled up a plate of food for him at the buff et table, along with Sam’s and Hyrum’s plates. Because her hands were full, Mike made up a plate for her, then Fiona got a plate for her dad. Polly was the only one who served herself and so ate only white dinner rolls.

During the dinner hour, there were stares. And whispers. And people slowing down as they passed the Jacks’ table and gaping at Felix as if at a traffic accident. A few bold ones approached.

Mari Moss, age seventeen: “So, hi, so my friends bet me I wouldn’t dare to come talk to you but I totally am, and I’m even going to ask you to autograph a napkin. I know, I am so bold.”

Melanie Bradford, PTA president and mother of two sets of twins: “I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your films, but I wondered, do you have any control over the editing and such? I just hate to see so much violence and profanity.”

Lorrie Kimball, CPA and mother of three boys, ages one, two, and three: “I just want you to know that while everyone else is either standing back and staring or fawning and drooling, I’m going to treat you like a completely normal person. I’m not fazed at all.”

Occasionally, Mike laughed into his napkin. He seemed to be the only person at their table who was having a terrific time.

“Thanks for not pulling out Diplomatic Felix,” Becky whispered. “You’re showing admirable restraint. They really are very nice people. The more sane ones are being polite and giving you space while the others . . . Well, they’re just . . . they’re . . . we’re not used to . . . if Tom Selleck showed up here, I’d probably make a complete idiot out of myself.”

myself.”

“And why didn’t meeting me cause the same effect?”

“Come on, sweetie. You’re great and all, but you’re no Tom Sell-eck.”

“What does he do? He smiles with dimples and grows a mustache.”

Becky patted his arm consolingly. “Someday you’ll be able to grow a mustache too. Just give it time.”

They partook of ham and rolls, green bean casserole, green salad and fruit salad and pasta salad and Jell-O salad, and in the silence Becky became more and more aware of the conversations around them.

“Hey, Bonnie, did you say you want one baby hamster or two?”

“Oh, we’ll take two, if they’re both little boys or little girls. I don’t want to open their cage one morning and find a nest of them.”

“Wish I’d thought of that a few weeks ago.”

“Are you still with Weight Watchers?”

“Nah, I went off it again. I mean, all the counting. Me with math! I mean, I can’t add two and two, you know what I mean? Two and two! I’m serious, you know what I mean? I can’t add to save my life.”

“Yeah . . .”

“Yeah, can’t add to save my life. Not even two and two, you know what I mean? Ha!”

“Yeah, it’s good to be healthy.”

“Yeah, that’s important. And I’ve been reading about eating fruit every day, but not the peels, because that’s where the pesticide toxins live. That’s important.”

“Yeah.”

Becky’s face was set on permanent wince. She kept her eyes on her plate and poked at her Jell-O salad, letting its fabulous green body (neither solid nor liquid!) wiggle gleefully. The harder she tried to tune out the conversation, the more she absorbed every word, eavesdropping with an ear for how it must sound to Felix. What did his friends talk about? Not hamsters and Weight Watchers, she was pretty sure. Not that there was anything wrong with that. These were perfectly wonderful people, and who said that the rich and fashionable are superior to anyone else? Who said their conversation is any more important than that of a middle-class housewife?