The Burnt Orange Sunrise (11 page)

Des sipped her wine in discreet silence.

“Of course he is,” Ada went on, undeterred. “They’re terribly ill-suited for each other, you know. He’s needy and selfish, and she’s a fading debutante with a post-graduate degree in bullshit. I assume they’re drawn together by their mutual weakness. That is, after all, what passes for love among most couples—unless they happen to be very lucky. Are you lucky, Des?”

“I’ll have to get back to you on that one.”

Ada eased herself slowly down onto the plump little chair next to Des and turned her penetrating, hooded gaze on her. “I wish to have a word with you. It’s rather important.”

“All right.” As Des studied Ada’s face in the mirror, she found herself recalling something her granny had told her once: Everyone gets old, but a rare few
grow
old. Ada Geiger was one of those—
someone who had seen it all, done it all and, most significantly, savored it all. There was no regret in her proud, deeply lined face. No fear. Only wisdom. “What’s it about, Ada?”

“You, my dear. You need to be rescued.”

Des frowned at her. “Rescued from what?”

“I happened to take in the student show at the Dorset Academy yesterday,” she replied. “It invigorates me to see what young artists are doing. Mostly, what I saw them doing was dreck—lifeless, passionless, highly derivative. There was only one artist in the whole exhibit who genuinely moved me. I asked about this artist. I said, ‘Who draws the murder victims?’”

Sitting there, Des could feel her pulse quicken.

“I can’t begin to tell you how excited I was to learn that
you
would be Mitch’s companion this evening.”

“Well, that’s life in a small town.”

“Spare me your modesty, okay?” Ada shot back. “We are kindred souls, you and I. When I was your age, I did the very same thing you’re doing—except with a camera. Ever hear of an old-time tabloid photographer named Weegee?”

“Are you kidding me? I
love
his work.”

“I thought so,” Ada said, nodding to herself in satisfaction. “I knew him well.”

Des gaped at her. “God, tell me about him. What was he like?”

“A horrible, unkempt little man. He lived in cheap rooming houses, reeked of body odor and awful cigars. ‘Crime is my oyster,’ he used to say. It became mine, too, Des. I followed him around like a puppy. Drove the streets of New York City with him, night after night, listening in on police calls on his two-way radio, hightailing it to murder scenes. He kept a key to the darkroom at the
New York Post
, where he’d develop his pictures at two, three o’clock in the morning. Then he’d head right out to peddle them to editors around town. He tried repeatedly to get me to go to bed with him,” Ada remembered fondly. “As if he had a prayer—I was a gorgeous broad in those days. And yet, I was utterly fascinated by the man, Des, because he
understood.”

“Understood
what?”

“That we are all victims in the end. That’s why his work needs no captions. No critics to ‘explain’ it. It’s all right there in front of you. Because the very best art isn’t ‘art’ at all—it’s reality. That’s what I’ve always tried to accomplish with my own work. That’s all I’ve ever tried to do.”

“Me, too, I think,” Des said gingerly. Unlike the other students at the academy, she was not comfortable talking about her work. It felt very raw and personal to her, and she sure didn’t know what any of it
meant.

“Which is precisely why you need to get out of that place,” Ada said to her urgently. “Des, you must stop taking classes at once.”

“But I’m learning so much. Why would I want to stop?”

“Because if you stay they will steal your soul from you. Don’t let them do it. Don’t let them mold you into one of
them.
That’s what they do, Des. That’s how the competent take their revenge against the truly gifted. It’s their sole satisfaction in life. It’s what they live for. Do you hear me?”

Des fell silent for a moment, floored by the old woman’s ferocious intensity. “I’m sure listening…”

“You’re already beginning to feel a bit restless there, am I right?”

“Now
how
on earth did you know that?”

“I already told you,” Ada said impatiently. “We’re kindred souls. Listen to your heart, Des. Get out before it’s too late.”

“And do what?”

“Go your own way—wherever that way takes you. But it will be
your
way, not theirs. I happen to be a cranky old woman. I know this because I was a cranky young woman. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned after all of these years, it is this: If you possess what other people want, and can’t have, then they will try to destroy you.” Ada paused, gazing around at the opulent ladies’ lounge. “It’s just like with this place.”

“Astrid’s Castle? What about it?”

“They will never, ever get it,” she said insistently.

“Who
, Ada?” Des asked, wondering if the old lady was totally
with it mentally. She seemed sharp enough, full of fire and strongly held views. But she also seemed to be up to her ears in paranoia.

Or was she?

“Promise me you’ll think about this,” Ada said, clutching Des by the wrist now. “Promise me you will never forget this conversation. Will you do that for me?”

“Ada, I will never forget this conversation. Count on it.”

“Thank you. I feel much better.” Satisfied, Ada Geiger released her grip on Des, then got slowly to her feet and glided back out the door.

Des stayed put for a while, staring at her reflection in the mirror as she sipped her wine. It was better this way. She was alone in there and no one else could see just how badly the goblet was trembling in her hand.

“W
E CARED NOT ONE
bit about studio politics,” Ada told Mitch as she nibbled regally at the food on her plate. Dinner was a flavorful beef bourguignon, roasted root vegetables and good, crusty bread. “All we cared about was making our movies. We wrote them together. My dear Luther produced them. And I directed them, which the studio boys didn’t like at all. I was a broad. Broads are for sleeping with. Broads are for shutting up. I wouldn’t do either of those things. Nor would I back down, because I saw them for the complete boors that they are, and… Lester,
must
I compete for attention with this New Age crap?” Ada meant the vaguely Eastern-sounding music that was playing on the dining hall’s multi-speaker surround-sound system, something with tubular bells and wind chimes. “I feel as if I’m at one of those touchy-feely retreats where they stick needles in your feet.”

“Sorry, Ada. Force of habit.” Les hurried over to a wall control by the kitchen door and flicked it off. “We turn it on to signal our guests that it’s mealtime.”

“What are they, lab rats?”

The dining hall of Astrid’s Castle was even vaster than the Sunset Lounge. It had three chandeliers, walk-in fireplaces at either end, both ablaze, and enough tables to accommodate a hundred or more guests. Right now, only their lone table by the windows was set, complete with twin candelabra. Les and Norma were at either end. Ada sat on Norma’s left, Teddy on her right. Mitch was next to Ada, with Des directly across from him. Aaron was next to her, facing Carly, who sat in between Mitch and Spence. Carly seemed very subdued. She’d said nothing since they sat down to dinner. Just kept staring across the table at Hannah, who was next to Aaron.

Outside, the frozen rain pattered loudly against the windows, and the wind continued to howl.

“You say the boors that they
are,”
Mitch spoke up. “That sounds like you think the movie business hasn’t changed much since the fifties.”

“It hasn’t,” Ada said. “Oh, sure, they come out of Harvard Business School now instead of the rag trade. But they’re still the same boors. And the movies are the same dumb crap. Mitch, there are so many amazing people out there leading amazing lives. So many fascinating stories to tell. Instead, they keep churning out their same tired kiddie stories about flying saucers, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Mind you, the movies are louder and shinier than they used to be, and they can do things with computers that we never even dreamed of. But no matter how you dress them up, they’re nothing more than fake, sickening bedtime fables.”

“Here’s what I keep asking myself,” Mitch said. “And maybe you have the answer, Ada. What is this steady diet of fantasy doing to us?”

“Nothing good,” she replied flatly. “We’re turning into a nation that cannot cope with reality. We no longer deal with any of our genuine social ills. We merely pretend to be—
more
fantasy. And that is a very dangerous thing, Mitch. Because people who cannot accept reality are generally considered to be insane.”

Jory appeared at Mitch’s elbow now with the serving dish of beef bourguignon. He helped himself to seconds. Across from him, Des was still pushing her food around on her plate. She was not at ease at dinner parties with people whom she didn’t know well. When she felt tense, her appetite vanished. Mitch was entirely the opposite. Hence their entirely different body shapes.

“I don’t agree with you about our movies, Mrs. Geiger,” Spence said, ladling seconds onto his own plate. “True enough, we put out our share of youth fare. But I’d still stack up this year’s slate of mature-audience films against any in Hollywood history. We are talking about many, many Oscar-worthy films.”

“They pass out those awards as easily as they do condoms—and
for much the same purpose,” Ada sniffed, peering down the table at him. “And you are… ?”

“That’s Spence, Mother,” Norma reminded her. “He’s with the New York office.”

Ada curled her lip with disdain. “Ah, yes, the New York office. Let me ask you this, Mr. New York Office. And do think hard before you answer: Have you ever performed one single spontaneous act in your entire life?”

Spence didn’t respond. It wasn’t a question that called for a response. He went back to his dinner, reddening.

Hannah took a quick, nervous gulp of her wine, clanking the glass against her teeth, and blurted out, “How did the actors take to it? Being directed by a woman, I mean. Was that hard for you?”

Ada sat back in her chair, dabbing at her mouth with her linen napkin. “Actors
want
to be directed. I had no trouble with my casts. Not even Bob Mitchum, who everyone told me would be difficult. He wasn’t. He was a pussy cat. He always wanted me to teach him how to fly a single-engine plane. I told him, ‘Bob, you stay out of two-seaters and I’ll stay out of whorehouses,’” she recalled fondly. “It was the crew that was my real challenge. They had to know I was in charge of that set, knew what I wanted, knew when I’d gotten it. Because if your crew thinks you’re at all unsure, you’ll never make it.”

“I think today’s women would be thrilled to hear how you did it,” Hannah plowed ahead. “What you had to go through, how you coped, how you came out on top…” She was deep into her movie pitch now, no question. “You should share some of this with women my age, Ada. You’re such an inspiration.”

“What I did fifty years ago doesn’t interest me at all,” Ada responded stiffly. “I don’t care to look back. Looking back is strictly for people who think their best days are behind them.”

“You don’t miss the old days?” Mitch asked her.

“Never even think about them,” she insisted, in spite of the glow that had come over her deeply lined face when she’d mentioned
Mitchum. “There’s so much that is new and fascinating to talk about. Why look back?”

“For any lessons that might be learned,” Carly said. “As historians, that’s what we are always trying to do.”

“Like with the blacklist,” Mitch said, sopping up the last of his gravy with a chunk of bread. “People are interested in how we let that whole, awful episode happen. And they should be. Because if we forget, it could very easily happen again.”

“It
has
happened again,” Ada said sharply, glaring at Aaron. “Because fear never goes away. Nor do the self-proclaimed patriots who fan that fear and twist it and profit from it.” She paused, wetting her thin, dry lips with a pale tongue. “Were they right about Luther and me? Of course they were. Not only were we active in socialist causes in the thirties, we were proud of it. I’m still proud. This country was falling apart. Capitalism was
failing.
Millions were out of work. Spain was falling. Hitler was on the rise. My God, we almost didn’t make it in this country. And if it hadn’t been for Franklin Roosevelt, we might not have. But we pulled together. We fought. And we prevailed.”

“And then Roosevelt gave half of Europe away to Stalin,” Aaron cracked. “Just a little parting gift from one comrade to another.”

“Franklin Roosevelt was a great president, Aaron,” Norma objected. “He saved this country, whether you wish to admit it or not.”

“He can’t admit it, Norma,” Ada said. “He and his so-called friends are too busy trying to dismantle the government that FDR worked so hard to build. Let me tell you something, Aaron. You people were wrong about the New Deal seventy years ago and you’re still wrong now. But you won’t let up, will you? Not until you’ve destroyed every single public agency that exists for the common good in this country.”

Des’s napkin slipped from her lap onto the floor. She bent down to retrieve it, briefly ducking her head under the tablecloth. Mitch could have sworn she’d done this on purpose. When she sat back up, napkin properly restored, he looked at her curiously. Her face betrayed nothing. She was a lovely, impassive sphinx.

“You’ve been out of this country for too long, Grandmother,” Aaron lectured her. “You’ve lost touch with average people. I am simply espousing mainstream American values.”

“What in the hell do
you
know about mainstream Americans, Aaron?” Ada demanded. “For your information, mainstream Americans will be living out of mainstream garbage cans after you and your band of greedy jackals have your way. Besides, I am
not
out of touch. To live overseas is to see us for the bullying, rampaging hypocrites we really are. We are positively awash in self-delusion. We steal peoples’ lands and tell ourselves we’re ‘liberating’ them. We lecture other countries about human rights even as we stage public, state-sanctioned executions of our own mentally handicapped. We preach equal opportunity, yet we’ve never, ever practiced it. Just ask anyone of color.” Ada glanced at Des. “No offense, dear.”