“Look at the little unicorn,” Ruthie said. “Oh, Daddy, I want it, I want it.”
“It is cute, isn’t it, Henry?” my wife Min said to me, tapping the shop window. “See the little silver hooves.”
I nodded, but I didn’t like where this was heading. Min wasn’t helping. I, for one, knew that we shouldn’t pay too much attention to any one thing, so I shifted my gaze. Averting my eyes from my own reflection (the shining pate and weak chin), I saw another face to the right of my family’s and mine.
I stared at the surface of the glass. I knew who it was, but I couldn’t believe it. Her lips were in that famous downward turn, her eyes lowered and dreamy. She brought a delicate hand to her forehead and pushed a white-blond, perfect curl away from her cheek. Hers was the saddest face I’d ever seen. Then the reflection receded, and I came out of my reverie roaring. “It’s you! It’s you!” I yelled at her. I yelled to my family, “It’s her!”
My family froze momentarily. Pulling themselves out of the glass and into the live scene was too much for them; you could almost hear their circuits sizzling. But they’re quick, my family. Within seconds, a shriek formed in each of their throats. Moments after that, we were upon her. She staggered a bit in her heels and backed herself into a corner. Ruthie and Paulie grasped her fur coat and held on tightly with their sturdy fists. Min was trying to straighten the little white hat on her blonde head, and I searched my pockets for a piece of paper.
“We don’t have a camera,” Min said, turning toward the crowd streaming past us on the sidewalk. She looked like she was on the verge of calling out for help, so I grabbed my wife’s arm. We didn’t want a mob scene. Min got hold of herself then, positioning her impressive hips in order to shield us from further notice. “You’re our favorite person,” Min said to her. “Our absolute favorite.”
The movie star looked like a movie star the whole time, even with our progeny’s hands on her coat and Min’s face in hers. She was a goddess of the silver screen made real on the street, in the bright light of midday Manhattan. Her lips were painted. Her brows plucked, then lined. Blush on her cheeks. You could see everything, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t take anything away.
“Sweet Jesus,” she said. “If you’ll just let me breathe.” Her breath was coming in shallow gasps, I had to admit. I could see drops forming on her forehead and upper lip. Even that looked pretty, so I didn’t think about how she was breaking into a cold sweat.
“We’re the Potters,” I said. “Your biggest fans.”
But the movie star was slipping out of the children’s grasp. She slid into a heap on the pavement, her long legs sticking out of the mound of white fur. That looked pretty, too.
“I don’t think she’s feeling very well,” Min said.
“Is she going to spew?” Paulie asked.
“She doesn’t spew,” Ruthie said and burst into tears for no good reason.
“Henry?” Min said.
I didn’t know what to do. I squatted beside the movie star. It didn’t seem right to slap the star of over a dozen major releases across the face. I stood up and looked around, wondering if someone would think we’d knocked her down. I took a few steps away.
“We can’t just leave her,” Min said. “Henry, do something.”
Min said that as if I was just waiting for her to issue the order to enact my Secret Plan. But there was no secret plan.
Still, I lifted the movie star upright. Her neck smelled like violets and roses. I scooped up her legs and held her, my left arm under her knees, her platinum waves and white hat nestled against my shoulder. She felt light as air. No wonder her leading men were always carrying her off. It wasn’t hard to do at all. Min wouldn’t pick up so easily. Still, Min has her good points. She was making her presence known in the world at that very moment, standing in the street and shouting down a cab.
I climbed in the back seat of the taxi, a four-seater, the movie star in my lap, and my family clambered in around me. I said to the cabby, “Just start driving.” I’d always wanted to say that. He nodded and pulled heedlessly out into traffic. It was great.
Crammed together, all of us gazed at the movie star’s unconscious body. She half lay between Min and me, the fur parting to reveal a white dress with silver trimming. I held her wrist in my hand to check her pulse. She had one at least. I twirled her silver bracelet around her wrist. I smoothed out her hand and looked at her nails: a silvery pink. Then I pretended she was holding hands with me.
Min narrowed her eyes. “Stop playing with her.”
I put the movie star’s hand back down. “What are we doing?” I asked Min.
“I don’t know.” Min sounded annoyed, like she thought I thought that she should have a secret plan.
I considered asking the cab driver if he knew where the movie star lived, but I could just see him twisting his neck to take a look at her and getting us all into an accident. “You could check her purse,” I whispered to Min.
“Well, I suppose I’ll have to.” Min frowned to show that she hated to involve herself in business of this sort. Ruthie and Paulie started giggling for no good reason. Min sifted through the beaded bag for a few seconds, then snapped it closed. “Nothing,” she said.
“Nothing?” I put out my hand for the purse.
Min held it away from me. “Nothing helpful. Lipstick, a compact, some money.”
“Oh,” I said. I still wanted to see. Twist open the movie star’s lipstick. Touch the powder she put on her cheek. But I didn’t think Min would let me.
“What are we going to do with her?” Paulie asked under his breath.
I frowned at him. “We’re not going to do anything with her, young man.” I didn’t like his tone at all. It wasn’t as if we were going to have our way with her, then dump her body in the East River.
“I guess we better take her home with us.” Min sighed as though she’d agreed to bake four more batches of clown cupcakes for a rummage sale.
“Let’s do it,” Paulie agreed. “Let’s take her home.”
“She’s so pretty,” Ruthie said, bursting into tears again as she reached past Min to pet the movie star’s fur.
“She’s not a puppy,” I said.
“Can you take us into Jersey?” Min was asking the cabby, who shrugged in what Min seemed to regard as a can-do kind of way.
“That’s going to be awfully expensive,” I said to Min.
“Have you got it?” she asked.
I didn’t think that our cab driver should be hearing this. I gave Min a quiet-down look and slipped out my wallet. “I don’t think so,” I whispered. She shot me a look about paternal responsibility, but all we had planned was window-shopping and hot dogs in the park, not ferrying home unconscious movie stars.
Min picked up the movie star’s purse again. “Well, she does,” Min said.
Paulie and Ruthie began giggling again.
“Kids, stop it,” I said. I was feeling uneasy about the money. It could look as if we were taking advantage of the situation. “Shouldn’t she be waking up?” I said to Min.
Min put her hand on the movie star’s forehead, then to her neck, in her best maternal manner. “She’s resting. She’s overwrought. It’s best that she come home with us.”
We paid off our cab driver with the movie star’s money. I told him that my sister-in-law couldn’t hold her liquor. I tried to tell him more: how she went with men who were no good for her, that we wanted her to stay home with the people who truly loved her. But he shrugged me off, stuffed the money in his cash-box, and sped away.
We lay the movie star on the daybed in the den and opened the curtains on the sliders to let the afternoon light fall across her face. She looked like a porcelain doll, as if she should be laid out on satin, not on our old spread with the orange and green daisies. I half expected the movie star to open her eyes and speak a line from one of her films. Oh, Edgar, now that I have found you at last . . .
“Oomph,” the movie star said. “I must have blacked out.” She looked up at the four of us and blinked her dark, wet eyes.
“Not at all,” I said, although that didn’t make sense. Blacking out was exactly what she had done. I patted my pockets again, for no good reason. It was becoming a nervous gesture with me.
“Are you hungry?” Min asked. “We’ve got some cold roast beef.”
“Mommy!” Ruthie cried. She put her fists to her pink cheeks.
“I’m sure she needs to eat,” Min said to Ruthie, who stood there goggle-eyed. You could see that Ruthie’s reaction had gotten to Min though, that she was wondering if offering cold roast beef to the movie star was the right thing to do. But she went on gamely. “A little potato salad. We’ve got horseradish. Rye bread.”
The movie star stretched her swan-like neck, tilting her head to one side.
“Pickles,” Min said, rubbing her hands down her thighs.
“That would be lovely,” the movie star said. She gave Min a weak smile. “You’re a darling.”
Min laughed her hostess laugh. I shot her a look, but she didn’t glance in my direction.
“Hello, little boy,” the movie star said to Paulie, who stood close to her with a determined look on his face.
“Do you want to see my room?” he asked.
I pushed him aside. “We saw you faint,” I told her. “We didn’t know what to do so we brought you here.” I watched to see how plausible this sounded.
“Here?” the movie star asked breathily.
“New Jersey,” I said. “Westfield.”
The movie star lay back and sighed. “And you said roast beef?” she said to Min.
Min blushed to her roots and got her butt moving. By God, she was going to make the movie star something to eat.
The movie star ate beautifully. She’d cut up a piece of roast beef and stick it in her mouth, then chew for a while before she swallowed. When she polished off the meat, she patted a paper napkin to her lips and dropped it on the plate. “I am so weary,” she said, laying her blond curls on one of Min’s macramé pillows.
Ruthie ran over and stroked her hair, weeping.
Paulie crept forward and tried to clip the napkin with her faint mouth print, but I kicked him in the shin and he moved off.
“You’re welcome to stay,” Min said. “Isn’t she, Henry?” Min turned to me with an expression on her face. But how was I to keep the movie star there? We couldn’t chain her to the bed-frame.
“If I could only rest a little while,” the movie star said.
We would have clasped hands and danced in a circle if we weren’t afraid of disturbing her. Instead Min covered the movie star up with a caftan and closed her in the den. We tiptoed away. Min quietly served us the rest of the roast beef in the kitchen, and I sat there thinking, Here I am eating the same roast beef the movie star ate.
We put the children to bed at 8:00, way before they’re usually off to dreamland, and they let us kiss them without complaining.
“Good night, Mommy.”
“Good night, Daddy.”
“Good night, children.”
It was like we were on TV. Here I am, taking off my pants, now I’m brushing my teeth, I’m sliding between the sheets. It all felt extra-real.
The movie star slept until noon. When she got up, she still looked great, though a little dazed. Her white dress was wrinkled in the back, and she seemed to regard Min from within a haze.
Before long, Min was running a bath and marching back and forth with towels, barely able to contain herself. I knew what all the excitement was about. She wanted to see the movie star naked. Not that Min’s that way. This was just her big opportunity.
“Thank you,” the movie star said as she took the towels from my wife. “You are too kind.”
“I can help,” Min said, looking as if she might burst into tears.
Ruthie had started crying the minute she heard that the movie star was going to bathe.
“A little chicken would be nice,” the movie star said. “If you don’t mind.”
I ran my tongue over my lips. She could make even Min’s chicken sound good.
Then the movie star closed herself in the bathroom.
Min stood on the other side of the door, and I made my way over to her. I tried to think of something that I could be looking for. Not anything in the bathroom. That would have been too obvious. My . . . wallet? Keys? I couldn’t think straight when I heard the movie star unsnapping and unzipping, then the soft plunk of her body entering the water. All four of us, even a sniffling Ruthie, gathered at the bathroom door. We heard the water slosh from time to time, and we could hear her sad sigh. Finally, I said, “I think she’s all right now.” I cleared my throat in a fatherly sort of way. “Paulie, Ruthie, go to your rooms. Min, I want to talk to you privately.”
When Min and I made it to the bedroom, we went at it like monkeys.
So it went.
Eventually, word got out the movie star was staying with us. It was probably Min who leaked. She had such juicy news: how the movie star liked her roast beef, how she took long baths in the afternoon and needed a new shaver every day.
And who knows how many people the kids told?
I only mentioned it to Tom Laughton next door when we were having a few beers in his backyard.
“Boy, you really can’t hold it, can you?” Tom said.
“It’s true,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.
“Well, why don’t you invite her over for a long cool one?”
“She’s sleeping,” I said. I knew she was. The movie star slept a lot. She mostly got up for food and baths, a smoke in the backyard.
Tom laughed, but he looked annoyed, like who did I think I was to try and pull something like that over on him. “Potter, you are full of it,” he said, popping open another beer.
I sat there and drained the rest of mine. “You can come look at her,” I said.
It was worth saying that just to see the expression on Tom’s face. He looked like he wanted to punch me in the mouth.
“Lead on, big shot,” Tom said.
Min had gone shopping and taken the kids with her, so I had a clear course. I let Tom in, shushing him all the way to the den. He peered at the woman on the daybed skeptically, so I pulled aside the curtain for him to get a better look. The light fell on her face just right. You could almost hear the music rising.
“No shit,” Tom said.
I felt so good that I wanted to punch him in the head, but when you feel that good you don’t have to. Unfortunately, it wasn’t easy to get him out of there. He couldn’t get over it. Maybe being half-crocked didn’t help. “Tom.” I tugged at his shirt. “Tom.”
“It’s her.”
“That’s right.”
“It’s her.”
We seemed to have gotten into something circular at that point. Before I could bring him to his senses, I heard the jangle of the front door opening. Just as I was yanking Tom out of the den, in walked Min and the kids. She almost dropped her bag of groceries.
“What were the two of you doing in there?” she asked us.
“I was just showing her,” I said.
Ruthie started crying.
“Is she wearing anything?” Paulie asked. He tried to get past me, but I held onto his determined little body.
After that, we had a steady flow of gawkers. Kids from the school, Min’s cronies, other neighbors. I think Paulie might have been charging something. We usually showed her off when she was sleeping, so it didn’t really cost her anything, and we kept a close eye on the children so they wouldn’t get their paw prints on her.
A few times she was awake when visitors rang: sitting on the couch, wrapped in a quilt, drinking tea, or having a glass of vodka in the backyard. There was a great deal to recommend this state over the sleeping one. She stretched her swan neck and smoked. Sometimes she smiled. She murmured short answers to visitors’ questions. “Perhaps.” “Resting.” “Maybe.” “Lovely.”
Before long, the stream of guests trickled to a stop. They’d seen her. They’d snapped her picture even though I continually protested, “No pictures, no pictures,” something else I’d always wanted to say. Then the movie star dragged around the house in the yellow dressing gown Min had bought for her. She set her hair. She shaved her legs. She had Min buy her bags of lotions with which she engaged in the bathroom for hours on end.
The movie star didn’t have much to say. “Oh, Henry, that would be lovely,” or “Oh, Henry, I am so weary.” That was about it. Her response to questions about her film career: “Ah, the industry.” When pressed on anything, she shrugged her slender shoulders and asked for something more to eat.
We moved the TV into the living room, so we could at least be entertained in the evening. The movie star would languish in her den for a bit before joining the family, her dressing gown gracefully trailing behind her. We’d move over to let her sit on the couch and hand over the bowl of popcorn, which she’d take without saying anything.
When I’d come home from work, she’d turn her porcelain profile to the light, then shoot me a dead-center look, eyes smoldering. I’d pop open a beer and raise it to her as a salute. She’d pout her lips, put her hands on her narrow hips and swing back and forth through the room. She’d throw me an over-the-shoulder look. “Oh, Henry,” she’d purr, casting her eyes down and biting her lower lip.
But, to tell you the truth, it wasn’t doing that much for me anymore. I could tell Min felt the same way. Waiting on the movie star hand and foot had gotten to her. “Goddamn cigarettes,” I heard her say when she was emptying ashtrays.
I knew what I had to do. The next Friday, when I got home from work, I sat the movie star down and told her straight out, “Look, it’s been great having you here, but we need some time alone together . . . as a family.”
She looked at me with her dark eyes. “As a family?” Her lips twisted into a smile, eyebrows raised, eyes blank with amazement. Frankly, I was a little worried. The movie star seemed a few cylinders short of clicking at that point.
“Yes,” I said carefully. “Just the Potters.”
“The Potters,” she said and barked out a laugh. I hadn’t heard her laugh before. I don’t think even in the movies. At least, not like this. “The Potters!” she screamed. Then the movie star was belly-laughing, holding onto her abdomen. I wondered if it was good for her to be laughing like that. I wondered if I should do something. But what? I never could bring myself to slap her. Instead, I patted my pockets to see if I had anything I could offer, a Life Savers or a handkerchief. I didn’t come up with anything. I considered whether or not I could pat her on the knee. I mean, I’ve heard her in the bath. I’ve watched her sleeping. I’ve watched other men watch her sleeping.
“You could go back to New York,” I said. That was all I could think to say.
The movie star pulled herself together enough to whisper, “Yes, of course, Henry.” She laughed a little more, then leaned back, wiping the tears from her pale cheeks. “Oh, my,” she said, patting my hand as though she thought I was nuts.
At six o’clock, when the kids were still playing in the street, and the grown-ups were home making dinner, a white limo pulled up in front of our house. Some of the neighbors poked their noses out, dishtowels or drinks in their hands. The neighborhood boys dropped their bats and circled the car.
“Min,” I said. “She’s leaving.” Min got her hands out of the meatloaf in a hurry. I called Paulie and Ruthie in from the backyard. “Kids, she’s going. Come and say goodbye.”
“Five more minutes,” Paulie said.
“Now, young man,” I said. “You too, Missy,” I told Ruthie.
Paulie spiked his football one last time. He was trying to break his own record for ant-killing. Ruthie dropped her dolls in the dirt.
The four of us sat on the couch and waited for the movie star to emerge from the bathroom. Finally, she appeared, wearing her white dress, the fur tossed over one arm. The silver bracelet twinkled at her wrist. White-blond curls framed her face. For a moment, she stayed like that, backlit, drop-dead gorgeous.
Ruthie started crying again after what had been a long dry spell.
Even Min looked a little weepy. “Do you have to go right now?” she asked, twisting a scorched hot-pad in her hands.
Paulie wrenched himself up from the couch. “Come to my room, come to my room,” he moaned, clutching his gut as though he were in pain.
The movie star smiled. Her dark eyes, wells of ecstasy. The scent of her neck. The silk stockings. White-blond curls. The downward smile.
“My God, you’re lovely,” I said to her. “You’re—”
“Thank you so much for everything,” the movie star said, cutting us all off at the knees. She swept out of the house and into the long white car.
“The camera,” Min said to me huskily. She clutched my arm. “Henry,” she said. “Henry.” But it was too late. The limo was pulling away from the curb.
“We love you!” Ruthie screamed. “We love you!”
The neighborhood children took up the cry, running after the car. “We love you! We love you!”
The whole street rang with the sound.