framing her neck. Then she slipped on a white waist shirt, slowly buttoning it to bring the pirate flounces into form. She stepped into her black peau de soie skirt, the plain tailored silk falling naturally against her form. She didn’t bother to look in the mirror. She was dressed to go to her own funeral. She pushed her hair up, bringing life to her pillow-flattened mane.
“My lord, you look sensational.” Max looked relieved upon arrival, as if he had expected to find her buried deep in her bed, black rings circling her eyes, and a weak and frail voice fully dehydrated of spirit. “Let’s find your boots, and I will help you lace them up,” he offered hopefully.
She decided not to fight. Not to toy or tease.
“Sit down beside me,” she said, patting the bed. “Please, before we go.”
He looked at her with his head cocked. His suspicion was getting the better of him.
“You should always trust me.”
Max dug his hands into his pockets, they bulged and crawled as he scratched his thighs. He nodded. Bit his lip. Looked ridiculously young, as though the situation had drawn him back into the awkwardness of a closeted sixteen-year-old boy, tiptoeing across each day, waiting for the wrath of his father’s disappointment, and the violent form it was likely to take. It was ironic that she had become a father figure to him. Wasn’t that one of the things that these puritans hated her for—how she had sometimes played the opposite gender on the stage? (And it often was Hamlet for God’s sake, not some depraved hermaphroditic child molester.) Her naysayers should take hold of this one—acting as a father to a queer man. That would almost certainly give them license to kill.
After shuffling his feet and kicking at the floor, Max finally sat down. His weight barely dented the bed.
Sarah took his hand. “I just want you to know that I love you. You will always be my Molly. In the words of Marguerite:
Max squeezed her hand. It was sweaty. He didn’t say anything. She knew he was terrified that his words would only come out sounding maudlin.
“Things have to be different is all.” It was only when the words left her mouth and vanished into the room that she truly understood the impossibility of the statement.
Max bit down on his bottom lip. “You should just come to the rehearsal. Once you’re there…” He was starting to lecture. He stopped himself. “You should just come.”
And she thought to say something about the old days. About how they would never have moved another inch without a blast of cocaine or a smoke of opium. And the feeling was nostalgic without the brilliance of sentimentality, a statement only designed for sharing a laugh or common connection. But Max, in his vigilant patrol state, would take that as a sign of weakness. Being lured by a temptress. And he would say it as such, leaving her to feel mortally stupid and pathetically old. Instead she just nodded, and said, “I know. I am planning to come to the theater.”
“It is only a few minutes from now.”
She flamboyantly threw her arms around his neck, roping him in closer to her until she held his cheek an inch from her mouth. She smacked her lips in a kiss that deliberately fell short. “Molly, I know that you care for me. Enough so that I can forgive you treating a sixty-one-year-old woman as though she is a wide-eyed girl. But leaving the theater is something that I am going to do.” She then leaned in the extra inch, feeling her spine extend, and touched her lips to his properly smoothed cheek. “Let’s go,” she whispered. “I plan to tell the company myself.”
“I’m only looking out—”
“Love me and you’ll trust me.” She kissed his cheek again, and then released him from her hold.
He turned his back slightly. Not out of shame or irritation, but more in the manner of one who finds himself helplessly helpless. When the power is tripped, and the words that would usually come to mind just seem to form sounds that predate language. His toe ground into the floor, smothering out the last ember of righteousness, and she knew that if he did turn his head around, that she would see his eyes filled by tears. He never liked to disappoint. Even the slightest suggestion sent him back into his shame. Bishop Conaty ought to get hold of him.
SARAH ASKED TO WALK the long route. She wanted some fresh air. Stretch her legs. Feel the freedom of the setting sun. She wanted to clear her head. Stroll by the canals. Ingest the ocean salts. They walked until they came to the edge of Venice Canal, where they stopped and looked across at Abbot Kinney’s estate. For a moment it was almost tranquil. As though they could have been the sole occupants of this magnificent planet. They might have resigned themselves to an infinite monastic silence if she had not spoken in a sudden voice: “It is okay. You may stare if you like.”
Max asked what she said.
“Him.” She pointed over to the thin shadow from an adolescent tree.
He was a young man, perhaps still a boy. Nothing remarkable in stature. He looked afraid. He pulled at his fingers. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to stare.” He held a notebook and a pen, trembling in the presence of the woman he had waited for, just for an autograph.
“Is it that you have never been in the presence of a star, or that you have never been in the presence of a French woman?” she said to the boy, ignoring Max elbowing her side.
The boy kicked his feet a little. He ran his hands along his chin, one that would not be bristled by a sloppy shave for a few more years to come. “I’m not sure I know how to answer that.”
“Pardon?” She leaned forward. “You will have to speak louder.”
“I said, I’m not quite sure how to answer that.”
“Well, how about either, or.”
Max tried to intercede by stepping forward to reach for the boy’s book and pen. He tried to place his body between the two of them, hoping to ward her off. Perfectly timed she blocked Max, maintaining her place at the center stage marker.
“Look at him twisted into a knot,” she said to Max. “His free hands are feeling up his arms each time I make eye contact with him. Like a misfit who wandered onto the stage and just noticed the audience through the footlights.”
“I only request…,” he sputtered.
“Is it the mystique of the French woman that is throwing you? You no doubt have heard all the legends of the passion and seduction. And the way they can toy with a man. Or maybe it’s our sophistication. That is always a threat to an American. But it makes you nervous. Right? Nervous. A woman who is your mother’s age awakening you. Is that right, Monsieur Oedipus? You are afraid of the legend of the French seductress?”
The unfortunate boy could not look away from her. “I just wanted an autograph was all.”
“A signature? Or is it the thought swirling through your head that you might be able to have this actress if you don’t make any mistakes. This actress who is your mother’s age—although you can’t say that you really think that I look it. Nor would you admit to yourself, either.” She pushed herself upright and shook her hair out. Smiled. Pleased with this scene. She then ripped the book from the boy’s hand and stretched her name along the length of the page. “My name,” she said to him. “And a story to go with it.”
She turned around and took Max by the arm, pulling him to walk away. “Pardon me for not issuing a formal good-bye,” she said, turning around. “But I am due at the theater any moment to bid a heartbreaking farewell to ones who love me even more than you.”
The boy scampered off quickly, running as if guard dogs nipped at his heels, yet staring at the page the whole way.
Max just shook his head and said, “Sarah, you really shouldn’t have.”
“I know, Molly. I just wanted to be Sarah Bernhardt one last time.”
They paused for a few minutes, staring over at Coral Canal. They didn’t talk. Eventually they turned to make the processional march to the theater.
“I swear I smell steak searing,” Sarah spoke. “I must be hungry.”
“Maybe the little cafe at the end of Rose Street.”
“Listen to you reciting the street names like a local.”
“After the last few days I’m starting to feel like I was born here. And that I will die here.”
