Lone star

men, positioned on the sofa, seemed frozen in a kind of saliva-drooling awe. Really, I mused, for God’s sake. She wore a satiny black cocktail dress, clinging, sequined, with a diamond necklace and on that wrist a diamond bracelet. Jack Warner’s bauble.

Behind her stood two paper-doll cutouts, an interchangeable young man and young woman, both in tweedy suits and horned-rimmed eyeglasses.

She spoke into the silence. “Where’s Jimmy?”

From the balcony Jimmy, unseen, cried, “Liz, you came to my party.”

Liz didn’t know where to look. “I told you I would.” A voice that was curiously Southern in texture, lilting, sweet.

Liz looked around and caught my eye. She nodded. But her look swept the room, and her eyes narrowed. “Jimmy, you lied to me.”

A pause. Jimmy’s drunken titter. “I lie to everyone. It’s my job.”

Liz fumed. “You said everyone from Giant would be here. George and Chill Wills… and…” She nodded over her shoulder. “I had them drive me here, knowing I’d be late for a house party an hour from here…” Her face closed up, furious, tears in her eyes. “Why do you do these things?” She drew her lips into a tight line.

At that moment one of the men on the sofa-one of the waiters from the Villa Capri-stood, dizzy with drink, emboldened, and sputtered, “Miss Taylor, I…” Suddenly, the room seemed to unloosen, relax. Mercy turned to me, Tansi took a step forward, Tommy and Polly walked away from each other. But it was all jerky, unsure movement, like a mechanical toy that wanted oil. It clearly alarmed Liz who, glaring one last time at the now-silent balcony, turned and fled the house, leaving a cloud of gardenia perfume that covered us like bedroom fantasy.

Silence. Then Tansi sputtered, “Well…”

Mercy whispered, “I love a woman who knows how to enter a room.”

I whispered back, “Anyone can enter a room, Mercy. The secret is knowing that when you leave that room, you take all the oxygen with you.”

No one moved. Jimmy clamored down and seemed surprised people were still there. “Was Liz actually here?” No one answered him.

I faced Mercy. “When can we leave?”

Tommy belched, made a drunken apology. He ricocheted his way to the bathroom, headed first in the wrong direction. So he’d never been there, I realized. On his way back, he carried a black-and-white photograph in a gold- gilt frame. Face flushed, hands shaking, he waved the photograph at Jimmy.

“What?” asked Jimmy.

“Why do you have this picture of you and Max Kohl on your wall?”

Jimmy squinted, pushed his glasses up his nose. “I dunno. At some bike race,” he mumbled. “Like we raced in that competition outside of Salinas.” It was a snapshot of Jimmy and Max, both on motorcycles, both staring into the camera with insolent, hardened glares, looking like twins in worn leather jackets. “It’s me on my bike. It ain’t nothing.” He shrugged.

Tommy shook. “I don’t see any pictures of high-school chums here, Jimmy.” Sarcastic, sloppy. “Just that creep who scares everybody that bumps into him.” Polly, holding his forearm, her nails into his sleeve, kept whispering, “Enough, for God’s sake. Do you know how you’re coming off?”

Quietly, almost to himself, Jimmy muttered, “Maybe because we never were high-school buddies.”

Then Jimmy left the party. He simply did a half-bow, almost regal, and walked out his front door and didn’t return. Tansi joined me and Mercy, so close I could smell her perfume.

“Mercy,” I said, “let’s leave.”

Tommy was confessional now, hiccoughing his way through forbidden tales. “Max Kohl,” he kept yelling, louder and louder. He spun tales of Jimmy’s dark, clandestine life, a life squandered in the shadows of Hollywood valleys and hills. Polly couldn’t shut him up, and I didn’t want him to. Something was being said here. Tommy faced me. “You know why Carisa died?” He paused, looking from me to Tansi to Mercy. “It wasn’t the money or even that baby. That baby could have been a dozen different guys’ baby. Jimmy never slept with her, you know. The real reason was that she was going to expose his filthy sex life. That’s why, I’m telling you.” He went on. “It was Josh and Carisa who plotted revenge. Jimmy threatened Carisa. He got scared. Don’t forget Fatty Arbuckle, for Christ’s sake. Scandal’s gonna kill him.”

I broke into the rambling speech. “So you’re saying Jimmy killed Carisa?”

Tommy, blurry eyed, “I ain’t saying nothing. About that. I’m saying that Jimmy shouldn’t have a picture of him and that…that…man Max on his wall. It’s not…”

He stopped. Tansi began to move, and she was furious. She stood in front of Tommy. “This is a crock and you know it. How dare you call Jimmy one of…one of those people.”

Tommy rolled his head back and forth. “I’m sorry to offend the head cheerleader of his fan club…”

He didn’t finish because Tansi had slapped him full in the face.

Weary, I stepped into the hotel lobby, after a mournful goodbye to Mercy whose parting words were, “Edna, you do know how to show a girl a good time.” I smiled wistfully. On the drive back no one said a word, with Tansi and Nell silent in the back seat, Tansi still shaking and a little embarrassed. Neither she nor Nell said goodbye, just rushed out of the car.

Jimmy was sitting in the lobby. “Edna,” he called to me. And I started. He’d never used just my first name before. Always Miss Edna. “I’ve been waiting.”

I smiled. “For me? You could have found me where you left me. At your home.”

“I had to get out of there. Everything got wrong there. I had things I wanted to share with you, but Tommy ruined everything.”

“It’s late.”

“Can I talk to you in your room?”

“Not tonight. I’m tired.”

“I…”

“Jimmy.” I was irritated. “You’ll just spend the time talking about yourself-your sad, hapless vision of your sad, hapless life.”

“That’s not fair,” he said, loudly.

“I don’t know what’s fair with you. Just what are the rules? They’re your rules in your universe. Meanwhile a young woman has been murdered…”

“And you think I don’t care, that I’m that selfish?”

“Yes.”

“I…” He stopped.

I sat down in a chair facing him and spoke quietly. “Tommy said some nasty things about you. About your life…your…” I stopped.

“I know, I know. I’ve heard it all before. Tommy gets drunk and always says the same old story. He thinks I’m supposed to be that hayseed kid on a tractor in Fairmount, the two of us ambling past the cemetery and stealing crab apples up the road. You know, I wasn’t his friend in Fairmount.”

“He’s your shadow.”

“And that’s driving me crazy. Everybody is driving me crazy.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Leave him behind. I have to.” He took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, then put them back on, pushing them up his nose. He looked around. “Yeah, I’ve done a lot of strange things. Hey, what can I say? It’s me. But Tommy makes up a lot of it. You know, I tried to get him bigger roles in Giant and Rebel. But he’s wooden, phony. He acts. It ain’t my fault. He resents me. And I know when he’s drunk it all comes out.”

I stood, turned to go. “Good night, Jimmy.”

“Wait.” He reached into his pocket. “I wanted to give you this book.”

I rolled my eyes. “Not James Whitcomb Riley, all that frost on the pumpkin and jingle, jingle bells and clippity clop, clop…”

He grinned. “No.” He handed me Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince. “My