Make Believe

Tony grinned. “You’d make a good insult comedienne.”

“I’m more at home being an…insult tragedienne.”

“What?” From Larry, annoyed.

Tony laughed. “Miss Ferber, you and I, on the road. The new Burns and Allen.”

“Tony. Tiny. Whoever. I don’t think the world is ready for our little vaudeville routine.”

“I should have met you years ago, Miss Ferber.”

“Then we wouldn’t be having this friendly conversation now.”

He looked perplexed, but Ethan burst out laughing.

“Give up, Tony.” He punched his brother on the sleeve.

Tony sat back, looking content, although he had to suppress a new round of hiccoughs. He didn’t take his eyes off me, I noticed-that little-boy stare somehow questioning what was happening here. The family pet, long shunned or ordered about, no longer sure when it was okay to wag a happy tail.

Ethan, uncharacteristically effusive, probably because he’d favorably concluded a business deal, signaled for more coffee. The same waiter had served me on the other side of the hibiscus planter and now looked confused, though he nodded when I requested that the skimmed milk for my coffee be whipped first with an eggbeater. “Of course.” As I spoke to the young man, Ethan quietly tucked the signed papers into a briefcase and placed it beside his chair, out of sight.

“Are you enjoying Hollywood, Miss Ferber?” Larry asked. A rude and tasteless question, coming from someone who knew I was grieving for Max…indeed, his old friend.

“As much as I expected to.” I breathed in. “You’re aware, Mr. Calhoun, that Max is dead?”

He started, his face reddened, and he reached for a glass of water. Nervous, unable to sit still, twisting a napkin, rocking back and forth, he refused to look at me. Suddenly, while Ethan was in the middle of some blather about the news accounts of Max’s death and, to my horror, his astonishment that Hedda Hopper was skewering me in her columns at such a painful time, Larry jumped up, sputtered something about obligations, and nodding toward me, spun around and left us.

“Was it something I said?” I smiled at the brothers.

“A squirrelly guy, that Larry,” Ethan mumbled. “Never liked him.” He glanced at Tony. “And now I don’t have to deal with him in business anymore.” A thin smile as he tapped the briefcase at his side.

“How is Lorena?” I addressed Ethan. “I’ve been meaning to call her. I really like her…”

He broke in. “I like her, too. We like each other.”

“And yet you divorced.”

He grinned foolishly. “Timing, Miss Ferber. I married Lorena at the wrong time. I was a different person then. Driven, ambitious, gonna set the world on fire. Scriptwriter to the stars. My name up in bright lights. Fame-the empty drug.” For some reason he pointed to the ceiling where, I assumed, stuffed monkeys nested. “The cruel reality stunned, frankly. And I lost myself in booze and depression.” He glanced at Tony.

“So what happened?”

He looked sheepish. “I got mean with Lorena, a woman who doesn’t tolerant meanness. Nor, I discovered, do I. I didn’t like myself.” He looked at Tony. “I come from a family of drinkers. It took every ounce of resolve to…to stop. When Lenny died, I woke up to the emptiness of the life I was leading. But by that time Lorena had unceremoniously waved goodbye. My knowledge came too late. Wisdom sometimes takes a later train.”

“But at least you were ready for its arrival.” I sipped my coffee slowly.

“Indeed. But, as I say, Lorena was gone from my life.”

“Yet you’ve salvaged a friendship.”

“Indeed, we have.”

“I don’t like it,” Tony blurted out. “You can’t be friends with your ex-wife.”

Ethan snapped, “It’s none of your business, Tony.”

“She’s too opinionated,” Tony said. “I don’t like women telling me what to do. Liz gets that way, you know.”

Ethan grinned. “Only on nights you get drunk.”

I had something to say. “When women speak their minds, they are viewed as town gossips. When men blather about their digestive surprises, they consider themselves newly-arrived from the oracle at Delphi.”

“Jesus! What?” From Tony.

“It’s curious how Frank keeps his old cronies close by,” I said slowly.

The remark puzzled Ethan. “Meaning?”

“Loyalty to the past even though I’ve heard him say the past is dead.”

Ethan frowned. “Frankie is afraid of the future.”

“Come on, Ethan,” Tony pleaded. “Leave Frankie out of this. He’s…our best friend.”

“What do you mean, Ethan?”

He sat back, breathed in. “Something went off kilter with Frankie’s career, so he’s stopped thinking about others-like Tony’s career. About our lives. Things have stalled. The wartime bobby-soxers are buying Guy Mitchell records. He used to sell ten million records a year. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Now Columbia is gonna drop him. Do you know why? He sabotaged his career when he hooked up with Ava.”

“I always blamed Max,” Tony offered. “He introduced them.”

Ethan raised his eyebrows. “Nonsense. That’s just not true. Max had nothing to do with Frankie. For God’s sake, Tony. The man is dead.”

“I don’t care.”

“Yeah, sure. That small-time agent nobody heard of until he became a pinko poster boy. I don’t know where you…”

“You don’t like Ava?” I broke in.

Ethan shrugged. “She’s all right. A fighter.”

“I used to think she liked me,” Tony said. “I made her laugh. But she’s too much a hellcat. A crooner’s supposed to have a girl, you know, like…”

“Like his wife Nancy,” Ethan went on.

“Ah, the fireside Madonna,” I said.

“You know, Frankie is a womanizer, plain and simple. But he’s not a man to divorce the mother of his three kids. Think about it. His Nancy is a beautiful woman herself, a hometown bride, good Italian Catholic girl, homemade tomato sauce you can weep over-well, you got a girl on the side, that’s okay. Next week you go back to Nancy. Another girl, some nightclub tramp. Always back to Nancy, who sits there piling up pasta in front of you. You eat so much you can’t leave the house. That’s marriage in Hoboken.” Ethan laughed now, a long rumbling chuckle. “Ava comes along and changes the rules. She says…you have to divorce her.”

“The nuns in New Jersey are praying for Nancy.” Tony was dropping sugar cubes into his cup of coffee and stirring with his finger.

“It’s true,” Ethan added. “Catholics don’t divorce.”

Tony stammered loudly, “Ava made him go crazy. That’s the problem. With her looks and that temper, she…” He trailed off.

“You know,” I concluded, “Frank is a big boy. And from what I’ve seen of him these past few days, he likes to call the shots. He does just what he wants to do.”

Tony sipped his coffee but sloshed some on the table. Ethan frowned and blotted the spill with his napkin. “Be careful, Tony.”

Tony ignored him. “He got a weakness, Miss Ferber. Beautiful women. I mean, when he came to Hollywood he made a list of the gorgeous actresses in town and taped it to his dressing room mirror. Lana Turner. Marlene Dietrich. And he’s checked them off, one by one…”

Ethan slammed his hand into Tony’s shoulder. “Don’t tell Miss Ferber that. She’ll think little of him.”

“I couldn’t think less of him than I already do.”

Ethan eyed me suspiciously. “We’re loyal to Frankie. No matter his…his weaknesses. He’s only human. Frankie and Lenny were blood brothers. A bond to the grave.”

“Is his career really over?”

Tony started to sputter, but Ethan got reflective. “Let me tell you a story, Miss Ferber.” A hint of sarcasm