The Actor and the Housewife (4 page)

“He’s almost got her. He’s so close! He’s—nope, missed by a hair. Down goes the cat, down follows Nubbin, up goes the cat, and we start over. Nubbin’s on hind legs, yapping up a spleen. And Edgar Poe . . . oh, she is so coy. She’s curling up and appears to be . . . yes, folks, she’s taking a snooze.”

“Let me understand—the dog is barking at a hundred decibels approximately four inches from her face, and the cat is faking slumber?”

“Eyes closed, head down. And she’s rolling . . . she’s rolled onto her back, paws limp in the air.”

“Exquisite.”

Then Annette piped up. “Wow, that’s a crack-up, huh? What a silly cat, huh?”

Becky felt that familiar tight sensation rushing from her belly, up into her throat. She tried to clamp down on it, but that only increased its power. She squeaked, and out it came. But here was the curiosity: Felix laughed with her, as if they were old pals on the same side of a joke. It gave her a strange, fluttery feeling in her middle—a kind of happiness, and a kind of alarm. She quickly dismissed it as the delightful rarity of laughing with a famous person.

As soon as the conversation ended, Becky ran inside and found Mike, who’d been peering into the oven at Becky’s chicken enchiladas.

“That was him again—hey, shut that door; you’ll let all the heat out. That was Felix Callahan. I was talking to Annette about the contract and he was in the office, and we spoke. Isn’t that weird? That I would speak to him again in my life? I think it’s so weird.”

“That is weird,” Mike said, though his attention was mostly taken up by the enchiladas. They did smother everything with their tauntingly delicious aroma.

She rolled the strangeness over in her thoughts from time to time, wondering if it all meant something. There was a queer beating in her heart when she thought of that man, and she felt something like pregnancy food cravings when she considered she’d never speak with him again. Which she fully expected. So when he showed up a few weeks later, it was strange and wonderful but disturbing too. And also quite interesting. Enough adjectives. You’ll see.

In which Becky tries on the Professional
Screenwriter
mantle and does okay until an
unexpected incident

“Sure, but . . . it was a fluke and I don’t know anything about . . . oh okay, fine. I’ll do it.”

And so Becky presented at the third-annual Greater Salt Lake Filmmaking Conference. It was a favor to Melissa, who was helping to organize the conference, and Becky planned on appearing as the poseur and not enjoying it at all.

Melissa was waiting for her at the downtown library. Her skirt was self-shredded, her boots combat, and her ash-blonde hair streaked purple. Becky felt a stitch of jealousy—Melissa looked cool with torn clothing and wild hair, while Becky would have resembled a Care Bear beaten and left for dead. Melissa’s mother had abandoned her at age ten, her father resembled a block of slowly melting cheese more than a human being, and her brother was a passive-aggressive predator. It was fifteen years late, but Becky couldn’t begrudge her friend a good old-fashioned teenage rebellion.

“There you are,” Melissa said in tones meant to be urgent and angry but sounding more like an excited Elmo. She had one of those babyish voices with a high pitch and a narrow tone. Becky adored it, especially when her language turned blue. Of course Becky couldn’t approve of vulgarity in general, but when Melissa got to swearing, Becky just wanted to pinch her cheeks. Sometimes she wondered if Melissa’s voice was actually the driving source of her rebellion. What if you had a soul forged in fire but a voice cut from felt and feathers?

“Hurry up. There are people waiting for you,” Melissa said, taking her arm.

“Really?”

And sure enough, when Melissa dropped Becky at her assigned conference room, eight people sat patiently on folding chairs. Eight people interested in writing screenplays and eager for some hints and encouragement and hope. Eight people who thought Becky was a superstar for having done it. So she sat in the chair in front, patted her pregnant belly, and let herself feel awfully pleased as she told her story.

First she had to admit that she didn’t deserve to be successful. “I sold the very first script that I wrote—I gather that’s not the way it works. I’ve been making up stories all my life, but I’d never written them down.”

She talked about format, writing both for and against formula, and her own unlikely contact with the producer, warning them that becoming extras on a movie set wasn’t likely to pan out twice.

“But be prepared when any opportunity strikes,” she advised.

Then she described the trip to Los Angeles. She drizzled on the details, emphasizing the quirky bits, playing for laughs. A few more people straggled in, filling out the audience, and Becky was feeling jubilantly popular. She got to the part in Annette’s office, how pregnant she felt (“It’s one thing to be an expectant mother in Utah, but being pregnant in Los Angeles felt like a lazy and irresponsible thing to do”), the constant clicking of Annette’s bracelets, and . . . she faltered, hesitating to mention Felix Callahan. Why? That would be the climax to the story. It was something to brag about, wasn’t it? Why did she want to keep it to herself, as if it were some precious secret? That was just plain silly. It wasn’t a secret or precious. The encounter was good for nothing but retelling. So she brushed aside her doubt.

“I was about to sign that tome of a contract just to stop the clickety-click of gypsy jewelry when someone walked in that I never expected, never hoped to meet, looking as if he’d just peeled off the front cover of
People
magazine. You cannot guess. You won’t even believe me when I tell you.” She paused. “Felix Callahan.”

A woman in the front row gasped, both hands on her chest as if preparing to give herself CPR. She was in her midforties and wore a large purple hat that might have been in style if seventies retro was in. Was it already? Becky made a mental note to ask Melissa later.

“You. Are. Joking.” The woman in the hat spoke in overcome staccato.

“He waltzed right in, as if my airfare, hotel, and celebrity sighting were all a package deal.”

Becky stopped. It turned out she could laugh about it with Mike but fl inched at flapping the story around in public. (Okay, maybe it was a tiny bit precious.) So she quickly wrapped up and asked for questions.

“Do you use adverbs to describe how your dialogue should be spoken?”

“Will you give my screenplay to your producer?”

“How do you format a screenplay?”

“Did you get that blouse at Motherhood Maternity?”

“What things should be in a contract?”

“Can you help me sell my screenplay?”

“Do you think there’s a market for another robots-take-over-the-future movie? Mine kicks butt.”

She thought it was a good sign that there were so many questions, that maybe she’d been interesting enough, and she answered them spryly, until the last one tipped her over.

“So, what was Felix Callahan like?”

The question came from a man in the last row, one of those who had straggled in halfway through. He’d spoken in an American accent, which confused her at first. But no, it
was
him, hidden to all but her at the back of the room, in dark sunglasses and baseball cap, his long legs stretched out before him in a manner of casual relaxation.

Becky felt her face flush. And her neck. It was one thing to blush daintily on the cheeks, something that could be blamed on a warm room, but when the neck got in on the deal, she might as well just announce to the world, “I’m extremely embarrassed and would like to curl up and hide. Now go about your business.”

She shook her head. Then she smiled. Then she answered in a jaunty tone.

“Felix Callahan was . . . what’s the word?”

“Gorgeous?” the hatted woman offered, to tittering sounds of laughter.

“He was okay,” Becky said. “I mean, he was dressed all movie star-ish, so you were aware you were talking to someone beyond the norm. But still, he wasn’t
so
handsome. I mean, you see these men on the big screen and you expect them to take your breath away.”

“You’re lying,” said the woman under the hat. “Tell me you’re lying, because you’re ruining my favorite daydream.”

“Oh, all right, he was a little more than so-so. He was okay. He was fine. And besides being a brutish kind of British, he did end up being kind of nice. More or less.”

“More,” said the woman with hat. “Definitely more.”

Felix was smiling. “But don’t you think he’s terrifically gosh-darn talented?”

He was such a faker with shades and hat, pretending a preference for circumspection; but underneath all that, she could tell he was just a big ham. Her heart was pounding and her neck was probably bright purple by now, but her voice stayed cool.

“He’s good enough. I mean, he’s no Laurence Olivier.”

“You think he’s more of an Anthony Hopkins?”

“Not so dignified.”

“Kenneth Branagh? Robert De Niro?”

“No, he lacks that intensity.”

“Sean Penn?”

“Doesn’t have the range.”

“Chevy Chase?”

“Getting closer.”

The audience members were looking back and forth between them as if trying to figure out whether the guy in the back row was being difficult or whether this was a preplanned part of her presentation.

“Then how do you account for his superhunk reputation?”

“I can’t,” she said frankly, returning his gaze. “I’m utterly mystified. Okay, look, no one’s going to say that Felix Callahan isn’t
photogenic
, and it’s true that he’s brilliant both at comedy and that moody and disenchanted thing, and every woman who’s seen
Rattled Cages
put him at the top of her secret list of crushes. He’s got that accent going for him, and even though he’s a jerk, he can be a nice boy.”

Felix smiled, like an imp who’s cornered his victim. “So what you’re saying is . . .”

She glared, suddenly annoyed, and gestured in his direction. “I’m saying . . . ladies and gentlemen, may I present Mr. Felix Callahan.”

There was the hard sound of eleven people taking a sharp intake of breath and the clutter of chairs as everyone turned to stare.

Felix stood, reluctantly, walked to the front of the room, took her hand and kissed it.

“Nice to see you again,” he said quietly.

“Sure thing,” she said, because the moment felt both too bizarre and too important to say anything profound.

He turned to the small audience, who hadn’t moved. “Don’t believe a word this woman says. For one thing, I’ve never met her in my life.”

He left.

And the clamor began.

“Was that really—”

“Did he just—”

“I can’t believe I said—”

“Did you see how—”

“He was right in the room and I said he was—”

“This is unbelievable!”

Becky listened as if half awake and looked down at her feet to see if they were touching the floor. They appeared to be.

She expected to find him waiting outside the room. When he wasn’t, she walked slowly to her car, in case he’d hidden himself somewhere out of sight of autograph seekers and intended to find her alone. She got into the car without incident. She started it slowly, inched out of the parking lot, then when no Felix appeared, sped home.

She cruised on the freeway, scarcely aware of the landmarks rolling by: Bountiful temple, amusement park, flour mills . . . Her thoughts tumbled. Felix Callahan. Felix Callahan! Could this really be happening? The whole Los Angeles thing had been just a surreal, sliding moment that sparked and was gone. Having dinner with Felix had been like seeing a UFO flash through the night sky—so real one moment, but the next explained away as the combined effect of a lightning storm and dry eyes. Even speaking to him on the phone had seemed like a daydream gone strange.

But now, she’d seen him on her home turf. That was passing surreal. That was getting downright dangerous.

Felix Callahan. From
Rattled Cages
. She’d seen it, oh, let’s say, a dozen times, because she’d never counted (and if she had, it would be closer to twenty-one). Enough, anyhow, to know most of the dialogue. Enough to be able to replay that final scene in her head . . .

He stares down, angry at himself, at his own failure, and picks
up the change she left on the counter. Beneath it, he sees again the
mark she scratched into the wood—the reason his boss flipped out at
this troublesome customer, the reason Calvin first stepped in to
protect her, the way their friendship started, how he had the courage
to buy the shop from his boss, strike out on his own, change his life.
He’d never noticed before what she’d scratched there—it’s a heart . . .
and we know he’s reminded of those conversations they had about
what a heart is. Just a vital organ? Or the house of the soul? The
most precious thing one owns and yet is eager to give away?

He runs out into the rain.

Her love life has been an endless succession of men who appreciated
her looks but never saw her heart, and like Katie, we believe that
Calvin is the first and perhaps only man who could love her right.
But she needs Calvin to speak this time. Please, Calvin, speak . . .

katie: You’re getting wet!

calvin: Katie, I . . .

katie: Yes? What, Calvin?

Katie’s mouth twitches as if she’d like to laugh, but he’s so close
it’s all she can do to just keep breathing.

His hand touches her face, tentative, and he looks at her as if
she were the world. Her eyes close. He comes a little closer, as if
melting into her. Then his lips—those wonderful, wonderful
lips—are on hers. One long slow kiss. Then another. Another. The
umbrella droops. Her arms go around his neck, she drops the umbrella
entirely, and they kiss long and deeply in the pouring rain.

Yes, she’d seen it a dozen times (or twenty-one). And yes, each time that final kiss made her heart sputter, and she’d returned to Mike feeling particularly amorous and often downright frisky. Mike once declared it his favorite movie of all time. And he’d never seen it.

Becky was standing in her driveway. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been there, reliving the last scene in
Rattled Cages
and waiting for Felix to show up. He didn’t. She peered behind the leafless shrubs then walked around the mammoth sycamore in their front yard, eyeing Hyrum’s treehouse for any occupants. Nobody. But Felix had been at the library, right? There, in the back row. In Salt Lake City. That hadn’t been an incredibly vivid daydream, a sign that a stiff white jacket would be in her future? No. If there was one thing in this world Becky was sure of, it was her own sanity.