They May Not Mean To, but They Do: A Novel Read Free Page A

roles through her entire childhood. She remembered the change of atmosphere in the house when he got a part, the relief, the temporary dispersion of clouds of disappointment and failure. Actors do not give up parts. She knew that.
    She drove him to LAX, parked, and walked him inside to make sure he found the group. She imagined them all lined up, holding on to a bright yellow rope, the way the preschool children did on the sidewalk in New York. But the director and crew just stood in a loose bunch, most of them wearing safari jackets and baseball caps. Her father kissed her goodbye and made straight for an attractive young woman in the group who seemed to know him.
    “Hello, handsome,” she said, and her father, unable to help himself, gave his practiced half-smile and preened with pleasure.
    “You will look after him, won’t you?” Freddie asked the director, who did not seem to think it irregular to have hired someone showing clear signs of senility. But why would he? He was a man who thought it reasonable to cast a commercial in L.A. and fly everyone thousands of miles to shoot it in Sweden in English to then be dubbed into Swedish.
    “Don’t worry,” the director said.
    Her father called her that night from Chicago, where they were changing planes.
    “Pretty soon you’ll be in Sweden, Dad.”
    “ Sweden? ”
    It was that trip that shocked Freddie into action. By the time he came home, three days later, a little vague about having gone at all, she had called the Motion Picture Home so many times and spoken to so many people that when she discovered a room had suddenly opened up there, she was sure it was because she had annoyed the director of the facility to such an extent that the director had taken it out on an employee who had taken it out on a patient who had consequently died and vacated a room.
    It took only five months for the Motion Picture Home to realize it had made a terrible mistake.
    “We are concerned about STDs,” the director had said.
    Duncan was now on assisted-living place number three.
    “The social worker called again today,” Freddie told Molly.
    “What did old Duncan do today? Pinch the nutritionist?”
    Freddie shrugged. “They decided to cut back his wine at dinner.”
    “They should just water it. Would he know?”
    “That’s what I told them. But the social worker thought that would be dishonest. Dishonest! So she had a talk with him, and of course he objected. He demanded to see a lawyer. He threatened to sue. I think this place may kick him out soon, too.”
    Molly held her drink out to Freddie. “Here. It’s neat. The social worker has no jurisdiction in this house.”
    Freddie said, “I want to be cremated, Molly.”
    “I know, honey.”
    “No, I mean now.”
    “I know, honey.”
    Freddie said, “Let’s go to the beach and watch the sun set instead.”
    It was a beautiful sunset, the brilliant red streaks of sky fading to gentle mauve. There was a full moon hanging over the parking lot, plump and orange. The wind blew and there was no one on the pier, just a few surfers below.
    “We’re so lucky to live here,” Molly said as they walked back to the parking lot. She was radiant in the blinking light from a bar, her cheeks glowing red, then green, and Freddie had to agree.

 
    4
    They had been sorority sisters, and they were still friends—Daphne, Eileen, Natalie, and Joy. Daphne got on Natalie’s nerves; Eileen got on Daphne’s nerves; Natalie, who was bossy, particularly about her politics, which were of the radical right, got on everyone’s nerves; but all three were extremely close to Joy, which had kept the group intact through all the decades and divorces. Every few months they would get together for a girls’ lunch.
    “I’m not happy about this old-age business,” Joy said.
    “I refuse to feel old,” Daphne said. She slapped the table. “ Je refuse .”
    The silverware and coffee cups rattled, and Joy marveled at Daphne, not a bit different from