YOU DON’T OWN ME
by Vickie Lester
4. The Telephone Hour
Later that afternoon at “About Face” with Patsy Morris Billie’s impending divorce was still the hot topic. Billie and Patsy were pink and exfoliated and sitting at the juice bar tanking up on an apple celery concoction when Patsy turned to Billie and said, “How old do you think I am?” Billie, at that point, had lived in Hollywood long enough to know that was a loaded question.
“Oh, I never know! My age?” Billie responded.
Patsy laughed delightedly. “I have a daughter about your age, well, a little younger.”
“No!”
“And, do you know how I found out Roland was cheating on me?” Patsy asked without malice.
Billie was stunned. “Roland, what?” Their pairing was legendary.
Patsy set her tall iced beverage aside and continued. “It was last summer. My daughter was home from college and she offered one of our rentals – a little apartment on funky old Cheremoya in Beachwood Canyon, close to Paramount, that Roland and I used late at night when we didn’t want to cross town – to one of her friends from school for a week. And, I have to admit Roland used it a lot more often than me because he’s on set. As a matter of fact I hadn’t stayed there in over a year. Anyway, she figured it was okay because we weren’t working.” Patsy twisted her hair up behind her head in a chignon and clipped it in place. “Well, she comes to me in tears and says her father blew his stack. And I couldn’t imagine why, I mean she is really just the apple of her daddy’s eye. So I get on the phone. Roland, why are you screaming at our baby? And he hems and haws and nothing makes sense. Obfuscation. Elusion. Stonewall. So, I call my daughter’s friend and I say, sweetie what happened? And she told me. The long and short of it was Roland was keeping another young lady in the apartment, an aspiring actress, fifteen, eighteen, years younger than yours truly. His mistress. Now I know it, the mistress, was one of several.” Patsy smoothed her neck; it was ever so slightly crepey even after emollients and steam and massage.
“But you’re still married…”
“Yah. And you know why?” Billie shook her head. Patsy swirled the ice in her empty glass and asked for another. “It’s profitable. Our partnership is profitable. So, the relationship angle is gone, but the partnership is profitable.” Patsy inhaled delicately through re-sculpted nostrils. Billie wondered what her nose had looked like before cosmetic surgery. Patsy continued, “At a certain point it isn’t about the love anymore, it’s about your level of commitment.”
“Oh. Well. That. I.” Billie stumbled.
“Maybe it’s a time of life thing. And far be it from me to be giving you advice… And this is coming to you direct from the Patsy filter, but a woman, a woman with something to say, well, what she has to say goes down a lot easier if it comes to the powers-that-be through a man. That’s where Roland comes in. You see? It’s profitable. And we’re old friends now, committed friends, so…” Patsy let the last syllable trail off.
Billie was struck with the thought that whenever anybody was giving her thinly veiled relationship advice their gems of wisdom most immediately reflected their own experience. Like commitment lording it over love… “My friend, my attorney says I need to sit for my GRE’s and go back to school.”
Patsy shrugged. “There’s a saying. You know the saying? The proof is in the pudding?” Billie nodded. “Well, right now Dave is the pudding.”
“No! There is no pudding!” blurted Billie.
Patsy smiled slowly at a dawning revelation. “That very well may be.”
“There is definitely no pudding,” Billie asserted.
“All right, honey. Play it your way. There is no pudding.” Patsy cocked her head and took in her young friend and said, “Let me know if I can help out in any way. Okay?”
Driving home Billie, for the first time in years, thought (really thought, which involved the stirrings of some painful self examination) of Gabrielle Taylor. Her former employer and Dave’s first wife, Gabrielle was probably the same age as Patsy. She knew that not long after Dave’s exit from her life the ex Mrs. Taylor had left her studio position and moved to Santa Barbara. Currently, Isabel was still in boarding school and Andrew was studying oceanography at UC San Diego. Gabrielle had opened up a catering firm from her three-bedroom, two-bath ranch house. Later the firm progressed to Santa Barbara’s main street. However, her glamorous lifestyle and high paying desk job evaporated with her marriage. Was Dave really, as Patsy asserted, the pudding? She, Billie, had taken the goddamn pudding. For the first time she felt remorse over her actions ten years ago, and a strong desire to look Gabrielle up and talk… no confess… no, what Billie was seeking was absolution. Oh wait. There was something else bugging Billie, maybe… maybe… she required some kind of a map through the obstacles of marriage and divorce – hm, fat chance asking the first Mrs. Taylor.
On entering her South Western themed home, a modern adobe not far from the park where she and her friends used to congregate, Billie called her mother. Lydia Price, nee Renieri, was the antithesis of everyone Billie knew in Hollywood. If she couldn’t get absolution Billie knew calling her mother would result in a strong dose of disapproval. First of all, as a school superintendent, she didn’t approve of Billie dropping out of college, she didn’t approve of her lifestyle, and she certainly didn’t approve of Billie’s husband who she called a dissolute charmer. She often mentioned that he had “bad blood” and that if it weren’t for his good looks he probably would have ended up a goodfella. The Taylor’s age difference she found personally offensive – her rule was this: if it were biologically viable to be someone’s parent you were forbidden to date or marry that possibility. The ragged edge of acceptable was a thirteen-year gap. The only result of Billie’s journey to Hollywood that Lydia Price approved of was Jake, Billie’s five-year old son.
It was three o’clock in LA. At six o’clock in Massachusetts her parents would be home sharing a martini, while her father sat in the dining nook in the kitchen placidly watching her mother cook. Her father, another attorney, specialized in maritime law. Unlike Polly he wasn’t a litigator. Which was a good thing because he was barely verbal. The words he did supply were sparing, almost dusty, sounding as if they were plucked from the Oxford English Dictionary. Ghastly stuff. However, his knowledge was encyclopedic – he just didn’t like to share that knowledge – or argue over it. Billie mulled over the popular notion that women married their fathers. She certainly hadn’t. Her father was quiet, circumspect, and reclusive, restricted his intake of alcohol, and was a complete emotional cipher… at least to her. Maybe she’d married her mother.
“Hello!” Lydia Price answered the phone cheerfully.
“Hi, Mom,” chirped Billie.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the fruit of my loins! Hi, Billie. Guess what I read in the paper today?” Billie groaned. “Let me see, oh yes, I remember now. ‘What favored daughter of Gloucester files for divorce?’” Silence, then: “Can’t say that I’m surprised, Billie. Can’t say that I’m surprised. Is this a follow up, or did you intend to tell me directly?”
“Mom, I have no idea how that ended up in the paper.”
“Probably because it’s public record. Taylor vs. Taylor. Or something like that. Round two? Round three? How many times has that man you’re married to been hitched, anyway?”
“Only twice.”
“Holy Mary Mother of God! Only twice, what a relief, Ed,” Billie knew the drill, she could envision her father as he blinked to attention, “Ed, did you hear that? Dave Tonnino’s only been married twice!”
Billie heard her father’s measured bass, “Who is Dave Tonnino?”
And then her mother’s distinct impatience, “Oh, for heaven’s sake! Tonnino! Taylor! Dave Taylor, your daughter’s husband!”
“Oh.” Said Billie’s father.
“Oh!” Her mother rejoined.
“Yes.” Said her father. “His hair isn’t grey. My hair is grey.” Empirical, matter of fact…
“Oh for… Right, Ed. You’re nearly the same age as your son in-law, but unlike your son in-law you don’t dye your hair.”
Billie was chagrined. It suddenly occurred to her why Bogart’s hair was jet black and his face was wrinkled. He dyed his hair. Dave dyed his hair – just like his idol had. What planet had she inhabited for the past decade, anyway?
© Vickie Lester and Beguiling Hollywood, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material (text) without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Vickie Lester and Beguiling Hollywood with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
