Multiplex Fandango (13 page)

There he met Miranda.

She came to him as he sat crying.
Placing a hand on his back she whispered, "What makes a man cry like this?"
Her voice lilted softly with a Mexican accent.
"Who has broken your heart so?"

He sat up then and stared into her face.
His heart stopped as the emerald orbs captured him.
They were so rich and deep, he'd never known eyes could be like that.
She had a childlike permanence to her beauty that made him want to reach out and touch her.
She hadn’t flinched as his hand cupped her porcelain-fine cheek.
Unable to answer, he stared into her eyes, those emerald eyes, mesmerized for a moment.

Then, feeling like he’d gone too far, he stuffed both hands under his arms and rocked back and forth.
"Sorry," he'd said.
"I can't believe I touched you like that."

She sat down across the tiny table then, squeezing into the small bench until their knees had touched.
She didn't put her arms around him, nothing that familiar.
Instead, she simply folded her hands together on the table in front of her and waited for his tears to subside.
Finally he was able to introduce himself.
"My name is Cary Grant."

"Like the movie star?"

"Yes.
Like the movie star."

"Was he your father?"

"He might as well have been," he said, admiring the way her eyes crinkled as she tried to understand.
Then he explained.
He told her about his mother and her fondness for the actor.
He told her about his black and white life.
And he told her about the recent metamorphosis brought on by the strange red liquor.

In turn, she told him about growing up in the small Mexican
village
of
Hermosa
somewhere in the
Sonoran
Desert
with a family of thirteen in a two-room adobe.
She'd run away from home when she was fifteen because of her brothers and the other boys in the village.
She hadn't wanted to be a mother so young.
She'd been taken in by a priest and later, at his insistence, had moved into the dormitory at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart where she'd eventually taken her vows and become a Bride of Christ.

"What happened?
You're not a nun now, are you?"

"No more," she'd sighed.
"We are kindred spirits, you and
I.
God has broken both of our hearts."

With that she'd stood and told him that she had to get back to work.
Buoyed by her attention, he'd complied, no longer feeling sorry for himself.
Before he left, he got her phone number.

He promised to call.

She told him she looked forward to it.

Once outside, the huge illuminated, blue and red letters of the K
–
Mart faded once again to a dull
gray.
As the color disappeared, so did his excitement.
By the time he trudged the eight miles back to
Sunken
City
, the spark she'd ignited in his chest had become an ember.
It was so hard to want to be a part of a world that kept so much of itself hidden.

Cary
called her the next day.

They met at a Fatburger
–
a distinctly
California
fast-food franchise that bragged about its lack of sprouts and humus and was proud of its megalithic caloric content.

He'd been in such a rush, he'd forgone Momma Desta's
Swan's Sorrow
.
When Miranda arrived, she smiled and embraced him.
They ordered, found a corner booth and ate.
They spoke about mundane things as if they were a husband and wife recounting the items of the day.

Cary
found it a lusterless meal lacking in everything meaningful.
Her emerald eyes were the same gray as the fat dripping from the burger.
Her clothes were a scant shade darker.
The conversation was flat and he couldn't find a way to enliven it.
The spark failed to rekindle.
They said their good-byes and parted ways.
She returned to her sister's home in Carson, and he to Momma Desta's.

Several drinks later, he discovered the color goldenrod.
Even later, umber.
Finally, he realized what he'd lost.
The Swan's Sorrow had rekindled the spark.
He was almost mindless in his misery when Momma Desta finally came to him.

"Why so low down?" she asked, leaning both elbows onto the counter.

"I found love and lost it."

"Nonsense.
You can't lose love.
You can throw it away or you can ignore it or let it die, but you can't lose it."

"Either way, it's gone."

"Nonsense."

"No," he sighed heavily.
"It's the truth.
I found this girl last night…"

"Last night?
After you left here?"

"Yes.
We talked.
We felt something special.
I've never felt anything like it before."

"And tonight?"

"The feeling was gone."

Momma Desta nodded her head slowly.
She stood her full height and smoothed the wrinkles from her dress.
"Las night, what color were her eyes?"

Cary
couldn't help but smile as he remembered their sparkle.
"Emerald," he said with a sigh.

"And tonight?"

Cary
's smile fell.
"Nothing.
Gray.
Whatever."

"Aw my black and white Movie Star, you should have come to Momma Desta before your date tonight."
She placed one of her immense warm palms against his cheek and shook her head.
"You've done something that can't hardly be undone now."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you see?
You opened the door to another world last night.
The
Swan's Sorrow
was the key that unlocked the door to a world of color and light and showed you to this woman with the emerald eyes.
Then tonight you ignore the
Swan's Sorrow
and try to enter the world with no key.
How can you date this woman if you are in one world and she's in another?"
She shook her head and poured him another drink of Swan's Sorrow.

He stared imploringly.

"Give her this night to think.
Tomorrow come by and get your key, open the door and step through.
When next you meet, you'll find a world where the loving is easy."

***

He did as he was told.
The next evening when Miranda stepped off the bus at the
36th street
stop on Pacific, he was waiting with a twinkle in his eyes.
Empowered by the
Swan's Sorrow
, he marveled at the way the burgundy dress moved against her supple body.
She stared at him nervously with her emerald eyes.
When her feet hit the sidewalk he grasped her hand and pulled her to
Sunken
City
where the lights of the ships reflected off the lumbering tide.

He'd prepared a picnic basket of bread and
cheeses and clear, cold bottled
water.
While they ate and spoke of things both past and present, Tudose whispered love songs upon the wind.

"You said God broke your heart as well?" he asked later on.

She turned away from him as she answered. "It was more than that.
I was wed to him, you see?
Like a wife, I entrusted all of my love and desires to him.
But like my father, he ignored my pain."
She stared towards the far horizon where the ocean met the sky.
"God is too busy for the likes of me.
He ignored me when that young monk stole into my room and took from me what had belonged only to
Him
."

"But isn't that the monk's fault?"

"How?
God is the creator.
God is all-knowing.
God allowed it to happen and did nothing to stop it."

"Maybe he had a reason for not intervening?"

"Not good enough."

"What?"

"That excuse is not good enough.
I've heard it before.
When I spoke to the Priest, he said the same thing.
When I was counseled by Mother Superior, she talked about the mysteriousness of God's will.
When my child was born and adopted by a rich American couple, I pretended not to hear the barren blonde woman say the same thing.
This is meant to be,
she said to my child."

Miranda whirled.
"This is meant to be?”
Emerald drops fell from her wide eyes.
"I will not be married to anyone who ignores me.
I went to God for safety and he refused to give it to me.
I have since divorced Him in my own way."

Cary
hesitated, then placed his hands on her trembling shoulders.
Gently, he lowered his head so their foreheads touched.
He ran through the list of movies in his mind that seemed applicable:
Penny Serenade
,
Every Girl Should Be Married
,
None But t
he Lonely Heart
.
Even within these black and white testaments to his namesake, he couldn't find the wisdom to comfort her.
So instead he held her.
He'd learned that doing nothing sometimes was enough.
They remained that way until her sobs subsided.

Later they kissed.

The next night she had to work late restocking shelves for a big blue light special.
Before he turned in, he spent a few moments at Momma Desta's telling her about the events of the previous evening.
She nodded and grinned wistfully as he shyly mentioned the kiss.

After drinking a few glasses of Swan's Sorrow he returned to his studio apartment in the Vista Palms Hotel.
He watched two movies from his 126 Cary Grant movie collection on his battered television and VCR.

The first one was one of his favorites,
Gunga Din
.
Based on the poem by Rudyard Kipling, it was the tale of three friends and a water-bearer to the British Army in
India
who try to stop the resurgence of a cult that worships murder.
Victor Mc
L
agl
e
n and Douglas Fairbanks Junior played the two friends of Cary Grant.
Sam Jaffe played Gunga Din and Joan Fontaine played the love interest.
Like always, it was a great romp of fighting and swearing and heroism.

The second movie was one he'd never really cared for called
Operation Petticoat
.
Empowered by the
Swan's Sorrow
, the movie was far different than he remembered.
Tony Curtis and Dick Sargent played comedic seconds to Cary Grant's straight-laced submarine commander.
Filmed in color, this was the first time he'd seen it as it had meant to be seen.
And as the pink painted submarine traversed the South Pacific, he'd found himself laughing until tears tore from his eyes.

He was standing in the bathroom brushing his teeth and still chuckling about the movie when he went blind.

It only lasted twenty minutes, but for those twenty minutes he was utterly blind.
Not merely colorblind, but completely blind and it terrified him like nothing had ever terrified him before.

Sure, his vision had dimmed before.
He'd even had headaches.
But nothing like this had ever happened.
No, nothing like this.

He la
y
in bed curled up like a baby, fearful that it would happen again.
Eventually sleep claimed him.
When he awoke, he was grateful to see the low clouds harkening the gray, colorless dawn.
He drank his morning coffee sitting in his single kitchen chair watching the cargo ships plod into the harbor.

It didn't take a genius to figure it all out.
He called in sick to his job waiting tables at the Lighthouse Deli.
He couldn't wait until evening, so he went in search of Tudose.
Cary
needed to find out where Momma Desta spent her days.
He had some serious questions to ask her.

He found Tudose drinking fast food coffee, wrapped in his sleeping bag upon a perch in
Sunken
City
.
He too had been watching the ships come in.