The Confessions of Edward Day (13 page)

“At your service,” I said, spirits surging back up like champagne behind the cork. Her cottage was a good ten-minute walk. How much could be accomplished by a youthful suitor in a ten-minute stroll through a sleepy summer evening? Marlene had a way of opening and closing the distance between herself and an admirer that was something to see, like watching a skilled angler with a bright fish on the line. She always knew exactly where you were because she controlled the line and understood the play of the currents. This analogy presumes the fish, once hooked, longs to be hauled in, which is the opposite of the truth, but I was eager to leap from the shallows into her lap, and she knew it. I calmed myself as we left the party grounds and set off along the sidewalk. Several conversational openers flitted across my imagination:
Say, I love kissing you in that opening scene
or
You know that photo you have in your wallet, could I see it again
or
I’m in awe of you, you are my ideal
or
When we get to the cottage, what say we hit the sack
. Playing them out while I waited for her to speak—for I was determined that she must set the tone, even if we had to walk the whole way in silence—entertained me. I allowed expressions of pleasure, wonder, yearning, bold aggression to flit across my features. A
block went by and another. The front lawns deepened and the houses accumulated grandeur.

“Ed,” she said at last. “What are you doing with your face?”

I laughed. “I’m going over the things I’d like to say to you.”

“Why not just say them?”

“That’s a good question.”

“Do you feel intimidated by me?”

“No. But I wouldn’t want to bore you.”

“I’m not easily bored,” she assured me.

“You weren’t bored by Eve?”

“Not at all,” she said. “But you are.”

“I wasn’t thinking of talking about Eve.”

“No? You’d rather not?”

“Definitely not.”

“But you brought her up. You see, I find that interesting.”

I chuckled. “You’re good,” I said.

We paused at a corner to allow a Mercedes convertible to roll by; the town was full of them. I watched Marlene watch the Mercedes, or so I thought, because her sunglasses made it impossible to tell what she was doing with her eyes; they could have been closed. She wasn’t old enough to be my mother, but she was older than any woman I’d kissed before, and she had the aura of confidence and ease only actors who work a lot possess that flooded my veins with envy and desire. Her mouth was set in the cheerful lines that seemed to be their natural inclination and it occurred to me that she seldom actually frowned. She had a great line in the play
—When monster meets monster, one monster has got to give way and IT WILL NEVER BE
ME!—
which she delivered with verve and conviction, her eyes flashing at full star power, but there was still this quality of mild self-mocking about the mouth, this detachment behind which, I surmised, the real Marlene, the Marlene who could suffer, resided.

“It’s getting dark,” I said. “Don’t you think you should take off the shades?”

As we stepped into the street she whisked off the sunglasses. “Shades?” she said.

“I want to see your eyes.”

“You’re a very bossy young man,” she observed.

“Bossy?” I said.

She laughed and to my delight took my arm. “We turn here,” she said. We went along another block at the end of which was a wide drive leading to a mansion. “I want to show you my cottage,” she said. “It’s like something from a storybook.” The drive forked and we took the narrow path that curved around the house and through a garden riotous with flowers. An arbor laden with deep purple blossoms framed the doorway of a pink stucco cottage. “These are clematis,” Marlene said as we passed beneath the arbor. “And here it is. Isn’t it charming?”

It was certainly charming and I was on tenterhooks to know whether “showing” it to me meant I would be invited inside. Marlene released me and opened the door which wasn’t locked, glancing back as she entered. “Come in and have a glass of wine,” she said, “and let’s see if I have something we can eat.”

I stepped cautiously inside; carefully I closed the door behind
me, resting my hand against the panel, advising myself with a maturity beyond my years,
This is your chance. Don’t blow it
. The furnishings were summery, rattan and floral cushions, lacy curtains at the windows. There was one big room with chairs, couches, a table, a desk, and beyond that a wide arch through which Marlene passed. A painted screen partially obscured another arch which led, I presumed, to the bedroom. I followed Marlene and found her standing before a wooden tray in the gleaming kitchen, twisting a corkscrew into a bottle of white wine. “May I do that for you,” I offered.

“No, you may not,” she replied. “Look in the fridge and take out some cheese and there’s a bit of a sausage I think.”

“You’re right,” I said, choosing among the colorful packages of cheese with French names on their wrappers, “this is quite a fine place.”

“Beats that boardinghouse?” she said. “Put that on the tray.

“Oh yes. By a lot.”

“Well, they couldn’t expect me to stay in a boardinghouse.” Expertly she pulled the cork free and poured out two glasses. I spotted a plate for the cheese in the dish rack.

“No,” I agreed.

“So you think it’s fair. The whole star-system thing?”

“No question about it,” I said.

She slapped a baguette across the tray and held it out to me. “Take this to the table,” she said. I went out, perplexed by her line of inquiry. She was the star, why would she be lodged with the underlings?

I set the tray on the table and looked about me. There were
signs of her, a paisley shawl thrown across the back of a chair, a few magazines on the coffee table,
Vogue
and
Ms.
, papers, a book, and what looked like an oversize deck of cards on the desk. I leaned over the desk to check out the book title. It was
World of Wonders
. I’ll say, I thought. I turned up the top card on the deck: a happy baby riding a horse, a smiling sun beaming down upon him. Marlene came in carrying plates, an apple, and the bottle of wine. “Do you read tarot cards?” I asked.

“I do. Does that surprise you?”

“Not really,” I said, which was true. Actors are a superstitious tribe, always looking for luck and a glimpse of the future. They read their horoscopes, practice strange ritual behaviors before performances, carry totem objects with them for special occasions. Madeleine had a silver bracelet she’d worn when she won a state competition in high school that she kept in a velvet bag and wore only to auditions. Teddy had a lucky belt.

“Let’s sit down,” Marlene suggested. “We’ll eat and talk, and then I’ll read your cards.”

“Great,” I said.

We talked. What did we talk about? I believe we talked about me. Marlene asked me questions about what I’d read, my training, what plays I’d seen, what I thought of them, what I thought of the actors in them. She made me feel more interesting than I knew I was.

At one point she asked me what I knew about her. The photo in the wallet sprang into my brain, but even after a few glasses of wine I was cautious with her. “They say you are married and have a son tucked away in California and that you don’t answer personal questions in interviews.”

“Is that all they say?”

“And that you are a great actress.”

“Oh, well, of course,” she said. “They would say that.”

“I believe it.”

“You flatter me,” she said, creating the sudden distance that kept me so off balance. “Now bring me my cards and let’s see what they have to say about you.”

When I stood up I found myself sure on my feet but lightheaded from the wine. Outside it was dark and humid; a sultry breeze lifted the curtains, rustling the papers on the desk. Marlene switched on a lamp. I handed her the cards and took my seat, oddly excited by the prospect of mumbo-jumbo in a summer cottage with Marlene Webern. One could make a play of it, I thought. The ingenue and the actress. “This is fun,” I said.

“No,” she said. “It’s serious.” She fanned the deck open and extracted a card. “First we choose your signifier,” she said, laying down a picture of a dark youth on a horse. “You’re a blond now, so ordinarily I would choose a cup or wand, but I know your true color is dark. And this boy suits you. He stands for vigilance.”

“I’m sure you can’t fool the cards with a dye job,” I said.

“No,” she said. “You can’t.” She shuffled the cards and laid the pack facedown in front of me. “Now we’re going to get to the bottom of Edward Day.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” I said.

“Cut to the left three times, three times.”

“Three times, three times,” I said, breaking the deck into stacks and reassembling them.

“And ask a question in your mind.”

“What sort of question?”

“It should be a general question.”

So I couldn’t ask if Marlene would go to bed with me, though that was uppermost in my thoughts. I settled on “What will become of me?” One couldn’t get more general than that.

“I hope I get the baby on the horse,” I said.

She smiled. “That’s a very good card,” she agreed. She turned the top card up and laid it across my signifier. “Oh dear,” she said.

It was the horned devil, all goat legs and bat wings perched on a block; at his clawed feet a naked man and woman, sporting horns and flaming tails, were chained by their necks to a ring on the block.

“That doesn’t look promising,” I observed.

“It’s not so bad. It covers the general atmosphere of the question. It suggests you’re in bondage to the material world.”

“Oh, is that all,” I said.

“Well, it could be something more extreme. It could be black magic.”

“Heaven forbid,” I said, refilling my wineglass.

“You’re not interested in spiritual matters then.”

“No. That’s right. I’m not.”

“Well, you should be.”

“Do you think so?”

“The cards think so.” She turned up the next one and placed it crosswise on the other two. “This crosses you,” she said. It was a man standing before a series of silver chalices from which snakes, castles, laurel wreaths, and precious jewels overflowed. It was a dreamy picture; the cups floated on clouds.
“Scattered forces,” Marlene said. “You waste your energy on fantasies.”

“That can’t be denied,” I said.

“Well, you’re young. It’s natural. How old are you?”

“Twenty-five.”

Turning up the next card she said, “This card refers to something that has happened in the past.” She placed it carefully below the first three. For a moment we sat staring silently at my past.

The image was brutal. A man lay facedown on the ground with ten swords thrust into his back. The background was black. A liquid that was probably blood pooled near his head. “I’m really not enjoying this very much,” I said.

“It’s not death,” she reassured me again. “Obviously in this position it can’t be. It’s a card of sudden loss, of betrayal.”

Something about the card made me queasy, yet I couldn’t look away.
I want you to sit down, son
, I heard my father say. And then, very clearly, a voice I’d heard only once in my life:
I hate this part of you
. Tears sprang to my eyes. “I’d like to stop here, if you don’t mind,” I said.

“Ed?” Marlene looked into my eyes with an expression of sympathy I found too bold, too easy. “Are you all right?” she asked.

I cleared my throat, clearing out my mother and her cracked girlfriend and the notes fluttering on the desk in my dormitory room:
Your mother called. Your mother again
. “Do your son a favor,” I said coldly to Marlene. “Don’t kill yourself.”

She drew in a breath, leaning away from me. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

“There’s no reason you should be sorry.”

“I mean, I’m sorry for you. I’m sorry for your loss. When did it happen?”

“When I was a freshman in college.”

She was quiet for a moment. “It does explain something about you, as an actor.”

“I don’t much care what it explains,” I said.

She picked up the card and examined it closely. “I don’t believe in fate,” she said. “And I don’t think cards can predict the future. Only stupid people believe that. But the symbols on these cards are very old and they speak in a language we apprehend without having to think about it, without words. They speak to the unconscious, in effect, they speak to our emotions. That’s why I like them.”

“Good for you,” I said.

Oblivious to the wave of ice I was sending her way, she went on. “What a strange set of circumstances,” she said. “That you should come here to do this particular play with me at this point in your career. It’s truly fortuitous.”

“But you don’t believe in fate,” I said. “And you wanted me to come here, you said so yourself.”

“Who are you angry with? Is it me?”

“I’m just saying it isn’t fortuitous.”

“You’re a talented actor, Ed. You have a gift, and you have ambition. And you’re not envious and competitive, that’s something, that’s good. Envy can be killing to an actor. Well, it’s ruinous in all the arts.”

“Are you getting at something, Marlene?”

“I am. Be patient. You’re a good actor and you could be a
great actor, but only if you understand that your life must be given up to your art. You can have no other life. There can’t be Ed having an emotion on the stage and Ed having an emotion, a strong, pure, deep emotion here in this room and a curtain drawn between. You mustn’t sit here and try to push away a powerful emotion because it’s painful. As an actor you have no right to do that.”

“I’m not going to bawl about my dead mother, if that’s what you want.”

“I don’t want anything. It’s what you want. And what you need, from yourself, as an actor. Let go of your response to the emotion and study it. Study what it did to you, how it evolved in you, how it came about, Ed, dear, that
I
could see it and know it was real. Not faked. That it was real. You have to make use of yourself, of who you are.”

“Sandy is always on about that in class,” I said.