The Music of Your Life (9 page)

“This was popular when you were born,” Mother says.

At the stoplight, she all of a sudden reaches over and takes my hand and squeezes it. I squeeze back, and we hold hands until the light changes. “But you knew that already, didn't you?” she asks.

I hum
uh-huh
. I'm hearing the lyrics to the song in my head, over the instrumentals, and I'm thinking of that line about the Moon River being wider than a mile. And I think it's funny how people are always saying something is a mile wide, when what miles are, really, when you think about it, are long. Rivers are wide, miles are long. But maybe it's just the way different people have of seeing the same exact thing; one person's mile is wide, another person's river is long.

“Let's sing with the music, Hampton, like it's karaoke,” says Mother.

And that's what we do—we sing, as the mother of the groom steers us, all of us, south, toward home.

CALIFORNIA, 1954

The only person here who knows I'm a boy is Lucille Ball.

A boy. I have to keep adjusting under this dress I've got on so I can feel myself down there, just to remind my
self
. I've never worn an evening gown before, and it's the oddest thing. Not to mention that I can barely see out of these stupid false eyelashes. Why on earth I ever agreed to be a showgirl, I'll never know …

I met Miss Ball at a party in Bel Air a few weeks ago, a real fancy type affair, with waiters and valet parking, cocktails, canapés—things like that, things I'd never even heard of till I came out to California. My friend Arthur, who works as an Assistant Director on a lot of movies out here, took me along; he has acquaintances with a lot of showbiz people, and gets invited to lots of important parties. He knows Miss Ball and Mr. Arnaz from when he AD'd a movie they made together a few years ago, and got to know them a little bit, at least enough to speak to. Once he even baby-sat for their kids, and worked in their garden a few times, when assistant work was hard to find.

So we got to this party. And there was Lucy, wearing a bright green party dress, smoking, drinking, standing in the middle of a group of about five or so people, laughing and carrying on. All I could think was
Damn, it's Lucy in the flesh
. And then Arthur just up and waves to her, all familiar and everything. And she sees him and waves back and motions for him to come over.

“Do you want to meet Miss Ball?” he whispers to me.

“Yeah … I mean, do you think that'd be OK?”

“Of course. Stick with me, 'Bama Boy.” Ever since Arthur found out I was from Alabama—Hollinsville, to be exact, about forty miles outside of Montgomery—he's called me 'Bama Boy, though my real birth name is William Abernathy Ford, Jr. “Will” if you just met me here in Hollywood, “Willie” if you know me from Hollinsville, “Willie-Bud” if you're a member of my immediate family or one of my thirty-four aunts, uncles, and cousins, accounting for both the Ford and Abernathy sides. Mama was an Abernathy, of the Biloxi Abernathys.

“Hello, Miss Ball,” Arthur says. “Nice to see you again.” He takes her hand and kisses it, real gallant, like something Errol Flynn would do in one of his pictures. The people who have been hovering around her kind of move away, seeing as how she has made room to talk to us. They were probably, in the language of Hollywood that I'm finally starting to figure out, “hangers-on.”

“Hello, darling,” Miss Ball says. “How's business? What are you up to?”

She has an unfiltered cigarette going in one hand—a Philip Morris, I'm sure, since that's who sponsors her show—and some big goblet kind of drink in the other: tea colored, probably some kind of hooch. Everybody drinks liquor at parties out here; nobody I knew back home ever drank, and I still can't quite get used to the taste of it myself.

“Oh, I can't complain,” he says, though I know he really could. “Just finished the new Rock Hudson picture.” He runs his hands through his wiry black hair and pushes his tortoise-shell glasses up on his nose. He does that when he's nervous. He probably doesn't want Miss Ball to know he was just an assistant to the assistant this time.

“Oh yeah,” Miss Ball says. “Over at Universal.”

“That's right.”

“I ran into Rock last week. He's got high hopes for it, but who the hell knows. How'd they treat you over there, Artie?” Her huge, turquoise eyes with the big lashes narrow in at him as she sucks in a vampy drag of her cigarette, like I've mostly only seen in the movies, and then mostly from Bette Davis. The end of the cigarette, I notice, has turned scarlet, from her lipstick, and so has the side of her glass that she's drunk from. Maybe when she's done I can steal the cigarette butt from the ashtray, with a Lucy lip print on it. I could send it back home to my cousin Starla Scott, who claims to be Lucy's biggest fan and is always going on and on about her, mimicking her faces and such from the show. Of course Starla's pretty mad at me for coming out here to be a movie star before she did. Maybe I'll just steal that cigarette butt for myself.

“Everything went well,” Arthur tells Miss Ball. “I think it'll be a good picture, but you never know how it'll play in the valley.” This makes everybody in Lucy's little circle break out laughing, and Lucy just rolls her eyes, like to say,
That's for sure
. I have no idea what all that means, but it's fun to watch Arthur hobnobbing and being real Hollywoodish. He sure is smooth and familiar, and really knows what he's talking about, and that makes me like him even more than I already do, but I still don't see how he can be so nonchalant about all this. (He calls it a French word:
blasé
. “You have to learn to be more blasé around movie people, 'Bama Boy, or they'll think you're too desperate.”)

“Who's your friend here, Artie?” Miss Ball asks, narrowing those eyes and looking in my direction now.

I've never seen hair even close to her shade of red before—it's not really red, it's orange, like a Halloween pumpkin. And with her blue eyes and orange hair and white skin, what I keep thinking is she looks like the colors on the outside of the Howard Johnson's hotel in downtown Biloxi. Arthur says her coloring is so perfect for the camera that here in Hollywood they call her “Technicolor Tessie.”

Arthur puts his hand on my back and pushes me gently forward, probably thinking that I'm a little scared, since I'm hanging back a little. He's right.

“Lucy, this is Will Ford. He just got into town a couple of months ago. Will, Lucille Ball.”

“How do you do, Miss Ball?” I say, allowing Arthur's hand to move me forward a little more. I'm remembering the way my Aunt Eugenia taught us children how to always greet somebody new, though when you finally say “how do you do” out loud like that, it sounds like you're meeting the Queen of England or something. “I'm pleased to meet you,” I tell her. I offer to shake hands, but she doesn't accept. Suddenly I wonder if I've done the wrong thing, and I feel my face flush.

“Hoo-wee! Where's that accent from?” she asks, blowing smoke.

Now I'm
positive
my face is as red as Miss Ball's lipstick.

“Alabama, ma'am. Near Montgomery.”

“Good God, child, what are you, all of fourteen? Does your mama know you're here?”

I look to Arthur for help. Since he's twenty-nine, which seems pretty old to me, I figure he's smarter about things than I am, and always knows what to say. But now he just looks at me like:
You're on your own here, buddy
.

“I'm eighteen, ma'am. Almost nineteen,” I say, though I feel my hands start to tremble where they're hanging down by my sides. I've never met a real star before; it's a whole lot different than meeting regular people.

“Well, that's legal in some states, I guess,” she says, winking at Arthur, and the two of them have a good little laugh. I just smile, trying to be polite. I quickly reach up and touch my cheek to see if it's as hot as it feels.

“So … you want to be in show business, Will Ford?” she says. “Is that what you're here in the big city to do?” Boy, she sure is direct.

“Yes ma'am, that's right. I wanna be an actor.” And then I add: “More than anything.”

“More than anything? Good God Almighty! Can you vouch for this kid, Artie?” She starts waving her cigarette in the air and looking around like she needs an ashtray. Immediately, some guy standing in back of her holds one out. She stubs out her cigarette then waves his hand away. She squints her eyes a little and looks at me up and down, sizing me up, like she's trying to decide if she's gonna buy me.

“Oh, sure. The kid's a natural,” Arthur says, lighting up his own cigarette. Arthur is from Illinois originally, but he's good at talking in Hollywood phrases. He's been teaching me to always say things like:
The Business. Pictures. Metro. Box Office. Hangers-on
. Arthur's fond of calling me “'Bama Boy, Who Likes the Pitcher Shows.”

“Artie, would you excuse us a minute?” Miss Ball says, draining the last of her drink and handing it off to the same guy who offered the ashtray. “I wanna talk to your little friend here. Alone, if you don't mind.”

“Oh …” Arthur suddenly looks very surprised. When he hesitates for a second, Miss Ball says, “Don't worry, I'll give him back to you.”

This makes Arthur let out a nervous laugh, and he runs his hand through his hair again and readjusts his glasses. “Oh. Of course, of course. No problem,” he says. “Nice to see you again, Miss Ball. As always.”

“And you, Arthur,” she says, but it's me she's looking at now. She waves at Arthur, but she's really waving him away. She's staring right at me; I don't know what to do. Arthur moves off to another corner of the room, but I can still feel him watching me, which, I realize suddenly, is not the same as watching out
for
me.

“You're a real pretty boy, kid,” Miss Ball says, after a second or two of looking me over. “I guess people have told you that before.”

“Well, I don't know really, ma'am,” I say back to her. I pray I won't start to stutter.

“You know, I could give you a shot on my show, if you'd be willing to do something a little … well … let's just say, a little out of the ordinary.”

I stare at her for a second; then when I realize what she's said, my mouth flies open and hangs there, like I'm some goofy cartoon character. I'm sure my mama would say, “Close your mouth, Willie-Bud. You tryin' to catch flies?”

“Um … well, yes ma'am” is all I can come up with. I'm thinking I must be experiencing some kind of fever dream, like when I was five and had measles.

“God, that accent. Jesus. What they couldn't do for you at MGM, honey. Well, anyhow, for what I have in mind, you won't have to talk much. Here's the deal. I sometimes like to play little tricks on my husband, Desi,” she says, taking another Philip Morris, which has been handed up to her from the same guy, who then produces a lighter. He must be somebody Miss Ball pays to hand her things.

It sounds funny to me the way she pronounces Mr. Arnaz's name so that it rhymes with “messy,” rather than the way I've always said it, which is more like “Dezzy.”

“And I think,” she continues, “that you could probably help me out. This thing'd kill him, if I pull it off right. Oh boy.” And she laughs, a real raspy laugh that sounds more like coughing than laughing.

I can tell Miss Ball is a tough dealmaker, like my Uncle James who sells cars at Hollinsville New and Used Pontiac.

“We have a script coming up in a few weeks where we need about eight showgirls. You ever put on one of your mama's dresses, kid?” She stares me down hard; I look around for Arthur, but he's gone. It's just her and me; the people around us have turned their backs completely now, and are talking among themselves.

“Dresses?” I say.

“That's right, dresses. Don't be coy. I've got a little scene I want you to do. If you're interested, of course. But you'll have to be in a dress. That's the deal. So.” She turns around to the guy behind her: “Hey, Bunny, where's the damn ashtray? And can I get a fresh drink? Please?” She turns back to me. “Jesus Christ, you'd think we were in church.” She notices I'm empty-handed also. “And get this kid here something, too.”

The guy she calls Bunny looks at me. “And what kind of drink would that be? A Shirley Temple?”

Miss Ball laughs again, hoarsely. “Yeah, right, a Shirley Temple. A Shirley Temple with a big splash of vodka. Do you know what we call that, kid?”

“No ma'am.”

“A Deanna Durbin. Hop to it, Bunny.” And he does.

Instantly, she's back to business again, fixing her eyes on me. “So, kid … about my little proposition. What'll it be?”

She blows so much smoke waiting for me to answer that I start to feel all those vapory gray swirls going right into my own lungs, filling them up like a dark balloon. I cough a little, then smile. She watches me think … boy, does she ever watch me think …

And what I think is:
You don't say no to Lucy
.

So here I am on this soundstage making my debut in show business, which is great, though it's not exactly like I'll be able to tell everybody back home to watch me on the show when it comes on. Just to make fun of me, Arthur said: “
Hey, Mama? Daddy? This is your boy, Willie-Bud. I've got some good news, and I've got some bad news
…” He thought that was just real ha-ha funny. I didn't even crack a smile. But they're paying me a lot of money, or at least it's more than I've ever made before, and Mr. Trent was real good about letting me off work at the flower shop where I have my part-time job, so I could have the day at the studio to rehearse and film the show. Miss Ball had one of her assistants work with me alone late one afternoon, so I wouldn't have to come to regular rehearsal with everyone else. This morning, he also sneaked me into hair and makeup early, before anyone else got to the studio.