an outdoor umbrella shifted, soft illumination from a nighttime window, the glow of a television or computer screen flickering in the middle of the night. I tried to drive up White Shirt's hill yesterday but got lost winding my way, ending up on Mulholland, at the top of Runyon Canyon. I parked the car in the small unpaved lot. A sign at the entrance warned of rattlesnakes. I walked alone along a dirt trail in the baking- hot sun until I came to one of the pinnacles. I could have been anywhere; the view shifted from angle to angle and felt foreign. Nothing was clarified, but I'm in no hurry. Things reveal themselves in their own time, time being a commodity I currently have to spare.
White Shirt was the first sign of life on that side of the hill. There is another house, a large two- family Spanish style. I look down on its backyard, where a lollipop- shaped tree is lit up each night with white lights. There was a cocktail party one evening on the patio, which I enjoyed watching, but the people in that house don't interest me. There is a chewable normalcy to the "Spanish Heights" house, something too obvious. White Shirt does interest me. His house is on the other side of the street from the Spanish Heights, and his yard is a square, grassy plot on top of his garage. One of the garage doors— white flap- downs— is broken; a dim light stays on all night over a white sports car.
White Shirt is home a lot. So am I. I watch him as David watched Bathsheba, though so far I am not lusting. Without binoculars I can see only that he is tall and slim with a full head of light brown hair. He must know he faces a hotel with large balconies; he must know he can be seen. In the Bible story David was supposed to be at war with his men; it was spring, the time kings went to war. Full stop. Why would kings, as a matter of course, go to war in the spring? Anyway, David was up on his roof prowling in the wee hours, and Bathsheba was up on hers having a late- night bath. Did a full moon illuminate her wet alabaster skin? Why was she bathing at that hour? Were they both insomniacs? Her husband, Uriah the Hittite, was at war, where David ought to have been instead of spying on bathing women. He sent one of his servants to invite her over. He was king, so his was probably an invitation one literally could not refuse. What did he want? Come lie with me, Mrs., we will have a grand old time.
The Bible doesn't bother with her take on the situation, other
than mentioning that Bathsheba cleaned herself after the act. We are not told if she tried to beg off with a headache or if she was flattered; after all, this was David who slew the giant, handsome, powerful King David. Did she love her husband? Uriah was a dedicated warrior; perhaps she felt neglected. Soon after David lay with her, Bathsheba let him know she was with child. David hadn't thought of that, apparently, but he figured he'd bring Uriah back from battle and pin the child on him. Go to your house, he told Uriah after faking a query about how the war was going. But loyal Uriah slept outside the palace doors that night. His men were in harm's way; his king and liege had spoken to him, quite the honor; this was no time to be dallying with the wife in the comforts of home. The same thing happened for two more nights, even after David got him drunk. Uriah was loyal to a fault. His wife might have thought so even before David seduced her. The story soon took a bad turn: David saw to it that Uriah died in battle, and then God killed David and Bathsheba's newborn as punishment. Bathsheba paid, but we don't know exactly for what: the unsanctioned dalliance with David or her infidelity to Uriah. The God of the Old Testament didn't seem to finesse the details when demanding his pound of flesh. Things eventually worked out for David and Bathsheba—
Andre! He came in just now, all a flurry of breathless, manly purpose, surprising me on the balcony. White Shirt had just gone inside his house.
"Let's have a drink," Andre announced.
"I'm ahead of you," I said, walking inside, drink in hand. I turned on the news, trying to mask the flutter in my stomach— a signal of any number of reactions to this unscheduled arrival of the director for a drink with his wife. Did he have time off the set during a complicated lighting shift . . . or was something wrong that he could leave, or had he said he'd have an early night and I'd forgotten?
It was a hurried drink. A drink should never be hurried. "How you grace me with your presence!" I spoke to his back as the door closed. He left with the bottle. He'd come for the bottle, the drink a nickel's worth of his time bestowed. Was his leading lady thirsty?
They are shooting close by, close enough for me to drop in, which he said I should do. But I won't. I would be treated on set like the general's wife. There would be curious stares and fawning over his onetime lead, the actress who took best prize at Cannes under his direction. The unanswered question always hovering: Why did she retire early, still in her prime, when the full blossoming of her breasts tantalizes most and she begins to understand her craft and to take bigger risks— why? Were the producers already casting about for less ripe, more malleable girls with dreams of stardom; was that it? Andre insists the lead is in me yet. Ha! I walked away of my own free will. Why would I walk back into that insecure cesspool of chattering facades called acting?
Andre doesn't like that word, insecure. He says it's overused, a catchall excuse for lack of discipline.
"Wobbly, then," I said back. "People are wobbly in who they are. You might try to be more sympathetic."
"Rubbish." It could almost have been Joe talking. But Joe would have qualified the retort by saying that the system of civi lization discourages personal strengths, the better to control a populace.
I stopped myself from throwing my drink at the door behind Andre. Wasted! I am wasted on peasants. If I came at you, dear audience, full force, you couldn't withstand me, yet Andre can crush me with a glance, like a rose petal under heavy boots.
Between Joe and Andre there were others. Once Joe and I bled dry, were wrung out, twisting in the winds of our failure, others entered the void. I was all alone in L.A. We didn't want to split up a pair of sisters, so Joe kept the cats, old by then but missed terribly, and I would not replace them. Harry kept me busy. He bent over backward to make the physical part of my move painless. It wasn't. He secured invitations to the important parties. That was hell. It was all I could do to keep from finding the broom closet until enough time passed to head for the door, get into my car, and drive home. I'd bought a brand- new compact to spirit me across the vastness of Los Angeles. I sublet a furnished bungalow on Gardiner Street, up in the hills— not too far from where I am now— and hunkered down among the chintz upholstery, shades drawn. I napped a lot, like a three- year- old, or I paced the small, secluded garden draped with intoxicating jasmine, surrounded by tall eucalyptus trees. I went for walks and absorbed the stares of the locals for doing the unthinkable, using my feet on the pavement. I detested L.A. at that point with all the strength my newly single sorry soul had available.
Dottie was my one solid friend. We were an odd mix. She was much older and very overt. Singers are a different sort of showman than actors. She started out doing radio jingles in Wichita, then went east, played the Rainbow Room, other high- end New York nightspots. Dottie was auditory color; she'd made a brief splash in a tough town. She told me she was born with perfect pitch. "That was God's gift," she declared. "I had not a thing to do with it." It was her Plains modesty talking; Dottie's no- nonsense values didn't always fit with her bright outfits and flamboyant theatrics. We had in common a shyness hidden by what we did for a living. With Dottie it was Kansas proper— no one out in all that open likes a show- off, she'd say— though she could ham it up pretty good at the piano. I was shy at the bone. If you scratched Dottie, you scratched dirt, where corn or soy or wheat comes from: solid earth, simple and clean and probably conservative in ways I might not tolerate if Dottie wasn't a chanteuse. Scratch my surface and you get blood, guts, darkness, and dumb hope.
She sang Noël Coward ballads and old show tunes with flare but not a whole lot of depth— the material didn't encourage it. She worked sporadically. A well- off husband died, leaving her comfortably placed. About Joe she said, sensibly, "Ard, honey, the boy who'll follow a girl around the world hasn't been invented yet. They'll calve before that happens. You had no choice. Or yes, you did:
