Running my tongue over my teeth, I took a big breath in.
‘I’d rather not.’
Myrna reached inside her shirt for her necklace, the same round gold disc she always wore for my visits, and turned it over and over in her slender fingers. ‘Then I will tellyoua story about being forgotten.’ The sun bounced off the pendant, shooting a tiny spotlight across the garden. ‘I never wanted to be famous. Not when I was little Reby Greenberg from Long Island. Not whenmy father’s job moved the family to Los Angeles and not even when the director, William Mitchell, spotted me drinking milkshakes at the Brown Derby with my friends. I thought being an actress would be fun; it wasn’t. I thought I’d meet thrilling people; I didn’t. There were good times but mostly it was hard work and heartbreak, trying to fend off the worst of men without running yourself out of a job at the same time. Then I met Wally and none of it mattered any more. Not because a man completed me but because our being together gave me the opportunity to step away from something that was making me deeply unhappy, even though most every other girl in the world would have killed to be in my shoes. My tiny, tight, pinching shoes, chosen for me by men who couldn’t walk a yard in them, let alone a mile.’
After an entire day spent watching her films, it was easy for me to imagine her back then, her bouncing blonde ponytail and red lips, cruising around Los Angeles in some baby-blue convertible with the top down. But it was easy to picture the other parts too. I knew those parts. Most women did, one way or another. How had we managed to lose the magical moments from the past but kept so many of the shitty bits? Times were changing but not quickly enough.
‘What about after you lost Wally?’ I asked, curling my toes inside my trainers. ‘What happened then?’
Slowly, as though she had never been rushed in her life, Myrna picked up a waiting packet of cigarettes from the side table and shook one loose, putting it between her lips before picking up a box of matches. With the box in her left hand and a match in her right,she struck one against the other. It sparked into life on the first go. She took a long, slow drag on the cigarette and blew it out in a pale blue cloud that rose into the air and evaporated over her estate.
‘They paint me as a recluse because it’s easier than admitting the truth,’ she said before taking another drag. ‘After Wally was gone, as I said, I did try to go back to acting, not because I wanted to but because I thought I ought to. So they did me a favour really. When the job offers didn’t come pouring in, I was thrilled to walk away, but it was impossible for people to comprehend how I could turn my back on it all so easily. They couldn’t understand why I might not want to spend my time with men who would be called monsters today, why I didn’t fight tooth and nail, give up everything I had to get back in. They say a million girls would kill for the opportunities I had, but what they don’t like to talk about are the girls who died for them. Myrna Moore might be nothing but a footnote but that’s fine by me. What was it Irene Dunne said? Acting is not important, living is. A terrible stick in the mud, but she was right about that.’
I reached for the box of matches and ran my nail lightly against the rough edge. ‘That’s exactly how I feel. Like a footnote, like someone people used to know. When it comes down to it, I really don’t have any friends.’
The glowing orange tip of her cigarette danced threateningly in the air. ‘I don’t have any friends because all of mine are dead,’ she said. ‘What’s your excuse? Make new ones.’
I stared at the matchbox, yellow and red, and traced the three stars on the front with the tip of my finger.My matchbox at home was yellow too but without the stars. Everything here was the same but different.
‘If the people I’ve known for years didn’t care about me enough to stay in my life,’ I replied, thinking back to one of my early conversations with Therese, ‘why would anyone else bother?’
‘Those people were imbeciles and you’re better off without them. You seem perfectly reasonable to me.’ Myrna flicked her ash into a heavy onyx ashtray. ‘And I am a fantastic judge of character. I despise almost everyone I meet.’
After a moment’s silence, she whistled, long and low. ‘That boyfriend of yours really did a number on you, didn’t he?’
I slowly pushed the inside tray of the matchbox almost all the way out in one direction and then all the way back in the other. ‘It wasn’t the greatest love story of all time,’ I confirmed, red-faced and frowning.
‘I will only say this,’ she leaned across the table and her cigarette smoke drifted into my eyes, teasing tears that were looking for a reason to fall. ‘Do not allow yourself to get used to being alone. Solitude is charming at first; Wally always used to say silence was my favourite song. Now it’s deafening and I cannot switch it off. I don’t believe in regrets, but it would be nice to have more people in my life.’ She inhaled and tipped her head slightly to the left. ‘Tolerable people,’ she added. ‘Of which there are so few.’
‘Maybe you’ll make friends at the assisted living facility?’ I suggested.
‘Does a dog make friends when you put it in the kennels?’ she scoffed. ‘Scratch that, dogs are idiots. I lovethem but they’re idiots, they’d make friends with a glazed ham if it winked at them the right way.’
Stubbing the half-smoked cigarette out in the ashtray, she looked back at the house, a wistful turn to her features. ‘I’m loath to leave the place, really I am, but it’s too big for me now. Those horrible children are right, rattling around on my own is simply no good. This house was built for a long-gone time; perhaps it should make way for something new.’
The thought of it was too sad and I took a moment, imagining all the happiness, and most importantly, all the parties that had taken place here over the years. What I wouldn’t have given to spend one hour with Wally and Myrna in their prime.
‘You should have one last bash before you go,’ I said, only half-joking. ‘The house is so Gatsby, it would be a shame not to. One big blowout before you leave.’
Myrna wilted back in her chair, touching a hand to her forehead. ‘I’ll never understand the fascination with that nonsensical book. Why would Buchanan have Gatsby over for dinner when he knew he was in love with his wife? Why did they all drive into the city together to argue in a hotel room? Sad little story, full of sad little men. Nothing great about any of them. Give me a good romance novel any day,’ she said. ‘Some of the newer ones are genuinely arousing.’
Myrna rose, her slippered feet and gold-tipped cane moving back inside the house, and I hopped to my feet, mildly alarmed but extremely curious to see her library,
‘Even if I did have a party, I wouldn’t know whom to invite,’ she said. ‘I can only think of seven livingpeople I can stomach for more than fifteen minutes at a time and that includes you.’
‘You could invite your neighbours?’ I suggested, feeling oddly proud of myself. ‘You said you used to know everyone around here. Wouldn’t it be nice to see who lives here now, before you leave?’
She stared at me for a long moment, the feathers at her cuffs blowing underneath the air conditioning.
‘Also Ryan Reynolds,’ I added. ‘And Ryan Gosling. Invite all the Ryans.’
‘I’ll think on it.’ She opened a different door to the one we’d come in with the tip of her cane, and nodded down a dark hallway. ‘Do you want to see the secret bowling alley in the basement or not? I can’t promise it isn’t haunted; it’s the only spot in the house where the boys were left to their own devices, and God only knows what they got up to. Rock spent aeons down there and never did get any better at bowling.’
‘Can’t think of anything I’d like more,’ I said, all sorts of theories popping into my head as I followed her into the darkness.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Monday morning announced itself with a ringing phone and the sound of someone banging on the front door both at the same time, and I really didn’t feel like dealing with either.
