“The police can’t identify her, but I am speaking out: Leo is doing a story about the incident on his new news segment.” Sid takes my hand. “Let’s fight, Teddy. There are so many reasons for us to fight and live.”
I feel a body beside me and turn to discover Barry standing next to us.
“Et tu, Brute?” I ask as Dorothy would.
The audience titters.
“I have a big secret, too,” he says.
The audience goes, “Woooo!” as if they are on a roller coaster.
“I have been cast as Levi, Billy’s long-lost brother in the newBilly the Hillbillymovie.”
The crowd explodes in applause.
“No!” I exclaim. “Really?”
“Nobody ever believes me when I’m telling the truth. I guess it’s the curse of being a devastatingly beautiful woman.”
This is a line Blanche has uttered in the show many times before, but it seems to have more nuance when Barry says it tonight.
“Congratulations,” I say. “Your dream came true. How? When?”
“That’s for after the show,” he says.
The crowd expresses their disappointment.
Finally, we all turn to Ron.
“Last but not least,” I say. “Let it rip, Ron. The stage is literally all yours.”
Ron turns as quiet as the audience. He leans toward me, covers his mic and his mouth and whispers, his voice trembling, “I can’t share this secret. That’s between you and your sister.”
I look into the audience. Ava and Trudy are as bewildered by tonight’s show—and secrets—as I am. For once, I have no cutting words, no one-liners, no pithy comeback. I simply stare into the front row, wondering what could possibly top tonight’s confessional.
I turn to my friends. We all stare at each other, wondering what to say or do next.
Patty O’Furniture bursts onto the stage sporting a red Reba wig, bejeweled cowboy hat, sequined halter and Daisy Dukes while holding a mic and a bottle of whiskey.
“Leave it to a diva to close a show. Maestro? Hit it!”
Music swells, and Patty croons “Friends in Low Places” as she dances around the four of us.
The curtain closes.
“Honey, that show was so bad,” Patty says, taking a healthy slug from the bottle, “it made my tits look good.”
Ron
A roadrunner inspects the patio outside my bedroom.
Meep meep!
Most people don’t know that many famed cartoon characters were inspired by California’s landscape. Walt Disney lived in Palm Springs, in a rustic compound of homes known as Smoketree Ranch, and the desert setting inspired some of his most beloved characters. Looney Toons animator Chuck Jones was the mastermind behind Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, and the desert scenery in his early cartoons was stunningly realistic.
In person, the fast-running bird is quite handsome—lithe, brownish-black and white-streaked, shaped like a jet fighter—with a thick plume of feathers on the crown of its head. The plume makes the bird appear as if it is sporting a crest when the feathers are raised, a look that is equally regal and comical.
This particular roadrunner is a frequent visitor to Zsa Zsa. I call it Dotty Perkins, after my childhood protector, although I’m not sure if this particular roadrunner is a male or female as both are nearly identical. But this one is so fascinated by watching me work a wig and do my own hair that I knew it had to be Dotty reincarnated.
