Anne Siddons - Fault Lines

Twenty minutes into the film I saw Laura walk up the aisle past me and out the doors. Light from the lobby flared and then faded. I turned around and looked after her; was she ill again? Had the morning’s nausea overtaken her? She had not looked ill; had seemed, in my brief glimpse of her, simply Laura, in her black and her expanse of bare tanned skin, vivid and arresting. She did not look at me or anyone else. I did not want to get up and rush after her and saw that Glynn still sat in her down-front seat, eyes glued to the screen. If anything had been wrong, surely Glynn would have known. There was a slight murmuring, like a wind in trees, in the theater, but it did not seem to have anything to do with Laura’s leaving. No heads turned when she passed. I settled down again to watch.

The man on the end of the row made a short, low sound when Laura passed us, and in a few moments he too got up and went out. I sat for a few minutes more, increasingly restless, and then the little man beside me left too. He did not speak to the two other men who had come in with him, only nodded, unsmiling, to me and went up the aisle in the spraddling waddle of a penguin. The two remaining men looked at each other, but said nothing.

It was only then that it occurred to me that Laura was not in this movie.

Shock and a swift, punishing grief kept me in my seat for a moment, motionless, and then anger jerked me out of it. This was why Caleb Pringle had not called her, then. He knew her part had been cut, of course he did; he would have to have known. It was he who directed the new version. He knew, and he did not tell her. Instead he let her see for herself, in a theater surrounded by everyone who had worked on the film, who knew what her part had been and what she and Caleb Pringle had been to each other. He knew and let her talk about both the part and the relationship to that poisonous little slug, Billy Poythress. Or, if he had not known precisely that, he should have anticipated such interviews. It was, after all, Caleb Pringle who had told her that her part was, to quote Laura, “best-supporting” stuff. I was so angry that I shook all over, so angry that my knees trembled on my way up the theater aisle.

I looked around for her, blinking against the pitiless fluorescence, but the lobby was empty except for a white-coated waiter leaning against the wall behind the buffet table, smoking a cigarette. Even the young woman in the ticket booth was gone. When I approached the waiter he stubbed out his cigarette and stood at attention.

“I’m afraid the bar isn’t open yet,” he said, showing his perfect white teeth in an opossumlike smile. Everybody in Los Angeles, I thought irrationally, had perfect white teeth. Maybe the Chamber of Commerce passed bleaching kits out to newcomers, or the Welcome Wagon.

“I don’t want a drink,” I said. “I’m looking for a young woman in a black dress, with blond hair in a braid. She came out a few minutes ago.”

“Yeah,” he said, rolling his eyes in appreciation. “She sure did. Went into the ladies’ room so fast I thought she was sick or something. Then some guy went in there, right after her. Some real squealing been going on ever since. Nothing to me; I don’t care. You see everything out here. But if that’s where you’re headed you might want to knock first.”

I glared at him and went swiftly toward the room marked “Ladies,” but paused at the door. I could hear the sounds of sobbing clearly, Laura’s sobbing, and a man’s voice speaking lowly, urgently, as if soothing her. It must have been the man in the seat down the row from me; obviously a friend from the production then, someone who would know what the amputation of her part would mean to her. I went back into the lobby and sank down on a steel and chrome bench. Her friend was probably in better position than I to comfort her, but I could not make myself go back into the theater. I had never heard Laura cry that I had not moved to comfort her. To sit still and know that this time I could not was agony.

I was still sitting there, wondering what on earth I could say to her, what she would do now, when Glynn came into the lobby, like me, blinking in the light.

“Where’s Aunt Laura?” she said. “She left and didn’t come back; did you see her go by? Mom, I don’t think she’s in the movie. I think something happened to her part—”

“I think so, too,” I said. “It’s awful. It’s monstrous. Somebody should have told her. She’s in the rest room now, crying her eyes out, but there’s a man in there with her, comforting her. He was sitting in my row, so he’s got to be a friend. I think he’s the best one to be with her right now. We’ll stick around till she comes out and then we’ll take her home. She’s not going to want to go on to any cast party.”

I thought then of Glynn’s whole-souled anticipation of this evening, of going to a famous restaurant with movie stars, of meeting this Rocky MacPherson who loomed so large in her small pantheon of heroes.

“I’m so sorry, Tink,” I said. “I know how you were looking forward to tonight. But you can see that something like Spago would just kill her—”

“I know,” Glynn said. “No sweat. I heard somebody say Rocky’s not here, anyway. Poor Aunt’ Aura. This is not a good place, is it? Hollywood?”

“No,” I said, getting up and giving her shoulders a hug. Their sharpness, beneath the silky flow of her tunic, jolted me anew. I had almost forgotten the anorexia.

“Thanks for understanding,” I said. “You’re a neat kid. As if I didn’t know that.”

We went back to the bench and she sat for a moment, worrying her fingernail with her teeth. Then she said, “He should have told her. How can she be in love with somebody who could let this happen to her? If she was that close to him, why couldn’t she see what a jerk he is?”

“The old saw about love being blind is true, I guess,” I said. “Most people will bend over backward not to see the bad in somebody they love.”

“Then how on earth do they keep from being hurt all the time,” she said, pain sharp in her voice.

“They don’t. People do get hurt, most by the people they love. Otherwise they wouldn’t care. It’s a price you pay for the love. Most of us think it’s worth it. Most of us don’t get hurt this bad either; people who really love you just don’t sell you out.”

“But you can’t really know—”

“No. You can’t really know.”

“So. Love means hurting. Or it could. Wow. What a wonderful thing love must be,” Glynn said, anger and misery in her scornful voice. I did not answer her. How could you explain it to someone who had not yet known it? But Glynn loved; she loved me; I knew that she did. She loved Pom.

And she had felt the pain of that love. I knew that she had not yet drawn the parallel, perhaps would not. You start young to bury that knowledge deep. The hurt in my heart for my sister spread out to encompass my daughter. Damn you, too, Pom, I thought. She’s too young to equate love with rejection and punishment. You should not have yelled at her; you should not have punished her. Not when none of it was her fault. You truly should not have done that. You’re going to have to make that up to her. I can’t let that go.

The young man behind the bar came over to us carrying glasses.

“The bar just opened,” he said. “You two look like you could use a little something. It’s just white wine,” he added, taking in Glynn’s youth. “Or I could bring some Perrier or something.”

“No, wine’s fine,” I said. “Thank you. This is nice of you.”

“My pleasure,” he said, smiling at Glynn. She kept her head down and did not smile, but she sipped at her wine.

“Thank you,” she mumbled. My good girl.