She edged over to the turntable. The record on top was Ella and Louis. She started the machine and set the needle. Closed her eyes to listen to the piano introduction, then Armstrong’s easy, bluesy voice, having that feeling of self-pity . . .
“We should be drinking Dad’s scotch,” Deirdre said, turning back to Henry.
“Help yourself.”
“I didn’t say I wanted any. I’m not crazy about the stuff.” Besides, on top of pot, hard liquor would be a very bad idea. “But it was his drink. And this is his music.”
Henry stood and offered her his hand. He lifted her off the ground, set her feet on top of his, and rocked back and forth to the music. Deirdre closed her eyes and sang along. “A foggy day . . .” The words were muffled in Henry’s shoulder, his shirt damp with her tears. “He taught me to waltz. And the Lindy,” she said.
“You were a good dancer, Deeds. All he taught me to do was smoke. And drink. And drive too fast.”
“Mmm, driving too fast. I can blame him for that, too.”
Henry helped Deirdre back to the couch and then sat down again himself. He poked his chopsticks into the take-out box and took another mouthful. A Singapore noodle stuck to his chin. Deirdre imagined what he’d look like as a Chia pet with noodles instead of grass growing out of his head and started to laugh.
Henry reached across, tweezed a spear of broccoli from her take-out box, and popped it into his mouth. Brown sauce dribbled down his chin to meet the noodle.
The room started to spin. Deirdre closed her eyes, which only made her feel worse. She lurched back upright.
When the phone rang, neither Deidre nor Henry moved to answer it. The machine picked up after four rings, and their father’s voice echoed into the room. “You’ve reached Arthur Unger . . .” Deirdre flopped over and pulled a cushion over her head. When she heard the beep, she lifted the cushion.
“Hello? Henry, Deirdre? Are you there?” Hyello. Deirdre recognized the slightly accented voice before he added, “It is Sy.” Sy Sterling, attorney to the stars, was the closest thing Deirdre and Henry had to an uncle from the old country. “I heard the news. I cannot believe this is happening. I talked to your father just the other day. Yesterday, for Chrissake. And”—he paused; his voice turned raspy and his accent thickened—“we were saying how we had to get together. Pick up some corned beef sandwiches and go to the track.”
Henry lurched from the chair, dropping the box of noodles, which exploded onto the Oriental rug. He cursed, then tripped on the rug’s raveled edge halfway to the phone and cursed again. In seconds, Bear and Baby had Hoovered up the spill.
“One of you call me back as soon as you can? I am in my car right now but I will be home later. Two seven six—”
Henry finally grabbed the phone. “Sy? It’s Henry.” Henry sounded winded. “Thanks for calling. Yeah.” He paused, nodding his head a little. “I don’t know. He was in the pool when Deirdre got here this morning. The cops were here most of the day. They think he died last night.” Henry listened. “Are we okay?” He looked across at Deirdre. “I guess.” He listened some more. “Of course I didn’t let them into the house.”
Henry turned his back to Deirdre and walked toward the window. The phone cord stretched from coiled to straight until it wouldn’t stretch farther. Henry stood quietly, listening, a long silence with just the occasional “Uh-huh,” “Sure,” “Okay.”
Deirdre got up again. She limped over to the wall of bookshelves and picked up a framed photograph of all four of them, scrubbed and polished and posed against a backlit scrim of blue sky and palm trees. Ten-year-old Deirdre wore a demure black velvet dress with a white lacy collar, her hair skinned back in a ponytail. Henry, a year older, looked downright military in his little suit. What you couldn’t see was that he’d been wearing flip-flops. That year he’d refused to wear real shoes.
Alongside the family portrait was a framed black-and-white photograph of eight-year-old Deirdre in a sparkly leotard and skirt of layered ruffles. Deirdre knew the ruffles were pink, and the black patent leather tap shoes had been bought a size too big for her so that she could “grow into them.” More girls in similar getups stood posed behind her looking supremely bored as Deirdre danced her solo.
She turned the picture facedown on the shelf.
Behind the pictures were videocassettes, each with a handwritten label—some her mother’s careful printing, others her father’s scrawl. Also lined up was a row of their leather-bound movie scripts, the titles embossed in gold on the spines. Deirdre ran her hand over the leather. Gloria had let Arthur keep all their scripts when she’d walked out. She’d left behind most of her clothes and jewelry, too, along with her perfume and cosmetics. She’d probably have shed her skin and left that behind if she could have.
The shelved scripts were in chronological order. There was Lady, Be Good, their first movie, a remake of a 1920s silent film of the Gershwin musical comedy that was long on jazzy score, glittery costumes, and dance numbers and short on plot. Next to it, A Night in St. Tropez. Deirdre opened that script and paged through hand-typed pages until she got to one of the nine-by-eleven, black-and-white glossies that were bound into the book. Carmen Miranda winked at the camera, wearing ropes of pearls and a skirt that looked like it was made of bananas.
At the end of the row were two copies of Singing All the Way Home, the last script her parents wrote together, and one of the last romantic musicals in an era that had been full of them.
“Really?” Henry was saying into the phone. “All right then!” Deirdre looked over at him. He was smiling. Some good news?
Deirdre pulled one of the copies of Singing All the Way Home off the shelf and opened it. There were no pages bound into it. Instead, tucked inside was a pocket folder that held a sheaf of papers—an unbound manuscript, carbon copies on onionskin paper. Centered on an otherwise blank first page were the words “WORKING TITLE: ONE DAMNED THING AFTER ANOTHER,” and below that, “by Arthur Unger, 1985.”
Deirdre turned to the next page and read.
CHAPTER 1: EXIT LAUGHING
The writing was on the wall of our office at Twentieth Century Fox when the secretary didn’t show up and the phones disappeared. We were screwed. Shafted. Sucker-punched. Time to strike the set.
Deirdre smiled. She could hear her father’s voice. For a moment her chest tightened and her vision blurred.
Beneath the opening paragraph, text was formatted like the slug lines and stage directions of a movie script.
INT. TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX - SCREENWRITERS OFFICE - DAY (1963)
ARTHUR UNGER opens the door to his office and starts to enter. He’s trim, middle-aged, wears a suit and holds his hat. Stops. He looks surprised. Dismayed.
His secretary’s desk is empty. Disconnected phone wires are coiled on the floor.
ARTHUR crosses to the window, looks two stories down to a deserted studio street where a huge movie poster for Cleopatra is plastered across a wall. In front of it is an empty phone booth.
ARTHUR raises the window. Sits on the ledge.
No, I didn’t jump. Two stories up? Not high enough to kill me, and damned if I was going to let the sons of bitches cripple me for life. When I went outside to use the pay phone, I swear there were vultures circling overhead. Could’ve been a scene out of Hitchcock, but Hitchcock worked for Universal.
Turned out hundreds of us arrived on the Fox lot that morning to find our office phone lines disconnected and our typewriters returned to Props.
It was a clever device for a screenwriter’s memoir, alternating between the idiosyncratic formatting of a screenplay and straight narrative. Odd that Arthur had kept this carbon copy tucked in the cover of a movie script. Almost like he’d hidden it there.