Weightless and floating in the black void ofouter space, Lilly swims, holding her breath. Her arms stroke, and herlegs kick in an Australian crawl, inching her way along the side of theorbiting space capsule until she arrives beside a small tin-colored boxaffixed to the outer hull. The box is stenciled, SOLARMODULE, and it flashes with an occasional burst of brightsparks. Still holding her breath, her cheeks inflated and her browfurrowed in concentration, Lilly drags a ball-peen hammer from the hippocket of her slacks ensemble accessorized with Orry-Kelly high heels.Her chandelier earrings and turquoise squash-blossom pendant are stilltethered to Lilly, but float and drift in the absence of gravity.Gripping the hammer in her blue fingers, the veins swelling under theskin at her temples, Lilly swings the steel head to collide with themodule box. In the vacuum of space, we hear nothing, only silence andthe steady thump-thump of Lilly’s enormousheart beating faster and faster. The hammer strikes the module a secondtime. Sparks fly. The tin-colored metal dents, and flakes of gray paintfloat away from the point of impact.
More hammer blows fall; with each the soundrings louder, then louder as we dissolve to reveal the kitchen ofKatherine Kenton, where I sit at the kitchen table, reading a screenplaytitled Space Race Rescue penned by Lilly. Iwear the black maid’s uniform, over it the bib apron. On my head thestarched, lacy maid’s cap. The hammer blows continue, an audio bridge,now revealed to be an actual pounding sound coming from within the townhouse.
The blows ring more loud, more fast as we cutto a shot of the bed headboard in Miss Kathie’s boudoir, revealing thesounds as the headboard pounding the wall. The sexual coupling takesplace below the bottom of the frame, barely outside the shot, but we canhear the heavy breathing of a man and a woman as the tempo and volumeof the pounding increase. Each impact makes the framed paintings jump onthe walls. The curtain tassels dangle and dance. The bedside pile ofscreenplays slumps to the floor.
On the page, as Lilly’s astronaut heart beatsfaster and her hammer batters the box again and again, we hear theheadboard of Miss Kathie’s bed slamming the wall, faster, until with onefinal, heroic pounding, the lights of the space module flicker back tolife. The pounding ceases as all the various gauges and dials flare backto full power and, framed in the module’s little window, John Glenn gives Lilly the thumbs-up. Tears ofhorror and relief stream down the face inside his astronaut helmet.
In the background of the kitchen, two hairyfeet appear at the top of the servants’ staircase, two hairy anklesdescend from the second floor, two hairy knees, then the hem of a whiteterry-cloth bathrobe. Another step down, and the cloth belt appears,tied around a narrow waist; two hairy hands hang on either side. A chestappears, the terry cloth embroidered with a monogram: O.D. The robe of the long-deceased fourth“was-band.” Another step reveals the face of WebsterCarlton Westward III. Those bright brown root-beer eyes. A smileparts his face, pulling at the corners of his mouth, spreading them likea stage curtain, and this American specimen says, “Good morning,Hazie.”
On the page, Lilly Hellman struggles in thecold, black void of space, dragging herself along the hull of the Friendship 7, fightingher way back to the air lock.
The Webster specimen opens a kitchen cabinetand collects the percolator. He pulls out a drawer and retrieves thepower cord. He does each task on his first attempt, without hunting. Hereaches into the icebox without looking and removes the metal can ofcoffee grounds. From another cabinet, he takes the morning tray—not thesilver tea tray nor the dinner tray. It’s clear he knows what’s what inthis household and where each item is hidden.
This Webster C. WestwardIII appears to be a quick study. One of those clever, smilingyoung men Terrence Terry warned my Miss Kathieabout. Those jackals. A magpie.
Spooning coffee grounds into the percolatorbasket, the Webster specimen says, “If you’ll permit me to ask, Hazie,do you know whom you remind me of?”
Without looking up from the page, Lillysuffocating in the freezing stratosphere, I say, Thelma Ritter.
I was Thelma Ritterbefore Thelma Ritter was ThelmaRitter.
To see how I walk, watch AnnDvorak walk across the street in the film Housewife.You want to see me worried, watch how Miriam Hopkinspuckers her brow in Old Acquaintance. Everyhand gesture, every bit of physical business I ever perfected, somenobody came along and stole. Pier Angeli’slaugh started out as my laugh. The way Gilda Graydances the rumba, she swiped it from me. How MarilynMonroe sings she got by hearing me.
The damned copycats. There’s worse thatpeople can steal from you than money. Someone steals your pearls and you can simplybuy another strand. But if they steal your hairstyle, or the signaturemanner in which you throw a kiss, it’s much more difficult to replace. Back a long time ago, I was in motionpictures. Back before I met up with my Miss Kathie. Nowadays, I don’t laugh. I don’t sing ordance. Or kiss. My hair styles itself.
It’s like Terrence Terrytried to warn Miss Kathie: the whole world consists of nothing butvultures and hyenas wanting to take a bite out of you. Your heart ortongue or violet eyes. To eat up just your best part for theirbreakfast.
You want to see TallulahBankhead, not just her playing Julie Marsdenin Jezebel, or being ReginaGiddens in The Little Foxes, but thereal Tallulah, you only need to watch Bette Davisin All About Eve. It was JosephL. Mankiewicz who wrote Margo Channingbased on his poor mother, the actress JohannaBlumenau, but it was Davis who cozied up to Tallulah long enoughto learn her mannerisms. Tallulah’s delivery and how she walked. Howshe’d enter a room. The way Tallulah’s voice got screechy after onebourbon. How, after four of them, her eyelids hung, half closed assteamed clams.
Of course, not everybody was in on the joke.It could be some Andy Devine or Slim Pickens farmers in SiouxFalls couldn’t see Davis doing a minstrel-show version ofTallulah, but everybody else saw. Imagine a real performer watching youdrink at a hundred parties, memorizing you while you’re upset andspitting in the face of William Dieterle, thenmaking you into a stage routine and performing you for the whole worldto laugh at. The same as how that big shit OrsonWelles made fun of Willy Hearst andpoor Marion Davies.
The Webster specimen holds the percolator inthe sink, filling it with water from the faucet. He assembles thebasket, the spindle and the lid, plugs the female end of the electriccord into the percolator base and plugs the male end into the powersocket.
Folks in Little Rockand Boulder and Budapest,most folks don’t know what’s not true. That bunch of ChillWills rubes. So the whole entire world gets thinking thatcartoon version Miss Davis created is the real you.
Bette Davis builther career playing that burlesque version of TallulahBankhead. Nowadays, if anybody mentions poor Willy Hearst, you picture Welles, fat and shoutingat Mona Darkfeather, chasing Peel Trenton down some stairs. For anybody who nevershook hands with Tallulah, she’s that bug-eyed harpy with that horridfringe of pale, loose skin flapping along Davis’s jawline.