Old Hollywood

 She sits on the couch with large sunglasses on, the ones she always wore; so dark I can no longer see the eyes beneath them. The eyes that have been wrinkled by age, bulged by hyperthyroidism. Her lips are a pale pink with traces of a red/orange lipstick applied earlier in the morning. I’m sure that beneath the lips there are marks of lipstick along her off-white teeth. When she smiled, with the bulging eyes and red-stained teeth, it was almost frightening. But once, a long time ago, she was a movie star; fabulously beautiful. Perfectly red-lined lips framed her pearly, straight teeth, gorgeous Caribbean blue eyes that pierced your soul, skin that had never been touched by the sun; smooth like milk. Large yellow-blonde curls sat atop her head, never a strand out of place.

 

Back on the couch, she writes out a check with her wrinkled fingers, her hand loosely holds the pen, which wobbles back and forth and shakily writes, “One-hundred and fifty dollars.” Her handwriting is sharp and ragged, barely legible. When she was a movie star, though, she had beautiful penmanship. Each letter carefully crafted; precise loops, tasteful curves, dazzling embellishments. When I was a child, I’d try to read her birthday cards, to make out the scratches and lines that made up the words. My father would read it aloud to me, “Happy Birthday, Melissa, my dear and wonderful granddaughter.” The cards were never simply written, but always enhanced with dramatic adjectives like “dear” and “wonderful” and “beautiful” and “spectacular”, perhaps making up for her unsightly handwriting.

She found ways to make her adult life exquisite. She ornamented herself with excessive jewelry, mostly gold, very “glitzy”. Pieces that had her name “Adele” adorned in diamonds, lockets that hung heavy on her neck, rings that crawled up her fragile fingers. I watch the rings on her fingers move, to pick up the glass on the table, filled with bubbly coca-cola. She drops a handful of pills into the coke and lets them slowly dissolve before taking a swig. That’s how it always was, but sometimes with orange juice. She never had much to talk about, just how big I’ve gotten and how beautiful I am becoming. In fact, I can’t remember a serious conversation I’ve ever had with her. Except for, perhaps, the last conversation I had with her.

She was in a hospital bed, they were about to move her to a hospice. It was the end and I was given my last chance to say goodbye. She was nothing; she was wasting away. Under the blanket, her legs looked like they didn’t even exist anymore. I sat next to her, the room smelled like death. I couldn’t touch her unless I had gloves on; she’d contracted a staph infection. I wished that I could open the window, but the bitter winter wind might have frozen her frail body right before my eyes. The only sound I heard from her was wheezing; she could no longer talk. Her thirst was unbearable, but she couldn’t drink, her throat didn’t work.

It was hard to look at her, to look at anyone in such a state, but there was something tragically beautiful about it, almost like the death of Marilyn Monroe. She’d be happy to hear me say that, to compare her death to the death of someone as fabulous and legendary as Marilyn. I told her that I had bought a keyboard with the money she had given me for Christmas. She always asked me to play for her. I would play the songs she loved, the songs that probably reminded her of ballroom dances and teenage love. She would sing along, loud, but lovely. She didn’t respond; but she took a deep breath and I knew she’d heard me.

Days later I’d stand next to her again, but this time she was cold. She didn’t look very different in the coffin; she still looked small and sick as she did days earlier. I stared at her white face, caked with the mortician’s makeup, not the fancy Christian Dior foundation she used to purchase from Nordstrom. Her hands, which rested on her stomach, were the only things I recognized. On the tips of her laced fingers were long pink painted fingernails, still as elegant as ever.

I pictured her somewhere else; in a room lit by massive crystal chandelier, women in luxurious fur coats, men in perfect black tuxedos, dancing to the rhythm of the swing music being played by the big band ensemble on stage. She’d be on the stage singing “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square”, and the crowd of people would surround her and embrace her with their adoring eyes. She’d be eternally fabulous.