FRANCISCO DIEGO THOUGHT OF HIMSELF AS AN ARTIST. HE’D been putting makeup on beautiful women and pretty girls and some very attractive men for thirty years. He’d done the deep-red Cupid’s bow lips, the delicate pink flush, the Betty Boop eyes, and narrow, penciled-on eyebrows one hair thick, and then the full, slick brows and Maybelline lashes and the big, raspberry eat-me-now mouth. He’d worked with beet juice and talc when he’d had to and he’d drawn stockings on his own sisters’ legs when they couldn’t get nylons. He’d met Max Factor. The late Max Factor had showed him a very good time in a couple of Malibu bars, and, in return, Francisco showed the man a better way to sponge on foundation. He could still do the Charleston with the starlets and arm wrestle with the boys. He loved the girls who, when he cupped their little chins, pointy or round or square as a sugar cube but still charming, their eyes welled up with gratitude. He had made them beautiful when they had just been pretty. He made the rare beauties unforgettable. He had made a sweet stick of a farmgirl into an Egyptian princess and watched her glide onto the set, knowing she now knew who she was.

  He loved the boys who would let him love them, who let him fill in the little ginger mustache or the lopsided brows or slip a pad onto the left shoulder and knew he had given them their careers. He even liked the ones whose vanity was legion. A tailor once called him after a big star came in to have the waist on his pants taken in. The star told everyone about his tailoring needs and the tailor told everyone that the problem was not the small waist, but some smallness a little farther south. To be that vain was to be as vulnerable as a woman, is what Francisco thought. He had solved the problem by looking like everyone’s Mexican grandfather. He didn’t color his hair, he didn’t watch his weight. He smoked one cigar a day and he got his cigars from the same place Mr. Thalberg used to. He had seven gray smocks and seven pairs of black linen pants and seven pairs of black espadrilles and dressed up for no one. For some of the actors, coming into the makeup room after six months of unemployment or suspension or being lent out for some piece of crap at First National Pictures, finding Francisco in his trailer, cleaning his brushes, was like catching sight of the lighthouse after months at sea. He took some of the sailors home with him, gave them refuge in his quiet bungalow, in his big lap, in the home-cooked meal, and in his affection, which he made sure had not a single dot or thread of envy or competition in it.

  HE’D NOTICED IRIS ACTON on her first day. There were always a dozen of her kind, even prettier, on the MGM lot on any day of the week, but she was quick and clever, and it was possible she could act. Someone had taught her good manners. She watched what everyone did and didn’t do. She didn’t throw fits. She didn’t make eyes at the movie stars. She was never late. He suggested she take in the back of her dress about an inch right over the roundest part of her rear, and the next day, the girl had put a dart in every dress she had.

  After Hedda Hopper kicked Iris’s ass, and no one on the set would even say the girl’s name, he drove over to the Firenze Gardens. He went because he was, as his younger sister liked to say, a big fat pile of pity for every stray dog and mangy cat that crossed his path. Iris was a starlet on the way up for about six months and now she was a stray dog, and she probably didn’t even know it. He had a soft spot for young people. They had no idea what was coming and how much of it was just dumb luck. They thought every asset they had would last forever and that their flaws could be concealed under fabric or false names or foundation until the lights were turned off. If you can feel sorry for a starving mutt, Francisco thought, you should certainly feel sorry for the young and beautiful.

  Iris opened the door, her eyes as red as cherries. She didn’t invite him in.

  “It’s so nice of you to come by, Mr. Diego,” the little sister said. She brought him a glass of water and put him in the only armchair.

  “I came to invite you girls to dinner,” Francisco said.

  Iris flinched.

  “That’s very nice of you,” the little girl said and she wiped her glasses on her skirt and settled them back on her square face. Iris looked out the window.

  “Everyone likes my cooking,” he said.

  He made them dinner three Tuesdays in a row, waiting for Iris to tell him what he already knew, so he could help her make a fresh start somewhere. The little sister ate two plates of everything and told him the history of the X-ray and the iron lung. He told the girls about his childhood in the San Fernando Valley on Rancho El Escorpión and how it became the Platt dairy ranch, and how that was pretty much the history of Southern California. He told them about the one-room schoolhouse and riding home on his palomino and his discovery of his feelings for handsome ranch hands and his understanding, at nine, that when he finished high school, he would need to run, not walk, to a big city. He told them about his mother, who was every flashing-eyed, hot-tempered Mexican heroine in history, and her three quiet husbands, all of whom died after fathering Francisco and his two half-sisters—now in New York and prospering, he said, and about as Mexican as salami on rye. He gave Iris a hundred chances to tell the truth, and Iris lied through every meal. He admired the way she talked about leads and interviews. She lied when he handed around the empanadas and she lied right through to the butter-pecan ice cream. She lied while he played cards with the little sister. She lied patting him on the cheek, to say goodnight, and Francisco caught her hand. Next time, he said, it’s your turn to have me over for dinner, just to be nice and, and afterward, we’re playing To Tell the Truth.

  5

  If You Ain’t Got the Do-Re-Mi

  NO ONE RETURNED MY SISTER’S CALLS. I MADE KRAFT MACARONI and cheese most nights, with variations. Iris kept looking for work. I know your face, dear, one of the women at Ralphs Grocery told her. Everyone who read the newspapers and the movie magazines knew Iris’s face now.

  “It’s like I’ve got the plague,” Iris said. “It’s like being Typhoid Mary.”

  I said, “You’re not actually killing people.”

  The next morning, I went by Mrs. Gruber’s to see if our old place was available and Mrs. Gruber asked why and I gave her the short version, as I understood it. Mrs. Gruber said, What a bitch, that Rose Sawyer. She said, Azoy gait es, that’s how it goes. Which I’d heard her say so many times, I’d started to say it myself. Mrs. Gruber poured crème de menthe into the gold-stemmed glasses for the two of us, and she said, Of course, you girls can have the room, at your old rate. She said she’d throw people out if she had to, and we clinked glasses. Mrs. Gruber said, Fame and beauty. Believe me, Alle ziben glicken. It means it’s not such a gift, ketzele. You stick with the big books and the little glasses.

  BECAUSE OF THE SITUATION, I didn’t want to go out. I didn’t go to the park. I didn’t go down to the Firenze Gardens courtyard. Iris didn’t ask me to stay in with her. She didn’t ask me for anything. She did her exercises and touched up her hair and washed our clothes in the sink. She began packing our things and she told me that we’d move in a week. You don’t need to mention this to anyone, she said. Who would I tell, I said.

  Iris did her vocal exercises every morning. She ironed all of our blouses and skirts in silence and generally acted like a person who lived alone, which I understood. I understood it and I tried to act like I didn’t even notice and I hoped that Iris wasn’t thinking about leaving, which I would have been. I wouldn’t have hung around for everyone to crap on and I wouldn’t have wanted a fourteen-year-old girl, who looked twelve and did absolutely nothing but cook food from a box and worry and read, for my sidekick. I sat in the armchair near the window and read The Picture of Dorian Gray, which I’d stolen from the library, and the old Photoplays that were in the apartment when we got here. When I finished the magazines, I found a Bible. I skipped over the slow stuff, the begats and some of the more disgusting parts, but I liked the New Testament, which was full of green hills and blue skies and forgiveness and similes and metaphors. In the Old Testament, there were no metaphors—bushes actually burned, walls fell down, seas parted, and any rational person would dive for cover when that happened. In the Old Testament, God delivered people. He rescued them from their enemies, from the wicked, from famine, from the grave. He waltzed them out of Egypt with a mighty hand and a bag of crackers, and that’s what I had in mind.

  GOD’S BURNING SERAPH, OR someone, was leaning on the doorbell while Iris packed and Francisco and I were washing up, after I made us a hot-dog supper. After I dried the last plate, we’d play cards, and after that, I was pretty sure Francisco would stick ten dollars under Iris’s pillow for the move to Mrs. Gruber’s. The bell rang three times. We stood there. We were ducking the manager of the Firenze Gardens. We could pay him for last month or we could pay Mrs. Gruber for next month and have something left over. Mrs. Gruber and the Hollywood Plaza Hotel were our future. Francisco looked at Iris.

  “It could be Rose,” Iris said, and I cut in front of her to get to the door. It would not be Rose and I didn’t want my sister to spend even one second thinking that it could be Rose Sawyer, whose name was now my private shorthand for true evil in the world. Rose Sawyer made my mother look good.

  “Oh, little Evie,” my father said. He had a white bakery box wrapped with red twine swinging from one finger, a bouquet of sunflowers crushed under his arm, and a suitcase in his other hand.

  “Christ, what ugly flowers,” Iris said.

  FRANCISCO FOLDED THE DISH towel and moved over to the door. He put his hand on my shoulder. My father looked elegant and exhausted, and I thought that if Francisco couldn’t beat the shit out of him, which he probably could, Iris and I could pile on.

  Iris sat down on the couch. Francisco kept his hand on my shoulder. I came to and said, My father, Edgar Acton, our dear friend Francisco Diego, and I was very pleased with myself. They eyed each other. No one made claims. No one asked anyone for money. No one offered Edgar a cup of tea or a drink or leftover baked beans. No one told to him to come inside and no one told him to beat it.

  My father cut the twine with his pocketknife and passed around the box of cookies, in silence. I ate six and Iris ate two. Francisco put his hand on his belly and declined. My father ate the rest of the cookies. At ten o’clock, I stretched out on the couch, next to my father. He made room for me and rested his hand on my shoulder. Iris closed her magazine and stood up.

  “I’m beat. I’m going to bed.” She unpacked one of the blankets and put it over me and went into her room.

  My father said, “Terrific poise.”

  Francisco said, “Superb.”

  In the early morning, I found the two men heaped on the floor, sofa cushions under their heads. An empty Scotch bottle was next to the coffee table. I sat on the couch and watched my father and Francisco sleep, and when I started to cry, I stood up and got into bed with Iris.

  “Never a dull,” she said.

  IN THE MORNING WE went to the diner for breakfast. The men walked ahead. My father ordered eggs and toast and he said that breakfast was on him. He said that he was very, very proud of Iris, that not a lot of girls could do what she had done. Iris said, Don’t bother. You’re too late. My father said that he was sorry he hadn’t come sooner but that he had had to tie up his affairs in Ohio and my sister said, We’re broke. Oke-bray. Francisco said that Iris was telling the truth. He said that no one even remotely connected with the movie business, not a restaurant, not a dress shop, nor a beauty parlor, was going to hire Iris after what happened. My father asked, What happened? and Francisco and I watched Iris, because it wasn’t for us to say. I got caught kissing another girl, Iris said. Miserable, puritanical sonsofbitches, my father said, and he patted Iris’s hand. That’s all? he said to Francisco.

  We walked back to the apartment and Iris whispered that Edgar would be gone soon. There’s nothing for him here, she said. Francisco went down to the courtyard to make a call and the three of us looked at one another.

  “What’s your plan?” my father asked.

  Iris said that we were moving back to Mrs. Gruber’s and she’d keep looking for work. I said I’d do some dog-walking. My father raised his voice.

  He said, “You’ve suffered an untoward blow from which you are not going to recover quickly. You can’t pay the bills you have and you’ve no expectation of paying bills in the future. You must see that you will be taking advantage of poor Mrs. Gruber. One does not, if one can possibly help it, take advantage of one’s true friends.”

  I started to ask exactly how that worked for him when Francisco came back into the room, beaming.

  “What do you do for a living, Edgar?”

  “Oh, poetry and prose. I was an English professor. Now retired.”

  “Must be nice,” Francisco said. He turned to me and Iris.

  “You know my sisters in New York,” he said. “Encarnación and Beatriz. Carnie and Bea. The girls say they know about a job for Edgar, being a butler”—he didn’t look at my father—“and for you, Iris, teaching some little kids. Let’s say, a governess.”

  No one even looked my way.

  My father shook Francisco’s hand (There are no words, he said) and came back a few hours later with a 1938 Chevy station wagon. Nothing to it, he said. We packed up everything we owned and a few things the Firenze Gardens owned, and Francisco brought over his two suitcases and his huge makeup box. I ran down to Mrs. Gruber’s and brought her back with her bottle of crème de menthe. We all took a swig. My father kissed her hand. Mrs. Gruber said, Good-bye, all of you. She kissed me on the lips and walked away.

  “And, wheresoever thou move, good luck shall fling her old shoe after. That’s Tennyson,” my father said and slid into the passenger seat.

  Iris and I crammed into the backseat, with a Firenze Gardens lamp at our feet. Francisco winked at us. My father clapped his hands. It was, pretty much, his finest moment.

  6

  Every Day’s a Holiday

  WE SANG EVERY MORNING. MY FATHER SANG “IT’S COLD WITHOUT Your Trousers” and “A Little Bit of Cucumber.” Francisco and my father sang “Hey! Stop Kissin’ My Sister,” snapping their fingers, my father yelling, “You swine! To the pigpen!” Iris and I sang “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby” and “You Made Me Love You.” We drank watery coffee. Iris and I ate fresh doughnuts, the oil still spitting in them (and bismarks and bear claws and brown bobbys, whatever the local pastry was, since, finally, briefly, my father was paying) and my father and Francisco ate ham and eggs and blue-plate specials. We all had our assignments. Francisco drove all day and haggled for gas every morning. Six nights, the four of us slept in a motel room. No one blinked at us. It was the war and people were showing up in all sorts of fatherless, motherless, husbandless combinations. Francisco got a bed, Iris and I got a bed, and my father took the floor and a bedspread. In Kansas, he taught my sister how to drive, just to pass the time. In Missouri, Francisco turned straight north to Illinois. My father said he’d like to see Missouri. Francisco said, Not with me, you won’t. He said Missouri was like the South and the only part of the South he planned to ever drive through was South America.

  I knew that we were near Windsor, Ohio, before I saw the highway signs. There was the comforting flatness, the pleasant brown haze, the solid houses that looked like the solid people. I thought that we hadn’t left much behind. I had my father and my sister and Francisco, who seemed like a part, a better part, of our little family. The only thing I missed was my nice room at my father’s house and Mr. Portman’s poodle. Iris poked me and said, Our house isn’t that far, and I poked her back. My father never said a word. He read until dark and in the morning, we were out of Ohio entirely.

  My father read up on butlering. (Or buttling. Edgar and Francisco argued, many times, about what it was called. My father said that whatever you called it, it came down to arse-licking and silver-polishing.) My father had snagged an Emily Post book and my job was to ask him questions, to try to stump him. (Mustaches on man-servants or no? No. Who is the head of the table? The wife. Val-et or val-ay? Val-et, which seemed awful to me. My father promised me that he would refer to any valet he met as a “val-ay” and that he would not wear a mustache—or a flower in his buttonhole, which was quite a concern on page 297.) Occasionally, there was a memorable line or warning in Emily Post, and Francisco would sing it out, like opera. All through western Pennsylvania we warbled, “Better to be frumpy than vulgar.” I bet if you walked up to my sister today, she could quote you chapter and verse of Emily Post.

  Iris’s job was to become a governess in six days. According to Emily Post, governesses were better educated than nannies and better paid. They were supposed to teach the children something until someone thought they were old enough for school. How old are these kids, Iris asked, and how many are there? Francisco shrugged. I think there are three, he said. I could be wrong. Iris said she didn’t know how to pretend to be a college graduate; she’d scraped through Windsor High and no one had expected her to do anything except star in all the shows and help out at ceremonies. My father said that she was officially twenty-one and a recent graduate of the Windsor College for Women. He said that he’d take care of her letters of reference. Iris said he should make her Phi Beta Kappa in that case, and my father sighed. He said he didn’t care for her overreaching. My other job was to sum up Shakespeare’s plays and recite crucial passages to Iris.

  My father handed me a pile of the Little Blue Books on English literature and then, when he got tired of butler questions and Francisco stopped doing his Arthur Treacher imitations, my father made me quiz Iris on the Shakespearean plays and the sonnets. You don’t have to actually know, he said. You only have to know more than they do. A little self-discipline is all that’s required, he said. One hour before bedtime to stay ahead. Same for you, he said to me, but I didn’t know who I’d be staying ahead of.