On the morning of my twenty-first birthday, I’m woken by the boy, eager to show me his present. He pulls me out of bed and drags me downstairs.
“C’mon, you lazy thing!” he laughs, hauling me through the kitchen, where Miss Mary has laid out a proper birthday feast.
“Morning, sunshine,” she greets, opening the back door before we fly past her. “Happy birthday.”
The boy leads me outside.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I’ll show ya,” he says cheerily as he pulls me down the steps to the pool, across the lawn, and toward the trees at the edge of the property.
“Look!” he shouts.
I follow his gaze, and there, tucked between the lawn and the woods beyond, is a little white cottage that wasn’t here the last time I looked.
“What on earth is this?” I ask, stepping closer.
“Come see!” he says, practically bouncing, and opens the door.
From the outside, it mirrors the Great White Mansion, like a fitting guest house, but inside, it’s been split into two rooms with a shared kitchenette. One side is an art studio and office space; the other, a music studio.
“What the…” I laugh. “You did this?”
He grins, “Sure did. Me and Miss Mary been plottin’ for ages, tryin’ to keep it from ya. You like it?”
“Yes, of course I do.” I say.
His face lights up. “It’s our spot now. You can do your drawin’ or writin’ or whatever, and I’ll be messin’ around with music.”
“That’s amazing,” I say, hugging him, overjoyed. “You really did this for me?”
“Well… not all by myself,” he says. “I got some folks to build it while you were up at college. And look,” he gestures to his half of the studio,“Sam helped pick out the gear. It’s real space-age, ain’t it?”
He twirls a few knobs, taps a sleek panel, then points to a glass window between our rooms. “I can peek in and see how you’re doin’. You can wave at me like a little muse.” He guffaws.
“It’s magical,” I say, kissing him. “It’s the best present I’ve ever had.”
He laughs, blushing. “You really like it? I was worried you’d think it was too much. I mean, it’s your house.”
Just then Miss Mary calls from the garden.
“Aw, hell,” he says. “We ain’t got much time ’fore we gotta leave.”
He grabs my hand and pulls me back up to the house.
“I’m so happy,” I say as I sit down for breakfast. “Being twenty-one is brilliant.”
Miss Mary laughs. She and the boy chat about their little conspiracy, how fun it was to plan, how hard it was to keep quiet. Then the phone rings.
Thinking it’s for me, I run to the hallway and answer.
It’s Red. For the boy.
Back in the kitchen, Miss Mary raises a glass and gives a heartfelt speech, tells me she’s proud of the woman I’ve become.
I’m touched. She’s the person whose opinion means the most to me.
The boy re-enters, suddenly downcast.
He tells us that after the bust-up and Mr P’s lecture, Red has joined the Marines.
“Now what?” he mutters. “What in the hell we gonna do without him?”
He scratches his head, lost in thought.
But there’s no time to dwell, our ride is here.
I still can’t believe Red. Why would he do something so extreme?
The driver’s directed to the luggage by Miss Mary, and I take the boy’s hand as we slip into the car.
“Everything’s gonna be okay,” I tell him.
He shrugs and squeezes my hand. “I’m sure it will.”
And before we know it, we’re off to California.
***
“Have you ever thought about the fact that I was born on the eighth day of January, and you were born in the eighth month of the year, eight days later?” he asks me on the plane.
“Nope,” I say, settling into the seat beside him.
“You haven’t?” he says, surprised.
I kiss him on the nose and laugh. “Why would I? It doesn’t matter, does it?”
He looks disappointed “I think numbers mean a lot in life.”
“Sure,” I say, “mathematics runs through everything in the universe. We are all zeros and ones.”
I smile at him, trying to indulge him, though it doesn’t come naturally. I don’t really care for the meaning of numbers.
“That ain’t what I mean,” he says. After a pause: “Never mind. You don’t get it.”
I ruffle his hair. “I don’t think I do.” I crawl up next to him and catch his eye, doing my best puppy face. “Please forgive me, I’m dumb.” I tickle him.
He laughs, shaking his head, and takes my hand as we soar into the skies. I can feel how important this is to him, that it means something beyond coincidence.
“We were both born in 1935,” he says, locking eyes with me. “And if you add up three plus five, what d’you get?”
“Eight.” I say.
“Exactly.” He grins.
“Eight is our number. And what’s the number eight look like?” he asks, raising his brows.
“Um… the infinity sign?” I say, already guessing where he’s headed.
“Now we’re talkin’,” he says, pulling me closer. “You and me equals infinity.”
I put my arm around him, breathe in the sweet scent of his neck, Memphis summer, and kiss him. He looks good today, hair a sun-bleached mess, wearing a short-sleeved striped shirt.
“Happy birthday, baby,” he whispers.
***
The boy reports to set when we arrive, and I check us into the Knickerbocker Hotel, booked by the studio, not a place I would have chosen if it were up to me.
And then, I’m invited to call at Cary Grant’s.
Isn’t it funny how he’s become a sort of uncle over here? He says he’s my representative from the British Embassy, then chortles and asks if I’d like a drink.
I thank him when he hands me the tumbler.
“An Old Fashioned,” he says with a wink.
He gestures to the seating arrangement by the pool, and we sit down on either side of a green cast-iron table. I take a sip and glance toward the garden.
“You really are remarkably pretty,” he says. “I hope you don’t mind me saying so.”
I don’t mind in the slightest. It’s wonderful to be told one is pretty or beautiful. I’m getting used to it now, and I suspect that one day, when people stop telling me, I’ll miss it.
“You ought to be in the movies,” he says. “I mean it.”
He gets up as Betsy arrives and goes to greet her.
Betsy smiles and walks over to me.
“Hello, darling,” she says warmly. “You really should, you know. Beautiful bone structure, good posture, elegant movement, charisma, and that lovely soft transatlantic voice.”
She holds my hands in hers, arms outstretched, as though assessing me. I’m a little shy, so I say nothing.
“You’d be terrific,” Mr Grant agrees. “I can set you up for a screen test with the studio?”
I start to sweat, because I don’t want to be in the movies. I did when I was a girl, but now I feel like I already live inside the movies. My life is the adventure. I’m afraid that if I tried actually being in them, it might bring a curse, something strange and heavy I don’t know how to name.
“I like my life as it is,” I explain.
They both shake their heads in amused disbelief.
“How’s the boy?” Cary asks. “He seems to be going from strength to strength.”
I tell them all about it. I stay for dinner. Mr Grant sits at the head of the table, lost in thought, and says to no one and everyone:
“Remarkable. Quite remarkable.”
Then he lifts his glass in a toast: to health and happiness.
***
When the boy returns from set, I kiss him. “I bought you something today.”
“Baby, you really shouldn’t have!” he says, already launching into tales from the day.
When he finishes, he unwraps the gift and reads the title aloud: Cheiro’s Book of Numbers.
“Yeah,” I say. “You said you were fascinated by the meaning of numbers, and then I happened upon this, and something told me you might enjoy it.”
He smiles. “So you do listen to me after all?”
“Occasionally,” I reply.
I toss the book on the bed. “Let’s get dirty before we wash off our sins and go out to dinner,” I grin. “And before you can count to eight.”
The boy, really, and I mean really, loves to cuddle afterwards. It’s one of his most endearing traits. He likes to lie about and talk just as much as I do.
“For all your alpha maleness,” he says, roaring with laughter, “I love how girly you really are. A silly little sausage. A gigglin’, wiggly lil’ daisy.”
He starts nosing at my neck.
I start batting him away. “I am not manly.”
“You got a bossy streak worse than the Colonel’s. No wonder he’s half scared of you.” He guffaws.
I ask if he still prefers the sexy girls from Vegas. I’m too vulnerable to hear what I assume will be the honest answer.
“I’ve felt bad ‘bout that dumb comment ever since,” he says. “I was hopin’ you’d forgotten it.”
He pulls me close. I rest my head on his chest.
“I’ve been thinkin’ about it,” he says quietly. “Like, do I really like that look, or is it just somethin’ I associate with easy thrills? And I figured… it ain’t real. You are.”
He touches my cheek.
“You don’t gotta change nothin’. I’ll love you as you are ’til the end of time. Don’t care if one day you get all saggy and wrinkled and stubborn.” He grins, meeting my gaze.
“The Vegas girls, that kinda glamour, it’s from a different part of my head. I dunno how to say it right.”
I say nothing.
“There’s you, and then there’s that other type, the showgirls, the wild ones, the lipstick-smearin’, skirt-hikin’ types. I like ’em too. But they’re just the shadows. You’re the origin. The real thing. The one I go to for life. They’re for the little deaths.”
Then he turns to me.
“I oughta ask you the same, ’bout me and that boy Topper, but thing is, I don’t think I can handle the answer. Not just yet. So maybe… some other time.”
He wraps himself around me and strokes my hair.
“You get it?” he murmurs.
“Yes.” I reply, quietly.
“They’re just pastime. You’re inside my soul.”
***
Gene and Junior Smith are out here now, too. And although I find them irritating on a superficial level, their presence juvenile, their chatter incessant, I understand why they’re here. They soothe the boy. They help ease his nerves in this strange new world of Hollywood.
Still, they behave like infants whenever we go out together. Just this past Saturday, we went to Long Beach Amusement Park, and I spent the entire outing wishing I could leave them to it.
In a way, I’m glad school is about to start.
I keep asking if it’s all right for me to go, and the boy keeps asking me to stay, just a little while longer.
He says his scatterbox brain feels more ordered when I’m near. That everything seems clearer with me around.
But August will soon turn to September, and then I’ll have to be back at school. That’s non-negotiable.
One night, he asks if we shouldn’t just get married. That way, he says, I wouldn’t have to finish my degree. He could take care of me. We could be together all the time.
“How on earth does that make sense to you?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. “I’m richer than God. I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to.”
He laughs. “I keep forgettin’ that.”
“I’m studying because I enjoy it,” I tell him. “The same way you enjoy making music, or learning how to act in films. You like it when your mind’s engaged.”
He shrugs. “I just want you close, is all. That a crime?”
I ask him if he actually wants to be married. He doesn’t know. He only knows he doesn’t want to lose me.
“I don’t want to be married,” I tell him. “But I’ll stay close,” I promise. “As long as we treat each other with kindness and respect. That’s the deal. That’s what love is. It’s about feeding one another in the right ways, not owning each other.”
He considers thoughtfully. Says he read something like that in The Prophet.
***
I spend a few more days with him, go with him to set, wait while he’s called into pre-production meetings, fittings and interviews.
I commend him for his professionalism.
He asks if I’ll drive us back into town. Says he wants to be alone with me, just us. He’ll get Junior and Gene to take the other car.
“I just… I need to be silly with you for a while,” he says. “Shake off all this adult stuff. Be like we were, just us two, actin’ dumb, makin’ each other laugh… before you leave for school.”
He’s afraid. Afraid everything’s changing. That it already has. That the future is swallowing us faster than we can hold onto what’s real.
I take his hand, guide him to the car, toss his keys to the other car to Gene and Junior without explanation.
Then I drive us back to the hotel.
We laugh, we tell stories, we play at being who we used to be, before all this. We put on our brave faces, rehearsing the part of two people untouched by the machinery now spinning around him.
We talk about the future, his first film, the road ahead, as if the yellow brick road still leads somewhere safe. But I can already see the smoke rising from behind the curtain.
I pour all my love into him, trying to hold the real boy in place before he disappears into his own reflection. And beneath the smiles and the warmth, a quiet hatred brews, not of him, but of America herself.
Because she is taking him from me, turning him into an emblem, a product, a fever dream. She is the siren and the slaughterhouse, dressing up hunger as hope. The American Dream is devouring its own children, gilding the rot with light.
I drive on, watching the horizon blur, knowing he’s halfway gone already, claimed by the story this country tells about itself.
***
We change hotels. Now we’re at the Beverly Wilshire; grander, quieter, more discreet. The boys have arrived: Scotty, DJ, and Bill.
I ask again if it’s alright for me to leave for school.
“No,” he says simply. “I need you to stay.”
I join him for a few days of soundtrack recording on the Fox soundstage. I sit quietly in the back, watching him work: focused, exacting, professional.
Then I tell him I have to go.
“I’m scared,” he admits.
“You can call me anytime,” I tell him.
“I’ll be here whenever you need me,” I say. “I’ll see you in December.”
“And I’ll think of you every minute of every day until then,” he replies.
I know the truth. Once filming begins, I’ll fade quietly to the edges of his world, stored somewhere just off-screen. And I know he’ll be having the time of his life, because he’s come prepared, armed with talent, charm, and the kind of innocence America loves to eat alive.
He’s twenty-one. Distractible. Brilliant. It makes me smile, and it terrifies me.
I watch him walk away across the lot, sunlight cutting through the haze, still the boy I love, yet already being rewritten into the story America tells about herself, the one that turns her sons into symbols and feeds on what remains.
My World of Interiors 