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Wishful thinking. Her disappearance was quickly noticed, and rumors started flying. After the one about her committing suicide (they hadn’t found the body yet), Roland issued a press release saying only that she was very much alive and well and was traveling in Europe. People believed what they wanted. One whisper had it that she was at a rehabilitation center trying to kick a drug habit, another that she was dying of cancer at the Mayo Clinic. One rumor even said she was married and living in Oslo. I sent that clipping. Her response was “At least they got the continent right. Please ask your husband if he thinks married life in Oslo would be a good career move for me.” We worried about her, but also believed she was happy far away in her new anonymous life.
While she was gone there was certainly no lack of offers of work. Roland sent i
“Don’t scold me for being happy, Rose. If you do, you’re not my friend.”
She was right and I felt contrite, until I realized I hadn’t asked the question in a scolding tone. I simply wanted to know if she would ever return to acting. Since Roland had been listening in on an extension, I checked with him to make sure my voice hadn’t had anything hard or accusing in it. Agreeing with me, he said he thought her remark came from guilt at having dropped out of a life so many millions of people would love to have.
“Yeah, but that life was destroying her. She didn’t have anything left.”
He shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. Don’t forget that guilt keeps score. She’s happier now in one way, but we both know the woman’s talent and potential; no matter how fulfilling it is to repair a door or plant roses, something in her is probably howling to act again. The more talented they are, the more voices are inside disagreeing about what they should be doing.”
“That’s sick! Why should anyone feel guilty for being happy?”
He came up and put his arms around me. His familiar and beloved smell was suddenly there, as was his heavy chin on my shoulder. “Real happiness doesn’t last long. If it goes on any longer than a week or a month, all our bad parts start shouting something’s wrong here. Fire! Man overboard! Call the cops!”
I was nose to nose with him. “Do you believe that?”
He kissed me. “Yes, I do. We want happiness, and we work hard to get it. But when it comes, we end up looking over its shoulder for the bill or—”
I hated the thought. He was absolutely right but I hated it. To stop whatever else true and horrible he was about to say, I put a hand over his mouth, then my mouth against my hand. We stood looking at each other until he closed his eyes.
When the repairs on her house were finished, Arlen invited us to spend a few weeks in Austria with her. As usual, Roland was working too hard and said it was impossible for him to leave. I blew my top and gave so many good reasons why we should go that it shamed him into a compromise—a ten-day trip to Europe.
We flew directly to Vie
As we drove along the Danube a few miles from her place, Roland slid forward on the back seat till he was right behind me and said, “You don’t sound different, Arlen, but you do look slightly more saintly. Probably from all this spartan living you’ve been doing.”
She glanced at him in the rearview mirror and pursed her lips. “There’s so much going on that I have to tell you about. You know how much I love the two of you, but it feels strange having you here. You guys are American and L.A.; this is Vie
“Yeah, to us Hollywood types you’re Ford, the movie star. But to Vie
“Exactly! Well, not exactly, because Weber Gregston’s at the house. He’s been here a few days. Broke into the cloister and pulled me out before you arrived.”
“Weber’s here? Why?”
“He wants me to be in a new movie.”
“And you said no.”
“Roland, it might be too good a role to pass up, damn it.”
Roland grabbed the back of my neck and gave it a quick squeeze. “Are we going to talk about this now or should we wait till I’ve finished my seizure?”
“We’re going to wait and talk it all over together. I want Weber in on it. He’s part of the family too. But not now. Want to see the hospital where Franz Kafka died? It’s right near here.”
She was a completely different person in Vie
By comparison, the Vie
When we were finished with the tour, I told her it looked like the set for a documentary about Zen Buddhism. She nodded, with a look on her face that said my remark satisfied her. I couldn’t resist asking if she pla
Luckily Weber walked in at that moment. Otherwise we would have been stuck in a silence that had come too quickly after our arrival. He was barely controlling a long leash attached to a reddish-gold puppy that was all long legs and loud skitter on the slippery wood floors. Before we had a chance to say anything, Weber had undipped it, and the beast galloped and slid across the room top speed at us. It banged greetings first into Arlen, leaped, turned to me, leaped, then Roland, then Arlen, back to Weber… the wild joy only a young dog knows in a room full of new faces. It was Mi