<<<<STARTS 10.1.02
NOVEMBER 15, 2002
MY SUMMER WITH THE MOVIE STAR
CHAPTER NINETEEN
(Continued)
After the massage which wasn't anywhere near the "heaven" that Carol raved about, I went back to my loyal Royal, and really devoted myself to churning out the whole stack he had written up to that point.
I must say they kept right at it too, sitting across from one another at the big so-called Partner's desk, and exchanging possible ideas for the book; reminiscing would be more like it, sort of what I am doing now. Only my story will never be important because I am a potential nobody. I suppose that when I am eighty years old, I'll be telling my great grandchildren about the one, whole summer I spent typing up the notes for Ezra Godland's entire life story, and they'll ask me was that how my hands got that way.
Phil Godland didn't come by or even call to see if I was all right up at his monster father's house. They--Ezra and Carol-- drove me home about seven o'clock, before I had anything to eat. Obviously they were planning to dine out at one of their favorite, star-infested restaurants, without dragging me along.
But while we were in the car, just Ezra and me, waiting for Carol, who had to go back in the house for a sweater, he gave me a little torn off piece of his yellow notepaper, and told me to put it in my purse.
***
Though nobody was home at my place, I still waited until I was behind locked doors in my room before I looked at Ezra's note. All it said was: "7904 Westwood Blvd., 2 P.M. Wed." He knew my mornings were tied up at summer school, so he apparently wanted me to meet him after classes, before going home. I started racking my brains over what 7904 could be. There wasn't anything around that area but a market and a drugstore (the one that supplied my mother's prescriptions and who won the seventh at Hollywood Park) and, I think, the main Westwood P.O. So I decided to check it out, in advance, after school Monday. I was curious and, frankly, I wanted to know what I might be getting into for a change.
When my folks got home, I was out in the kitchen scrounging around in the frig. They had also been out to dinner. Apparently, the whole world dines in splendor and has six kinds of wine, while Sylvia Dormir exists on cottage cheese and curled up bologna and a glass of milk, not exactly the newest.
"Don't they feed you when you work past the dinner hour?" my other asked, beginning her formal interrogation the minute she saw me eating the cottage cheese out of the carton.
"As a rule, they would, but they were going out. Besides they don't prevent me from going into their kitchen and taking anything I want. But I wasn't hungry. I wanted to finish up my weekend's work."
"What do they do while you are typing?" she asked.
"Think up more stuff for me to type."
"Is there anything interesting in it?"
"Maybe you would think so, Mother," I said. "It's all about their early days in movies, and the trouble they had getting star billing, and their share of the proceeds, and the two times he won the Award. But it's not so exciting for me. I wasn't around when half the stuff happened that they think the world is waiting to know about all over again."
"Has he paid you anything yet?"
"Next weekend. He says he'll pay me up to date."
"Well, make sure it's right on the button. He can afford it."
"I will, Mother, but I won't go to pieces if he's off fifty cents."
"It's a business arrangement, Sylvia. Don't be sensitive about it."
"All right Mother," I said. "I will count every penny while I make him stand there."
I gave the empty cottage cheese carton the heave-ho into the sink, and started back to the privacy of my room. I had in mind some light reading, or just thinking about 7904 Westwood Blvd, and what kind of deal he had cooked up for me now. But she wasn't through with me
"Sylvia, where did you get that haircut? It's very pretty. I tried to tell you before that shorter hair would look thicker, and frame your face nicely."
You can see how much I am at the front of my mother's mind. I had the haircut all this time, and now it was even growing out again. "I had it done at a little place near school, a barbershop, actually" My lies always sound convincing because I add little extra touches, such as telling her it was a barbershop. I almost believed it myself.
"You look lovely, Sylvia," she said. "You will be a beautiful woman."
That's my dear mother. First she disregards me, then she tells me I am going to be beautiful. I came all the way back into the room and gave her a big hug. I love her so much, and I know she feels the same way when she finally notices me waltzing around the earth. After all, my mother isn't an old lady so why should she spend her valuable life attending to my every want and whim, and noticing my hair style. I know it is not chic to like your parents, but of everything that ever happened to me of a negative nature, I never had one single gripe about my mother. But let's not get on the subject of my father, Mr. Mystery Parent, who was probably sick because he had to come home, and leave his car all alone out in the garage..
3:56:52 PM 
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