A Midnight Sun Page 14

  A presence behind me makes me turn. When I do, I see a short woman with black ringlets and bright blue eyes smiling at me. Her arms are crossed in a feminine posture, so I can see her red nails rapping on her biceps. The color matches her red lips.

  “Hiya.” She says, moving slowly to the music coming from the tavern. It’s quieter here but still audible.

  I smile and turn back. The line is moving forward quicker. After a few paces forward, the music gets quieter and the toilets flushing and bathroom stalls get louder. The faint scent of cleaning detergent barely covers the offensive stench of urine. The woman behind me is humming, so I turn again.

  “I remember that song, from that hot summer, do you remember?”

  “Pardon?”

  “That song! Isn’t it something?”

  I blink slowly, my mouth agape, as if moving my lids and only those will get the rest of my gears running. I feel suddenly really strange.

  “I don’t think I know that song,” I say getting nervous. I suddenly crave Mark’s handkerchief in my hand.

  “Sure, you do!” She grabs my hands and swings them from side to side forcibly and hums loudly. My feet won’t move. Suddenly all I can focus on is the red lipstick and her mouth. It screams something at me that I just can’t place, but it scares me too. Her hands feel small and cold in my sweltering palms.

  I release abruptly from her grip and walk backward until I hit the lady with the broad shoulders. Hitting her feels like hitting a brick wall. “Fuck brah, sorry I hit you!” I say to an angry face of too much cheek and beady eyes below tight eyebrows. The woman says nothing and goes into the restroom. It’s her turn.

  When I look back again, the girl is no longer there. I recall the image of her large blue eyes and search for them in my memory bank. Something speaks from them telling me I know her from somewhere. “But, from where?”

  A tap on my shoulders reminds me where I am. “It’s your turn, hun.” A woman with heavy makeup says to me as she leaves the restroom.

  When I return to Mark, who stands with my coat in his hands, the image is still hard-pressed in my memory. I’ve a feeling it’ll nag me the rest of the week.

  I recoil with a sharp dull pain on my back when I remember Agnes in the kitchen. The way she laughed and looked at me. The juniper berries flash before my eyes and I see it all at once. Agnes is part of Parker’s life and so are the berries, but they somehow relate to me and I make a note to ask my mother, yet in the back of my mind, I already know. I suddenly remember too the smell of strong tobacco and understand she is another type of vision, more vivid and disturbing of their lives. Agnes is something, not someone.

  When we step outside, the chill in the air makes me realize I’ve been sweating. I wipe my face with the back of my hand, remembering Mark’s handkerchief with mild envy. He surprises me with a clean one from his coat’s pocket.

  “Why is this place so fucking hot?” I complain, more out of nerves from what happened in the restroom line than the heat, which is intensely blazing behind me.

  I try to hand him the handkerchief. “Keep it.” He says, remarkably upbeat, and looks me straight in the eye.

  “Look, Mark. I had a really nice time tonight, but I’m really not feeling too good.”

  He smiles knowingly. “I can see you are not.”

  “You can?”

  “Yes, you look ashen and cold. Are you coming down with something?”

  “Possibly,” I say quietly. “I gotta say, Mark, I think we didn’t hit it off, did we?”

  “No, but it’s cool. My brother’s an idiot.”

  “Wait, your brother? What does he have to do with tonight?” I feel oddly confused yet intrigued. “Did he just call while I was– “

  “No, nothing remotely similar. My brother Mirim,” he smiled, “He means well, but I hate it. I don’t know how to stop him.”

  “Stop it? Mark…I’m lost.”

  Mark looks around and pulls me into a clear area of the sidewalk, away from the tavern entrance.

  Old-style street lamps line the way in this part of the street. It looks romantic, so I fear he’s going to try something weird. When he grabs my shoulders, I simply know he is.

  “Mark, don’t try to kiss me because I don’t think–”

  “I won’t. I don’t know how to do this. I like you Mirim, so I want you to listen.” He releases me and looks deeply into my eyes. “I’m tired of this. I need to tell you how sweet you are and that you have every right to be angry.”

  “What in the hell are you saying, Mark?”

  “For starters, my name’s Mark, but I’m not the guy you met.”

  I sit on the curb and he follows me. I can only imagine how we look to passersby who see us dressed in evening clothes and sitting on the side of the street. “Okay, tell me. You are Mark.”

  “The man you met and bought you coffee was my brother Craig.”

  “Your brother…” I was speaking but the ability to think had momentarily escaped my brain. “I’m quite sorry but I don’t know if I follow. I met your brother?”

  “Yes, my twin brother.” He sighed heavily, like he had done it before many times over the same issue. “Craig and I are identical twins. He’s sort of…he sets me up on blind dates, except he doesn’t say. ‘Hey, so, I got this brother, you know? He simply goes about it as if it were me, buys them something simple, like a cup of coffee or a muffin, a short introduction over drinks, exchange of phone numbers…was this your case?”

  I nodded and felt a sudden burst of embarrassment inside my head.

  “It’s terrible. Cause the girls think I’m him. And we are the same… physically, I mean, but personality-wise, he’s more outgoing than I am. It’s a disaster, every time he tries to set me up.”

  “Craig. I met your twin brother?” I say numb.

  “Yes. And he’s married. Four children and a picket fence house. A dog and a mortgage and all of it. He has got to stop this.”

  His eyes are wild. He’s so angry his face is red. “Whenever he meets a cute girl, he makes a date with me.”

  The entire scene rewinds in my head and I explode into a burst of laughter. Mark leans back a little and then joins me.

  “Your twin brother sets you up on dates?” I’m still laughing when I say this and so is he.

  I hold his face in my hands. “He is nuts! And likely, loves you very much and doesn’t want you to be alone or sad. Maybe you’ll meet the girl of your dreams soon, like you know…I can set you up with this girl in– “

  “No, thanks!”

  We end up laughing again together and make plans to do something with my friends from work and his. It turns out, Mark and I have our work in common.

  Chapter 29

  Marquee

  Not Your Everyday Movie Set, Unless It’s Seen from A Distance.

  Seattle, January 28th, 1990

  On the way to the airport, I tell the others about my date with the ‘wrong’ twin and the weird encounter on the bathroom line. Braff has charted a private plane –another favor he called in- to take us to the Paramour movie studio to meet his contact.

  When I tell them about how enraged Mark had been, they laugh to the point of tears. “I have to meet this Craig. He’s a genius.” Braff says.

  “I knew you would say that, Braff.” I suddenly felt like I probably should have told them.

  Amistad can’t keep herself from coughing she is laughing so much. “Maybe, he’ll set you up sometime.”

  “Okay, guys, seriously!! He’s actually incredibly nice and I promised him a group outing. I think he’d hit it off with Wanda.”

  “Wanda? From Press & PR? She’s so quiet and reserved!”

  “He will like her.” I insist.

  The rest of the drive, and the couple of hours on the flight, we talk about the idea of being a twin. How deceivingly cunning, they say, or how they’d use it the same way the Mark twins had, or to get out of an embarrassing date. I argued it hadn’t been too bad since she had made a
friend in him and would possibly get to be involved in something with the others he was working on.

  “Is he in publishing?”

  “I think that is what he said.”

  When I look out the window, we are landing on a short strip near the large studio.

  An SUV picked us up and drove us to a bungalow-style building, where a man in a simple linen shirt and jeans waited to greet us.

  “Hi, Braff. Great to see you again. He’s waiting for you in studio B.” He came around to greet us and took Syth’s hand to give him a firm handshake. He shook Amistad’s and kissed her hand, then lastly, he held mine in both his. “You must be Mirim.”

  “That’s correct. Nice to meet you.”

  “As am I. Name’s Cadeceus, but everyone calls me Deuce. I’ll take you to see my father. Follow me please.”

  As he walks away from us, I notice Amistad. She stands perfectly still, looking him up and down. “De-li-ci-ous is what he is.” She says to me when we start walking.

  I laugh hard enough for him to turn when we walk on a narrow path. He smiles and winks at Amistad. He looks taller than Braff, and although Braff is fit and muscular, Deuce doubles in size because of his lean muscle mass. Amistad is completely focused on him as we walk. The path is lain with cobblestone and edged with a bright green fern, until it curves and reaches a short wall covered in ivy and flowers. It reminds me of the flowers in my vision.

  I see a bulb that looks like hundreds of flowers came together onto a dome. Some were white with specs of pink and purple, others had more green and yellow. I bend to see them. “They smell amazing.

  “Hydrangeas,” Deuce says, in a voice that is deep and likely softened through years of wisdom. He and Mister Neumann would be a great singing duet, I envision. “The lavender flowers there are hyacinths.”

  “So, Deuce, I’d like to call you Cadeuce.” Amistad walks ahead to keep pace with him.” Amistad “I like it better. It suits you.” She keeps talking but I can’t understand what she is saying. Syth is just a few steps behind them, so Braff slows down to wait for me. “You know,” he says under his breath and breaks a hyacinth to put in my hair, just over my ear, “I think we’ll never see Deuce’s dad today if Amistad has her way.”

  “You know,” I try to match his tone, “If Amistad has her way, I think we may never see either of them ever again.”

  “And we’ll end up lost in the wilderness of a movie studio.”

  “Nobody will ever find us. What shall become of us?” I do my best to sound dramatic.

  “We will become jungle people who have jungle lattes.”

  I laugh. “I don’t think I’d look good in a hide while holding a pair of coconuts with wild coffee lattes in them.”

  “What?! I heard those were the rage! You can keep the coconut shells to make a simple bra.” He smiles holding ‘air’ breasts on his palms and points to the others. I think they are turning into a building. “Besides, you look great in pretty much anything.”

  “Anything? Even coconuts?”

  “Well, not anything, but I see the coconut look. Leather hides are hideous on anybody. Have you seen them?” He hurries past me into the building the rest have gone into. I follow close behind because the hallway we are walking on is narrow and bends like a semi-circle, behind what looks like a sound stage. Far to the other side of the circle a door is open. Light floods into the hallway and we walk through into a small office, modestly furnished with a Persian rug and a lavish couch, a long buffet table, and some chairs.

  A smaller version of Cadeceus sits shining a bright smile from the couch. His skin is more like mocha, relatively close to Amistad’s in color, where Deuce’s is more like a dark cinnamon. “Please. Do come in.” He boasts, his long arm arching the width of the room. “Have a seat young lady. I can take you on a little tour in a while. My friend from the studio left me a golf cart all charged and ready to take you. But first, let’s get formally acquainted.”

  He introduces himself as Cadeuce’s father, Milton Murphy. As I had with Mister Neumann, I introduced myself and briefly told him of the story, the box and what we were doing, when I saw her name, her eyes lit up. He turned almost giddy. “My beautiful Parker! Of course, I remember her. When I was working in the commissary, she always greeted me nicely and would sometimes ask me to sing with her. She heard me while I was clearing tables one day and just went to it.

  “After that, when she had gained some leverage with the studio, she convinced them on hiring me for a dancing part and I auditioned. And as they say, the rest is history.”

  “So, what happened to her?” Amistad asked.

  “She made a film, I think in 1938, then took a hiatus. I guess until the forties, late forties or early fifties. Memory’s not as good as it used to, I’m afraid.”

  “But she did a few more, after 1938 I mean,” Braff said.

  “Oh, yes, quite a few. She was busy until the early sixties. They weren’t all successful. Some were flops. She did some T.V. after that, I think until she passed on.”

  “She died.” Braff stated and looked at us.

  “Yes, sadly. Not sure when exactly.”

  “How did she…” I somehow couldn’t bring myself to ask. It was just too much. My mouth feels suddenly dry and I feel like running out for the door.

  “Can’t say. But I think there are paper clippings somewhere in the archive building.” Mister Murphy murmurs and paces to a small refrigerator.

  “There an archive?” I blurted, surprised and excited. I am feeling warm and think it’s probably the cramped quarters. “Could we go there?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “It’s just that…I feel I have been rude. “We have to fly back to Seattle and I guess we’re short on time?” Murphy laughs and his belly rumbles with happiness. It is so contagious I laugh, too, and so do the others. He returns with a handful of water bottles. “Young ladies,” he says and hands me a bottle, “I will take you right away.” He smiles and lifts my chin. His eyes sparkle and I feel a comfort I can only describe as home. It’s a gentle look that is profound as well. I am momentarily lost in the sea of his brown eyes that say he is good. It is like being home. Yet all I can say is, “Thank you, Mr. Murphy.”

  “You are quite welcome, Mirim. Well, let’s get to it before it’s too late.” He hands the others water bottles and we move to a door near the back of the office.

  When we come out of the other side, we step into a large space I instantly recognize as a movie set. It’s mostly empty with a few lamps and some other equipment I don’t recognize. When he speaks again, his voice rumbles with an echo.

  “It’s warm in here, but you should have felt it when it was lit back then. The lights bright and your blood hot with the excitement. I never felt as exhilarated as when those cameras went on. I was one of the first negro actors in film It was difficult in those days.” He was silent until the other end of the set, “but boy, in there, there was no distinction. We were all artists, delivering beautiful songs and dancing with each other, like it was the outside world that was make-believe instead. I always felt respect in here. Well, by most people.” His eyes, aged with wrinkles and wisdom, tightened and he became silent with his memories, of what was a good time as well as hinting at the diversity issues of those times.

  A door opens and again, lights flood into the space, but this time, we step outside. The day is bright and cloudless.

  A few steps away he had spoken of, Amistad and I ride in the back, facing the way we had come. Syth and Braff ride in the center seat while Deuce drives with his father next to him.

  As we ride along in the backlot, Murphy tells us stories of girls he met and the many times he had to sleep in the studio offices because there was no time to go home between shoots. He pointed us to the sets and said so and so had made films there, that he was in or other films he only saw being filmed. He told us about the many people he worked with on the sets we can’t see into because they are currently closed off to the public. Some peo
ple are working as we pass, who completely ignore our presence, possibly used to carts and people going by during hectic work hours. A man with cables wrapping in a long loop over his shoulder walks across the streets behind us, followed by a man who is pulling a large box on wheels.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” I say to Amistad.

  “Yes, I guess. If there were some people I recognized, it would be better.” She smiled and looked around us, looking like a girl on a field trip.

  I lift my head and close my eyes. Inhaling deeply with newfound realization the air is wonderful, warm and gratifying. It smells of sunshine seeping through clouds that have released gallons of rain on previous days, disturbing the peace of the soil to create new life in its seedlings. The way spring smells when it’s just starting to shape the new seasons. Somehow, it feels brighter here than anywhere else I’ve seen.

  The grass in front of the building we arrive at is the green of a carefully tended lawn. The bushes that fence the perimeter look like they have been trimmed with a ruler, no leaf out of place, and the light reflecting on the tinted windows is a muted orange that casts an ethereal yellow glow in every direction.

  “I just simply love this place.” I say in a daze, “I’m guessing it has always been like this. Was it mister Murphy?”

  “It has for sure darling. When you see the inside, you’ll be astounded.”

  He opens the door and there’s a hiss coming from the door hinges. I feel a burst of cold air escaping from inside the building.

  “Wow, it’s chilly in here,” Amistad says.

  “It’s kept cold for better preservation of old documents, especially the rolls of film. There are reels here that date back to the very first days of the studio. Many have been digitized, but the cans remain in large storage shelves on the next floors.”