A Midnight Sun Page 15

  We follow him across an open room. It is an atrium open to a mezzanine. When I look up, I see glass cases with costumes lit from above, works of art for an era where costumes were so elaborate they are dignified as museum pieces.

  The floor we are on houses documents, mostly old scripts or papers that look like contracts and letters to directors, producers, and actors.

  Mister Murphy leads us into a room that is dim until he flicks a switch.

  “The drawers, as we call them.”

  Rows upon rows of archiving units line the wall around the long room. We walk in silent amazement until we reach one marked with an M. “Here we are.” Murphy says and opens the second drawer with a muffled grunt.

  “McNamara, Parker.” He says after shuffling some papers and pulls a manila folder from halfway into the drawer. Immediately after he opens it, I see a picture. A head shot in black and white of a glamorous actress in softly waved hair and carefully lined lips. My legs shake and I have to hold onto the archive unit to keep from falling.

  “That’s her, Parker?”

  “Yes,” I reply quietly as tears begin to fill my eyes. “It’s her…” I stare into the same face I’ve been seeing in my dreams and visions for weeks.

  Murphy looks at me and then at the others. He is obviously confused. “This is everything she did with the studio until the fifties. I think she moved to another studio in the early fifties and that is why we don’t have those records. I apologize.” He flips the pages until he reaches the last. “Yes, I think it’s what it says here. Lasseter Films. That’s where she moved after she finished her contract with Paramour Studios.”

  “Excuse me?” I say recognizing the name. The lady at the shop in Oahu said her name was Lasseter. I wonder if the two are related. “Lasseter Films?”

  “Yes, the studio was new at the time. They changed names and merged with a larger studio after a few years, but I can’t say for sure when or how long Parker was with them. I suggest you contact them via phone call or mail. I can ask some people I know to see if they have a contact person there.”

  “Is there any way we can get a copy of that folder? It has a lot of information Mirim will need to fact-check and we’re cutting it for time to head back to the plane. You understand, Mister Murphy.”

  “I’m not supposed to, but I’ll make an exception with a promise you’ll keep this to yourselves. If you decide to do any writing on her or take information from it, you’ll have to contact the studio and request a formal audience and permission. I can help you with that request. It may take a while though.”

  “You have my word. Why don’t you go ahead and put in the request? Until then, we’ll keep this to us.”

  -------------------------

  After a quick lunch and a warm farewell, we leave back to the tarmac where the plane is already running for our departure. By the time we land back in Seattle, we have read the file and made a few notes to discuss. Braff drives us to our respective houses leaving for last. I feel exhausted yet eager to start work and find out more about Parker and Fitch.

  “I have to read the rest of the letters,” I say to Braff before leaving his car. “I think it’ll be the best way to know who they were on a more personal level. My dreams, you know, there are times when they become difficult to read, like any regular dream. The visions are slightly better, still though…I’m also curious to learn if they had descendants. Somebody who knows more. Fitch didn’t have children but he had relatives. We know for sure Parker did, but I would love to see if they are living and try to contact them.”

  “Do you want to go that deep into this?”

  “I think we have already.” I’m quiet a moment, finding a way to phrase what I’m about to say. Something I have been mulling over since we visited the Neumanns. “I want to write about it, Braff.”

  “Really?” he says. “Can’t say I’m surprised. It might be a good book. I’ll support you a hundred percent if you do, Mirim.”

  “Thank you, Braff. I think it will be a hard pitch to Pearson.” I say somewhat disheartened.

  “I’m not so sure. We’ll find a way.” He says with a tiny smile. I suddenly see something on his lips. They tremble slightly, as if he wants to say something else but decides not to. Instead, he grabs my hand briefly and looks forward in silence.

  “Thank you, Braff. I appreciate what you’ve done.”

  “Don’t mention it, Mir. Anytime, really. See you tomorrow?”

  I smirk at the sound of really. “Sure. Sleep well.”

  “You, too.” He says, gives me the file, and I step out of the car into the cool air of an early night. There’s only a hint of light in the sky, but the automatic lamps of the walkway toward my house are already lit. I have to walk past two of the three-story brownstones before reaching mine.

  On the way, I walk slowly and think about Braff, wondering why he was so uncharacteristically quiet tonight. Maybe, he is as tired as me, I decide.

  When I pull the keys from my pocket, I look up and see a man sitting on my stoop.

  “Hey, cheeks.” He says, “I came sooner. Had to.”

  Chapter 30

  Marquee

  Charming To Reacquaint Your Meeting, Or as They Say, There’s A Man on My Photograph

  Seattle, January 28th, 1990

  Scotty sits comfortably on my couch, aptly dozing while I change in the next room. I try to search as quietly as possible for the gift he gave me before I left Oahu. I still haven’t opened it, afraid of it being more important and significant than I wanted it to be, I suppose. A part of me didn’t want it to be.

  I rummage through my suitcase, which is partly unpacked, and can’t find it at first. When I do find it stuck in the deepest part of the suitcase, I sit on my bed and look at the box, the heaviness of my tired lids suddenly apparent. I am inexplicably awake, both tired and wired thanks to Scott’s arrival. The box is small and I have a feeling it’s likely to be jewelry. I’d hate returning it if it is, but I know I will without a second thought.

  Before opening it, I take a deep breath and look at the door for any signs of Scotty. Although I can’t hear him, I presume he’s still asleep on the couch. I pull the end of the bow that has collapsed under the pressure of the items in the suitcase I haven’t unpacked, and lift the silver foil wrapping it.

  The box is smooth under my fingers, but it might as well be prickly because I feel it digging into my skin like a sign I shouldn’t open it. I shut my eyes and lift the lid, and hold my breath before opening my eyes again. The first thing I see is an object that looks like it’s dangling from space, a link… “Is this a bracelet?”

  I release the breath I’ve been holding and pull the bracelet out of the box. It jingles.

  There are many charms affixed to its openings in various sizes. Despite looking inexpensive, it also looks refined, well-made, and gorgeous. I’m still staring at it and twirling it between my fingers, when an object on the floor gets my attention.

  A white rectangle, no bigger than the tip of my thumb, has floated from the box when I pulled the bracelet. For some reason, when I see it, my heart speeds up and it is all I can feel in the silence of my room.

  I lift it gently with a nail and turn it over. Scotty and I are grinning on the tiny square. The photo was taken on a year when I was plump and he still had pimples. His idea for the gift had been the sweetest of gestures –and not at all what I had imagined that had made me so nervous. I again breathe freely and laugh at my presumptuous idea it had been a kind of proposition.

  The photograph, I realize, is strategically sized and shaped for the locket I have been wearing. A note I find on the box confirms it. ‘So you can have something more appropriate and less spooky, or as we would have said when we were that age, Love, Scotty.’ The picture has tiny print letters reading ‘Chipmunk&Scotty-1986’. It was one of many we took on a photo booth at the mall. The way I smiled in the photo –with my eyes squinting and showing my teeth- was the reason he started calling me Chipmunk.
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  I undid the latch on the locket and pulled carefully on the tab which opens the compartment for the picture. I lift the aging photograph from its place and push ours into it. After replacing the photo and doing the clasp on the chain, I notice the back of the photo I just removed because the picture is facing down on the bed. Like mine and Scotty’s, this picture is printed with a few words. It’s faded with the passing of time, so I have to bring it up to my face to inspect it and try to decipher what it says. When I finally understand what it is, I freeze with the picture in my hand.

  “So, do you like it?” Scott is at my door, standing proudly with his hands on the frame. “Wait, did you open it only until now?”

  “Never mind when I opened it Scott, come see this please.”

  I hand him the old photograph when he sits next to me. He reads it and looks sternly at me, looking for answers to the same question I’m formulating in my head.

  “What does this mean?”

  “I don’t know what it means, but that says a different name and not Fitch.”

  --------------------

  After I call Braff to tell him about the photo, I pull out the letters again and set them aside while I ask Scott to arrange them inside again as I name them.

  “And so,” I say to him, bringing him up to speed on what has occurred in the last few days, “everything I’ve already seen makes sense and I’m now sure belonged to Parker or was connected to her on some level. The truck I am not sure about. It might have been her son’s but it could have been something else, too. The coins were definitely collectibles, likely souvenirs from a trip, the photo is where Parker and Fitch promised each other to be together, and the cloth wrapping it was a napkin, a possible only salvage from the Pearl Harbor attacks. I still don’t know about the figurine, which I repaired.”

  Scott looks closely at it. “You can barely tell.” He whistles at my terrible job gluing it together and next examines the camera. “This is really a beaut.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know what it is.”

  “It’s a camera, cheeks. We should try it.”

  “No, silly. The figurine. What I know is that it’s a Patron Saint of Ireland.”

  “Whatever he is, you mangled him. Poor dude. What else is left?”

  “Uhm, the stamps and the postcards. I can’t read them. They’re in Spanish or Portuguese, I think.”

  “I can.”

  “You can? Why didn’t you say so before?”

  “You didn’t ask. Let me see.”

  “Querty!”

  “What?”

  “Nothing it means clever. I just noticed something. Go ahead.”

  It takes him a few minutes before he reads them. “Only this is in Spanish. The other is in Portuguese as you said. I can’t read Portuguese but I can try. They’re from a guy she worked with, an actor from Brazil. He’s congratulating her on her move to Lassiter Studios. The other is of a man who is ‘trying’ to write in Spanish, but I believe it might be Fitch. Do you have the letters?”

  “Yes, look,” I say to him when I notice the handwriting. “What does it say?”

  “It says ‘Con amor de tu amor’ which in Spanish means ‘With love from your love’, but it’s certainly Fitch’s handwriting and his signature. He probably posted them on a trip.”

  “How stupid of me! What didn’t I see it before?”

  “Because, cheeks, you weren’t supposed to. I was.”

  “Scotty, let’s not start a philosophy lesson on this, please. My head hurts from trying to figure things out.”

  He shrugs. “That leaves the stamps, but it’s probably meaningless.”

  “So far, nothing in the box has been meaningless.”

  “You’re right…”

  “Scott, put everything back in the box. Let’s go to sleep. Will you be okay on the couch?”

  “Sure, cheeks. Could we talk first though?”

  “About what Scott?”

  “Something…it’s important. That’s why I came to see you.”

  “It really must wait until tomorrow, Scotty. I’m physically simply not up to it. I’ll get you a blanket and a pillow so you can be comfortable on the– “

  “Cheeks, please.”

  Scott grabs my wrist and pleads for me to stay and talk with him. He looks grave, a look I’ve never seen on his face, so I worry. “Is everything okay, Scott?”

  “Yes, I just don’t… I don’t want to wait till tomorrow. I came all this way– “

  “Unannounced.” I say calmly but pull slowly from his grip.

  “Mirim, Chipmunk, I really have to talk to you.”

  I sit gently next to him. “Scotty, whatever this is, it really must be tomorrow. I’ve simply no room for more this day. “I look at him and he lowers his eyes. “We’ve known each other forever Scotty. Nothing can change that, or the fact I love you dearly. A night of sleep won’t make a difference in this, will it?”

  “No cheeks, you’re absolutely right.” He stands and sighs. “Come, get me my sleeping stuffs before you go to bed.”

  When I come back with a blanket, a sheet, and a couple of pillows, he is sitting on the couch under the dim light of a lamp. He sits down with a book he is reading. I brought you this.” It’s another tiny box but this is unwrapped.

  “What is it?”

  “Just keep it and we’ll open it in the morning after having breakfast.”

  “Okay, Scott. Rest well.”

  I walk back to my room and hear him say you too Mirim just before I close the door.

  Not Chipmunk, nor Cheeks. Mirim.

  ----------------

  Before falling asleep, I think about the picture in the locket.

  “Phillip,” I say the name out loud and hope for a dream.

  Chapter 31

  Marquee

  Holy Flipping Pancakes! Mirim Is Scared & Proud

  Seattle, January 29th, 1990

  Parker cooked. I know she did, but I wonder how much more she did that movie stars weren’t supposed to do.

  I flip my pancake and think she did most things, like flipping pancakes and other frying pan meals, in another way. Perhaps, in a way that made her different from the rest of the world. I also wondered whether she loved like other people, slept like other people, bathed and ate like other people. Movie stars were fixed sensations in the golden era of Hollywood. Studios designated their career paths in full and decided or at least had influence in every detail of their lives.

  With the last batch of my pancakes, I thought if Fitch hadn’t been the man in the locket, then why and who was he? Who was Phillip?

  I have a dish in the warmer drawer of the oven overflowing with pancakes. I place the last two on it and lift them carefully with an oven mitt to serve our plates. I rush on another cup of coffee and knock on the door of the bathroom to hurry Scott. I don’t want to have a maddashery on my way to work, so I woke him early. He says he wants to come with me. I declined but he insisted until I couldn’t refuse.

  The door opens on my last knock and he comes to the table where I take a seat.

  “Eat up Scotty. I have to get going. We gotta find a taxi and at this hour.”

  “No worries cheeks. I rented a car at the airport. This looks scrumptious.” He says.

  “You brought a car. Great! We’ll have time to read the letters then. I couldn’t yesterday when you came.” My stomach tightens. I’ve lost my appetite somewhat and decided on coffee and a low-fat muffin instead.

  “This is absolutely delicious, cheeks. Thank you!”

  “Don’t mention it.” I place the box he gave me the previous night between us. “Do you still want me to open this?”

  Scott stops chewing. His face is somber with a combination of sadness and reproach. “Why would I give it to you if I didn’t want you to have it?”

  “Don’t know Scotty…I’m merely asking to give you– “

  “Give me…?”

  “A chance to take it back.” I think there is a draft somewhere. I fe
el cold.

  “Cheeks, if you don’t open it, I’m gonna throw a pancake in your face.”

  He’s both playful and angry, although I can’t tell which he is more. I take the box and flip the lid, fast like peeling off a Band-Aid.

  “It’s a…a charm?” I say half confused, half relieved. “A charm for the bracelet?”

  “Not just any charm.” He says smiling.

  I look at it cautiously, pinching it between my thumbs like it’s a bomb I must be careful with. “It looks like a tiny house on a tree.”

  “Uh-huh.” He smiles and pushes his empty plate away, looking satisfied with both the food and his gift. “Not just any treehouse though. Look inside.”

  “Is it…Scotty! It’s you and me! Is this the treehouse we used to play in when we were kids?”

  “You got it.”

  “How did you get this made? Is simply just remarkable. It looks exactly like it.” I stood and hugged him until he coughed. “Scotty, for a moment, I thought…”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. During the holidays back home. You were acting weird. Different I guess…”

  “I was.” He became quiet and my limbs faltered. I saw my reflection in his eyes, which had never been this soft when gazing at me. Or, maybe I just hadn’t noticed it before. “Cheeks, you and me…that’s why I came. I want to… Something happened while you were there. Well. I guess I mean besides what happened with you. I mean with me…with us?” He moves his chair and sits holding my hand. “I started feeling different, Chipmunk. I went back to San Francisco, the entire flight, I thought about our lives together. That’s when I thought about the tree house. We spend so long with your dad and mine building it. We were so close as kids. As we grew into teenagers and how we bonded. It was so simple to spend time with you, so exciting and effortless. It is still. And, well, it made me think…”

  “Scott, please, do not.”