A Midnight Sun Read online

  Braff did tell me in passing, that he had spoken to the film historian but wouldn’t be able to tell me what he said until tomorrow night. Fighting an urge to call Braff, I shuffle into the living room and look into my briefcase for the letters. When I return to the couch, my Edith Piaf CD has ended, so although the drizzle is soft and quiet, it has become louder in the silence of my apartment. I play another CD with a less glum undertone, thinking it might do me good to listen to something more upbeat. I hear the music mixes well with the droplets of rain, still rolling down the glass panes, flowing from the eaves and finding its way into the crevices of the outside of the building in the pitch of darkness. I sit on the couch with a fresh glass of wine and flip through the letters until I reach what I haven’t yet read.

  Most of them are amorous communications of distant lovers who renew the promise of being together. They are weekly and increasingly romantic rather than the opposite. Sydney also talks about his training and what he has learned. He says the chow is awful and the men in the yard -as they call the academy- are a boisterous flock of freaks. He continually expresses his love and desire to reunite, which I can only presume is reciprocated by Parker since I don’t have her side of the letters. Something I had hoped to find but have grown unhopeful about since speaking with my mother and finding out her parents aren’t alive.

  The letters are of varying lengths but always remain elegantly written and well-redacted. A few sentences are so profoundly romantic, I cry and hold them to my chest, like they speak to me from a place I can understand better than any other person.

  In the last letters, Fitch writes with mounting excitement about his transfer to the new academy and how he’ll be closer to her, but it is the last letter that gets to me the most. On February 4, 1938, he writes;

  I have received my transfer letters. The academy in Anaheim is so near to you, my love, I will be expecting to see you soon and at every interval the leave with permission is allotted. I am eager to see you and tell you of my affections in person.

  Your most loving,

  Fitch.

  Another before it, dated September of the previous year, tells Parker he has been ill with the measles and barely made it, only through her memory did he overcome the worst, and thanks her for the package with the knitted scarf and vest that would surely come in handy next winter, especially in the absence of her warmth.

  A revealing -and frightening- letter told her of the uncomfortable visit with his aunt Agnes, who smokes too much and has little decorum. That gave me the idea of who the woman named Agnes might be, but it also puzzled me anew, by the idea I may have seen an apparition from a different time. And this had not been a vision or dream, she had been as real as the woman in line at the restaurant, my mind screamed.

  Then, probably as a way to keep calm, I reflected that perhaps, it had been a memory, but rather than mine, it had been Parker’s. It was still terrifying and I still have goosebumps thinking of how she spoke. Fitch tells her about the gift of the coins from her travels, which his aunt Agnes had said were a gift to him, since she had no offspring to give them to. HE also mentions the camera, which he says was a gift to Parker to record the days while he was away and until they met again and until they married. She could snap pictures of her experiences to share with him. Since there weren’t many pictures in the box, I assumed she didn’t use them often, but became curious of their existence.

  The last few letters were short and to the point, like the approximation of his move didn’t require the extensive prose of previous letters, but I was bothered by it. A few notes were then from Hawaii, previous to Parker’s move.

  The signature of this last missive I find troubling. I don’t know why, but he doesn’t sign it.

  I go back to previous letters and re-read them with attention to every detail, every nuisance, every comma and every dot. But, nothing except for the missing name on the last letter, and the change of his wording and pace toward the last tells me something is off. When I finally give into sleep, I find myself seeing Fitch in my mind, wondering what I’ve changed, what I’ve missed.

  The window is wet with rain and an old melody plays in from my stereo. I am plunged into the dream they have been bombed. Parker has been scratched and wounded but running back to the house on the corner of Liberty and Wimple. She pulled on the invisible hand that I assumed was Fitch, and cried in the midst of the chaos, screaming for help that wouldn’t come.

  I saw her trying to lift the lattice work that he lay under, managing to inch the planks slightly. But it was no use. I could see it as she did. Fitch’s eyes were staring blankly into the distance, where there were still a rumble of planes and explosions. Parker was still screaming when a large man in uniform pulled her off Fitch’s side.

  Suddenly, I was with Parker somewhere else. I heard her screaming while a large lacerating pain shot through my midsection and lower back. I screamed with her until we saw a crying infant pulled from under her, his face red and pruney. Parker cried and laughed simultaneously. She then fainted and came to in another room with a dim light, where a man held the baby, who was asleep in his arms. “My word Jimmy,” she says, “He looks just like you.”

  An older couple came to her. The woman looked like parker, except older and chubbier, rounder at the hips with fuller breasts. The man with her wore spectacles and cooed at the baby. In a flash, I was following Parker into a movie studio, her son holding the hand of Gertrude, the girl I’d seen before. They were rushing to a lit area I understood as a dressing room. Parker changed into a robe and played with her son before sitting on a chair. A plump woman chain smoked while applying makeup on Parker after pinning her hair. Gertie took the boy to a cot and rested with him before Parker was called to set.

  I followed again but came upon a room in a house, where Parker sat alone on a chair, her hair tussled and she was crying while reading a paper. She dropped it and poured herself a drink from a glass bottle. Her makeup was smeared and the room was dark. I felt dizzy from just watching her. The boy was older. He came in and she wiped her face and managed to smile, slurring words and stumbling to the floor.

  I was then pulled back with great force and we were suddenly at another studio. Parker was facing a crew, a camera, and lights.

  They were all quiet. Parker looked stricken with pain or concern. I don’t know if it was the scene or her. She jumps when the director calls her name and says, “Your lines miss McNamara?”

  Then I hear someone whisper, “This is costing us money.”

  “I don’t know,” she says softly, “I seem to have forgotten the… Line please.” She almost whimpers.

  The director yells cut when she starts to cry and calls for makeup.

  After this flurry of images, I stand behind her. She is wearing a wedding dress and kissing a man, cheerful and beautiful. Her son is standing with Gertie on her side. Parker kisses his cheek and smiles as flashes go off in front of her.

  A flood of light wakes me with a start. I jump out of bed to answer the phone and look at the clock. It is just past noon.

  “Yes, this is Par– Mirim,” I croak into the receiver.

  “Miss Teasdale. I’m sorry to wake you. I thought it was a good time to call you. This is Roger.”

  “No worries mister Neumann. I overslept.”

  He calls to tell me what I already know. “I found out more about your inquiry. The man named Sydney Fisher Gaynes, I’m afraid I have bad news.”

  I rub my eyes and listen to him anyway.

  Chapter 35

  Marquee

  Take A Kiss This Way & I’ll Tell You a Sad Story

  Seattle, February 2nd, 1990

  Braff is sitting alone at the bar, looking absolutely incredible in a sleek three-piece suit, a dark charcoal fabric tight on his physique that enhances the tan he has acquired recently. When I reach him, just as he pulls a chair to offer it to me, it hits me that behind his silent gaze and perfect smile he is deliberately wonderful yet not as he has been from the t
ime we’ve met. He has turned it on –the Braff charm I would have doubted my heart would skip a beat for. His fingers dip slightly into a short glass. I know it’s a single malt on the rocks with a twist –his favorite drink- and he traces the circle of the glass creating a rhythmic hum I can’t hear too brightly because the bar is loud. He looks forlorn, lost in the drink for a long while, his eyes deep and perhaps glazed with memories, matching the shade of the honey-caramel mixture, then he licks his finger has before looking up to acknowledge me.

  “You look beautiful. I didn’t think you’d show up before the others.”

  “Amistad and Syth haven’t arrived?”

  “No, but that might be a good thing. I requested a table.” He falls silent and stares. I notice the cut on his chin has faded somewhat and I fight the impulse to touch it. He surprises me by grabbing my hand.

  The still wet fingers of his hand trace the upturned palm of my right hand, until finally, ever so slowly, he reaches the tips of my fingers. He takes a drink and kisses my fingers again, exactly where he had before. I feel my skin intensely aware of his touch, his tongue touches them briefly –cool and moist.

  “I’ve had this sensation,” He says, “that I can’t quite shake.” The bartender slides a Pilsner Schnapps, my usual drink at Marty’s –a cold pilsner beer with a shot of peach schnapps in the middle. “I ordered when I saw you come in.”

  “What sensation,” I say in such a low voice I think it barely registers on him. I have been left quite speechless and still feel his touch on my hand. The feeling slips deliciously slow into my arm and travels the length of my body until I am entirely a few degrees warmer. I take a large swig of the drink and try to seem a little less eager to pull him away from the bar. He’s not just smooth, I realize, he’s enchanting. I want to bare my naked soul to him right there and then, and perhaps…

  “A feeling I’ve been canoodling until right now, Mirim. How it felt to kiss your hand that day on the elevator. I can’t shake it.”

  “Canoodling?” I make fun of his choice of words, but he only smiles, seemingly unhurt.

  “Yes. Canoodling. I can’t get past it. You’ve been on my mind since then. Did you feel it, too?”

  “Feel it…feel what?” I can’t lie. I feel like I’m melting into the chair. At this point, I feel like if he touches me again, I may very well burst.

  Braff can see this, I know, because he grins, coy and handsome, and later laughs after a pause. “Mirim, I don’t know what it was, but it felt good to– “He looks over my shoulder and raises the hand that has touched mine.

  The moment I turn my head to see who he is waving, I scream in my head for Amistad and Syth to go back, to return home and let me be with Braff a while longer, because I know the moment will be gone and hard to recover if they seat with us.

  As it turns out, they stand by us instead, because there are no more chairs. We talk casually as always, about work and the possibility of picking up a date tonight. Meanwhile, Braff and I look at each other with a different sense of who we are. When they call us to a table, I let Amistad and Syth walk ahead of us, so I can stop him and whisper in his ear. “I did. I felt it, too.”

  When we walk, his hand falls on the small of my back. It is puzzling how he and I have touched so many times before now, and yet, this feeling is so perfectly new and enticing. I sit nearest him and ask for another drink. HE orders for himself, a wine for Amistad and a Vodka-tonic for Syth.

  The drinks come and Syth tells us about his new lover boy. “He’s just so well-mannered and intelligent. I think he is the man of my dreams.”

  “You say that with every guy! You’re not going to fall for this dude, are you?” Amistad says.

  “I just might, and how that would make any difference to you, I don’t understand.”

  “We’ll have to endure all the moping around, binge eating, and intense crying over a bucket of rocky road ice cream after you break up. That’s how. Can you take it slow this time, and not let your heart run away with you so easily?”

  “Don’t be a party pooper Amistad. Let me be happy for a change. instead of making me the punch bag you come to whenever the bitch comes out to play.”

  “Ouch!” she retorts unflinching, “I’ll try, Anyhow, I’m gonna go find the likely long and boring bathroom line, see who is who tonight on my way. Mirim?”

  “No, Taddy,” I look at Braff, not wanting to leave his side. “I think maybe after the next round of drinks. I want to ask Braff about the historian we are going to see before we are too drunk to make our conversation coherent.”

  “Yeah, I’d almost forgotten. Here.” He pulls a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and slides it in front of me. The short time his hand touches mine, I feel blissful.

  When I unfold it, I see a timeline of events in tiny and meticulous handwriting. At the top, it says Parker McNamara in bold, red letters. Below it, the year 1939 connected with a dash to 1959. My drink, which was making its way inside my body, stopped midway, hot on my chest, and burned with the notion. A part of me knew she was likely dead but it was still a terrifying idea.

  “The men knew a lot in detail, and not just her career, he was well-read on her personal life and her struggles. The list is a detailed timeline from her movies, going from 1939 to 1952, but the back has some information on who she was on a more private level.

  “But, she’s dead,” I said simply and cried with a heaviness I couldn’t explain. I thought perhaps it was the drinks. It was lead on top of my chest, I decided, not the drinks.

  Braff looked confused. “She was born in uh, 1912, Mir.”

  “She could have been alive.”

  “From this estimation, she would have been about forty-seven when she died, and eighty-four had she lived.”

  “Just about. She had a son, and another two born the years prior to her death. Then, another from her last husband. The last and fourth husband.”

  “Excuse me, did you say fourth husband?”

  “Typical Hollywood actress. Loved to wed!” Syth says and orders another drink.

  “Yes, she lost Fitch in Pearl Harbor. Then, she married for about six years to a man in sales, not in the industry, the father of the older boy.”

  “James,” I say under my breath.

  “Uh, yes, I think so.” He looks surprised I know this but continues, “The third husband was a producer or an actor, not sure but somebody in the business, father of the other two kids. The last husband was an actor. He fathered the last child.”

  Amistad sat at the chair when she returned and patted Syth’s back, a silent apology between them. “What did I miss? Why is Mirim crying?”

  I slide the paper to her and let Syth tell her. I felt I was in a kind of shock.

  “She had a difficult time with the meds she was prescribed. It wasn’t an overdose per se. Her body just gave out after being in and out of hospital care. She overcame addiction, but by then, she was fragile.”

  “That would explain her shaking. Maybe withdrawal?”

  “Possibly,” Braff says, “Mirim, are you alright?”

  “Yes…I just need a moment. Go on, Braff.”

  “Well, her film career was prolific and stable, but she wasn’t greatly well-known, although some films won awards and she did as well. They rumored her love life was a roller coaster ride, and her undying love for Fitch made it difficult for her to find a steady love. She was really never over him until she met her last husband.”

  “Phillip,” Both he and I say.

  Braff is excited at reaching this juncture of the timeline and spills some of his drink on the papers he has brought, as well as on Amistad’s dress –her ridiculously expensive white linen dress.

  “Damn Taddy, I’m so sorry.”

  “Are you drunk already, Braff? Jeezze! “

  I grabbed the papers and tried drying them, but the ink has run and is almost completely erased on the last lines.

  Syth grabs it looking glum.

  “It’s fine Syth,”
I say thinking about Parker still.

  “I think you should go see my expert tomorrow. I have a friend who knows about these things. She might be able to help you.”

  Braff froze while mopping the table with a wad of napkins. “No, no, uh-uh, I don’t think so.”

  The music gets louder and Syth, who looks like he’s had a few too many at this point, stands near the table and starts dancing, bobbing his head with his eyes closed.

  “Wait Braff, who?” I shout, “What are you talking about, Syth?”

  “Mirim, my friend and lovely Mirim. This…with you is…otherworldly. Miraculous to the max!” He shouts back and whoops walking away to where Amistad is ordering drinks.

  “Oh, man, here we fucking go!” Braff screams.

  “What Braff? You don’t think this is an astounding event?”

  Amistad returns with Syth, who is carrying drinks while she wipes her dress with paper napkins. “What astounding event?” She repeats.

  “An astounding set of circumstances, maybe, but not an event which may require the need to visit a woman and resort to witch crafting.”

  “Come on man. Don’t be so close-minded.”

  “No, do you mean…are you talking about the woman we went to last year to read your chart?”

  “Yes! She is positively gifted in these things. I’m telling you!” Syth is screaming into Taddy’s face and dancing all the while. “She has helped me overcome a lot of pain in my life. I can take you tomorrow if you like.”

  “Wait up. Is this a medium of some sort?” I ask.

  “A swindler is what she might be!” Braff says. He has to shout for us to hear but I see he is also somewhat drunk at this point, and maybe so am I. “These people are usually advantageous kooks and will take advantage of your need. Don’t even think about it, Mirim. It will create confusion for you. She’ll take your money and tell you whatever it is she thinks you need to hear. They will be false leads and we’ll have to work to patch up the details.”