“Why are your feet screaming?”
“My feet aren't screaming.”
“They're all knotted up and they're screaming.”
“Feet don't scream.”
“Yours do.”
I promised Jeff before he died that I would visit his mother.
“You know Stella, feelings have to go somewhere. I think your feelings go to your feet.”
We would sit at the dining room table. She would help edit my writing and we would talk about the days when she was an actress.
“I've known you for 30 years. It's time you tell me why your feet are screaming,” I insisted.
“No one has ever asked me before.”
“I'm asking you.”
She looked like something out of a Wagnerian opera. The caregiver had done her hair in braids and then made little knots of them on the top of her head resembling two small horns. Although she was almost ninety years old, her hair was naturally strawberry blonde. She was quite heavy and looked dramatic in her red stain blouse, black pants and jacket. There was an aura of the comic and tragic – a Brunhilde and Mother Goose combo.
“Did I ever tell you about the time I became one with God?” she asked.
“Yes, I think you have.”
“It was in Eva LeGalliene's Company. I was the understudy for the leading lady in “How Fair the Lilacs”. One night I had to go on. There was not time for rehearsal but I knew the lines down pat. Something happened onstage. My soul came alive. LeGalliene was in the audience. She came back afterwards and said, “Stella, you are a star. You are meant to be one of America's great actresses. Tonight I saw light radiating from your whole being and circling around your head like a halo.” Can you imagine Eva LeGalliene saying that to you?”
“It's hard to imagine.”
“I was very shy, but on stage I soared. Have you ever had such an experience?”
“There was opening night in Company in Philadelphia. Almost every gesture, every look of mine got a laugh. I had an extraordinary feeling of power. This power had a life of its own and I was its medium. That very same night I came down with bronchitis and was laid up at the Barclay Hotel for two weeks. Jeff came to visit on weekends.”
“He wanted to marry an actress like his mother.”
“Are you going to tell me why your feet are screaming?”
“My feet started screaming when I didn't go on the road.”
“What road?”
“Oh forget it.”
“No, I want to know.”
“La Galliene offered me a supporting role. It was with Ethel Barrymore but it was on the road. I knew Arnold, who was then my fiancé, wouldn't stand for my being away. I was forced to make a choice. That night while I was sleeping I awoke to a blood-curdling scream. The scream was from me. I tried to get out of bed to turn on the light. I could hardly stand. My toes had curled way under. I couldn't even put on bedroom slippers. America's great actress had gone out the window.”
I looked down at Stella's feet. She only could wear black cloth Chinese slippers that she buys in Chinatown!
There was a deafening silence.
“Did you want to be one when you were growing up?” Stella asked.
“One what?”
“An actress.”
“It was always special when Mama would take me to the movies. I can see Betty Grable now. She slithered from behind a curtain and sang, ‘I wish I could shimmy like my sister Kate…Da Ta Da Da Da….just like Jello on a plate'. She shimmied all through the song. Right then and there I became aware of something. Two weeks later, I saw Randolph Scott on his horse at a matinee. It clinched the deal. I became aware of sex appeal.”
“Oh for goodness sake.”
“Not long afterwards, my Dad's cousin came for dinner. He was on leave from the army. He wasn't your usual grown-up. He was getting married for the fourth or fifth time. Because of Betty Grable and Randolph Scott, I knew how to handle him. I flirted.”
“I think you're making this up,” Stella said.
Stella said that acting was much more meaningful for her. She had talent. She would recite poems and songs when she was a child. People would be awestruck. She could make them cry buckets if you just gave her a poem.
She couldn't understand why I gave up the theatre. “Was it the doctor's influence?”
“Yes. And no.”
Stella said she never liked the doctor. I knew that wasn't so. She was probably referring to the Thanksgiving when she came to Jeff's and my home along with the doctor and his family. She was sitting by the fireplace telling us how she and some other customers got locked in the meat freezer at one of the supermarkets. The doctor said with a twinkle in his eye, she must have been fucking scared. She turned beet red with embarrassment and delight. I think he had struck a place inside her that she forgot was there.
The doctor could be provocative. Provocations helped bring out hidden parts of people's psyche that otherwise would take hours for them to discover in a more genteel conversation. People don't like those parts or they may like them too much. When they are reveled they usually disliked the doctor instead of themselves.
I asked Stella if she wanted to share the snack I had brought. Carrots, celery, and olives. She asked if I were on a diet. I said no, I just like to remind myself of the dangers of the world. I became aware of danger at the age of 4. Mama warned me never to talk or laugh while eating raw carrots. I could choke to death. The world became a whole different place.
“ ‘Carrot top. Carrot top.' That's what the kids used to call me, as if I were someone peculiar. I had flaming red hair.” She sighed.
Then she asked me, “Did any of the people you went to school with amount to anything?”
I rattled off some names.
“I never heard of them. Marian?”
“Yes, Stella?”
“Do you have friends?”
“You're my friend Stella, even though you were once my mother-in-law.”
She gave a larger sigh.
“Well I better be on my way.” I said. “I'll visit again next week.”
“We didn't laugh today,” she said. “We usually laugh. Who was that fellow who laughed himself out of the hospital and wrote a book about it?”
“I think he's dead now.”