Thank You for Listening(13)

Adaku grabbed her drink and polished it off. “The Angela Davis biopic I was telling you about? I want it. But the exec producer doesn’t think I’m right for it. He lives in Paris or Florence or something so I haven’t been able to get to him. But he’s flying back from Hawaii through L.A. tonight, landing in ninety minutes. Manse told the exec’s assistant about the jungle movie, his assistant e-mailed him while he was in the air, and he’s agreed to meet me for a drink.”

“Wait, you’re meeting him at LAX?”

“Yes. There’s a Southwest flight leaving in forty-five minutes. So, this is me, going.” She bent over, kissed Sewanee’s cheek. “Back by midnight.”

Sewanee’s eye bugged. “You’re coming back?”

“We’re celebrating! Return flight’s already booked!”

“A, you don’t have to–”

“You’ve got a dinner reservation at the celebrity chef steak house in half an hour, bottle service at the club, a driver. Put everything on the room! Find someone to join you! See you in four hours! Leaving!”

Before Sewanee could respond, Adaku was on her way out. As she passed the waitress, she pointed at Sewanee and her drink, clearly ordering her another.

Sewanee sat back. She took a breath.

She already felt awkward sitting in the bar alone, looking like she was waiting for a prom date–or even, she thought, glancing down at her cleavage, a customer. Before she could tell the waitress to cancel the drink order, she’d arrived back to deliver it, as if Adaku had some FastPass lane at the bar reserved solely for her.

She gulped down a good portion of it and thought.

Why would she go to dinner by herself, go to a club by herself, be driven around by herself? Ridiculous. She’d go upstairs, have some coffee, finish prepping the book, and wait for Adaku to come back. She’d have this last drink and close out.

She caught the waitress’s eye and made the universal hand gesture for check, please? And sat back, waiting. Drinking. Drinking until her cheeks began to warm and her shoulders began to loosen and the bar took on a slightly sexier cast, as if a filter had been applied to the whole room. Before she was officially tipsy, she did the thing she’d been trying to find the time to do all day. She called her grandmother.

“Hello?” Sewanee could hear the familiar click of her grandmother’s rings on the plastic receiver. She’d tried to get her to use a cell phone, but the buttons were too small and she’d somehow dial international numbers and then lose the thing in the couch, and anyway they were back to a landline.

“Hi, BlahBlah!” There was a half second of silence, which prompted her to quickly add, “It’s Sewanee,” before her grandmother could reveal she hadn’t known that.

Her voice immediately warmed. “Dollface! How’s my favorite girl?”

Sewanee’s smile was equal parts relief and joy. “I’m good. I’m still in Las Vegas.”

“You’re in Las Vegas? I didn’t know you were in Las Vegas.”

She did. Or she had, anyway. “I’m here for a conference.”

“Well, I hope you’re finding time for fun.” The texture of her grandmother’s voice was the result of every cigarette she’d ever smoked, every martini she’d ever drunk. While she retained none of her Tennessee accent (she belonged to the generation of actors whose regionalisms had been drilled out of them), she still carried a Southern dignity and propriety. She swore and drank and partied in her day, but goddammit, she did it elegantly.

“Your grandfather took me to Las Vegas once.”

Sewanee had heard this story many times before and recently. But this was how it went these days and she knew to go along with it. “Did you enjoy yourself?”

“What a night we had! We saw the Rat Pack. Frank, Dean, Sammy, and . . . oh. I can never remember the other one.”

“Isn’t it Peter something?” Amanda had told Sewanee to make Blah use her memory whenever possible, instead of just supplying answers.

“Yes! Yes! Lawford, Peter Lawford.” She muttered, “He was never that important anyway. He didn’t do anything. Anyway, after the show, Marvin took me backstage–it was the Sands Hotel–and introduced me to Frank and Dean. And of course Sammy and . . . shit! Who’s the other one? Doesn’t matter. Frank took my hand and asked me what I thought of the show and I came right out with it, I said, ‘You should have a lady up there.’ Marvin was mortified–he’s always mortified–but Frank and Dean, they laughed their tooshes off!” Blah’s chuckle became a hacking cough. “Frank’s hand is softer than I expected.”

Sewanee noticed the shift from past tense to present and she tried to guide her back. “Didn’t Grandpa know Sinatra?”

It worked. “Oh yes. Frank had done one of Marv’s early pictures, you know, so they went way back. He was awfully sorry for all that McCarthy business. Frank, not Marv. That sonofabitch. McCarthy, not Sinatra.” There was a pause. “Do you want to come over, Dollface?”

“I’m in Las Vegas.”

Blah clucked her tongue. “Christ on a crutch, you just said that. I swear, this old tackle box of a head is nothing more than tangled up lines, lures, and sinkers. Getting old is for the goddamn birds.”

Sewanee smiled. “I’ll come by on Monday for lunch, okay?”