Homesick for Another World(50)

I still hadn’t called my mother. By then I’d been in Los Angeles for several months.

“My mother doesn’t want to talk. She doesn’t want me to be an actor. She thinks it’s a waste of time.”

Mrs. Honigbaum put down her spoon. Under the harsh light from the hanging lamp over the kitchen table, her fake eyelashes cast spidery shadows on her taut rouged cheeks. She shook her head. “Your mother loves you,” she said. “How could she not? Just look at you!” she cried, raising her arms. “You’re like a young Greek god!”

“She’d be happier if I came home. But even if I did, she wouldn’t love me. She can’t stand me most of the time. Everything I do makes her angry. I don’t think she’d even care if I died. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“It’s impossible,” cried Mrs. Honigbaum. Her rings clanked as she clasped her hands together as if in prayer. “Every mother loves her son. She doesn’t tell you she loves you?”

“Never,” I lied. “Not once.”

“She must be sick,” said Mrs. Honigbaum. “My mother nearly killed me twice, and still she loved me. I know she did. ‘Yetta, forgive me. I love you. But you make me mad.’ That’s all. Is your mother a drinker? Does she have something wrong with her like that?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “She just hates me. She kicked me out,” I lied some more. “That’s why I came here. I just figure acting is a good way to make a living, since I can’t go home. And my dad’s dead.” That was true.

Mrs. Honigbaum sighed and adjusted her wig, which had fallen off center with all her gesticulating. “I know what it means to be an orphan,” she said gravely. Then she stood up from her chair and came to me, the sleeves of her housecoat skimming the table, knocking over the salt and pepper shakers shaped like dancing elves. “You poor boy. You must be so scared.” She cradled my head in her thin arms, squishing the side of my face against her low-slung breasts. “I’m going to make some calls. We’re going to get you on your way. You’re too handsome, you’re too talented, too wonderful to be squandering your time working at that pizza place.” She leaned down and kissed my forehead. Then I cried a little, and she handed me a chalky old tissue from her housecoat pocket. I dried my tears. “You’ll be all right,” said Mrs. Honigbaum, patting my head. She went and sat down and finished her cottage cheese. I couldn’t look her in the eye for the rest of the night.

? ? ?

The next day I picked up a copy of the coupon circular where Mrs. Honigbaum’s columns were published. I found one at the pawnshop across from the bakery where I bought my cinnamon doughnuts. Then I boarded an express bus going east on Melrose. I took a window seat and laid the circular across my lap. Mrs. Honigbaum’s columns ran side by side on the last page. I found my horoscope. “Virgo: You will have trouble with love this week. Beware of coworkers talking about you behind your back. They could influence your boss. But don’t worry! Good things are in store.” It was nonsense, but I considered it all very carefully. The gossip column was just a list of celebrity birthdays and recent Hollywood news items. I didn’t know anybody’s name, so none of it seemed to be of any consequence. Still, I read each and every word. Suzanne Somers is suing ABC. Princess Diana has good taste in hats. Superman II is out in theaters. As I watched the people of Los Angeles get on and off the bus, I felt for the first time that I was somebody, I was important. Mrs. Honigbaum, who cared so much about me, wrote columns in this circular that traveled all across the city. Hundreds if not thousands must have read her column every week. She was famous. She had influence. There was her name right there: “Miss Honey.”

Oh, Mrs. Honigbaum. After our fourth dinner together, I found myself missing her as I lay on my bed, digesting the mound of schnitzel and boxed mashed potatoes and JELL-O she’d prepared herself. She made me feel very special. I wasn’t attracted to her the way I’d been to the girls back in Gunnison, of course. At eighteen, what excited me most was a particular six-inch length of leg above a girl’s knee. I was especially inclined to study girls in skirts or shorts when they were seated beside me on the bus with their legs crossed. The outer length of the thigh, where the muscles separated, and the inside, where the fat spread, were like two sides of a coin I wanted to flip. If I could have done anything, I would have watched a woman cross and uncross her legs all day. But I’d never seen Mrs. Honigbaum’s legs. She sat behind her desk most of the time, and when she walked around, her thin legs were covered in billowy pants in brightly colored prints of tropical flowers or fruit.

One morning, I stopped off at Mrs. Honigbaum’s office on the way to the shower, as usual.

“Darling,” she now called me, “I have something for you. An audition. It’s for a commercial or something, but it’s a good one. It could put you on the map quick. Go wash up. Here, take this.” She came out from behind her desk and handed me the address. Her handwriting was large and looping, beautiful and strong. “Tell them Honey sent you. It’s just a test.”

“A screen test?” I asked. I’d never been in front of a real movie camera before.

“Consider it practice,” she said. She looked me up and down. “What I wouldn’t give,” she said. “That reminds me.” She went back to her desk and riffled through her drawers for her pills. “To be young again! Well, go shower. Don’t be late. Go and come back and tell me all about it.”