Homesick for Another World(53)

He gave me the addresses for two casting calls that day, neither of which I went to. I still didn’t feel good. My head hurt. My face was swollen from crying. I spent the rest of the morning in front of the Toshiba, watching Hollywood Squares, Family Feud, all the while imagining my mother’s rage. “It was Larry’s birthday last week. What, now you’re too good to call? You think you’re better than us, than me, your own mother?” I knew she’d be furious. I had nothing to say for myself. I had promised to call, and I hadn’t called. Maybe I wanted to make her worry. Maybe I wanted her to suffer. “I’ve been scared to death,” I imagined she’d say. “How dare you do this to me. What have you been doing? Ballroom dancing? Champagne and caviar? Fooling around with who—whores?” I walked back and forth to the doughnut shop, feeling like a criminal. I didn’t go out to the beach. I just crawled back home into bed, under the covers and listened through the blanket to Days of Our Lives, Another World, Guiding Light. Again I cried. At six o’clock, Mrs. Honigbaum knocked on my door.

“I just got off the phone with Bob Sears,” she said. “It’s time to call your mother. See if she still hates you. Use the phone in the bedroom. Follow me.”

Mrs. Honigbaum led me down the softly carpeted hallway and ushered me into her chambers, which I’d never seen at night before. The poodle scurried under the bed. Mrs. Honigbaum turned on the chandelier, and suddenly everything was cast in dappled yellow light. The perfume bottles and crystal decorations glinted and winked. She slid open the heavy glass door to the backyard to let in some air. “It gets stuffy,” she said. The room was filled with a fragrant breeze. It was nice in there. She pointed to the bed. “Have a seat,” she said. Just then the phone rang.

“Who’s calling me now?” she murmured. She plucked off one earring, handed it to me, and lifted the receiver. “Hello?” I held the large golden earring in my open palm. In its center was an opalescent pearl the size of a quarter. “All right. Thank you,” she said quickly and hung up. “It’s my birthday,” she explained. She took the earring and clipped it back on. “Now, sit here and call your mother. I’ll be your witness. It’ll be fine. Go ahead.”

She stood there watching me. I had no choice but to pick up the phone.

“Very good,” said Mrs. Honigbaum after I’d slid the tip of my finger into the number on the rotary. “Go ahead,” she said again.

I dialed.

The phone rang and rang. Nobody was answering. It was a Saturday night.

“See, no one’s home,” I said to Mrs. Honigbaum, holding the receiver out toward her.

“Leave a message,” she said. She lit a cigarette. I nodded and listened to the brassy bells dinging on the line, ready to hang up if my mother answered. Mrs. Honigbaum exhaled two huge plumes of smoke through her flared nostrils. “A good message.”

Finally the machine picked up. I heard my mother’s voice for the first time in months. I held the phone out to Mrs. Honigbaum again. “That’s her, that’s what she sounds like,” I said. “She always sounds so mad.”

“Never mind,” said Mrs. Honigbaum.

After I heard the beep, I started my message: “Hi, Mom, it’s me.” I paused. I looked up at Mrs. Honigbaum.

“I’m so sorry I haven’t called,” she whispered. She waved her hand at me, smoke dotting the air, as though to spur me ahead.

“I’m so sorry I haven’t called,” I repeated into the phone.

“My life out here is fabulous. I am making some major progress in my acting career.” Mrs. Honigbaum widened her eyes, waiting for me to proceed.

I repeated what she said.

“And I’m meeting lots of fascinating characters.”

“I’m meeting fascinating characters.”

“I’m safe and eating well. There’s nothing you need to worry about.”

I delivered these lines word for word.

“Please don’t call Bob Sears again. It’s not good for me, professionally.”

“Please don’t call Bob Sears again. It’s not good for me, professionally.”

“I love you, Mother,” said Mrs. Honigbaum.

“I love you,” I said back to her.

“Now hang up.”

I did as I was told.

“There, that wasn’t so hard, now, was it?” Mrs. Honigbaum extinguished her cigarette and sat down beside me on the edge of the bed.

“She’s not going to like it,” I said.

“You’ve done your duty. She’ll sleep better now.” My heart was racing. I bent over and put my head in my hands. “Take some deep breaths,” Mrs. Honigbaum said, a hand rubbing my back. I sat and breathed with her and I felt better. “Now listen. I have something I’ve been meaning to show you,” she said. “I don’t show this to many people. But I think you deserve it. It’s something to make you smarter.”

Then she reached across my lap and opened the drawer of her bedside table. She pulled out a sheaf of index cards. “It’s a special deck of cards I made myself,” she said. She shuffled through them. They were blank on one side, and on the other side they bore strange symbols—mostly shapes, solid or outlined or striped or polka-dotted, in different colors. Mrs. Honigbaum had drawn them all in Magic Marker. One card had three green diamonds. Another had two empty red circles. A solid black square, a striped purple triangle, and so on. The point of the game was to set the cards down in rows and find patterns between the shapes and colors, what have you. “This game is a metaphor for life,” Mrs. Honigbaum explained. “Most people are dumb and can’t see the pattern unless it’s obvious. But there is always a pattern, even when things don’t make sense. If you build your brains up, the people here will think you’re a genius. Nobody else is going to teach you how to do this. You’ll see what I mean.”