Cemetery of Angels (10 page)

“There’s only one real place to start,” she announced. And she guided her driver up to the Hollywood sign. They spent several minutes in sunshine overlooking the city. There was a layer of thin gray smog lay below a bright sky.

Then they continued.

It was the type of drive around that Rebecca had been hoping to do, but hadn’t had the chance. So the opportunity was as welcome as the guidance. Melissa brought Rebecca down Vine Street straight into Hollywood Boulevard. Then they turned west and drove out to Beverly Hills, Bel Air, and Brentwood. Melissa showed her favored places to eat, shop, and drink or flirt, if the mood so inclined her.

“The whole area never ceases to fascinate me,” Melissa said, settling back into the passenger’s seat in the front of the car. She guided Rebecca through Beverly Hills and the Westwood area around UCLA.

“In L.A. everyone is a bit of a tourist. Just passing through, just looking for the ‘Californiamerican’ dream like everyone else. Know what I mean?”

“I know exactly,” Rebecca said.

“It’s fascinating. A person can go as far here as she’s able to invent or reinvent herself. That’s what the city’s all about.”

“Entertainment, you mean?”

“Not just that, although that’s a big part of it,” she said.

They drove through Beverly Hills. Rebecca watched the sharply conflicting architecture float past her window. English Tudor next to Adobe Modem next to Mission Revival. “Ah, Tinseltown,” she thought to herself. She was starting to love it. Its brashness was its glory; its inconsistencies and fakeries were its charm.

“The first settlers out here were fruit farmers and oil wildcatters,” Melissa said, apropos of nothing. “While Northern California was having a gold rush, Los Angeles was still a dusty outpost of fruit farmers and oil prospectors. It wasn’t until Cecil B. DeMille came out here from New York before World War I that the movie industry took hold.” She paused.

“The first movie pioneers were met by signs that read, NO DOGS, NO ACTORS. Did you know that?” Rebecca laughed.

“No. I guess they didn’t take that sentiment too seriously. “

“The old-line people out here were very conservative. Blue noses,” Melissa said reflectively. “They’d be spinning in their graves to think that
El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula
became synonymous with sin, vice, and hedonistic living. But the movie industry wasn’t built by people who listened to rules and restrictions.”

“You speak Spanish well,” Rebecca said. “You have a nice accent.”

Melissa laughed.

“My mother was Mexican,” she said. “From Tijuana. Raised me on Latino pop music, everything from Julieta Venegas and Paulina Rubio to Daddy Yankee. I’m a cultural mutt. If they catch me in Arizona, though, they’re gonna toss my
culito
back over the border.”

“But you’re a US citizen, right?” Rebecca asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” Melissa said.

They came to a stoplight. Melissa’s eyes settled on the busy intersection of Sunset Boulevard with Beverly Glen. A nice looking young man in a convertible pulled up next to them. He looked at them and smiled. Melissa waved back. Then the light changed.

“Take a turn here,” Melissa said.

“Where are we going?”

“I’m taking you to meet Marilyn Monroe.”

“What?”

“Just drive, honey.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rebecca said with mock formality. Melissa eased back in her seat. She had slid her sandals off and, in T-shirt and short denim shorts, was sitting with one bare leg propped up against the dashboard.

“In the grand scheme of things, do you realize how recent that was?” she asked. “Ninety years. See how quickly Los Angeles reinvented itself? By the mid-1920s, when talking pictures came in, Los Angeles had almost overnight become a different city. From a town of oil and oranges it became the entertainment capital of the world. A whole empire built of celluloid and fantasy.”

“From listening to you, Melissa,” Rebecca said, “I sometimes can’t tell whether you love it or hate it.”

“Both,” she answered. “But I’m here to stay, I’ll tell you that, in LA for the next eternity. Earthquakes permitting. Randy Newman and
I love LA
and all that.”

They both laughed again.

Melissa guided her driver to the Westwood stretch of Wilshire Boulevard. They parked the car and set out on foot. Melissa led the way into Westwood Memorial Cemetery, a small burial ground nestled onto a block behind a massive office building.

“I love cemeteries,” Melissa said by way of introduction.

Rebecca curled a lip.

“You don’t like them?”

“I find them a little spooky. That’s all,” Rebecca answered.

“Oh, lighten up,” Melissa said. “You’re thinking of graveyards as the musty old crypts and Dracula movies. Cemeteries are peaceful. Calm little islands of tranquility, like the one right in our neighborhood. They’re liberating, that’s what they are,” she spoke as she walked. “And above that, as a scholar of American Civilization, I will tell you that cemeteries are mirrors to our past and mirrors to ourselves at the same time.”

Rebecca watched where they were walking. She fell respectfully silent. Melissa seemed to know her way around here all too well. She led Rebecca to a wall crypt which contained the remains of Marilyn Monroe, a surprisingly modest resting place, marked with a simple sign and a generous assortment of fresh flowers.

Recent donors. Anonymous fans who had outlived their idol for half a century already. Then Melissa gave Rebecca a little nod and drew her in another direction within the same burial yard. Less than a minute’s walk and they stood before the final resting place of Natalie Wood.

Another modest marker. And another armload of fresh flowers. Rebecca studied the scene and tried to figure whether there was a subtext to what she was being shown. What was her friend trying to tell her? She turned her head and discovered that Melissa was watching her intently. And she was smiling.

“What?” Rebecca asked. Melissa had a look of mischief across her face.

“I’m going to change your mind,” she said.

“About what?”

“Cemeteries.”

“Oh, Melissa …”

“Don’t ‘Oh, Melissa’ me,” she said insistently. “Who’s giving the tour here?”

“You are.”

“Then trust me. I’m going to change the way you look at life and death. Or at least the way you look at Los Angeles.”

“I’m not sure I asked for this service,” Rebecca said.

“You get it anyway, honey,” Melissa answered. “Come on. Get your tush on the move.”

Merrily, Melissa led Rebecca back out to the car. The sunlight glistened upon her, and Rebecca wished she could look as young and pert at her age. And then she recalled that they were probably the same age, give or take.

They got back into the car. Melissa settled back again, a leg up to the dashboard. She glanced ahead. “Take the turn on Beverly Glen. A left. Then we’re going for a drive.”

“Where to?”

“Glendale.”

“Melissa!”

“Trust me, dear lady. You will not be disappointed.”

“It’s a good thing I trust you.”

“I’m watching over you, my dear. It’s a good thing you met me.”

They came to a traffic light. Rebecca needed to make a left turn against traffic. She waited for the green arrow, thought for a moment, and reached to Melissa’s nicely tanned arm and placed a hand on it. Then she pinched Melissa’s arm.

“Ow! What’s that?” Melissa asked.

“You’re
too
interested in these graveyards,” Rebecca said. “I’m making sure you’re real.”

“You’re not a crazy bitch or something, are you?” Melissa asked.

“Some people think I might be. I’ll tell you about it some time.”

Melissa raised an eyebrow and laughed.

“You could tell me now, except your light just turned green.” An impatient car horn sounded. Probably a transplanted New Yorker. Rebecca hit her accelerator hard. Her tires screeched on the asphalt as she made her turn. Both women laughed. They were on their way out to the San Fernando Valley. In truth, Rebecca was having fun driving around with her new girlfriend.

“Want to hear a politically incorrect California joke?” Melissa asked. “It’s a driving joke. Cars and drivers, you know?”

“Go for it,” Rebecca answered.

“How do you know Asians are moving into the neighborhood?”

“Dunno. How?”

“The Mexicans start buying car insurance.” In spite of herself, Rebecca laughed. Then,

“What’s in Glendale?” she asked. “Where are we going?”

“Forest Lawn,” Melissa answered. “The
big
cemetery.”

“Oh, come on…” Melissa shrugged and giggled.

“You’ve already made the turn,” she said. “You might as well listen to your guide.”

Rebecca sighed then joined her friend in laughter. The drive took forty minutes. On the freeway, they passed one of the new Tata Nino imports, a car made in India. Naturally, Melissa had an opinion. Melissa opined on everything.

“I’d feel better about riding in that piece of Indian crap,” Melissa said, “if it hadn’t been built by people who believe in reincarnation.”

At the wheel, Rebecca laughed. “That’s cold,” she said. “Cold!”

Then they entered the gates of what was more a vast park than a graveyard.

Forest Lawn Memorial Park was three hundred meticulously landscaped acres of statues, sculptures, and various art treasures, including a replica of Da Vinci’s Last Supper, done entirely in stained glass. In the chapel, the Hall of the Crucifixion Resurrection, Rebecca stared at the world’s largest oil painting of the Crucifixion. It gave her shivers. Rebecca was silent. Melissa gave her a nudge when it was time to go.

She led her outside.

“This place was the inspiration for
The Loved One
,” Melissa said. “Evelyn Waugh. Ever read it?”

“No,” Rebecca was embarrassed to admit.

“You should.”

Then there were the dead. Or merely the departed. Near the Freedom Mausoleum were markers for Walt Disney and Errol Flynn. But Melissa led Rebecca inside. In silence, within the cool mausoleum, Rebecca had never before been in the presence of so many celebrities. So what if they were dead? Crypts were everywhere: Nat King Cole, Gracie Allen, Clara Bow, and Alan Ladd. They took some time and visited the site where Michael Jackson lay. It was crowded and flooded with flowers.

After a few more minutes, Melissa led her guest to the Great Mausoleum. There, among numerous others, Rebecca found herself communing with the departed spirits of Carole Lombard, Clark Gable, and Jean Harlow. Then they were back outside.

“Over in the Hollywood Hills there’s a sister park to this one,” Melissa said. “Forest Lawn, Hollywood. They’ve got Stan Laurel, John Ritter, Liberace, and David Carradine over there.”

“What do you do? Keep track?” Rebecca asked.

“American Civ, my dear,” Melissa said again. “What tells us more about our culture than our final resting places? These are the spots where our spirits will rest indefinitely.”

“Don’t you mean, ‘eternally’?”

“Who knows?” Melissa shrugged.

“I’m not sure if I believe that spirit stuff,” Rebecca said. “I mean, when you’re gone, you’re gone. I wish it weren’t so, but I think it is.”

They arrived back at the car. Melissa gave her a facetious wink.

“As you get older,” Melissa said, “you might change your mind. I did.”

“What are you talking about?” Rebecca asked. “Spirits? Reincarnation?”

“That’s a subject for another day,” Melissa said. “Right now, however, if you want to do some more world class tomb crawling, I’ll take you over to Hollywood Memorial Cemetery. It’s at the intersection of Gower, Santa Monica, and Van Ness. Douglas Fairbanks and Rudolph Valentine are in there. Want to go look?” Rebecca sighed.

“Quickly,” she said. “On the way home.”

“It’s a deal, honey.” They found the Toyota and started back.

“Want to know my favorite Tinseltown burial story?” Melissa asked a few minutes later. They were on the freeway from Burbank, moving with moderate traffic.

“I’d be afraid to guess what it is,” Rebecca answered. “And I have a feeling that I’m going to hear it anyway.”

“Hollywood Memorial,” Melissa said. “One of the more venomous producers ever to screen a film in this town is buried there. Harry Cohn.” She paused. “He picked out his own gravesite,” Melissa said. “He was the head of Columbia Pictures at the time. An absolute tyrant. So he picked out a site that was across the street from the studio. Legend has it that he could keep an eye on the film business after he died. And he bought himself two plots, figuring he was bigger in Hollywood than anyone else. So he should have two. And everyone else has one.”

Melissa was correct, Rebecca was starting to conclude that death could be fascinating.

“So tell me,” Rebecca asked. “Was Harry able to keep an eye on the studio?”

“After Cohn died, the studio moved,” Melissa said. And it was beset with failures and scandals. So who knows? It was apparently beyond Harry’s sight. And power.”

Thirty minutes later, Melissa showed Rebecca Cohn’s tomb, right by a little manmade lake. In Hollywood Memorial Cemetery, a pantheon of stars had found a final refuge from their fans. Douglas Fairbanks had the most elaborate memorial in the sixty-five acre yard. But Rudolph Valentino, in crypt 1205, still drew visitors, although the famous “lady in black” who used to bring flowers on the anniversary of his death had long since slipped into her own tomb. Rebecca noted Tyrone Power, Peter Lorre, and Cecil B. DeMille. In an eerie touch, Paramount Pictures, which DeMille had established in the 1920’s still existed over the garden wall from his tomb.

There was also a Jewish cemetery across the street, Beth Olam.

“I’ll take you to see Bugsy Siegel,” Melissa offered. “He was shot down in his home in Beverly Hills more than fifty years ago. Eight ten Linden Drive. But we can still visit him in Beth Olam. Want to say hello to him?”

“I think,” Rebecca said, “I’ve had enough of tombs. How about lunch, instead?”

It was mid-afternoon and Melissa agreed. She knew a great place in West Hollywood where fresh light sandwiches came on croissants. Rebecca treated Melissa to lunch, dropped her back at her house, and then took off to pick up Karen and Patrick from their after school programs. The day had been as unusual as it had been fascinating.