Close to Famous (12 page)

SOMEDAY I'M GOING to have a car like this.

The wind whooshed through my hair as Miss Charleena zoomed down the road in her baby blue convertible. We passed the prison. Tall towers stood behind the razor wire fence.

“I was in a prison movie once,” Miss Charleena told me. “I played the wife of a murderer. I talked to women whose husbands were in jail, I visited prisons so I could get into my role. And you know the number one thing that helped me find my character?”

“What?” I wasn't sure what she meant about finding her character.

“I went back to a time in my life when I felt scared, lonely, forgotten, and misunderstood, and I used those memories to create my character.” She turned down the road to Kitty and Lester's house. “I was up for an Oscar for that role.”

“Wow, Miss Charleena.”

“I've been nominated twice, actually; never won.”

“So you had to sit there smiling when someone else won?” Mama let me stay up to see the Oscar show a few times.

“My face was hurting from the fake smile, and both times my dress was too tight. But I went home and hugged my Emmy and my Golden Globe and felt better.”

I used to hug Daddy's pillowcase when things hurt.

She drove past the broken fence, pulled into the driveway, and stopped her little car next to the big tow truck. “Kitty and Lester pulled my car out of a ditch once.”

“How did it get in a ditch?”

She sighed. “Let's just say I wasn't doing too well when I first moved back home.”

“It must have been hard to come here after being in Hollywood.”

“Foster, at that time in my life, any place I lived was guaranteed to be hard.”

Just then Mama ran out of the Bullet dressed like she was going to meet a queen. She had all her makeup on, her hair was wound up on her head, and she was wearing a fancy top, her best pants, and high heels.

“
Ms. Hendley
, I can't tell you what an honor it is to meet you. I've seen all your movies. You've made me laugh and cry.” She shook Miss Charleena's hand and said to me, “What's this about the bleeding?”

“I fell on my face. That's all.”

Mama looked at my bandaged knees.

“You've got a fine girl here,” Miss Charleena said.

“Thank you kindly. Every movie you've made I've seen at least three times.” Mama was talking a little too loud.

“I appreciate it.”

“And here you are your very self!”

“Here I am, but I must be going.”

“Of course you must. Be going, that is.” I'd never seen Mama like this.

“It's a pleasure. Is it all right for her to come by tomorrow? ”

“Absolutely. Of course. No problem. Thank you for driving her home.”

I got out of the car. “Miss Charleena, that thing you said about finding your character—what did you mean?”

“An actor can't play a part well unless you understand who your character is—how they feel, where they're scared, what makes them tick, what makes them strong or weak. I'd find those places in my life where I felt like that and I'd let them come out in the acting.”

“I can see why you almost got an Oscar.”

“Almost. Not quite.”

“But you might still get one. I mean, you're old, but not ancient.”

“Foster!” Mama shouted.

“Careful, darlin'. Aging is a serious matter in Hollywood.”

“I can't wait to get older!”

She revved the motor. “There will be a point, I assure you, when that will change.” She tooted her horn and drove off.

We waved good-bye. Mama put her hand over her heart. “I can't believe I just met Charleena Hendley.”

I looked at Mama's fancy outfit. “Did you wear that to work?”

“Don't be fresh!” Then she grabbed my arm. “Tell me
everything.”

“We're having fun, right?”

Sonny Kroll shouted it in his TV kitchen.

“Right!” I shouted back.

“Today we're making . . . oh, I don't know if you can handle it.”

I laughed. “I can. . . .”

His face got close to the screen, so close I wanted to touch his forehead.

“We're making the moistest, proudest cupcakes you've ever tasted!”

I'm ready.

“Now I want you to commit this to memory, because there's some people out there that think a cupcake is some little, dinky thing.”

Lester walked by. I was sitting on his couch watching the show. “Who's that?”

“Sonny Kroll,” I told him.

Lester sat down to watch as Sonny put his hands on the counter and leaned forward. “There are three hard and fast rules for making a proper cupcake. Listen up for Kroll's Cupcake Commands. Number one—no cupcake shall be small. Number two—no cupcake shall have just a little frosting. And number three—no cupcake shall be eaten alone.”

Lester chuckled.

“
Do you hear me
?” Sonny shouted. He'd been a marine sergeant before he got his cooking show.

“We hear you!” Lester and I shouted back.

“We're going right to the powerhouse flavors here—chocolate and vanilla. And we'll be piling them higher and deeper. But first, you need to get your hands on the best cocoa you can find. . ..”

Sonny went through the ingredients, which I already had. He measured cake flour, cocoa, and one and a quarter teaspoons baking soda. “Make sure it's fresh.”

He added one quarter teaspoon baking powder. “Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl, and feel good about yourself because you're making something that's going to give a lot of people joy.”

He got out another bowl and cracked three eggs into it. “Now add one and two thirds cups of sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla—real vanilla extract please. And beat that egg mixture for three minutes on high with your mixer, and as you do that it's going to get creamy and smooth. Now you reduce the speed to low, and hold on to your heart, folks, because here comes the secret ingredient. Mayonnaise. I can hear you groaning, but have I ever lied to you? The answer is
no, sir!
Don't go running off on me. Measure out one cup of mayo and add it to the batter and beat that stuff in until it's blended. Then you get a cup and a third of water and add the flour mixture to the egg mixture in batches—not all at once or it will get lumpy. Put in about a fourth of the flour, then a fourth of the water, and blend; do this four times and you've got serious batter. Frosting alone does not make a cupcake. We're building this baby from the ground up.”

He put the batter in paper liners, filled it two thirds full, and put it in the oven. “For twenty to twenty-five minutes—don't overbake—that's an order.”

“I'm so making these,” I told Lester.

“Don't you need to write this down?”

I pointed to my head. “I remember everything.”

“No kidding?”

Then Sonny showed the secret to his vanilla cupcakes. “Sour cream,” he whispered. “Only you and me need to know this.”

The cupcakes came out big, and he piled on the frosting, put sprinkles on them. Then he put them in a fancy carrier, much fancier than mine, got his helmet from by the door, and headed outside. His motorcycle was sitting there like always. He put the cupcakes in the carrier behind the seat, climbed on the bike, and revved it.

“We're on this road together.” And he zoomed off on that thing.

“Marines always ate better than army,” Lester mentioned. “That Sonny's a good man.”

“You ever write him a letter?” Lester asked.

“No.”

“Maybe you should.”

Mama let me stay up and make Sonny's mayonnaise cupcakes so I wouldn't forget the recipe. Once I get a recipe in my head and make it, I don't forget. Why this doesn't happen in school is one of life's big mysteries.

After one bite of this cupcake, I knew I'd never forget the recipe.

I was up early and rushed to get dressed so I could get to Miss Charleena's. I called Macon to see how he was feeling.

“Did you do everything at Miss Charleena's you needed to do yesterday?” he demanded.

“Everything.”

“And was she happy? I mean, it's not always easy to tell.”

“She was happy.”

“How do you know?”

“She was nice, Macon. She was just nice.”

“
Nice?
” He started coughing.

“I've got to go. Take care of yourself.”

“Tell me more about the nice, Foster.” Lots more coughing.

“We're learning to work together, you know?”

He didn't know, but I didn't have time to explain, and if I did have time, I'm not sure I could have done it.

It was a new day. I felt like I had cream filling inside me.

I packed up two chocolate mayonnaise cupcakes for Miss Charleena and headed for her house. When I turned up Marigold Hill, it seemed like all the birds were singing for me. I got to Miss Charleena's back door and knocked. I waited, knocked again. I rang the bell. Her car was in the driveway. Where was she?

Finally, Miss Charleena came to the door, but she looked different from how she did yesterday. Her hair was mussed, her face looked long and tired.

“Miss Charleena, are you okay?”

“The sickness has come back.”

She walked out of the kitchen, down the hall, and left me standing there.

DR. WEBER WALKED down the long hall past all the pictures of Miss Charleena's most memorable movie moments. He knocked at her bedroom door. “What is it today, Charleena?”

“I'm dying,” she said.

That sounded bad!

Dr. Weber went into her room and shut the door. I said a prayer to God that she'd be okay.

The door opened and Dr. Weber came out. He walked through the house, out to his car, and in a minute he came back lugging a machine “for oxygen.” He wheeled it into her room.

I didn't know what to do, so I went back to the kitchen. The dogs, Tracy and Hepburn, walked in slowly. I knelt down and rubbed them.

“She'll be okay, you guys.” They nuzzled my hand. “She'll want to see you soon, I bet. I hope she'll want to see me.”

Here we were in the beautiful kitchen and all the curtains were closed. On the counter were butter, brown sugar, vanilla, flour, and pecans. Not quite everything I needed to make butterscotch muffins.

“But, we're going to go with what we've got,” I told the dogs. “I'm making brown sugar brownies.” Sometimes the best thing a person can do in an emergency is bake.