She was brought to me by Santa Ana on the seventeenth day of March, along with the dry smell of sand mixed with the salty flavor of desert plants. The taxi driver dropped her off in front of a little Spanish house across the street. She was standing on the sidewalk among cardboard boxes, her long, skinny arm keeping her straw hat from falling off her head. I was instantly attracted to her. I know it sounds silly; she was just an old lady in a Charleston dress with flamboyant makeup and skin freckled like quail eggs. I was watching her from our front porch, leaning over the white picket fence, when my mother came out.

“C’mon, lazy, let’s help our new neighbor with those boxes,” she said. “There’s no way she can do it by herself.”

When we approached her, I noticed that she was even older than she looked from a distance. There was something so proud about her attitude that I felt a little bad for offering her help. But she accepted our offer with that dainty little smile still lingering in the corners of her lips.

“Did your children let you move all alone, lady? Where are they, for God’s sake?” my mother said.

Discretion was never one of my mother’s virtues. She’s as discreet as a colonoscopist’s rubber glove. Pardon my French.

“Oh, I don’t have any children,” Mrs. Wheeler said. “The moving company has already brought my furniture, and these are just a few boxes with my personal things.”

I reached for one of the boxes.

“Oh, no!” my mother shouted. “Just push it! You know you shouldn’t lift heavy things.”

“They’re not that heavy, Mom” I said, embarrassed.

When we brought the last box into the house, my mother had
to hurry to work, so I stayed with Mrs. Wheeler, who had invited me for a well-deserved lemonade. I looked around her living room. It was so charming compared to my boringly decorated house. The walls were covered with powder pink paisley wallpapers which made the light seem soft like sugar wool. In the corner by the window was a floor lamp with a cracked golden shade. She even had an ebony Victorian desk with lovely carved legs. There was a framed black-and-white photograph of a handsome young man on it.

“That’s my brother,” she said, sighing. “He died during the war, a long time ago.”

“I’m very sorry,” I said, unsure whether that was the right thing to say.

“A long time ago,” she repeated slowly, her eyes fixed somewhere above the photograph.

She turned to me and smiled. The wrinkles around her grayish eyes formed the shape of a butterfly. As much as I wanted to know where she had come from, I reminded myself that I should refrain from asking questions. I’m curious, but I’m not nosy. I can’t say how I developed the ability to draw such a delicate distinction growing up beside my mother.

I was hesitant to offer Mrs. Wheeler help with her unpacking, and I was about to reluctantly leave when she said,
nonchalantly lighting a purple Sobranie cigarette, “I’ve come from Los Angeles, where I lived for fifty-nine years. It simply became too frivolous. I needed to escape; it was inevitable. My whole body was craving a change. Sometimes you need to leave things in order to protect them from your own future disdain. You can’t allow yourself to feel contempt for people or places you used to love. Every bit of love is precious; it’s better to run and keep it than to stay and loathe. So I decided to move into this house which belonged to my sister-in-law. It seemed like a perfect place for a new beginning.”

Saying this, she stood up from her chair and walked up to the pile of cardboard boxes. Her knees cracked as she bent down to open one of them. For a moment, she reminded me of Gloria Swanson in
Sunset Boulevard
– eccentric, slightly melodramatic, and just a bit melancholic.

“My whole life is in these boxes,” Mrs. Wheeler continued. “I don’t know how one manages to acquire so many belongings.”

She pensively looked around the room, then suddenly turned to me and said, her eyes wide open, “Am I boring you, dear? I’m sure you have more important things to do than listen to an old woman moan.”

I tried to pluck the words that popped up in my mind and quickly put them in a sentence that would provide me with more time in Mrs. Wheeler’s company. This was the best I could come up with: “You’re not boring me, of course. I would be happy to help you unpack, if you don’t mind… I mean, I don’t want to poke my
nose into your personal things, but if there’s any way I can help you…”

Well done, Ruby. You sound like a four-year-old.

“Are you sure? Don’t you have homework to do?” she asked.

A little gray bunch of neurons in my left hemisphere whispered to me that it might have been her polite way of telling me to get lost, but I decided to take my chances.

“No, I don’t. I don’t have anything in particular to do today.”

“Then let’s get to work!” she said, clapping her hands together.

It turned out that most of Mrs. Wheeler’s boxes were full of beautiful old gowns. Their colors were rich, and their textures tantalized my fingers unaccustomed to touching anything that soft and delicate. Mrs. Wheeler told me that she had spent more than forty years working as a costume designer in Hollywood. She had started as a wardrobe assistant in a small studio when she moved to LA from a tiny southern town in 1952.

“I could barely pay the rent. But Los Angeles was so beautiful and thrilling; I was prepared to starve just to stay there. Fortunately, I found a job at Warner Brothers after a while, which made things easier. Most of these dresses are over fifty years old. Some of them were worn by silent movie heroines and others by film noir actresses. But you wouldn’t be impressed by that, I suppose. You are a child of the modern age.”

Her last words sounded bitter, but when I looked into her eyes, I couldn’t find a sign of disapproval or resentment. They were smiling at me with nothing but tender regret.

“Oh, no, Mrs. Wheeler,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “I actually enjoy watching old movies. As a matter of fact, my favorite actress is Audrey Hepburn. And I find these dresses of yours magnificent. I really do.”

Mrs. Wheeler was obviously entertained by my agile defense; when I finally caught my breath, I noticed that her subtle smile had grown into quiet but fervent laughter.

“You’re such a darling girl,” she said. “You remind me of someone I used to know a long time ago… well, someone I thought I knew, or at least…”

Her eyes turned somber, and a short sigh made her seem weak and fragile. My mind sneaked out of the present and drifted away to that mysterious someone. Judging from Mrs. Wheeler’s watery eyes, “someone” was someone who dwelt in the shadowy places of her past. But I couldn’t allow myself such bold assumptions for more than a couple of seconds.

After we had finished with the dresses, we started unpacking the boxes filled with books. What incredible treasures! I was sure that James, my tutor, would sell his soul to the devil to get his nerdy hands on Mrs. Wheeler’s bookshelf. She even had a first edition of
To Kill a Mockingbird
, my favorite novel of all time. Mrs. Wheeler had an adorable little story for every book in her collection. I enjoyed listening to her reminisce about her youth, poetry nights, cocktail parties, and famous actors she’d worked with.

“It all seems so far away now,” she said, handing me another book. “Put this one on the top shelf, please.”

“I wish I was born earlier,” I said, running my fingers over the letters on the cover. “At least a few decades earlier. Sometimes I feel completely detached from this world.”

“You’re not the only one who feels that way,” Mrs. Wheeler said. “A famous French director
once told me something similar. We were having a celebration after his movie premiere. It was a great historical thriller. ‘Eleanor,’ he said, rolling the letter “R” in such a charming way, ‘I was born in the wrong era. But at least I have a chance to go back to those years through my films.’ Then he raised his glass in the air. ‘So let’s drink and pretend that time means nothing at all, he said.’”

“Maybe that’s what I should do,” I s
aid. “I mean, pretend that time means nothing, not drink.” I glanced over my shoulder. “There’s only one box left.”

“Time really flies when you refuse to pay attention to it,” Mrs. Wheeler said, chuckling and rubbing her left ankle.

At the bottom of the last cardboard box was a tiny floral trinket box with a heart-shaped padlock. The letter “S” was engraved on its worn surface.

“S is for secrets,” said Mrs. Wheeler, winking mischievously and taking the trinket box. “That’s where I keep my most precious memories safe from curious eyes.”

That was so movie-like – to keep memories in a trinket box.

“So, we have finished,” she whispered, blowing away the dust from her knotty hands. “I only have lemons and tea, dear. Would you like some tea now?”

***

When I got home that afternoon after having a cup of Ceylon tea with my new neighbor, my house looked so drab and run-of-the-mill. I was sitting on my bed, immersed in my thoughts and watching dusk roll over the green hills in the distance, when my mother barged into my room.

“What are you doing?” she said in a perfect, high-pitched soprano.

I flinched.

“You’re sitting in the dark! Are you feeling okay?”

She pressed her hand against my forehead. Fever is my mother’s worst enemy. It’s hard to describe the amount of effort she still puts into trying to make me check my body temperature every morning after I brush my teeth. When I was little, I used to think that checking temperature was a normal part of a girl’s morning routine.

“I’m perfectly all right, Mom, don’t worry,” I said, gently pushing away her hand. “I’ve just come back from Mrs. Wheeler’s house.”

“You spent the whole day with that strange old woman?” my mother asked, her
eyebrows crinkling together. “But what were you doing?”

Sometimes I wish my mother knew me better. If she did, she would be able to understand that I could easily find joy in spending an afternoon with a woman in a ruby red 1920s dress, with sparkling eye shadow. But she just doesn’t understand.
She spends so much time and energy taking care and fretting about my physical health that she has completely disregarded the subtle shades of my soul. She knows, of course, that fall is my favorite season, she knows that I love french fries with chili sauce, that purple is my favorite color, but she has never made a conscious effort to dive under the surface of my skin and touch my essence. She will never know why I love to watch the raindrops sliding down the windowpanes, although she can see me sitting by the window every time it rains.

When my mother was completely, absolutely, and fully convinced that I wasn’t ill and left the room, I turned my laptop on. The email from my friend Tanya was impatiently waiting to be read. Other than tons of sentimental thoughts about her amazing new boyfriend and some school gossip, there was an invitation to her birthday party, which was to take place in two weeks.
I can’t exactly say parties are my thing; I don't feel comfortable in noisy, crowded places where girls talk about boys and hair irons, and boys check out girls and vomit after having two beers. And birthday parties – those I hate the most. It’s probably because my birthday is celebrated differently from other people’s birthdays. It’s served in a cold pot, sprinkled with a fistful of remorse and a pinch of guilt. A few drops of compassion here and there, and that’s it. Adorably modest. No girls in pretty dresses, no pom-poms or raspberry punch. My mother really gets odd when it comes to my birthday, as if she’s not sure whether she should congratulate me or apologize to me.

“Don’t forget to take two blankets, Ruby,” my mother’s voice came from the bottom of the stairs. “Nights are still chilly.”

I couldn’t fall asleep that night. My head was full of vivid, playful thoughts, most of them having to do with Mrs. Wheeler’s outlandish appearance and her bedazzling stories. It was probably 4:00 a.m. when I finally nodded off.

***

The next morning brought another
encounter with Mrs. Wheeler. I was returning from a walk in the pine forest when her emerald turban emerged from behind a magnolia bush, and her bony hand waved to me.

“Come here, dear,” she said, “I have something to show you.”

When we entered her living room, she nodded toward the sofa.

“It’s a small present, actually,” she said, opening a drawer.

“A present?”

“Oh, it’s nothing expensive, don’t worry.”

She sat next to me and slipped something into my hand. It was a very old photograph, all scratched and faded.

“It’s Audrey Hepburn, you see,” Mrs. Wheeler said eagerly.

I still didn’t know what to say; no matter how much I looked, I couldn’t identify Audrey Hepburn’s face on that aged piece of paper. All I could see were some vague silhouettes.

“Look, this is her shoulder and here’s a piece of her dress in the corner. It’s from the filming of
Breakfast at Tiffany's
.”

“Oh, it really is her! I recognize the dress,” I said, my heart galloping madly. Do I need to say that
Breakfast at Tiffany's
is my favorite movie?

BOOK: Just Like a Musical

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