The Diamond Lane (47 page)

With Ludvica tending the train, Mouse walked the length of the room. The dress murmured rich, contented sounds.

Mouse could hardly believe she wasn't getting married. Maybe she had overlooked something. Had Tony really called the wedding off? Maybe he had been joking. Maybe the sea breeze or the groan of an elephant had blotted out the end of the sentence. Maybe he had said, “I don't love you any
LESS THAN
THE DAY WE MET
” or some other convoluted Oxbridge utterance. She would call him tonight just to make sure.

“It looks just like my dress, doesn't it, Iv?” Mimi mewed.

“Who is this girl?” Ludvica demanded. “I make only originals.” Ludvica pulled at Mouse's waist, selected a pin from between her teeth, made a tiny adjustment.

“Frances's sister, Mim – er, Margaret,” said Shirl.

“I had a bright-white silk taffeta dress, too,” said Mimi.

“Mistake for you,” said Ludvica. “Ivory for a girl so yellow.”

“Tony will not believe you in that,” said Nita. “And him in a black cutaway. Ooh ooh ooh. What a couple.”

“Just like the plastic bride and groom on top of the cake,” said Mimi.

“Thanks a lot,” said Mouse.

“She was giving you a compliment, dear.”

“We look like plastic dolls, that's a compliment?”

“Mom,” said Mimi, in a back-me-up-on-this-one tone of voice.

“She's just being sensitive,” said Shirl to Mimi.

“I am not
sensitive
. Mimi has a way, she gets in these little digs and then when I point it out I'm being sensitive.”

“Sensitive is not a bad thing. You say it like it's bad.
I'm
sensitive.”

Ivan surprised them by sniggering.

“Fuck you,” said Mimi. “You want to get married, Mouse. Get married. This is what happens.”

“Margaret FitzHenry!”

“Keep rolling,” said Ivan, grinning, concentrating on keeping the boom both out of the frame and over the active part of the conversation.

“I'm sorry. It's just, I'm under stress, too. No, I'm not the one getting married, but I am the Maid of Honor. That's a thing, too.”

“Of course it is, dear.” Shirl stroked Mimi's snarly, sand-colored hair from her perch on the ottoman.

“Mom, stop.” She batted Shirl away. “It's practically like
being the bride. Only you get lots of responsibility but none of the attention.”

“I'm sure Mouse appreciates all you're doing for her. Don't you, honey?”

“Of course,” said Mouse.

“You're just so sensitive,” said Mimi.

“It's NBD,” said Nita. “Nervous Bride Disorder. They've actually been able to document it. At a wedding consultant seminar I went to several weeks ago they had a panel on it. It's like if you can imagine a Vietnam vet with PMS. It's real common. Especially among educated women.”

“Women who should know better than to get married,” said Mimi, “is that who you mean?”

“I'm not getting married!” wailed Mouse, suddenly. Tears sprung from her eyes. What was she doing, standing here in a wedding dress? Tony was probably out making time with the minimall magnate at this very moment.

“She is just a nervous little bride,” said Shirl. “I went through it, Mimi went through it. We all go through it.”

“Tone-Tony doesn't lo-uh-uh-uh-uh …” Mouse hiccuped, screwing her fists into her eyes.

“Mouse, honey, don't do that. It's not good for your eyes,” scolded Shirl.

“I was a total basket case, except at the shower. I did have a good time at my shower,” said Mimi.

“… he doesn't, he doesn't …”

“Shower! Glad you mentioned it.” Nita slapped open her date book, fished a pencil from among her red curls. “I'm having the tables delivered that day. Will someone be at the house? Mr. Futake will also need to get in a little early. He does, I'm sure I told you this, it was a real coup to get him, he's
never
available.

“… lov-uh-uh-uh-uh me-e-e-e-e …”

“Shirl, listen to this!” yelped Mimi. “This is incredible. Mr. Futake sculpts candy out of hot corn syrup. It's an art form in Japan. They look like figurines, like jade or something, only it's
candy. He's going to do a sculpture of Mouse and Tony for the centerpiece. Then he'll go around the party doing requests. You say, ‘Do a cat,' he'll do a cat. You say, ‘Do an angel,' he'll do an angel. He can do Mickey Mouse, Batman …”

“… there isn't going to
be
any shower! There isn't going to
be
any wedding!”

“Enough! Silly girl! Off with dress. Salty tears ruin taffeta. You want to ruin dress you wait until wedding day.” Ludvica began unbuttoning the dress. “Did I mention the twenty-five cloth-covered buttons and thread loops closing up the back?”

Mouse stood still, her chest silently heaving, while Ludvica's blunt fingers fiddled at her back. Since she came home she always seemed to be stuck on the wrong side of what she wanted. It was funny, actually. She sniffed, wiped her nose on the back of her hand. She laughed.

“Poor thing's exhausted,” said Nita, handing her a Kleenex from a tiny pack in her purse. “This is so typical.”

“Only hormones,” said Ludvica. “Not to worry.”

“I was much worse than this, wasn't I, Shirl? You were in Africa, Mouse, so you didn't see me.”

MOUSE WONDERED
:
IF
the brain was such a phenomenal organ, why could it handle only one facet of a problem at a time? All those folds that allegedly held knowledge. She thought alternately of losing Tony and all that meant, calling off the wedding and all that meant, stopping production on
Wedding March
and all that meant, but she could not seem to grasp all of these things at once. And if she could not do that, how could she make a decision about what to do? Maybe, she reasoned, there was only one fold per subject, only one fold, for example, dedicated to thoughts of marriage. If this was true, her fold was overflowing. That's why she was freaking out. Love- and marriage-related problems were being relegated to the fold designated for remembering how to change the battery in the smoke alarm. Just the
fact she was contemplating this did not speak well for the brain, she thought.

For the past week she had been unable to sleep. Instead, she lay on the couch, chin on her chest, watching late-night TV, remoting around the stations impatiently. Sometimes she didn't even drag out the futon. She slept like that, in her clothes, the unpleasant orange sodium-vapor streetlight shining down on her from outside. Sniffy Voyeur was distraught by the change. He stood beside the couch for hours, his long pointed head resting on her chest.

Every day she resolved to do
something
. Call the wedding off, or call Tony and beg him to come back, and every day she did nothing. The most peculiar show, to which she found herself increasingly addicted, was a bingo game in the nether regions of the dial. It came on at two and featured an unattractive shiny-faced Southern couple in evening wear pulling foam golf balls out of what appeared to be a giant popcorn popper. Each ball had a number on it. “Number seventeen B, Brandy, seventeen B.”

“That's one-seven, seventeen B, Chet? One-seven, seventeen B. I like that number, seventeen, Chet, don't you?”

“Yes, and B, why your name
begins
with a B, doesn't it, Brandy?”

“Yes, Chet, that's seventeen B. One-seven B for our viewers at home.”

It went on like this until the morning news. They never told where or how you got a bingo card, or what to do if you won, or what you won if you won.

Sometimes Carole, who was an insomniac, sat up and watched the bingo show, too. She did most of her script reading after midnight. She sat at the kitchen table in her robe and sweatsocks, drinking oversteeped cups of Earl Grey and eating rice cakes smeared with peanut butter.

One night Mouse told Carole about her theories on the brain. Carole fingered the gold rings in her ears and listened, nodding her head slowly. She had a habit unknown in Los Angeles.
She listened to what you said, thought about what you said, then she responded. Carole felt sorry for the brain. “All that potential, and what do people use it for? Screenplays.”

“What are you two still doing up?” asked Mimi. She stumbled in around one-thirty, red-cheeked and tousled. Mouse didn't ask. Since the morning Tony moved out three weeks earlier, the morning when Mouse had told Mimi about Elaine, Mimi had been moody and secretive. She had been staying late at work to use the computer to write on her blockbuster, then meeting Eliot Bomarito for a late bite. Mouse could not believe she was dating the odoriferous Eliot. What had happened to Ralph?

“Is it love?” asked Carole, rolling a sheet of paper into her typewriter.

“I don't know,” said Mimi, opening the refrigerator. “He's just very very nice. He's really a good filmmaker, too. He did a great piece on this blind guy who does tattoos in East L.A.”

“It's awful,” said Mouse. “Remember? We watched it together.”

“It's brilliant!” said Mimi, slamming the refrigerator.

“We watched it together,” said Mouse, “you thought it was terrible.”

“God, would it kill you to let someone else do something?” She stomped out of the room.

Mouse and Carole traded glances.

“What was that?” asked Mouse.

Carole laughed. “You should see the fights I have with my sister.”

“That was not a fight. We never fight. Shirl brags about it to her friends at the craft shop. I don't know how you can stand living with her, frankly.”

“She pays the rent on time, cleans up after herself. We have talks. She's not threatened by me, though.”

“She's threatened by
me
?”

“Oh, sure.”

The way Carole said it, with a shrug and a wave of her
beringed hand, it had to be true. This had never occurred to Mouse. Not that it made any difference. In her experience, this kind of insight was like the free bonus glass Shirl used to get with a fill-up at the gas station. The glass had nothing to do with the quality or the cost of the gas, and it ended up rolling around the backseat until it broke or was thrown out. Regardless of whether Mimi was threatened by her, she was still unbearable, and Mouse could figure no way to make her bearable. She sighed and fished a rice cake out of the bag lying open on the table.

“I meant to tell you, I read Tony's script,” said Carole.

The rice cake turned to dust in Mouse's mouth. She tried to chew. “Oom rem Ony's scimmp?” Tony's script! She'd forgotten about it. Her bloodshot eyes filled with tears. It was like unexpectedly coming upon one of his shirts among her laundry.

“For Allyn, V.J. Parchman thought she'd spark to it since she's looking for an Africa project.”

“How is it?”

“It's on the couch,” said Carole. “No worse than anything else I read. I mean that as a compliment. At least he's hip to apostrophes. You should probably look at this first. I don't know if you know what he's done. It's ‘freely adapted from a true story.'” Carole slid a sheet of paper across the table. “Don't take the bad stuff seriously. I'm supposed to be harsh. It's part of the job.”

       
Screenplay
: 119 pgs.

       
Story Analyst
: Carole Poe

       
Submitted to
: Allyn Meyer

       
Submitted by
: V.J. Parchman

       
LOVE AMONG ELEPHANTS

       
by

       
T. N. Cheatham

       
and

       
Ralph Holladay

       
TYPE
: Action/Thriller/Love Story

       
LOCALE & TIME
: East Africa. The Present

       
SYNOPSIS
:

       
MOUSE
and
TONY
are two young Americans. Each one heads a different anti-elephant-poaching unit, one organized by the Kenyan government, the other by an international wildlife watch group.
MOUSE
, who came to Nairobi to model swimsuits for
Sports Illustrated
, was moved by the plight of the elephants and never went home, is “soft, sexy, and sweet” but a whiz with an AK-47.
TONY
, a former Rhodes Scholar, is “rugged, decisive, and energetic.” They meet when their two anti-poaching units ambush one another by mistake. Mouse is accidentally shot, but Tony nurses her back to health. They make love while a herd of elephants, with whom Mouse has “a mystical connection” (she was an elephant in a past life) look on with approval.