Moorpark Palms - 5. Chapter 5

Sally was the owner of the piano that played in the apartment under mine. She was cheerfully white-haired, nearly eighty, and small – though admittedly almost everyone seems short to me. Once in a while, I’ll find myself in a supermarket, staring into some guy’s shoulder, thinking, “Now this man is tall.” Sally was as friendly as you’d ever want your grandma to be.
“I hope you didn’t hear me playing last night,” she apologized, the first time we met.
I laughed. “I liked it.”
“Oh, no! I’m terrible now.” Then she thanked me.
“It was fine,” I assured her.
“I almost never play after five,” she said. “You don’t have to worry.”
“I wasn’t. But why stop then?”
“People come home from work.”
She was far too polite to be from LA, and she quickly admitted she was born in Pennsylvania. “In a tiny town just west of Harrisburg.”
“I’ve driven through the area,” I said.
“The town’s hardly there any more,” she told me sadly. “A church, a hardware store, and a gas station. There used to be a school on the fourth corner, though it was only one large room. But they moved it to a university.”
“Why?”
“It’s part of history now.”
But Sally had grown up there. Then, in the mid-nineteen thirties, she came to Hollywood to dance.
“I was in a couple of movies,” she said modestly. “Big musicals. You could hardly see me. No matter how hard you tried.”
“Which ones?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I like old movies.”
“Do you? Well, do you know...” Then she stopped. “This is silly. It’s like asking if you know someone from Chicago.”
“I’ve never been there.”
“Neither have I!” She laughed. “It’s just the first place I thought of!”
“Which movies?” I asked again.
She slowly told me. “One was called Honolulu.”
I had to admit I didn’t know it.
“No one ever does. Though Eleanor Powell was in it.”
“And?”
“I don’t remember who else.”
“No. I meant which other movies?”
“Oh!” She hesitated. “Going Places.”
“I know a French film by that name.”
“This had Ronald Reagan in it.”
“Ronald Reagan! Did you meet him?”
“That’s what my daughters always asked. My grandchildren – and great-grandchildren – don’t seem to care. And the truth is, I hardly met anyone. I saw some of the stars – big ones, too. We were on the same sound stages. But dancers didn’t talk to actors. We stayed out of their way.”
“Too bad.”
“It’s how things were. If you wanted to keep your job.”
“It must’ve been fun though.”
“Oh, yes! I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
She sounded almost girlish, and I tried to imagine what she’d looked like in the 1930s.
“Do you have any pictures?” I asked
“You mean autographs?”
“No. Of yourself.”
She thought. “Not really. I mean, there were always photographers around. But we never got our pictures taken.”
“Never?”
“Well... we took some ourselves.”
She hesitated, then slowly led me into her apartment. It was basically the same as mine, though her front door opened from the courtyard directly into the living room, not near the dining area like mine. And where, during the day at least, my apartment was light and open, Sally’s was closed. Heavy drapes blocked the front window. Shutters shielded the one in the dining room. Blinds and half-curtains defended the one in the kitchen. And there seemed to be a huge amount of furniture. Two long couches. A half-dozen end tables. Bulky lamps. A sprawling coffee table. A buffet plus a sideboard. An oversized dining table jammed with chairs. Stools at the kitchen counter. The upright piano in a corner. Matching armchairs. Padded foot stools. A sewing machine. Rugs over the carpet. Pictures on the walls. Endless figurines.
She noticed my amazement.
“We used to live in the two-bedroom,” she explained. “My husband and I were the managers. Even after Frank passed, I kept on. Most of our daughters grew up here.”
“How many do you have?
“Four – three, now. One’s already with Frank. But even Laurie gave me grandchildren.”
That explained all the photos, mostly framed, others stuck in corners of frames as serial updates of the originals. Sally took one down from its hook. Black-and-white. Maybe three-by-five in a gold plaster frame.
“Broadway Gondolier,” she said. “I forget who was in it. But it was my first.” She stared at the photo as though she could make the people come alive. “ I was so happy to be working,” she went on. “After traveling all that way. And this was nineteen-thirty-five! Not everyone was making money!”
She handed me the picture. Four girls in mock-Venetian gowns, all facing left, hands on each others’ shoulders.
“I’m on the end.”
“The front?”
“The other end.”
“You’re cute!”
“Yes,” she said, almost with regret.
“Better than not being cute.”
She smiled. “You should see my granddaughters. And their children. Each one’s prettier than I ever was.”
“But they’ll never be in movies.”
“You don’t know that. My daughter danced.”
“In films?”
“Well... in shows – in Las Vegas. That’s where she lives now. She’s over fifty.” She laughed. “Peggy would kill me for telling you her age. She still thinks she’s thirty-five.”
“Does she look it?”
Sally hesitated, maybe trying to be fair. “She doesn’t look fifty,” she admitted. “But either would I, with all her operations. And if I dyed my hair.”
“Could you?”
She laughed. “I don’t even like doctors. My daughters keep wanting me to have my knees looked at, but I won’t make the appointments.”
I’d noticed that Sally limped. And there was a cane on one of the chairs. She suddenly looked at the kitchen clock.
“This is really so selfish. You must have other things to do.”
“No. Honestly. Thanks for showing me the picture and telling me about the films.”
She smiled, and I wondered how long it had been since anyone else had asked. As I started to leave, I asked when she’d moved into the building.
She thought a moment. “In 1957. The street was almost new. There had been houses here before – cottages – then land got expensive. And they were building the freeways. My oldest daughter – Peggy – was already married. But Laurie and Donna were in high school. They shared the large bedroom. And Liz – my youngest – slept on a pull-out couch. You saw how much bigger the two-bedroom is?”
“Gabe and his wife’s?”
“That was ours for twenty-six years. After my daughters married – young, like Frank and me – we could have moved somewhere smaller. Then the girls started having children, and we always needed extra room. Especially in the summers because of the pool.” She laughed. “You’ll never guess who was the lifeguard!”
“Did you swim in movies, too?”
“No, I was never that good. I still love to swim, though I haven’t for years. After Frank passed, and my knees got bad, everyone thought it was too dangerous. Just as everyone thought I should move down here.”
“Do you miss the larger place?”
“I didn’t know what to throw away! So I kept it all!” She laughed again.
“Does everyone still visit?”
“Are you worried about the noise?”
“No. I wasn’t even thinking...”
“Oh, they could make some racket – there were so many! I can’t even remember all their names. For the longest time I was everyone’s sitter.”
“What happened?”
She hesitated, then shrugged. “They grew up. Some moved away. Some I even lost track of.” For a moment, she looked out her door. “You have no idea how pretty this place was. Flowers in all the beds. Hanging baskets. Frank would water every night. The lights were pink.”
“It must’ve been great,” I said. Though, actually, I preferred things as they were – shaggily overgrown. I couldn’t tell her that.
“My daughters planted all the jade in the courtyard. And the wisteria. I tried to keep them up, but even Frank couldn’t really. And Gabe and his wife are only part-time. When Frank and I managed, that’s all we did. And we were paid!”
“What changed?”
“Who knows? Everything gets more expensive.”
“Did Mrs. Heldigger own the building then?”
“With her husband – he designed it. Along with several others on the block.”
“So that’s why they look alike.”
She nodded. “Irene started to sell them a few years ago. She lives very well.”
“I didn’t know you were friends.”
“We used to be. Used to be very close – when we could still get around.” She laughed. “So many things change when you can no longer drive.”
For a moment, I got lost. Staring at Sally’s pictures. Wondering what living in California could have been like forty years earlier. I mainly knew it from films. “Sorry,” I finally said.
“I knew I was keeping you!”
“No! That’s not what I meant.”
“I won’t play the piano. I promise. Not after five o’clock.”
“It’s not a problem.”
“And when my daughters come, you’ll have to meet them.”
“That’d be great.”
“Dorothy said you were a darling.”
“Who’s Dorothy?” I had to ask.
“Gabe’s wife.”
I laughed. “She never told me her name. And that’s very kind.”
Outside, I admired the jade. It grew lustily – crowding the flower beds, edging the courtyard. In the center garden, the dense plantings battled the palm. Out front, they challenged the mailboxes. In more than one way, Sally’s daughters had been fertile.