A Knife to Remember

writer must have spread. Angela apparently didn’t mind sharing the news. When Jane went back out in the yard—minus Shelley, who had an errand to run—wondering how she’d get anybody else to speak to her, she found George Abington looking for her.
    “Mrs. Jeffry, do you have a minute to talk?“ he asked.
    “Uh—sure.“
    “Let me get you a cup of coffee or a soft drink. Which do you want?“
    “If there’s an RC over there, I’d be grateful to get my hands on it,“ Jane said.
    George rejoined her with her request and sat down next to her in Shelley’s lawn chair. He was in costume, and made-up to look much older than he’d looked the previous day. Actually, he was made-up less, to look his real age. He wore graying muttonchop whiskers, a very realistic mustache, and a stiff-collared, turn-of-the-century suit. He must not have been wearing the punishing underwear because he had a bit of a paunch today. He looked like a prosperous Victorian banker. He sat down very carefully to avoid wrinkling the suit and set his hat down on the grass beside the chair.
    “I hear you’re a very successful scriptwriter,“ he said bluntly. “I just wanted to ask you to keep me in mind for a role. I know the writer doesn’t always have any say-so in casting, but suggestions that a role was created with a certain actor in mind can’t hurt.”
    Jane liked this approach much better than Angela’s oblique obsequiousness. “What kind of a role are you interested in?“ she asked, feeling utterly at sea. If she were a famous writer—a fabulous leap of imagination—would this be a logical question or was she blowing her cover?
    “Anything. Anything at all to pay the taxes and mortgage,“ he said cheerfully.
    “You can’t mean that. Even a villain?“
    “I’d be a hunchback child molester if the money was right,“ he said, then laughed at her surprised expression. “I don’t know how many actors you know well, Mrs. Jeffry, but I’m the plumber kind.“
    “What does that mean?“
    “Look, if I were a plumber, would I set myself up to only work on houses I felt were beautiful or had a sensible floor plan? Or worth more than X number of dollars? No. I’d work wherever I’d get paid. Same if I worked in a department store. I wouldn’t say to a customer in the suit department that I didn’t think his shape would do the reputation of my line of men’s wear any good. I’d sell him the damned suit if he wanted it. Same with acting in my mind. I’m an actor; that means I act. And if it means acting the part of a bartender with a facial tic, or a leading man, it’s all the same to me.“
    “Well, that’s a refreshing attitude.“
    “Not really. I think most people in the business feel that way, they just don’t admit it. They dress it up in artistic crapola—you know, ‘The role was small, but it gave me insights into the mind and soul of a waitress.’ “ He said this in a mocking voice surprisingly like Lynette Harwell’s. “That’s bullshit. Nobody can understand anybody else’s soul. You just have to learn the lines and say them the way the director tells you to.“
    “What if you’ve got a lousy director?”
    He shrugged. “Then you get a lousy movie. There’s lots of those. But lousy or not, I’ve paid my kids’ school fees, so what do I care? You’d be amazed how many rich actors there are that you’ve never heard of. Sometimes the really bad roles pay the best.“
    “You’ve got kids?“ Jane asked, surprised. She’d never thought about any of these people being parents. Or going to the bathroom or doing anything else ordinary and human.
    “Sure. I’ve even got a grandchild. A gorgeous little girl named Georgina, for me. Wish I had a picture along to show you. She’s a doll.“
    “I’m confused,“ Jane said. “These aren’t Lynette Harwell’s children, are they?“
    “Lynette? Have a baby?“ He laughed. “No. Lynette wouldn’t ever share a spotlight with a child, much less risk getting stretch marks. She’d have been the kind of mother who would make Joan Crawford look like Mother Teresa.”
    He shifted around getting more comfortable, apparently happy to settle in for a long chat. “No, these children are from my first marriage. My wife was a dress extra and I was playing one of sixteen thousand Roman legionnaires in an old epic. Just a couple dumb kids, although she wasn’t half as dumb as I was. Now Ronnie’s a fat granny married to a retired dentist in Encino.