Tell-All

of Miss Kathie. Each one babbling:
Tweet, cluck, hoot …
Raymond Massey . A quick-cut montage.
    Bray, bark, buzz
… James Mason .
    Another nurse retreats, escaping down the street when Miss Kathie asks how difficult it might be to dye the hair and diet some pounds off of a particularly rotund cherub.
    Another social worker flags a taxicab after Miss Kathie smears a tiny foundling with Max Factor base pigment, ladies’ foundation number six.
    Pursing her lips, she hovers over the face of one wee infant, saying,
“Wunderbar
…” Exhaling cigarette smoke to add, “That’s the Latin equivalent for
que bueno.”
    Miss Kathie brandishes each child in the foyer mirror, hefting it and cuddling its pinched little face, studying the effect as if each orphan were a new purse or a stage prop.
    Meow, squawk, squeak
… Janis Paige .
    Another tiny urchin, she leaves smudged with lipstick.
    Another, Miss Kathie leans too close, too quickly, splashing a newborn with the icy-cold Boodles gin of her martini.
    Another, she frowns down upon while her long, glossy fingernails pick at a mole or flaw on its smooth, pink forehead. “As the Spanish would say …” she says,
“qué será será.”
    This
“kinder
kattle kall,” as Cholly Knickerbocker would call it, continues all afternoon. This audition. Prams and strollers form a line which runs halfway to the corner. This buffet of abandoned babies, the products of unplanned pregnancies, the progeny of heartbreak—these pink and chubby souvenirs of rape, promiscuity, incest. Impulse. Bottle-fed leftovers of divorce, spousal abuse and fatal disease. Even as the paintbrush, the pink bristles grow stiff in my hand, the babies arrive as proof of poor choices. The sleeping or giggling flotsam and jetsam, a residue of what seemed at one time to be true love.
    Each innocent, Miss Kathie holds, modeling it for thefoyer mirror. Doing take after take of this same scene. Giving her right profile, her left. Smiling full-face, then fluttering her eyelashes, ducking her movie-star chin, emoting in reaction shots, telling the mirror, “Yes, she
is
lovely. I’d like you to meet my daughter: Katherine Jr.”
    Telling the mirror, “I’d like to introduce my son, Webster Carlton Westward the Fourth.” She repeats this same line of dialogue with each child before handing it back to the nurse, the nun, the waiting social worker. Comparing paint chips and fabric samples. Picking over each child for scars or defects. And for every infant Miss Kathie sends away, two more arrive to stand in line for a test.
    Into the late afternoon, she’s reciting:
Bark, cluck, bray
… Katherine Kenton, Jr .
    Oink, quack, moo
… Webster Carlton Westward IV .
    She performs take after take, hours of that same screen test, until the streetlights flicker and blink, flare and shine bright. From the avenue, the sound of traffic fades. Across the street, in the windows of town houses, the curtains slide closed. Eventually Miss Kathie’s front steps descend to the sidewalk, empty of orphans.
    In the foyer, I stoop to retrieve the bandanna dropped on the floor. The fallen drops of pink paint, smeared and dry, form a fading pink path, a stream of pink spots tracked down the steps, down the street. A trail of the rejected.
    A taxicab pulls to a stop at the curb. The driver opens his door, steps out and unlocks the trunk. He removes two suitcases and places them on the sidewalk, then opens the back door of the cab. A foot emerges, a man’s shoe, the cuff of a trouser leg. A man’s hand grips the door of the cab, a signet ring glinting gold around the little finger. A head of hairemerges from the backseat of the cab, eyes bright brown as root beer. A smile flashes, bright as July Fourth fireworks.
    A specimen boasting the wide shoulders of Dan O’Herlihy , the narrow waist of Marlon Brando , the long legs of Stephen Boyd , the dashing smile of Joseph Schildkraut playing Robin Hood .
    In the reverse angle, my Miss Kathie rushes to the front door, calling, “Oh, my darling …” Her outstretched arms and thrusting bosom at once a suggestion of Julie Newmar playing Penelope greeting Odysseus. Jane Russell in the role of Guinevere reunited with Lancelot. Carole Lombard rushing to embrace Gordon MacRae .
    Webster Carlton Westward III calls up the steps, noble as William Frawley as Romeo Montague , “Kath, my dearest …” Calling, “Do you have three dollars to pay the cabdriver?”
    The driver, standing beside the