Tell-All

suitcases, stoic as Lewis Stone , gristled as Fess Parker . The cab itself, yellow.
    Her auburn hair streaming behind her, Miss Kathie shouts, “Hazie!” She calls, “Hazie, take Mr. Westward’s luggage to my room!” The two brazen lovers embrace, their lips meeting, while the camera circles and circles them in an arch shot, dissolving to a funeral.

ACT I, SCENE TWELVE
    Act one, scene twelve opens with another flashback. Once more, we dissolve to Katherine Kenton cradling a polished cremation urn in her arms. The setting: again, the dimly lit interior of the Kenton crypt, dressed with cobwebs, the ornate bronze door unlocked and swung open to welcome mourners. A stone shelf at the rear of the crypt, in deep shadow, holds various urns crafted from bronze, copper, nickel. The urn in her arms, engraved, Oliver “Red” Drake, Esq. , Miss Kathie’s fifth “was-band.”
    This took place the year when every other song on the radio was Frank Sinatra singing the Count Basie arrangement of “Bit’n the Dust.”
    My Miss Katie hugs the urn, lifting it to meet the black lace of her veiled face. Behind the veil, her lips. She plants a puckered lipstick kiss on the engraved name, then places this new urn on the dusty shelf among the others. Amidst thebottles of brandy and Luminal . The unlit prayer candles. The only other cast members in this three-shot, myself and Terrence Terry , each of us prop Miss Kathie by one elbow. What Louella Parsons would call “pal bearers.”
    The collection of crematory urns stand among dusty bottles and magnums of champagne. Vessels of the living and the dead, stacked here in the chilled, dry dark. Miss Kathie’s entire cellar, stored together. The urns stand. The bottles lie on their sides, all of them netted and veiled with cobwebs.
    Bark, oink, squeal
… Dom Pérignon 1925 .
    Bark, meow, bray
… Bollinger 1917 .
    Terrence Terry peels the gilded lead from the cork of one bottle. He twists the loop, loosening the wire harness which holds the mushroom cork in the mouth of the bottle. Holding the bottle high, pointed toward an empty corner of the crypt, Terry pries at the cork with both his thumbs until the pop echoes, loud inside the stone room, and a froth of foam gushes from the bottle, spattering on the floor.
    Roar, cluck, whinny
… Perrier-Jouët .
    Tweet, quack, growl
… Veuve Clicquot .
    That Tourette’s syndrome of brand names.
    Terry lifts a champagne glass from the stone shelf, holding the bowl of the glass near his face and pursing his lips to blow dust from it. He hands the glass to Miss Kathie and pours it full of champagne. A ghost of cold vapor rises from and hovers around the open bottle.
    With each of us holding a dusty glassful of champagne, Terry lifts his arm in a toast. “To Oliver,” he says.
    Miss Kathie and myself, we lift our glasses, saying, “To Oliver.”
    And we all drink the sweet, dirty, sparkling wine.
    Buried in the dust and cobwebs, the mirror lies facedownin its silver frame. Following a moment of silence, I lift the mirror and lean it to stand against the wall. Even in the dim light of the crypt, the scratches sparkle on the glass surface, each etched line the record of a wrinkle my Miss Kathie has had stretched or lifted or burned away with acid.
    Miss Kathie lifts her veil and steps to her mark, the lipstick X on the stone floor. Her face in perfect alignment with the history of her skin. The gray hairs gouged into the mirror align with her hair. She pinches the fingertips of one black glove, using her opposite hand, tugging until the glove slides free. Miss Kathie twists the diamond engagement ring and the wedding band, handing the diamond to me, and placing the gold band on the dusty shelf beside the urns. Beside the urns of past dogs. Beside past shades of lipstick and fingernail varnish too bright, deemed too young for her to wear any longer.
    Each of the various champagne glasses, set and scattered within the crypt, cloudy with dust and past wine, the rim of each glass is a museum of different lipstick shades Miss Kathie has left behind. The floor, littered with the butts of ancient cigarettes, some filters wrapped with these same ancient colors of lipstick. All these abandoned drinks and smokes set on ledges, on the floor, tucked into stony corners, this setting like an invisible cocktail party of the deceased.
    Watching this, our ritual, Terry dips a hand into the inside pocket of his suit coat. He plucks out a chrome cigarette case