Tell-All

poisoned with cyanide.…”
    Like so many others around here …
    On the scripted page, Lilly Hellman parts the Red Sea and raises Lazarus from the dead.
    “After that,” she says, “I telephoned Groucho Marx and he says you never invited him to the funeral.…” Her violet eyes flashing, she says, “Neither did you invite Joan Fontaine, Sterling Hayden or Frank Borzage.” Her dulcet voice rising, Miss Kathie says, “The only person you
did
invite was Webster Carlton Westward III.”
    She swings the ream of paper she holds rolled in her fist, swatting the pages against the black ski mask, making the kitchen table jump. Miss Kathie screams, “I found this mask, tucked away
—in your room.”
    Such an accusation. My Miss Kathie says that I poisoned the Pekingese, then invited only the bright-eyed Webster tojoin us in the crypt so he could arrive bearing flowers at her moment of greatest emotional need. Throughout the past few months, while I’ve seemed to be warning her against the Webster, she insists that I’ve actually been aiding and abetting him. She claims I’ve been telling him when to arrive and how best to court her. After that, the Webster and myself, the two of us poisoned Terry by accident. She says the Webster and myself are plotting to kill her.
    Bark, honk, cluck
… conspiracy .
    Oink, bray, tweet
… treachery .
    Moo, meow, whinny
… collusion most foul .
    On the screenplay page, Lilly Hellman turns water to wine. She heals the lepers. She spins filthy straw into the purest gold.
    When my Miss Kathie pauses to take a breath, I tell her not to be ridiculous. Clearly, she’s mistaken. I am not scheming with the Webster to murder her.
    “Then how do you explain this?” she says, offering the pages in her hand. Printed along the top margin of each, a title. Typed there, it says,
Paragon: An Autobiography
. Authored by Katherine Kenton . As told to Hazie Coogan . Shaking her head, she says, “I did
not
write this. In fact, I
found
it tucked under
your
mattress.…”
    The story of her life. Written in her name. By someone else.
    Flipping past the title page, she looks at me, her violet eyes twitching between me and the manuscript she holds. Her pink dressing gown trembles. From the kitchen table, the empty ski mask stares up at the ceiling. “ ‘Chapter one,’ ” my Miss Kathie reads, “ ‘My life began in the truest and fullest sense the glorious day I first met my dearest friend, Hazie Coogan.…’ ”

ACT III, SCENE SIX
    We continue with the audio bridge of Katherine Kenton reading from the manuscript of
Paragon
, “ ‘… the glorious day I first met my dearest friend, Hazie Coogan …’ ”
    Once more we see the two girls from the casting office. In a soft-focus montage of quick cuts, the ugly girl combs the long auburn hair of the pretty girl. Using a file, the ugly girl shapes the fingernails of the pretty girl, painting them with pink lacquer. Pursing her lips, the ugly girl blows air to dry the painted nails as if she were about to kiss the back of the pretty girl’s hand.
    Miss Kathie’s movie-star voice continues, “ ‘… living and playing together, cavorting amidst the adoring legions of our public …’ ”
    In contrast, we see the girl with beady eyes and a beaky nose, watching as she tweezes the eyebrows above the violet eyes. The ugly girl kneels to scrape the dead skin off thepretty girl’s heels using a pumice stone. Like a charwoman, the ugly girl rocks forward and back with the effort to scrub the pretty girl’s bare back using sea salt and elbow grease.
    My Miss Kathie’s voice-over continues, “ ‘… living and playing together, working seemingly endless hours, Hazie and I always supported and urged each other forward in this festive endeavor we so blithely refer to as life …’ ” She reads, “ ‘We lived so much like sisters that we even shared our wardrobes, wearing one another’s shoes, exchanging even our undergarments with complete freedom.…’ ”
    As the montage continues, the ugly girl sweats over an ironing board, pressing the lace and frills on a blouse, then giving it to the pretty girl. The ugly girl bends to lather and shave one of the pretty girl’s long legs as it extends from a bathtub overflowing with luminous bubbles.
    “ ‘I scratched her back,’ ” the voice of Miss Kathie reads, “ ‘and Hazie scratched mine.…’ ”
    On-screen, the ugly girl delivers a breakfast tray to the pretty girl, who waits in