Unfinished Symphony (Logan 3)

New Beginnings

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Mommy made us some coffee and we sat and

talked in her small kitchen, catching up on what had happened to both of us since the day she had left me in Provincetown.

"I really did hate leaving you behind," she said. "You remember how hard it was for me to do that, don't you? I think I cried all the way from

Provincetown to New York City, but Archie, I mean Richard, was right in advising me not to take you along. It was a hard trip, struggling for work along the way, trying to get meetings with important people in the big cities, going from one cheap motel to the other, sometimes barely having enough money to feed ourselves. You would have hated every minute. Many nights you would have been left alone in some crummy motel room. Some of them didn't even have television sets in the rooms.

"How could that life compare to being in the fresh ocean air, going to a good school, eating well . . . You understand why I did it, don't you, honey? You don't blame me anymore?" she asked, her voice shaking.

I took a deep breath and shifted my eyes away so she couldn't see how deeply I had been hurt. Kenneth had once told me I might as well have had translucent skin. It was that easy to see my thoughts and feelings. However, there was no sense being dishonest and lying to my mother now that I had found her, I thought.

"I used to hate you for it, Mommy," I admitted. "I used to sit there in Laura's room and listen hard through the walls for the phone to ring and hate you for not calling, hate you for making promises you wouldn't keep."

"I know. And that bothered me, too, but Richard kept saying, 'If you call her and can't send for her, it will be even more cruel, won't it?' He was right."

"He wasn't right. I needed to hear your voice, Mommy," I insisted.

She slammed down her coffee cup so hard it nearly shattered on the table.

"You've got to stop blaming me for things. I can't have any stress," she whined. "Stress brings on age and wrinkles and makes you look terrible and then you can't get jobs. The camera picks up every little detail, you know. They don't want you if they can't use you for close-ups. I won't get any work. Is that what you want to happen? Richard won't stand for it anyway. He won't let you stay here," she warned.

I gazed around the apartment, just realizing what she was saying.

"Does he live here, too?"

"Well what do you think? You have no idea how expensive it is to live and work in Los Angeles. Apartments like this are hard to come by. What would be the point of both of us having our own apartment and paying two rents?"

"Are you married?" I asked, holding my breath.

"No, we never got married. I don't want to get remarried for a long, long time; but Richard is . . . well, he's more than my agent; he's my financial manager. He takes care of all our money needs. He does that for all his clients."

"How many clients does he have?" I asked.

"A half dozen, but none earn as much as I do right now, so you see why it's so important everything remains smooth for us," she repeated. "No more talk about the terrible past," she said, waving her hands over the table. "I don't want to hear about how you suffered and I don't want to be reminded about what I did when I lived there. Don't ask me any questions about any of them, and don't even bring their names up in front of me," she ordered. "That's the rule if you want to live here, understand? I mean it, Melody." She glared at me, her eyes colder than I ever recalled them.

"Even Kenneth?" I asked.

"Yes, yes, yes, even Kenneth. Nobody. I forbid it. I didn't have a life before this. That's the way I want to think now. It's what Richard says I should do. These are changes we had to make for our own wellbeing. I hate being selfish, but it's a good selfishness because it helps us find success."

"Why did he have to change his name, Mommy? I never believed that story about Archie being his nickname."

"You're right. Archie was never his name. It was his older brother's name and he took it so he could be thought of as older when he first left home. That's a big difference between men and women. Men like to be thought of as older. They don't get punished for being older and turning gray with wrinkles, but we do.

"Anyway," she continued, "his brother got himself into big trouble with loan sharks and the like and as soon as Richard found out, he dropped that name like a hot coal so they wouldn't mistakenly come after him. That's why he never liked to talk about his family. He was ashamed of them. His father wasn't any better. Now, don't mention any of this in front of him. Understand? He would be furious with me. He's very sensitive about it."

"I won't say a thing," I said, not really believing the story anyway.

"Good. As long as you do what you're told, we'll be fine. I think," she said, still not sure.

She looked at me hard again and then tilted her head, smiling.

"I like that outfit you're wearing."

"Dorothy Livingston bought it for me."