Radiance

They’ll paddle us all about for a few days, and I don’t doubt we’ll all turn up on Monday with Earth-tans and hickeys. Boats practically require debauchery—why, nothing that happens aboard ship really matters! It’s a little bubble, floating free away from the world. A weak and idle theme, no more yielding but…blah blah blah. Slap that together with the divine nonsense of a wrap party and I’ll be surprised if I survive the weekend.

I plan to wear my best Plutonian buffalo fur, a ruby tiara, and not a lick else. Though at the moment I am looking quite respectable in my ecru suit and a hat with just two skinny old feathers in it. I only have this drab thing for meetings with my agent and tribulations at traffic court…bless me, but I am as clumsy as clown shoes in an automobile! But today I shall (probably) not be admonished for speeding on the Hyperion Speedway—for goodness’ sake, why call it a speedway if you aren’t meant to floor it? Today I have a perfectly ladylike luncheon date with my erstwhile stepdaughter. I’m not certain when my private little teas at the Savoy became teas for two, but I’m ever so glad they did. It’s occasionally refreshing to simply sit with someone who has known you a long while and still thinks you’re worth a damn. I suppose that’s why people have children in the first place. It’s hard to scare up such a thing, otherwise.

I do miss old Percy sometimes. Thad invited him along on the yacht, so I may rescind that statement by Sunday night. I wonder if he’ll bring a date—other than Clara? The better question is, who won’t be there? Even that bitter mongoose of a man from Places, Everyone! will get his fresh violets and snuff. I suspect Thaddeus let his secretary make the guest list. It’s chock-a-block with people who’ve nothing to do with Miranda. It’s a wrap party for my film. I do not see why both my ex-husbands should be in attendance, except that the girl who does her nails while I take my meetings thought that it would be scrumptious to see all her favourites in one spot! The Edisons are coming as well, boorish Freddy and Penelope, that fretful slip of a wife he’s got.

She wasn’t always, you know. When I met her, she was Penny Catarain, a brilliant lit fuse of a girl. A techie, good enough to get hired even with a mountain of boys ahead of her. She always gave the impression of having accidentally wandered in from a mad scientist’s conference, and felt rather desperate to get back. She worked sound on my first big studio talkie, before speaking in a flick became the equivalent of farting at a dinner party. Penny made my voice sound like a crystal fountain. But I suppose being married to an utter pig will wear a soul down to the nub. I shall make certain to get her good and sauced on the Achelois. I’ll get Mrs Edison dancing if I have to put firecrackers in her slippers.

I got Penelope alone once at the Capricorn/Plantagenet Studios treaty signing. You can’t really call it a merger when Plantagenet invaded—with a squadron of soldiers, three biplanes, and one, albeit very old and crotchety, Chinese tank—Capricorn’s backlots in order to liberate two leading men and a stack of prints being held in a vault. Those boys were nothing but an excuse, anyway, a cover to make Mr P look like the injured party. Plantagenet’s real objective was to force Cap to “sell” the rights to their marquee characters Marvin the Mongoose, the Arachnid, and Vickie VaVoom for less than I pay for stockings. I took a bullet in the shoulder over a cartoon rodent. But so it goes on the mad old Moon. I heal like a champion.

It was a jollier evening than you might expect: pink paper lanterns, extras dressed up as Marvin and Vickie signing autographs, plenty of champagne and saxophones. Penelope wore blue, I recall. We jawed about the good old days, and she got that look on again, like she’d only slipped away from her fellow mad scientists for lunch and really had to be getting back.

I took her arm. “Honey, does he beat you?”

Mrs Edison looked quite stunned. “No! Christ, what a thing to ask.”

“Then what is it? You always look like you want to lay down and become one with the floor.”

I didn’t expect an answer. I felt certain she would walk away, head high, and never speak to me again. But instead she shrugged and whispered, “He doesn’t let me work.”