“And Katharine Hepburn?”
“She took care of him. And I don’t know if any other woman would have put up with his drinking. I’m afraid she got the worst of him.”
“Do you ever think about Mr. Gable?”
“I pray the last decade of the rosary for him every night. When I was a girl, I prayed to find true love with that last decade, and now I pray for his soul.”
“What was it about him?”
“Oh, if I knew that, I’d have a movie studio or we would have been together. He was the one that got away, though if he were here right now, he’d tell you I pushed him. I guess I always knew he was a man you couldn’t own, and in my way, I kept myself separate from him because I knew if I ever had him, I wouldn’t be able to make him stay. That would have been a fate worse than never having him at all. I had his baby, and I couldn’t keep him. I know he loved me, but he didn’t know how to love me. And that’s the difference between a love that lasts and all the rest.”
Loretta tucked a pillow behind her mother’s head on the sofa. Just as it had been in the beginning, when Sally and Polly married and Georgiana was out of the house and husbands had left her life, Loretta and Gladys were back together again, the two of them, living happily in one house, decorated by Mrs. Belzer herself.
“Mama, I don’t want to talk about your estate.”
“We must. I’m ninety-two years old,” Gladys said. “How long am I going to last?”
“You’re still working.”
“What’s your point?”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, but you’re in good shape.”
“Here.” Gladys handed her an envelope “This is everything we own.”
Loretta looked through the real estate portfolio. Gladys still owned the house on Rindge Street where Judy was born. “Mama, this is the story of our lives . . . in houses.”
“I feel like a movie. Let’s run a print tonight.”
No matter how many times Loretta tried to explain VHS tapes, Gladys still called movies that they watched at home “prints.”
“What do you want to watch?”
“Something with Myrna.”
“Thin Man?”
“No, I just watched all of them. They’re good but something else.”
“Test Pilot?”
“I watched that one too. That’s a favorite. Has your old beau Spencer Tracy in it.”
“He was a good one. But a lost lamb.”
“The good ones always are.” Gladys nodded.
“How about Too Hot to Handle? Mama, that’s got Gable.”
“And Myrna.”
“We can watch something else.” Gladys still worried that Loretta was sad about Clark Gable.
“Nope. We’re watching Gable and Loy.”
Loretta curled up on the sofa next to her mother. They watched the black-and-white film as Gable performed daring stunts in an airplane, Myrna, practical and wise on the ground, pointing out his flaws, all in all a good story.
Soon Gladys was fast asleep. Loretta flipped through her address book and dialed New York.
“Myrna? It’s Loretta.”
“What’s doing, sis?”
“We just watched Too Hot to Handle. Mama and me. Well, I watched. Mama slept.”
“Did it hold up?”
“They should put your nose on Mount Rushmore.”
“I think they have. Lincoln has my nose.”
“Retroussé? Don’t think so. Mama’s asleep, or she’d say hello.”
“How is she?”
“She’s ninety-two and kicking. Went through her real estate portfolio. She still owns the land on our first boarding house.”
“Why didn’t Gladys Belzer pull me aside and tell me to buy something?”
“You had those husbands handling your money.”
“Every time you get a divorce, you cut your money in two. And I had four divorces. Do the math. I’m sitting here drinking half a cup of coffee.”
Loretta laughed. “I was always afraid we’d be in the poorhouse.”
“And look at you. I have to work, and you’re a lady of leisure.”
“But you’re a better actress. Nobody misses me.”
“Did you hear about our dear Niv? He’s in a bad way. Can hardly speak. He has ALS.”
“Where is he?”
“In Switzerland. With that wife. A ladies’ man always ends up with a mean wife. She’s dreadful, Loretta.”
“Niv was my best friend. I could tell him anything. And I told him everything. He deserved an angel.”
“He could keep a secret,” Myrna said. “You know, he told me something once about you. Said when Judy was born, he sent Clark a telegram.”
“That was Niv?” Loretta was astonished. “Of course it was. I should have known.”
“Yep. He spent a lot of time trying to get you and Clark back together.”
Loretta hung up the phone. She draped an afghan over her mother and tucked a pillow under her neck.
Loretta popped the cartridge out of the VHS. She looked on the shelf and found The Call of the Wild. She put the movie in the recorder and hit play.
Alda came through and watched the front roller as she stood behind the sofa.
“Come and watch.”
“Thanks, but not tonight. I’m going to bed.”
“I’ll put Mama in bed when the movie’s over.”
Alda had sold the house she and Luca shared in the valley. At Loretta’s insistence, she had moved in with Gladys and Loretta. As Alda climbed the steps, she remembered the first time she met Loretta. That was so long ago, before she met Luca, and before she lost their baby. This wasn’t the old age that Alda had planned for herself. She was sixty-three years old, and she was back where she started. She believed Luca would have approved. After all, Loretta, Judy, and Gladys were family. Alda could hear the overture of The Call of the Wild as she closed the door to her bedroom.
Loretta stretched her legs out in front of her as Gable filled the screen, hat cocked on his head, holster and belt, a natty tie and a scruff of day-old beard. She leaned back on the sofa and watched as the man she once loved dazzled and delighted with his confident swagger and his down-home charm. She liked the scenes best before she entered the picture. Loretta knew how the story went once she was onscreen, and for the first few minutes, she could rewrite what might have been. When Gable found her in the snow, she could feel the cold. When he held her, it was never long enough, never tightly enough, never enough.
Loretta couldn’t get enough of him, and she hadn’t.
If Gretchen Young had one regret in her life, it was that she never married Clark Gable.
EPILOGUE
OCTOBER 2000
Roxanne Chetta waited for her family at the entrance of Moreau Hall at Saint Mary’s under a banner that announced “The Mary Ethel Meeks deWolfe Art Show.” She wore a tuxedo jacket she had bogarted from the theater costume shop over a Ziggy Stardust T-shirt and a floor-length skirt made of tulle, in layers of blue, that rolled wide and fierce like ocean waves. Her hair was piled on her head in a mass of dark curls, and she wore the brightest red lipstick Urban Decay offered at the CVS.
The world would see Roxanne’s painting for the first time that evening, and the thought of it made her feel nervous and vulnerable. If there was a form of stage fright for painters, Roxanne was sure she had it. She was shivering as she looked out into the blue darkness, broken open by wide beams of yellow light from the streetlamps in the parking lot, when she heard her mother call her name.
Roxanne waved to her mother, who moved toward her in the midst of a clump of relatives. Joe, Roxanne’s father, her two brothers, and her three sisters had made the trip from Brooklyn, along with a face Roxanne could not make out in the dark.
The Chetta family traveled in a pack, a small army of Italian Americans who never missed any event involving one of its members. It didn’t matter if it was an art op
ening, a school play, or a neighborhood basketball game, if you were a Chetta and you were in the spotlight, you could count on a cheering section.
Roxanne’s mother embraced her daughter and sniffed her neck. “Are you still smoking?”
“Nah, that’s old smoke. I quit this morning.”
“We have a surprise for you!”
There was always a surprise on a Chetta family road trip. Usually it was food—fresh mozzarella, salami, and prosciutto transported in coolers or boxes of pastries from D’Italia’s Bakery, which her mother would hold on her lap for hours on the interstate so the sfogliatella wouldn’t arrive smashed or the shells on the cannolis shattered before reaching their destination.
Her brothers parted to reveal their great-aunt.
“Aunt Alda!” Roxanne put her arms around her.
“l didn’t want to miss your art show,” Alda said. Her white hair was pulled back in a simple chignon. She wore a black dress coat made of silk wool, gloves, and black leather flats. Her square pocketbook was vintage, but so well cared for that the patent leather looked new.
“Best surprise ever!” Roxanne kissed her on the cheek. Alda’s skin was cool, like a seashell. Roxanne’s eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, don’t cry.”
“I can’t help it. I wish Uncle Luca were here. But I’m so happy you are.”
The Moreau art gallery was filled with student artists and their families and friends. A group of nuns from Augusta Hall milled about with art patrons from the city of South Bend. There was a table of college-style hors d’oeuvres, silver trays filled with blocks of cheddar cheese that had been picked over until they looked like Roman ruins. Members of the senior class served empty-bodied white wine in plastic cups as the guests took in the art show. Roxanne led her family to her painting.
“Oh, Roxanne, it’s magnificent,” her mother said.
“It’s huge,” her father said approvingly. Whether it was art, houses, or cars, for Joe Chetta, bigger was always better.
Aunt Alda took a step back to take it in. The expanse of white, the dots of silver, and the strokes of blue brought her back to Mount Baker in 1935. She opened her purse, found her handkerchief, and dried a tear from her cheek.
“What do you think, Auntie?” Roxanne put her arm around Alda.
“My husband would be so proud. You’re a fine painter. When you wrote me and told me the inspiration behind the painting, I couldn’t believe it. Mount Baker had meaning for us for many reasons, but you’ve made it come alive here. I have something for you.” Alda gave Roxanne a wooden box with a handle. “L. Chetta” was engraved on a small brass name plaque. “Your uncle would want you to have this.”
Roxanne opened the box. It was Luca’s paint kit, his brushes, palette, and knives, stored neatly in flannel sleeves as though they had been used that day. A black-and-white photograph was tucked in an elastic band under the lid.
“Oh, Auntie.” Roxanne studied the photograph of Clark Gable and Loretta Young and the film crew, between takes on the snow-covered mountain as they made The Call of the Wild. “I don’t know what to say. With this kit, it’s like I’m a real painter now. And the photograph, it’s a treasure.”
Sister Agnes pushed through the crowd to get to Roxanne. “I just endured the fibers exhibit. Don’t get the dangling threads at all.”
“Sister Agnes Eugenia, this my great-aunt Alda. Her husband was the scene painter in Hollywood I told you about.”
Sister Agnes shook Alda’s hand. “I was a big Loretta Young fan.”
“Did you ever write her a letter?”
“I might have. I loved her in The Call of the Wild.”
“Then I probably read it. I read all her mail.”
“What a career—such an exciting life,” Sister said with a tinge of envy. “For her and for you.”
“I was lucky. It started as a job, and then, as things go, it became a calling. I worked for Loretta until the end. We lost her on August twelfth.”
“Heart attack?”
“Loretta had cancer.”
“Terrible.”
“She had a very happy last few years. Did you know she had married again? Jean Louis, her good friend, the costume designer, was widowed, and they married after Mr. Lewis died. She divorced him but waited until he passed away to remarry.”
“A dyed-in-the-wool Catholic, as we say.” Sister chuckled.
“Oh yes.” Alda smiled. “Loretta was staying with her sister Georgie at the end. She adored her sons with Mr. Lewis, and she and Judy—her daughter by Mr. Gable—had worked through their problems.”
“Oh, good. I heard that her daughter had written a book about their relationship.”
“Loretta loved Judy dearly. Judy needed to write that book. Loretta eventually accepted it, and they reconciled and had some good years at the end of Loretta’s life.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“They were lucky. You know, Sister, we think we have the luxury of time. We figure that there will always be a moment to have the conversation that we meant to have, and then the moment passes and it’s too late. I learned so much working in Hollywood, working for Loretta—but the most important thing I learned was to say what you mean when you have the moment to say it. It works in life, it works in the movies. Don’t wait, because the time may not come again.”
Sister Agnes took Alda’s hand. “She had a good, long life. Did she have her faith at the end?”
“She did.”
“That’s a blessing,” Sister Agnes said.
“I knew you two would hit off.” Roxanne put her arm around her aunt. “Sister Agnes is a big fan of the movies of the 1930s and ’40s,” Roxanne said.
“I love the old ones the best. I marked important events in my life with movies,” Sister admitted. “The last movie I saw before I entered the novitiate was Top Hat, with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. I went into the convent on a toe-tapping high.”
“The old movies take me right back,” Alda admitted. “Not everyone has a movie to mark the moment their lives changed or they fell in love.”
“We were married in Brooklyn the summer of Saturday Night Fever. Our wedding song was ‘How Deep Is Your Love,’” Roxanne’s mother said wistfully.
“Every once in a while, my parents disco dance for us. It makes us throw up.” Roxanne laughed.
“Yeah, well, be grateful. You exist because of the Bee Gees,” her father commented.
“Are you going back to California after the show?” Sister Agnes asked.
“No, no, it’s time for a change. It’s time to be with family again.” Alda smiled.
“Auntie just turned ninety,” Roxanne’s father said proudly. With his thick gray hair brushed back off his face, Joe Chetta resembled his uncle Luca. “We finally convinced her to give up the bright lights of Hollywood for the police sirens of Brooklyn.”
“That’s marvelous! I was going to offer you a room in Augusta Hall with the retired nuns.”
“Thank you, Sister. But I think I’ll try Brooklyn.” Alda chuckled to herself. How funny that she might end up back in the convent, where she began. Alda wanted to be buried next to Luca when her time came. She would have no assurance of that unless she left California and returned to Brooklyn for good.
“Look!” Roxanne said, pointing outside through the glass doors of Moreau Hall.
The Chetta family and Sister Agnes moved to the doors and peered out. Beyond the glass, the first snow of the season fell in pinwheels of silver through the blue night.
After a moment, Alda pushed through the glass door and walked outside. Joe called out to her, but she didn’t hear him.
“She’ll catch her death out there,” Roxanne’s mother said, following her out.
Roxanne stopped her. “She needs a moment, Ma.”
“Don’t worry. Auntie is a tough cookie,” Joe assured them. “Northern Italians. They’re part goat.”
Outside, Alda took a deep breath as the snowflakes touched her face in
small, icy bursts.
The cold, dark night brought back the warmest of memories.
Alda remembered her first dive into the pool at Sunset House, and how the water felt like satin against her skin. She remembered her feet and how they felt the first time she slipped them into proper leather after having worn work boots all of her life. She remembered her infant son Michael in Padua, baby Patricia in her swaddling, and holding Judy on the train. She remembered Luca’s promise that he would never leave her after he found out she couldn’t have his children. She pictured her garden in the valley where she grew lush red tomatoes in the California sun. But of all her memories, of all the flickers of the past that popped like camera flashes in the dark, most of all she remembered snow.
Alda recalled the majestic beauty of Washington State, the train station in Bellingham, the peaks of Mount Baker, and the broken-down old inn on the mountain. She saw Loretta laughing there in the barn as she made spaghetti, and Clark Gable in the drifts, wearing his ridiculous fur coat. She smiled when she recalled the dyspeptic look on Gable’s face when she and Luca made their wedding vows.
Soon the Indiana sky opened up, and white glitter blew through the night and dusted the fields. Each dizzy snowflake found its way to the ground, where it rested and waited for the others. The world in Alda’s sightline was pristine, wrapped in white velvet as if to hold it all together, to make it whole, maybe even perfect.
For the first time since he’d died, Alda felt her husband beside her. She missed Luca’s kisses and the security she felt whenever he took her hand. She felt the anguish she’d experienced when they first fell in love, and the healing that would come later, when they were ready for it. She remembered the relief he felt when she forgave him, and the peace she knew when he forgave her. She recalled the scent of the fire pit on Mount Baker and how sweet the waffles and snow cream tasted when they were hungry. She would have paid attention to the sounds, the colors, and the light, if she had known that what once was so vivid would fade with time. If only she had known that those moments might last her whole life long, that they would live in her as surely as her own breath, she might have savored them, she might have tried to stop time.