Saturdays with Hitchcock

“I didn’t say it would kill me,” I mumble.

  Mom is quiet a minute, and then she says, “What is it you love so much about movies, anyway?”

  Wow, she’s never asked me that before. “I’m not sure I can explain it to you,” I say.

  “Just try,” Mom says. “I’m interested.”

  It’s cool that Mom wants to know, so I try to say clearly what I think. “In a theater, when you’re sitting in the dark, you forget where you are. It’s like I’m not in New Aztec anymore. I’m in London or Wyoming or New York City or even the Civil War or outer space, and I’m imagining what it would be like to be one of the characters who live there.”

  Mom nods. “You’re taken out of yourself. I understand that. Music does a similar thing for me.”

  I’m kind of thrilled that she gets it, so I keep talking. “And I like the way movies look, the way all the action takes place inside a frame. You only see what the director wants you to see, the world inside the frame. It’s like you’re inside the director’s head.”

  “I never thought of it that way,” Mom says.

  “And I love that there have to be so many people involved to tell one story,” I say. “Everybody has to believe in the same thing: writers and casting agents, makeup and costume people. The cinematographer and the grips and gaffers—those are the lighting people—and the prop people, set decorators, sound technicians, and camera operators, and the actors of course. And then the director and the assistant directors oversee the whole thing. And even after that there are editors in postproduction who put it all together and make it a movie.”

  Mom laughs. “It makes me wonder how movies ever get made. But you don’t really think about all those things when you’re watching a movie, do you?”

  “Not all of them all the time, but some of them some of the time. The more you know, the more you enjoy the film.”

  Mom nods. “It’s not so different from music in that way either.” She glances over at me. “Thanks for telling me why you’re so passionate, Maisie. I’m sorry now I made you miss your movie this afternoon.”

  “You know,” I say, “you should ask Uncle Walt sometime why he’s so passionate about acting.”

  Mom smiles, but she doesn’t look at me and she doesn’t answer.

  We’re quiet a few minutes, and then I say, “I never knew you wanted to be a musician. Why did you give it up?”

  “I didn’t give it up,” she says. “I still play.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Maisie, we don’t all get to do exactly what we want. I don’t have to be a famous pianist to be happy. I married your dad and I had you. That’s a good enough life for me.”

  Good enough? “Couldn’t you have had both?”

  She’s quiet for a long time, and then she says, “I didn’t think so at the time.”

  When we get to Grandma’s place, there’s a car parked outside we don’t recognize. “Oh, no,” Mom says. “The caretaker must have gotten here early. I told her two o’clock.”

  “Does Grandma really need to have somebody living with her all the time?” I ask. “Somebody she doesn’t even know?”

  Mom nods. “It’s too dangerous for her to be alone anymore. And who knows? Maybe this woman and Grandma will really hit it off.”

  We knock on the door, then push it open and go in. There are voices coming from the kitchen, so Mom hurries in that direction, with me behind her. But the person sitting at the kitchen table with Grandma is not the new caretaker.

  “Oh, Cindy, I didn’t know you were coming!” Grandma says. “I’ll make more tea.”

  She gets up and heads for the stove as Mr. Schmitz rises from his chair and puts out a hand toward Mom. “Hello,” he says. “I’m Hank Schmitz. You must be Evie’s daughter.” His gruff voice is a little softer than usual.

  Mom doesn’t know what to say, but she shakes his hand.

  “Hi, Mr. Schmitz,” I say. He raises a hand in my direction. If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was a pretty friendly guy.

  Mom looks at me. “How do you know—?”

  “Mr. Schmitz owns the Lincoln Theater,” I tell her.

  “Oh, of course,” Mom says. “I recognize you now.”

  “Your daughter’s my best customer,” he says. Then he looks at me. “Why aren’t you there today? It’s Dracula, you know.”

  “Why aren’t you there?” I say. “You’re always there on Saturday.”

  “Maisie, don’t be rude!” Mom puts a hand on my shoulder.

  Mr. Schmitz grunts. “Well, if you must know, Sherlock, I hired somebody to help out so I could get away once in a while.” There he is. That’s the Mr. Schmitz I know.

  “Hank and I are old friends,” Grandma says. “I was so happy when he called and asked if he could come over.” She’s trying to pour hot water from a big pot into two little cups, which reminds Mom why we came in the first place. She runs over and takes the pot from Grandma’s hands.

  “Let me do that.”

  “What kind of tea do you—”

  “I’ll get the tea, Ma. You just sit down now.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Grandma shakes her head and returns to the table. “You’re certainly bossy today, Cindy. Did I know you were coming? I don’t remember.”

  “I told you yesterday,” Mom says. She brings the cups to the table.

  “It must have slipped my mind. It’s funny. Sometimes I can hardly remember what happened an hour ago, but when Hank and I start reminiscing about things that happened fifty years ago, I remember it all perfectly!” She reaches across the table and puts her hand on his, and I think Mom’s eyes are going to fall out of her head and roll around on the table.

  “Well, it’s nice you’ve reconnected with your old friend,” Mom says, “but I need to talk to you about something today, Ma. It’s kind of important.”

  “I can’t imagine what’s so important we have to interrupt my conversation with Hank.” Grandma’s eyes flash at Mom, but then I think she looks a little scared.

  Mr. Schmitz immediately stands up. “Well, I should get going anyway.”

  “No! Don’t leave!” Grandma shouts, and then she stands up too. “I don’t want you to go yet, Hank.”

  “I’ll come back and visit you again, if you want, Evie. Your daughter wants to talk—”

  Grandma’s eyes fill with tears, and she grabs Mr. Schmitz’s hand in both of hers and brings it to her cheek. “I don’t care what she wants. I want you to stay!”

  Whoa! I can hardly remember Grandma ever touching Grandpa, except maybe to smack him on the shoulder to get his attention if his hearing aids were turned off. But now she’s gripping Mr. Schmitz’s hand and looking up at his face like she’s Cher and he’s Nicolas Cage in Moonstruck. Like she’s Julie Christie and he’s Omar Sharif in Doctor Zhivago. Like she’s Lady and he’s the Tramp. And Mr. Schmitz doesn’t seem to mind at all, which makes me like him a little more than I did before.

  Mr. Schmitz looks at Mom. He seems embarrassed but also calm. “Maybe it would help if I stayed. We’ve been having such a nice visit.”

  Mom looks like she’s been kicked in the head by a mule. “Well, I don’t know…I suppose if she…if you…” She gives up on that sentence.

  When Mr. Schmitz sits back down, Grandma does too. She sips her tea as if nothing strange has happened. “So now, what’s so darned important, Cindy?”

  Mom takes a deep breath and begins. “The thing is, you’ve been having some memory problems lately, Ma, and Walt and I have been talking—”

  “Oh, wait until you meet my son, Walter,” Grandma says to Mr. Schmitz. “You’ll like him. He’s full of fun!”

  “I believe your granddaughter told me about him,” Mr. Schmitz says. “An actor, isn’t he?”

  “That’s right! He and Maisie are two peas in a pod.”

  Mom looks at me like Why are you having conversations with old men in movie theaters? But then she remembers her point. “Anyway, Ma, you’re forgetting things, a
nd Walt and I think there should be someone around here to help you. Sort of a companion.”

  Grandma gives a sharp laugh and shakes her head. “That’s the silliest thing I ever heard. I don’t need any help. And I certainly don’t want somebody I don’t know following me around my own house!”

  “She won’t follow you, Ma. She’ll just be here if you need her.”

  “Well, I don’t need her. I don’t need anybody! If I needed someone, I’d call you. Or…maybe I’ll call Hank. Can I call you if I need help, Hank?”

  Mr. Schmitz reaches across the table and takes Grandma’s hand. “Of course you can, Evie. Whenever you need me, I’ll come right over.”

  Mom looks like she walked in on the middle of a movie and can’t figure out what’s going on. Finally she says, “Look, Hank, I’m sure you mean well, but my mother is having severe memory issues, and I need to do something about it. She thinks she can call people for help, but she won’t remember our numbers. I don’t know if she can even remember how to use the telephone!” Suddenly Mom puts her hands over her face and starts to cry.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Cindy,” Grandma says, “get ahold of yourself. Of course I can use a telephone. What’s wrong with you today?”

  There’s a knock on the front door and Grandma gets up to answer it, but Mom leaps to her feet too, wiping the back of her hand over her face. “No, wait! That’s her. That’s Mary Jane.”

  “Mary Jane who? I don’t know any Mary Jane,” Grandma says.

  “She’s your new…companion.”

  Grandma stares at Mom. I’m glad she’s never stared at me like that; her angry look burns like fire.

  “Well, tell her to go away,” Grandma says.

  “I can’t,” Mom says. “I’ve already hired her and—”

  “Anybody home?” A heavy, middle-aged woman in purple yoga pants and a matching sweatshirt prances into the kitchen. She looks a little bit like Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire. “I thought maybe you couldn’t hear me. You all were making so much noise in here.” She sticks out a big paw toward Grandma. “I’m Mary Jane. You must be Evelyn.”

  Grandma’s arms remain at her sides, and the look in her eyes could boil water. Mary Jane takes back her unshaken hand and looks around the kitchen as if she owns the place already and is imagining herself cooking at the stove and washing up dishes at the sink.

  After a few seconds I hear a sound that seems to be coming from Grandma’s belly. It rises up through her throat and comes spilling out of her mouth in the loudest shriek I’ve ever heard. “Get out of my house!” she yells. When Mary Jane doesn’t move but continues to stand there with a silly grin on her face, Grandma throws herself against the woman’s chest as if she’s going to push her out.

  Mary Jane keeps her feet planted like a tree and doesn’t move. “Oh, dear, we need to calm down,” she says. Then she puts her hand up to cover part of her mouth and whispers loudly to Mom, “Don’t worry. I’ve had ornery ones before.”

  “She isn’t ornery—she’s just upset,” Mom says as she tries to put herself between the two of them.

  Mr. Schmitz stands up, takes Grandma by the shoulders, and pulls her back. Mary Jane brushes at her sweatshirt as if Grandma has gotten it dirty. “Probably time to get her on some meds,” she says.

  Mom takes Mary Jane by the elbow and leads her into the living room. “Let’s talk in private for a minute.”

  Grandma curls into Mr. Schmitz’s chest, and he puts his arms around her. “I don’t want that woman in my house!” she says. “I don’t want anybody in my house! Just you, Hank. Just you. Tell the rest of them to go away.”

  “Shh. It’s okay, Evie,” he says. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”

  The crabby old guy from the Lincoln Theater has disappeared. Mr. Schmitz’s voice is soft, and his lower lip is trembling. He reminds me of Robin Williams at the end of Dead Poets Society—there’s a little smile on his face, but you know he’s actually as sad as he’s ever been in his whole life.

  “I’m glad I was able to explain things to Mary Jane. I think she’ll be able to handle the situation, don’t you?” Mom has been talking nonstop the whole car ride home, usually to herself, but once in a while to me too.

  “Maybe,” I say. Actually I don’t have high hopes for Mary Jane. She seems like someone who wants to be the boss, which is a job Grandma isn’t going to hand over to anybody else. Grandma let us make Mary Jane a cup of tea, finally, but she didn’t want her to sit at the table with us. She made her sit across the room in a chair Mr. Schmitz brought in from the porch.

  “I don’t understand why this Hank person is suddenly on the scene,” Mom says. “How did he even find her?”

  “I guess I gave him her phone number,” I admit.

  The car swerves as we turn onto our street. “You gave him her phone number! Why?”

  “I told you. Grandma said they liked each other when she was young. Before she met Grandpa. She danced with Mr. Schmitz once and she even kissed him.”

  Mom stares at me with her mouth hanging open. I hope she doesn’t hit a parked car. “That was a million years ago. I didn’t think she still knew him! She kissed him?”

  “Just once. She didn’t see him for a long time because Grandpa didn’t like him. I guess he was jealous.”

  “I still don’t understand why you gave him her phone number.”

  “When I told Grandma I knew Mr. Schmitz from the Lincoln, she said to say hello to him from her. Which I did. And then, I don’t know, he stopped being so crabby. He got kind of almost…nice. Well, not all the time, but once in a while. So when he asked me for her number…should I not have given it to him?”

  Mom pulls into our driveway and turns the car off. “Oh, I don’t know, Maisie. He seemed kind this afternoon, but I’m so confused by all of this. It’s very odd to see my mother acting like a lovesick teenager with some man I hardly know.”

  I’m still listening to Mom, but my eyes are on Cyrus and Gary, sitting on the porch at Cy’s house. “I think she’s probably the same person she always was,” I say. “Only now she’s more like the young person than the old person. At least in her mind.”

  Mom squeezes my shoulder, but she doesn’t say anything. Her eyes look puffy.

  “Can I go over to Cy’s?” I ask.

  She nods. “Thanks for coming with me today, Maisie. Having you there was a big help.”

  “No problem, Mom.” I open the door and scoot out before she starts crying or hugging me or something.

  I’m glad to see that Gary and Cyrus are laughing. They’re leaning against the porch posts and bouncing a tennis ball back and forth between them. But the minute Cy sees me coming, his smile disappears and he lets the tennis ball drop into the bushes. What? He’s not mad at Gary, but he’s still mad at me?

  Gary looks pretty happy to see me, though. “Hey, Maisie! We missed you. Dracula was awesome—you should’ve come!”

  “I wanted to, but I had to go to my grandma’s.”

  “Hey, what happened with her? Did you tell your mom about the cat thing?” His eyebrows bunch up and he looks worried, as if he actually cares about my grandma. Yeah, I have to admit Gary Hackett is okay.

  “That’s where we were this afternoon. Grandma’s new caretaker came over for the first time, and Grandma did not like her. She screamed at her, and pushed her, and then she started crying.” Why am I telling him the whole story?

  “Oh, wow. That sounds bad.” He reaches out a hand and lays it carefully on my arm. I can tell he’s ready to remove it immediately if I jerk away or anything, so I stand still as a statue. The heat from his fingers brands my skin.

  For a minute I even forget Cyrus is sitting there until he says, “Your mom’s here, Gary,” in this voice that sounds like he’s just swallowed a handful of nails.

  Mrs. Hackett’s station wagon idles in the driveway.

  “Shoot. Why does she always have to be on time?” Gary says. His fingers loosen on my arm and take their wa
rmth with them. “Maybe I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” he says, but he’s only looking at me.

  “Maybe,” I say. Cy doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even look at Gary. And the minute Gary disappears into his mother’s car, Cy gets up and heads for the front door.

  “Wait a minute, Cyrus. What’s going on? How come you’re still mad at me but not Gary?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he says, but at least he doesn’t run inside.

  “Well, you have to talk about it! We’re making a movie together. I don’t want to do it with only Gary.”

  “Maybe not, but Gary wants to do it with only you.” He plops down on the top porch step and watches Gary’s mother’s car disappear down the street.

  “No, he doesn’t,” I say, though I have a feeling Cy might be right. “And anyway, I don’t care what Gary wants. We’re best friends, Cy. We always will be.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” he says. He balances his arms across his knees and lets his head drop onto them.

  I’m so stunned, I don’t say anything for a minute. I sit down next to him, and I want to put my arm around him because obviously something is really, really wrong, but I’m kind of afraid to touch him. There’s something so fragile about him right now that a touch might break him completely.

  “You don’t want to be my best friend anymore?” My voice trembles in a way I can’t hide.

  “I can’t talk about this with you, Maisie. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Cyrus, I know you better than anybody. You can tell me anything!”

  “Not this.”

  Now I’m getting kind of mad. Why doesn’t he trust me? “Cyrus, you’re the one who said keeping a secret is like lying, especially if it’s about something important. If you can’t tell me, you can’t tell anybody!”

  Finally he picks his head up and looks at me. He’s not crying, like I thought he might be. He sticks out his chin like Willem Dafoe in The Grand Budapest Hotel, trying to look furious and mean. Though actually he looks more like James Dean in East of Eden, who’s trying to look tough but is obviously all torn up inside. “That’s right,” he says. “I can’t tell anybody.”