Tell-All

do we indulge in behavior
Confidential
would cite to brand us as “baritone babes,” or Hedda Hopper describes as “pink pucker sucking.” The duties of my position include placing one Nembutal and one Luminal in the cloisonné saucer atop Miss Kathie’s bedside table. In addition, filling an old-fashioned glass to overflowing with ice cubes and drop-by-drop pouring one shot of whiskey over the ice. Repeat with a second shot. Then fill the remainder of the glass with soda water.
    The bedside table consists of nothing more than a stack of screenplays. A teetering pile sent by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin , asking my Miss Kathie to make a comeback. Begging, in fact. Here were speculative Broadway musicals based on actors dressed as dinosaurs or Emma Goldman .Feature-length animated versions of
Macbeth
by William Shakespeare depicted with baby animals. Voice-over work. The pitch: Bertolt Brecht meets Lerner and Loewe crossed with Eugene O’Neill . The pages turn yellow and curl, stained with Scotch whiskey and cigarette smoke. The paper branded with the brown rings left by every cup of Miss Kathie’s black coffee.
    We repeat this ritual every evening, following whatever dinner party or opening my Miss Kathie has attended. On returning to her town house, I unfasten the eye hook at the top of her gown and release the zipper. Turn on the television. Change the channel. Change the television channel once more. Dump the contents of her evening bag onto the satin coverlet of her bed, Miss Kathie’s Helena Rubinstein lipstick, keys, charge cards, replacing each item into her daytime bag. I place the shoe trees within her shoes. Pin her auburn wig to its Styrofoam head. Next, I light the vanilla-scented candles lined up along the mantel of her bedroom fireplace.
    As my Miss Kathie conducts herself behind the en suite bathroom door, amid the rush and steam of her shower bath, her voice through the door drones:
bark, moo, meow
… William Randolph Hearst .
Snarl, squeal, tweet
… Anita Loos .
    In the center of the satin bed sprawls her Pekingese, Loverboy , amid a field of wrinkled paper wrappers, the two cardboard halves of a heart-shaped candy box, the pleated pink brocade-and-silk roses stapled to the box cover, the ruched folds of lace frilling the box edges. The bed’s billowing red satin coverlet, spread with this mess, the cupped candy papers, the sprawling Pekingese dog.
    From out of Miss Kathie’s evening bag spills her cigarettelighter, a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes, her tiny pill box paved with rubies and tourmalines and rattling with Tuinal and Dexamyl .
Bark, cluck, squeak
… Nembutal .
    Roar, whinny, oink
… Seconal .
    Meow, tweet, moo
… Demerol .
    Then, fluttering down, falls a white card. Settling on the bed, an engraved place card from this evening’s dinner. Against the white card stock, in bold, black letters, the name Webster Carlton Westward III .
    What Hedda Hopper would call this moment—a “Hollywood lifetime”—expires.
    A freeze-frame. An insert-shot of the small, white card lying on the satin bed beside the inert dog.
    On television, my Miss Kathie acts the part of Spain’s Queen Isabella I , escaped from her royal duties in the Alhambra for a quickie vacation in Miami Beach , pretending to be a simple circus dancer in order to win the heart of Christopher Columbus , played by Ramon Novarro . The picture cuts to a cameo by Lucille Ball , on loan out from Warner Bros . and cast as Miss Kathie’s rival, Queen Elizabeth I .
    Here is all of Western history, rendered the bitch of William Wyler .
    Behind the bathroom door, in the gush of hot water, my Miss Kathie says:
bark, bray, oink …
J. Edgar Hoover . My ears straining to hear her prattle.
    Fringe dangles off the edge of the red satin coverlet, the bed canopy, the window valance. Everything upholstered in red velvet, cut velvet. Flocked wallpaper. The scarlet walls, padded and button tufted, crowded with Louis XIV mirrors. The lamps, dripping with faceted crystals, busy with sparkling thingamabobs. The fireplace, carved from pinkonyx and rose quartz. The entire effect, insular and silent as sleeping tucked deep inside Mae West ’s vagina.
    The four-poster bed, its trim and moldings lacquered red, polished until the wood looks wet. Lying there, the candy wrappers, the dog, the place card.
    Webster Carlton Westward III , the American specimen with bright brown eyes. Root-beer eyes. The young man seated so far down the table at