ACT III, SCENE SIX
We continue with the audio bridge of Katherine Kenton reading from the manuscript of Paragon, “ ‘… the glorious day I first met my dearest friend, Hazie Coogan…’ ”
Once more we see the two girls from the casting office. In a soft-focus montage of quick cuts, the ugly girl combs the long auburn hair of the pretty girl. Using a file, the ugly girl shapes the fingernails of the pretty girl, painting them with pink lacquer. Pursing her lips, the ugly girl blows air to dry the painted nails as if she were about to kiss the back of the pretty girl’s hand.
Miss Kathie’s movie-star voice continues, “ ‘… living and playing together, cavorting amidst the adoring legions of our public…’ ”
In contrast, we see the girl with beady eyes and a beaky nose, watching as she tweezes the eyebrows above the violet eyes. The ugly girl kneels to scrape the dead skin off the pretty girl’s heels using a pumice stone. Like a charwoman, the ugly girl rocks forward and back with the effort to scrub the pretty girl’s bare back using sea salt and elbow grease.
My Miss Kathie’s voice-over continues, “ ‘… living and playing together, working seemingly endless hours, Hazie and I always supported and urged each other forward in this festive endeavor we so blithely refer to as life…’ ” She reads, “ ‘We lived so much like sisters that we even shared our wardrobes, wearing one another’s shoes, exchanging even our undergarments with complete freedom…’ ”
As the montage continues, the ugly girl sweats over an ironing board, pressing the lace and frills on a blouse, then giving it to the pretty girl. The ugly girl bends to lather and shave one of the pretty girl’s long legs as it extends from a bathtub overflowing with luminous bubbles.
“ ‘I scratched her back,’ ” the voice of Miss Kathie reads, “ ‘and Hazie scratched mine…’ ”
On-screen, the ugly girl delivers a breakfast tray to the pretty girl, who waits in bed.
“ ‘We made a special point to pamper each other,’ ” says the voice-over.
In the continuing ironic montage, the pretty girl puts a cigarette between her own lips, and the ugly girl leans forward to light it. The pretty girl drops a dirty towel on the floor, and the ugly girl picks it up for the laundry. The pretty girl sprawls in a chair, reading a screenplay, while the ugly girl vacuums the rug around her.
The voice of Miss Kathie reads, “ ‘And as our careers began to bear fruit, we both savored the rewards of success and fame…’ ”
As the montage progresses, we see the ugly girl become a woman, still plain-looking, but aging, gaining weight, turning gray, while the pretty girl stays much the same, slender, her skin smooth, her hair a constant, rich auburn. In quick cuts, the pretty girl weds a man, then weds a new man, then weds a third man, then a fourth and fifth, while the ugly woman stands by, always burdened with luggage, shoulder bags, shopping bags.
In voice-over Miss Kathie says, “ ‘I owe everything I’ve become, really everything I’ve attained and achieved, to no one except Hazie Coogan…’ ”
As the ugly woman ages, we see her pretty counterpart laughing within a circle of reporters as they thrust radio microphones and photographers flash their cameras. The ugly woman always stands outside the spotlight, offstage in the wings, off-camera in the shadows, holding the pretty woman’s fur coat.
Still reading from the manuscript of Paragon, Miss Kathie’s voice says, “ ‘We shared the trials and the tears. We shared the fears and the greatest joys. Living together, shouldering the same burdens, we kept each other young…’ ”
In the montage, an adoring crowd, including Calvin Coolidge, Joseph Pulitzer, Joan Blondell, Kurt Kreuger, Rudolph Valentino and F. Scott Fitzgerald, looks on as the ugly woman places a birthday cake before the beauty. At that beat, we cut to the ugly one presenting another cake, obviously a year later. With a third quick cut, yet another cake is presented as Lillian Gish, John Ford and Clark Gable applaud and sing. With each successive cake, the ugly woman looks a bit older. The beauty does not. Every cake holds twenty-five blazing candles.
The reading continues, “ ‘Her job title was not that of secretary or acting coach, but Hazie Coogan deserves credit for all of my finest performances. She was not a spiritual guide or swami, but the best, truest adviser any person could ever treasure.’ ” Her voice rising, my Miss Kathie says, “ ‘If posterity finds continuing value in my films, humanity must also recognize the obligation of respect and gratitude owed to Hazie Coogan, the greatest, most talented friend for whom a simple player could ever ask.’ ”
With this statement, the beauty inhales deeply, surrounded by the beaming countenances of celebrities, everyone bathed in the flickering light from the birthday cake. Leaning forward, she blows out the birthday candles, and the festive scene drops to total and complete black. A silent, blank void.
Against this darkness, Miss Kathie’s voice says, “ ‘The end.’ ”
ACT III, SCENE SEVEN
My life’s work is complete.
For one final time we open in the crypt below the cathedral, where the veiled figure of a lone woman enters carrying yet another metal urn. She sets the urn alongside the urns of Terrence Terry, Oliver “Red” Drake, Esq., and Loverboy, then lifts her black veil to reveal her face.
This woman dressed in widow’s weeds is myself, Hazie Coogan. Unescorted.
Miss Kathie was mine. I invented her, time and time again. I rescued her.
After lighting a candle, I pop the cork on a bottle of champagne, one magnum still frothing, overflowing and alive in the company of so many dead soldiers. Into a dusty glass, milky with cobwebs, I pour a bubbling toast.
This is love. This is what love is. I’ve rescued her, who she was in the past and who she will be to the future. Katherine Kenton will never be a demented old woman, consigned to the charity ward in some teaching hospital. No tabloid newspaper or movie magazine will ever snap the kind of ludicrous, decrepit photographs that humiliated Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. She will never sink into the raving insanity of Vivien Leigh or Gene Tierney or Rita Hayworth or Frances Farmer. Here would be a sympathetic ending, not a slow fade into drugs, a chaotic Judy Garland spiral into the arms of younger men, finally to be found dead sitting astride a rented toilet.
Hers would not be a slow, grinding death or a sad fading away. No, the legend of Katherine Kenton required an epic, romantic grand finale. Something drenched in glory and pathos. Now she would never be forgotten. I’ve given her that.
A dramatic exit-after a suitable third act.
I raise my glass and say, “Gesundheit.” I drink a toast and pour another.
Please let me remove all doubt that Webster Carlton Westward III adored her. It was obvious the first time their eyes met down the length of that long-ago dinner party. He never wrote a word of Love Slave, despite how each draft was found in his luggage. No, all of those chapters were my doing, typed and tucked beneath his shirts, where I felt certain Miss Kathie would discover them. A woman torn between love and fear, it would be only a matter of time before she delivered a sealed copy to her lawyer or agent, where it would later implicate the Webster.
Forgive me for boasting, but mine was a perfect frame-up.
We intercut here with a tableau which the police discovered: Miss Kathie shot to death by a gun still gripped in the Webster’s hand. It would appear that the pair slaughtered each other amid the candles and flowers of her boudoir. The result of a failed robbery attempt. Near her lies the corpse of Mr. Bright Brown Eyes wearing a black ski mask and shot by Miss Kathie’s old gun, the rusted gun she’d retrieved from the crypt. Clutched in his hand, a pillowcase spills out pilfered praise, gold-plated, silver-plated trophies and awards. The symbolic keys to Midwestern cities. Honorary college degrees awarded to her for learning nothing.