The Queen of Tuesday by Darin Strauss

Author:Darin Strauss
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2020-08-17T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

WHEN THE GROUP of men parts, she walks between them, down the lane of faces.

There are photographers in her yard, there are klieg lights, reel-to-reel recorders, studio fixers, assistants; there are television cameras, there are radio antennae, there are jeeps that have sprouted telescopic arms and some of the first-ever microphone cannons. By the sage bush, red camera lights blink. But do the palm trees of California usually drop microphone cannons from their fronds? No; Chatsworth is reporter-haunted. “Distinguished members of the newspaper world” gawp at her; TV guys with their clear stares and hearty skin tones gawp at her, too.

CBS set up today’s news conference at Desi and Lucille’s home, giving them a single chance to clear her name. And now Lucille’s heels can be heard poking the soil.

She’s carrying Pinta—her bestest little floppy-eared friend, all yips and wriggles—as if the dog’s pinned to her bosom. I’ll smile, she thinks. A queasy, bad-dream tone rests over everything. Not a single face smiles back. At the end of the human lane sits her thickening husband/business partner, awaiting her with a hand spread over his mouth. His body twists half off his slack director’s chair. He’s eyeing Lucille flatly, steadily. Such discomfort. Is he angry at her? His face bloats from stifled pressure. One guy near the end of the row raises a camera, and like some cruel thought a flash sparks out from his head; but theatrical Desi, now smiling Desi, lifts his hand to take Lucille’s, and she has seen all this already happen, in just this way, she is sure of it.

She sits. Two chairs, husband and wife, accused communist and her Cuban husband, in front of a lot of standing men.

“Shall we begin, fellas?”—Desi. Right behind him, the Arnazes’ quite uncommunistic swimming pool, shimmering blue. And Lucille’s dreamed this all before.

“Thank you for coming,” she says. “I’m here to answer all your concerns,” a line she’s practiced all morning: different inflections, different tempers and humors. And now she’s made good on the delivery.

Lucille has trained to expect applause. None comes.

“Now, before you ask your questions,” Desi says, “my wife would like to explain something.” (Perhaps he has chosen explain because it is part of his catchphrase.)

Lucille’s next to Desi—Pinta in her lap now—and she hasn’t released his grip. With the other hand, she squeezes her chair. The dream keeps playing out. As for Desi, tense leg muscles press contours in his trousers. He’s quiet but far from uncommunicative—there can be a ferocity in silence.

Lucille has a different approach. Okay, she thinks. Letting go of the chair, lighting a cigarette. Showtime.

“I didn’t know a thing about politics in 1936. I registered as a commie only to please Grandpa, who was, yes, I admit, a socialist in those days. Maybe I play ditzy well because I was ditzy.”

“No one knew this stuff then,” Desi says and gives her hand a further squeeze. She squeezes his back.

“Thank you, darling.” On the show, this would’ve been a wry punch line.

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