Free In My Father's Shadow by Chris Welles Feder

tangerine trees. Yet, in spite of the loveliness around us, I often felt sad and out of place. The only children at San Simeon were made of stone and stood in the middle of fountains without their clothes on.
    Several times a day I asked Marie when we could go to see Aunt Marion. If it was before lunch, Marie reminded me, “Now you know Miss Davies spends the morning in her room and doesn’t see anyone before lunch.” After lunch Marie’s predictable answer was, “We had best keep to ourselves.” When I persisted that I didn’t see
why
we had to “keep to ourselves”
all
the time, Marie sighed. “Now, Madam, I’ve told you a hundred times if I’ve told you once. We’re to stay out of Mr. Hearst’s way and everybody else’s for that matter. You are
not
to go and bother the big people until they ask for you.”
    “Yes, Marie.”
    There was only one time Mother, Charlie, or Marion asked to see me, and that was before dinner, usually served at nine p.m. By then I was in my pajamas and ready for bed, but Marie led me to the door of the assembly room, where “the big people” were gathered. Hearst permitted his guests to have one alcoholic drink, and only one, before the evening meal, but as I later learned from Charlie, Marion was adept at hiding bottles of gin in toilet tanks, which accounted for the inordinate number of “powder rooms” at San Simeon. Herfriends smuggled bottles of booze in their luggage and hid them in their rooms, but if they were caught, they were likely to find their bags packed and out in the driveway. In any event, by the time drinks were handed around in the assembly room, everyone except Hearst had already had a few. Laughter was loud and long as Charlie demonstrated his skill at standing on his head.
    I stood in the doorway, watching. Finally Mother noticed me and called out, “Hello, Chrissie darling!” Then Marion rushed over, flushed and out of breath, dropped to her knees, and gave me a welcoming hug. “How are you, darling? Are you having fun? What did you do today? Tell me everything.” I started to, but she was already on her feet, talking to someone else. So I made the rounds, saying good night, shaking hands, smiling at whoever came lurching forward, drink in hand, to holler as though I were deaf, “Good night, Chrissie!” Then Marion, Charlie, and several others began to sing “Good night, Chrissie!” to the tune of “Good Night, Ladies!” The “big people” were howling with laughter when Marie led me away to the tower.
    T HE LAST LUNCH I had with my father at the Brown Derby, a popular eatery in Hollywood’s heyday, is the one I remember the best. “I’m going to Italy in a few weeks,” he told me, after we had made our way through the throng of autograph hunters, waiting to pounce on the stars who ate here, some so often they had their designated booths in the lively, smoky interior of the restaurant, shaped like a bowler hat. We were given a less prominent booth near the kitchen, a sign of my father’s lowered status in Hollywood, although it didn’t register on me at the time.
    “Do you know where Italy is, Christopher?”
    “No, Daddy.”
    “No? What on earth do they teach you in that school of yours? What grade are you in now?”
    “Third grade, Daddy. They skipped me again.”
    “Don’t they teach geography in the third grade?”
    “Yes, but we’ve only studied the geography of California.”
    “What? This is appalling!” His thunderous voice made the people in the next booth jump as though they had been shot. Then they swung around and stared at us, open-mouthed. To add to my embarrassment, the waiter appeared, shook out a napkin, and tied it around my neck as though I were a baby in a highchair. “We will have to do something about your education,” my father rumbled, but soon he was lost in the delights of studying the menuand conferring with the waiter. “Hmmm. How is the lobster bisque? Is it made with fresh cream? And how are the