Free In My Father's Shadow by Chris Welles Feder Page A

oysters served.” I could see him tasting each dish in his mind, lost in delicious hesitation, as though his well-being depended on whether he ordered the bisque, the oysters, the steamed mussels, or something called
gazpacho
. Meanwhile, I kicked my legs against the hard underside of the booth and studied the signed caricatures of movie stars that covered the walls, looking for people I knew. In the end, I predicted, my father would order what he usually did when we ate here: a Cobb salad, followed by another and another. He would tell me once again that the dish had been invented by the owner of the Brown Derby, David Cobb, and that whenever I ate in restaurants—not a frequent event in my nine-year-old life—I should order what the restaurant was famous for, listed on the menu as
the specialty of the house
. Now he lowered the menu and bathed me in one of his marvelous smiles. “What will you have, darling girl?”
    “A hamburger and a vanilla milkshake, please.”
    “Again?” The smile faded.
    “Yes, please, Daddy.”
    “Why don’t you be more adventurous today? How about some oysters?” I made a face. “Have you ever eaten one?” I shook my head. “Then how do you know you won’t like it? You may not know where Italy is, but we can certainly do something to educate your palate.” A burst of wheezy laughter and a conspiratorial wink at the waiter. “Bring my daughter a dozen oysters, please.”
    “Oh no, Daddy, I’ll be sick.”
    “Nonsense. Oysters are good for you.”
    The next ten minutes were misery. To distract myself from the impending disaster of gagging on the oysters and then having to run to the restroom to throw up, I asked him why he was going to Italy.
    “To be in a movie,” he said, sighing. “Not mine, unfortunately. Someone else’s. But if I want to keep working as an actor, I have to go where the work is, you know.”
    “Oh.”
    “Is that all you have to say? Just ‘oh’? Don’t you want to know
what
movie or what part I’m going to play?”
    “Yes, Daddy.”
    “I see you’re as blasé as all the other Hollywood kids, and how I make my living doesn’t really interest you.”
    I didn’t know what
blasé
meant, but from his tone, I could tell it was a disappointing quality for me to have. At such moments, the euphoria of beingwith my father became infused with anxiety. What if I didn’t measure up? Could I be myself and also be Orson’s kid? At that moment the waiter set before me a plate of oysters, so fishy-smelling my nose began to twitch. I stared down at the fat, grayish white globs stuck to their shells and told myself I might be able to get them down if I closed my eyes and pretended they were raw eggs.
    “Now use that small fork to dig one out … That’s right, Christopher. Now sprinkle a little lemon juice on it. There you go. Don’t sniff it, for God’s sake. Eat it!”
    “Do I have to chew it, Daddy?”
    “Down the hatch!” He watched while I poured one down my throat and felt it wiggle as though it were an eyeball blinking open. “Now isn’t that delicious?”
    “Yes, Daddy,” I lied. Then, after a nervous pause, “Do I have to eat them all?”
    “Just one more. That’s my girl. Now was that so terrible?”
    “No.”
    “You have to
try
things in life, Christopher. There’s a great big world out there that has nothing to do with Hollywood. Geography doesn’t begin and end with California, you know. Now what shall we order next? I’m going to have another Cobb salad …”
    “I’ll have a hamburger and a vanilla milkshake.”
    “Dear God, it’s hopeless!” He laughed, good-humoredly, though.
    The people in the next booth kept gawking at us and whispering among themselves, which meant they must be “civilians” (as movie people referred to anyone who wasn’t “in pictures” like themselves). While our neighbors made me uncomfortable, my father paid them no more attention than if they had been flies buzzing on the other side of a