Free Fade to Black by Wendy Corsi Staub Page B

manager.
    “You’ll never get caught. Everyone does it,” he had told her, puffing glibly on a fat, illegal Cuban cigar.
    And Mallory Eden had been around that town long enough to believe him. That didn’t mean she had to do it too, but she had, recklessly, giddy with her incredible financial success.
    Again Gran’s voice comes echoing back to her over the years....
    “I don’t care what everyone else is doing. If everyone decided to jump off a bridge, would you do it too, Cindy?”
    The irony in that oft-repeated grandmotherly pearl strikes her now, and she has to smile.
    No, Gran , she thinks, I wouldn’t jump off a bridge .
    And I didn’t jump off a bridge .
    The world just thinks I did .
    Well …
    Not the whole world.
    Apparently, there are people who believe that Mallory Eden, like Elvis, is alive and well.
    One person in particular.
    And he has found her again …
    Or has he?
    What else could that eerie greeting card mean?
    I know who you are .
    Don’t start thinking about it , she commands herself once more. If you think about it, you’ll want to get out as fast as you can....
    And Manny needs you here, to make his costume .
    But the card …
    And the phone call …
    Think about something else....
    Anything else .
    Think about eating your soup and sandwich, and about Gran....
    She picks up her spoon again and forces herself to eat, to remember how she and Gran would chat about movie stars and TV shows as they ate their supper—at least, in the early days.
    Gran always knew who all of the big stars were, and she gossiped about them like they were neighbors right there down Orchard Lane.
    “Did you hear about Farrah and Lee? She left him for another man,” Gran would report, shaking her gray head.
    Or, “I don’t know why that nice Rock Hudson doesn’t get married again. He’s such a good catch, don’t you think?”
    Later, when things had grown strained between them and Gran went around with perpetually pursed lips over Cindy’s wild ways, the channel six newsanchor in the next room would be the only one talking at suppertime.
    And, typically, Gran would be the only one eating, especially when the meal consisted of grilled cheese and tomato soup.
    “Do you know how fattening that is?” the teenage Cindy would ask, poking at the buttery golden sandwich oozing gooey cheese on her plate.
    “Well, you could use a little meat on your bones,” Gran would invariably retort.
    She had always thought Cindy was too thin, God bless her.
    But Cindy had known, even then, that you couldn’t be too thin if you planned to be an actress.
    And Lord, how she had wanted to be an actress.
    She had dreamed of it ever since her first ballet recital, when she was five and gawky and dressed, like the other little ballerinas, in a pink leotard and white apron, clutching a wooden spoon as a prop for the big finale, ‘If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d’a Baked a Cake.”
    The audience had applauded like crazy, and, of course, there was Gran in the front row, jumping up and down and yelling her name.
    Afterward, Gran had taken her, still in her costume with rouge on her cheeks, to Friendly’s for an ice cream sundae. The waitress and all the other customers there had noticed her, making a big fuss over her. She had lapped up all that attention and praise right along with the sumptuous chocolate-peanut-butter ice cream, feeling special for the first time in her short life.
    “If only your mama could have seen you tonight,” Gran had whispered as she tucked Cindy into bed after they got home.
    Those words would haunt Cindy long afterward, as she had often wondered what her grandmother had meant by that.
    If only your mama could have seen you … what?
    She would be so proud?
    She would wish she had never taken off without a backward glance?
    She would change her mind and come back to raise you, the way a mama should?
    Elizabeth will never know what Gran had meant by that cryptic statement, and it doesn’t matter anymore