Starchela in LA

Chapter Twenty-Eight: FLASHBACK THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - FLASHBACK THREE

The knock on the door came as Amy was setting the table for dinner. In this quiet little town, nobody came to your doorstep whom you didn't know was coming, especially after sundown. Amy didn't know of anybody coming. Her husband Rick had come home from work, took a shower, and was upstairs putting on his flannels for dinner.

Puzzled, Amy set down the last dish, and stepped over to the front door. As she was crossing the hallway, another loud knock echoed in the anteroom.

"Coming," Amy said while trying to get a glimpse through the glass panels lining the door. The porch light revealed a tall silhouette.

Amy opened the door, and took in the sight.

The stranger was tall and humorless. Looked straight at her with his blue northern eyes without a trace of a greeting smile. His suit was shiny and wrinkle-free, his hands were black leather. He peeled off the gloves.

"I am Torquevald Nordon." The man's accent was as rigid as his face. "I come from Los Angeles, from your sister."

Amy looked past him, at the lane in the fading dusk, in the gathering dark – instinctively, she looked for... what, confirmation where he was coming from? There was a black car, a limousine of some sort, parked at the curb.

"You know my sister?" Amy asked.

"I am her husband," the northerner said. "I think she is losing her mind."

He was dead serious. He meant what he said, and in a bizarre way he was profoundly sad about it. It got Amy worried that it might be true.

"You are Lilly's husband?" she wanted confirmation.

"I see you are in a delicate position," he said. "I didn't know. I don't mean to cause you any turmoil. I can leave if you want."

"You came here... why?"

"You may be the only person who can help her. But if you don't want to get involved, I can understand. I'll go back and see what I can do on my own."

Amy put her hand on her pregnant belly. Her seven-month-old daughter was in there, and aunt Lilly's troubles were not coming at a welcome moment. "You came all the way from L.A. You had a reason." She was looking for confirmation from the tall stranger that the problem was serious enough for her to allow it into her life at such a moment.

"She will be lost to us," he said.

"Come in."

FLASHBACK WITHIN THE FLASHBACK

His wife was in her boudoir, sitting at the backstage mirror from her days as an actress. She had the mirror brought over from the costume and make-up room of the Stella Adler Theater on Hollywood Blvd. where she had taken acting classes. It was the first thing she had signed up for as soon as she came to L.A., even before she changed her name to Evangeline Lilly. That costume and make-up room with its smells and murmured lines of dialogue, afternoons teeming with attractive young actors from all over the world, the expectation of big breaks and compromise – those sunny days of youth before the loss of innocence. She had made it. She had become a star. She had gone back and bought the mirror framed by light bulbs. She had it installed in the boudoir of her new mansion in Bel Air. Now, years later, she was sitting in front of it in her bag lady make-up, mumbling lines to herself.

Torquevald Nordon looked in.

"It's very realistic, that make up."

She didn't flinch, didn't pause her train of lines.