Minnie was standing on her balcony when I pulled up outside her building. She clutched a cigarette in one hand and the wrought iron rail in the other, her calves showing through her old silk nightgown. The red barrel roof tiled eaves cast a shadow over her face. When she looked off into the distance, she looked almost like she had when she played a Mexican revolutionary’s mistress in The Desert King thirty years ago.
I cut the engine on my ‘60 Impala and climbed the stairs to Minnie’s apartment with one arm wrapped around a bag of groceries. My eyes adjusted to the dimness of the building as I made my way down Minnie’s third-floor hallway. It reeked of cigarettes and camphor. I knocked on her heavy oak door and waited, tugging impatiently on the belt loops of my jeans. I knocked again. I could hear her cat, Paco, meowing on the other side.
“Come on, Minnie, I don’t have all day,” I muttered to myself as I leaned closer to the door, hoping to hear footsteps.
Finally, the little brass peephole opened and I could see her cocoa eye peering at me through the round opening. I heard the latches clack as she opened them one by one. She scooped Paco into her arms as she stepped back to let me in.
“It ain’t no sin!” squawked Chichi, her peridot-green parrot, who was perched on a brass curtain rod. I hurriedly closed the door so he wouldn’t fly into the corridor. Years ago, when a movie studio was hawking a Mae West film, some promoter trained Chichi and forty-nine other parrots to repeat “It ain’t no sin!” over and over. But then the studio shit-canned the movie and the promoter was stuck with the chatty tropical flock. Minnie was under contract with the studio then, and the promoter begged her to take one of the birds home with her. Sometimes, Minnie joked that Chichi would outlive her.
I set the groceries on the counter and unpacked them for her: Wheaties, skim milk, canned salmon, bananas, birdseed, cigarettes, diet pills. I heard the soft rustling of feathers as Chichi left his curtain rod and came to perch on my shoulder, his talons biting slightly into the fabric of my t-shirt. He rubbed his head against my cheek and I held my breath so I wouldn’t sneeze.
“You didn’t bring any gin?” she asked as she inspected the items on the counter.
“I just brought you some the other day,” I said as I opened the fridge. It was empty save for a box of baking soda and some moldy strawberries. I had brought them to her the same day I came over with the gin.
“You didn’t eat these?” I asked, shoving the grey-fuzzed berries under her nose.
“I wasn’t in the mood for fruit,” she said, tilting her nose into the air.
“Before I leave today, you’re going to eat a banana,” I said. I didn’t really want to watch her eat a banana with her brown teeth, but I couldn’t go back to my grandfather’s house and tell him I wasn’t sure she’d eaten something.
My grandfather started managing Minnie’s career in ‘48 when the studio system fell apart. Her career only lasted a few years more after that, but for some reason, my grandfather thought it was his job to keep her alive. For twenty years, he brought her gin and cigarettes and food she didn’t eat. But five months ago, he fell in the shower and couldn’t make it up the stairs to Minnie’s apartment anymore. Now, he sat in a wheelchair with a knitted blanket across his lap. Every few days, he peeled $20 out of his wallet and sends me to the store with Minnie’s grocery order. If she needed to go somewhere, like the podiatrist or the dentist or the beauty parlor, he pressed a note with written instructions into my hand. It always came with a slight nod, as if to say, don’t tell your grandmother. But Grandma knew.
“I’ve known all about it since 1956!” is what she always said.
My father took over the talent agency, and he insisted there was nothing to know, other than groceries.
“Can you sit a minute?” Minnie asked after I’d put away the milk and thrown out the bad strawberries.
“A minute,” I said, only I knew it will be longer than a minute. She put Chichi in his cage and led me out to her balcony. Paco followed us but she shooed him back into the apartment and shut the balcony door.
I leaned over the balcony rail and looked down at the fan palm that stood on the street just outside Minnie’s building. Through its blade-thin leaves, I could see slivers of black and silver: my car and its chrome bumper. I visualized getting in it and slamming my foot on the gas.
I was due to meet my boyfriend in Los Feliz in two hours. He lived just a block from where those Manson people killed Sharon Tate. I hated driving over there, but Jeff wouldn’t move out of his parents’ house. He kept telling me he hadn’t saved enough money but I knew he would float around in their kidney-shaped pool as long as his mom kept leaving Tequila Sunrises for him on the deck.
Everybody seemed to like Jeff. When I told my friend Sally that I was thinking of ending it with him, she said, “But he’s so much fun and he’s got all that great hair!”
“You going to see that boyfriend later?” Minnie asked. She joined me at the railing and lit another cigarette.
“After I leave here,” I said.
She fixed her eyes on me as she took a long drag from her cigarette. She blew the smoke out through her nostrils like a cartoon dragon. A small dog in the apartment below let out a few sharp yips.
“You should dump him,” she said, taking another drag.
“Oh yeah?” I asked, turning to face her. “Why?” A weird prickling sensation raised the hairs on my arms. I crossed them behind my back.
Minnie narrowed her eyes and it reminded me of the first scene of Edge of Dawn. “I don’t like him.”
“You’ve never even met him, Minnie.”
Minne flicked ash over the balcony rail. “It doesn’t matter. You’re going to dump him.”
“Whatever you say, Minnie,” I said. “Are you going to eat that banana or do I have to shove it down your throat?”
Dutifully, she peeled the banana with her knobby fingers. I didn’t watch her bite into it but I could hear her lips smacking as she ate it. I fought the urge to jam my fingers into my ears to block out the ugly wet noise. When she was done, she handed me the peel. As I walked back into the apartment to throw it away, Chichi squawked, “It ain’t no sin!”
An hour later, I parked next to the curb in front of Jeff’s house. For a moment, I stood looking toward the gate at the end of the street, the one that should have kept those murderers out of the house where Sharon Tate was staying. So what if it was five years ago?
I shivered a little as I walked around to the back of Jeff’s house. I found him in the water, twirling lazily with an inflatable innertube around his waist. The pool water was toilet-cleaner blue.
He reached a dripping hand toward me. “Get in here,” he said. Before I could respond, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me in, the water suddenly soaking every stitch of clothing I had on. My shoes filled with water until they anchored my feet to the bottom of the pool. I struggled to kick them off.
“Minnie was right,” I said, angrily splashing water in Jeff’s face. “I should dump you.”
Jeff laughed, throwing his head back so I could see all of his fillings. “So you’re taking advice from that old witch now?”
“Maybe,” I said, annoyed that I couldn’t think of a better comeback. Maybe Minne was a witch, and that’s why she was the only one who could see past Jeff’s thick blonde hair. Then I remembered that she’d never seen his hair.
“Don’t you ever stop to wonder why your grandpa still takes care of her after all these years?”
I said nothing. Of course, I wondered, but I knew better than to ask questions about things that weren’t my business.
“It’s so obvious,” Jeff said. “It’s hush money. They had an affair, she had an abortion, and she’s got him on an installment plan in exchange for keeping quiet.”
I rolled my eyes as I swam to the edge of the pool. I put my palms flat on the pool deck and hoisted myself out of the water. As I sat on the deck, I peeled off my top so I could wring it out. I wanted to take off my jeans too, but I knew I’d never get them back on as long as they were wet, and I didn’t want to wait for them to dry. Plus, I didn’t want Jeff getting any ideas.
“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “An abortion? In the ‘50s?”
“People had abortions then,” he said. “You think people only started getting them last year when the court made it legal?”
I squeezed my twisted-up shirt again and watched the last few drops fall away. Then I draped it across a plastic chaise and hoped it would dry.
“My grandfather did not sleep with her and did not pay for her abortion,” I said.
Jeff spun around, creating little semi-circular ripples on the surface of the water. I glimpsed the red trunks he had on. They had white piping around the hem and looked just like the ones that came with my Ken doll.
“How do you know?” he demanded.
“Get my shoes,” I said, pointing to my two sunken sneakers on the bottom of the pool.
“You’re leaving?” he asked. “You’ve only been here a few minutes.”
“Get my shoes,” I repeated. I snatched my damp shirt from the chaise lounge and pulled it over my head.
“Only if you say you’re not dumping me,” he said.
“Fine,” I said, staring right into his green eyes, “keep the shoes.” As I walked barefoot back to my car, the hot pavement singed my soles.
“Come on, Tina!” I heard Jeff yell.
My jeans dried while I sat in traffic. When I got home, they were so tight, I had to call my sister, Laura, to come over and yank them off.
“Why do these smell like chlorine?” she asked.
“That asshole Jeff,” I said. “He pulled me into the pool. I’m done with him.”
Laura raised an eyebrow. “Just because he pulled you into a pool? He’s spontaneous! And he’s got --”
“Don’t say it.” I didn’t want to hear about Jeff’s hair ever again. I stuffed the jeans into my laundry bag.
“Laura, do you ever wonder why Grandpa cares so much about Minnie?”
She shrugged. “Not really. You’re the one who’s stuck with Minnie duty, so I don’t think about it much.”
“Jeff said it has to be because they had an affair and Grandpa paid for Minnie’s abortion.”
Laura’s eyebrows jumped. Laura looked almost exactly like our grandmother: the same oval face, dark eyes and wavy auburn hair.
“That’s impossible,” she said.
“That’s what I think too,” I said. “But why?”
“What do you mean why? Because he’s still alive! Grandma has known for years that he visits Minnie and buys her things, and she’s never bashed his head in with a cast-iron skillet and hidden the body in the fallout shelter, that’s why.”
I nodded, remembering the dark cement-block bunker buried under the yard at their house in the Santa Monica Canyon. Grandma sometimes let us take our Barbies down there when we were kids. We would arrange the cans of peaches, peas and tomato sauce into the shape of a castle for Barbie and Ken to live in.
“I guess you’re right,” I said.
That night, I lay awake thinking about Minnie. She was born in Mexico in 1914 to a wealthy family that owned coffee plantations in Oaxaca and El Salvador. Her name was Yolanda Minerva Salazar Jimenez but she became Minnie Cartwright when she came to Hollywood in 1931. She bleached her hair and took lessons to kill her accent but none of it stopped her from losing roles to Jean Harlow. When David O. Selznick wanted an unknown to play Scarlett O’Hara, Minnie auditioned and all but had the role until Vivian Leigh came along and sat on Selznick’s lap. At least, that was Minnie’s version of the story.
Minnie didn’t catch a break until Hollywood started cranking out Westerns. She let her black roots grow out and stopped trying to dampen her accent. Suddenly, she was sweeping the floors of adobe huts, wearing shawls, and riding on a horse with her arms wrapped around Glenn Ford’s waist. She drowned in a Mexican river in Edge of Dawn and escaped a mean drunk husband by riding off on a stolen horse in Speed Queen. In Sonoran Lace, she charmed John Wayne by dancing for coins in a saloon. Clark Gable rescued her from marauding Indians in Battle of Antelope Canyon.
The Academy nominated her for an award for her role as the fiery Camila Reyes in The Desert King but she lost to Jennifer Jones, who won for The Song of Bernadette.
Minnie had a few big roles after that, but slowly, they became smaller and the offers were fewer. When Grandfather became her agent, he got her some movie parts and a few roles in commercials, but after a while, they both realized that her lucky streak was done.
Her parents died and left her the estate. A fire had destroyed the plantation in El Salvador, and the proceeds from the sale of the Mexican plantation were enough to set up a trust that paid Minnie a small annual stipend that was supposed to last for the rest of her life.
I knew Grandpa worried she might outlive it. But she’d done nothing but putter around that apartment, clutching a glass of gin, since 1955. How much longer could she really have?
A few days later, Grandpa called. I leaned over to kiss his papery cheek and breathed his amber-and-lavender cologne. The afghan on his lap was patched together with multi-colored squares. His hand trembled as he reached for his wallet and slowly opened it. He gave me twenty dollars and a note that said instructed me to take Minnie to the beauty parlor. I wanted to tell him that he should look after himself and stop worrying about a washed-up actress with a dwindling trust fund, but I glanced down at his hands, folded on top of the afghan. They looked so fragile, with thick veins showing through the thinning skin.
“I’ll go over there now,” I said.
“You’re a good girl, Tina,” he said, his voice hoarse from decades of smoking.
When I arrived at Minnie’s, she wore a navy blue dress with a white belt and gloves to match.
“Nobody wears dresses with big skirts like that anymore,” I said.
“Then what do you call that?” she said, pointing to my bellbottoms.
At the beauty parlor, a male beautician faked a smile. “Minnie’s here! My favorite customer.” He glanced over Minnie’s head, flashing me a knowing look.
I flipped through Rolling Stone while Minnie had her hair washed and set. Minnie talked the whole time, reciting her filmography while the beautician nodded and pretended he’d never heard it before.
When they were done, I paid the guy and added a big tip. He winked at me and discreetly squeezed my wrist. He gave Minnie air kisses near both cheeks.
As we walked back to my car, Minnie said, “A nice boy. He reminds me of your grandfather.”
I laughed. My grandfather, a gay hairdresser? And that’s when it hit me: Minnie was keeping Grandpa’s secret, but it was his alone. I looked over at Minnie. Without saying a word, she met my gaze and nodded.
I put the car in gear and drove back to Minnie’s apartment. She gripped the railing with one hand and my arm with the other as we slowly made our way up to her unit. Once inside, she went to the fridge and poured herself a glass of gin. Paco brushed past my legs, purring.
“How did you know?” I asked, finally.
She swallowed her gin and poured another glass. “One night, he called me from a motel by the border. He’d gone to meet a man there but the bastard hit him and took his money. I drove your grandpa back to L.A. and he stayed with me until his bruises went away. He told your grandma he was in Mexico, scouting new talent.”
Outside, a siren wailed, and Chichi squawked, his emerald feathers ruffling. Paco nuzzled my knee and I scooped him into my arms.
“Why did he call you?” I asked.
Minnie tilted her head and squinted as if the question I’d asked was ridiculous. “He was my friend,” she said. “Anyway, he told me he thought getting married would make it all go away, but it didn’t. He said he couldn’t make his wife happy.”
“You mean…my grandmother knows?”
Minnie stumbled as she groped for the dining room table. I took hold of her elbow as she eased herself into the chair. “Why do you think she never cared that he came to see me? She thought, better her friends should think her husband a cheater than a queer.”
I sat across from Minnie. Chichi sat on the curtain rod, picking his feathers with his beak until one small green plume fell gently onto the lace tablecloth.
“You dump that boyfriend yet?” she asked.
I nodded. “But I left my shoes in his pool.”
“Eh,” she said, waving away my comment with a flick of her wrist, “you buy new ones.” She glanced up at Chichi and made kissing noises until he came and landed on her shoulder.
The bird bobbed his head and looked at me with his shining black eyes. He squawked, “It ain’t no sin,” and spread his wings.