Pleasant Memories
Delta Gilley could hear her footsteps echo through the house as she took one last look into the empty rooms. Each was filled with cherished memories from the thirty-two years she had lived there. She closed her eyes and could almost hear her children's laughter as they played in the vacant bedrooms. Now they were grown with families of their own. Her son was living in Seattle, her daughter in New York. Although Delta spoke to them on the phone on a regular basis, she saw her son only on Christmas and Thanksgiving. Since her daughter was a four-hour drive away, she saw her more frequently. Still, she missed them both terribly.
Now that Niels, her husband, was gone, she supposed she could live with one of her children, but she did not want to be a burden. Nor did she want to remain alone in a large four-bedroom house. With retirement just around the bend, Delta had her eye on maintenance-free living. As she was searching real estate listings for a reasonably priced condominium, however, an opportunity came her way that she could not pass up.
"My mother is getting up there in age," Embeth Payton Westmeyer, wife of a renowned Boston heart surgeon and heiress to a department store fortune, explained. "I can't stay home with her every day, and I don't feel comfortable leaving her unattended. I realize there are excellent institutions to care for the elderly, but I promised her long ago I'd never send her away. The only solution to my dilemma is to hire a full-time nurse. Dr. Sayles, who is an old med school buddy of my husband's, gave me your name. He believes you might be willing to accept the job."
"Well, I am at a crossroads in my life," Delta replied. "My husband just passed away, and I wanted to move into a smaller place."
"In addition to your salary, we will provide room and board. My mother lives in a guesthouse on our estate. It has three bedrooms, one of which will be yours."
"I suppose I could put off house-hunting for now."
"Your duties will be light," Embeth continued. "A housekeeper will do the cleaning, and we have a cook to provide your dinner. Your primary responsibility will be that of a babysitter. Plus, as a trained nurse, you'll be there should my mother's health deteriorate."
"Is there something wrong with her?"
"It's Alzheimer's, but she's still in the early stages."
"I've worked with many patients suffering from dementia."
"Yes, I know. That's why you were recommended to us."
After discussing salary and benefits, Delta agreed to take the job.
It took her several days to pack her personal belongings and move them to a self-storage unit. She then donated her furniture to the Salvation Army and put her house on the market. Finally, she summoned the courage to walk out the front door. As the widow crossed the threshold, she felt her throat constrict as she fought back the urge to cry. When she pulled the door closed behind her, Delta heard the click of the lock mark the end of one chapter of her life and the beginning of a new one.
* * *
Eighty-two-year-old Rosamond Tillett, daughter of the founder of Payton's, one of North America's largest department stores, proved to be a delight to care for. Although more than twenty-five years separated them in age, the elderly woman and her caregiver soon became close friends.
"I'm glad my daughter and son-in-law hired you," Rosamond confided one evening. "I get lonely being here all by myself. Even when Embeth is home, I rarely go up to the main house. I hate to intrude."
"I know what you mean," Delta said. "After Niels died, both my children asked me to go live with them, but it just doesn't seem right. I want them to enjoy their lives without worrying about me."
"That's exactly how I feel. For years, I refused to move out of my home, but eventually I compromised by agreeing to live here in the guesthouse."
"This is a lovely place."
"Yes, but like I said before, I get lonely here."
"Well, now you've got me."
From midmorning to the middle of the afternoon, Delta and Rosamond would go shopping, play cards, go out to lunch or simply pass the time with pleasant conversation. By about three o'clock, the elderly woman would begin to tire. Her caregiver would run a bath for her and shampoo her hair when needed. The family's cook brought over dinner at six, and by eight Rosamond was ready for bed. Delta had the evenings to herself. Luckily, she had brought a supply of books with her since there were few programs she enjoyed watching on television.
The nurse had been living in the Westmeyers' guesthouse for just over a month when one afternoon, as the two women were enjoying a cup of tea, Rosamond glanced down at the cover of a book lying on the coffee table, one Delta had been reading the previous evening. Entitled Great Hollywood Scandals and Mysteries, it dealt with the darker history of the film capital. A picture of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was on the cover.
"Hollywood just isn't the same anymore," the old woman said, her eyes staring ahead as though looking into her own past.
"Times change," the nurse agreed.
"I miss the good old days. Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Mack Sennet and his Keystone Cops."
Delta performed a quick mental calculation and concluded that Rosamond was born in 1933, but the silent movie era ended in 1929. Of course, thanks to video streaming and DVDs, it was possible she was able to watch some of the early classic movies at a later time.
"I don't like to brag, but I was one of the highest paid performers in pictures," the old woman continued.
"Really? I'm surprised your daughter never mentioned that to me. If my mother was once an actress, I'd want people to know."
"I had just signed another contract with Paramount Studios, and some friends of mine and I went up to San Francisco over Labor Day weekend to celebrate. We took a room at the St. Francis. We were all drinking and having a good time when an actress by the name of Virginia Rappe showed up with her friend, Maude Delmont."
The names struck a chord in Delta's memory. She picked up the book on the coffee table and scanned through the pages.
"Here it is," she announced. "Virginia Rappe. She was the young woman who died after attending a party at the St. Francis Hotel. Fatty Arbuckle was later accused of murdering her."
"I never laid a hand on her! I found her in my room, lying on the bed, holding her stomach and moaning in pain."
"Why are you speaking in the first person? Just who is it you think you are?"
"My name is Roscoe, but everyone calls me Fatty."
"Have you been reading this book?" Delta asked.
"No. I've never seen it until today."
Rosamond continued to recount facts from the comedian's life as though they were her own memories. Her description of Arbuckle's three criminal trials contained more details than were given in the book. Assuming the old woman was not simply embellishing her story, how did she know so much about events that occurred nearly a century ago?
She said she hasn't read this book, but she could have read a different one, Delta reasoned. Or perhaps she's seen a televised biography on him.
Still, it was odd that she spoke as though the memories were her own.
* * *
A week later there was a similar episode. Delta was still reading the same book and had left it open on the couch when she went to the kitchen for a glass of water. Rosamond had woken from a short, late afternoon nap and went out into the living room.
"Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?" the nurse offered when she saw her patient sitting in the living room.
"Poor Paul," she said, ignoring the other woman's offer.
"Who is Paul?"
"My husband. He was always so good to me. That's why I married him despite the difference in our ages. I had no idea he was already married."
A warning bell rang in Delta's head, and her eyes went to the book she'd been reading, specifically to the full page photograph of the 1930s platinum blond bombshell, Jean Harlow.
"What happened to Paul?" she asked.
"I don't really know. I was visiting my mother when his body was found."
"Your husband's name was Paul Bern?"
"Yes. He was an executive at MGM."
"And you're Jean Harlow?"
"That's right."
Delta listened with rapt attention as Rosamond described her relationship with her mother, Mama Jean; her stepfather, Marino Bello; filmmaker Howard Hughes; cinematographer Harold Rosson; and actor William Powell. Again, her account of the late actress' life was much more comprehensive than the one given in the book. Delta had seen two movies about Harlow, one starring Carroll Baker and another one featuring Carol Lynley in the title role. Perhaps Rosamond had seen one or both of them, too.
The elderly patient was still going on about the late sex symbol's dysfunctional family life when the cook brought dinner over from the main house. As the two women sat down to enjoy the coq au vin, the false memories faded away and the old woman became herself again.
* * *
Embeth Westmeyer had just returned from a two-week trip to Paris and paid one of her infrequent visits to her mother.
"How's she doing?" she asked Delta, as though the older woman was not capable of answering for herself.
"She has her good days and her bad," the nurse replied. "The medicine still seems to be working well."
"Good."
"There's one thing I've been meaning to ask you," she said, attempting to satisfy her curiosity. "Does your mother have an interest in old movie stars?"
"Not that I'm aware of. Why do you ask?"
Delta told her employer about her mother's recalling the lives of celebrities and believing they were her own.
"It's eerie," the nurse said. "Just yesterday she saw a photograph of George Reeves and went into great detail describing his part in Gone with the Wind, his role as Superman, his affair with Toni Mannix and his engagement to Lenore Lemmon."
"I'm sure she's just remembering things she read in the newspaper. Don't they say that people with Alzheimer's recall things from the distant past with greater clarity than they do more recent events?"
"Yes, that's often the case."
"Well, that explains it. You didn't know my mother before she became ill. She was never a sentimental woman. She believed in living life in the moment. I don't think I ever once heard her speak of my grandparents or of her childhood, which I gather was a very lonely one. Perhaps that's why she has no photographs or mementos from her youth."
"But your mother doesn't realize it's someone else's life she's remembering. She believes they are her own memories."
"What are you saying?" Embeth asked somewhat defensively.
"I don't know. I've never come across this sort of thing before. It's as though she were channeling other people's memories."
"You think my mother is psychic?"
"Has she ever shown such tendencies before?"
Embeth's demeanor immediately changed and she stood to leave.
"My mother is suffering from dementia, Mrs. Gilley, and I won't have her dignity destroyed any further by this foolish nonsense about her speaking to dead movie stars. I hired you to watch over her so that she doesn't wander off or hurt herself. You're to see that she eats regularly, bathes and takes her medication. Can you do that, or should I look elsewhere for a nurse?"
Delta was stunned by her employer's angry outburst.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Westmeyer. I didn't mean to upset you."
"Please," Embeth said, her voice softening, "just take care of my mother to the best of your ability and don't encourage this bizarre behavior any further."
"Certainly."
However, Delta had no control over the strange mental trips her patient took into other people's lives. Less than a week after Embeth Westmeyer had expressed her displeasure in her mother's conduct, Rosamond had another such episode.
One afternoon as Delta and her patient were playing Scrabble, the older woman lost interest in the game.
"Where's that book you were reading?" she asked.
"On the coffee table," Delta answered.
"Not that one," Rosamond said when she saw a Gillian Flynn novel lying there. "I want to see the book about Hollywood."
"I already finished it."
"Good. May I read it?"
Delta initially considered telling her patient that she no longer had the book since she did not want to trigger another incident, but then she reconsidered.
"Here it is," she said after retrieving it from a box in the bottom of her bedroom closet.
Rosamond began thumbing through the pages as Delta went to the kitchen to fix them both a snack. When the nurse returned, her patient was once again lost in someone else's past.
"The first time I went to Las Vegas, I knew it had the potential of being a gold mine. All I had to do was convince Meyer of it."
For the next hour, Delta listened to Rosamond tell her about Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel's early life in New York's Lower East Side. She spoke at great length of his association with Meyer Lansky, Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Frank Costello and Albert Anastasia. She followed his career from New York to California where he ran the syndicate's West Coast operations, and then to Nevada where he built a hotel and casino.
"I named it the Flamingo after Virginia Hill. That was her nickname, Flamingo, on account of her long, thin legs."
Then, feeling guilty that she was going against her employer's express wishes, Delta tried to steer the conversation away from the slain gangster.
"All this talk about crime and murder!" she exclaimed. "Why don't you let me get you another book? How about a romance? I think I have a Danielle Steele novel in my room."
When Delta tried to take the book from her, Rosamond grabbed it back. It fell to the floor, and the page flipped from a chapter on Bugsy Siegel to one on Lana Turner. Immediately, the old woman stopped talking about Siegel's close friendship with George Raft and began recalling the first time "Sweater Girl" Turner met two-bit hoodlum Johnny Stompanato.
Delta gave in to her patient's wishes and sat back and listened as Rosamond described the night Turner's daughter, Cheryl Crane, stabbed her mother's lover, the girl's arrest and Lana's emotion-packed testimony on the stand at Crane's trial.
Finally, as the afternoon began to wane and the sun started to set, the old woman grew tired. After a hot bath and a light dinner, she went to bed and slept soundly throughout the night.
* * *
For the next few days, Rosamond delved into the lives of Hollywood legends despite Delta's efforts to keep the book from her. The nurse even tried to toss it in the trash while her patient was asleep, but the following morning the elderly woman threw what could only be described as a temper tantrum until the book was given back.
I suppose looking at it doesn't really cause her any harm, Delta thought optimistically. Probably no more than it caused me harm to read it.
At the end of the week, however, as Rosamond was reviewing the highlights of Rudolph Valentino's life, her daughter showed up for one of her unexpected visits.
"What's that you have?" Embeth asked, taking the book from her mother's hands.
Delta quickly jumped in, trying to avoid a possible problem.
"It's just something I was reading in the evenings to pass the time."
"It's mine!" Rosamond cried.
Embeth opened the book to a chapter on Anna Nicole Smith.
"This is the kind of trash one reads in the supermarket tabloids! If you want something worthwhile to read, we have a library up at the house, fully stocked with the best literature ...."
"Give it to me!" the old woman shouted, reaching out her hands to grab the book back from her daughter.
"Really! Your behavior is ...."
Embeth stopped when she realized the old woman was reciting events from Anna Nicole's tragic life.
"There I was holding my daughter, Dannielynn, and having to buy my son, Daniel."
"Stop it, Mother!"
"And through it all, I had Pierce still trying to screw me out of the money his father left me."
"Make her stop," Embeth commanded the nurse.
"It's as I told you. She sees a photograph and then recalls the subject's memories as her own."
"She's remembering news stories—that's all."
"No, she isn't. She saw the picture of my husband and children that I keep on my night table. She remembered events from their lives that even I wasn't aware of."
"My life was like a runaway train," Rosamond continued, oblivious of the other two women in the room. "I couldn't control my weight or stop taking drugs."
With a look of grim determination, Embeth marched out of the guesthouse, not even bothering to shut the door behind her.
That didn't go well, Delta thought. I suppose it's time for me to start looking for that condo.
Ten minutes later, however, her employer returned. In her hand was a framed eight-by-ten photograph of Rosamond Tillett as a young bride.
"It's the only picture I have of you," she said as she handed the photo to her mother.
The elderly woman stared down at her own likeness and remained silent.
"Well?" Embeth prompted. "What do you remember now?"
Rosamond closed her eyes, shook her head and tried to force her daughter to take back the photograph.
"Look at the picture, Mother. Remember your own memories and forget about obsessing on the lives of dead celebrities."
"Maybe you shouldn't try to force her ...," Delta began, trying to diffuse the potentially explosive situation.
"Stay out of this," Embeth snapped. "I blame you for filling her head with all this psychic nonsense. It's about time she remembers who she is and behaves like a Payton!"
The angry daughter defiantly shoved the photograph back toward her mother.
"Look at the picture. Damn it! This is Rosamond Payton, daughter of the late Sylvester Payton. You were born into one of the finest families ...."
The old woman looked at the attractive, young face of the bride and screamed. Eventually, she calmed down enough to look at the wedding portrait.
"My father ...," Rosamond moaned as though in pain. "Sylvester Payton was a respected businessman, a pillar of the community. He was also a well-known philanthropist who often dined at the White House."
"That's right," Embeth said with familial pride. "That's your life you're remembering, not that of some trashy Playboy pinup."
"When he was sixty, he met a seventeen-year-old aspiring model. I had seen Bunny Barkley with my father on several occasions. She was young, blond and beautiful, and I thought she looked like an angel. My mother was a cold, distant woman who rarely spent time with me. But Bunny was kind to me. She would bring me treats and small gifts on occasion. No wonder my father preferred her to my mother."
Realizing where the old woman's recollections were heading, Embeth tried to stop her from revealing any possible skeletons in the Payton family closet. However, her mother paid no attention to her.
"I was a lonely child. Growing up, I was raised and educated by a succession of stern nannies and tutors, none of whom cared one bit about me. Taking care of me was nothing more than a job to them. They didn't like me; they endured me."
"There's no need to put yourself through this," Embeth said, taking the photograph away.
"I began to look forward to those rare times when I got to see Bunny," Rosamond continued, no longer needing a picture to stir her memories. "One day, when my mother was visiting friends in London, she came to our house. I saw her outside my bedroom window. When she stepped out of my father's car, she looked like a princess. Her hair was done up and she had on a full-length fur coat."
"I think it's time for a break now," the employer told the nurse. "Why don't you make some tea, and I'll have my cook bring over a plate of the scones she baked this morning."
Delta headed toward the kitchen, but she could still hear the old woman speaking.
"My father brought her into the house, and they headed upstairs to the attic."
"That's enough, Mother!"
"I waited in my room for Bunny to come downstairs. I idolized her. In the absence of any other female role models, I wanted to be like her. I wanted to look like her, dress like her and walk like her."
"Did you hear me? I said that's enough."
"After an hour or so, I couldn't wait any longer. I walked up the stairs to ...."
"For God's sake, Mother, shut your mouth!"
"I opened the door, and there she was. She had taken her clothes off and was hanging from the ceiling by her arms. There were welts on her body, some deep enough to bleed. I saw my father raise his hand and strike her with a whip."
"Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!" Embeth screamed and slapped her elderly parent across the face.
Delta ran into the room to protect her patient.
"If you strike your mother again, I'll phone the police," she threatened.
Not even the blow to her face stopped the old woman from speaking.
"I begged my father not to hurt her anymore. I was far too young and sheltered to realize that the pain and humiliation he was inflicting on her formed the basis of their relationship. He was furious that I had walked in on him, and Bunny turned away from me, crying, ashamed that I had seen her under such degrading circumstances. My father made me swear not to tell my mother, but I couldn't keep such a terrible secret to myself. My parents had an awful row, but they remained married. I've since come to the conclusion that my mother was not angry with her husband because he was having a sadomasochistic relationship with a young woman less than one-third his age but that had been careless enough to get caught in the act by his daughter.
Unable to silence her mother, Embeth fell back, defeated, on the living room chair.
"I never saw Bunny Barkley again after that day although she and my father continued their bizarre relationship for twenty years, ending only when my father died. I was already a married woman when I learned that Bunny was suing my father's estate for palimony. Before the case went to court, however, the poor woman was murdered, beaten to death."
Although her voice remained calm and almost hypnotic in its monotone, tears fell down Rosamond's face.
"That tarnished angel, that beautiful princess had gone from wearing furs and jewels and living in a luxury apartment on Central Park West to wearing second-hand clothes and living in a squalid little room in back of a sleazy bar in the East Village. The police arrested her friend and roommate, a homosexual who was heard arguing with Bunny an hour before she was found dead. He was convicted and later died in prison."
Embeth, noticing that her mother had stopped speaking, attempted to regain her composure.
"I'm giving you notice," she told Delta in her usual imperious manner, "I'm going to have my mother sent to a home as soon as possible. When I do, your services will no longer be required. I'll give you four weeks' severance pay, and you may remain in the guesthouse until you've found other housing arrangements. Now, I must ...."
Rosamond began crying, heart wrenching sobs that would have stirred a statue to compassion.
"It's all right, Mother," Embeth said, exhibiting affection toward her parent for the first time since the nurse had known them. "It's all in the past."
The weeping grew worse as the old lady lamented the tragic fate of a young woman whose only guilt was in making the wrong choices.
"I saw her," Rosamond sobbed. "I went to the funeral parlor and bribed the mortician to let me see her body. I had to know if it was really her. She ... she had no face! Her killer had bludgeoned her with a heavy, blunt object."
"You knew about this, didn't you?" Delta asked her employer. "He was your grandfather. You must have known."
"I'd heard rumors. After all, it's hard to keep something like that a secret. But I never knew they were true."
"And yet you encouraged your mother to remember."
"Are her own memories any worse than the ones she experienced through the pictures in your book?"
"Yes, because they were people she knew and loved. Is it any wonder that she never talked about her past? She had good reason to forget it!"
Rosamond's reminiscences were not done yet. The door being opened to her memories, the old woman had no choice but to enter the dark recesses of her mind, to cross the threshold regardless of the horror on the other side of that door.
"It took me years to forget the way Bunny Barkley had looked: her face mangled like so much raw meat, her graying blond hair streaked with blood. I forced myself to put the past behind me, to concentrate on my marriage and on my little girl. I finally succeeded. With the love of my husband and child, I was able to lead a normal, happy life."
"See, not all your memories are bad ones," Embeth said. "You managed to have a happy ending."
"Then my mother died, and I inherited the family home. Although I had never been happy in that place, I couldn't resist seeing it one last time before it was sold. My old bedroom had been converted into a guest room. It was as though I had never lived there. I ought to have walked out the door at that point, but I didn't. It was like driving past a bad car accident. You don't want to look, but you can't turn away. I walked up the stairs to the attic. After I had walked in on my father and his young mistress, my mother forbid everyone from going up there. When I opened the door, everything was covered with years of dust and cobwebs, but I could still make out the hook on the ceiling beam and the leather harness that hung down from it."
Embeth put her face in her hands and turned away, sensing that the image of her esteemed grandparents that had been damaged by her mother's revelations was about to be completely shattered.
"I saw the silk scarves that my father had used to tie Bunny up and the riding crop that he used to whip her. But there was something in the room that hadn't been there when I was a little girl and walked in unannounced: there was a bloody baseball bat that my mother had used to beat Bunny Barkley to death."
Embeth, trying to deal with the sudden loss of pride in a family name she had cherished her entire life, had little regard for her mother. The nurse, however, reacted with compassion.
That poor woman! Delta thought. Her father was a sadist and her mother a murderer. No wonder she didn't want to remember.
She picked up the book that had been lying forgotten on the floor, opened it and handed it to her patient.
"Look at this picture," she said. "Do you recognize her? That's Marilyn Monroe. She was one of the most famous actresses in the world."
When Rosamond looked down at the page, she became more animated and her eyes lost that haunted looked.
"My real name was Norma Jeane Mortenson," she said, "although my mother later called me by the surname Baker. When I went into acting, Ben Lyon of Twentieth Century Fox suggested I change it. Ben suggested Marilyn after Marilyn Miller, and I chose Monroe because it was my mother's maiden name."
As Rosamond happily described Monroe's marriages to Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller as well as her relationship with John Kennedy, her daughter quietly walked out the door and returned to the main house. Embeth Payton Westmeyer never made good on her threat to put the old woman in a nursing home. Instead, Delta remained with her patient in the guesthouse until the old woman died three years later.
After a simple, yet dignified funeral, Rosamond Tillett was buried in the Payton family plot. But before the coffin was lowered into the grown, the lid was opened, and Delta Gilley placed a well-worn copy of Great Hollywood Scandals and Mysteries in the dead woman's hands.
The celebrities mentioned in this story were real people. The character Bunny Barkley, although fictional, was inspired by Vicki Morgan who became the mistress of Alfred Bloomingdale, who is reported to have had sadistic sexual habits. Ms. Morgan was later beaten to death by her friend and roommate.
Back in the '30s Salem went to Hollywood and tried to talk Judy Garland into making the Wizard of Oz's Toto a cat instead of a dog. The people at MGM wouldn't agree to the change, however.
