I hadn’t known about Ezra’s death. I closed my eyes. It wasn’t that it was a surprise, but just to hear that the sweet boy with the mop of curls had met his end was heartbreaking.
“That’s the mystery of this whole thing. We left Sandra at Pangea Studios. She’d started something up with the producer—Luke someone, the name escapes me now—but we left her there and drove back to LA with the idea that we’d be back. I never heard from her again. I just assumed we went our own ways—you know, it was the ’70s. But then I’d heard she’d gone missing. I tried to find Pangea Ranch Studios again—anyone who knew what happened to her.” He laughed. “It became such a thing that Lil and I drove down to see the place again. Almost—and I think this will sound strange to you—but almost to make sure the whole thing had been real.”
“And what happened?”
“The whole thing was gone. The house was empty and the ranch sign gone like it had never existed at all. It’s haunted me all my life, Ms. Lambert. The house belonged to a French man, but no one could ever remember really seeing him. The tape we’d made—the album—all gone. I know there were photos of the band that my brother-in-law had taken. I clung to those for many years, proof that it had all been real. You know?”
“I know,” I said. And I did.
“I have to go and teach a class, but it’s been really wonderful talking to you. As luck would have it, I’m up in Washington in two weeks. I have a conference and I’ve got something else I’ve got to do while I’m there. I’d love to have coffee with you. Just talking about it has really been good for me. That album. Ms. Lambert, that album was something special… if it ever existed.”
I closed my eyes. Most likely, I’d be gone in two weeks—disappeared like Sandra. I felt a huge sense of guilt about this man. He’d spent his life wondering if Sandra, Pangea, the album, Luke were even real. “I’m actually in Europe for a month beginning next week, but I do get down to Austin and I’d love to get together with you sometime.”
“That would be nice.”
“Take care, Mr. Markwell.”
“You do as well.”
I broke down and cried—the lives I’d led, the history I’d seen. As I’d been talking to Hugh, I’d been flipping through the latest issue, something I always did by habit the minute it came back from the printer. It was in the back arts section that I saw the ad. Where had this come from?
I jumped up and hailed a cab and told the driver to take me to Maine Avenue—the Hanover Collection. The museum had just opened for the morning. I stood in line to buy a ticket, but then decided I could walk right through and no one would stop me.
“I’m just going to walk in.” I smiled to the ticket booth attendant, who waved enthusiastically.
I turned the corner and headed down the stairs to the photography floor that looked out onto the Potomac. At the bottom of the stairs, I saw the elaborate installation from the ad: Richard Nash—A Photo Perspective. The next panel was a photo of Rick as I’d remembered him. It was a photo of him that I’d taken at the Forum. Me. That was my work. Proof that I had lived. Rick was looking down and smiling away from the camera.
“Oh, Rick.”
As I walked through the installation, I saw photos of the house in Laurel Canyon, the police lined up along Sunset Boulevard during the riots, Jimi Hendrix playing the guitar, Dodger Stadium, the Watts Towers, the construction of the 405, Janis Joplin sitting on his living room sofa holding an ashtray, and—his most famous picture—Sandra Keane bowing to the cleaning crew at the empty Hollywood Bowl, the sun setting over the top of the nosebleed seats.
The final panels were of Rick’s Vietnam assignments. Airfields, jungles, jeeps, the VC, American soldiers, hookers, priests, snakes in baskets at the market. He’d captured everything—it was a body of work that anyone would have been proud of over a lifetime, and he’d achieved it in twenty-eight years. In a glass case, I was drawn to a series of objects that was captioned: ITEMS FOUND ON RICHARD NASH’S BODY. The display featured an old Leica camera, a pack of bloodstained cigarettes with a hole in them where a bullet had passed through, and an old red plastic key holder. It was the door key to Le Bon View. As though it were yesterday, I could visualize Room 41. I tottered on my heels, tears welling in my eyes. He’d taken this key with him to Vietnam.
On a hunch, I took the elevator to the second floor—the film and media center. As the elevator doors opened, there was a direction sign for a special exhibition: HOLLYWOOD’S HIDDEN TALENTS: LOST DIRECTORS OF THE 1930S. Walking down the hall, I found the familiar posters of Train to Boston and Starlight Circus. Nora Wheeler was in the Train to Boston poster in the corner, flashing an over-the-shoulder look. There were collections of photos of Billy Rapp, behind the scenes. Billy and Ford Tremaine and even a rare photo of Billy Rapp’s wedding to Nora Wheeler and Billy’s casket being carried to Forest Lawn by celebrity pallbearers. The next showing of Billy Rapp’s film Train to Boston was in fifteen minutes. I kept wandering through the photo displays. Billy Rapp’s letter from Halstead offering him a contract at Monumental. The Monumental logo and Halstead’s signature brought a wave of nostalgia for me. As Nora, I’d gotten a letter just like this.
Outside the theater, there was a notice that on June 25 at eleven A.M., Elizabeth Tremaine would be giving a talk on her grandfather, Ford Tremaine, and his work with Billy Rapp. I hoped I’d be alive to come to it, but I doubted I would be.
Until Sandra’s story, I hadn’t factored in that Luke knew everything I did. I was sure he knew where I was at this very moment, sitting in this theater. But why hadn’t he confronted me about it? The answer was obvious—I was no threat to him. I would fail at this task and be sent back again for another lifetime. These short lives seemed wasted. I never had a chance to learn enough before the reset button was hit again. Somehow the thought of that was unbearable to me. I liked this life that I’d created. It was far from perfect—the end of my marriage to Roger and the fact that we’d had no children had nearly broken me a few years ago—but I was always hopeful that something better would be around the corner.
Sitting inside the theater, I watched as the old Monumental logo made another appearance in the crackled film roll with a dramatic score. After the main actor credits, INTRODUCING NORA WHEELER appeared. The screen faded to black, followed by the shot of a platform of a train and the sound of a whistle. It was Nora Wheeler’s shoes that were captured first. She was walking briskly, moving to a run to catch the train. Dressed in a fur-trimmed long coat, her blond bob peeping out from under a black hat, Nora was the epitome of 1930s style. Watching myself onscreen, I was captivated. The images in my dreams had felt real, but seeing the actual film was haunting. She had existed. I had existed then. I remembered that day on the set. The stage was hot and I was bundled up in that coat but had to pretend I was cold. Billy was barking orders at everyone. I would soon learn that it was because he was terribly hungover, but I didn’t know him well then. I closed my eyes and remembered the smell of the suitcase prop I carried—its fine leather scent and soft-blue color, not white as it appeared on the film. I could fill in the missing colors—the blue-red of my lipstick, the fact that my coat was brown, not black, that the attendant uniforms were bright red, not gray. The halftone film images did not do justice to the vibrant colors of the 1930s.