27
" He didn’t call on Monday.
“Pay up,” she said.
“He’ll call,” Mike said. “He took a pinky pledge.”
Mike made a good point, but how long could even a sacred vow sealed by the tiniest and most loyal of digits forestall the inevitable?
They decided to give it a month. Tuesday morning the phone rang.
“Hello,” said an increasingly familiar British voice.
“Oh, hello,” Becky said, and thought both “darn” and “hooray!” at the same time. She hated to lose a bet.
“Yes, hello,” said Felix.
Becky cleared her throat. “Did you go skiing?”
“Yes, you know, we did.”
“Have a good time?”
“Mm hmm.”
“Good. Sounds . . . fun.”
“So, what do we do now, swap stories about our exes? Watch a reality show on the telly and narrate to each other in scandalized voices? ‘Can you believe she said that? I can’t believe she just said that.’ ”
“You don’t have many friends, do you?”
“I have thousands of fans, dozens of itinerant co-workers, a handful of acolytes, three stalkers, and a wife.”
“You have no idea how this friend business works, do you?” she asked.
“Ha!” Felix said.
“Ooh, that was a nice ‘ha.’ Full of derisive laughter and effectively evading any answer.”
“Thank you. I’ve been practicing.”
“Yeah. So, um, you have no idea how this works, do you?”
“I know there’s talking involved, don’t I? And phone calling. I’m not such an amateur as all that.”
“Felix, are you really sure you want to be friends?”
“What do you mean, am I sure? I took a pinky pledge. "
― Shannon Hale , The Actor and the Housewife
29
" Felix.” She let go, suddenly shy to speak. But that tense, tickly sensation running from her throat to her belly was giving her some kind of superhuman nerve. And besides, he wasn’t really Felix Callahan anymore, not in that ethereal, big-screen sense. So. She cleared her throat. “Felix, will you be my friend?”
He did laugh at her, though he didn’t seem to mean it. “Yes, we’ll get matching lockets holding strands of each other’s hair.”
“I wish the English language gave us a better option. ‘Pals,’ ‘chums,’ ‘buddies’ . . . but a word that implies the sudden and unusual nature—like ‘metabuddies.’ ”
“ ‘Metabuddies.’ Wow. This is getting serious.”
“So?”
“So. Yes. Let’s be friends. That would solve some of this confused muss. Do we spit in our palms and shake?”
“I think this calls for a pinky pledge.” She hooked her pinky around his. “I, Becky Jack, agree to be Felix Callahan’s pal, even though he’s way overrated as an actor and screen hunk and can be such a brat.”
Felix cleared his throat. “I, world-famous and fabulously wealthy Felix Paul Callahan, agree to be mates with Becky, even though she wears grandmother shoes and insists on popping out children with reckless abandon and shows no remorse for her vicious right hook.”
“That was very nice. I almost shed a tear.”
“Apparently all it takes to make you weep is a singing puppet.”
“Hey, don’t sell me short. I also cry at talking socks and animated washcloths.”
“You cry in terror.”
“Well, yeah, that’s true. "
― Shannon Hale , The Actor and the Housewife
30
" Yes! Yes. Thank you. I’m on my way right now, so I’ll see you later, you know, like, in five minutes. And I’ll just wait in the car—you can send them out so we don’t take up any more of your time. So say hi to Clark for me, you know, since I might not get a chance to talk to you from the car. But thanks so much for watching the kids for me, and I’ll see you later . . . in five.”
There was a pause. Then Angela’s voice piped up, as enthusiastic as ever.
“Okay, see you later in five!”
Oh great, Becky thought as she jogged back to her car. Now Angela would be using that phrase, convinced it was a real idiom. And it would be all Becky’s fault. As if the poor lady didn’t have enough communication problems as it was, what with the excessive exclaiming. "
― Shannon Hale , The Actor and the Housewife
33
" You’re saying Felix Callahan is your best friend? Holy—” And the waitress said a word that Becky wouldn’t want repeated.
Becky did her best not to tsk like an old lady, but she couldn’t help a pointed sniff . “Well, I wouldn’t go that far.”
Felix came up from behind. “I would.”
The waitress turned red and scurried away. Becky glared at him.
“What,” he said, “you don’t think our friendship merits a few expletives?”
“That kind of language shows a baseness of mind and lack of creativity.”
“Or a lust for life. You can feel your pulse beat in the harder words. Sometimes you just have to dig in and curse until you are blue.” His voice was rising, audible to the tables nearby, and he raised his hand in a fist. “Go on, cut your teeth on them. Say it with me now. Holy sh——”
She put her hand over his mouth. “Enough,” she whispered loudly.
She removed her hand.
He picked up the bill, glancing over it casually, then whispered, “——it. "
― Shannon Hale , The Actor and the Housewife
34
" Whoa,” Becky said, because the baby kicked her hard in the bladder.
Felix startled, backing up and nearly falling over a chair.
“Sorry, I was whoa-ing because right when you came in, the baby kicked, not because you’re Felix Callahan. Oh, you know what it reminded me of ? When Elisabeth’s baby kicks just as Mary greets her? Isn’t that funny? As if I had some spiritual sign when I saw you.”
Annette smiled, her eyebrows raised. Felix glared handsomely. Becky stamped down a desire to squirm.
“No, it’s not terribly funny,” Felix said, “particularly as I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Elisabeth, wife of Zacharias, cousin to Mary, mother of Jesus? No? Nothing?”
Felix looked at her with a careful lack of amusement.
“Oh, maybe you don’t have the Bible in England. See, there’s this guy named Jesus and his mother is named Mary, and well, it’s a really interesting read if you don’t mind parables. "
― Shannon Hale , The Actor and the Housewife
36
" The next morning Becky was going to call Felix, but Mike had a better idea.
“I haven’t bought you a Christmas present yet. If you don’t mind getting it early, I thought we could fly to L.A. and surprise Felix.”
Becky gaped.
“Good,” Mike said, “because I already reserved the tickets.”
Through Celeste, Mike had learned that Felix was in Los Angeles.
“You should go see him at the studio,” Celeste said. “I’ll call in your names. How I wish I could be there to see his face! This is a wonderful thing. Next time I see you, Michael, I will kiss you. You should warn your wife.”
“I should warn myself,” Mike said.
Becky could hear Celeste’s warm voice coming over the phone, and saw Mike’s neck flush. When he hung up, he said defensively, “She was being nice. She does not dig me.”
“She’s going to kiss you.”
His neck flushed darker. “She won’t. She was kidding.”
“She will. She’s French. Kissing for her is like a genetic tic. "
― Shannon Hale , The Actor and the Housewife
37
" You know a lot of British people, do you?” Felix kept his eyes on Becky, his gaze boring through her skull. “You’re an expert?”
“Oh, I know enough,” she said, enjoying herself much more than she knew she should. “ ’Ello, love!” she said in a really horrible English accent. Then she explained to Annette, “That’s how all British talk. ’Ello, love! Spare me a coppa? Copper—that’s what they call their money.”
“Interesting,” Felix said. “So if they call money ‘copper,’ what do they call a policeman?”
“Bobby.”
“Then what do they call Bobby?”
“Frank. "
― Shannon Hale , The Actor and the Housewife
39
" I don’t drink alcohol even when I’m not in the family way. Never have.”
“Never?”
“Nope.”
“Never drank once in all your life? That’s impossible.”
“It’s partly a religious decision. I’m a Mormon. From Utah, you know.”
He stared, mouth slightly agape. “How many wives does your husband know.”have?”
“Oh please. Mormons aren’t polygamists.”
“Yes they are,” the driver piped up. He wore one of those cliché chauffeur hats low over his eyes. “Everyone knows. The men have loads of wives, make them all wear bonnets.”
Becky sighed and gave her speech. “Some Mormons were polygamists in the nineteenth century, but they gave up the practice in 1890. There are small religious groups around the Utah area who practice polygamy, but they have nothing to do with the LDS Church.”
“That’s not what I saw on TV. Mormons, they said. Polygamists. Loads of ’em.”
“I am a Mormon, from Utah, lived there my entire thirty-four years, and I’ve never met a polygamist.”
The driver straightened the Mets plush baseball that dangled from the rearview mirror. “You must not get out much.”
“Yes, that must be it.”
“It’s tragic really,” Felix said. “She’s agoraphobic and hadn’t been out of the house in, what was it, fifteen years?”
“Sixteen,” Becky said.
“Right, sixteen. Last time was when Charles and Diana wed.”
“You’re thinking of the last time I leaned out the window. The last time I actually left the house was for a sale at Sears.”
“Of course, the day you bought those trousers. Sixteen years later, here she is! And in the same trousers, but still . . . We’re so proud of our little Becky!” Felix patted her head. “You dug deep, but you found the courage to step out of that door.”
“I did like you told me, Felix. I just shut my eyes and chanted, ‘The polygamists are not going to eat me, they’re not going to eat me,’ and I wasn’t afraid anymore.”
“She is a rare example of true bravery. Don’t you agree?”
“Uh, yeah,” said the driver. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” Becky smiled politely. “Go Mets.”
The driver snorted. "
― Shannon Hale , The Actor and the Housewife
