Page 50 of Starlight & Dark Nights

“Oh, like us?” the actor whispered back, so quietly this time that only Jude and Catherine could hear. A look passed between them that seemed to send them both right to the edge of having a fit of laughter, and then they looked away.

“She wasn’t very nice,” Catherine whispered to Jude, leaning in so close that her breath was warm against Jude’s ear. “I worked with her one time and she called me a bitch.”

Jude turned her head sharply. “Are you serious? I thought she was supposed to be America’s sweetheart?”

Catherine chuckled softly. “Well, maybe she was. But to anyone who worked with her, she was about as much fun as eating a sandwich full of broken glass.”

Jude winced at the imagery.

They sat through the service and all its theatrics, shaking their heads disapprovingly at the loss of such a young, vibrant life, and watching as the actress’s mother lifted the black net veil from her eyes to dab at them with a handkerchief. It was all very sad and beautiful and Hollywood.

Afterwards, Catherine wanted to walk through the cemetery, which Jude found somewhat morbid, but she was also curious.

“Look—Bugsy Siegel!” Jude pointed out the mobster’s grave as they passed. “Wow.”

“Here’s Charlie Chaplin’s mother,” Catherine said with reverence. “Like, the woman whogave birthto Charlie Chaplin is in this spot.”

“Graves are weird,” Jude said. She shivered. “Just the idea of being in a box…I don’t know. I don’t think I want to do it.”

Catherine looked at her, amused. “Then what will you do? Have someone throw you overboard at sea?”

Jude shrugged. “I’m not sure. It’s a long way off though anyway.”

And it felt that way at the time—almost impossible to fathom death and eternity. In her early twenties, Jude could only think of the moment. Of going to work, stopping for groceries on the way home, and cooking dinner with Catherine each night. She could think ahead to whether they’d go out for a drink that evening, and possibly what she’d wear the following day, but what she wanted her eternal rest to look like? No. No way. Not possible.

“Of course it is, Judy darling,” Catherine cooed, looping her arm through Jude’s as their high-heeled shoes poked holes in the grass. They walked on, passing moss-covered stones, trees laden with leaves that would soon fall, and freshly-dug graves with warm, soft flowers still resting where loved ones had placed them. It was melancholy and Jude sighed deeply.

“I don’t want it all to pass me by,” Jude said. “I don’t want to wake up and suddenly I’m old and I’ve never fixed the things that needed to be fixed. I don’t want to miss the chances to say the things I need to say.”

“What do you need to say?” Catherine asked as they meandered through the gravestones, stopping to admire particularly old ones or the resting places of famous people they recognized. “And to whom?”

Jude thought about this. Catherine’s warm arm was still looped through hers. “Well, I’d like to talk to my mother again.”

“Okay, that could happen—potentially,” Catherine said. “And?”

“I’d like to ask my father where she went and why I never heard from her again. And I’d like to find a few people and really let them know how much they hurt me.” She thinks of Chester on the boat all those years ago; of her stepmother, who has always made her feel inferior; and of Alice and her hateful words that night when she threw her out of the car and tossed a bottle at Jude. She carries those wounds inside her heart every single day.

“Hmm.” Catherine sounded thoughtful. “Well, I think your parents are a good idea. Those relationships are important and they have roots. But, the people who hurt you along the way…” Catherine trailed off and they walked in silence for a bit. “Sometimes people lash out and hurt other people to make themselves feel better. Maybe those people were just hurt in their own ways, too.”

Jude hadn’t really ever thought of it that way. “Maybe,” she said. “Could be.”

Catherine stopped and turned to look right at Jude. They stood there beneath the drooping branches of a California live oak tree, Catherine petite and pretty, Jude taller, sturdier, and lovely with her simple, symmetrical features and dark hair.

“You know, Judy.” She pursed her lips for a moment. “Those guys in front of us at the service were onto something, I think.”

Jude’s heart raced; was Catherine talking about the men being…together? In love? Somehow partners and lovers and?—

“You can’t be with someone who you can’t go out into public with. It’s too dangerous. It’s dangerous for your heart, and for your career, and it just doesn’t work.” She shook her head, looking regretfully towards the rough trunk of the tree next to them.

When Catherine finally dragged her eyes back to Jude, she looked right at her, and in her eyes Jude could see all the things she’d hoped and wanted to see. She saw love.

“I think, in a different world,” Catherine said softly, “you and I could be together. We could make dinner together every night, and we’d fight off the bad guys of the world together. But that’s not real life.”

Jude’s chest constricted at these words; Catherine was not wrong. That was not real life.

“So I’m going to say this, and I’m going to say it one time only,” Catherine said, glancing around before she took a step closer and laced her fingers through Jude’s. “I think you’re lovely.” She stood up on her tiptoes and put her lips to Jude’s, kissing her softly—but just for a moment. “When it’s all over for me, I want to know that I said the things I felt, and did the things I should have done. We all want that, Jude.”

Jude stared back at her in wonder. “I think you’re lovely, too,” she said, the words coming from her lips automatically. “I really do.”

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