No Time To Wave Goodbye Part 6

"I love you, Pop. I'm shaking."

"Eliza, we're sort of rich," said Ben. "By the way, you look like a million bucks, Beth. You too, Liza."

"Three million bucks. I owe you, bro," Vincent said. "I, Ma ... I just wanna go to sleep. Can I just camp out here and you tell me how it all comes out?"

Fifteen minutes later, Beth had to practically haul Vincent up to go put on his tux. He still looked as pale as though he'd spent the past five years farming mushrooms.

All of them a.s.sembled in the hotel lobby at four p.m.

The Cappadora clan and Beth's relatives, the Kerrys, spun like a human carousel to gape at the sight of Ben Affleck strolling with his two toddlers, nodding to Hugh Jackman who was sipping a tonic at the bar. Cameron Diaz swept past.

The elevator doors opened and Grandma Rosie appeared in a beige and gold Chanel suit with Grandpa Angelo in gray tails with a cravat and a pearl stickpin.

"Where did you find that?" Beth asked her mother-in-law. "It's ... you look like a model, Rosie!"

"In the closet," her mother-in-law told her. "Grandpa and I wore these after the war. Now they're vintage. And we're vintage."

They were all cl.u.s.tered in the hall when Charley Seven strolled up, rolling side to side like a moving monument, a fat Cuban in his hand in defiance of signs that prohibited smoking on pain of death.

"I thought you didn't smoke," Beth said, without thinking.

"This isn't smoking," he said. "They took the same position at the front door. I don't understand people's thinking."

"Charley, it's been just amazing," Beth told him.

"A thousand thank-yous," said Eliza. "Charl-I mean, Mr. Ruffalo."

"You look like a bouquet of lilies," Charley Seven said. "I guess this worked." He checked his watch. "Eliza, do you want to go check on the baby before we leave?"

"I just came from feeding her and I don't want her to cry. Adriana is the sweetest girl. You won't let us pay her? Or you?"

"It's all taken care of," Charley Seven said. "But I thank you most kindly. The cars are outside." Charley Seven paused. "Oh, Paddy, you can't bring cell phones, even if they're turned off."

His eyes smoldering, Pat pursed his lips and slipped his slender phone from his interior pocket. Parting with his phone made him feel as though he'd been disconnected from life support.

"I have a silent beeper inside my belt buckle if anyone needs me," Charley Seven said. "Let the world spin without us for a few hours."

Pat laughed. "A belt-buckle beeper. We'll have to call you Double-O Seven now," he said.

Vincent finally arrived, just in time to say goodbye. His parents would join him at the Independent Filmmakers Dinner, but everyone else, cameras in tow, was heading to the Kodak Theater. Vincent carried a telegram from George Karras, which he gave to Ben.

With the exception of the therapist Tom Kilgore and his mother's dad, everyone who had ever played a pivotal role in Vincent's life stood facing him in the lobby of the Paloma Hotel. Ten had come from Chicago. Mom's brother Paul Kerry had come from Seattle with his eldest daughter, Erin.

Some of them had slept on the plane. Some hadn't slept at all.

He looked at Grandma Rosie and Grandpa Angelo, Ben and Kerry, Dad and Mom and Candy and Eliza, as if they had materialized from the dreamless sleep he awoke from that morning. He thought of the others-Rob, the families. Vincent wouldn't even be here except for St. Markey Ruffalo, the weird kid with the crazy ability for the camera. He remembered Markey waiting for four hours in the rain outside the Whittiers' mountain home until the drops were dappling the surface of the creek in the exact rhythm of Kerry's song, which he was listening to through headphones.

Just then, Beth dropped her fancy little red leather clutch. Lipsticks and brushes and business cards fell out along with an envelope that scattered invitations to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Awards.

Vincent's heart nearly stopped.

"Everybody give all the tickets to the ceremony to Candy, please," he said. "No offense, Ma."

"None taken," Beth said. "I don't know if I'm in town or not." They all gave their tickets to Candy.

"That's Kate Winslet," Kerry hissed, loud enough so that the desk clerk glanced up and smiled. "It looks like she has a sunburn. Who would get a sunburn before the Oscars?" The fine-boned, tawny-haired actor, severe in plain white satin, slipped past them into the dark recesses of the fabled bar. He ought to reprimand them, Vincent thought in some vaguely self-conscious way; but what the real h.e.l.l, he was doing the same thing, ogling Kate Winslet's rear end. He was a n.o.body-somebody and tomorrow he would be a former n.o.body-somebody. But his brother and his sister and his mother and his eighty-year-old grandparents had flown through the darkness to rejoice, as it said in the Bible, for their sheep that had been lost and was now found. And d.a.m.ned if he was going to deny that he was a boy from the West Side of Chicago.

"Buona fortuna, 'Cenzo," said Angelo.

"I'll see you there, Grandpa," Vincent said, kissing Angelo's soft, ancient cheek.

Beth would never be able to remember later what they ate. Was it Asian or Italian? Chicken or beef? Somehow letting inane details gnaw her, even years later, was satisfying-like using a fingertip to smooth an old scar.

"Why do you care?" Pat asked her, once, as they lay in the dark, face-to-face, neither daring to breathe lest they wake the other, knowing the other was already awake.

"Just to remember something ... else," she told him.

The award for Best Doc.u.mentary Film would be the first of the least, following Best Actor in a Supporting Role.

When the Cappadoras arrived, the sun was still s.h.i.+ning in California but people in Illinois gathered at the bar in The Old Neighborhood to see past Meryl Streep and Robin Williams, trying to catch a glimpse of a restaurant owner's kid from Chicago. Kenny the bartender did see Beth as she slipped her camera out of her red evening bag and shot Harrison Ford signing autographs and laughing out loud at something Julia Roberts whispered to him as she swept past in layers of crinoline.

He didn't see a guard examine Beth's camera and her credentialing letter from Eye on Chicago magazine. Her eyebrow arched in triumph, Beth put on a new lens and took a few more shots of the impossibly lovely, impossibly cachectic young women, with thighs like biceps and eyes like the dials of watches, who stopped to drop a shoulder and pose before gliding on. The men were thin, too; but something, perhaps in their clothing, concealed the extent of it. The women's dresses were sewn on, as Eliza's was. They were draped and ruched to hide torsos that were only rib cages and b.r.e.a.s.t.s that were only nipples.

Finally, they were led to their seats and sat and waited for Vincent and Rob to approach-freezing like kids playing Statue Tag as Annette Bening and Warren Beatty a.s.sured them there was no reason to stand up to make way for them down the aisles to their seats. Like collection dolls come to life, the faces more familiar to Americans than some of their own family members drifted past and kissed and touched each other softly-the exquisite, the legendary, the heartbreakingly gifted, the mad and the reckless, the meticulous and the obsessed.

And then there was Vincent, looking as resplendent as any actor in black on black with an open collar. He slipped into his seat. Like nits, they all applauded so that Vincent almost forgot that his hair was "done" and was about to start clawing it with his open hands when Kerry held them down.

"I feel guilty, Pop," Vincent told Pat. "I feel guilty we got this money because of what the movie is about. I should start a foundation with the money."

"Vincenzo, there are enough foundations," said Grandpa Angelo. "When the time is right, you'll know what to do for good with your money. You're not a fool. Good films are important. And these also cost money."

"Okay, Grandpa," Vincent said. "Okay."

One word from Grandpa was like one word from the Pope, Beth thought. Still, Angelo had the same effect on her. It was as though he'd been thinking over whatever problem you had for years and finally had decided to let you in on the answer.

And then the music rose and golden platforms rose and golden icicles descended and two gigantic gold pillars in the shape of host Ellen DeGeneres appeared, just before the woman herself.

"This is the surprise tonight. It's a new era. Tonight, the people who don't get Oscars will be getting Ellens." She gestured to the pillars. "They'll be chocolate. At least, once they're in the car, they can bite my head off!"

Soon, the names of five identical young men that Beth only dimly recognized were introduced, in snippets of roles as cavalrymen in World War I and the saviors of twelve-year-old girls sold into s.e.xual slavery. Morgan Freeman was nominated for his role in a film about a young basketball star drafted into the NBA out of high school. He played the hero grandfather who helped steer the boy back to some semblance of his lost innocence.

One of the identical young men won.

"Always a bridesmaid, huh Morgan?" Ellen asked. "Except when you aren't? What, do they just put your name down first and then fill in everyone else's? It's like people at the Grammys used to thank Stevie Wonder for not making an alb.u.m that year."

Then Sissy s.p.a.cek took the stage with an actor Beth remembered as a child actor in a series of sci-fi movies-who had grown up to look something like an elongated elf.

"You're young enough to be my son," Sissy s.p.a.cek said. "They promised me a hunk."

"You're little enough to be my daughter," he replied. "They promised me a curvy Brazilian."

"Movies are supposed to be make-believe," said Sissy s.p.a.cek. She laughed. "Don't you bother to put those cards up there because I can't see 'em anyway! I'm too vain to wear my gla.s.ses when I'm dressed up! We count on movies to give shape to our dreams and our nightmares and to alter our consciences and always, we hope, make us laugh. But only one of the four nominated doc.u.mentary films is a laughing matter, and that one is Scream Queen, the story of a young woman whose face you've never seen, but whose voice you've heard a dozen times, in some of the hottest horror movies of the past decade. You try it sometime. Just go out in your car and give a good scream. You're not going to sound like Paul McCartney. Screaming is a gift, as you'll see ..."

It was funny. The girl, Brenda Gelfman, who had a whole repertoire of screams, from little shrieks to death wails, was a chubby brunette from Brooklyn with a mop of black curls.

"Our next nominee," said the elfin actor, "is a story within a story. Twenty-two years ago, a little boy was kidnapped in a hotel lobby. Nine years later, Ben Cappadora returned to his family unhurt. But ever since then, his family, and especially his older brother, has struggled to come to grips with what this particular loss of a child means to a family and to a community, and, I suppose, to all of us. These families still wait and hope. Let's watch a few moments of No Time to Wave Goodbye, a film by Rob Brent and Vincent Cappadora." They watched the excruciating, unsparing minute when the camera never wavered as Al Cafferty explained how they had told Alana to wave to them, even if she was with her coach, and of the surveillance cameras at the door that saw nothing, until they recorded a tiny s.h.i.+ning thing, Alana's good-luck bear.

As the presenters introduced One Shot, the journey of a shot of heroin from its grower to the middlemen to the nude women who stood at long tables and cut the product surrounded by thugs with guns to the Princeton-educated junkie whose own husband didn't know of her addiction, Vincent leaned over to whisper to Beth, "This one is the winner."

Beth tensed muscles in every part of her body.

Then they heard the words "unprecedented access" and "never-before-seen footage." Vincent said, "There aren't very many surprises in this town. It's all over the street. One Shot will win. This guy will be the next Spike Lee or something."

The final nominee was Buffalo Gal, a raucous and vivid film about young girls who rode the rodeo. A chasm of silent antic.i.p.ation opened after the last moments of the tw.a.n.gy soundtrack died away.

Pat reached over Beth to cover Vincent's hand with his own. He said, "At Christmas you would have given your front tooth to even be sitting here. We all think you already won. Right? Am I right?"

Vincent nodded. He gazed down at Pat's high-school ring, which he wore for luck.

Beth wanted to jump up and run out of the room when Sissy s.p.a.cek picked up the cream-colored envelope.

Ben wished he were back in the hotel room, singing to Stella.

Candy whispered something under her breath that could have been a string of expletives or a prayer.

Sissy s.p.a.cek looked up at her moony counterpart and smiled as if to split her face. Then she turned to face the audience. "The winner is No Time to Wave Goodbye, by Rob Brent and Vincent Cappadora."

At first, no one moved. The audience broke into the kind of accolade saved for the dark horse. Michael Moore's beautiful wife, Kathleen, stood and made the victory gesture. Vincent sat blinking, as though he'd just been awakened from a sound sleep.

Finally, Candy, with tears streaming from her impeccable Nars front-row eyes, said, "I think that was your name, Spanky. Hey, Vincent. You won?"

Rob bounded away through the crowd. By the time Vincent got up there, Rob had said, "I thought my esteemed partner was crazy to make this picture at all. Especially for our first big one. But Mom, Pop, Rita, I got that thing you were looking for to put on the bookshelf next to the graduation pictures!"

Vincent stared down at the podium. Pat knew he hadn't prepared a single line he could use as an acceptance speech. A second pa.s.sed, then another.

Finally Vincent said, "Obviously, I want to thank the Academy and question your sanity." Appreciative laughter. "My brother, Sam, and my sister, Kerry, should be standing here. This would be nothing without you. And I would be nothing without these people, my grandfather Angelo, who taught me to love art in all its forms, my mother for teaching me which form of art was mine, and Candy Bliss and my pop, who suggested that filmmaking might be a good alternative to prison." More laughter. "And I have to thank Marco Ruffalo for seeing people and places as I never could." Both the Charleys, Two and Seven, sobbed openly-huge men with bulging red child's faces. Markey himself sat with his face pillowed in his rough, stubby hands. "But mostly, I want to take this moment to remember five people. They are DuPre d.i.c.ksen, Jacqueline Whittier, Luis Rogelio, Alana Cafferty, and Laurel Hutcheson. If this statue is really magic, it will bring you home."

The audience applauded wildly. Sissy s.p.a.cek hugged Vincent with a mother's sweetness.

"Dude won the Oscar," Cole d.i.c.ksen said to his little sister, Toni Lynn. But she was already asleep. Unexpectedly, Janice had been called to work. All her friends had insisted on turning the TV in the break room on. Janice's work friends surrounded and hugged her.

"Good for him," Eileen Cafferty said, smiling past eyes bright with tears. Al hugged his wife. Their son, Adam, asked, "Can we get his autograph?"

In Was.h.i.+ngton State, Walter Hutcheson said, "Well, G.o.d bless him."

"G.o.d bless Laurel," said his wife.

As they watched Vincent make his way back, stopping for a quick photo with Sissy s.p.a.cek, Charley Seven shrugged off the urgent tap on his shoulder. "I put it out," he said, without looking back, referring to his single panicked puff on his cigar. There was a roped-off corner for the smokers at the theater but he hadn't dared leave during the most amazing moments.

"Sir, there's an urgent message for you outside," said one of the ushers. "I believe the man is a police officer."

"What the h.e.l.l?" Charley Seven suddenly felt his beeper buzzing like a trapped hornet under his belly. Hauling himself to his feet, he told Beth and Pat he would be right back. When he dialed the unfamiliar number, he found himself on the phone with a young woman whose voice was so drowned in hysteria that at first he couldn't understand a syllable. "Calm down," he told her. "What are you saying? Nothing can happen if I can't hear you."

"I saw Eliza sitting right there on TV!" the voice keened. It was his niece. It was Adriana. What the h.e.l.l? Charley thought.

"Yeah, and so? Is the baby sick? Are you okay?" Blinking in the sunlight, Charley Seven nodded to the police officer and held up one finger.

"She called me, Uncle Charley. Eliza called before and said Beth's brother and his wife were coming to pick up the baby and Liza would meet them outside the theater as soon as they found out who won so that the baby could nurse before they went to the party.... And she said I could go home because Beth's brother and his wife would take care of Stella for the rest of the night."

"Adriana! Slow down! Who would meet Beth's brother and his wife?"

"Eliza and Sam! Eliza said she was going to come out and get the baby."

"Eliza is inside."

"I know! I just saw her! But on the phone, she said that Beth's brother would come for Stella. As soon as they made the announcement. And they did come. Eliza said she would come out to get Stella the minute they found out. Or else Sam would. But they were right there. I saw them! I waited awhile and they did this little feature story about the family and stuff and they were still there ..."

"Sam? Who's Sam?" Charley Seven asked.

"It's Ben! It's Vincent's brother. He uses that name."

"Jesus Christ, Adriana! I can't make heads or tails of any of this. Okay, okay. Now, this was Beth's brother ... Bick?" Bick could have arrived late; Beth's father, Bill, had been too ill to come with the rest of them, so Bick and his wife had stayed behind to be with him. Maybe they had all come ahead. Of course.

"No, Uncle Charley! It was her brother Paul and his wife. Sandy. Not Bick. I know Bick. Her name was Sheila. Or something. But then I remembered that Paul brought his daughter Annie, not his wife. Annie's my age! I met her the first day, Annie Kerry. And this lady wasn't her. I was so excited that I forgot! This lady was older, like Beth's age!"

And Paul and Annie are sitting inside there clapping their heads off.

Only a few other times in his life, Charley Seven had encountered a situation beyond his power to salvage.

Once there had been a meeting under the bridge, out by O'Hare Airport, for which three guys scheduled to show up did not and he and his older brother Tory found themselves alone in the dusk, surrounded by Anthony Taliaferro and five of his eight large and jubilantly psychotic brothers, who even as teenagers never bothered with fists or even bats but opted for vehicular mayhem of all kinds. He could feel the way it had been, surrounded in the parking lot of the bindery on Mannheim Road by the wolf-eyed Taliaferros, as they sat on the hoods of their old, long, ruined Pontiacs, with their arms folded over their chests. Back then, Charley, who was a slow but thorough thinker, had overcome his agitation and found escape not through fleeing but through backing off-a.s.sessing his plight from a bird's-eye view. He'd surveyed the area and seen two black-and-whites parked adjacent, next to Alexander's Diner, cops chatting through their windows over coffee. Sliding his hand through the window of Tory's vehicle, Charley laid on the horn until one of the police got annoyed and came to see what was up. The Taliaferro brothers scattered like roaches under a kitchen light.

Now, there surely was a logical explanation for what Adriana was saying; he knew that. But when Charley drew back, to scan for the explanation and the key to the lock, he saw only a broken landscape. He scanned the lines of gawkers leaning over the velvet ropes and the long lines of identical, idling black cars that stretched away for blocks.

Information was the best thing. Charley Seven needed more.

"So Adriana, honey, how long ago was this?"

"It really was Eliza who called, Uncle Charley! I recognized her voice!" she screamed.

"How long ago was this, Adriana?" Charley asked in the voice that could make men forget that they had learned to control their bowels when they were four.

"It was maybe half an hour ago, Uncle Charley? I didn't know when they would give the award for those kinds of movies. Doc.u.mentaries. I thought they might be way near the end. I forgot they sprinkle those kind in with the big ones. I changed Stella and then the phone call came and I turned on the TV and Beth's brother shows up. He kind of looked like Beth. But afterward, I thought, why wouldn't Eliza have told me before if she was going to send her uncle for the baby?"

Slowly, Charley Seven said, "A half hour ago? Half an hour ago you gave Patrick Cappadora's grandchild to a stranger?"

Adriana began to sob. "Uncle Charley! It was Eliza who called me! She said to give Paul the milk she pumped. Who else would know that but Liza?"

Anyone who knew what most six-month-olds lived on, Charley thought.