Then Again - Diane Keaton [60]
He was an artist. He made me think about the difference between being an artist and being artistic. I knew where I stood. I was artistic. For the first time it didn’t matter. I just wanted him to love me. I’m pretty sure in Al’s mind I was a friend he could talk to. As much as I loved listening, I wanted more, lots of more. Tons. I wanted him to want me as much as I wanted him.
In the middle of this love came Baby Boom. The script, about a woman who is forced to adopt a baby, was laugh-out-loud hilarious (or, as Dexter would say, LOL). Charles Shyer and Nancy Meyers, the writing-directing-producing team, were talented and charming. Nancy and my soon-to-be-dear-friend Susie Becker, the costume designer, made me over. It was great to feel attractive and cute and funny again. I became J. C. Wiatt—snappy, sassy, and ready to go. What great good fortune. Or, as J. C. Wiatt would have said, “I’m back. I am back.” And it wasn’t Heaven that did it.
The Future Isn’t What It Used to Be
When I arrived at the Glendale Adventist Medical Center, Grammy Hall sat on the side of the hospital bed, ready to go home. Her white hair was pushed back with three rusted bobby pins. Her rayon pants outfit, ablaze with orange, red, and yellow flowers, was offset by the geometric pattern of her blouse, also aflame. “Dorrie’s new boyfriend is a Jew. Did you know that, Diane? Also that nurse Holly’s fiancé is an Eyetalian. And that new aide is a Lebanon. I think she’s a sister to Danny Thomas.” “How are you feeling, Gram?” “It seems most of my trouble is in my head. It’s that there gland. There’s poor circulation in my brain, see. They took X-rays of my head. They seem to think I’m in a bad way. Don’t worry, Diane; I lived a long life, too long. I’m not making many future plans, see, ’cause I don’t want to live that long. That’s too long to live to wait for, what … fifteen or twenty dollars?”
I was as close to Mary Hall as she would let me be. And vice versa. She was ninety-four when she died. Back in the fifties, I hadn’t cottoned to Grammy Hall. She didn’t try to paint a pretty picture of the world. Her Christmas presents were awful: a year’s supply of Mission Pack pears delivered to our door every month. Like I cared about pears. It was only when I grew up that I began to respect her.
True, she was unevolved, but she was not a hypocrite. She was 100 percent honest. She was a practicing skeptic, as well as a practicing Catholic. What a contradiction in terms, especially when you consider she didn’t believe in Jesus or heaven. She saw through the pretense and accepted it with a shrug, saying, “It’s a long drawn-out proposition, ain’t it, Diane. Like I always say, it’s the same old sixes or sevens.” She died a devout Catholic. Hey, Gram, I’m with you; why not cover all bases, just in case, on the off chance you might be wrong?
Dorothy at Sixty-three
I am a woman of medium height: once five feet eight, now five seven. I keep my records in this leather-bound journal titled 1980. I have no unpaid bills or financial obligations to meet. My present bank account number is 45572 1470. I have four issue (children). Their birth dates are Jan. 5, 1946, March 21, 1948, March 27, 1951, and April 1, 1953. Their names are Diane, Randy, Robin, and Dorrie. I am married to Jack Newton Hall, a citizen of the United States. His eyes are blue. His hair is graying. He is 6 feet tall.