Masquerade Party
It was the first real vacation Wendy and Gavin Nielsen had taken since their honeymoon in Niagara Falls twenty-five years earlier. As their children were growing up, the couple had to be content with day trips or the occasional three-day weekend in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains or at the Jersey Shore. But now that the kids were grown and the budget was not so restrictive, Wendy and Gavin decided to take that trip to the West Coast they had always dreamed about. The two were flying from Newark's Liberty Airport to LAX; then they would have three weeks to work their way up the coast in time to fly out of San Francisco and back to New Jersey.
After landing in Los Angeles, Gavin picked up a Ford Taurus station wagon from the Avis car rental and put their American Tourister luggage in the cargo area. Meanwhile, Wendy scooped up travel brochures from every wire rack along the way and stashed them in an accordion folder along with her AAA travelogue, triptych, traveler's checks and an envelope containing coupons for practically every nationwide restaurant chain.
"Where to first?" Gavin asked, getting behind the station wagon's steering wheel and heading toward the freeway.
"Why don't we go to the hotel, check in and get rid of the luggage? Then we'll plot a route based on what we want to see."
After registering with the front desk, Gavin brought the bags to their room and then joined his wife at a small table in front of the window. Wendy was separating some three dozen folders into five neat piles.
"So, have you decided which of these places you want to go to?" Gavin asked, picking up a brochure at random.
"All of them," Wendy replied.
"What?" he asked in disbelief. "Even if we had that kind of money, we don't have the time. We've only got three weeks, and I thought we'd spend a week in San Francisco."
"Not counting today and the day we have to leave, we have twenty full days in which to sightsee. Now, in San Francisco, the main places we want to visit are Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf, Chinatown—oh, and that crooked street that we always see in the movies. I figure five days there should be enough. Then I estimated six days to drive up the coast."
"Six days? It's only three hundred and eighty miles. If I stick to the freeways, it shouldn't even take six hours."
"And miss all those scenic little towns along the Pacific? Not on your life. We're going to take the Pacific Coast Highway. I want to see Carmel, Monterey and ...."
"Okay, okay. I just thought if we had any time to spare, we might make a side trip to Vegas."
"I don't clip coupons all year long to throw my savings away in a casino. Besides, if you want to gamble, you can go to Atlantic City."
Gavin did not bother to argue with his wife. He had long since learned the key to surviving twenty-five years of marriage was to adhere to one simple rule: let Wendy have her way.
"And that leaves us nine days here in L.A.," Wendy concluded, rearranging her stacks of travel brochures.
"All right, Captain, I'll leave the itinerary in your capable hands. You just tell me where to go, and I'll do the driving."
* * *
A week later, Gavin's arms, face and neck were sunburned, and he was nursing blisters on both his feet. Meanwhile, Wendy had so far taken over two thousand photographs and had accumulated three shopping bags full of souvenirs. Apparently a glutton for punishment, she spent part of the day at Knott's Berry Farm buying yet more gifts for the relatives and friends back home.
"Honey, just how much stuff do you think they'll let you bring aboard a plane?" her husband asked with a laugh.
"I have to buy something for my niece's little boy," she replied, examining a large stuffed Snoopy. "Don't worry. What I can't bring back on the plane with us, I'll ship to New Jersey by UPS." Wendy then paid for the toy, pocketed her change and asked her husband, "Do you want to go on a few more rides? We still have some time."
"To be perfectly honest, having been to Disneyland, Universal Studios and now this place, I've had enough rides to last me for a few years and then some."
"I never realized you'd be such a party pooper," his wife teased, as she affectionately took his arm in hers.
"You forget. I'm not seventeen years old anymore. I'm forty-seven although right now I feel more like ninety-seven."
"In that case, you'll be happy to know that what I've planned for tomorrow requires no physical exertion."
"Oh, what are we going to do, sit by the pool and drink piña coladas?"
"So that you can ogle all those anorexic young women in their shoestring bikinis?"
"Sounds like my kind of vacation. Can I borrow your camera?"
"Very funny! No. We're going to see the movie stars' homes tomorrow, and you won't have to drive because we're going to take the bus tour."
* * *
It was a red double-decker bus, the kind one usually associates with London Bridge and Piccadilly Circus.
"I wonder if they actually shipped this over here from England," Wendy said, as she found two seats on the upper level.
"More likely it's a prop left over from some movie that was supposed to be set in London. I've heard the studios sometimes sell those vehicles at auctions. Remember the General Lee car on The Dukes of Hazard? There were actually a few of them, and every once in a while, you see one up for sale in the auto magazines."
"If I could buy a Hollywood car, I sure wouldn't buy a redneck Charger. I'd want the DeLorean from Back to the Future or better yet, the Ferrari that Magnum used to drive."
"On our income?" Gavin laughed. "You'd be lucky if you could afford Herbie the Lovebug!"
Once all those who boarded the bus had taken their seats, the bus driver started the engine and pressed the PLAY button on the cassette recorder that provided narration for the tour. For the next four hours, the tourists from New Jersey rode along highways and winding residential streets in the Hollywood Hills, past the mansions of some of the biggest names in the entertainment field: homes once owned by legendary stars such as John and Lionel Barrymore, Lucille Ball, Fred Astaire and Marilyn Monroe, as well as some of today's luminaries, including Barbra Streisand, Nicholas Cage and Harrison Ford. Actors, directors, producers, singers, dancers and musicians all thronged to the West Coast Mecca of motion pictures.
"Oh, look, Gavin," Wendy exclaimed excitedly as the red double-decker bus made its way down Hollywood Boulevard, "that's Grauman's Chinese Theater—or whatever it's called now. We've got to come back here later. I want to get my picture taken in front of a star's handprints in the forecourt."
"I've already taken your picture with Mickey Mouse, ET, King Kong and the shark from Jaws. Wait until we visit Alcatraz. I can't wait to get a picture of you behind bars!"
Like her husband, Wendy had survived twenty-five years of marriage living by one rule. Hers was to always laugh at Gavin's jokes, funny or not, even when they were made at her expense.
The bus continued its tour past famous landmarks such as the Playboy mansion, the Beverly Hills Hotel, Venice Beach and the Santa Monica Pier—which, compared to the boardwalks at New Jersey's Seaside Park, Atlantic City and Wildwood, left a lot to be desired—and along such famed thoroughfares as Rodeo Drive, Mulholland Drive and Sunset Strip. Finally, the bus pulled into the parking lot just as the recording announced, "That concludes our tour. We hope you have enjoyed our star-studded presentation. If you would care to tip the driver, kindly place your gratuity in the wire basket on the dashboard when you exit the bus. Thank you."
"Where to now?" Gavin asked as they walked back to their car.
"I'd like to go to that Hollywood Wax Museum we passed yesterday."
"Okay. Then let's go to a nice restaurant and get a good meal. No McDonald's, Burger King, Arby's, Wendy's, Pizza Hut or Kentucky Fried Chicken. I'm in the mood for a thick, juicy steak and a baked potato with sour cream."
"Sounds good, but before we eat, I want to go back to Grauman's and get my picture taken while it's still light outside."
The wax museum was larger than either of them had anticipated, and it took considerably longer to see all the exhibits, especially since Wendy had insisted on photographing each one. When the couple finally reached the exit, Gavin sighed with relief.
"Good. Now we can get something to eat."
"Uh-uh! First, I get my picture taken, remember?" his wife reminded him.
As Gavin stood in front of the famous Hollywood landmark holding the camera, Wendy jumped from one set of famous handprints to another.
"What do you think, Gavin, Marilyn Monroe or Elizabeth Taylor? ... Oh, wait, what about Ava Gardner? ... Look, there's Meryl Streep!"
"For heaven's sake, Wendy, just smile and say cheese. I'm starving. I want to go eat!"
Finally settling on Marilyn Monroe, she kneeled on the ground, placed her palms in the handprints and struck a pose. Gavin pointed the Nikon and, barely taking the time to aim, snapped her picture. He then proceeded to grumble all the way back to the car.
"I don't see what the big deal is anyway. It's nothing but cement."
"Stop complaining. Honestly, I don't know which is growling louder: you or your stomach."
"If you see any good restaurants, yell," Gavin instructed as he pulled out into the busy rush-hour traffic.
"That one looks good," Wendy said, indicating a steak house on the opposite side of the road.
"I'll go down the next side street and turn around."
Unfortunately, he turned down a one-way road, the first of many he would encounter before the night was over. Twenty minutes later, Gavin turned to Wendy and admitted they were hopelessly lost.
* * *
"What is that?" Gavin asked, taking his foot off the accelerator and letting it hover over the brake.
"Looks like smoke. Maybe something's on fire up ahead."
"No, it's not smoke," he concluded, as they encountered the swirling, white cloud. "It looks more like fog."
"This is Los Angeles, remember? This must be a prime example of the smog Southern Californians are always complaining about."
"Whatever it is, it's damned near impossible to see through."
Gavin had cut his speed from fifty miles an hour to twenty, and he was still having difficulty following the white lines on the road. As they crawled along blindly in the fog-like substance, a minivan rushed past them in the opposite lane catching the Taurus's rear bumper and sending it careening off the road. Wendy let out a frightened scream as the Ford plunged into a steep ditch.
"Are you hurt, darling?" Gavin asked when the car came to a stop.
"No, just a bit shook up. Let's get out of here before someone else comes along and hits us."
Although Gavin gave it his best effort, the car wouldn't budge. Its rear tires were barely touching the ground.
"There's irony for you," Gavin laughed. "I've safely driven through some of the worst weather the Northeast can dish out, and I've never gotten stuck. I come to sunny California and wind up in a ditch."
"What do you think the odds are that a police car will pass by?"
"I think that unless we want to spend the night here, I'd better walk to the nearest house and ask to use the phone."
"I'm going with you," Wendy insisted and got out of the car.
Ten minutes later they emerged from the dense fog into the clear California night.
"There are lights up ahead. It looks like a big house," Gavin said.
The mansion resembled a set from The Great Gatsby. Light streamed out from all the windows on the lower level and many from the floors above. Dozens of chauffeur-driven luxury vehicles lined the long driveway, and expensive sports cars were carelessly parked on the well-manicured lawn. As the Nielsens neared the house, they could hear live music coming from within.
They walked up the drive, and Gavin gave a low whistle.
"Look at these cars, would you! Rolls Royces, Lamborghinis, Bentleys."
"What did you expect? This is Hollywood. These people don't drive Dodge Neons or Ford Escorts."
"That's odd," her husband said, scratching his head in confusion. "There are cars here from as far back as the Twenties, but there are no new cars."
"So, maybe they're all antique car collectors. I don't see what's so odd about that?"
"Look, there's a 1929 Dusenberg. When was the last time you saw a Dusie?"
"Gavin, where we live, it's rare to see a Ferrari, but this is Hollywood."
"Yeah, Toto, I keep forgetting we're not in Kansas anymore," he replied.
Despite his attempts at humor, he still felt a gnawing uneasiness at being around so many old cars, all in mint condition. Perhaps it was only the strange fog or the mishap with the Taurus that made him feel apprehensive.
Wendy is right, he thought. This part of the country is far different from the one in which we live. Here people spend vast sums of money on palatial homes, fine art, jewelry and, yes, expensive cars—both new and classic models.
The Nielsens walked up the wide front steps, and Wendy knocked on the door.
"A bit lax on security, don't you think?" Gavin asked, looking around the yard. "No fence, no guard dogs."
"I'd be willing to bet that at least three hidden cameras have watched our every move since we stepped on the driveway."
She had reached out her hand to knock again when the door was suddenly thrown open by a woman wearing a half mask that covered the upper part of her face.
"Hello, darlings. No need to knock, just come in."
Wendy and Gavin stared, speechless. The woman who opened the door was—unless their eyes deceived them—Queen Elizabeth I. She wore a green velvet gown with a golden neck ruff, and her fiery red hair was topped with a jeweled crown.
When the surprised couple entered the marble foyer, they were given an excellent view of a large ballroom to the right where the band was playing a Twenties jazz hit. While a masked Robin Hood danced the Charleston with Cleopatra, a medieval knight in armor chased a pirate wench around the dance floor and a Catholic priest drank champagne with a gypsy and a cowboy.
"We don't mean to intrude," Wendy apologized to their royal hostess. "Our car is stuck in a ditch about a mile or so up the road, and we wanted to know if we could use your phone to call a tow truck."
"This isn't my house," Elizabeth said in an accent that was more Brooklyn than Britain. "But go ahead and take a look around. I'm sure there's a phone here someplace."
So saying, the flame-haired Tudor queen left them unattended in the foyer and went back to the arms of a man dressed as a Civil War general.
"Let's get out of here," Gavin suggested.
"What's gotten into you? She said we could use the telephone, didn't she? Come on and help me find it."
"I've got a bad feeling about this place. There's a guy dressed up like Frankenstein in the next room."
"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Wendy exclaimed. "It's a costume party, something we even have back in New Jersey."
"Yeah, at Halloween. In case you haven't noticed, it's July, not October."
"And maybe it's just a birthday party with a little imagination. I don't have to tell you again, do I? This is Hollywood. There are probably lots of masquerade parties for any number of reasons. This town was built on make-believe. And just imagine how many costumes there must be lying around, left over from the movies."
"All right already. Save the debate for later. Let's just find the phone and call a tow truck."
For nearly half an hour, husband and wife searched walls, kitchen counters, coffee tables and every conceivable nook and cranny, but they could not find a telephone.
"I suppose you don't think that's odd?" Gavin said. "We have four phones in the house for just the two of us. And yet in a place this size, we haven't found a single one."
"Perhaps they prefer those new cell phones. Rich people don't waste their time with landlines."
"You're beginning to sound like Robin Leach. What makes you such an authority on the lifestyles of the rich and famous?"
"I'm not going to start arguing here in someone else's home, so just shut up and help me look for a phone. It's getting late, and I want to get something to eat and then back to the motel."
"How do you like that? We finally agree on something."
"Who are you supposed to be?" asked a gentleman dressed in a Roman toga.
His voice sounded familiar to Wendy, but the full mask distorted it somewhat.
"We're no one," she replied. "We just came in to use the phone. You wouldn't know where we could find one, would you?"
"You're not one of us?" he asked.
"No, we ...."
"Then how the hell did you get in here?"
Gavin stepped in, giving Wendy his "I'll handle it" look.
"We knocked on the door, and a woman dressed as Queen Elizabeth let us in. She told us we could use the phone if we found it. If this is your house, I apologize for the intrusion. We meant no harm. We only want to call a tow truck to get our car out of the ditch."
"You must leave here at once."
"Well, you don't have to be so rude about it," Wendy snapped, highly offended.
Soon other masqueraders were stopping their merrymaking to watch.
"Go, now!" one of the guests urged.
As Wendy turned to leave, her face flushed with embarrassment, she heard whispers spreading through the crowd: "Not one of us." "How did they get in?" "This sort of thing has never happened before."
Wendy held her head high, despite the humiliation she felt. As she and Gavin walked across the ballroom, the music stopped. From somewhere deep inside the house, a clock began to chime.
"Hurry," the man in the toga shouted, more in fear than in anger. "It's almost midnight."
As the Nielsens approached the front door, a cloud of mist crossed the threshold.
"I guess the fog followed us," Wendy whispered to Gavin.
"It's too late," Cleopatra declared, walking over to take the hand of the man in the toga.
The clock struck nine ... ten ... eleven.
The fog spread rapidly and soon covered the floor. As the strange mist swirled around their legs, the masqueraders fell into a trance. The gentleman in the toga, who had been so insistent that the Nielsens leave, removed his mask, as did Cleopatra. Wendy gasped with astonishment when she recognized the familiar faces of Carole Lombard and Clark Gable. She turned to the other people in the room, seeing beneath their lowered masks other faces immortalized by the silver screen: Humphrey Bogart, W.C. Fields, Errol Flynn, Jean Harlow, Spencer Tracy, Theda Bara, Clara Bow, George Burns, Gracie Allen and dozens of others. Famous actors and actresses from silent classics had been partying with the stars of Thirties gangster movies, Forties war films, Fifties musicals and dramas, comedies and thrillers from more recent decades.
The fog continued to rise, and as the clock struck twelve, the ghosts of the screen idols faded into the mist.
"Let's get out of here," Gavin yelled, tugging at his wife's arm.
"No, I want to see what happens."
For the first and only time during their marriage, Gavin disobeyed his golden rule. Wendy was not about to get her way this time.
"NOW, goddamn it!" he screamed, pulling her out of the house and down the driveway.
Outside, the strange cloud was already engulfing the antique cars, the beautifully landscaped lawn and the Gatsby-style mansion itself. Wendy, like Lot's wife, wanted to stop, turn and watch, but Gavin never gave her the opportunity. He yanked her along by the arm like an angry parent pulls a reluctant child, not letting up until they were again standing firmly on the road. They stood on the macadam, breathless, panting. Behind them, the house and grounds had vanished. All that remained was that thick, mysterious fog.
Once they caught their breath, they walked back toward the Taurus.
"Look at that," Gavin said, laughing.
A tow truck was in the process of pulling the station wagon out of the ditch.
"Either one of you own this vehicle?" the mechanic asked.
"It's a rental," Gavin explained as he handed the mechanic a copy of the rental agreement, his New Jersey driver's license and his AAA card.
"A Glendale police officer who was patrolling the area found it and called me."
"When I couldn't get the car out of the ditch, my wife and I walked to the house up ahead to use the phone."
"There are no houses up ahead. In fact, this road has no outlet. You're going to have to turn around and go out the way you came in."
"I beg to differ with you," Wendy insisted, "but there was a mansion on the right. It had a long, circular drive and marble columns ...."
The man stared at Wendy as though he was trying to assess her mental state. Further description of the mysterious house was silenced when Gavin jabbed his elbow into his wife's ribcage.
"I think my wife is a little disoriented by the bump to her head," Gavin lied. "See what happens when you don't wear your seatbelt, darling."
The explanation seemed to satisfy the tow truck driver.
"You want me to call an ambulance?" he offered.
"That won't be necessary. I can drive her to the hospital myself."
The mechanic returned Gavin's papers after writing the appropriate information on the bill.
"I guess a bump on the head might cause you to mistake that place for a mansion at that, probably because of the marble columns."
"I don't follow you. What place?" Wendy asked. "You said the area was deserted."
"No, I didn't say that exactly. I said there were no houses up ahead. And, technically, this isn't a road; it's a driveway."
"So, it isn't a dead end?"
"Dead end?" the tow truck driver repeated and burst into laughter. "In a way, I suppose it is. Some of Hollywood's most famous stars are buried up there. You see, this driveway is a back entrance to Forest Lawn Memorial Park."
I don't think you'll fool anyone in that mask, Salem.
