He blamed her smile for everything that happened. Her smile screwed him over.
When he first saw her, he thought she was one of the prettiest women he had ever met, that's true - but hadn't it been for that dazzling smile of hers, he would have never married that spoiled, selfish, nagging, pestering, unbearable little bitch that was Nora Montgomery, née Hamilton.
Hadn't it been for it, he wouldn't have ended up his days with an ether addiction, a degenerating mental derangement, and a bullet in his head. But after that doomed party in Philadelphia where he met her, all he ever wanted in life was to see her smile again.
He would have killed to see her smile... or, as it would have been the case, he would have done the exact opposite of killing.
…
Sure, Nora Hamilton was a choice bit of calico – skin like a Magnolia flower and Tiffany blue eyes, a shock of honey-blonde ringlets - and she knew how to walk like a real lady, how to toss her head to make her earrings dance; but he would have never thought about making her his wife.
At the dinner where he had met her – an extravagantly luxurious, Gatsby-like party at the Hamiltons - she was the center of anyone's attention – she walked around with a Champagne glass in her hand, laughing, waving her hands in her lovely mannerisms. She was wearing an elaborately beaded ivory dress, and she had a diamond headband around her head.
He had given her a quick appreciative glance, when he had got in, then he had started accepting all the glasses the numerous waiters offered him from their silver trays, and in no time he had gotten roaring drunk. At the time he was a rising star in the glittering world of Hollywood showbiz, launched at full speed on the way to success.
He was flirting happily with some young, pretty little thing, one of those forgettable wannabe movie stars, when old Mr Hamilton – red-faced and jolly, impeccably dressed – had approached him.
"Charles, old sport" he had said in a merry tone. "I hope you're having some fun at this little soirée of ours."
"Why, of course I am. Finest party I have ever been at, and with the finest company."
"Ah, thank you, my dear boy." Mr Hamilton gloated: everyone knew the Hamilton parties were the best in town. "You can never get thirsty at the Hamiltons'!" was a phrase Charles had often heard around.
"Oh, but I think you haven't been introduced to my daughter, Nora, yet." He waved in her direction. "Nora, darling, be an angel and come here for a minute, will you?"
The attractive woman in the ivory dress excused herself to her friends and approached her father. Golden curls had escaped her updo and framed her lovely face.
"Charles, this is my daughter, Nora. Nora, dear, this is Charles Montgomery, the famous surgeon. He's the one who removed Buster Keaton's appendix, you know?" He laughed.
Charles held out his hand to her, and Nora chose that very moment to give him a flash of her smile.
Bang.
Her whole face lit up. Her cheek raised, the skin around her eyes creased in crow's feet. Her eyes sparkled like aquamarines. Charles had never seen a smile like that, a smile that could transform a human face into an angel's.
She had a lovely, heart-shaped mouth and small, white teeth like a string of pearls, but the charm of her smile was all in the way it made its recipient feel. It was one of those smiles that make you think you are the most important being in the whole universe; a smile that assured you there were no one else she so wanted to see. A world full of promises was enclosed in that smile.
She put her soft, fresh little hand in his, but he barely noticed that, as fascinated by her as he was.
"How very nice it is of you to join our little fête" she said, warmly. "I was so hoping to meet you, Dr Montgomery. I've heard so much about you." Her voice was crystalline and silvery, filled with such warmth that he got almost confused; in his drunken stupor, Charles Montgomery had never been more enchanted by anybody in his entire life. She was the sweetest, the most ethereal creature he had ever seen. How could he make her smile again, how could he make that miracle happen again?
She leaned over him and lowered her voice as if to say a secret. He could smell the faint trace of her verbena fragrance. "A little bird told me Lillian Gish went to see you last week – is that true?" she whispered. "Oh, please, tell me it is! I adore her movies!" Her eyes gleamed.
"Uh, sure." he said. "She's one of my most affectionate patients. The loveliest creature alive, I tell you – presents aside. I was glad to solve her… little problem." He had never seen Lillian Gish in his entire life, excluding that one time he went to see The Birth Of A Nation in a nickelodeon, in 1915.
She smiled again, in awe. Her eyes, as blue as Dresden china, squeezed. Charles Montgomery thought he would have said anything, done anything, just to see her smile like that again. Had she asked if the Pope had been to his study for a nose job, he would happily have said "yes" just to impress her.
That night, he couldn't sleep because of her. For days, the picture of her face – radiant with beauty, beaming in laughter – haunted him.
Six months later, he presented her with a 16 carat table-cut diamond mounted on a platinum Cartier ring. She smiled so widely when she accepted it, that Charles felt reasonably rewarded for the burning fortune he had spent for it. Their wedding was by far the most lavish Philadelphia had seen in years: Nora wore a diamond necklace worth 150,000 dollars.
By the end of the next year, they moved in their new house in Los Angeles, along with the four Frank Lloyd Wright designed chandeliers from Charles' study. Nora's father present to the bride were the Tiffany stained glass windows that matched her eyes so well.
…
The first years of their marriage were a bed of roses. They threw parties every other night, where booze flew like rivers. Hollywood stars went up and down their chestnut paneled staircase. A drunk Gloria Swanson admired the lovely chandeliers, Rudolph Valentino once played bridge in their smoking room.
Charles covered his wife in Lavelier jewels. Whenever Nora asked for something – was it an Art Deco diamond brooch, a Paul Poiret dress or a straight-six engine Hispano-Suiza – he was ready to draw his checkbook
As a consequence, her request became more and more frequent, more and more expensive.
Charles' bank account was free-falling, but who cared, as long as Nora smiled.
She stopped smiling as soon as money stopped flowing. The first time a creditor showed up at their door, Charles finally saw his wife's true colors: her sweet features hardened up in a way he never thought possible, her eyes became as cold as marble; her voice as harsh as a bird's screech. Her lips turned into a thin, hard line.
That was the first time she called him a disgrace.
And that was the first time he drank a whole bourbon bottle all by himself.
…
And then she got pregnant, and things got even worse.
She was constantly sick. She blamed him for it; she scolded him for everything – for drinking too much, for being late at dinner, for wearing the wrong tie, for breathing too heavily, for being such a bitter disappointment all the time. She started loudly expressing her desire of being a widow, and her ravishing smile became a distant memory, along with her ladylike manners. Charles started spending more and more time downstairs, in his laboratory. He started indulging in ether – not so much, just a little bit, just to forget her insults for a little while; just to calm his nerves before work. It wasn't like he was an addict or anything.
When she finally gave birth to little Thaddeus, Charles hoped the baby would soften her up a bit.
But the baby was noisy, the baby bothered her, the baby didn't let her sleep at night. The baby wasn't even all that pretty, he looked too much like Charles. The baby was such a let-down, just like his father. The baby was such a disappointment.
Nora's temper tantrums were everyday occurrences. The maids were terrified by her.
Charles rarely left the lab at all during the day.
And then, Nora stitched him up with the abortion clinic.
Who would have ever suspected that the lovely, smiling young woman he met in Philadelphia – with her refined manners and her tiny white hands, her sweet sapphire-blue eyes – would have become such a ruthless little wench.
…
Everyone knows what happened after that. "Infant kidnapped and cut to pieces" "Mother and father found dead" "Police suspects murder-suicide"
It was on all the newspapers.
…
It was funny, Charles thought, that after all those years of insults and belittlement, after all the screams and the bitter remarks, even knowing what kind of person she really was, her smile could still make his stomach go crazy with butterflies, his heart leap.
When he finally succeeded in his experiments; when he achieved his magnus opus, the fulfillment of a life's work - when he told her that their son was alive and waiting for her, she gave him the same radiant smile he had fallen in love with in 1919, the same smile she flashed at the sight of the Cartier ring in 1920. She smiled as she had smiled in seeing the Tiffany glass windows in their new house in 1922, and he felt like he was valuable again, like his life had had a meaning, after all.
When she came downstairs and told him she had been wrong about him, that he really was a genius, when she stroked his head and let him put his arms around her waist, he felt fully realized. All he wanted was to see her smile again, and now he felt like he had finally earned it.
She was still smiling when she pointed the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, and that was enough for him.