The Great American Short Story

Sally Starr was 28; five feet, four inches tall and weighed 118 pounds. With her winning smile showing gleaming white--although capped--teeth, and a vivacious, outgoing infectious personality and superior acting talent, she was a natural for the lead role in the fifteenth version of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." At her young age, she was already an accomplished actress, having won an Oscar for best supporting actress three years earlier for her role in "It's a Long Way to Mongolia." She received this award despite being on the screen for a total of 14 minutes. Such was the riveting nature of her bravado performance as the driver of the chariot. The following year, she won a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award for her supporting role in "Two Quarters Do Not a Dollar Make." Fresh from this double victory, Sally was offered the lead role in the Broadway play "Halt, Who Goes There?", for which she won a Tony Award as best actress. Not satisfied with being an award-winning actress, Sally went into a recording studio on a dare from her manager and cut an album of 11 songs she wrote and, in less than two months, her debut album, entitled "Songs From a Leaking Pen," achieved platinum status, and she won four Grammies for her work. (For the curious, she won "Best Album," "Best Song," Best Album Cover," and "Best Performance by a Female With Capped Teeth." But all of these awards couldn't fill the emptiness in her heart. She was an only child; her parents both died in an automobile accident while driving home from the Grammy Award Show; and she had no boyfriend. Oh, she had a brief whirlwind affair, quickie marriage and just as quickie a divorce 10 years earlier, but nothing of a more permanent, stable nature. Men, she believed, were intimidated by her good looks, and perhaps envious of her early success. One day, at a book-signing session following publication of her autobiography entitled "Sally," that made the New York Times' best-selling list, a young man appeared in front of her--the last to seek her autograph. As their eyes met, something clicked. It was the sound of the pen. But it went further than that. After signing the book, this young man introduced himself to her and together they went over to a nearby bar and began a long conversation. Harry Wallett was a 33-year-old self-made businessman, a college graduate in business administration and a bit of a sharpshooter who tried out for the Olympics biathlon team, who had just lost his wife in an automobile accident following a tragic medical diagnosis. Oh my, Sally said, telling Harry that she had lost her parents under the same tragic circumstances of a car crash. Now something really clicked, and this time it wasn't the sound of any pen. They were falling in love. Especially after he told her his net worth was over $500 million. Sally never really liked acting; she hated playing other people. She just wanted to be herself. Wally was also an only child whose parents died of cancer within a year of each other. Two highly successful, but lonely people shared their life stories that fateful day. They quickly discovered that for all their success, both were interested in the simple things in life. To them, the real beautify of life was its simplicity. No goldfish bowl; no need to live the life others would want them to live. Within a few weeks, Harry and Sally gave most of their wealth to charity and to fund certain federal assistance programs. In their words, they decided to gift it away. Sally stopped wearing her blonde wig, stopped using makeup to cover her acne and zits, stopped wearing the one-inch lift in her left shoe and gave up Hollywood (she knew Hollywood would drop her like a leper once they saw the "real" Sally) and moved in with Harry. As Sally was revealing the real her to him, Harry discarded the upper bridge that served as his two front teeth; the fake eyebrows; and the makeup that hid his scarred face, the result of a childhood prank involving lighter fluid and matches. The two of them each found a soul mate; looks didn't matter. They looked forward to a lifetime of happiness. And it all started when Harry met Sally.