CHEEKBONES by Phoebe Martone

Many years ago on an airplane, I happened to read a short piece about how Loretta Young and Clark Gable had a love child. There was a brief interview in which she said that she now worked as a social worker at a non-profit, accompanied by a picture. It would have been a big no-no and a career buster in the 1950's, if this had been widely known, so Ms. Young pretended she had adopted the child and raised her as her own. If you have never seen Loretta Young, she was very beautiful, with unusually high cheekbones.

A couple years later, I was teaching at a small high school for pregnant and parenting teens, part of Los Angeles Unified School District. Across the street there happened to be a Catholic home and school for teen moms, not associated with our school district. The home was a safety-net, a supportive place to stay. The goal was to make sure the girls finished high school and had a place to live while they needed it.

One of my teacher friends told me that anyone from our school was welcome to go across the street and use the cafeteria at the home. It turned out that the food was prepared fresh each day, was very good, and very reasonable. So I went now and then when I just couldn't be bothered to pack a brown bag.

From time to time, I noticed that one of the staff looked familiar. It didn't make sense because I'd never seen her before, but she had these unusual high cheekbones. They reminded me of someone. I mentioned it to someone eating at my table who said, "Oh, don't you know. That's the daughter of Loretta Young and Clark Gable. She works here."

I realized that I was looking at the love child from the magazine article, but I hadn't recognized her face from the magazine article. I recognized her cheekbones, and something else that I couldn't put my finger on - maybe from the 1950's Loretta Young TV show. Not a beauty like her mother, but the same cheekbones.