The trouble with you, p.17
The Trouble with You, page 17
He had no argument for that.
* * *
Fanny was on her way to the kitchen with the dinner dishes when the phone rang. She put them down on the counter and made a dash for it.
“Guess what,” Susannah said.
Fanny carried the phone to the window seat, which was as far as the cord would reach, kicked off her shoes, and sat.
“When’s the momentous date?”
“I start next week.”
Fanny began to say that she’d meant when was the baby due, then caught herself. “Start what?”
“I have a job. Now that Jeffrey passed the bar and can practice, I talked the civil rights lawyer he was doing research for into letting me step into his shoes. It wasn’t easy. The lawyer insisted on Jeffrey’s permission.”
“I assume he gave it.”
“He didn’t have much choice. It was either a working wife or a divorce.”
“Don’t you need grounds for the second? Jeffrey never struck me as the philandering type.”
“I’d hire a divorce Jezebel.”
“A what?”
“Girls you hire to be caught in compromising positions with the husbands in trumped-up divorce cases. You can get one for eight or ten dollars.”
“How do you know something like that?”
“I’m becoming well versed in the niceties of the law.”
“Apparently. What kind of research?”
“Do you know what a Mississippi appendectomy is?”
“An appendectomy performed in Mississippi? Unless it’s another legal nicety like a divorce Jezebel.”
“It’s a lot worse than that. A Mississippi appendectomy is a slang term for forced sterilization. That’s how common they are in the South. Mostly of Negro women there, though in other parts of the country like California and the Southwest the victims are usually Mexican. The lawyer I’m going to work for is part of a group who are bringing a suit on behalf of women who were sterilized against their will. More than against their will. Without their knowledge half the time. Can you imagine? I’ve read some of the interviews. Middle-aged women still trying to conceive, who think there’s something wrong with them because they can’t, and don’t know they lost any chance at fourteen or fifteen or younger when some county hospital or social service do-gooder decided to play god and determine who could bring children into the world and who couldn’t. I joke that I’m missing the maternal gene, but even I can understand how that must feel. So I’m going to help sue the hypocritical bastards who did it, or at least the organizations behind them. Forget divine retribution. Give me human every time.”
“I know you sat in on those classes to take notes for Jeffrey when he was sick, but do you know enough law?”
“The lawyers do the law. I’ll be collating the interviews, whipping the data into shape, finding the best cases. Though there’s nothing to stop me from picking up a little law along the way.”
“I’m in awe. I never knew I was rooming with Portia. Shakespeare’s character, not the soap opera version.”
“To tell you the truth, I never knew it either.”
“When did you find out?”
“When I started listening to your boss’s programs.”
“Portia Faces Life isn’t one of hers.”
“I didn’t mean listening to a soap about a lawyer, I meant listening to her soaps.”
“You never told me that.”
“It’s not the kind of thing you want even your dearest friends to know. I pretended I was doing it out of loyalty to you, keeping up with Fanny’s life and all that, but when I found myself looking forward to tuning in tomorrow, I knew it was time to take action. And you know something else?”
“I suddenly feel there’s a lot I don’t know.”
“I’m going to open my own checking account.”
“Why? You always said Jeffrey never stopped you from buying anything you wanted, providing you didn’t have to go into hock for it. And you were never one to splurge on yourself.”
“I just like the idea of it. A kind of declaration of independence. ‘In the course of human events’ and all that. Now when I buy a birthday present or something for him, he won’t be the one paying for it. It came to me on his last birthday. He was dying for the binoculars I bought him, then he felt guilty that I’d spent so much on them. If I had my own account, he never would have known.”
Fanny congratulated her and told her again that she was in awe.
“You had something to do with it.”
“Me?”
“I envied your having someplace you had to go every morning. Like when we were at school. We’d complain about dragging ourselves out of bed for class, but we had a purpose. I know it wasn’t easy with Chloe and all. And I knew you weren’t exactly saving the world in that job. But I was still a little jealous. And lest I sound too high-minded, I also kept thinking of your getting dressed every morning, looking spiffy in your working-girl suit and heels and sometimes even a hat—I was green with envy of that gray cloche your aunt gave you last spring—while I was lounging around the apartment in a ratty bathrobe.”
“Now I’m the one who’s going to be envious. You really will be saving the world.”
“Let’s just say making a minuscule contribution, but thank you.”
After Fanny hung up the phone, she sat thinking about the call. Something nagged at her, and it had to do not with Susannah or that army of unfortunate women, but with Chloe and her, with the least important part of Susannah’s announcement. She was going to open a checking account. Fanny had a checking account, but there was never much in it. Charlie had said his scheme would put her in a different tax bracket. She thought of all the small luxuries she’d be able to afford. Piano lessons for Chloe. Rose had offered to pay for them, but they already took too much from her. Besides, they’d need a piano for that. Okay, forget piano. Violin lessons. Theater tickets. Weekend jaunts to Philadelphia to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, Boston to walk the Freedom Trail, Washington to see the monuments, so Chloe would have something to talk about when her class did show-and-tell. And it wasn’t only the small indulgences. It was the peace of mind. She was so tired of worrying about money. But she couldn’t do it. What good would a star turn on the show-and-tell circuit do Chloe if she was walking around the playground with her mother’s scarlet C on her chest?
* * *
“So you turned Charlie Berlin down,” Rose said.
They were in the living room of Mimi’s apartment. She had refused their offer of help and gone off to the kitchen to check on the pot roast. Chloe and Belle were in Belle’s room playing with the fully equipped toy kitchen Howard had brought home from FAO Schwarz. The gift was supposed to prepare the ground for the news that Belle had a half sibling on the way. To paraphrase Charlie Berlin singing Fats Waller, she would no longer be the only oyster in the stew. Howard and Ezra, whom Mimi had invited to the family dinner in an effort to move things along, were in the study watching the Gillette Friday Night Fights. Every now and then Howard’s voice, shouting tactical advice to one of the fighters, filtered down the hall. Ezra was more restrained.
“I couldn’t take the chance. It’s one thing if I’m disgraced, but something else if Chloe is.”
Rose’s eyebrows shot up. “Disgraced?”
“A pinko mother.”
“Or perhaps a mother who’s fighting injustice.”
Fanny leaned forward to center her drink on the crewel coaster on the coffee table. “Oh, please, Rose, fighting injustice? By signing my name to soap opera scripts I didn’t write to make more money.”
“And helping someone who’s been blacklisted.”
“As you and Alice and several other people pointed out, he was practically begging for it. Besides, according to him, he can always make a living off the horses.”
“Sometimes I worry about you, Fanny. I’m not saying he never places a bet, but anyone can see the racetrack business is an act.”
“I’m sure there are other jobs he could get.”
“After he’s been blacklisted?”
“I heard of someone who used to work at the network who’s making industrial films.”
“I’ll match that with his friend who went into the garage, closed the door, and turned on the engine.”
“Charlie’s not the type for that.”
“You think there’s a type?” She stood, went into the hall where she’d left her handbag, came back carrying a newspaper clipping, and handed it to Fanny.
“This is a letter from the wife of a Stanford research scientist who committed suicide after he was raked over the coals by HUAC. The committee wouldn’t let her read it at a hearing, but she managed to get it printed in a newspaper.”
Fanny took the clipping and began to read.
You have helped to kill my husband and make my four children fatherless. You have committed a greater crime against the children of America and of the world. My husband thought he had found a clue to the understanding of schizophrenia. Perhaps he was mistaken. Only time and the opportunity to pursue his research would have told. You took away both.
“You carry around clippings like this?”
“Not all of us want to avert our eyes from the scene of the crime.”
* * *
Fanny was surprised when Ava turned up at her desk that morning. She’d picked up her latest scripts two days earlier and wasn’t in the segment they were broadcasting today.
“Is Alice here?” she asked.
“I gather from your whispering that you do not want to see her. That, more to the point, you don’t want her to see you. You’re in luck. She’s writing at home today.”
“I have news that I definitely do not want her to know. At least not yet. I don’t want anyone around here to get wind of it until it’s final. That’s why I didn’t call. The switchboard operators would have it all over the building in minutes, and I’d end up with egg on my face if it doesn’t come through. But I have to tell someone. I’m even afraid to tell you. Not because I don’t trust you,” she added quickly, “only because I don’t want to jinx it.”
“If the news is top secret, it can’t be that you’re in love again.”
“I resent the ‘again.’ It’s not love, it’s my so-called career.”
“Not so-called. You get lots of fan mail.”
“Beatrice gets lots of fan mail. Most of it telling her what a terrible homewrecker she is. But this is a real part. In a real play. On Broadway. I’ve been called back twice, and my agent says they’ve just about made up their minds.”
“This is fabulous. What part? What play?”
Ava leaned closer. “A George S. Kaufman play. Can you believe it? It’s called Fancy Meeting You Again, and the part isn’t just a walk-on or the maid who gets to say ‘Dinner is served, madam.’ I play the handmaiden to the leading lady, Leueen MacGrath, Mrs. George S. Kaufman to you.”
“The handmaiden?”
“The play takes place over five thousand years with the same characters reappearing in different guises. I keep coming back scene after scene. In contemporary times, I’m her secretary. You know, the smart sardonic working gal with all the good quips. I can’t wait to get my teeth into the part. We open in January.”
“I love the we.”
“No more than I do. Oh, Fanny, I can see my name on the marquee now.”
“Is the part that big?”
“Okay, on the poster, somewhere in the small print below the title, Kaufman, MacGrath, and the actor who’s playing the male lead. Walter Matthau. But still. Ava Sommers.” She made a space between her forefinger and thumb as if to encase the letters. “And everyone back home laughed when I changed it.”
“I never knew you changed your name.”
“It’s not something people go around announcing.”
“What was it before?”
“Astrid Spongberg.”
“You’re right, Ava Sommers is better on a poster and in a playbill. It’s only a matter of time until it’s on the marquee as well. We should celebrate.”
“Not till the contract is signed. I’m superstitious. Hell, I’m in the real theater now, the legitimate theater, I have to be superstitious. It comes with the territory.”
“Okay, no celebrations, and my lips are sealed, but when you do sign the contract, I’ll buy the champagne.”
“I’ll buy the champagne. I’m going to be a legit actress. A legit actress makes grandiose gestures. But you’ll help me drink it. We’ll even give Chloe a sip. Then the three of us will come up here, and she and I will do cartwheels around the office.”
Chapter Twenty
Rose stepped out of the building into the gathering autumn dusk and smoothed her newly done hair. She’d learned years ago that nothing much tamed her frizz, but a good cut helped. Until she’d met Hugo, she’d hated her hair, but he’d come from a long line of straight-haired women who were continually perming, and he had loved to tousle her curls. Sometimes he’d called her Curly, other times Red. He’d also quoted Thomas Wolfe about “melon-breasted Jewesses from New York.” She didn’t fit that bill as closely as she did Curly and Red, but he’d said the women in his family ran to flat chests as well as straight hair, and she came near enough to Wolfe’s description for him. And he’d marveled at her complexion. God, she missed him.
Warmed by the lights in the shop windows and the memories of Hugo, she started west on Fifty-Seventh Street. That was when she spotted Charlie Berlin coming toward her. She wasn’t surprised at how glad she was to see him, but she was at how pleased he seemed to see her. She wondered if old friends had begun cutting him. A lot of that was going on. He didn’t so much shake her hand as take it and hold on to it.
“You’ve done something to your hair. Very soigné.”
That was the thing about Charlie Berlin, he looked at women, even older women.
“Thank you. Blame it on Mr. Jonathan.”
“Mr. Jonathan knows his way around a haircut. It seems a shame to take it home and hide it from the rest of the world. It deserves a drink in a swanky setting. Unless you have something planned to show it off.”
She started to say he was the one who must have better things to do, then caught herself. She suspected these days he was a man with plenty of time on his hands. She told him she’d love a drink.
“How about the Plaza?” He took her arm, turned her around, and they started east.
When they reached the hotel, they made their way through the revolving door and across the thickly carpeted lobby to the Oak Bar. She waited until they’d settled in one of the deep leather banquettes and ordered drinks before she brought up the subject.
“I’m sorry Fanny didn’t go for the front arrangement.”
He shrugged. “I always knew it was a long shot. And I can’t blame her for not wanting to get the kid involved.”
“Getting the kid involved is one of the reasons I thought she might do it. She could use the money. I do what I can to help, but I’m not exactly Daddy Warbucks.”
“I bet you come close. Anyway, I’m working on some other possibilities who might be willing to sign their blameless names to my deathless prose.”
She knew from the way he said it that he was lying, and dropped the subject.
The incident occurred on their way out of the hotel. It had nothing to do with the drinks. She’d had one whiskey sour. If she was going to blame it on anything, it would be the snag in the red carpet runner on the steps. Her heel caught, and she began to pitch forward. Charlie grabbed her before she went down, and held on for moment. She was an old woman, and he was a young man, and their winter coats were bulky between them, but somehow the human touch came through, and for a minute she thought she was going to weep at the relief of it.
* * *
This time Ava used the telephone. “I want the whole building to know. I want the whole world to know. I got it! I got the part!”
“Congratulations!” Fanny shouted as loud as she dared in the office.
“I can’t believe it. I’ve been pinching myself ever since my agent called.”
“This is terrific. Fantastic. When do you start rehearsals?”
“In two weeks.”
“Are you going to ask Alice to send your character on vacation, throw her off a cliff, or hire another actress?”
“I’ll let my agent negotiate that.”
“Aren’t you the cavalier one?”
“Euphoric. Euphoric is the accurate term. I figure I can always get another part on a soap—there, I said the word—but I’m hoping I won’t have to. Not after a juicy part in a George S. Kaufman play.”
“You’re right. As soon as we get off the phone, I’m going out to buy that champagne.”
“I told you. I’m buying. I’m a legitimate theater actress now.”
* * *
Fanny wasn’t surprised when the two men in the identical shiny blue suits and gray homburgs turned up at her desk again. They’d been back once since Charlie Berlin had been fired. A few weeks after their second visit, one of Larry Cunningham’s characters had been written out of the show and three new actors with dramatically different voices had been hired for his other parts. There would be no more listeners writing in accusing characters of bigamy. He’d left joking that he was a man of a thousand voices and not one of them was employable. Apparently, the way to go out was laughing.
This time the two men were closeted in Alice’s office for only a few minutes before she came out and told Fanny they wanted to talk to her.
“Me?” Fanny’s voice was more surprised than frightened.
“Don’t worry, it’s not about you. They just want to ask you a few questions.”
“About Charlie?”
“Charlie’s ancient history.”
