Authors: Garson Kanin
What was that on the back of my neck? A cold mass. A sponge? A sponge. She was standing at the side of my bed, beautifully naked, ministering to me.
“I never faint,” I said.
“In a good cause,” she said. “Here.”
“What is it?”
“Brandy.”
“I don’t think so.”
“A sip.”
I took a sip. Another and another. I lay back.
“God,” I heard myself say.
“What’s wrong with God?” she asked me, as she slipped into bed beside me. “Come here, let me take care of you.”
She put her arm around me and fixed my head into a space between her breasts. She kissed my brow and asked, “Do you know how delicious you are? How ambrosial?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Here, then. I’ll show you.”
She grasped the hair at the top of my head, pulled my face up, and began to kiss me, transferring the residue. The unknown taste and scent dizzied me. It all seemed beautiful and right. We were one. We slept.
It must have been the smell of the fresh coffee that awakened me. It took me a minute to realize where I was, who I was, and who she was.
She came into the bedroom, smiling, and carrying a small silver tray with a cup of coffee on it. From the look of her, she had been up for some time. Not made up, but alluringly scrubbed, perfectly coiffed, wearing a long, flowing pale-green dressing gown.
“Cream?” she asked. “Sugar?”
“Black.”
“There you are.”
“Woke me up. The coffee smell.”
“Good. I was beginning to feel bereft, rather. Oh, good morning, by the way.”
She leaned over and we kissed.
“Good morning.”
“I’ve run you a bath.”
“Thank you.”
“Unless you’d rather have a shower.”
“Bath’s fine. I usually shower—but as long as you’ve run it…”
“No matter. It can be unrun. Is that a word?”
“It is
now.”
“And breakfast is ready when you are.”
She left me. I went into the bathroom—fragrant and bright. Flowers. On the basin, a kit containing a toothbrush and toothpaste, a sponge and washcloth, Vademecum mouthwash, Floris soap, dental floss, and God knows what else. I did what I had to do, then got into the iridescent bubble bath. Did I say it was a bubble bath? Well, it was. And perfect in every way. I luxuriated far too long, I suppose.
Alicia knocked and came in. Under the circumstances, the knock seemed funny. I laughed.
“What is it?” she asked.
“The knock.”
“Oh, yes. Of course. I thought perhaps you’d drowned. Accidentally.”
“No. It’s just that it’s so heavenly.”
“How heavenly?”
“Indescribable.”
“Well, in that case…” she said, and dropped her dressing gown and joined me in the tub before I knew what was happening. We sat face to face in the mountain of bubbles. She picked up an enormous sponge and washed my feet, legs, more, somehow moved behind me and worked on my back. We lolled about together until she let the water out of the tub, picked up a vibrating hand-spray and sprayed the soap from each of us. Now she was out of the tub, I was still in it, and she used the extraordinary flow as a sort of massage, concentrating on my mound, which was soon remembering last night. She helped me out of the tub, and we dried each other.
We put on robes and went out into the sitting room. A wood fire was burning in the grate. The table near a window overlooking The Public Gardens was set with what was obviously her own china. I wondered if indeed the canopied four-poster might not be her own. On a three-foot hotplate beside the table, Corning Ware containers with glass tops held eggs and sausages and stewed tomatoes and lyonnaise potatoes and codfish cakes. On the table, baskets of buns and rolls, scones and bagels. Also, a pitcher of orange juice and one of tomato juice.
Two copies of
The Boston Globe
lay on a low end table beside the breakfast table.
I was hungry, ravenously so, and helped myself generously.
“Try the codfish cakes,” she said. “They call them 'codfish balls’ here, but don’t let that put you off.”
“All right.”
“There’s a rule I learned long ago, from a wise man. 'Eat the fruit of the land you are in,’ he said. I’ve done so ever since.”
We spent an hour or more at the breakfast table, eating, drinking, talking about the show, reading the papers.
On the subject of the show, I found her brilliant.
“Where they’re wrong—badly wrong—is in assuming that the audience
knows
the Nora Bayes story. And so they don’t properly tell it. The fact is—only a fraction does. I’d never heard of her myself until the assignment. Of course, I
am
British—and yet I do get about, you know—and I am amazed at the number of people who think our girl is a fictitious character.”
“I’d
never heard of her, either.”
“But you’re an infant, love.”
“Some infant!”
We exchange a remembering look. She went on.
“If they were simply to begin at the beginning, and call her Daisy Jones—and think of the Jack Norworth character as Tom Smith—they might see the necessity to help us understand the evening.”
She was absolutely right, of course. The question had been discussed, but not resolved.
“Have you said any of this to them?” I asked.
“Heavens no! I’m quite an old hand at the game, you see—and I’ve long since learned that the better part of wisdom is to speak when spoken to. In our system at home, one does not begin a conversation with one’s king or queen. One responds. And in any case, my stock is rather low with our King at this moment. As you know.”
“He’s wrong.”
“There are no wrongs and rights in these matters, dear young heart…How did you like the codfish balls?”
“Delicious.”
“Very well. Suppose he were having breakfast with us—”
“God forbid.”
“—and loathed the codfish. Would that make him
'wrong’?”
“No.”
“Subjective matters, these are.”
“Oh, come on, Alicia!” My testiness surprised her. She looked at me, startled. I continued. “Jesus Christ! Do you think when he puts down your stuff, he means it?”
“Of course.”
“Of course
not
. What amazes me, what I can’t get, is how all of you—high up in what you do, clever or smart or brilliant or genius—you’re all so intelligent in your own line and then dumber than dumb on other things. Take this. Don’t you see that when he comes on and attacks you and puts you down—that’s not what it’s about. It’s power. He has to use his power. Nothing in the world matters to him except that. Not even money. Only so far as money is power. You know what I heard him say a couple of days ago—to his wife, no less? He said, 'Honey, if this one goes, we’ll have’—excuse me, but this is what he said—'we’ll have the “fuck you” money at last.’”
“That’s all very well, dear, but I think he’s going to sack me. Today, I should think.”
“Sack—that means 'fire’?”
“Yes.”
“Look. He fired
me
today—last night, rather. Doesn’t mean a thing. He can’t reorganize now. There isn’t time.”
“I’m not sure I agree,” she said. “Still, if you could sway him—even as much as an inch—you do know what it would mean to me?”
“I’ve already done it.”
“You have?” she asked.
“Certainly. Not for any reason except that I think your stuff is superlative.”
She burst into tears. I began to see why women often irritate men.
“Thank you,” she said, finally.
“Thank
you,”
I said. Our eyes were clinging, pair to pair. “For everything. For too much.”
“Never.”
“A revelation,” I said.
She came to me and embraced me. I got ready for the kiss, but it did not come. Her lips were close to my ear, as she whispered, “I enjoyed you more than I can say.” She released me.
“What time theatre for you?” I asked.
“Nine-thirty. The fitters are flying up.”
“Ten, me. I’ll see you there.”
“Please.”
“And look, if we both do get fired today—sacked—we can fly over to Martha’s Vineyard for the weekend,” I said.
“Super. I’m told it’s like the south of France—only more so.”
“Bikes and lobsters and everything.”
“Hum. I rather wish now he
does
sack us.”
We were at the door. I looked at her, lovingly, and belched. We smiled and, inexplicably, shook hands.
I went back to my room. As I opened the door, I saw on the floor a slew of little white envelopes, containing telephone messages. I picked them up, went into the bathroom, sat on the toilet, and began opening them. All from The Barracuda. Every half hour, precisely, until 4:00 a.m.
“Call.” “Urgent.” “Please call.” “Return call whatever time.”
It was now 9:05. I called him.
“Yes?” he said.
“Me.”
“Where the fuck’ve
you
been?”
“Out.”
“I know that, you yo-yo, but where?”
“Do I have to tell you?”
“Goddamn right.”
“But I don’t work for you anymore.”
“Since when not?”
“Since you fired me.”
“What?!”
“That’s right. And I quote. Quote: You’re fired. Unquote. So I’ve been making arrangements. I’m going down by bus—the ten-twenty-two Greyhound—”
“Listen—”
“—and I had to let my sublet know I was going to need my apartment back. Meanwhile, I’ll be at The Navarro, Eighty, Central Park South; Five-eight-one, six-six-nine-six, in case you need to know anything vital…”
(Vartan had taught me how to lie. “Put in plenty of details,” he said. “The more, the better; and the smaller, the more convincing. If you’re very late for an appointment, don’t say, 'I was in a taxi accident.’ Say: 'I was in a Checker cab with an Israeli cabbie, and I noticed his license said void unless driver is wearing glasses, and I noticed he wasn’t, and I wondered if maybe I should say something, but he was talking—flirting, I guess would be closer to the truth—and he kept glomming me through the rear-view mirror, and I saw this Itkin truck making a left turn, and I screamed, which was probably a mistake, because the Israeli got rattled and turned right into the path of the Itkin. It’s a wonder we weren’t all killed. Anyway, I’m terribly sorry to have kept you waiting.’ See? Now who’s not going to believe that?”)
“Midge,” he was saying. “Midge,
listen!”
“Later. I’m packing.”
And I hung up.
His
old trick. I counted one day, for the hell of it. He hung up on eleven people: agents, PR men, Hy, Larry, Alicia, his wife, and
The New Yorker.
The phone rang. I answered it.
“Hello?”
“Don't you
dare
hang up on me, you goddamn—who the hell do you think you are?”
“I don’t think,” I said. “I know.”
I hung up again, and began to dislike myself.
Ring. Reply.
“Now what?”
“Listen, Midge,” he said, in a voice so changed, so dulcet, that for a moment, I thought it might be someone else. “You know your trouble?”
“I know several. One of them is
you.”
He did not hear me—an admirable trick. He hears only what he wishes to hear.
“Your trouble,” he said, avuncularly, “is you’ve got no sense of humor. That was a joke. About fired. Can’t you take a joke?”
“I thought you meant it,” I said, trying to sound like a fourth-grader. Fifth, at most.
“Come on. When you’ve been around show business awhile—you’ll see. What the hell? Fun and games. The name of the game. If it ain’t fun, what good is it? How could I fire you? Why? I need you right now.”
“Well, I don’t know.”
The
old
voice again. “God damn it! Act professional! You’ll never work again if you—” The soft voice. “Hey, Midge. Come on down and have breakfast. You like Nova Scotia?”
“I’ll see you at the theatre,” I said.
“Ten.”
“Yes.”
“Don't be late.”
I took a shower, I don’t know why, and got dressed. I put on my Halston pantsuit and eye shadow and everything. What I could not figure out was how come—in view of what had taken place—I felt more feminine than ever in all my life. I had the feeling that marvelous things were about to happen to me.
I got to the theatre at 9:40. The activity was chaotic.
Hy Balaban was sitting in the front row—his feet up on the brass railing of the orchestra pit. I went over and sat behind him, one seat over.
“Hi!” I said.
He waved the back of his hand, indicating the whole stage, and said, “What hath God wrought?”
I felt like kissing the back of his neck. If I put my tongue in his ear, would he feel the way I felt last night when it was done to me? What if I said to him: “Hy, would you consider going somewhere—anywhere, with me right now, so we could fuck beautifully?” Instead, I said: “How’s Mrs. Balaban today?”
“Well, let’s see. She threw up once before breakfast and once after, and she’s only had four Valiums so far, and I believe she’s planning to murder our producer today. Inform the media.”
“Does she know murder is against the law in Boston?”
“Don’t you believe it. A client of mine brought a show up here last season—into this very Shubert Theatre, as a matter of fact—and the critics murdered it, and they’re all still walking around free.”
“Well, they won’t murder this one,” I said. “It’s a great show.”
“Going
to be, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“If if if if and if.”
“That’s what we’re out of town for.”
“For what?”
“To get rid of the ifs.”
He turned toward me with a jump and grabbed my upper arm. Strong hand. Glorious fingers. I turned into a mass of gooseflesh.
His eyes were laughing—black eyes—had I ever seen black eyes before?
“Did you hear about Boss Man and the press agent yesterday?”
“No.”
“Oh, this is sensational!” He got up, kneeling on his seat, and leaning toward me. He looked around for possible eavesdroppers, came closer still. He smelled like Tupelo honey. Then he told me the story. “I walked over here with him from The Ritz yesterday—about this time—and they were just finishing the marquee and the house boards—and it all looked fine—glamorous, Broadway—and then we noticed it—me, first, I think, then him. Everything fine. Everyone’s billing in place, so no beefs. Color repro splendid, except…except they’d gotten the TITLE
wrong!”