Dorothy on the Rocks (10 page)

So let's take a look at your charts and see what we have,” Thomas says, reaching for the brown folder. “I usually like to do my own arrangements when I'm working with a client, but I'm open to anything.”

“Great,” I say, taking another sip of my coffee and trying to stop myself from screaming. I sometimes have an impulse to scream at the most inappropriate moments, and right now is one of those moments. I don't want to be here. I don't want to be starting with someone new and I don't want to be called a client.

“Interesting,” Thomas says as he starts noodling through Goodie's arrangement of “My Funny Valentine.” “How's the tempo? Is that about right for you? I like this song to bounce more. Like this.” He plays it almost double time, like a happy sort of ditty.

“That seems too perky,” I say.

“Well it is a happy song.” Thomas continues to pluck it out.

“Yeah, I guess so. Except she's pleading with him to stay, which leads me to believe there is a question as to if he will stay and therefore I think she might not be as perky as she seems.”

“So literal,” says Thomas with a slight smirk. “Why don't you try it? Just sing through it and see how it feels.”

He plays the first few bars in a saucy, upbeat tempo. I come in at the bridge racing a bit to catch up. The words feel strange in my mouth. I haven't sung this song in years. It's Rodgers and Hart, I think, but I'm not sure. I'm standing left of the piano, feeling uncomfortable. I don't know what to do with my hands. I feel self-conscious. The words keep coming out of my mouth and I don't seem to have anything to do with it. Thomas is nodding. We are almost at the end of the song. I'm singing and I'm watching myself sing, and then just like that I'm crying and watching myself cry. Thomas stops playing.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

I shake my head left to right and then shrug.

“I'll get you a glass of water. Do you need a tissue?”

I shake my head up and down this time. Snot is running in rivulets down the back of my throat. This is not pretty and certainly not professional.

“Here, take a sip.” Thomas hands me the glass of water and a box of tissues. He watches as I take a drink. He takes the glass, sets it on the little table next to the piano.

“I don't know what's wrong,” I say, shaking from the inside out. “I haven't sung these songs in a while—not since . . . Goodie . . .”

The word
died
remains unspoken. I can't get it out and I don't have to. Thomas puts his arms around me and starts to sway me from side to side.

“It's going to be all right, Maggie. You'll get used to singing with someone else. I didn't mean to push you. I think the arrangements are great.”

“Can I use your bathroom for a moment?” I ask.

“Sure, absolutely,” Thomas says, “it's down the hall on the left.”

I go in the bathroom and gently shut the door. I sit down on the toilet, turn on the sink faucet full blast, and start to cry in long, loud sobs. My nose begins to run. I grab a handful of toilet paper and continue to cry loudly.

“Oh for goodness' sakes,” Goodie says, pulling at my hair. “Look at me.” I raise my eyes a smidgen. I don't want to be interrupted. I want to wail. I want to wallow. I want to cry for the rest of my life. “Give it up, girlfriend,” Goodie says, tugging hard on my bangs.

“Ow, that hurts,” I say between sobs. I swat at Goodie and he smacks me with his wand, right on my nose.

“Goodie, what do you think you are doing?”

“I'm trying to get your attention.”

“Well, you've got it now so stop hitting me,” I shout. I hear a knock on the bathroom door.

“Everything all right in there?” Thomas asks.

“Oh, yeah,” I say, “I'm . . . getting . . . warmed up. I'll be right out.” Goodie is sitting on the edge of the sink wearing a brand-new dress. A sunburst yellow affair, fringed with some sort of feathers—parakeet possibly?

“I'll say you're getting warmed up,” he says. “You've got to get over this. You can't keep crying and moaning over me being gone. And it's fine for you to do your show for the kids and this and that, but you're a singer, Maggie, and you need to be in a club with a baby grand piano and spotlight with a pink amber gel singing your little ole heart out. I mean it's flattering, all this crying over me, but it's enough, time to grow up—you can't be an ingénue forever—take off the gingham and put on some sequins.”

“Are you saying I'm getting old? Is that what you were sent back
to do? Humiliate me so I become an old woman? So I just give it up?” I say.

“Surrender Dorothy, that's all I'm saying, Mags. You've been playing little girls for so long you've forgotten you're a full-blooded woman with a sultry voice and plenty of pain to sing about—sing the blues, sing swing, sing rock and roll. I don't want to see you turn into Bette Davis in
What Ever Happened
—”

“Shush! You don't need to rub my face in it, Mr. Smartie-Barbie-Pants. Don't think I haven't sat in front of the makeup mirror and had the same thought. Why just last week—”

“All right,” Goodie says, cutting me off. “Now stop talking and get out there and sing from your soul, from deep down in the dark corner of your heart. Make me cry, Maggie, make me feel it.” Goodie flies right in my face and chucks me under the chin with his tiny forefinger. “What do you say, Maggie Magnolia?”

“I'll try,” I say in a teeny tiny voice, “but nobody plays piano like you.”

“But I'm not here anymore, Mags, not really,” Goodie say in his own teeny tiny voice. His little forehead is against mine, “So I want you to sing like the diva you are and stop doubting yourself. Make me proud of you.”

“Why can't you come back, Goodie?” I say. “Why can't you drink a gallon of Miracle-Gro and come back to me like before?”

“It doesn't work that way, lovey, I wish it did,” Goodie says with a sigh. “You think I don't miss it?”

“Do you?”

“God, yes, I miss my life,” Goodie says, and a tiny crystal tear-drop rolls down his cheek. “I miss it all, but now I'm somewhere over the rainbow, like the song says, and believe me, it's a whole
new thing, so I keep going, I keep on strutting right down the yellow brick road.”

“And nobody could strut like you, Miss Goodie-Two-Shoes,” I say, nuzzling Goodie's little neck, “nobody, nowhere . . .”

“No how!” Goodie squeals and then stands tall on the lip of the sink with hands on hips. “Now let's go out there and sing.” I turn off the faucet and we leave the bathroom. Goodie perches himself on the piano for a while and taps his plastic-stiletto-encased foot and smiles at me and encourages me, and then at some point I realize he is gone and I'm still singing—singing in my grown-up deep-down voice with a vibrato that purrs real pretty when I let it.

For the rest of the session Thomas and I work through the songs, and I let him offer suggestions. A few times I have to stop and dab my eyes and nose, but all in all I sing as best I can. “It'll be easier next time,” Thomas says at the end of the hour.

“Thank you,” is all I can manage as I gather my things and leave. When I get on the street I feel as if I'm going to collapse into an emotional pile of mush right there on the corner of Twenty-second and Eighth Avenue.

I punch in the number of Charles's gallery on my cell phone. Tosh, his assistant, picks up.

“Is Charles available?” I ask. “It's Maggie.”

“Maggie—hold on,” Tosh says. “I'll see. I think he's finishing up with a client.”

Ethel Merman bursts into song when Tosh puts me in the hold loop. Charles always has show tunes piped into his phone system. My mind wanders to the message from Jack. It sounds like the beginning of the end. You know the old where-is-this-going-I-like-you-a-lot-but-maybe-we-can-just-be-friends discussion. I wonder
if Jack and I will end up very good friends. I have a feeling not, as we don't live in the same generational neighborhood, much less zip code. Tears start to well up again.

“Mags,” Charles says, breaking in on Ethel Merman singing “No Business like Show Business.” “What can I do for you?”

“I was wondering if you were free for lunch.”

“Are you in the neighborhood?”

“No, I'm in Chelsea, on Twenty-second Street, but thought I would come down. I haven't seen the gallery in ages.”

“I'd love to see you, darling, but I do have plans for a late lunch with a new client.”

“Everybody's a fucking client.”

“Why so much anger so early in the day, Mags?” Charles asks in an even tone.

“I just had my first session with a new accompanist.” My voice breaks just slightly. I don't mention Goodie. I don't want Charles to know that I'm angry and crazy.

“I see. Come on down, my lunch isn't until three. Let's have a glass of wine. I think you need a port in the storm.”

“Thanks, Charles. That's exactly what I need.”

I walk over to Seventh Avenue and take the number 1 train downtown. It's very crowded. I stand and hold on to the metal bar above my head. The man sitting in front of me is smacking his chewing gum and reading the
New York Post
. The woman next to him is rolling her eyes and cursing under her breath. A trio of black men sing, “This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine,” in three-part harmony and pass a hat as they move through the car. The train arrives at the Franklin stop and I get off. Charles's gallery is on Walker Street. I stop at a deli and buy a 3 Musketeers candy bar. I eat as I walk and am once again
struck by how perfect the consistency of the 3 Musketeers center filling is. I love it. I dig in my bag and find a cigarette; sugar and nicotine, nicotine and sugar—what more can I say? I arrive at the gallery in a pleasant haze. Charles hands me that promised glass of Chardonnay and I accept. I take two sips and settle back on his couch as the combination of substances kicks in.

“So what's the new piano player like?” Charles asks as he pours himself some wine.

“He's great. Everything is great.” I inhale the rest of my wine and reach for the bottle. “I'm a funny valentine, let me tell you. I'm a funny little valentine.” I pour another glass. “Things couldn't be more terrific. Have I told you about my guy? The twenty-eight-year-old?”

“Well you've hinted, but do tell all.” Charles is a big sucker for a good romance.

“He calls me Sweet Pea and he gives me massages.”

“The massages sound great, Sweet Pea is questionable.”

“And he lives at home with his dad.”

Charles chokes slightly.

“And he smells like fresh mowed grass.”

“Does he live on a golf course?”

“Queens.”

“Hmmm,” says Charles as he refills my glass.

“Sometimes I stare at the back of his neck because I love the way his hair grows in a comma at the nape and the way the muscles of his neck look like two strong ropes suspending a colossus.”

“A colossus. How big is this young man?”

“Plenty big.”

“I see,” says Charles with a grin.

“And when he leans down to kiss me his eyes are always wide
open so he doesn't miss a thing, and it makes me not want to miss a thing.”

“Oh my, Mags, you're, as they say, ‘head over heels.' What's happened to that tough outer shell you always wear so fetchingly?”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“No, not at all. It's great to be in love, to be infatuated. Enjoy it. Just don't expect it to last forever.”

“Like you have to tell me that.” In my head I count to ten, take a deep breath, and light a cigarette. “I know all about things not lasting forever,” I say, exhaling smoke out of my nostrils like I saw Joan Crawford do in a 1940s film.

“And then yesterday while we were waiting on the corner for the light to change,” I continue, “he started talking to a little girl in a stroller. She was about a year old and she cooed and laughed at Jack, and he cooed and laughed back, and I had this outrageous thought. I thought, I want to have this man's child.”

“What's so outrageous about that?”

“First of all I've only known him a few days, barely a week.”

“Love happens fast,” Charles says, holding his wineglass up in a salute to the heart.

“And second of all, that's not my thing, the mother thing, that's not who I am. I'm a nonmaternal type woman. I wasn't born with the
mommy
gene, at least I don't think so, and if I was it is very recessive. I've never wanted to have a child. I didn't even play with dolls when I was a kid.”

“Not even Betsy Wetsy?”

“No, I played dress-up and then I played detective, and sometimes my friend Ann and I played bomb shelter because she had lots of miniature canned goods and paper products.”

“Oh, that sounds fun.”

“We put Barbie and Ken in a cardboard box alone with the canned goods and waited for the all clear siren.” I wonder to myself if that is why Goodie decided to haunt me in Barbie attire. He knows it strikes a chord.

“Well, maybe it wasn't the all clear siren you were waiting for,” Charles is saying as I tune back in, “maybe it was your biological clock and now it has sounded and it's time for
Barbie and Ken
to stop waiting and get to work.”

“Funny. That's funny. You forget I'm on the flip side of forty.”

“Everyone has babies in their forties now. Besides, you're barely on the other side.”

“Well, I'm not everyone, and I'm not having a baby.”

“Oh go on. It will be fun. It will be a hoot. I'll give you a baby shower.”

“This is easy for you to say. I'm not sure I have any viable eggs anymore. They could all be rotten by now. Dried up.”