Living Room (26 page)

“Now, now, it’s a party,” said Jack, and then Shirley noticed Arthur and Jane hanging back, and she went to them, the rest of the group following her.

“My boss,” she said, “in case anyone doesn’t know.”

“Shirley doesn’t have a boss,” said Arthur.

“Good God,” said Dr. Koch, “all my work for nothing,” and as they laughed, Koch put an elbow to Arthur’s rib. “She used to tell me how to run my business, too.”

“Shirley is Arthur’s bright star,” said Jane Crouch.

A moment of silence embarrassed the strangers.

“Twinkle,” said Shirley. “Come, let’s everyone pay attention to Jack and have another drink.” Shirley seized the champagne bottle and poured all around a bit too fast, the glasses foaming over. “See what I’ve done,” she said, calling to her father, as her mother’s voice was ready to admonish the little girl for her party behavior. She blocked it.
Mama, wherever the hell you are, shut up tonight.
Not in Koch’s presence. Not this evening.

Shirley sat in a corner with her father and Mrs. Bialek, and Hartman said to her,
“
Neshumah,
it is good to see you with your friends like this, I’m celebrating, too.” He held up the small glass of neat whiskey and sipped at it, an infrequent indulgence, since he placed, he said, the highest value on the conscious mind, and it was
his belief that
goyim
invented alcohol because consciousness embarrassed them.

“I have a question,” said her father.

“I’ll leave,” said Mrs. Bialek, getting up.

“No, no, sit,” Hartman instructed her, “it’s good for you to hear an intelligent conversation for a change.” Then to Shirley, “Just before you came, these people talked about career women, liberated women, I’m not clear. In my time a liberated woman was a whore.”

“Papa,” said Shirley, “in a man’s world, for a long time it was difficult for a woman to express her mind. It was easier for her to use her body to express her contempt for men.”

“You don’t have to waste time explaining to me.”

A glance at Mrs. Bialek, annoyed at Hartman and his daughter, knee to knee.

“Pop, they wouldn’t let a woman work with her mind, and they pretended to scorn them when they worked with their bodies, but it was the men who set up mistresses and made the economy of prostitution work on a big scale.”

“What’s that got to do with you?”

“In most countries, even here, people get married for economic reasons, only we lie about it.”

Shirley had a feeling that silent Mrs. Bialek, her lips tight against each other, was trying not to spoil a birthday party by showing what she really felt about Shirley’s nonsense.

“Shirley has told me a good deal about you,” said Al.

“I’m glad,” said Hartman. “She never tells me anything. I have a question.”

“Oh, Pop,” said Shirley, “you’ve had your quota of questions.” Ignoring her, Hartman said, “Mr. Chunin, tell me man to man, what do you know about King Solomon?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

MRS. BIALEK approved of Mary Wood’s buffet because it hadn’t been brought on trays from a delicatessen. “Even the potato salad tastes homemade,” she said, bustling from dish to dish, sampling. Mary assured her it was homemade.

“How come you know to make Jewish potato salad?”

“I didn’t know that kind of potato salad was Jewish,” Mary said.

Shirley was feeling mellow and relaxed when Jack announced present-opening time.

“I’ll keep this speech short,” said Jack. “Twenty-nine is a critical time in a girl’s life. It’s the last birthday before she begins to lie about her age.”

While everyone laughed, Philip Hartman held up his hands. “Can a father say a word?”

“It’s your daughter,” said Jack.

“Sometimes I wonder about that,” said Hartman. “Sometimes I think the late Mrs. Hartman had a brilliant professor on the side. Shirley had to get her brains from somewhere.”

“Nonsense,” said Jack, “she looks like you.”

“A man lives with monkeys gets to look like a monkey.”

“She even inherited her aphorisms from you?”

“What’s aphorism? Never mind. Friends, on this occasion, I want to say, how shall I explain, there is a Yiddish word
naches,
which my erudite daughter, I hope erudite is the right word, tells me does not have an equal word in any other language. It means the kind of pleasure that a parent gets from the accomplishment of a child. I am not a Jewish mother. I am a Jewish father, but I want to tell you it’s practically the same thing.”

Dr. Koch applauded twice, then embarrassedly dropped his hands.

“The whole expression is to
shep naches.
I want to tell you that when my Shirley was a little girl I
shepped
headaches plenty from her, but lately I’ve been
shepping
more
naches
than a parent is entitled to in a whole lifetime.”

“Hear, hear,” said Mary Wood.

“So forgive me,” said Philip Hartman, “I am a proud parent. I toast my daughter on her birthday.”

“I’ll drink to that,” said Jack.

“And further,” said Hartman, “a toast to the United States of America for making it possible for a granddaughter of an immigrant to have such success.”

The change in Shirley’s face was perceptible.

Then Dr. Koch said, “Mr. Hartman, I am not the son of an immigrant, but an immigrant, grateful to be here. If I had remained in Vienna, I would be dead. But the young people today, they have a different feeling.”

“Different?” asked Hartman.

“Pop,” said Shirley, “people today think the golden land was really gilded tin plate. Compared to Japan and Germany we’re a second-rate power.”

“God should stuff his ears! My daughter a traitor? Don’t any of you remember the war?”

He sat down as if stunned.

“Pop, you’re not understanding.”

“Sure I’m dumb, you’re smart, explain.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“What about the feelings of the people Hitler killed, and Hirohito, Yamamoto, I forget the names, the Bataan death march, is all this erased?”

Al intervened. “I think your daughter was making two points. Almost everything we make, the Germans and Japanese make better or cheaper. Those real dollar bills that hopeful immigrants used to save in the old country are worth less and less every day. Our economy is in decline. But our morale is also in decline.”

“Now wait a minute, young man,” said Hartman, color in his face. “You told me with your own mouth that you don’t have a job. In my day I was grateful for a job, any job. In this great country, people worked a sixteen-hour day I can remember, then ten, then eight and seven, it’s a miracle. And you don’t work at all have a right to criticize?”

“Pop, be realistic. Somewhere along the line we lost what we had, and we’re just beginning to realize it.”

Hartman was trembling. “Maybe it’s me who’s going crazy. Maybe I’ve outlived my life.” He held a hand to his chest. “A heart we have, I mean this country. Does Germany have a heart, does Japan have a heart, I ask you?”

“Hey,” said Jack, “this is supposed to be a birthday party.”

“Time for me to go home,” said Mr. Hartman. Expression of a man crushed. “It’s a long subway ride. Come,” he beckoned to Mrs. Bialek.

“Please, Pop, don’t take the subway, take a taxi,” Shirley said.

Hartman kissed her cheek perfunctorily. “In a taxi I feel guilty.” He pointed to a massive home-wrapped package, which Mrs. Bialek had retrieved from the other room. “It’s a present for you,”

“Please wait till I open it, Pop.”

“No, no. Good night.”

When Hartman and Mrs. Bialek had gone, Shirley, surrounded by the others, benumbed by the impossibility of getting through,
removed the wrapping paper to unveil a massive, intricately designed pink-and-white comforter.

“She must have spent six months making it,” said Mary.

There was a white Hammacher Schlemmer box from the Crouches, something long and thin from Hester, and a package from Dr. Koch that “feels like a book or box of candy,” Shirley guessed out loud.

“I should give you candy?” said Dr. Koch. “What kind of advice do you get from candy?”

“I’d better not open it,” said Shirley.

“Open it at home.”

“Excuse me,” said Al, pulling Shirley aside and then into the kitchen.

“He’s got a private present for her,” said Jack.

“First,” he said to her when they were alone, “happy birthday again. Second, I’m leaving.”

“It’s too early, you can’t, I mean you mustn’t.”

“I…have to get home.”

“I thought…you might come back with me.”

“Another time,” he said, as if there would be no other time. He lifted her chin.

“Your hands are cold,” she said.

“Like ice,” he said, turning back into the living room.

“Please don’t go,” she said, following him.

“I have to.”

“What’s the trouble?”

“Ghosts.”

“Tell me what you mean. Please.”

“Can’t. Not now.”

He did what she had not seen him do before, bolt his drink, then hurry across the room ostensibly to put his glass down, but they both knew he was getting away.

Then Mary and Jack each had her by the arm. “What’s wrong with Al?” Shirley asked. “Is he sick?” Mary glanced at Jack just as Dr. Koch interrupted to tell Shirley that her dialogue with her father was a good thing and not to let it get her down, it was the beginning not the end of conversation, and when she turned it was just in time to see Al going out the door.

Hester promised she would keep in touch. Arthur and Jane Crouch summoned clichés wishing her well. The party was disintegrating. When alone with Jack and Mary, she wanted to talk about Al but found she could not. Jack offered a nightcap. It
did
nothing for her. He offered to escort her home. She said she’d take a cab, thanked them for the surprise, said it was the best gift of all.

When she arrived at her apartment building, the doorman said a man had left a large parcel for her. Upstairs, she peeled the gift wrapping away from the framed glass. It was a silk-screen serigraph, numbered, signed “Corita” in a scrawl. Against the brilliant colors were words sketched as if by a knowing child. It said, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” She searched from the wrapping paper for a card. Nothing.

In bed she tried not to think of Al. She thought of Philip Hartman, a hunchback carrying his life as an acceptable burden.
No more birthdays,
she thought,
please, God, no more birthdays.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

TO WAR, Shirley
thought as she went to work on Monday. Lost people lose themselves in work. Al was a loner who did not feel the loneliness. Whatever had happened between them had happened; yesterday was yesterday.

For most people work was a means to an end. Al was self-sufficient, whatever it was he was or was not doing. He did not need anybody. Was he inhuman?
It is just possible that he is not sufficiently interested in you.

To only a very few people had she given affection, gotten affection in exchange. At work, she wanted, and had gotten, recognition and respect. From Al she had gotten affection, a grudging respect even, but not what she had wanted most. She did not say it, even in the privacy of her mind.

To war, she thought. She would let her veins fill with formaldehyde, she would enshroud herself in all of the hectic activity Armon, Caiden, Crouch, Marvin Goodkin, and the whole Ford Motor Company could summon.

She entered Monday as if it were a freeway and she was speeding recklessly. Ford would love her campaign.

Twitchy thought Shirley was on an amphetamine high the way
she rattled off an
aide-mémoire
to Arthur and Marvin, reminding them of the salient points of the Shirley’s Car campaign. She dictated a back-up memo for the art director, another to the type designer, another to media suggesting how much for TV, how much for print, stopping the whirlwind only when Arthur buzzed and said it was time to go.

Arthur, Marvin, and Shirley met with Cass Rodgers for lunch at the Four Seasons, the two-story-high ceiling and the set-apart tables providing an oasis where one could have a private meeting in a public room. Cass had arrived before them, though it was his prerogative as the client to sweep in late. He was a thoughtful, considerate man, never used a client’s power to demean. He tried to be accurate and fair in fulfilling his function as Ford’s ambassador to New York. He stood, shaking first Shirley’s hand, then Marvin’s, then Arthur’s, addressing them each by name. They were there to learn what he had learned in Dearborn.

Cass liked Arthur Crouch. Though he was clearly an uninventive man, he was unlike other agency heads who were nonstop pitchmen or who pretended that all the ideas sprang from their own brow. Arthur’s quality of seeming neutral, of appraising and reporting what his people had come up with, had a certain value; he was a governor, a nice shepherd of talent, a father bonding a family.