Riggs Park (14 page)

The truck sputtered, but as if on signal Marcellus’s parking lot appeared just in front of us, and the motor didn’t die until he’d pulled into a space. “Listen,” he said as I undid my seat belt. “What if there’s more to the story than you think? What if it’s more involved? You still want to hear it?”

“Of course I want to hear it!” What did he take me for? How complicated could it be? Either Penny’s baby was Steve’s or it wasn’t.

“All I’m saying is, think what you’re getting yourself into.” I let myself out of the truck onto the pavement. By the time I’d closed the door, he’d come around and was standing next to me.

“I’d go over to Essie’s with you, if I thought it would make any difference,” he said. A victorious jolt of adrenaline shot through me, but Marcellus held up a hand as if to fend me off. “But you know what I think?”

“What?”

“There ain’t no way she’s gonna tell you anything unless your friend goes with you. No matter what I do. Essie’s no different than she ever was. Does what she damn well pleases.” He laughed dryly. “She not gonna tell you a damn thing she don’t want to. There ain’t no way.”

My high spirits drained in a single whoosh. Well, what did I expect? I felt like a fool. He’d probably known what I was going to ask him and known he was going to say no. And I’d let him take me—literally—for a ride.

On the way home, I drove aimlessly for a while, leaden from realizing that Marcellus was right. I wasn’t going to be able to tell Marilyn anything that would give her peace of mind. How could I face her without having more to offer? Without having at least
something.

By the time I pulled into the driveway, I was exhausted. But Marilyn, when she called me groggily to her room, looked more exhausted by half. The bedcovers were loosely thrown over her as she leaned against her pillow, but she was still clad in the sweats and loose blouse she’d worn home from the hospital, a chin strap circling her swollen face instead of the pressure bandage, her conditioned hair slicked flat and dull against her head. This morning she’d looked odd but sounded almost normal. Now, she still looked odd and sounded like she needed at least a week to sleep.

“Don’t look so terrified,” she told me. “The first day home from the hospital is always a doozy. Sit down.” She patted a spot on the king-size bed.

I dropped down beside her. “What about your heart rate? Do they still have you on medicine?”

“No. I’m fine. Danger averted.”

I squeezed her hand.

She sat up straighter in the bed. “So. Did you see Essie? What did she say?”

“Not half as much as I thought she would.” I decided not even to mention that the baby was a girl. “Essie looks like a skeleton. She’s half the size she used to be, and she has diabetes. I’m not sure her mind’s what it used to be, either.” Silently, I asked Essie’s forgiveness for this lie. “We no sooner sat down than she fell asleep on me. I couldn’t wake her up. Taneka put her in bed and then kicked me out.”

Marilyn sighed as if she’d been holding her breath. “So she didn’t tell you anything.” It was a statement rather than a question. I didn’t elaborate.

“Are you going back?” she asked suddenly.

“If Taneka lets me.”

“Before you go back to North Carolina?”

“Well…sure.”

“Promise?” Her tone had grown urgent.

“Promise.” I squeezed her hand again. “I won’t leave before I go back and find out everything you want to know. Even if it means depriving myself of Jon.”

She tried to smile.

“Go back to sleep.” I leaned over to kiss her swollen cheek. Where my next bright idea would come from, I had no inkling.

Out in the hallway, I heard voices coming from the kitchen. Visitors, already. What was the matter with people? I descended the stairs toward the conversation. The voices grew louder. My breath caught in my throat.

In the entryway to the kitchen, arms held out in welcome, stood the answer to my dilemma.

“Steve!” I exclaimed, and let him fold me into his arms.

W
hen he released me from his embrace, Steve held me at arm’s length and looked me up and down, a loopy, comic expression on his face. “Well, sweetie, aging very well, I see. Still the towhead. Do you bleach it now? Wash out the gray? Tell Uncle Stevie.”

“Never!”

“Me, either,” Steve admitted.

“What’s to bleach?” I laughed. Steve’s baldness was legend. “Oh, Steve, I’m so glad to see you!” I reached up to pat the shiny top of his head.

“An effect he achieved even without chemical intervention,” said Marilyn, who startled me by appearing suddenly behind us. During Marilyn’s chemotherapy, Steve had insisted that his ability to shed hair without drugs proved once again, as ever, that he was the superior sibling, and the silly joke was one of the few things that had cheered Marilyn in those days. Now, regarding us like a moonfaced specter, Marilyn said, “He came because he thought my heart would beat me to death.”

“How did you know?” I felt foolish for having been afraid to call him.

“Bernie and I have an agreement that I’m to be informed about all medical developments in my beloved sister’s case. Including cosmetic ones.” He winked. “I came because I have to be in New York tomorrow night, and when I heard about the little complication I thought I’d drop in on the way.”

“Liar,” Marilyn sniffed. “He was paralyzed with worry.”

Bernie came over and took Marilyn’s arm. “Now I’ll escort you back up to bed.”

“Later.” She shrugged him off.

“You’re in luck,” Steve told her. “I brought you a bunch of new movies you can only get if you’re a big Hollywood pooh-bah like myself. You can spend the next week watching them. Starting right this minute.”

“I’ll watch every one. Two or three times. But not right this minute.”

“You ought to rest,” Bernie said.

“I tossed and turned in that bed all afternoon. How often do I see my brother? I’ll go to bed early. I’ll be fine. Right now I’m too antsy to sleep.”

I understood. Monster that it was, fatigue could wait. After surgery, after the breakup of a romance, after many kinds of trauma, the objective was not to rest, but simply to get back to normal—to walk, to talk, to
function;
to come back from what might have been (but could not be allowed to be) the dark.

Bernie decided we might as well have dinner, so he set out cold cuts and bread and warmed up some vegetable soup that one of Marilyn’s face-lift veteran friends had brought, knowing her jaw would still be too sore for chewing. I found myself casting worried glances across the table because without the pillows and bedcovers marking her as an invalid on her way to recovery, Marilyn looked truly awful—the chin strap like an Ace bandage holding her misshapen face in check, the mouth so pulled back that it would surely never return to normal, the cheekbones slightly purpled, masking an underlying pallor. But Marilyn had cheered up at the sight of her brother and swore that, after fasting all day yesterday and having practically nothing for lunch, she was starving.

Surreptitiously, despite my concern, I was busy making a few calculations. Steve had been one of Essie’s favorites, and since he was the possible father of Penny’s baby, the old woman would not refuse to talk to him. I would bring him to her house in place of Marilyn, and Essie would tell us what we wanted to know. If Steve had to be in New York tomorrow night, there was no time to waste. I’d have to take him to Essie’s in the morning.

Over coffee, Marilyn exclaimed over the snapshots of Steve’s children, who had grown into handsome young men, three of them in college, one on the road with his band (“Oh, no,” Marilyn groaned. “Another
musician.
”). Then Bernie turned the conversation to Steve’s own music business and Steve responded with an enthusiasm I didn’t expect. He was on his way to New York to recruit an up-and-coming singer to record one of his songs. “A love song. I’m too old to do it.”

“Too old! Oh, Steve!” Marilyn chided.

Steve patted a hint of belly under his shirt and grimaced. “Too paunchy for the video. Even my personal trainer has given up on me.”

Marilyn snorted. Although I feared the conversation might go on all night and give me no chance to speak to Steve privately, all the same I was enjoying myself, filled anew with admiration for Steve’s lack of ego after so many years in the heady air of Hollywood. Without writing drug songs or war protest songs, without being seduced by hard rock or rockabilly or rap, Steve had put his own brand of folksy, not-quite-country, not-quite-rock songs on the charts almost every year since the meteoric rise of “Bus Ride” in the seventies. He had even handled his baldness with grace, during the hairy hippie era after his manager had insisted he wear a toupee when he was performing. The “rug,” as he called it, was hot and didn’t look natural. Steve hated it. And finally, one night in confident defiance, he snatched the hairpiece off in midconcert and tossed it to the audience, which reacted with wild delight. Later, when I asked him how he’d gotten the nerve, he said he’d already taken the stage name Steven Simple because he’d always been so stupid, and figured if people could stand the new name, they could put up with his cue-ball head, too.

“You were never stupid!” I protested.

“I didn’t know that then,” Steve had said flatly, and I’d realized that was true.

It still made me proud to think that Steve was the only star regularly described by columnists and talk-show hosts as a “man of integrity”—a man actually reputed to be fair to his employees and faithful to his wife. The feeling that swelled up in me now reminded me how thoroughly he’d been like a brother to me, and how much I’d always missed him after he went away—how much I still did. As the only male I’d been close to where sex was not an issue, he’d allowed me a kind of selfless pride in him I could have had for no other man, even Jon.

“These days I farm out almost all the new songs,” Steve told Bernie now. “I almost prefer it. I record just enough to keep my name out there.”

We all nodded. For the past ten years, Steve had been known as much as a songwriter as a singer.

“So why go to New York? Why not send somebody? Or talk on the phone?” Bernie asked. “Some up-and-comer, you’d think they’d be grateful to have a chance to record a Steven Simple song.”

Steve turned to Marilyn and winked. “I know you think I actually came East just to witness your medical crisis, but don’t flatter yourself. I always like to give the singers a look.” We knew it was true. He’d been doing it for twenty-odd years. There were some decisions, he believed, that you just didn’t delegate. More than most stars (not just musicians), Steve had spent his life combining celebrity with sanity and common sense.

So how was it that I was now planning to drag him to Essie’s and disrupt his balance? Because Marilyn was weak? Because Steve was strong by contrast? Well, he was. The way I saw it, from the day of his fateful interview on
The Sonya Show
in the eighties, he’d been famous enough and strong enough to finesse whatever life handed him. Given the present circumstances, I certainly couldn’t say the same for Marilyn.

It had been 1983 before Steve’s life had finally taken its shape. He was forty-two years old, and in Detroit to tape a segment of
The Sonya Show
for USA Cable. While he was there, he planned to audition a girl named Kimberly O’Connor who aspired to become one of his shiksa princesses—a term he’d borrowed from Neil Sedaka to refer to his backup singers. The next day he’d fly back to L.A.

Steve always told this story with a kind of bemused wonder. He was picking out a tune on the piano in his suite at the Book Cadillac Hotel when the knock came on the door, so tentative he barely heard it. All he knew about the O’Connor girl was that his agent, Waldman, thought she might be all right. Steve always made the final selections himself. He chose the princesses leggy (like Sedaka’s), and fair-complected since he himself was dark. Usually he picked blondes.

This one was a redhead. “Mr. Simple?” She was tall, white-skinned, very bright around the face. Hair wilder than he liked. A looker, though. He sensed the hairdo was not the result of a too-tight perm, but of natural curl.

“I appreciate your seeing me.” She sounded more humble than her appearance warranted.

He motioned her in. She walked like a dancer, just the right sway of the hips under brown slacks, the right bounce of bosom under a beige sweater. In the show, the princesses wore neutral outfits, sometimes sequined, but always understated. Apparently she knew that.

Even so, she looked flamboyant. Her hair wasn’t carroty but a true red. A neon sign, a focus. One thing he didn’t need was a princess who upstaged him. Stick to blondes, Waldman said. “Blondes are safe, even when they’re stunning. Chain of daisies on pale wallpaper.”

Steve pointed the girl to the sofa. She hesitated, then handed him a résumé. He hadn’t expected that. Waldman already had one. Steve only wanted to get a look at her, talk to her. If she was good enough, he’d set up a session with the other princesses later.

But the typed pages threw him. He set them on the coffee table, stood awkwardly. If Waldman were here, he’d smooth it over. Read parts of her work history aloud. Let people see that Steven Simple’s time was too valuable to waste on details. Good agents did such things. Sometimes Steve thought Waldman had figured out Steve couldn’t read the résumés himself, but he didn’t dwell on that. He’d been paying Waldman good money for over ten years. Besides, no one else knew; why should Waldman?

The girl was nervous, actually trembling, as if she knew the résumé was a mistake. “Really I only wanted to hear you sing,” Steve said. He sat down at the piano, beckoned her over to stand beside him. Her hands shook, a pulse beat in her neck. She glanced at the closed door to the bedroom. Maybe she expected a come-on? He never messed with the princesses.

“Let’s do ‘Bus Ride,’” he said. If she knew anything, she’d know that one. As he began the intro, it struck him how much she reminded him of Penny: the red hair, the shaking hands, all but the voice. Penny had never been able to carry a tune. Suddenly he couldn’t draw air. He hadn’t seen Penny for twenty years and her double had walked into a Detroit hotel room. He stopped playing.

“I’m sorry,” the girl said. “I guess I’m not good enough.”

“No, it’s my fault. Jet lag. Happens all the time.” He put his hands back on the keyboard. The girl sang, but shakily. He didn’t want her to break down in front of him. He knew something about breakdowns from Penny: how they could suck you in.

“Good. Now. Once more from the top.” He smiled reassuringly and began again. Her voice improved as they went along.

“Mr. Waldman will get back to you,” he said afterward.

“Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” Kimberly whispered. Tears in her eyes now. What the hell did she expect? “It was nice of you to see me, anyway.” Jesus. Penny had had blue eyes and Kimberly O’Connor had hazel, but the tears were identical.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Let me hear you one time with the others.”

She froze, a spotlighted animal.

“We’re having a rehearsal at the studio at six, before the taping. I’ll hear you then.”

Usually he was not a sucker for tears. You didn’t get this far if you were. When you could barely read, you learned to play for sympathy early and were suspicious of anyone else who did the same. Only a handful of people knew what a miracle it was he’d gotten through high school. He didn’t con people because he wanted to; he lied because he had no choice. He wasn’t sure if Kimberly O’Connor was for real or not, and he didn’t mean to care.

But you never knew; the most innocuous things could throw you. In high school it had been the SATs. Who would have imagined? He copied all his tests from Bernie because Bernie was going with Marilyn and had to let him. For the SATs, the students sat every other seat in the Coolidge High cafeteria. Bernie positioned his paper carefully so Steve could see. Steve should have thrown off a little. It never occurred to him that Bernie’s answers would let him do well enough to get into college in spite of his grades. His parents nagged him to go. He skirted the issue for a couple of years, claiming he was trying to make it with his band. Then his father said, “Son, you’re getting nowhere. You want to end up like me, with a store that threatens to put you under every month?” His father worked twelve hours a day in his grocery store on Fourteenth Street. “At least get your education. Even if the band succeeds, an education won’t hurt.” So Steve spent a year at the University of West Virginia to appease him. He could no more have told his parents he couldn’t read than strip in public. He still believed that if word got out, his star status would count for nothing, and the few people who loved him would be ashamed.

Even Essie Berman didn’t know about his reading—Essie, who thought he was wonderful. Aware that Steve had heard music in his head since childhood, Essie proclaimed it amazing that he could play any instrument he picked up. Essie listened to any thought Steve wanted to share; she never told him his singing would come to nothing. Years later, she said, “See, all that time you sweated your grades, I always said in the end it wouldn’t matter. It’s a good thing you turned out a star because otherwise I never would have lived you down.” For a long time, she was his sole adult support.

Not that Essie oohed and aahed. In his early days, her grandest compliment was that his music “wasn’t bad.”

“What do you mean, ‘not bad’?”

“Reminds me of soap commercials,” Essie said.

“Soap commercials!”

“That’s so terrible? They pay people good money to write soap commercials.”

“Great. I barely pass the year, everybody looks at me and thinks, there’s Ginsburg, the walking disaster. And you have me writing soap commercials?” This was at a period when his life caused him something close to physical pain.

“Artistically,” Essie told him, “it doesn’t hurt you later to have spent some time as a walking disaster.”