Authors: Rona Jaffe
“I do it in New York,” Mad Daddy said. “I’ve always done it in New York.”
“Funny,” said the comedian, “I thought you’d done movies.”
“No, I’ve never done movies.”
“He’s on television,” Penny Potter said helpfully. “The Mad Daddy Show. My friends’ children love it. Of course, now that it’s on at midnight they can’t watch any more.”
“Why is it on at midnight?” the face-lift lady said.
“My manager thought it would be a good idea,” Mad Daddy said, looking nervous.
“The ratings are up now,” Gerry said quickly.
“Midnight?” said the bleached-hair boy. “But who’s ever home at midnight?”
“Oh, I suppose some people watch television at midnight,” the comedian’s wife or girl friend said.
“They watch old movies,” the bleached-hair boy said. “Old movies.”
“Johnny Carson,” the face-lift lady said. “They watch Johnny Carson.”
“Some of them watch Joey Bishop,” said Peter Potter.
“That was a silly thing, going on at midnight,” the bleached-hair boy said. “You’ll never make it with the competition.”
“Tell my manager,” Mad Daddy said. The butler came out with fresh drinks for them and he took his and drank it quickly.
“You ought to do movies,” the comedian with the cigar said. “That’s where the money is, movies.”
“But what parts could he play?” the bleached-hair boy said. “He’s not a type.”
“
You
certainly are,” Mad Daddy snapped, and went into the house. Gerry followed him. She could hear the people at the pool laughing.
“He certainly told you, didn’t he?” the face-lift lady was saying.
Mad Daddy was standing in the carpeted hall, banging his fists against the wall-papered wall.
“Your parole board meets at four o’clock,” Gerry said quietly.
He turned to look at her and his face was white with rage under his fresh sunburn. She had never seen him so hurt or angry. His eyes were full of tears. “I told you, didn’t I?” he said. “Sons of bitches!”
“That’s just their sense of humor,” Gerry said, automatically falling into her role of pacify-the-client-at-all-costs. “They really like you.”
“
Sense of humor?
I’m
funny
, and that’s not
my
sense of humor! Goddam inbred leeches! They don’t have to jerk off at my expense. Let’s get out of here.”
“Okay. I’ll pack.”
She already felt sticky, but she dressed without bothering to shower off the salt water, and she was ready to go, overnight bag in one hand, wet bathing suit in the other. Mad Daddy didn’t even bother to take off his wet bathing suit. He picked up his things and led her out the back door to the driveway where their limousine was waiting. Their chauffeur saw them from the kitchen window and came out, hurriedly buttoning his jacket.
“Take us to New York,” Mad Daddy said. He threw the bags and his clothes into the back seat and climbed in after them.
Melvin, being Sam Leo Libra’s chauffeur, didn’t ask any questions. He maneuvered the car out of the driveway and they were off. Green trees whizzed past their windows, the air conditioning was wafting around them, the stereo tapes were playing the Tijuana Brass. Gerry poured drinks from the built-in bar. She didn’t say anything.
“Are you angry?” Mad Daddy asked. “Did you want to stay?”
“Of course not. I wouldn’t have stayed for anything.”
“I couldn’t have stayed.”
“We didn’t have to stay. You’re not supposed to suffer, you know. Libra wanted us to have fun. We have the car for the whole weekend. Where do you want to go?”
“I want to stay in the car,” Mad Daddy said. “Forever. It’s like a womb in here. Do you think we can stay in the car?”
“Sure.”
“We’ll get a lot of gas and we’ll just drive around. Okay?”
“Okay,” Gerry said. She smiled at him and raised her glass. “Cheers.”
Mad Daddy raised his glass. “Up theirs.”
They drank, and he smiled at her. Soon he was humming to the music and doing a take-off of the newest discothèque dance while sitting down. He was funny, and she laughed.
“Would you care to dance with me?” he said.
“I’d love to.”
“Nice place they have here. Not too crowded for this time of year.” He opened his overnight bag. Even though he had been nearly in tears and frantic to escape the house he had remembered to bring their shells. He took out a pink, whirly one. “Funny ashtrays they have here, though. I think this fag modern decorating goes a little too far sometimes.”
It took two and a half hours to drive back to New York, and then the chauffeur asked them where they wanted to go and Mad Daddy told him to fill her up and just drive around. Central Park was closed to traffic so they drove to the Village, then back up Fifth Avenue, then down Park Avenue. It was six o’clock and Gerry very badly wanted a bath and a change of clothes. Their limousine had stopped being a womb; it was now a trap, the pod of an astronaut who has lost the mother ship and is doomed to orbit forever in lonely space. They had heard all the tapes several times and drunk all the liquor.
“Aren’t you hungry?” she asked.
“Yes. Why don’t we stop and buy some Chicken Delight and eat it in the car?”
“Now listen,” she said. “I think we should go someplace—it’ll be good for you. And you shouldn’t sit around in that wet bathing suit forever in this air conditioning.”
“It’s dry,” he said.
“I’d like to freshen up, as they say.”
He was immediately chagrined. “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t realize … you probably have something you want to do tonight. A date or somebody you can call up? I’ll take you home.”
“No, no, I’m all yours. I just don’t want to be all yours with pneumonia.”
“I’ll take you to a restaurant if you want … but … well, if we go to a nice place Elaine’s friends will be there and she’s so jealous, she’d make something of us being together. And we can’t go to the movies on Saturday night. Well, I don’t want to take you to a dump, either. What do you want to do?”
“Well … what would you like to do?”
“I’ll tell you what I’d like to do,” he said shyly. “I’d like to go to your house and watch television. And I’ll cook. I’m really this great cook. Do you have any spaghetti?”
“Single girls always have spaghetti,” Gerry said. She wondered if Bonnie was at the apartment, and hoped not.
“Tell Melvin where,” Mad Daddy said.
The chauffeur took them to Gerry’s apartment and Mad Daddy told him he could go home. When she and Mad Daddy got upstairs Gerry realized with relief that there was no sign of Bonnie, just an upheaval of make-up and discarded clothes, the sure indication that Bonnie was gone for the evening.
“That’s the bathroom,” she said, “and here are some towels. You may even use them, even though they are expensive.”
“I’ll just use the corner and fold it,” he said. “Don’t do a thing while I’m gone; I’ll make the whole dinner.”
Bonnie, who didn’t pay the electric bill, had left the air conditioner on as usual, so the apartment was comfortably cool. Gerry put some records on the turntable while he was showering, and made drinks. She’d been drinking on and off all day, but she wasn’t high, just tired. She straightened up Bonnie’s mess and made the bed. Then he came out of the bathroom, dressed in clean clothes and smelling of her cologne, and she took him into the kitchen, gave him his drink, and showed him where all the food and pots and pans were.
“Go away,” he said.
She took a shower and dressed, and put on fresh make-up. When she went back into the kitchen she found that he had boiled a pot of water.
“Just sit there,” he said. “I’m going to cook. Wait till you taste my spaghetti. It’s my specialty.”
“Can I watch?”
“Sure.”
She sat on the kitchen ladder and watched him. He put a package of spaghetti into the boiling water, then he opened a can of spaghetti sauce and put it into a saucepan to heat.
“Do you want any spices or anything?” she said.
“Oh, no, that’ll spoil it. Just if you have some grated cheese we can put it on the table.”
“What about salad?”
“Oh, let’s not bother with that. I don’t like salad much, do you?”
“Not particularly.” She took out two plates and some forks and spoons. She didn’t have any wine in the apartment but there was still some of the champagne Libra had sent her, nicely cold in the refrigerator, so she opened it and put it into the ice bucket with ice and a towel around its neck. It looked very jazzy.
Mad Daddy drained the spaghetti and put it on a meat platter he had found, poured the canned sauce on top of it, and held it out with a flourish as if he was Brillat-Savarin. “Wait till you taste that!” he said.
They had spaghetti and champagne in the living room, while the sky turned black outside and filled with stars. Downstairs in the gardens of the other brownstones there were people sitting in beach chairs to get away from the heat, and some people had set up a grill. The smoke from grilling steak climbed in the still night air. Someone was playing with a poodle, tossing a ball for it to retrieve. It was a perfect city summer evening.
“Isn’t that
good?
” Mad Daddy said, helping himself to another heap of the spaghetti he had made.
“I bet you make great Jell-O, too,” Gerry said.
“What people don’t know about great spaghetti sauce,” he said seriously, “is that you mustn’t fuss with it. It’s perfect just the way it comes from the can. People fuss with food and then they ruin it.”
“I love it with champagne,” she said. “Why not have it with champagne? I love everything with champagne.”
“That’s right. All those rules are silly.”
She was surprised, but it really was one of the best meals she had ever eaten. She thought of all those marvelous meals Dick had bought her in his favorite restaurants, and she realized that every one of those meals had been marred with tension—
hers
. She really hadn’t enjoyed anything she’d eaten with Dick; she’d been too nervous, too much in love. Love was a mess. Who had said love made everything else seem better? That was a lie. Love interfered with every one of life’s functions. You lost your appetite or had indigestion, you slept badly, you either couldn’t go to the bathroom at all or you went all the time from nerves, you couldn’t concentrate on things, your skin broke out. Being in love was a mess.
I’m never going to fall in love again
, Gerry thought. She felt as if she was sailing peacefully on a cloud.
“Television!” Mad Daddy cried happily. He jumped up and turned on the set.
“Coffee?” Gerry asked.
“No, no, look—the Marx Brothers! We don’t need coffee, there’s champagne left. You can’t miss the Marx Brothers!” He took a pillow from the couch and settled himself comfortably on the floor in front of the television set, about two feet away from it like a child. Gerry put the champagne and the glasses on the floor and sat down next to him. He jumped up and got a pillow for her. The program was some sort of special—a mélange of old movies of old comics, the Marx Brothers, W. C. Fields, the Keystone Cops, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton. It was far better than the usual Saturday-night fare. Mad Daddy watched it avidly, laughing, looking at her every time there was a bit he particularly admired, to make sure she appreciated it too. “Aren’t you glad we stayed home?” he said.
“Yes.”
During the commercial she took the dirty dishes into the kitchen and he followed her with the platter and forks, putting everything into the sink. She wondered if he was as helpful in his own home. Married men were usually on their best domestic behavior when they were visiting girls, but on the other hand, he didn’t have to do anything, she really didn’t expect a man to be helpful around the house.
“Don’t wash the dishes,” he said.
“I didn’t intend to.”
“Good.” He rushed back to the television set.
After the comedy show they watched a very inferior movie which she remembered halfway through she’d seen before, but she didn’t mind because watching a bad movie at home on Saturday night was a peaceful thing to do. There was a rather good English thriller after that, then the news, and then a vampire movie.
“Aren’t we lucky?” he said happily. “Vampire movies are my favorite. I think I’ve seen every one of them. Do you have any popcorn?”
As a matter of fact, she did, the kind you popped yourself. Bonnie always bought popcorn and potato chips when they went to the grocery, eating the potato chips secretly because they were bad for her complexion. Gerry wondered briefly where Bonnie was tonight.
“Making popcorn is another of my specialties,” Mad Daddy said, taking over with the same culinary authority he’d had with the spaghetti. He held the wire-handled dish of popcorn over the flame and shook it while the popcorn popped and the foil top of the dish bloomed, giving forth an aromatic scent. “I
knew
you’d have popcorn,” he said. “I think I’ll marry you.”
“Okay. It’d be fun to be married to you.”
“Nobody else seemed to think so.”
“You need an older woman like myself.”
“
Old
?” he said, staring at her. “
Old?
You’re just a kid.”
“Ha. Some kid.”
“What are you,” Mad Daddy asked, “Nineteen? Twenty?”
Here we go
, Gerry thought.
He throws up and runs
. “Twenty-six.”
He kept staring at her in amazement. “Well, don’t tell anybody, because they’ll never know.”
“You’re going to burn the popcorn.”
“I never burn popcorn.”
He put the popcorn into a bowl she handed him and sprinkled extra salt on it. “Elaine is twenty-six,” he said.
“I know.”
“I still think you’re nineteen.”
They turned out the lights and watched the vampire movie in the dark, eating the popcorn and washing it down with the last of the champagne. Then all the television stations were off except one which had a movie from the Thirties about two song writers, one of whom was in love with a girl who was in love with the other one. They watched it, of course. Gerry wasn’t concerned that Bonnie wasn’t back yet because Bonnie often stayed out until nine in the morning when she didn’t have to work the next day.
The sun came up with the test pattern.