Finding Mrs. Ford
Page 7
“When we got back, my neighbor, Mrs. Banks, was waiting for me in the school parking lot, and she drove me straight to the hospital. My mother had taken a turn for the worse and they’d rushed her there while I was gone.
“I arrived to find her dying. Try as I might, I couldn’t collect my thoughts. I couldn’t talk to her. I couldn’t talk to my father, who was sitting in the chair next to her. I looked at my mother and thought I saw the skin melt off of her skull. She was dying, and I was tripping.
“Mrs. Banks took me home because everyone could see there was something wrong with me. They thought I was drunk. My mother died in the middle of the night and I wasn’t with her at the end. I was home in bed, trying to come down from those mushrooms.
“So, now you know. That’s what I did—my worst thing.” Susan turned back to Annie. “How about you?” she asked sharply.
For once in her life, Annie Nelson was speechless.
15
Thursday, August 2, 1979
To make the best of the situation into which she had thrust herself, like Margaret Mead, Susan studied the indigenous peoples of Frankie’s.
The regulars were a curious mix: Italian-American men, Chaldean men, odd unaffiliated men, and pretty girls. The girls were not from strict Italian or Chaldean families. They were leggy all-Americans, whose parents neither knew nor cared where they went on hot summer nights.
The alcoholics arrived first, the quiet, working-class drunks. These were tool and die makers, welders, foremen who wouldn’t stay once the disco got rolling, but who—for reasons of preference or proximity—chose Frankies’ over nearby watering holes like The Barleycorn or The Shamrock. They sat at the bar, ate dinners of meat and potatoes, and drank their drinks of choice: always hard alcohol, usually grain, often in double shots. The hardest of the hardcore would mix these with milk. Scotch and milk, for the guy in some stage of cirrhosis, was seen as a healing tonic. A few enjoyed the boilermakers that Sherry had mentioned on Susan’s first day of work—a tall glass of beer with a neat shot of whiskey gulped first.
These drinkers were quietly polite to the girls and the bartender, but they didn’t say much. They finished up early, left wads of cash on the bar, and stumbled out into bright summer nights. In Michigan, the westernmost edge of the Eastern Time Zone, midsummer daylight lingered after nine p.m. Susan watched them, night after night, inching themselves closer to oblivion by way of the bottle.
There was a lag after they departed before the night got rolling. Then the Italians arrived, the big wheels who were close with the Castiglione brothers and had some importance that would never be clearly defined. At the owners’ table of choice—a high top nestled in the front corner, exactly as Diane had described—there was to be found a core group of three, the holy trinity of Frankie’s. Vito Castiglione was seated farthest to the right, Johnny Buscemi took the middle, and Danny the Cop sat by the door, protecting the other two from Susan knew not what.
Though Officer Daniel Ravello never wore his uniform to the bar—that wouldn’t have been permitted—his cronies made no secret of his status as one of Detroit’s finest. “Get the officer a drink,” they would say to a waitress. “Officer Danny, here, has just crossed the border from deepest, darkest Detroit! He needs some liquid rescue!”
Detroit’s blacks did not frequent Frankie’s Disco. Detroit’s blacks hardly crossed Eight Mile Road. And—since the riots of sixty-seven—the white citizens of Warren did not traverse that divide in the opposite direction much either.
And, then there was Johnny Buscemi.
Johnny stood out from any crowd on the basis of his movie-star good looks. About thirty-five years old, he dressed in three-piece suits, and, in them, bore a striking resemblance to John Travolta’s character, Tony Manero, in Saturday Night Fever. Because of this, people sometimes called him Tony, or Tony Fever.
This phenomenon was not unique to Johnny Buscemi and the Italians. Susan had observed that the Chaldeans, who seemed to tread a careful distance from the Italians, also operated with multiple monikers.
Susan knew Italians; she’d grown up in Warren, where Italians were plentiful. But Chaldeans were something with which she was not familiar. She did not know where they came from in the world, and she did not know where they lived in the Detroit metropolitan area. She’d never met any in Warren.
There was one among them who intrigued her. He circulated with the Chaldeans, but Susan wasn’t sure he was part of them. She had heard him referred to as Frenchy, and this only heightened her attraction. Could this man possibly be French?
Wherever he was from, everything about him beguiled her—pulled at her from her self-imposed hibernation—for the first time since her high school romance with Todd.
To start with, he had the type of looks that tweaked Susan’s heartstrings. He was tall and lean—skinny, really. Everything about him was long—his legs, his arms, his fingers. He never danced, but when he walked into the room he moved his limbs, his body, in a languid way that was graceful and loose. His skin was olive, his nose aquiline, his hair blue-black. Like Frankie’s, his hair had a habit of falling over his eyes, which were a limpid brown. Unlike Frankie’s hair, his was bone straight. More than handsome, Susan found him beautiful.
She took to watching him. She knew when he was in the room, could feel it when he walked in. She might have been busy—waiting at the service bar, delivering drinks, even picking up food in the kitchen—but she could always sense it when he entered the house. A heated chill rose up her body, starting low and flushing her face and scalp.
She sensed him watching her, too. Their eyes met numerous times in the course of an evening. Every time it happened, the same rush came over her. It was such an intense sensation that she feared it was visible to others. She was pretty sure it was plain to him.
Yet he hadn’t approached her. This made her question her own perceptions. Maybe the guy had a wandering eye and looked at every woman the way he looked at her. Maybe it was just dark, and she wasn’t seeing what she thought she was seeing. She couldn’t be certain.
On this night, he came in earlier than his usual time, before Susan had even looked for him. And he came in alone, which was also not his habit.
In a fit of boldness, Susan asked Diane to switch sections.
Diane regarded her with her big brown eyes. “Is there someone you want to get close to?”
“I don’t know.” Susan felt herself blushing. “Maybe.”
“All right, my friend.” Diane made a silly little bow. “All yours.”
The place was still relatively quiet. Consciously counting her steps, Susan walked over to his table. She took his order without extraneous conversation, left quickly, and just as quickly returned with his
Cuba Libre.
Susan grabbed a cocktail napkin from the carefully fanned stack on her tray, set it on the table, and placed his rum and Coke with lime on top of it. She had learned from Diane the correct way to fan the napkins in a complete circle. A highball glass laid sideways atop the pile of napkins, then gently pressed and rotated clockwise was the way to create the perfect starburst of cocktail napkins, making them easier to grasp one at a time. “Are you French?” she asked before she could stop herself. She fiddled nervously with the napkins.
He looked up at her and smiled. His teeth were very white against his dark skin. She hadn’t anticipated his smile, nor the renewed frisson of excitement it would cause her.
“Do you think I’m French?” he said, with the slightest hint of an accent. He reached up to push his hair back from his face. The sensuality of the gesture weakened her.
“I was just wondering. I hear people call you Frenchy.” She paused to see if he would save her. He did not.
Susan spoke faster. “I studied in France. Last year. It was my academic term abroad. In Paris?” She concluded on an up note, as though he might not have heard of the place. She blushed at her own idiocy.
“So, you like French men?” He laughed, which em
barrassed her further.
“Okay.” She could see he wasn’t going to answer her. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Have you stopped working?”
“Um, no. But I’ve got to go work somewhere else.” Susan started to turn away.
“Why don’t you work here a little longer?” He reached out and grabbed her wrist—but, not hard, not hard at all. Susan was electrified by the touch of his hand on her arm. She stood stock still, staring down at it, unable and unwilling to end the interlude.
Sherry, who could always be counted upon to spoil a mood, reliably did so as she passed the table. “On a break there, Susan?” she sniped as she moved off in the direction of the bar.
“Right.” Susan disengaged. It wasn’t difficult. He really had no hold on her at all. “I’ve got to go. That’ll be a dollar twenty-five.”
“Start me a tab,” he said. And then, their cat and mouse game suspended for now, he surrendered a little information. “And I’m not French. I’ve lived there—that’s why they call me that—but I’m not French. And I’m not Italian, either. Someday I’ll tell you my story.” He paused. “You like stories, don’t you?”
“Maybe. I think so.” Susan’s cheeks were burning from the way he spoke to her and the subject was only his nationality. But she could not safely prolong the conversation any further. She turned to go, then halted. “What name shall I use for your tab?”
“Sammy Fakhouri,” he said, and smiled his dazzling white smile once again.
16
Thursday, August 7, 2014
New York
The dinner at Balthazar is interminable. Susan stifles a yawn and discreetly checks her watch. Time does not seem to be moving forward.
To Susan, this group does not look like serious contenders. At eight, there are too many of them. They drink too much, eat too much, laugh too much. Their jokes aren’t even funny.
One woman, Eleanor, the one who Jack has clearly targeted, is too much in every way. Her dress is too short. Her décolletage too exposed. Her lipstick too red. She is like a cartoon version of a woman. Jack Jr. doesn’t seem to mind.
For some reason, Eleanor wants Susan’s approval. She checks in with Susan repeatedly and has taken it upon herself to call her Sue. If there is one thing Susan despises, it is the nickname, Sue.
“Sue, darling, you don’t mind if I sit next to Jack, do you?”
“Sue, sweetie, you don’t mind if I flirt with Jack, do you?”
“Sue, dear, you don’t mind if I slide my hand up his leg and grab his willy under the table, do you?”
Well, she didn’t really say that, Susan has to admit.
“Sue, darling, you don’t mind…”
“I’m his mother,” Susan says, to shut her up.
“His…”
“Mother.”
“Oh. I thought you were his wife.”
“Well that certainly makes it better.”
It works. A chastened Eleanor does not address “Sue” for the remainder of the evening.
And that leaves Susan time to contemplate her stepson, sitting at the opposite end of the table, laughing at a story just told. She works to piece together the sides of this man that she knows and loves like a brother. Or, ironically, given that they are practically the same age, a son.
Despite the stresses of the day, Susan looks at him admiringly. Even in summer, the Ford men have always worn suits in the city. You had to hand it to both of them, father and son. Jack Jr., like his father before him, is a stylish man. Tonight, his suit is seersucker—Paul Smith with a more forward edge than his father’s bespoke variety—and it is just the right level of rumpled. His bowtie and pocket square are in matching yellow silk with a tiny pattern of Labrador Retrievers.
Susan smiles as she thinks about her husband’s strong preferences. Yellow ties, he would not wear. She never knew why. She won’t mention that to his son. Jack Jr. already spends far too much time comparing himself to his father. Susan knows he believes he does not measure up.
And therein, she recognizes, lies the problem.
Jack Ford Jr. is smart. He got into Columbia Law School. Well, maybe his father helped a little there, but he passed the bar in one go. Definitely smart. He is cultured. He is athletic. He is kind. He has almost every attribute that he needs to be successful in life. But he lacks some subtle discernment, some ability to judge character that, from time to time, lands him in settings like this one. Perhaps it is the gentle padding of privilege that allows him to assume the best of everyone.
Of course, Susan concedes, had Jack Jr. had a more astute insight into the human animal, it is possible that he would never have befriended the likes of her in the first place.
Maybe it is his drinking. Has he always drunk this much? Susan drifts back to the early years with Jack Jr., the years when they were the closest. Before she knew his father, before their relationship took on the occasionally awkward complication of step-family dynamics.
In the nineties, Jack Jr. was one of those guys who just glowed. The aura of his youthful triumphs—on the tennis court, the lacrosse field, in sailing races—was not far behind him and remained undimmed.
It was a miracle they’d never dated. Jack Jr., at that time, was one of the all-time great ladies’ men. But some instinct had steered Susan toward a different path. And Jack had respectfully followed.
But, when did he start to drink so much? He is a big man—he can metabolize more alcohol than most. But she feels a niggling thread of concern about the way he is currently knocking back the Margaux.
And that leads her directly back to this dinner, which will be incredibly expensive. She knows because she has been counting the wine bottles. Susan watches Jack enjoying himself with this wrecking crew. It is abundantly clear to her that these people are not going to buy any real estate from Jack Jr. It would have been clear to Jack Sr. ages ago that that was the case. What chip is her stepson missing that keeps him blind to these social cues? And how can she, his friend and his stepmother, let him know that she thinks this is a deal he should not waste any more time on?
“Sue, dear…” Eleanor is back.
“Jack, I’m heading out.” Susan summarily rises and moves to the exit. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
She bursts out the door and hails a taxi—a good old-fashioned smelly yellow taxi with not an ounce of suspension or air conditioning.
“Fifty-Ninth and Fifth,” she shouts, hoping the driver will know where that is. This is only slightly cynical; she once encountered a driver who did not know how to get to Central Park.
The taxi lurches forward and Susan accepts with relief the hot gust of garbage-scented air in her face.
17
Susan drags herself through the revolving doors of the Sherry, exhausted enough to sleep on the lobby floor. She greets the desk clerk on duty and exchanges weary pleasantries with the elevator operator. He opens the door for her on ten and she makes the short walk to her apartment. The apartment she shared with Jack.
Susan closes the door behind her and kicks off her shoes. She crosses the hall without turning on lights; no apartment is ever truly dark in New York if the curtains are open. Avoiding her bedroom and its big, lonely bed, she moves by the light of the city across the library to one of a pair of chairs by the window.
Jack had insisted on this particular arrangement of furniture—two by two, like Noah’s Ark. Always two big armchairs near the window, where they could sit together, Jack and Susan—face to face, feet on a stool between them—talking. Jack was a talker. Remarkably, he was also a listener. A rare combination.
Susan sits in her chair. Five years on, she still cannot sit in Jack’s. She looks out at the park. Taxi lights, white in the front, red in the rear, traverse the winding drive and shoot in straight arrows on 59th and on Fifth. From a narrow sliver, it could be Edith Wharton’s New York. Well, maybe not at night, with all the lights. At night, it could be Mary McCarthy’s New York. Or Dorothy Parker’s.
Tonight, though, it may take a while.
Susan gazes across the park and selects a memory from the fan deck of those she keeps on hand. She makes sure it’s a good one: the first night Jack took her out to dinner. Right there, across the park, at Café des Artistes.
First, she pictures Jack: his pale blue eyes, laser sharp in focus, crinkly soft when he laughed; his spare frame, his smooth walk, his gentle hand on her back.
Next, she pictures the room. She conjures up images of the frolicking nymphs in the Howard Chandler Christy murals. The candles and their roseate flicker. Jack looking at her as if she were the only woman in the world. He ordered his drink, a Lillet on the rocks. She had to ask him about that. She didn’t know what it was.
“You lived in Paris,” he tilted his head, “and you’ve never had a Lillet?”
“I lived in a sixth-floor walk-up and I certainly did not go out for cocktails. And, even if I had, Chablis would have been the outer limits of my sophistication.”
Together, they laughed at that.
She continues the memory, teasing it out a little longer.
“You wear a lot of colors together,” she playfully said to him.
“I love color,” was his simple answer.
Delicately, or so she thought, she had asked him if he might be just a little bit colorblind.
That had made him roar with laughter.
That was the thing about Jack. He was so sure of himself. He was so much his own man that he was virtually un-insultable. Comments that would offend a lesser person just made him laugh.