The Douglas Kennedy Collection #1

by Douglas Kennedy

  As scheduled, “Shore Leave” did appear in the September 6 edition of Saturday/Sunday. Several of my colleagues in the office complimented me on the writing. An editor at Harper and Brothers dropped me a nice note, saying that if and/or when I had amassed a book-length collection of stories, he’d be interested in considering them for publication. Someone from RKO Pictures made a tentative telephone inquiry about the rights to the story, but then sent a letter, explaining that “wartime romances are now passé.” As promised, I did despatch a copy of the magazine to Ruth in Maine, and received a cheery card back in return (“You really have it as a writer . . . and this reader wants to read more!”). Eric squandered a significant portion of his weekly salary on a celebratory dinner at 21. And Nat Hunter also marked the occasion by taking me to lunch at Longchamps.

  “So do you regret taking the job?” he asked as our drinks arrived.

  “Hardly,” I lied. “Do I seem like I regret it?”

  “You’re far too well mannered and polite to ever openly express dissatisfaction. But—as I know you’ve discovered—yours is not the most fulfilling of jobs. Nor, for that matter, is mine—but at least I have the fringe benefit of an expense account, which allows me to lunch writers . . . like your good self. On which note: where’s the next story?”

  “I’m working on it,” I said. “It’s taking a little longer than I expected.”

  “You are a terrible liar, Miss Smythe.”

  He was right, of course. I was utterly transparent. And I was getting nowhere with my next story . . . even though I knew what I was going to write. It was a tale of an eight-year-old girl on summer vacation in Maine with her parents. She’s their only child: overprotected, overpampered, overindulged . . . but also deeply aware of the fact that her parents don’t like each other very much, and that she is the glue which is holding them together. One afternoon, her parents get into a horrendous argument, and she wanders off out of their rented beach house. She leaves the beach, takes a wrong turn and finds herself in a deep set of woods. She remains lost there overnight, and is found the next morning by the police. She’s in shock, but basically unscathed. She has a tearful reunion with her parents. For a day or so afterward, harmony reigns within the family. But then the parental fights start again, and she runs off into the woods. Because now she realizes that, as long as she’s in jeopardy, her parents will cling to each other and get along.

  I had a title for the story: “Getting Lost.” I had the basic narrative structure worked out in my mind. What I didn’t have was the will to sit down and write it. The Saturday/Sunday job was enervating. I’d arrive home at seven each night, sapped. After eight hours of reading other people’s stories I felt like doing anything else but tackling my own work. So I began to play the postponement game—as in, I’m just too depleted to open my typewriter, so I’ll wake up at six a.m. tomorrow and crank out three hundred words before heading to the office. But then, when the alarm went off the next morning, I’d roll over and sleep on until eight thirty. When I got back home that night, I’d be feeling as devitalized as ever, unable to think about my short story. On the nights when my energy level was high, I’d find other things to do. Like heading off to see a great Howard Hawks double bill at the Academy of Music on 14th Street. Or I’d squander the evening with an enjoyably pulpy William Irish novel. Or I’d decide that this was the moment the bathroom needed cleaning . . .

  The weekends were worse. I’d wake up Saturday morning, determined to put in four hours at the typewriter. I’d sit down. I’d type a sentence. I’d hate the sentence. I’d yank the paper out of the typewriter. I’d roll in another piece of paper. This time I would get two, maybe even three sentences on paper before ripping it from the Remington.

  And then I would decide it was time for a walk. Or a coffee at the Caffe Reggio on Bleecker Street. Or a trip uptown to the Metropolitan Museum. Or a late morning foreign movie at the Apollo on 42nd Street. Or a trip to the laundromat. Or any other piece of busy work which would help me dodge writing.

  This went on for months. Whenever Eric asked how the new story was going, I’d tell him that I was making slow, steady progress. He’d say nothing, but the skeptical glint in his eye let it be known that he realized I was lying. Which made me feel around ten times more guilty, as I hated deceiving my brother. But what could I tell him? That I had lost all confidence in my ability to string a sentence together, let alone a story? Or that I now knew I was a one-off writer—someone with only a single story to tell.

  Eventually, I confessed this to Eric. It was Thanksgiving Day, 1946. Like the previous year, I met my brother for lunch at Luchow’s. Unlike the previous year, I wasn’t in love. Instead, I was enveloped by disappointment: with my work, with the circumstances of my life . . . but, most tellingly, with myself.

  Like the previous year, Eric ordered a bottle of sparkling wine to celebrate. After the waiter poured out two glasses, Eric raised his and said, “To your next story.”

  I lowered my glass and heard myself saying: “There is no story, Eric. And you know that.”

  “Yes. I know that.”

  “You’ve known that for a long time.”

  He nodded.

  “Then why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Because all writers know what it’s like to have a block. It’s something you really don’t want to talk about with anybody.”

  “I feel like a failure,” I said, swallowing hard.

  “That’s dumb, S.”

  “It may be dumb, but it’s the truth. I messed up at Life. I should never have taken that job at Saturday/Sunday. Now I’m unable to write. Which means my entire literary output will end up being one forgotten story, published when I was twenty-four.”

  Eric sipped his wine and smiled. “Don’t you think you’re being just a tad melodramatic?”

  “I want to be melodramatic.”

  “Good. I prefer you when you’re Bette Davis, not Katharine Hepburn.”

  “God, you sound like him.”

  “Is he still on the brain?”

  “Only today.”

  “It being your anniversary, I suppose.”

  I winced. And said, “That wasn’t nice.”

  “You’re right. It wasn’t. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re very hard on me sometimes.”

  “Only because you’re so hard on yourself. Anyway, it’s not criticism. Just constructive teasing: an attempt to get you to lighten up. So stop torturing yourself about not being able to work. If you have a story to tell, you’ll tell it. If you don’t . . . it’s not the end of the world. Or, at least, that’s what I’ve decided recently.”

  “You haven’t given up on your play, have you?”

  He stared down into his glass for a moment, then reached (as always) for his cigarettes and matches. He lit one, but didn’t look back up at me.

  “There is no play,” he said quietly.

  “I don’t understand . . . ?”

  “It’s simple, really. The play I’ve been writing for the last two years doesn’t exist.”

  “But why doesn’t it exist?”

  “Because I never wrote anything.”

  I tried to disguise my shock. I failed. “Nothing at all?” I said quietly.

  He bit his lip. “Not a word,” he said.

  “What happened?”

  He shrugged. “There’s only so much rejection one can take. Seven unproduced plays is enough for me.”

  “Things change. Tastes change. You’ve got to travel hopefully.”

  “And while you’re at it, physician heal thyself.”

  “You know how impossible it is to heed one’s own advice.”

  “Okay—then listen to mine. End the self-flagellation. Put the typewriter away until you’re really ready to use it again.”

  “I’ll never use it again.”

  “Stop sounding like me, for Christ’s sakes. Especially as you will use it again.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “B
ecause you’ll want to. I’m sure of it. And because you will get over him.”

  “I am definitely over him.”

  “No, S. He’s still around, nagging you. I can tell.”

  Was I that transparent? Was it that obvious? Ever since I’d received that card from Jack, I had resolved to expunge him from my head; to file him away, and slam the cabinet door shut. Initially, I was so angry and hurt by his terse reply that it was easy for me to write him off as a delusional mistake. I mean, how dare he only write three lousy words in response to the three dozen or so letters and cards I sent him? He’d made me feel like a chump, a dupe. Over and over I heard myself at the gates of the Brooklyn Navy Yards, telling him he’d better not break my heart. Over and over I heard Jack say that he loved me. How could I have been so naive, so damn green?

  Anger is always a sensible antidote to heartache—especially if you have very good reasons for feeling aggrieved. For months I held on to that sense of intense rancor. It helped me deal with his wholesale rejection of me. I had made a massive mistake. As Eric predicted, Jack Malone turned out to be a fly-by-night artist; a Don Giovanni in Army khaki. If only he’d had the decency (or the courage) to write me straight away, telling me that there was no future between us. If only he hadn’t kept me dangling for so long. If only I hadn’t been such a romantic sap.

  After anger comes resentment. After resentment, bitterness. And when that acrid aftertaste finally diminishes, what you are usually left with is wistfulness. A rueful cocktail of acceptance and regret. The sadder but wiser school of needlepoint mottos.

  But by the time of my Thanksgiving lunch with Eric, I wasn’t merely wistful. Naturally, the day in question (my so-called anniversary with Jack, as Eric so tartly noted) made me reflect on all that had happened to me during the past chaotic year. But it also brought home something which I kept trying to deny (but which Eric, damn him as usual) quickly detected: I still missed the guy.

  And I still couldn’t work out why one single night with someone had made such a resounding, lasting impact.

  Unless . . .

  Unless he was it.

  But I tried not to dwell on this thought. Because it meant dwelling on Jack. And I didn’t want to dwell on Jack because, in turn, it meant wondering if there was a thing called destiny—a thought which rekindled the residual grief I still felt about losing Jack.

  A few days after Thanksgiving, however, a little perspective returned—and, once again, I retired Mr. Malone to that drawer of my mental filing cabinet marked “Romantic Mistakes.”

  During that same week, I also took Eric’s advice and put my Remington typewriter into hibernation at the back of my closet. Initially I felt a considerable degree of guilt at giving up the idea of writing. But by mid-December, the constant stab of angst had receded. And, rationalizing like crazy, I was able to convince myself that my writing career hadn’t crashed and burned. Rather, it had decided to take an extended sabbatical.

  “Am I ever going to see that new short story?” Nathaniel Hunter asked me at our Christmas lunch.

  “Not for a while, I’m afraid.”

  He looked at me quizzically. “And why is that, Sara?”

  I met his gaze directly. “Because I never wrote it, Mr. Hunter.”

  He grimaced. “That’s a damn shame.”

  “It’s just a story.”

  “You have a lot of promise, Sara.”

  “That’s very kind of you, but if I can’t get the story written, then promise means nothing, does it?”

  “I feel bad. Responsible.”

  “Why? You did warn me. But it’s not the job that stopped me from writing it. It’s me.”

  “Don’t you want to be a writer?”

  “I think so. But . . . I can’t really figure anything out anymore.”

  “It’s a common complaint, I’m afraid.”

  “Tell me about it. Especially since I have learned one basic rule of life over the last year.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “Every time you think you know what you want, you bump into someone who alters your perspective completely.”

  “Some people would call that ‘keeping your options open’.”

  “I would call it an ongoing recipe for unhappiness,” I said.

  “But maybe some people do bump into what they want.”

  “Without question. The problem is: having found what you want, can you actually hold on to it? And the terrible thing is: the answer to that question all comes down to things like luck, timing, maybe even a pinch or two of serendipity. Stuff over which we have such little control.”

  “Take it from a guy who’s compromised himself into a corner—we have control over nothing. We think we do, but the truth is: most of the big decisions we make in life are never thought out properly. They’re all done quickly, instinctively, and usually out of fear. The next thing you know, you’ve boxed yourself into a situation you don’t want to be in. And you find yourself asking, ‘how the hell did I get here?’ But we all know the answer: we wanted to be here . . . even though we might spend the rest of our lives denying it.”

  “So what you’re saying is: we trap ourselves.”

  “Absolutely. You know that old line from Rousseau: man is born free, but everywhere in chains. Well, in America today, most of the chains are self-imposed . . . courtesy of marriage.”

  “I’m never getting married.”

  “I’ve heard that one before. But, believe me, you will. And probably without even thinking too much about it.”

  I laughed and said, “How on earth can you know that?”

  “Because it’s the way it always happens.”

  At the time, I dismissed Nathaniel Hunter’s comments as those of a metropolitan cynic—and one who was ruing the approach of middle age and the loss of his literary prospects. But I also knew of his devotion to his family—and how that probably tempered any professional disappointments he might be bearing. He might be “in chains,” but he secretly liked the chains.

  Then, two weeks after Christmas, I came to work one morning to discover a notice posted on the door of the literary department, asking all staff members to attend an urgent meeting in the managing editor’s office at ten that morning. Everyone from the department was already gathered by Mr. Hunter’s desk, speaking in low conspiratorial tones. But Mr. Hunter wasn’t there.

  “What’s happened?” I asked as I joined my colleagues.

  “You mean you haven’t heard?” asked Emily Flouton, one of the other assistant fiction editors.

  “Heard what?”

  “That our happily married boss just ran off with Jane Yates.”

  I blanched with shock. Jane Yates was a quiet, angular-faced woman in her late twenties who worked in Saturday/Sunday’s art department. With her sharp features, her long braided hair, and her rimless round glasses, she always looked like the sort of New England librarian who was destined to end up a spinster.

  “Mr. Hunter ran off with her?” I heard myself saying.

  “It’s something, isn’t it?” Emily said. “Not only that—he’s also quit his job. Rumor has it that he and Jane are planning to move to New Hampshire or Vermont, so he can write full time.”

  “But I thought he was happily married.”

  Emily rolled her eyes and said, “Honey, what man is ever happily married? Even if you give the guy complete freedom, he’ll still end up feeling trapped.”

  I never saw Nat Hunter again. Because he never showed his face again in the offices of Saturday/Sunday. With good reason. In 1947, running out on your marriage was considered a major misdemeanor . . . and one which was punishable by professional demotion, if not ostracization. Had he just continued cheating on his wife, there would have been no problem—as adultery was tolerated (so long as you were never caught). But abandoning your family back then was regarded as immoral and downright un-American. In the case of Nat Hunter, it was also mind-boggling. Especially given that the object of his desire was a woman who reminded me o
f Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca.

  Most of the big decisions we make in life are never thought out properly. They’re all done quickly, instinctively, and usually out of fear. The next thing you know, you’ve boxed yourself into a situation you don’t want to be in.

  For months after Mr. Hunter’s abrupt departure, I kept hearing him make that statement. I myself kept wondering: was the decision to upend his life also made quickly, instinctively, and out of fear? Fear, perhaps, of growing older, and feeling trapped, and never writing the novel he promised himself he’d write?

  To the best of my knowledge, even after he vanished to New Hampshire with Jane Yates, he never got his novel published. Word had it he ended up teaching English composition at a small junior college near Franconia—until his death in 1960. “Liver failure” was the cause given in the short New York Times obituary. He was only fifty-two years old.

  But in the immediate aftermath of his departure from Saturday/Sunday, I held in constant remembrance his comments about how we never think through the big things in life. And I vowed to myself: I’ll never make that mistake.

  Then, in the early spring of 1947, I met a man named George Grey. He was a twenty-eight-year-old investment banker with Lehman Brothers. Princeton-educated, erudite, courtly, handsome in a square-jawed sort of way, and a good companion. We were introduced at the wedding of one of my Bryn Mawr friends. He asked me out. I accepted. The evening went well. He asked me out again. I accepted again. The evening was even more of a success. George Grey, I decided, was good news. And, much to my surprise, he admitted (after just two dates) that he was besotted with me.