The Queen and I

by Russell Andresen

  Jeffrey rented a house for an entire month, and Rachel convinced him that she would have to do some light work while they were on the island so as not to lose out on any scoops regarding what was happening in the Broadway scene. They swam in the azure water, walked along the beach, tasted the local cuisine, and made passionate love almost every night. This was an emotional joining together for the two of them, and it was only confirmed that Jeffrey was hopelessly in love with Rachel, but he was still unsure about her true feelings for him.

  Her heart always was into the lovemaking, and she gave her undivided attention to him when he spoke, but there was something missing when they were alone that left him feeling empty, and he wasn’t quite sure how to label that emotion.

  Jeffrey had never thought that he would want to marry anyone at all, but when he was with Rachel, he felt like he was safe and at home. It was a sensation unlike any other that he had ever experienced with another human being, and he both loved and feared it at the same time. He thought about bringing up the possibility of the two of them marrying while here on the island, but knew that he would be going forward with a very large risk.

  He knew that she loved him and that he was her only romantic interest, but Rachel had a way of flirting with business associates and industry power brokers that sometimes made him uncomfortable. He tried to hide his feelings about this for fear that she would see him as being self-conscious and weak, but he also knew that if he were going to try to move forward with their relationship, he was going to have to lay all of his concerns on the table.

  As he looked across the table at her perfect features and those dazzling sea-green eyes, he could only hope that she would respond the way he hoped before he asked her what he had wanted to since they arrived on the island.

  * * *

  Jacob and Mendel got to work almost immediately on rewriting Ghetto Mishegas into Henry’s dream play of Kristallnacht and Noel. Jacob felt no remorse at all for what he was doing, and that surprised him a bit. He and Jeffrey had been through much together, and he considered Jeffrey a friend, but friends do not hold other friends back and stifle their creative dreams the way that Jeffrey had done to Jacob.

  While it was true that Jacob had never actually come to Jeffrey with an idea for a play of his own, it was very true that Jeffrey was self-absorbed with his own work and had Jacob conduct the menial labor that he had been hired for. Not once did Jeffrey ask him if he had any dreams or ideas, not once did he ask him to proofread a passage of a play that he was writing, and never did Jeffrey ever tell Jacob that he was doing a good job.

  What Jacob was doing was payback for his mistreatment over the years, and his former employer would soon realize the dire mistake he had made.

  With Mendel at his side, Jacob was a writing machine, and the rewrite was going as well as any venture Jacob had ever undertaken. The words came to him rapidly, the scenes painting pictures in his mind’s eye, and he felt as if the great playwrights of all time were guiding his pen.

  Mendel was a motivator by compliment, but he sometimes threw a little fear into the mix. Jacob was not entirely comfortable around the odd little man, but he was making the best of it. When Jeffrey finally found out what was going on, he would certainly want to speak to Jacob face-to-face, and it would be good to have a man like Mendel Fujikawa in his corner.

  The two of them had worked out a perfect operating system according to Mendel. Jacob was the mind that would rewrite the play, and Mendel would take care of the unconditional love and downright brutality necessary to inspire the aspiring playwright to get his work done in a timely manner.

  One moment, Mendel could be as complimentary as any man could be to another, and the next he was threatening to tie Jacob to the bed and introduce him to his rare collection of Ben Wa balls. Where at any given point in the evening, Mendel could sneak up behind Jacob and gently rub the other’s neck, making him feel uncomfortable, the next he shouted at him over what he deemed to be a mistake in the script and threatened to put out his cigarette on Jacob’s earlobe.

  Occasionally, Mendel regaled Jacob with tales of how he tortured playwrights who disappointed him and what pleasure he took in such activities; other times he told him the difference between a black man and a Jewish man in the bedroom. What was odd was that both scenarios seemed to excite Mendel in the same exact way. His eyes sparkled with an evil happiness when he spoke about fellatio as much as when he talked about where the optimal place was to stick a chimney bellows in the human anatomy. This, coupled with the pet names Mendel assigned to Jacob on a daily basis, made for an increasingly uncomfortable working environment that only motivated the aspiring author to finish as quickly as possible.

  Two weeks into the rewrite and Jacob was convinced he had completed the play that Heinrich Schultz had dreamt of and that Mendel Fujikawa was hired to see finished.

  “I think we got it, Mendel,” Jacob said happily.

  “Ah, ah, ahh!” Mendel said, shaking his head no. “What do we say pupchick?”

  Jacob shook his head and lowered it before answering, “I think we’re done Marquis Fuji-san.”

  “Ah, much better, let me see, my little dim sum.”

  Jacob handed the manuscript to Mendel, who dramatically began thumbing through the pages much the same way he did when they had first met, and he chuckled to himself as he came across a particularly funny passage.

  “O-M-G! Chanukah Bush! I love that. Did you make that up?”

  “It’s something that Jews joke about; I thought it would be funny.”

  “Not as funny as this Holocaust stuff. Did you make that up too?”

  “No, that actually happened.”

  “Really? How did I ever miss that?” Mendel threw his hands in the air and said, “C’est la vie.”

  Mendel walked toward the window looking over the East River and immediately called Henry to inform him that the play was done.

  “By all means, my dear Heinrich, make the announcement that your dream play is coming to the stage and make sure that you name the playwright when you do it. It will hurt our mutual friend that much more while he’s away on his vacation.”

  * * *

  The sky was an explosion of color, and the spectrum of light shimmering on the calm ocean outside of Jeffrey’s window left him in awe and convinced him that there had to be a grand Creator who loved us very much. As he looked over at Rachel, he was reminded of how much he had grown to love her over the years, and this time away from his work and the city had just proved to reinforce those feelings in his heart. He was sure that this was the time to bring up the inevitable question that would determine their futures together.

  “You know I love you Rachel, right?”

  “You’re sweet,” she answered and took a sip of her powder-blue rum cocktail.

  “Do you love me?”

  “Of course I do, I’m just not the say-so type.”

  “It’s nice to hear every now and then, though.”

  Rachel looked at Jeffrey with a slightly put upon expression and asked, “What is this?”

  Jeffrey shook his head innocently and answered, “I’m just trying to share my feelings. I don’t think we do that enough. I mean, don’t you ever think about our future?”

  “All the time, why do you think I’m here?”

  “Well, I figured that …”

  Rachel’s phone rang, and she quickly raised one finger and mouthed, I have to take this.

  Jeffrey acknowledged her with the wave of his hand and sat back to admire what was left of the sunset. Maybe he was mistaken about his feelings for this woman whom he thought he loved, maybe it was a relationship of convenience and not intimacy, and perhaps he needed to reevaluate his life a bit more before making any decisions as important as this one.

  “What?! What!?” Rachel screamed into the phone. “When is this happening? Who is the backer? No! Do nothing; I’m on my way right now. We’ll be back tomorrow.”

  Jeffrey was slightly concerned at Rachel
’s explosion into the phone and curious about what could have possibly rattled her in such a way.

  “Vacation’s over, Jeffrey. We have major problems.”

  Chapter Seven: Rave Reviews

  The events that followed happened quicker than Jeffrey could keep up with; it was a whirlwind of deception and betrayal, and he felt wounded to his very core at what his onetime assistant had done to him and Rachel in one fell swoop.

  It was not bad enough that he had taken advantage of the situation and written a manuscript for Heinrich Schultz after Jeffrey had turned him down. It was not enough that this was done while Jeffrey was counting on him to take care of the business that was working for Jeffrey David Rothstein. What was the most infuriating was what Jeffrey came to realize when Rachel presented him with an early release of the story line for Kristallnacht and Noel, a story that was clearly penned by Jeffrey, and was, in fact, nothing more than a rewrite of Ghetto Mishegas, a play that Jeffrey had written ten years earlier and was not pleased with the final results. He had vowed to himself that he would one day return to that script and do it the justice that it deserved in order to get it onto the big stage of Broadway.

  Jacob had obviously broken the sanctity of Jeffrey’s private library and gone through all of the manuscripts for a play that was close enough to the ludicrous story that Heinrich Schultz wanted to bring to life and altered Jeffrey’s own work into that play, the play that was about to be released in a massive express run to the stage in what could only have happened as a result of Henry’s huge financial power.

  Looking through the material that Rachel was able to get her hands on, Jeffrey knew there was no way that Jacob had penned this rewrite completely on his own; there was something about the way the words were put together, the darkness of the story line. And why the hell were there Jews wearing menorah hats for the grand finale?

  The small details were bothering Jeffrey more than anything. He knew this style and was having difficulties placing where and when he had seen it before.

  “Well, looks like your friend Jacob fucked us over,” Rachel snapped. She had been irate since returning from Curaçao, and her mood had not improved. She had just hung up her phone and was not pleased.

  Part of her job as a critic was also getting scoops on all things behind the scenes of Broadway. She had worked very hard over the years developing working relationships with personal assistants, media representatives, and managers so that she would be the one breaking stories like this. It was a huge deal, and the fact that her name was not attached to the story hurt her in more ways than just causing her to lose face. Her reputation had been soiled by this revelation that a play was coming to the Great White Way faster than any in history and obviously had been bought its spot. No pre-shows, no test audiences, no off-Broadway appearances, and no early reviews; that is, except one.

  “My boss is yelling at the top of his lungs at me, wanting to know why I wasn’t the one who broke this story, and to make matters worse, it was Mendel Fujikawa who decided to come out of hiding to put his name to the reveal.”

  Mendel Fujikawa. That was it! That was the reason why Jeffrey was so puzzled, and that was the style that he recognized and couldn’t put a name to. Fujikawa was a very talented, if not eccentric writer, who had turned to the game of drama critic years earlier after a play of his, Sayonara Skokie, was not met with critical acclaim and he was laughed out of the writing business for good. What made it worse was that this tale of a gay love affair between a Japanese journalist and an Illinois neo-Nazi did not get the support of the gay community that he had hoped for, and without the gay community, you cannot succeed on Broadway. And to add further insult to his injury, Jeffrey had gained the support of the gay community with his play Golda: The Balls behind Zion, a revealing one-woman show that depicted the trials and tribulations of Golda Meir, the prime minister of Israel in the 1960s, played brilliantly by the great drag queen actress, Yvonne Dubois, or Yankel Deutsch as he was known to his parents and close friends.

  The simple fact that Mendel Fujikawa was the one who broke the story answered some of the questions, but it did not explain how the relationship with Jacob or Henry came into play.

  Mendel was easy; he had held a grudge against Jeffrey and partly blamed him for the gay community refusing to back him even though he was gay. He thought Jeffrey was behind the smear campaign about his horrible play. He had also thrown a tantrum at the Tony Awards when the award for Best Play was announced, and Fujikawa seized that opportunity to protest that he received nary a nomination.

  “I don’t know what to say, Rachel. I’m as stunned as you are,” Jeffrey apologized.

  “Well, you have a funny way of showing it,” she snapped. “How can you be so calm when this little pissant is sabotaging your career?”

  “What do you want me to do, challenge him to a fight? Tell him that I want my script back? It’s gone! He picked one of the few plays that I never made copies of or copyrighted. He picked the best one for what he wanted, and now I’m screwed out of my own work and have to sit here and watch as someone else brings it to life in an entirely unintended form while I sit here helpless. So forgive me for not throwing furniture around or drinking heavily, but I am just a little sick to my stomach right now and am trying to think of how to rectify the situation!”

  This outburst was not common for Jeffrey at all, but he had to admit to himself that it felt pretty good to let it out. It was almost as if he had cleared away some space in his brain and could actually think clearer now than he had just a few moments ago. But the sad fact was that he had no idea what he was going to do next.

  * * *

  The night of the big premier finally arrived, and in spite of himself, Jeffrey was in attendance with Rachel, who was there on a strictly professional capacity. She had a play to review, and Jeffrey had to sit and stomach whatever dreck he was about to be subjected to.

  He spotted Jacob briefly, but was unable to approach him as his assistant was flanked by Heinrich Schultz and Mendel Fujikawa. Why had Jeffrey remembered Fujikawa being black? Just another mystery without an answer in sight.

  Rachel excused herself so that she could mingle among the theater elite. She left Jeffrey to his own devices, strolling through the crowd in the lobby of the sold-out theater. Jacob looked thrilled, and Henry was absolutely beaming with pride, but Mendel was nowhere to be found.

  “Hello, titsellah,” Mendel said seductively behind Jeffrey, almost causing him to drop his drink. “So glad you got the tickets that I sent you.”

  Jeffrey turned and sized up the smaller Fujikawa, who was wearing a chartreuse-colored tuxedo. Mendel was smiling a grin that revealed more teeth than Jeffrey thought the human mouth was capable of holding, and Mendel must have decided that tonight was a monocle kind of night.

  “Actually, I’m here with my girlfriend.”

  “Indeed. And where is the ravishing Ms. Benjamin?”

  “She’s around.” Jeffrey gave his now-empty glass to one of the waiters and continued. “So, how do you know Henry?”

  “Oh me and my dear Heinrich go back to our boarding school days. He was the captain of the wrestling team, and I was the head cheerleader.” He winked at Jeffrey. “Ah, the stories I could tell if not for parental advisories.” He chuckled again and put his hand over his mouth. “The German men, oy vey, the German men!”

  “And how do you know Jacob?”

  “Tsk, tsk, JD. You know that I am always on the lookout for new and vibrant talent.”

  “Especially those who have access to other peoples’ work?”

  Fujikawa’s facial expression went from that of proud confidence to bitter disgust almost instantly, and he whispered, “You are walking a very fine line, my friend. I would suggest that you just smile the rest of the evening and tell anyone who asks that you loved every second of the play.”

  Jeffrey gave a straight and determined stare back to Mendel and said, “I wouldn’t hold my breath, sayonara Mendel.”

&
nbsp; Mendel caught the inference and was instantly enraged, but somehow managed to keep his composure. He walked as close to Jeffrey as he could without touching him and said venomously, “I would watch myself if I were you. Your time has already passed.” He turned around and stalked away through the crowd as the lights began to flicker, announcing that the curtain was about to go up and the play was starting.

  From Jeffrey’s perspective, the night could not have gone worse. The audience loved the play, and it received three curtain calls, even Rachel laughed at one point, and that was worse than being punched in the stomach.

  He watched Jacob, Heinrich, and Mendel from his orchestra seat as they looked on from their private booth. The pride emanating from the face of Schultz was sickening, and the arrogant, pompous air that Jacob was letting out was even worse to watch.

  Fujikawa could not take his eyes off of Jeffrey the entire evening. This was not unnoticed by Rachel, who stared back and even threatened to Jeffrey that she was going to walk out, but he knew that it was an empty threat because she was too dedicated to her job to allow personal feelings to interfere in any way.

  The play was a huge success, and people really seemed to buy into the plot of a Jewish shop owner selling Christmas trees to avoid being targeted during Kristallnacht, and the subplot of the love story between a German Jew and the wife of an SS officer moved many in attendance.

  Jeffrey found new hatred in every laugh, anger in every round of applause, and almost vomited when he heard the chorus of bravo echo throughout the hall. This was the worst-case scenario that he could have possibly imagined. He had hoped that Jacob was not up to the task of rewriting his play and turning it into a hit, but his former assistant proved that there was more talent than he had ever been given credit for. He found some solace by telling himself that the only reason why Kristallnacht and Noel was such a huge hit was because the original script it was stolen from was a work of genius that even the untalented Jacob Stone could not have screwed up.