Broadway Baby

by Alan Shapiro

  “Oh for God’s sake,” Mrs. Kaufman said, “I almost forgot.” And with remarkable agility and quickness Mrs. Kaufman brought a tea set on a silver tray from the breakfront to the coffee table, and set out the saucers, the cups, the napkins, the spoons. She filled each cup to just below the brim, and then returned the tea pot to the tray, and the tray to its exact spot on the breakfront.

  With no expression in her voice or face, her mouth hardly moving, Ronnie asked, “Do you read books?”

  “Yes,” Miriam said, louder than she meant to. “I love to read. I read novels, plays, magazines. How about you?”

  “Not since the accident,” Ronnie said. “The words hop around too much. Frankie reads to me. Frankie reads a lot of books.”

  “Frankie’s quite the reader,” Mrs. Kaufman added. “A regular professor. Graduated from Boston Latin top of his class. He wants to go to college, isn’t that right, Frankie?”

  Frankie said, “Sure, Ma.”

  “His father was smart, too, a real brain. He got degrees, don’t ask, an MA, a BA, and if he hadn’t gotten sick, he’d have been a doctor, may he rest in peace.”

  Mrs. Kaufman smiled in Miriam’s vicinity, saying, “What does your father do, dear, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “He’s in the meat business.”

  “Oh,” she laughed, “another professional.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “An MD,” she said. “Meat Dealer!”

  Frankie excused himself and disappeared into the dark apartment.

  “You know, Miriam,” Mrs. Kaufman’s voice grew solemn. “My Frankie, he has a lot of plans, big plans. He wants to travel the world. He wants to go to Africa and work with the schvartzas, can you imagine that? Did you know he speaks four languages?”

  No, she didn’t.

  “Yes, and he works so hard, my poor son, and you know we’re no walk in the park, Ronnie and me.”

  “I can’t even walk in the park,” Ronnie said.

  “Shush, Ronnie,” said Mrs. Kaufman. She sipped her tea, staring at Miriam, right into her eyes. For the first time, Miriam felt looked at. Assessed.

  “Think you’re special?”

  “Excuse me?” Miriam said.

  Leaning forward, Mrs. Kaufman hissed, “You’ll end up like the rest of us, you wait and see. You’ll be just the same, miss high and mighty. Think you can waltz right in here and take whatever you want, like we don’t matter, like . . .”

  Suddenly Frankie was back, and Mrs. Kaufman sat back, wiping something from her cheek. “More tea?” she said, smiling at her son.

  No, Frankie was due back at the store, they had to run. Ronnie wanted to know when he’d be home, so they could finish reading Little Women. Beth is going to die, isn’t she? And what about Jo and the professor, would they get married? What time would he be home, what time exactly? He wasn’t going out again tonight, was he?

  Mrs. Kaufman walked them to the door, touching the furniture and wall along the way. She said again how beautiful Miriam was, a regular Betty Grable. That Frankie, he’s got great taste in girls. She said next time she won’t be so tired. Next time, she’ll dress up proper. They’ll kibitz longer.

  Miriam said she couldn’t wait.

  FRANKIE’S LETTER CAME a few days later. She was a wonderful girl, the best girl he’d ever met, but he had too much responsibility as it was, and she was so young—she deserved a better life than he could give her.

  She was not surprised. She pretended to be crushed. For days afterward, she cried, she moped, but there was also a pleasure in the crying and the moping, in being the spurned one, the rejected one. She could think that she hadn’t done anything wrong, that she had nothing to regret. It was just his family, just fate. It wasn’t in the cards. He loved her; he still loved her, maybe now more than ever. She could probably get him back, if she really wanted to. But she wouldn’t do that, no, because she knew deep down that it was best for him and for his family if she gave him up. When you came right down to it, she hadn’t really been rejected. No, she had sacrificed her happiness for his well-being, the way Miss Julie had. Miss Julie, her guardian angel. It had been years since she had thought of her. Now she could sing “Can’t help lovin’ dat man” and feel, sadly yet sweetly, too, as if everything had happened for the best.

  In a few weeks, only the thought of Ronnie and Mrs. Kaufman troubled her. She’d be daydreaming her bittersweet dreams of the life she might have had with Frankie, the places they’d have gone, the important work she might have helped him with—she’d be imagining their story as a musical, a tragic musical like Show Boat, dreaming of them as a pair of star-crossed lovers, singing their way from scene to scene—when suddenly they would appear, the crippled girl and the blind mother. Suddenly she’d feel looked at and hated. She’d think, how long before I can forget them, once and for all?

  Scene V

  Without Frankie in the picture, and high school over, Miriam went to work full-time for Tula. She thought of college from time to time, but she knew that Bubbie and Zaydie couldn’t possibly afford to send her, and her mother wouldn’t. Her mother said that for someone like Miriam college was just a high-priced mixer, a place to snare a husband. And it was just as likely she would find a good catch here at home as on a fancy campus. “You can buy a bra at Filene’s Basement or at Macy’s. But either way it’s still a bra.” Tula herself hadn’t even finished high school, and she had done all right, “Especially once I got that nonsense with your father over with.” When Miriam said she wanted to become a teacher, a theater teacher, and maybe even someday perform, her mother scoffed, “And I want to be Mrs. Rockefeller.” Miriam could pursue these pipe dreams if she wanted to, but she’d have to do it on her own nickel. Miriam had to learn, like Tula had, the hard way, that there were no free lunches.

  A full-time working girl: Miriam liked the sound of that. And anyway, it wouldn’t be forever. And maybe, for once, her mother would recognize her talent—her go-getter attitude, her effervescence, her easy way with people. To her surprise, the work itself became a kind of performance, one in which she got to play her mother. She pretended to be the woman she had watched in secret all those years ago, the one whom all the customers admired, the confident businesswoman, the fashion maven, the friendly, knowing counselor who always had a good word for everyone, who knew just what to say to make even the plainest woman feel oh so stylish (“Darling, it’s stunning how the fabric hugs your hips!” “Oh, the color’s gorgeous, perfect for your complexion!” “This will get a rise out of him, dear, believe me—your husband sees you in this, he won’t say he’s too tired to go dancing!”). She played her mother, and the store did well. Business, in fact, was never better. And the better the store did, the more time Tula spent in New York City. Miriam had to hire a friend from high school to help out during the holiday season.

  She even made some innovations. Tula had such confidence in the merchandise and her own ability to sell anything to anyone that she had never paid much attention to the window displays. But Miriam experimented with the mannequins and began, especially in the weeks leading up to Christmas, to arrange them in various domestic scenes: a mother in a stunning evening gown (was she about to go out for the evening?) bending over to kiss what looked to be a little baby in a crib; a woman in casual slacks and sweater serving appetizers in front of a hearth in which silver foil pretended to be fire; two women in satin pajamas, a mother and daughter, or sisters maybe, chatting warmly in a kitchen, cigarettes in long holders rising to their lips. Customers, new and old alike, remarked upon how clever the displays were, how quaint. Tula either said nothing to her, or wryly offered, “If I liked that sort of thing, I’d say you did it very well.”

  Well, after all these years, what did Miriam expect? The job would not be forever. She had bigger fish to fry. And in the meantime, whether her mother noticed or not, she’d work at playing Tula better than Tula played herself.

  EARLY IN 1941, a friend knew a friend whose brother Miriam
just had to meet. His name was Hank, Hank Gold, though everybody called him Curly because of his thick wavy head of jet black hair. He was as tall as Cary Grant and just as handsome. He was strong, too, and Miriam could feel his muscles under his jacket when she took his arm as he walked her to the car. He said he got them from hauling meat all day in his father’s slaughterhouse.

  They went to the Mayfair for dinner and dancing. She loved the soft lights on the dance floor, how while they danced in the dimness he was half-imagined as well as half-perceived. His image changed from moment to moment, from tall dark stranger to entrepreneur, from dapper Dan, the dangerous bounder, to family man, a protector and provider. She imagined the kind of woman he imagined he was dancing with, a woman with blond hair and a slim figure, a mysterious beauty. He was something on the dance floor, smooth and confident, a Jewish Fred Astaire. They sang and danced all that first night. When they left the Mayfair, they were already a couple.

  That very night she began the scrapbook she would keep right up to their wedding day. She called it ROMANCE: Curly and Miriam. The title page bore an epigraph from Abraham Lincoln: “Love is an agreeable passion: love is sometimes stronger than death, and folks that love know it.” Agreeable passion: Miriam liked the sound of that, passion that behaved well, passion with manners. Everything in her world right now seemed agreeable.

  Over the next few months, they saw every show that came to Boston: Banjo Eyes with Eddie Cantor, Arsenic and Old Lace, My Sister Eileen, Claudia, Dream It Music. She saved each and every playbill, every ticket, and every menu of every place they went afterward to eat. She’d paste them in her book and underneath write a line or two: “He’s darling,” or “Curly picked me up at 7, I didn’t get home till after 2 (Ahem!!),” or “What a naughty boy he is sometimes.” Every now and then she’d show Curly the scrapbook, and he began to add a line or two himself.

  After their third date, she wrote, “We had dinner at the Latin Quarter, and spent the evening there. I told Curly about my dreams, college and the stage, and he said he had plans, too, of starting his own business, and when he hit it big, his lucky wife (I wonder who that will be!) would live on easy street and do whatever she wanted. He’s so adorable.” A few days later, he added underneath her entry, “Miriam said she was afraid of love.” After the next date, a formal dance in honor of a friend’s engagement, she pasted the ribbon that was tied to a “gorgeous orchid” under which she wrote, “It poured cats and dogs this night.” And under that, he later wrote, “Miriam admits she loves me.”

  FIVE WEEKS AFTER Pearl Harbor, early in 1942, Curly was inducted into the army. He was sent to Camp Devens for training. He mailed her an official-looking “release form.” It read:

  Safety First Guarantee:

  This certifies, that I, the undersigned female, about to enjoy sexual intercourse with ___________, am of the lawful age of consent, am in my right mind, and not under the influence of any drug or narcotic. Neither does he have to use any force, threats, or promises to influence me.

  I am in no fear of him whatsoever; do not expect or want to marry him; don’t know whether he is married or not, and don’t care. I am not asleep or drunk, and am entering into this relation with him because I love it and want it as much as he does, and if I receive the satisfaction I expect, I am very willing to play an early return engagement.

  Furthermore, I agree never to appear as a witness against him or to prosecute under the Mann White Slave Act.

  Signed before jumping into bed, this ____ day of ______, 19___.

  She pasted the release form in the scrapbook, under which she wrote: “Is he fresh!!!!” Under that, he later wrote, “She said no.”

  NOW SHE COULDN’T think past Curly, and their uncertain future, where he’d be sent and when. She couldn’t think past any moment with him, any date. She loved him, she was certain of that, but it troubled her how annoyingly persistent he could be at the end of every date. With Zaydie and Bubbie sleeping down the hall, she and Curly would be necking in the parlor, and he’d want to do it. He’d lean back and say how much he loved her and who knew what tomorrow would bring. His hands were strong and confident, hers shy and uncertain. At some point, smiling that smile she never liked, that knowing smile, he’d take her hand and guide it where he wanted it to go. She felt like a schoolgirl, like an idiot, and she grew angry at him for making her feel so “inexperienced,” even if she was. Why wasn’t there a college for this?

  No, no she couldn’t, not till they were married. Yes, she loved him but what if Zaydie or Bubbie found them? Yes, she knew she was now eighteen and old enough. But what if she got pregnant? He’d lose all respect for her, and anyway, they had their whole life before them. When they were married, when they had their own apartment, their own bed, then it would be perfect, they’d give each other everything they’d ever dreamed of.

  But he wouldn’t stop pestering her, leaning against her, his body tense, his hand now cupping her breast, pressing on it; in the pressure of it, she could feel the even greater pressure he was holding back, the force of what he wouldn’t do but could, if he wanted to—of everything she wasn’t strong enough to stop. It hardly had to do with him at all, that force, that pressure, it was just some “blind thing” inside him that took control of him, and in the grip of it, he could have been any man, a stranger, and she just the body of a woman, any woman, no better than a naked mannequin.

  He’d stop; he’d always stop. But some day they’d be married, and there’d be no reason to stop, and then what? She told herself by that time it would all be different, she’d want what he wanted and always when and how he wanted it; marriage would turn her into the woman he imagined she would be, and that she wanted to be for his sake. But when she tried to picture married life, the day to day of it, she pictured them as a couple always out with others, dancing and singing, as if on stage, Fred and Ginger in stunning clothes, and she pictured children and the houses they would live in, and the bright rooms within those houses, and even the tasteful furnishings in every nook and cranny. She could see herself and Curly everywhere except in the marriage bed—in the bedroom, there were no lights on; that room was dark, and the bed was darker, too dark for her to picture the naked bodies tangled in the sheets.

  BECAUSE SHE FELT so much relief when he was sent to Camp Lee, Virginia, she wrote him every day about how much she missed him and couldn’t wait till they were back in each other’s arms. She tried not to think about how easy it was to love him when he wasn’t there. She never liked the old saw that absence makes the heart grow fonder—didn’t it seem to say that love was some sort of fantasy? But what she felt now in his absence was the opposite of fantasy—his being gone didn’t create some imaginary scenario—it gave her the room she needed to see him as he was, and to see herself more truly as a fiancée pining for her gorgeous soldier boy. His being gone enabled her to see them as the couple they would become when they were married. “Love,” she wrote one night in the scrapbook, “is like a script you can’t hold too close to your eyes if you really want to read it. Otherwise you can’t make out what the words are saying.”

  THREE WEEK LATER, he came home on furlough. One night, they went to the Balinese Room with her cousins Charlie and Irene. Miriam had to work late that evening, so she was meeting them there. She had told Curly to order her a drink. When he had asked what kind she wanted, she had said, “Surprise me.”

  Miriam was dead tired by the time she got to the restaurant, which was crowded and noisy. It had been a long day; maybe it was all the bad news from Europe, but everyone who came through the shop that day was on edge and quarrelsome. She’d been showing clothes all day, catering to the needs and whims of every customer, sometimes for hours at a time, and yet by day’s end she hadn’t sold a thing. She was hungry, frustrated, and she needed a drink.

  Curly, Charlie, and Irene were seated at a table just off the dance floor. The waitress was standing next to Curly, taking drink orders. Miriam waited before approaching the table. She
wanted to see what drink he thought she’d like. She watched her soldier boy make small talk with her cousins. The three of them were laughing like old friends. God, how they adored him—everybody did, and not just for his good looks but also for his charm, his easy way with people. He was smart and had a head for business and big dreams, too, as big as hers—wait till the war is over and he gets out from underneath his father’s thumb! Nothing would stop the two of them! She bought a pack of Marlboros from the cigarette girl. When she reached the table, the waitress had returned with the drinks. She placed a beer in front of Curly, a gin and tonic in front of Irene, and a vodka gimlet in front of Charlie.

  When he saw her, Curly stood and held up his drink, and said, “Here’s to the girl in high heel shoes / who spends my money and drinks my booze; / who crawls into bed and snuggles up tight / and crosses her legs and says good night.”

  Irene and Charlie laughed. Curly said, “Hey honey,” and tried to kiss her but she leaned away.

  “Where’s my drink?” she asked.

  “Your drink?” he said. “Oh, Jeez, hon,” he said. “I forgot in all the hubbub I was supposed to order for you.”

  “What you were going to order for me?” she asked, now holding an unlit cigarette, waiting for him to light it.

  “I don’t know,” he said, not noticing the cigarette. “I really haven’t had a chance to think about it—what did you want?”

  “I wanted you to order me a drink.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said. “We were kibitzing and I just . . .”

  “A little consideration, is that too much to ask?” She threw the cigarette down on the table. “I’ve been on my feet all day. I’m tired.”

  “Give him a break, Miriam,” Charlie said. “The boy’s only home for a weekend. You got your whole life to nag him.”

  “Stay out of this, Charlie.”

  “Okay,” Irene said, “we get it. You’re tired. You want a drink. So, order a drink already.”