by Milton Stern
The Girls from
On Tuesdays, They Played Mah Jongg are back!
Michael’s Secrets
Milton Stern
Herndon, VA
Copyright © 2009 by STARbooks Press
First Edition
ISBN-10: 1-934187-46-1
ISBN-13: 978-1-934187-46-3
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, situations and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Published in the United States
STARbooks Press
PO Box 711612
Herndon VA 20171
Printed in the United States
Many thanks to graphic artist John Nail for the cover design. Mr. Nail may be reached at: [email protected].
Other Titles
by Milton Stern
The Girls (1985)
America’s Bachelor President
and the First Lady (2004)
Harriet Lane, America’s First Lady (2005)
On Tuesdays, They Played Mah Jongg (2006)
Dedication
My life would not be complete without my sweet, toy parti-poodle, Serena Rose Elizabeth Montgomery, who keeps me company while I write.
To W. Maxwell Lawton, who supported me during a very rough, yet strange, time; may he rest in peace.
To Wade Brown, my editor and fellow author, for his support and constructive suggestions.
The characters and events in this book are purely fictional. None of this ever happened … but it could have!
Chapter One
May 2005
Michael Bern looked himself over in the full-length mirror in the bedroom of his modest, three bedroom one-story, ranch-style home in Santa Monica and adjusted his tie. At six-foot-four with black hair, green eyes framed by long lashes and olive skin, he wondered if wearing a black suit with a black shirt and black tie made him look seven feet tall and “Lurch”-like. As he adjusted the white carnation in his lapel, he scanned his bedroom, which was decorated in shades of beige and green, to be sure everything was in its place and the bed clothes were wrinkle-free. Satisfied that all was in order, he walked across the hall to his office, where Aunt Clara, his sixteen-year-old pug, was sleeping in her favorite chair, and nudged her. He then picked her up and placed her gently on the floor, watching her stretch her tired, old body.
“Come on, Aunt Clara, let’s go outside, so you can pee before the guests arrive,” Michael said in vain as Aunt Clara had gone deaf over the last year.
She followed Michael down the hallway but was confused when he walked toward the front door instead of the kitchen, where a patio door led to the deck and back yard. Michael decided to take Aunt Clara out front in order to let the caterers finish their work. As he opened the door, Aunt Clara slowly walked outside, and Michael followed her, pulling his car keys out of his pocket. He waited as she found the perfect spot to relieve herself, then he walked over to his recently-restored, 1965 gold metallic Chevrolet Corvair 500 and sat down behind the wheel. Aunt Clara walked over to the car, excited to go for a ride as Michael hardly went anywhere without her. He reached down, picked her up and placed her on the passenger side of the bench seat and started the car.
“I’m just pulling into the garage, Aunt Clara, so don’t get too excited,” he told her as he eased the car into the garage. He then picked her up, exited the car and carried her back to the front yard as he pressed the button on his key chain to close the garage door.
He looked back to his house with its green shutters and light beige brick and scanned the yard to be sure it was free of debris and the hedges and other foliage was neatly trimmed. The gardener had just finished two hours before, and Michael was satisfied with his work. He then walked back into the house and made his way to his office with Aunt Clara right behind him. He was obviously looking for something in the light oak book case, and he adjusted his Emmys, Critic’s Choice Awards, Golden Globes, and various other trophies and statuettes while he tried to find the one last thing he needed before the guests arrived.
He smiled as he spotted a script on the third shelf next to The Girls, the screenplay he finally completed only a year earlier.
“How did I possibly miss it here?” he said out loud. He took it out of the bookshelf and straightened what remained, so no one would notice anything was missing. He could have left the space open, but Michael never was one for the lived-in look, preferring his home to look picture perfect at all times.
He carried the script to his living room, which was decorated in shades of beige, yellow and green with contemporary fabrics, reflecting a casual California style the Reagans would have loved, and walked over to the oak casket that was situated in the middle of the room, where the coffee table stood before being temporarily moved to the garage to make way for the casket. He lifted the lid and looked inside.
As he stood there, one of the waiters walked into the living room and watched as Michael took the script and threw it into the casket, saying, “Good fucking riddance, you bastard!” Michael then looked at the waiter and smiled. The waiter returned a nervous grin as Michael walked toward him.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a cigarette would you?” Michael asked him.
The waiter said nothing as he fished a pack from his pocket and handed it to Michael. He took a cigarette from the pack. The shocked waiter tried to light it for him, but his hands were shaking, so Michael placed his hands on the waiter’s, lit the cigarette and thanked him as he once again walked out the front door with Aunt Clara close behind.
The waiter watched Michael, and once he was sure Michael was outside, he slowly walked over to the now open casket to see who was inside. He hesitantly leaned over, and what he saw was puzzling. The casket was filled with what appeared to be hundreds of scripts, and the one that Michael tossed on top had written across the front cover, “Los Angeles Live, Pilot, September 25, 1986. Michael Bern and Mark Greenberg.”
Michael stood out front and smoked as he thought about what was next. For eighteen seasons, he had been the head writer of Los Angeles Live, a Thursday night, comedy-variety show that had won numerous awards and earned him a great living. He and Mark Greenberg wrote the pilot and worked together for the first three seasons until Mark left to produce a series of sitcoms for the network. Mark had returned at the beginning of the last season in an effort to increase the show’s ratings, but it was to no avail, and Los Angeles Live was unceremoniously cancelled at the end of the season.
Since they never had a chance to air a farewell show, Michael decided to hold a wake for the entire cast and crew a week after the bad news was delivered.
Within an hour, the guests started to arrive, all of them stopping to greet Aunt Clara, who was a daily regular on the set, and then hugging Michael, saying how sorry they were the show was over. Many shed tears, but not Michael, who greeted everyone with a smile, enjoying their reactions as they spotted the casket in the living room.
Mark Greenberg arrived an hour into the party, and Michael smiled as he saw him across the living room, also wearing a black suit, but with a white shirt, a pink tie and carnation. At five-foot-nine with a medium build, Mark had aged more than Michael had, which Michael attributed to Mark’s pursuing a career as a producer with all its headaches.
Mark walked over to Michael and after giving him a hug, said, “Michael, I did all I could; I’m sorry.”
“Mark, don’t worry about it; even you couldn’t raise the dead,” he said with the smile that had not left his face.
Mark then turned to the other guests who
were gathered in the living room and asked one of the stage hands to get everyone inside from the deck. Once he was sure everyone was in the room, he turned to Michael and raised his glass, offering a toast.
“To Michael Bern, a real trouper who was there from the first day to the last. I know I speak for everyone when I tell you it was a pleasure and great fun working with you. But hey, Birthright is set to release in January, so you should be set for life from what I’ve heard around town.”
Birthright was the screenplay Michael had written two years before, which had just completed filming and was now in editing, set for a January 2006 release. It was the story of twins, one black and one white, born in the South and separated at birth. It was far from the sketch comedy Michael was known for writing, but the initial and sustained reactions were positive.
“Hear, hear,” everyone chimed in as they sipped their drinks. Then someone yelled from the back of the room, “Speech, speech.”
Michael, never one to seek the spotlight, walked over to the casket and placed his hand on it as he smiled to the guests. He took a deep breath then said, “I don’t know what to say. I wish I could say I was shocked, but I think we all saw the writing on the wall. More than anything, I worry about all you unemployed people standing in my living room, which is why I hid all the silver.” A few chuckles were heard around the room. “You think I’m kidding?” Michael smiled again. “Seriously, we had a great run. Eighteen seasons are nothing to scoff at. I just wish we could have made it to twenty.”
Michael then became quiet and started to cry. Most everyone in the room was shocked as they had never seen Michael show any real emotion. He never raised his voice to anyone, and no one could recall a time they ever saw him get emotional or choked up. He turned away from them, embarrassed at such a display, but he need not have been embarrassed because once he started crying, there was not a dry eye in the room.
“It’s over,” Michael said as he wiped his eyes with the black handkerchief he had arranged in his breast pocket. “It just hit me. I may never see many of you again.”
“What’s worse,” Albert Hochman, another writer, said, “is that we will never be regaled with any of the stories of your mother’s friends anymore.” The guests laughed and nodded in agreement as Michael loved to tell of the crazy antics of Florence, Doreen, Rona, Arlene, and his mother, Hannah, to the writers when they were stumped for material. Many of the stories ended up on the show, and one recurring skit was the “The Tuesday Mah Jongg Group,” which was about five menopausal Jewish women who played Mah Jongg and bickered and gossiped about everyone in town. It had become an audience favorite.
“Enough of this, tell a story,” Mark yelled. “Tell us one we haven’t heard before.”
Michael looked over at Mark and pretended to scowl at him. Then, he took a sip of his drink and said, “OK, if you insist.”
The guests applauded as they waited for Michael to begin.
“Did I ever tell you about my birth?” he asked.
The guests looked at each other, and some shook their heads no or said no out loud.
“All these years, and I never told you how I was born in a Catholic hospital on Thanksgiving Day? Well, I don’t know how funny this will be, but here goes,” Michael began. “Picture it, the Lower Peninsula of Virginia, home to Hampton and Newport News, Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 1962.”
“Quick,” someone shouted from the back of the room, “How old is he?”
“Forty-two,” Michael said without hesitation. “I thought all of you knew that? Can I go on? … Anyway …” he began again as he told his story.
* * * * *
Florence Greenberg was standing in her kitchen in Hampton, Virginia, preparing the turkey for that afternoon’s gathering. Dressed in black Capri pants and a purple turtleneck sweater, one would never guess from her four-foot-eleven-inch, ninety-seven pound frame that she was the mother of three children, twelve, ten and eight years old. Her children were in the den watching the parade with her first husband, Al Greenberg. Florence, wore her dark brown hair in a style similar to Jackie Kennedy’s and was every bit as attractive as the day she was married in 1949. Known for her petite figure and large endowment, Florence never hesitated to have her picture taken in a bathing suit.
Florence had just slathered oil on her hands and was rubbing it on the turkey when the phone rang. It rang three more times before she yelled downstairs toward the den, “Would one of you pick that up?”
The ringing then stopped, followed by the familiar whine of her oldest, Sally, yelling from the den, “Mom, it’s for you. It’s Hannah.”
Hannah Bern was Florence’s best friend. They had met at a Rodef Sholom Temple Sisterhood induction of new members several years back when Hannah dropped a mini pizza in Arlene Feld’s hat. Arlene, along with Rona Sapperstein and Doreen Weiner, played Mah Jongg with Florence and Hannah every Tuesday, a game they started in 1955 and rarely missed.
Florence reached for a towel to wipe the oil off her hands and got on her tiptoes to reach for the receiver from the lavender, rotary dial wall phone that hung in her kitchen. As she tried to bring the phone to her ear, she had difficulty as the cord was tangled, so she screamed into the phone from a distance of a couple of feet, “Hold on, Hannah, the goddamn cord is twisted.” She held the cord as high as she could and let the receiver dangle, turn and unravel on its own. After gathering it up, she put it to her ear.
“Hannah, I thought you would be here by now, what’s holding you up?” she asked with a bit of annoyance in her voice.
“I’m in labor,” Hannah replied between puffs of her cigarette.
“Are you kidding? Billy Bernstein was actually right?”
Dr. Billy Bernstein, a friend of Hannah and Florence’s, had begun his private OBGYN practice a few months before Hannah became pregnant. Some people in the synagogue thought it was scandalous for Hannah to go to a friend for her pelvic exams, let alone a twenty-eight-year-old doctor who was fresh out of medical school, but Hannah didn’t care, which was unusual for someone who was always concerned not only with her physical appearance, but also her public persona. And, when he told Hannah in early November that the baby was due on Thanksgiving Day, she was skeptical as this was his first full-term pregnancy since beginning his private practice.
“When did the contractions begin?” Florence asked as she cradled the phone on her shoulder and reached for the salt and pepper to season the well-oiled turkey while the cord worked its way around her small frame.
“Around 6:00 am. I thought I was having indigestion,” Hannah told her best friend.
Typical Hannah, Florence thought. This was her first child, and at thirty-five, she was about to join her four other friends in the wonderful world of motherhood. However, Hannah would face it alone because her husband, Adam Bern, died in August 1962, when Hannah was six months pregnant.
“How far apart are they?” Florence asked as she bent down to check to see if the oven was preheated.
“Every twenty or thirty minutes, I don’t know,” Hannah answered with a strange nonchalance in her voice.
Florence could hear Hannah lighting another cigarette while she talked. Doctors were just beginning to worry about the effects of smoking on pregnancy, and Dr. Bernstein never warned Hannah of the dangers. He also felt that a pregnant woman should not put on too much weight. Hannah, a constant dieter who fasted once a week, thrived on his advice and managed to only gain twenty pounds, mostly in her belly.
“I’m coming to get you,” Florence said as she opened the oven door.
“I can drive myself; just meet me there,” Hannah told her.
“Are you meshugina? I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Florence yelled as she stood up, shook her head and realized she was fully wrapped by the phone cord.
“Florence, you cannot drive me, I want to get there alive,” Hannah told her.
Florence had a reputation for being a bad driver, but in her defense, she claimed all her accidents happ
ened while going in reverse, so she rarely backed up.
Florence screamed again for Sally to come to the kitchen. Sally ambled up the stairs, sighed, and whined, “What, Mom?”
Poor Sally, Florence thought, the spitting image of Al and with his attitude, too. “Look, Hannah has gone into labor. I’m going to get her. Call Rona, Arlene and Doreen and tell them we will be at Mary Immaculate Hospital. Put the turkey in the oven in thirty minutes and baste it every hour. I will call you from the hospital,” Florence ordered as she unwrapped herself from the phone cord and reached up to put it on the hook.
“Mom, why can’t Shirley do it?” Sally whined again.
“Because, Sally, you’re the oldest, and I depend on you. Have Shirley and Danny set the table and no fighting!” Florence told her as she walked out of the kitchen, then she yelled, “Al, I’m going to Hannah’s. She’s in labor.” There was no answer. She didn’t expect one from her husband who rarely spoke to her unless absolutely necessary.
Florence grabbed her purse and searched for her keys, reached into the closet for her purple jacket and ran to her baby blue, 1962 Valiant, courtesy of Al’s Chrysler-Plymouth dealership. As she settled behind the wheel, she realized Al had driven it last, so she scooted the bench seat up as far as it would go. Even then, she could only reach the pedals with her tip toes. She started the car, adjusted the mirrors, pulled the park lever down and pushed the button for reverse. She was so happy to finally have a car with an automatic transmission as she went through clutches on a quarterly basis with her previous Plymouth station wagon and depressing the clutch with her tiptoes was never easy. She backed out the driveway quickly, taking a small hedge with her. Why Al had the landscapers plant a hedge so close to the driveway was beyond her. He should have known it would not survive a week.
Florence drove like a maniac, arriving at Hannah’s house on Dresden Drive in fifteen minutes on the dot. Hannah and Adam bought the house only a month before he died, and the newly developed Ivy Farms neighborhood was still full of empty lots. It was amazing that this neighborhood was once the city dump. Arlene and William Feld were the first to buy a house on Teakwood Drive six months before Hannah moved in. All of the girls had lived in Stuart Gardens in downtown Newport News before Florence and Al were the first to move out in 1957, buying a home in Hampton that at the time seemed a like a cross-county trek whenever the girls played Mah Jongg at Florence’s.
