Fannie Flagg

by Baby Girl! Welcome to the World

  Dena glanced at her watch and was surprised to see how late it was. “Oh, damn, Sookie, I’ve got to go.”

  Sookie wailed, “Oh, no. I feel like I didn’t get all my visit in. We just got started good.”

  Dena said, “I know, but we’ll do it again really soon. I promise.”

  Sookie suddenly panicked. “Wait! I almost forgot. I have to get a picture of us for the Kappa Key.” She rummaged around in her purse and brought out a camera. “It won’t take a second.” She called Billie the waitress over and made her take a photograph of them.

  Sookie walked with her out to the limo and hugged her goodbye. “Promise me … promise that if you ever get back south of the Mason-Dixon line, you’ll call me and let me know. Because if you don’t I’ll find out and show up and embarrass you.”

  Dena, laughing, got in the car. “I promise.”

  “Oh, and listen, if you ever do meet Tony Curtis, tell him he has a big fan in Selma, Alabama.”

  “I will.”

  As she drove off Sookie waved and called, “Love you!”

  On the plane, Dena ordered a Bloody Mary and sat there and thought about the girl Sookie had described. Could it possibly have been her? Could Sookie have been so wrong about her? The girl she thought she remembered had always been a sort of sad, dreamy kid who used to cry a lot, sit for hours staring at the leaves shining through the trees, longing for something so hard that it hurt. But what she had been longing for or where those feelings had gone, Dena did not know. The truth was she could barely remember that girl at all.

  She ordered another Bloody Mary and slept all the way to New York.

  City Lights

  New York City

  December 1951

  When Dena was seven her mother got a job at Bergdorf’s in New York City and sent her to boarding school in Connecticut. She hated it—long, empty, dark halls and waiting to see her mother again. After about two months, the Mother Superior wrote a letter to her mother telling her that Dena was not mixing well with the other children. “We expect a certain amount of homesickness from our boarders, especially when the child is an only child, but I am afraid Dena is a hard case. It is clear that the child simply adores you and is terribly unhappy here. We usually encourage parents to allow their children time to get used to a new surrounding, but I am going to make an exception in our policy, and I wonder if she might have more weekends at home?”

  Dena loved her mother’s new apartment. It was off Gramercy Park on a pretty street lined with trees. She would sleep on the living room couch. The apartment was on the ground floor with the windows almost at street level. At night the light from the streetlamp on the corner would fill the room full of lacy black patterns on the wall as a breeze caused the leaves to ripple back and forth and dance in the light. Lying there late at night she could hear couples walking past the windows, the hard clunk of a man’s foot and the sharp click of a woman’s high heels hitting the sidewalk as they passed. She could hear their soft muffled voices, the deep voice of the man and the woman’s laugh. Sometimes she would hear the music on a radio as a car swished by, shining its headlights through the ornate black bars on the windows and turning the small living room into a magical light-and-sound show. She was full of dreams and curiosity. She always wondered where the people were going and where they had been and dreamed of all the wonderful places she might be going someday. She longed to someday live in a white house like the one she often dreamed about. White against a green lawn, and her mother was always smiling. That Christmas her mother had let her come for a whole week. It had been a wonderful visit. Her mother had taken her to Horn & Hardart’s for lunch, where they chose their food out of little glass windows, drank hot coffee, and ate pie. They walked all the way up Fifth Avenue, looking at hundreds of people, Santa Clauses on each corner, and windows full of miniature things swirling and moving to music, then on to Radio City to see the Christmas show, and she sat there with her mouth open, mesmerized by the spectacle of it all. She had never seen a live camel in her life and the Rockettes were dressed in red and gold uniforms and looked like live toy soldiers. She could hardly breathe watching all the lights, fascinated by the way they changed from one color to another, again almost like magic. While other children were watching the show, Dena had turned around in her seat to look at the spotlights that came beaming down all the way from the very back of the auditorium to form perfect circles of bright white light on stage and on the curtains. And if that wasn’t enough, her mother astonished her when she told Dena that she knew one of the Rockettes and that they were going backstage to meet her.

  When they got backstage, her mother’s friend, a nice lady named Christine, gave them a complete tour from the huge mirrored rehearsal hall to the dressing rooms. Backstage was teaming with Rockettes, musicians, stagehands, and other costumed ladies but Dena wanted to know only one thing: Who made the lights way up in the curved ceiling of the auditorium change from one color to another and how did they do it? Christine had laughed at the question coming from such a small girl and introduced her to a man named Artie. He took her over and showed her the main control console, with its 4,305 colored handles that controlled the amber, green, red, and blue lights, and told her about the 206 spotlights. Dena stood listening, enthralled. Later they had dinner with Christine in the private Radio City Music Hall cafeteria, where all the dancers and the staff ate. That night Dena’s head was still whirling. She had never been so excited in her entire life. She slept with her mother and held her hand all night and dreamed about the lights. Then, two months later, without warning, her mother suddenly quit her job and moved to the Altamont Towers apartments in an older section of Cleveland, Ohio, and Dena didn’t see her at all until the summer. But she never forgot that night at Radio City and had been fascinated with lights ever since, any kind of light, sunlight, moonlight, lamplight, so much so that it was the lighting that first attracted her to the theater. She started working with the lights in college and was amazed at how she could change the mood of the stage set from a light and cheery room with pure white sunlight pouring through the windows to a dark, shadowy, scary room by just pulling a lever. She would sneak into the college theater in the middle of the night and play with the lights for hours. She learned how to create any mood she wanted. It was that year that she became totally obsessed with light, and eventually the light became obsessed with her. It was the first time she ever really felt in control of anything in her life. And the lights had pulled her all the way back to New York.

  The SMU Kappa Newsletter

  Selma, Alabama

  1973

  Hello, Kappas!

  If you are wondering why I am in such high spirits, I can tell you that this year has been a fabulous year for finding and renewing old friendships and our new rush chair, Leslie Woolley, tells us that this year was the most successful rush of all. We have 34 NEW KAPPA KUTIES! I was on hand as each new pledge was given her special fleur-de-lis pin and was welcomed by all KAPPAS ON KAMPUS with lots of KAPPA KISSES and hugs. Each active named her special pledge with a KAPPA KNICKNAME to make her feel welcome. Then each senior stood and told what KAPPA has meant to her (that really got the tears going!). Then we walked all the rushes out and ended by singing the Porch Song.

  And now for my most exciting news! I was able to catch up with one of our most famous KAPPAS in Atlanta last month. She was in town to receive an award from the American Women in Radio and Television and of course I am talking about none other than DENA NORDSTROM! She sends all the KAPPAS her best and we reminisced about the good old days when we were roomies! Back in the dark ages, HA HA. The picture below is out of focus but I am sending it anyway.

  KAPPAS KONTINUE TO SET THE WORLD ON FIRE, so all you gals who have aspirations, maybe one day some of your KAPPA sisters will find you and say I REMEMBER YOU WHEN!

  —Sookie Krackenberry Poole,

  Class of ’65

  Ira’s Pep Talk

  New York City

  1974


  After her first lunch with Howard Kingsley, Dena tried her best to do something to stop the direction the show was going in but had little luck.

  This was the fourth time she had asked Ira Wallace to program an interview with the blind woman who had just been named teacher of the year and for the fourth time he had turned her down. Wallace, who was having what was left of his hair cut by his personal barber, Nate Albetta, said, “Nobody wants to see that sickening candy-ass stuff, do they, Nate?”

  Nate said, “Don’t ask me, I couldn’t tell you.”

  “Yes, they do, Ira,” Dena said. “You don’t know it but there are a lot of nice people out there. Everybody is not trying to rip everyone else off. You need to get out of New York and travel around this country and meet some of the people who are your audience.”

  Wallace said, “You’re telling me I don’t know my audience? Me? Have you seen the numbers this week?”

  “No … but that’s not the point.”

  “Let me tell you something, and this I learned from that great journalist, Walter Winchell: gossip is like dope; once you get people hooked, they need a little every day, and if you don’t let them down, you have them for life.”

  Dena rolled her eyes. “Oh, great, Ira, why don’t we put that on a bronze plaque and hang it on the wall?”

  Dena looked at Nate with the straight razor in his hand. “While you’re at it, why don’t you cut his throat for me, will you?”

  Nate laughed; he was used to their arguments.

  “You know, kid, you’re gonna have to get over this mistaken idea you have of human nature. This ain’t nothing new. People can’t wait to get the dirt on other people. That’s what makes the world go round and pays your salary and you better hope they don’t ever get over it. You’ve got some fantasy about brotherly love. It don’t exist. You think people are some kind of pure, white feathered birds flying in the clouds. They’re not. They’re pigs and they love to wallow in the mud and dirt.”

  “A lovely sentiment, Ira. Gee, I’m glad you told me all this. I was starting to think that there might be one or two decent people out there. A good thing you caught me in time.”

  Nate laughed again while Wallace said, “Yeah, yeah”—he relit his cigar—“you may think it’s funny but if you don’t watch out, you’re gonna get stomped on. You got some idealist idea about man being some noble creature … and all this crap about how we can change human nature. You can’t change it, you’re beating your head against a brick wall. People have had a couple of million years to change and they ain’t changed yet, have they?”

  “Not much.”

  “No, and they ain’t going to. Not in your lifetime. So get over it.”

  “Don’t you ever feel just a little bit guilty?”

  Wallace threw up his hands. “Jesus, what is this?” He looked at Nate. “I’m in a Frank Capra movie all of a sudden. Now, don’t let me down and turn out to be some loser.”

  “Ira, I’m not trying to let you down. I know it’s OK to expose real corruption, but I don’t think you realize that people are complaining about how mean the show is getting. I hear it all the time.”

  “Sure, you do. The rich and the powerful can’t control the press anymore and it’s making them mad. But we ain’t the villains—they are. Don’t shoot the messenger.”

  “I’m not but these hidden camera things you are doing are pretty iffy.”

  “Hey—who is going to decide what to withhold? Are you? Is the president? No. Is Howard Kingsley? No. That old craptrap about news being withheld for national security reasons don’t wash anymore; we’ve pulled down their pants and exposed them and they don’t like it. That’s why they’re squealing like stuck pigs, and when we catch anybody, and I mean anybody and I don’t care if it’s the goddamned pope, with their fingers in the till or anywhere else they don’t belong, we’re gonna report it. Right, Nate?”

  “Right.”

  “You’re gonna see a lot more respect for television. We can make or break them and now they know it. You stick with me. Do what I tell you, people will be knocking each other down to get on the air with you. You’re gonna be more famous than most of the assholes you interview—and believe me, you’ll be working long after these slobs have crashed and burned.”

  Wallace put his hand up to stop Nate and leaned toward Dena. “You remember that guy that was on top of the building over at Sixty-seventh Street the other day? And a crowd gathered when he threatened to jump and after about thirty minutes the crowd started yelling at him, ‘Jump, Jump!’ ”

  “Yes, I remember. Disgusting.”

  “Yeah, disgusting, but that’s your audience, kid, those are your so-called nice people. So when you’re doing an interview, remember they’re down there just waiting for something to happen. They want action and I’ve got the ratings to prove it. You think Winchell had guilt? Hell, no, but people remember his name, not those country club snobs who thought they were better than him.”

  “Ira, all I am asking is why we have to hit so hard all the time. We’re not at war, it’s just a television show. Can’t we even try to do a few human interest stories for a change?”

  “You wanna preach? Get a church. This ain’t The Waltons, this is the news.”

  “So I take it the answer is no, no teacher stories?”

  “Only when the teacher,” Wallace said, signaling Nate to resume, “is also a child molester. Now, that’s a story.”

  There was no way to argue with Ira, of course. He was right. And he had the ratings to prove it. He had been the first to jump on the trend of ambush interviews and perfect the sensationalized sound bite. In the beginning, everyone had laughed at him, then hated him, but not now. The world of what they called television news was changing and changing fast. Now they were all scrambling to change their own formats.

  And as Ira liked to say, “Hey, it was gonna happen—I just came up with the idea first.”

  Appointment

  New York City

  1974

  Dena woke dreading her doctor’s appointment that day but she had to go. He would not prescribe any more medicine unless he saw her. It was just her bad luck to have picked out a doctor who was completely thorough. After her examination she sat in his office dying for a cigarette while Dr. Halling went over his findings and read the results of the GI series tests he had forced her to go through again. He did not look happy.

  “Dena, your ulcer is not healing as it should. In fact, it looks worse.” He looked at her. “And you’re not smoking?”

  “No.”

  “No coffee, no alcohol?”

  “No.”

  “And you are watching your diet?”

  “Oh, absolutely.” She had eaten a bowl of oatmeal last week.

  He sighed. “Well, I’m baffled. The only thing I can figure that is causing this is just plain old stress. So all I can do at this point is to put you on complete bed rest.”

  Dena’s alarm system went off. “Bed rest! What does that mean?”

  He looked at her again from over his glasses. “Dena, it means just what you think it means. I’m going to put you to bed for at least three weeks. I have a feeling that’s the only way I’m going to get you to slow down. We are approaching a dangerous stage as it is. You don’t want to wind up with a bleeding ulcer and have to have emergency surgery. Or worse, bleed to death.”

  “But it’s not bleeding yet, is it?”

  “No, but that’s what we’re headed for if it gets any worse. And I am not going to let you kill yourself.”

  “But I have to work. Really. I’ll lose my job if I stop now. I’m just getting my foot in the door.”

  “Dena, this is your health.”

  “Look, I promise. I’ll come straight home and get right in bed and drink milk shakes and eat mashed potatoes—really take it easy. I promise. I’ve worked all my life to get to this point. Can’t we just do something … isn’t there some sort of medicine I can take?”

  Dr. Halling shook hi
s head. “No. You’re taking everything I can give you and it’s not helping.”

  “Look, I think that now and then I might have not eaten like I should have. And I smoked a little. I have been running around, maybe too much, but I promise I’ll do better. The next time you see me I will be a hundred percent better. Please?”

  He sat back. “This is against my better judgment but I’ll make a deal with you. I want you back here in two months … and if it’s not better, I’m going to order you into the hospital, do you understand?”

  “Oh, yes. I understand.”

  “But in the meantime, I want you to talk to a friend of mine. See if he can’t do something to help you try and figure out what’s causing all this stress. You’re too young to be in this condition. Talk to this fella and let’s see if he can’t find out what’s … eating you. It might be more than work.”

  He took out his pen from the holder and wrote a name and address. Dena was relieved. “Fine. I’ll see anybody you say.”

  When he finished writing he held out the paper. Before he let her take it he said, “I want you to promise me that you’ll go to see this man at least twice a week—or I’ll put you in the hospital now.”

  “I swear I will. I’ll call as soon as I get home.”

  She would have run out of the office if she could have.

  She called this O’Malley that afternoon and three days later she walked into his building and looked on the wall directory in the lobby. DR. GERALD O’MALLEY, PSYCHIATRIST. 17TH FLOOR.

  Dena was appalled. A psychiatrist! What in the world was Dr. Halling thinking about? She wanted to turn around and leave. But she was stuck. Halling would find out if she didn’t show, so she might as well go on in and humor them both.

  She got out on seventeen, knocked on his door, and heard a voice say, “Come in.” Dena walked in the office and a young man, not much older than she, stood up and shook her hand.