by Renée Rosen
“I know. I’m sorry, M.”
“I wasted so much time on him. Eight years. I sacrificed my child for that man. And what have I got to show for it? Not a goddamn thing.” Her eyes went glassy, and she stared off into nothingness. “I don’t know who I am or what I’m supposed to do without him.”
“You’ll be fine. I promise you, you will. You don’t need him, M. And you don’t need Marilyn or Jackie, either. You’re enough, just as you are.”
“You’re saying that because you’re my friend.”
“M, it’s the truth. You’ve put too much stock in Ellsworth. All that energy you poured into him, you need to start putting into yourself.” I thought back to the conversation my mother had had all those years ago with Simone de Beauvoir. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s to never ever put a man first.”
As those words left my mouth, I realized I hadn’t really learned that lesson myself. I fiddled with the buckles on my attaché case, thinking about how I’d groveled for my father’s love, how I’d kept myself small for Jack’s comfort and had put Scott and Marty on pedestals. Even my dream of being a journalist had belonged to my brother first. At times like this I had to question what I truly wanted for myself.
When I left M that day, I felt depleted. The smell of disinfectant penetrated my nostrils and followed me outside of the hospital. I felt for her, I did, but I had to get back to my life. After caring for M all week, I realized that what I needed now was for someone to take care of me. So I went to the only place I could think of, to the one person who had once felt my head for fevers, bandaged my knees from scrapes and cuts, removed my every splinter. I went home to my mother.
She was in the kitchen, sifting through a drawer of S&H Green Stamps. This was the most bourgeois pursuit I’d ever seen my mother partake in. But, like most things, she did it with gusto. She’d been collecting Green Stamps for as long as I could remember, always coming in from the store and tossing the loose stamps into the kitchen drawer below the knives. Every few months or so, like now, she’d pull out the entire drawer, set it on the table and adhere the individual stamps into the saver booklets. When we were little, Eliot and I had taken turns licking the stamps and affixing them to the pages. I used to love the sweet residue the stickum left on my tongue. Through the years my mother had already redeemed previous booklets for a steam iron, a blender and a speed slicer, which was still in its box in the basement. This time she was saving for an electric frying pan. She had visions of making fried chicken from her grandmother’s recipe.
“Want to help me here?” she asked, dabbing a stamp on her tongue, then making a face as she swallowed. Clearly she didn’t enjoy the taste that I remembered.
I pulled out a chair and dropped into it like I weighed three hundred pounds. That was how I felt. I’d hoped she would notice how depressed I was, but she was too focused on her stamps.
“I just came from the hospital.”
“You were there again? How’s your friend M doing?” She had a cigarette dangling from her lips.
“Not good. I feel so helpless. I don’t know what to do or what to say.”
“She’ll get through it. We all do.” She filled a sheet with stamps and turned to a fresh page. “I think we only need one hundred and twenty-five more,” she said.
“That’s a lot of stamps for the electric frying pan.”
“No. Not the pan. The power drill.”
“Power drill?”
“Your father wants it.” She shrugged. “I’m hoping it’ll cheer him up. He’s been such a beast lately. Just a real beast.”
“Why? What’s going on with him?”
“Oh, the editors at Scribner rejected his novel, and he’s been impossible ever since.”
“That was fast. He only sent it off about a month ago. And, besides, that’s only one publisher. There’re others.”
“Of course there are. And that’s what I told him, but he doesn’t want to hear it. He’s pouting. You know Scribner is Ernest’s publisher. Your father was sure they’d take his novel, too.”
“Did they explain why they rejected it?”
She shook her head. “He won’t say. He won’t even let me see the letter. I keep asking him to let me read the manuscript, but he won’t let me do that, either.” She reached for another stamp. “You know he used to always let me read his work—even if it was a magazine piece or a column for the paper. I was the first person he’d show something to.” She paused to adhere a stamp in place. “I tell you, he’s been a beast ever since he finished that novel of his. Now that he’s sent it out to the publishers, the waiting is eating him up. I don’t know what to do with him. He checks the mailbox every hour. ‘Has the mailman been here yet?’ He’ll ask me that ten minutes after he’s already gone outside and checked it himself.”
“So where’s the beast now?”
“Who knows? Probably down at Mister Kelly’s. That’s where he spends his time now that he’s not writing. The drinking”—she shook her head—“it’s not good.”
“Well, that’s nothing new,” I reminded her.
“But it’s gotten worse.” My mother licked the last of her stamps. “There we go.” She closed the booklet and ran her fingers over the cover. “Want to come with me to get the power drill? We have an hour before the store closes.”
I went with her down to the S&H redemption store, not because I was particularly interested in shopping for power drills, but because I wanted to be near her. We moved up and down the aisle, and I saw the way my mother paused before the electric frying pans, running her fingertips along the black handle. It was only then that I realized how much she’d wanted that frying pan but how much more she wanted my father to be happy.
She saw me watching and smiled. “Really what I should do is hit him over the head with this.”
“As if that would do any good,” I said, and that got her laughing.
We both knew it wasn’t that funny, but for some reason her laughter was contagious and I couldn’t stop from joining in. It was like we needed an excuse—a reason to laugh, or maybe more correctly, we needed something to mask the sadness misting up our eyes. She was hurting for my father. I was hurting for them both. And for M, too. We couldn’t cry outright. We didn’t do that sort of thing. So instead, we stood in the middle of the aisle holding our sides while the tears trickled down our faces.
An hour and a half later my mother dropped me off at my apartment building and by then my troubles were off in the distance. It seemed like days since I’d been to the hospital to see M. It wasn’t until I watched my mother drive away that I realized how she, in her own way, had ended up giving me exactly the kind of comfort I needed after all.
Chapter 36
• • •
I was worn-out, exhausted. It had been over two weeks since M swallowed that bottle of pills. No one but Ellsworth and I know about it. Everyone else was under the assumption that she had a bad flu. While she recuperated, I continued covering her assignments as well as my own. I still thought about the horsemeat scandal and how it tied into Eliot’s death, but I had no time, and frankly not enough courage to pursue it. In some ways it felt like I was going backward, writing for White Collar Girl again, but I told myself it was only temporary until M was back, and at this point it was hard for me to say no to Mrs. Angelo for anything.
I was finishing up an article on “Secrets to a Perfect Gelatin Mold” when Randy hung up the telephone, pumped both fists in the air and let out a whoop as he spun his chair in a circle. “Yes!” He pumped his fists again. “This is it.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, my fingers on hold above my typewriter.
“That was Pendulum Records. They want to see me right away. What’d I tell you? What’d I tell you all? They’re going to sign me to my next deal, and then I’m gonna make a pile of money.” He laughed as he rose from his desk and gave us all an exaggerated salute. “So long, suckers.” He put on his dark sunglasses—which he’d taken to weari
ng even on overcast days—planted his fedora on his head and practically skipped out of the city room singing, “Snap, crackle, pop / That girl has what I want / Snap, crackle, pop / That girl has what I want. . . .”
“What a goddamn blowhard,” said Walter, puffing on his pipe. “If that guy can make it in show business, anyone can. Goddamn Randy and the Rockets. Sheesh.”
“If I hear that Little Dab’ll Do Ya one more time,” said Benny, “I’m gonna smash my radio.”
“You and me both,” said Peter. “And just our luck, now Pendulum Records is going to give him a big fat recording deal and we’ll never hear the end of it.”
“No, I don’t think that will be a problem,” said Henry. “’Cause I bet none of us will ever hear from Randy again. He’s gonna be a big fucking star. A millionaire, haven’t you heard?”
Everyone was laughing, having fun taking shots at Randy. Though I couldn’t say I blamed them. Without a shred of humility, Randy had spent his days gloating, telling us how he was expecting a huge royalty check from Pendulum Records and how he went and looked at Cadillacs one day, a new house the next. He was spending money like crazy, coming in to work every day wearing a new suit or a new pair of shoes. “Genuine Italian leather,” he’d say. “Twelve bucks.”
About an hour later, I was back into my work when I looked up and did a double take. There was M standing next to Injun Summer. I didn’t know she was coming back to work yet. But that wasn’t what I found so surprising. No, what captured my eye and made my mouth hang open was M herself. Her hair was straight and styled flat against the crown of her head, and aside from a little rouge and lipstick, she wasn’t wearing any makeup. She looked fresh, and as far as I was concerned, even more beautiful than Marilyn or Jackie. Gabby and some of the fellows got up from their stations and welcomed her back, crowding in around her.
“It’s good to see you back,” said Mrs. Angelo, breaking through the commotion. “We could sure use your help.” She handed M a sheet of paper. “Would you give this a quick rewrite? Poor Gabby,” she said, lowering her voice. “The girl is drowning.”
M hesitated.
“Well?” Mrs. Angelo planted her hands on her hips. “You’re back, aren’t you?”
“Give me a minute,” said M. “I’ll get to it in a minute. Right now I have to take care of a little business of my own.”
“We’re on deadline for this,” Mrs. Angelo called after her as M walked down the center aisle and marched up to the horseshoe.
Ellsworth was on the telephone, his feet up on the desk, ankles crossed. He had his back toward M. I, along with everyone else, watched as she tapped him on the shoulder. He held up a just-a-minute finger while she moved around to face him, wagging her no-no-no finger back at him. Her jaw was set and her eyes said she was not fooling around. He must have realized that because he swung his legs down from the horseshoe, cut his call short and hung up the telephone. He was on his feet now, his back still toward us. He was saying something to her in a low voice when all of a sudden she pushed him away so hard that he dropped back into his chair.
“C’mon now, M,” we heard him saying. “This isn’t the time or the place. Let’s not cause a scene. Let’s—”
“‘Let’s not cause a scene’?” Her voice peaked an octave higher than usual, and she leaned over the horseshoe, her face just inches from his. “You want me to make this easy for you, you bastard? You don’t want anyone to know what a cheat and a liar you are? You’re nothing but a fraud. I should have dropped you years ago when I first wanted to.”
“M, c’mon, now. Let’s go somewhere private and talk. I can explain.” He tried to get up, but she shoved him back down again.
“You stay right where you are and don’t you dare think of coming after me. From now on you stay away from me. We’re done.” She turned on her heel in a way that was not Marilyn or Jackie, but all M. She had arrived.
Right before my eyes I saw M come into her power. She had tapped her true core, and she owned the main aisle as she walked down the center of the city room. No one would have messed with her. She went to her desk, sat down, reached for a set of copy paper and spun it into her typewriter.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Never better.” She began typing, rewriting Gabby’s story.
A few minutes later Walter came into the city room. “Well, look who’s back,” he said with a sarcastic laugh.
I thought he was referring to M until I looked over and saw Randy, shoulders slumped, head down, feet dragging behind him.
“Randy, what’s wrong?” I went to his side. “What’s the matter?”
He looked at me and shook his head.
“Yeah, what’s the matter?” Walter asked, still laughing. “We didn’t expect to see you back here now that you’re a big recording star.”
“Walter, knock it off,” I said, guiding Randy over to his desk with the others following us.
A chorus of questions started up:
“Are you okay?”
“Did you meet with Pendulum?”
“When is your new record coming out?”
Randy looked dazed. He reached up for his hat, dragging it off his head and down the side of his face. He kept his eyes on me as he spoke to the group using short, staccato-like sentences.
“Kellogg’s contacted Pendulum. They sent a cease-and-desist letter. They said my song violated their copyright. Said the words were too close. Even if the tune isn’t. Pendulum thinks Beecham’s going to do the same thing because of Brylcreem. They pulled my records off the air. They terminated my contract.” He looked at the others with tears in his eyes. “What am I supposed to do now?” He clutched the sides of his head and began wailing. “I’m up to my eyeballs in debt. I went ahead and spent all that record money.”
“Why in the hell would you have done that?” asked Henry.
“I was so sure it was going to happen. What am I going to do now?”
“Oh, Randy,” I said, rubbing my hand along his shoulders. “You’re a brilliant cartoonist. You still have a great job. You’ll get yourself out of debt. You just have to cut back on your spending.”
That only made him cry all the harder.
After work that night we all took him to Riccardo’s for drinks, hoping to cheer him up. At about half past ten we had settled the bill and were filtering out onto Rush Street when the air-raid sirens began to whine.
“Holy shit,” cried Randy.
We all went wide-eyed, turning instantly sober.
“Oh my God,” said Gabby. “What is that?”
It was bizarre. Everyone was used to hearing the weekly tests of the air-raid sirens, but no one thought we’d ever hear them for real. What did this mean—the Russians were sending an H-bomb to kill us all? It didn’t seem possible.
I watched people frantically pouring into the street, screaming, looking for a place to hide. The shrill of the sirens filled the air and deafened me.
“Anyone know of a shelter around here?” asked Benny.
“Fuck the shelter,” said Walter. “I’m going back to the paper. We need to find out what’s going on.”
I was with him.
We raced back to the Tribune, darting in and out of the panic along Michigan Avenue. The sirens were still going, and we could hear their shriek even as we entered the city room. I made a beeline for the horseshoe where Ellsworth and a group of night reporters were clustered around a radio that was blaring Jailhouse Rock.
“Where the hell’s the CONELRAD system?” I shouted over the din of the sirens.
“We can’t find it. We’ve been searching for it on every station,” said one of the night reporters.
“Give it here,” said Walter, pushing him aside, twisting the dial up and down. Nothing. The CONELRAD emergency system that was supposed to instruct us in the event of a bomb had failed.
“Dammit. Anything coming over the wires?” asked Ellsworth, rolling up his shirtsleeves.
I went over to my desk and called
down to police headquarters.
“We’re going crazy over here, too, Walsh,” said Danny. “We’ve got nothing.”
And then, as I hung up, the sirens shut off. They died as abruptly as they had started. All was silent, and the quiet was even more disturbing. What now? Was this the end?
“We’re a goddamn city room,” said Ellsworth, pounding on the horseshoe. “How can we not know what the hell’s going on?”
We sat and waited, just as helpless as the rest of the city. It was unnerving until the wire room bells rang. We all stormed over to the machines and Ellsworth reached past the copyboy and ripped the wire. I watched his expression change as he read it.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” He dropped the sheet and shook his head.
“What? What is it?” I reached for the wire, but Walter intercepted it.
He looked at it and slapped his palm to his forehead. “Oh, c’mon. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“What the hell is it?” I asked again. Walter handed me the wire, and as I read it I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “The White Sox? This was all because the White Sox won the pennant?”
Ellsworth dragged his hands through his hair. “Okay, people, let’s get busy and write this up. We need to let the city know that the world hasn’t come to an end and that our fire commissioner is a horse’s ass for thinking it would be a good idea to set off the air-raid sirens to celebrate the White Sox’s victory.”
• • •
M moved out of her lavish apartment, which Ellsworth had been paying for, and into an efficiency. One fall evening, Benny, Gabby and I went over to help her move in. One look and I knew this was going to be a big adjustment for M. Her couch alone took up most of the living room. The place was tiny, but it was all she could afford now.
While unpacking we listened to music and drank rum and Coca-Colas. Gabby had one drink too many and when the Peter Gunn theme came on the radio, she got silly with the empty boxes and set one on Benny’s head.
“Doesn’t he look handsome?” She giggled.
