New York Echoes

by Warren Adler

  “I feel sorry for you,” the activist said.

  “Don’t you believe the evidence of your eyes?” Bob asked.

  “I think you better go and comfort your wife,” the psychiatrist said. “We had better go now.”

  They started to file out of the apartment, awkward and embarrassed. The plates with the main dish had been taken away and replaced with dessert plates. Bob could tell that even the catering people were embarrassed.

  “It’s OK,” he said when the guests were gone. “Just clean up and I’ll write you a check.” He shrugged. “Shit happens.”

  In the bedroom, Irma lay supine on the bed, head down. She had been sobbing, but when he came into the room, she lifted her head.

  “You’ve ruined everything,” she said hoarsely.

  “They needed to be reminded,” he said. He felt no remorse.

  “You’ve ruined everything,” she repeated.

  She was right, of course.

  He knew then that it was over between them. Another score for the terrorists, he thought. They were winning.

  Actors

  by Warren Adler

  “My name is Bruce and I’m your server,” Bruce said, yet again. He prided himself on memorizing the specials. He was, after all, an actor and he had been a server for nearly two decades now, working in upscale restaurants in Manhattan and Los Angeles while pursuing what he considered his true vocation, acting.

  He lived with Marilyn, his girlfriend of three years. She too considered herself an actress, having done a number of commercials and small parts in off- and off-off-Broadway shows. When she wasn’t working at her craft, which was most of the time, she also waited tables in various restaurants in their neighborhood in the East Village.

  They shared the rent in a tiny one-bedroom apartment and earned enough to live on the fringes of a gentrified New York lifestyle, largely because they were able to defy the Internal Revenue Service by not declaring all of their tips. They attended acting classes, usually in the early morning hours or between the lunch and dinner hours and could afford workouts at a sports club a few blocks from their apartment. Above all, actors had to keep in shape and, of course, continue to hone their acting skills, a lifetime career requirement.

  Bruce was always on the lookout for someone in the business who could make hiring decisions. He was not bashful about supplying someone with a picture and resume; a long shot, he knew, but cheerfully offered. One never knew when lightning would strike. It had once when he got to play the part of the gravedigger in Hamlet at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in LA by playing pickup basketball in the schoolyard of Beverly Hills High School.

  “It’s all about contacts and connections,” he lectured to his various girlfriends or anyone who would listen. It was, of course, the prevailing opinion in the business. “It has nothing to do with talent. We know we have talent, but in our business, you need a platform to truly display it.”

  The gravedigger part lasted approximately six weeks and so far it had been the highlight of his so-called career. He was not loath to mention it repeatedly to the various agents with whom he was briefly attached and with whom he periodically parted company when they didn’t or couldn’t deliver. After ten years in Los Angeles, he went back to New York, where he concluded people were more genuine. Besides, as he told himself, he preferred live stage to film. Not that he was averse to taking film roles or commercials if offered, and he did have some film walk-ons or one-liners through the years, but his real love, as he trumpeted often, was live theater.

  Although he was generally considered reasonably handsome with a rugged, sculpted face, a cleft chin, and good, well-whitened teeth and a full head of hair now graying at the edges, he saw himself now as a character actor and, as he aged, felt that his casting opportunities might increase as others dropped out of the business. One of his girlfriends told him that his main attraction was that he was handsome, with a body still defined by musculature, and above all not gay.

  His father had been an insurance salesman in Portland, Maine. He was in a nursing home now on the public dole and could not recognize his only son. He had not encouraged his son’s setting off on an acting career.

  “The world belongs to the salesman,” his father had preached.

  “Yeah, like Willy Loman,” Bruce had countered.

  “Who?”

  His mother, who had grown up in a tiny town in western Maine, hadn’t a clue of her son’s passion and died still befuddled.

  Some of Bruce’s breakups, especially with women not in the business, seemed to have the same root cause, his commitment to his career, more so than settling down and pursuing family life. He framed his excuse in economic terms, pointing out that until he made it, he wouldn’t be able to support all the obligations of marriage and the possibility of children. As for the women he lived with who were in the business, it was a given that they were as obsessed as he was in making it in their chosen profession.

  One of them had been cast as a regular in a sitcom lasting two seasons, a career spike that was always a prime breakup reason for couples in the business. She now worked as a receptionist in a dental office in the Valley. Considering all the angst, competitiveness, and rejection in the business, he considered waiting on tables as a reasonable enabler, until his acting ship came in. He had steeled himself against the possibility it wouldn’t, learning long ago that any negativity and its implications would be counterproductive to his aspirations.

  Besides, he had reached an age where other career possibilities had narrowed and he knew in his gut that he would never surrender his dream, no matter what. Marilyn had told him during the first week of their affair that what she admired most about him was his optimism and hopefulness about his career.

  “It will happen,” he assured her. “You can’t get wet unless you’re out in the rain.”

  “That’s really inspiring, Bruce,” she told him.

  Lately though, Marilyn was beginning to sing another tune. She was thirty-six and considered by people of the business as hard to cast, no longer an ingénue and not old enough for real character parts. She continued her acting and voice lessons and had once been an understudy in a long-forgotten off-Broadway musical. A Midwestern girl, she had been helped along early on by her family, her cheerleaders ever since she got the lead parts in her high school plays. They felt certain, along with her neighbors, cousins, and classmates that she was headed to stardom.

  By the time she met Bruce, her parents had died, still convinced that she was a star or, at the very least, headed for stardom. She rarely went back to her hometown, fearful of facing those who were once convinced that she would end up on the silver screen or as the toast of Broadway. She had been married for two years to an aspiring artist she met while waiting tables in the meatpacking district in Manhattan. Frustration and lack of traction as an artist in New York had driven him off to the west somewhere, and she was still searching for him in an effort to finalize a divorce.

  With Bruce’s never-say-die attitude and optimism, she felt comforted and continued the pursuit of acting jobs. When she was younger, she had studied dance and voice and had been to numerous unsuccessful auditions for the big musicals that left her depressed and disgusted with the process. Once, she had taken a course in how to audition, but it didn’t help.

  Somehow she soldiered on, bouncing around with various boyfriends until she moved in with Bruce, who seemed the perfect antidote for her galloping sense of failure. Lately, his cheerleading was having less and less effect.

  After yet another unsuccessful audition, unable to face the rest of the day, she called in sick for her table-waiting job, went back to the apartment she shared with Bruce, and contemplated her future. It was time, she thought. Time to let go. Although she had come to that point before, Bruce had put her back on track and gave her the push to keep going. Until that moment.

  He found her curled up in a fetal position on their battered couch. She had finished a half bottle of wine, which had gi
ven her, instead of a high, a massive low.

  “Not even a callback,” she said. Such tiny bursts of hope were fast disappearing.

  “Tomorrow is another day,” Bruce said. “Put your head down and move forward.”

  “Isn’t it time you desisted from that bullshit, Bruce?”

  “Now, now. You’re letting negativity take over. Didn’t we agree? No more negativity. We stay in pursuit, always in pursuit.”

  “Get real, Bruce,” she muttered.

  “I am real. Stay the course. We’re the lucky ones. We know what we want and are willing to follow our dream wherever it takes us.”

  “Over the bridge that goes nowhere,” she sighed, uncurling from her fetal position and pouring herself another glass of wine. She took a deep sip and looked at him with glazed eyes. “Look at me, Bruce. My looks are in decline. I’m thirty-six years old and I haven’t had an acting job or anything close to it in three years.”

  “Negativity, negativity. Don’t you realize how debilitating it is to think like that? That kind of attitude is counterproductive. You’ve got to look in the mirror and say: I can do it. I can do it. Do you really think that by giving up your dream you’ll be better off?”

  “Maybe,” she shrugged. “There are other things in life.”

  “Not for people like us, Marilyn. We need the dream. It makes us run. In the end, we’ll prevail. You’ll see.”

  “Computers,” she said suddenly. “That seems to be the thing. Computers. Or maybe even becoming a personal trainer. What’s wrong with switching careers? You’ve got to be flexible.”

  “You’re an actor, Marilyn, a performer. That’s what you are. One day . . .”

  She stood up, paced the floor over the threadbare Oriental rug that they bought at a sale a couple of years ago. Then she looked around at the mismatched furniture, mostly castoffs that they purchased at the Salvation Army store.

  “This place sucks,” she said. “A dump.” She sighed. “The American dream.”

  “Marilyn, cut it out, you’re filling the place with bad Karma.”

  “And you’re filling the place with bullshit.”

  Bruce laughed or wanted it to be seen as a laugh. He could see it coming. He had seen it all before. Why are these breakups such clichés, he wondered? He would have said so but he had no desire to hurt her.

  “Maybe in the morning,” he muttered, singing a few bars of the Annie song. “The sun will come up tomorrow . . .”

  For a long time, she continued to pace. He watched her as she moved with ever-increasing speed up and back, moving her lips as if she were talking to herself. Finally she turned.

  “Do you really believe you’re an actor, Bruce?”

  Here it comes, he thought.

  “In my gut, Marilyn. In my gut.”

  She paced again, shook her head and turned to face him.

  “You’re not an actor, Bruce. You’re just lying to yourself. You’re a goddamned waiter, that’s what you are, a fucking waiter. And I’m a waitress. That is what defines us. That is our occupation. We are not in show business. We are in the food industry, hustling tips to get by, barely.” She grew silent for a moment, paced, then began again. “Look at this dump. Where are we going, Bruce? Yeah we’re actors, but in the play in our head, a fucking fantasy. Look down the road, Bruce. Where are we going? I’ll tell you where. From table to table, telling people about the specials. Something something on a bed of something something.”

  Suddenly she screamed, then collapsed on the couch.

  “Enough is enough,” she muttered.

  Bruce had listened with patient resolve. He had heard it all before. She was jumping ship. It was useless to convince her otherwise. Sometimes he had seen it happen by degrees. Sometimes, as with Marilyn, it would happen suddenly, like an epiphany. Out of her own frustration, she had lashed out at him.

  “Nobody, but nobody,” he told her gently, “will ever take away my dream. Not ever. If you were a real actor, a committed actor, you would understand. I am an actor. I will always be an actor until the day I die.”

  That said, he went into the bedroom, brushed his teeth, rubbed on night cream, put on his pajamas, and got into bed. He had to get up early. He had an acting class in the morning.

  Gone

  by Warren Adler

  It was her choice, a McDonald’s in the East Village, and he stood for a while, out of view, looking through the window. Of course he was afraid, anxious, uncertain. He hadn’t seen his daughter in three years, since she was sixteen and had disappeared. “Leave that alone,” he begged himself.

  When you turn something over in your own mind for three years, it becomes a lingering, chronic pain. Everything changes. The anger solidifies into icy rage. He needed to squelch that now. It was bad strategy.

  From this distance, he could only see her in profile, vaguely familiar, under a profusion of harsh red hair that used to be silky blonde, golden in his memory. She wore dark sunglasses, a strange accessory in this sunless environment. Apparently, the place had just opened and the customers were a tired, scruffy lot of all ages and genders. The November weather was cloudy, chilled, and cast a pall of drabness over everything, which he noted, was drab to begin with, despite the attempt of the restaurant to contrive joy, a commodity that just wasn’t there.

  Her complexion was ashen, unhealthy, the once-round, naturally rouged cheeks flattened, and fiery red lipstick was heavily laid on. She was wearing a long-sleeved, beige, tight turtleneck that emphasized how thin she had gotten. Worse, she looked ten years older, maybe more. Oddly, he hoped that he was mistaken and this was not his daughter. Her entire demeanor seemed to fit in with the gloomy atmosphere.

  He waited, watching, trying desperately to control himself. A sob shook his chest and he sucked in some hard, deep breaths to steady himself. Finally, he walked in, forcing a smile, feeling his face cracking.

  “Peggy,” he said.

  She nodded, and he knew her thin smile was as forced as his own.

  “Daddy.”

  He feared bending to offer her a kiss and she made no move to stand. In front of her was a cup of coffee. For a moment, he stood watching her, but since he could not see her eyes, he was unsure about any contact.

  “What shall I get you?” he asked, stupidly. After all, they were there for breakfast. There had been a go-between from back home in Boise, Charlotte Gordon, an old classmate who was attending NYU in Manhattan. She had seen and reported Peggy’s whereabouts. By then, he lived in Los Angeles, the family splintered, the blame for which sat in front of him, the missing daughter.

  Since neither he nor his wife could understand a reason for her disappearance they had blamed each other, and her sibling blamed them both. There was no secret between them where the blame really lay; it simply could not be abided. There was no cure for it but separation.

  What he had wanted to know for three years was why. She seemed perfectly happy, the picture of a loving daughter, integrated into their world. There had been no hint, no clue, no issue, no abuse, nothing apparent, however they had searched themselves and the environment that surrounded her. There were just no answers, only questions.

  “I am going away. I hate it here.” The words were scrawled on a little paste-up square, now wrinkled from the perpetual folding and unfolding. Why? He and his wife had gone the usual route, police, missing persons, private detectives, and long, introspective self-analysis and confrontations with each other. What had they done? It was increasingly impossible to live without answers.

  She had disappeared with nothing but her clothes. Her room had remained exactly as she left it. His wife left it untouched as a kind of shrine, and after awhile, going into that room for him had become unbearable. Inexplicably, his wife spent much of her time there. The blame had become insidious, like acid, eating away at them.

  How could they not have suspected? No matter how hard they tried they could find no secret life, no evidence of adolescent unrequited love, no gender confusion,
no drugs, no cult seduction, no argument, no visible anger. She lived in a loving, supportive family environment. All of her friends and classmates were as baffled as they were. Such bafflement and confusion became a way of life, a creeping emotional upheaval that exploded, finally, into a kind of silent chaos, and there seemed no solution but for him to leave. There were no tears on his wife’s part, as if such a move was ordained, necessary, a logical outcome brought about by the missing daughter.

  Perhaps it was his obsession to find her. He left no stone unturned. No expense was too much. Then, out of the blue, a classmate, Charlotte Gordon, had seen her and got in touch with him. Charlotte had explained that she had been sworn to secrecy, but that if he came to New York, she might call him at his hotel and maybe, just maybe, she might see him. And she had, hence this meeting.

  Their conversation had been short, practically nonexistent. She simply informed him of where they were to meet.

  “So what would you like?” he asked.

  “Big Mac and fries, large, Coke,” she said, her voice harsher than he remembered. He wanted to say: “For breakfast?” but desisted. Standing in line, he got her the Big Mac and ordered a chicken sandwich and a coffee for himself. He had no appetite and looked at the mushy mess in its paper wrapping, hoping he would not gag.

  “I’m glad you could see me,” he said, watching her pick up the Big Mac. Her nails were painted fire-engine red, and they shook as she lifted the sandwich and bit deep into it, not dainty as he remembered her. His daughter. How could this have happened? No, he forced himself, leave that alone.

  “Charlotte meeting you, quite a coincidence.”

  She nodded between chewing. He studied her face, but the dark glasses continued to hide any clue to contact. She poured ketchup into a cardboard plate and dipped a salted fry into it.

  “So what is your life like?” he asked cautiously.

  She shrugged and smiled thinly.

  “Cool,” she said.

  “Meaning?”

  “Not bad.”