She did feel, though, that some of the fun, the zip, had been taken out of the party planning by these foul-ups. She hungered for the first call to someone who remembered Marty, knew a lot about him, and hadn't lost a chunk of his past.
For Marty, it was another lunch hour of shopping. This time he was in Brooklyn, on 13th Avenue, which was crammed with mothers, baby carriages, assorted pickpockets, and sidewalk hawkers selling guaranteed genuine solid gold Omega watches for $29.95. It was an avenue of small, independent shops, a throwback to the era of the little guy and the closely knit neighborhood. It wasn't stylish—it was a kind of organized chaos—and Marty felt like an alien. But that was the point, as it had been in Queens. No one was likely to recognize him here.
He walked down the packed avenue, and again there were the cold winds. Again the bitter memories erupted inside him. Words shot through his mind, words that he associated with cold winds.
"You only care about him, not me!" she'd screamed. I'm just garbage. I just clean up and wipe their mouths! You bring 'em toys! What am I doin' with you?"
"Come on, it's his birthday. It only comes once a year, Alice."
"You're a bum! Go play with your trains!"
"I'm not a bum. I need a break."
"Other men don't need no breaks!"
The words reverberated in his brain, and Marty knew they'd be there as long as he lived. He looked around at the addresses now, trying to find Walson's, a well known toy and hobby store. In this case he had had to call ahead because he needed a number of specific items. Walson's had most of them. No store ever had everything. It wasn't like the old days. He finally found Walson's between a luncheonette and a dry cleaner, in the middle of a block with no fewer than three bakeries. He was immediately impressed with the place. A good hobby shop had model planes and trains jammed end to end. It had kits that were impossible to find and back issues of such magazines as Model Railroading. It had concave-chested, thick-spectacled salesmen in their early twenties who could tell you every engine that Lionel Trains had ever manufactured, and the year it came out. Finally, it had customers who liked to hang around on Saturdays and debate the esoterica of the world of models. Walson's had it all.
"Need help?" asked a young salesman with an enthusiasm that said "Let me tell you everything I know."
"I called," Marty replied. "I spoke to Steve." Salesmen in hobby shops never have last names.
"I'm Steve." Yes, he had glasses, the concave chest, and the required plaid shirt. "You wanted the diesel switcher."
"Yes."
"Over here."
Steve led Marty to a dusty section at the back where used electric trains were sold. Marty recognized the orange and blue Lionel boxes from the early fifties. He thought it amazing that people kept those old boxes and returned them when they sold their trains, sometimes a generation later.
"Here we go," Steve said. He pulled out an orange and blue box. Inside was a black, square-shaped locomotive with the Santa Fe insignia on its side. "Santa Fe," Steve said. "That's the one you wanted, right?"
"Yes, exactly," Marty replied, holding the engine in his hand and caressing it.
"We also have Chesapeake and Ohio."
"No, this is the one."
"We can put any emblem on there. We have this artist…"
"No, I want Santa Fe."
"Fine. It's in good shape."
"How much?"
"One twenty."
"I'll take it."
"Okay. You know about the magne-traction?"
"Yes. I had one of these."
"It's a magnet that holds the engine to the tracks."
"Yes," Marty repeated, "I know. I had one." Steve was already driving him crazy, but he refused to show annoyance. Annoyed people were remembered.
"You wanted a milk car, I think," Steve said.
"That's right."
"I've got it, but only with five milk cans. It works, though."
"If it works, I want it."
"Dented platform, too."
"I'll still take it."
"You have the automatic track? It only works when it's on the auto track."
"I'll need one," Marty replied. Now his mind came alive again with memories: how he pressed the little red button attached to the auto track, how the man shot out of the milk car and delivered the silver cans to the platform, how the mechanism buzzed. And he remembered the voice. "Are you happy, Frankie? Is this what you wanted?" It was such a kind voice, a good voice. "Frankie, this is for you." Marty seemed to be in another world.
"You okay, mister?" Steve asked.
"Oh, sure," Marty replied. "Just tired."
"Yeah. All this Christmas shopping. Mostly new stuff, though. You givin' these antiques for Christmas? Great gift."
"No, it's for me. I'm a hobbyist. I've always liked Lionel trains, but the old ones were better."
"That's for sure," Steve said. "That's why we can get these prices."
"Okay," Marty continued, pressing on, "I need the old work train caboose. The gray one."
"Have it."
"Automatic boxcar."
"Yup."
"On the phone you said you didn't know if you had the cattle car."
"I looked," Steve answered. "Don't have it. They go out faster than they come in. I can't promise anything on that one."
Marty requested a few more items and made a mental note of what he still had to get. Steve wrapped the package and Marty paid in cash—$371.86. There were no signatures to trace.
Marty felt a special thrill holding the trains as he walked down 13th Avenue, heading for a subway. He'd loved his trains, even though he'd had them only a few days. He wondered—he knew it was a fantasy—whether these were the trains, the very ones he'd been given. Someone could have sold them to Walson's. He knew it was a distant long shot, but it was possible.
Since he'd told Steve the trains were for himself he couldn't ask that they be gift-wrapped. Yet they had to be. He wanted his office staff to think they were simply Christmas gifts for business associates. He didn't want anyone seeing the store name. So he went into a card shop, bought some wrapping paper and tape, sat down at a bus-stop bench, and wrapped the trains himself.
"You're a bum. Go play with your trains!"
The words came back to Marty once more. He knew the trains would trigger them again. It had happened the year before, and the year before that.
"Not in front of the children, Alice!"
Had it really all been because of the trains? No, Marty knew it had been much more. Again, he fought to blot it out, especially as he walked down into the subway station, where three teenagers with threatening faces eyed him and his Christmas packages. Marty looked away, felt his heart palpitate, and got to the token window as quickly as possible.
"Merry Christmas," one of the kids said sarcastically. Then the three just walked away. They preferred old men who couldn't fight back.
Marty saw a nun with a tin cup sitting beside a turnstile, collecting money for orphaned children. He felt for orphans, and dropped a dollar in the cup.
"Bless you," the nun said.
"Thank you, Sister," Marty replied.
The chain, the hammer, the trains. Marty was getting closer, December fifth was getting closer. Soon, he knew, he would have that strange feeling, that compulsion, and he knew he wouldn't be able to resist.
4
Methodically, Samantha continued tracking Marty's past. She still put off the second call to Northwestern—the Lou Cotrell disaster hadn't encouraged a call that could be awkward—but she pursued his early life in Elkhart. She called the junior high school, but the assistant principal refused to cooperate in any way. Samantha would have to send a letter, notarized, explaining her request. Student records were private, the administrator explained, in a lecturing, pedantic voice that would have intimidated any student, teacher, or parent.
So Samantha called the high school. The atmosphere there was much warmer.
But there was no record o
f a Martin Shaw.
He was not among the list of graduates.
Samantha felt panic begin to well up inside her, but she quickly contained it. She recalled Cotrell's wondering whether records had been requested, then not returned. All of Marty's records might have been requested sometime, then not put back. And as for the class pictures, the originals of those might have been pulled, and never refiled. There could be many explanations.
So Samantha called Elkhart City Hall, requesting a birth record. "No, ma'am," came the gruff, bureaucratic voice at the other end, "we don't show a Shaw, Martin, ever been born here."
"Could his birth have been unregistered?" Samantha asked, a touch of desperation in her voice.
"Possible," came the reply, "but a thousand to one shot. I mean, that was modern times. Everyone got registered."
Now Samantha's incipient panic began to grow. No birth certificate. No school records. No trace of Marty in Elkhart. The word "registered" stuck in her mind, and she called the Elkhart office that stored old draft records. No Martin Shaw. He'd never been registered. Planning for Marty's fortieth birthday party was becoming a horror, an excursion into a past that might not exist. Yet Samantha refused to believe that. There had to be some explanation.
She could turn to no one for help. It was all too embarrassing. How do you tell a friend that you can't find your husband's past? How do you tell her that your husband might have something to hide? You don't. You don't face the stares, or Lynne's penetrating look of curiosity. Only Marty could provide the answers, Samantha knew, and he would. No, she wouldn't confront him directly. To reveal that she'd been probing his past would blow the main surprise of his party. She would extract information indirectly. She'd be subtle. He'd never know.
But first Samantha realized there was one call she had to make. Awkward or not, she had to call Northwestern and get that issue nailed down. It could be some anchor, some positive note. After all, Marty did have his diploma. That was solid proof.
She steeled herself. Every call was difficult now, each bringing the fear of rebuff or insult. She looked up the number, reached the school, and asked for the dean of students, Sanford Beale. It took more than four minutes to track Beale down—he was arguing with a student in the hall—and another six before he'd come to the phone. Samantha, sitting at her little table, tapped the phone nervously with her fingers, waiting.
"Beale," came the drab, uninterested voice.
"Dean Beale, my name is Samantha Shaw."
"Yes, I know all about you," Beale said, with no warmth at all. "The lady who took your call told me. What more can I do?"
"Well, first off, I have some good news," Samantha replied. "I don't know what happened to your records, but Marty does have his diploma. It's right here."
"Oh, really?" Beale asked. The coldness in his voice shook Samantha.
"Yes," she replied. "He had filed it away."
"Madam, it's a fake."
There was dead silence. What could Samantha say to that? What could anyone say? "How do you know all the way out there?" she asked, fighting to control her frustration.
"It's because I am out here that I know," Beale said. "Your husband never went to Northwestern. It's as simple as that."
"But how do you know?"
"Because people don't pass through here without a trace, that's how I know. If he uses the fake diploma, we'll take action. You may have been told that already. Now if you'll excuse me…"
A fantasy shot through Samantha's mind. "What if Marty was involved in secret government work and they wanted traces of him at Northwestern removed…for whatever reason?"
"Someone here would still remember him," Beale replied. "Besides, if he wanted to hide his Northwestern past, he wouldn't leave a diploma lying around."
It was true.
"You might have a little talk with him," Beale went on, sounding human for the first time. "Or you might just drop it. The forgery could be a misjudgment from your husband's past. If he doesn't use it, you might not want to risk…"
Beale didn't finish. He didn't have to spell it out. A confrontation over a fake past could easily destroy a marriage.
The conversation ended on that sour note. Instinctively, Samantha rushed to examine Marty's "diploma" once more. It looked genuine enough, but of course she knew how easy it would be to manufacture a forgery. She was unaware how her hands were shaking until she tried to read the fine print under the words Northwestern University. Yes, this was a full-blown crisis, the first in the marriage, and it was especially severe. Now even the party itself was fading in importance. Never had Samantha expected to confront Marty's past this way. Never had she expected to question him.
He'd be home in a few hours. Samantha had to plan her actions, plan each nuance of conversation. She felt the strain. She felt it in her head, and now even in her stomach. She feared for her baby on the very day she'd learned it existed.
Marty came home, hungry and tired as usual. He'd had an afternoon of nonstop meetings with clients, and one client had worn him thin by insisting that a story about his wife's exercise plan be placed in the science section of the New York Times. Marty had explained that the Times was a tough order for any public-relations man, that the paper insisted on real news. The client then had suggested paying for the story. Marty had to explain that the paper couldn't be bribed. "They can all be bribed," the client insisted. "I want Ruthie in the paper." He'd then stomped out. Marty had to drop the account, although it was a big loss for the firm.
He noticed nothing unusual about Samantha when he walked in. She was dressed in the same gray skirt and blue top she'd worn during the day, her hair was combed back, she looked serene. She had the ability to hide worries, and, on this remarkable day, to hide the news about the baby. But, when Marty's eyes were elsewhere, she did stare at him more than she usually did. She wondered what the real story was, how the riddle would be solved. Those eyes, those suspicious eyes—were they hinting at something in his background? Samantha feared the answer. She was still in the stage of denial. This man was good. This man was pure. It would all work out.
"You look exhausted," she said.
"Exhausted, yes. Maybe beaten."
Samantha frowned. "You don't usually talk that way."
Marty slipped off his coat and jacket, and started on his red-striped silk tie. "I don't usually have Jesse James for a client either." As he slumped into a black leather Barcelona chair and unceremoniously put his feet up on a Parsons table, he told Sam the story of his bribery bent client. "You should have heard this idiot," he declared. "The guy wanted me to take five thousand in cash—all hundreds—to a Times editor to place a story about his overweight wife and her homemade exercises. And he was offended when I wouldn't do it."
"Did you suggest another plan?" Samantha asked, bringing Marty a box of chocolates.
"Negative. He wasn't the type. I had to kiss him goodbye."
"Good for you."
"Not good for the bank account."
"Still, good for you. People like that aren't worth the aggravation. They're crooks."
Marty looked at Samantha, somewhat amused. "Look, sweet, most of them are crooks. God knows what they do on their taxes. But this guy advertised it. I think his wife has the money. I can usually spot that."
"You did the right thing," Samantha said. "Hey, forget that creep. How about some sirloin?"
Instantly, Marty seemed to relax. "Now that's greatness," he answered. Then his eyes lit up. "By the way, I saw a note on your table. Didn't you have an appointment with Dr. Fromer today?"
Samantha thought fast. "Yes. Just the annual Pap smear."
"Is it okay?"
"It takes a few days for results. But I'm healthy."
"You sure are," Marty replied, standing up and putting his arms around Samantha, and Samantha knew there was love in those words. "You'll live to be a hundred…and I want to be there."
"You will," Samantha said softly.
"Why don't we eat?" He eased
himself away and went to wash while Samantha finished the dinner.
Dinner at the Shaws' was always by candlelight, on a table near the living room window, and always with a white tablecloth. It was the kind of elegance both Marty and Samantha liked. To them, it symbolized that their marriage deserved the best, that it was special, that every evening was an event, that the marriage wouldn't be allowed to deteriorate into overcooked hot dogs on a stained kitchen table.
As they sat down they instinctively gazed out the window at the city lights fully ablaze. They never tired of the sight. The skyline simply whispered romance. This was a dream, Samantha had always thought, one that she desperately wanted to continue.
And yet, she went over her strategy in her mind. She had to get information out of Marty. "Something funny happened today," she related.
"Oh?"
"I was walking near Fromer's office and a guy stopped me for directions. He was about your age. Guess where he came from?"
"Mars."
"Close. Elkhart."
Marty brightened. "Elkart, Indiana?"
Samantha shot him her "what else?" look.
"Maybe I know him," Marty said.
"You might. We got to talking. He went to Braden."
"Name?"
"Wilson. Fred."
Samantha watched and listened carefully. Would Marty respond to a complete fake?
"Doesn't sound familiar," he said.
"He was a year behind you. He said he thought he knew your name."
"It was a long time ago. There were other Shaws in Elkhart. I don't know the guy."
"He went to high school there too. He said he played football."
"Maybe. I still don't know him."
"Did Elkhart have a good team?"
Marty shrugged. "Fair."
Samantha tightened, but tried once again to hide it. She'd done her homework and called an Elkhart paper. For three of Marty's four high-school years the team had been undefeated.
"Only fair?"
Surprise Party Page 4
