by Vanda Writer
“Because of me?”
“Well . . .”
“Yeah. Because of me, and you know what, Jule?”
“What?”
“You chased after your woman today.”
“You little brat.” She tried to turn me over and spank me, but I jumped up and ran behind the piano. “You’ve chased after me a whole lot over the years.”
She ran after me, grabbed me — I didn’t put up much of a fight — and pulled me over her lap as she sat on the couch. She pulled up my dress and slid off my underpants and gave me a few hard whacks to my rear end.
We laughed and rolled off the couch onto Max’s spotless white rug. We made love to each other and then lay on our backs holding hands. Our clothes were all in disarray, our blouses spread open, our girdles, stockings, underpants somewhere in the room.
“You know what let’s do?” Juliana said as we both lay in the middle of the rug. “Let’s go away together. Just the two of us. Richard and l have this cabin up in the mountains in Maine. Let’s go there next Sunday. The theater is dark, so we’ll have the whole day and night. As long as I get back here for the Monday night show, everything will be fine.”
“Won’t Richard mind?”
“Very much. But we won’t tell him, will we? He hasn’t been to the cabin in years. I’ve used it myself from time to time to get a little respite from the city. Richard has hay fever, so all that green foliage gets to him.”
“It’s green? It has trees and grass and fresh air?”
She leaned on one elbow, looking down at me. “Yes, it does, and a lake.”
“A lake? For swimming?”
“Uh, huh. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“I haven’t been around green living breathing things without honking traffic in seventeen years. Ever since I came here. I would love that.” I sat up. “We can really do this, Jule? Just you and me? But what if someone sees us? Even with Schuyler, uh, well . . . these days you never know who might be spying.”
“I’ll fly up early Sunday morning right after six o’clock mass and get things ready. Air it out, clean. No one’s been there in a couple years, so it’ll need it. You follow in a later plane, mid-morning. You can get a cab at the airport to bring you over. Give him an especially large tip, just in case. Have him leave you off at the cabin. I won’t come out, so he doesn’t see me. You have to come in to let me know the coast is clear.”
“Such intrigue.”
“Once you’re there, we’ll be safe. We won’t have a lot of time, but it’s something.”
“You’re serious? We’re really going to do this, Jule? Be alone together in a mountain retreat? That’s really going to happen?”
“That’s really going to happen.”
Chapter Seventeen
Max and I stepped into the sanctuary of Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church in Times Square. We followed a line of people silently entering and sliding into the dark brown maple wood pews, their heads bowed. Behind and above us, men in black choir robes stood in the balcony singing Gregorian chants that filled the room with vibrating holiness. Our line crept slowly up the aisle; women and men genuflected to the huge gold crucifix hanging above the altar. Across from us beyond the central pews was another aisle with its own line of silently entering people. Max crossed himself. “Max, you’re Catholic?” I whispered.
“On my mother’s side. Very lapsed. Let’s go in here.”
We slid into a pew and sat a moment with our heads bowed. He was up there. Schuyler. Inside that shut up mahogany coffin. Strangely, it reminded me of the hope chest I had as a girl. Except my hope chest was made of cedar to make the linens inside smell good. Hope chest—coffin. Kind of the same thing. Surrounding the coffin were six white tapering candles, aflame. They sat in real gold floor-length candlesticks. On the altar were some smaller candles, a crucifix, and a book propped up by a stand.
I wondered where Juliana was. The place was packed. All of Broadway had shown up for Schuyler’s funeral. You would’ve thought he was popular, but Heaven is Up There Somewhere was only his first production. Still, he was the lead producer of a giant hit. People like to cozy up to that. Except — he was dead. What good could he do for them now? This show had been put together by his estranged wife. At least that’s what I heard. They never divorced like he told me on the ship. Catholic. They just separated. I guess because they couldn’t stand each other. Who could stand living with a guy like Schuyler. Still, it was big of her to plan the funeral of a man she detested. Or did she? I craned my neck trying to get a glimpse of Juliana. I saw Martin Van Ville sitting close to the front, his head bowed, a yarmulke on his head. I didn’t know he was Jewish. I couldn’t see anyone else from the cast.
I swirled around to look at the people still entering. The line snaked onto the sidewalk beyond the open church door. He was that popular?
The minister, uh, priest in his black robes stepped up to the altar and the hum of faint voices ceased. His two helpers stood on either side of him, also in black robes. The priest faced the altar, which meant he had his back to us. That seemed strange. Then he sang. He sang what I supposed was a Latin song.
It sure was a long service, I mean mass. Everything was in Latin, so I didn’t know why we were doing what we were doing, but I followed along. First, we stood, then we sat, then we kneeled, then we stood, then we sat, then we kneeled. Up down, up down. It was making me dizzy. Then the collection plate came around. At home, in my little starving church, if the minister passed the collection plate at a funeral, everyone would’ve gotten up and told him off and probably the next day he’d be fired.
After they collected the money, and everyone said a prayer together in Latin—a lot of people seemed to know this prayer—one of the helpers announced it was time for Holy Communion. That’s another thing we didn’t do in our church at a funeral. It takes too long. I think maybe protestants at a funeral are in a hurry to finish church so they can go to the reception to eat. They don’t want to bother with extra stuff like communion. The priest talked to us from the altar. This time he faced us. He made it very clear that, even though he loved us, people like me did not qualify to take communion in his church; we’d better not crash their Catholic ceremony or something terrible would fall on our heads. Max and I just sat back watching all the people who did qualify go up to the altar and kneel with their tongues out. That’s when I saw Juliana and Richard. They were approaching the altar. Juliana looked pretty in a navy blue suit with white trim on the sleeves and collar. Her navy, blue hat had a white trim too that ran around the edges. She looked respectful without seeming dead the way all the people who wore black like me did. Did Schuyler deserve me dressing in black like I was all broken up about him? Wasn’t it phony? Weren’t we all being phonies like Holden Caulfield says in Catcher in the Rye, that book that came out a few years ago. A real good book. At home one time we had a minister who came to a funeral in a red jacket. Boy, did the old biddies in my church waste no time getting rid of him. But if going to heaven is supposed be a really great thing, why wouldn’t you wear red and be all happy that the person is dead? I couldn’t let myself be happy about Schuyler, but I decided I didn’t do anything to rush him on his way.
Holy Communion took a long time. Max kept falling asleep in his pew and I had to elbow him awake. After a while, I found myself watching the communion folks more closely. Some of them really did look holy when they left the altar, their heads bowed, their hands crossed over their chest or in prayer position. They looked like something had truly happened to them. Inwardly. One old woman even cried. Juliana looked peaceful, as if holding the wafer on her tongue had made her safe inside.
When everyone was back in their seats, the two assistants came down the aisles shaking incense at us. A powerful purple smell. The service—uh, mass—ended, and we were instructed to file out in silence so the family could be alone with the body. Gosh, I’d hate to be called ‘the body’— but I guess that’s what I’ll be someday. Everything seemed
so holy, especially as we were walking out in silence. How could there be this much holiness for a man like Schuyler? He wasn’t a good man. How could he be good and still force Juliana into his play? Which was a huge hit, making Juliana’s name known around the country. That’s not a bad thing, Al.
Yes, but . . .
“Ready, Al?” Max said when we got to the church’s front steps.
I wasn’t sure why Max decided to join the funeral procession and go to the burial. It made me wonder again if Max had something to do with— No. he didn’t. He said he didn’t. Didn’t he? Yes. Forget it. Maybe we were going because we both wanted to be sure they put him in the ground, that he was gone, really gone. For good.
We crossed the street where he’d parked our Continental Mark II rental with the fancy metal logo on the hood—a four-pointed star inside a rectangle. Only the best for Max, no matter what our account books said. As Max came around the car to the passenger side to open the door for me, I saw the pall bearers pushing the coffin into the back of the hearse. I froze a moment. I had nothing to do with that. Did I?
“You all right, Al?” Max asked, standing next to the car door he’d just opened. “You’re not thinking bad thoughts, are you?”
“Bad thoughts?” I repeated, coming out my fog. “Never. Only good ones.”
“Good.”
I got into the car and he closed the door. He ran around to the driver’s side. I wondered why he asked me about my thoughts. What’d he mean by bad thoughts? Were these bad thoughts I should have or ones he didn’t want me to have? Was he the one having bad thoughts? About himself, or me? Did he know I met with Mr. Wilferini? Did he suspect that I . . .?
With our headlights on, we followed the line of cars toward the graveyard. It would take a while since it was in Brooklyn. It started to sprinkle, so Max put on the wipers. “Open that envelope on the seat. It’s for you.”
I picked it up. The front was blank.
“It’s from Marty,” he said.
“Come on, Max. Stay out of it.” I put the envelope back on the seat between us.
“Read it.”
“Why? Did you write it?”
“No. He wrote it himself. It’s from his heart. He’s really upset about everything.”
“Why didn’t he mail it instead of getting my ‘boss’ involved?”
“Your boss? My goodness. He finished it at the airport and asked me to give it to you. He was rushing to catch a plane back to Hollywood.”
My hand inched over toward the letter and touched it. “You know, Max, living in the world we live in—”
“What world is that?”
“Stop. You know. The world where one false move can get you destroyed in one way or another. You have to be able to trust your friends. So, he gets mad at me and betrays me to some guy he just met in a bar—Schuyler.”
“He thought he was gay.”
“What difference does that make?” My anger was beginning to boil up again. “He put that poisonous book on my desk knowing it would upset me, knowing it would scare me. And you and I both know there are those of our own kind who would squawk like canaries if it meant a few extra bucks or a part in a show. Look what that gay boy press agent, whatever his name was, did to his Fire Island buddies a few years ago.”
“Oh, yeah, he got Dorothy to write that bit about them in her column. She loved that. A bunch of matinee idols. I suppose anyone who knew how to decipher Kilgallen’s code could have caused them real trouble. They could have lost some fans, but—”
“Or jobs. Like some did. Or careers. That code wasn’t so hard to decipher.” I recited, “The newspapers will never print the real story behind the recent show business marriage crash. It was Well of Loneliness time.”
“You memorized it?”
“I had to. I’m looking out for my survival.”
“That’s very odd, Al. Open Marty’s letter.”
I took the envelope into my hand. I missed him. I missed him being my friend. I loved him. But how would I ever trust him again?
Max swerved the car so he could get around the Chevy that was trying to break through our funeral procession. The sprinkle had turned into a steadier drizzle, rhythmically hitting the windshield before it was whisked away by the wipers. I gripped the envelope with my hands, practically crushing it.
“You know what he got me for his going away?’ Max asks. “A transistor radio.”
“No kidding? Does that thing really work? Can you really walk outside the apartment into the street and it still plays? No plug?”
“No plug. You use this strange new battery, a nine-volt, that seems to take the place of the plug. As long as the antenna can catch the radio waves, you can listen to it wherever you are. I’ll show you when we get back. It’s small so it’s easy to carry around. But do you know what one of those things cost?”
“I stopped in a TV/Radio store once because I was curious. I’ve been seeing a lot of kids with them listening to their rock and roll, so I figured I’d better find out what’s going on. The ones I looked at were fifty dollars!”1
Max nodded. “Uh, huh. I tell him he’s got to save his money; this business is fickle, and producers can turn on you in a second. He won’t listen. He’s not wise about money.”
I ran my hand over the soft leather interior from Scotland and gave Max a look. “I wonder where he got that from?”
“Not me. This is a rental.”
“A very expensive rental.”
“Well, we can’t exactly show up at this funeral with all the hoity-toitiest people in town in a borrowed pickup truck, can we? We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about Marty. There are times when he can be downright foolish, but he has a lot of love. And I know you’re very special to him. When he and I first started dating, all he kept talking about was you and how he didn’t want to hurt your friend Scott because he knew it would hurt you. He told me he couldn’t stand it that you were mad at him.”
I pulled the envelope open. Max lit a Chesterfield with the car lighter and slid open the ashtray. I slipped out the folded white paper and stared through the side window, watching the rain come down in sheets. I was afraid I wouldn’t like what he said in the letter and I’d have to permanently expel him from my life. I didn’t want to do that.
My mind drifted back to another time. My first year of school, forty-eight. I was excited and scared. What was I doing at a college? That was about as far as I had ever imagined myself being. My family thought I might work in an orchard picking oranges until I got married. Or, perhaps in a factory sticking some part to another part. They never planned on me going to New York City and they certainly never planned on college, but there I was. It was spring. I had begun my classes and I’d heard rumors of a protest march or a sit-down strike or one of those. I wasn’t sure what it was about, but I wanted to be a part of whatever was happening at school. I joined a line of students, held my sign high, and marched with them. “Jim Crow Must Go!” Suddenly cops and paddy wagons were everywhere, and kids were running and I was running and kids were being knocked down all around me; some were hit with clubs. I ran as fast as I could. A slam to my head. I almost went down when someone grabbed my arm and ran with me. We ran out the gates and down the street. We didn’t stop till we got to a telephone pole near the subway entrance. Then I saw—it was Marty. His dark hair falling over his brow, no tie or jacket, his corduroy pants too big for him. He had saved me from that mob. I could’ve been trampled.
I unfolded the letter on my lap, smoothing out the creases. “Hi Al, I’m headed back to LA again. Sorry there was no time to talk in person before I left. I’m hoping Max will give this to you.”
It felt like he was right in the car with me, sitting in the center between Max and me.
“I hurt you. I know I hurt you bad and there may not be anything I can ever do to fix that. But I want to fix it. I want to fix it so desperately. I was drunk when I took that book from Schuyler and put it in your office. I know that isn’t an
excuse. But I was so drunk I forgot I left it there. If I hadn’t forgotten, I would’ve gone back and gotten it off your desk when I sobered up. Then you wouldn’t have seen it and none of this between us would’ve happened. As I sit here writing and watching the sun rise over the airplanes, I feel so ashamed. It isn’t the me I know who goes around hurting special people, but I did it. It’s hard for me to believe, but I did do it. And I am so, so sorry. I understand if you never talk to me again or never trust me again, but I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you. I also wanted to tell you that I didn’t break up Max and Scott. I just happened to be around when they were already breaking up. That’s what Max told me, so you can ask him.
“You are so special to me and I lost touch with that until I lost you. I want you back. Please. What do I have to do? Anything? Anything.
Please forgive me. Your friend, Marty
P.S. A little something to cheer you up. Katharine Hepburn likes girls.
I laughed.
“Funny?” Max asked.
I folded the letter back into its envelope. “Not really.”
We turned into a wide drive and stopped. In front of us was a line of cars with their lights on and a huge brown stone gate with spires that pierced the clouds above us. In the center of the spires, a bell tower. On either side of the bell tower and spires were house-like structures made of the same brown stone. As we slowly drove toward the structure, my breath caught in my lungs with the massiveness of it. And the thought that a sculptor had created this for the dead. Or maybe he did it for the people who came to bury the dead. To uplift them in their sorrow. Max steered us under the bell tower and out onto a tree-lined road. The grass on either side was greener than I’d seen grass in a long time. Actually, I hardly ever saw grass anymore, so I enjoyed filling my eyes with all that green.
As we crept along the road, the rain hitting the windshield with more force, I was swept back to another time. A springtime when I was a child and sat in our backyard by the old maple, devouring classic literature. “Oh, Max,” I said with a joy bursting out of me, “look at these trees. I’ve never seen trees this fat with leaves in my life. And those tree trunks thick and twisted into bizarre sculptured shapes.”