Fridays at Enrico's

by Don Carpenter

  The routine was simple. No matter what time she got home the night before, get up at six or six thirty. Slip into her gray sweatsuit and sneakers, awaken Kira, then walk across Park Presidio to the hidden entrance to Mountain Lake Park, through to its Fifth Avenue exit, then down Fifth to Clement, west on Clement to Seventeenth, and back to her flat. A two-mile walk, begun in sullen mindlessness and ending in cheerful anticipation of the workday. To avoid losing the cheer she’d take the paper inside unopened, leaving it for her post-work pleasure. If Kira wasn’t up yet she’d rouse her and make tea. Other times Kira already had the water boiling. They spoke little at this hour, Kira groggy with sleep and Jaime already turning into Mary Rosendaal. Kira never asked what she was writing. So far as Jaime knew, her daughter had never read any of her work. Though it would have been in character for Kira to read the stuff secretly and say nothing. Normal enough, but Jaime wanted Kira to admire her. To tell Jaime she loved her writing, that she knew her work was important and understood why her mother was so strange. Apparently they weren’t close enough for this kind of talk, and Jaime wouldn’t force it on her. Bad enough that she’d wrecked their family life.

  Kira at fifteen looked more like eighteen or nineteen, ripe and ready to plunder, one of the reasons Jaime didn’t bring men home. Her daughter was beautiful, but not the kind of beauty that translates into modeling jobs or wealthy marriages, more the beauty of youth. The kind which as she grew older would turn into handsomeness and character. Jaime hoped. She hardly wanted her daughter to be a model or actress. She most particularly didn’t want her daughter to be casually seduced by one of her literary friends. Or God forbid marry one of the bastards. So she saw people not at home but at Enrico’s or Tosca, though who even knew if Kira was still a virgin? Or had herpes. Or clap.

  This got into The French Horn Player. The character became Jaime’s second daughter, someone Jaime had known since birth, someone she’d protect with her life. Jaime often cried as she wrote, knowing that no matter what she did, no matter how well she loved her soft little Mary, she’d also have to kill her. At times she sat desperately wishing for a way out for Mary Rosendaal. But there could be no way out. The book was begun to show a certain hard truth, and she couldn’t back out now, just because it was breaking her heart. Poor fucking Mary Rosendaal, moving slowly toward death.

  She had another task in managing the difference between the real Marty Greenberg and the character she required for her story. The real Marty Greenberg had reappeared a while before, while she was still married to Charlie. She’d run into him at Tosca’s, and they sat drinking cappuccinos and talking about the I–Thou philosophy of Martin Buber, one of Marty’s heroes. Their final parting came when Marty put his hand on Jaime’s exposed knee and gave it a meaningful squeeze. “We should make love,” he said, smiling sincerely into her eyes.

  She pushed his hand away. “Really? Why?”

  “Everyone should make love with everyone. That is the true I–Thou.”

  She learned later Marty had tried this I–Thou shit on most of the women he knew, and some of the men. Kenny Goss had been scandalized by it. His former shipmate from the Breckenridge had made a pass at him. “Get the clouds out of your mind,” Marty had said to Kenny. “Love is love.”

  Marty then moved to Berkeley, and Jaime hadn’t seen him since. She fought not to wreck the character with her personal feelings. The book required that she show Marty as a nice person, a good person, bright, friendly, everything he ought to be except compassionate. More and more her book was about coldness. And the meaning of words. Words like “blow job.”

  So Marty the philosopher must turn into Marty the pimp, without at the same time losing any of his charm. An intricate literary problem. She hoped her unconscious would solve it.

  83.

  She might not bring one home, but Jaime was looking for another man. She hadn’t given up on herself. She wasn’t necessarily after a husband, just some guy to hang onto, talk to, think about, have. She was thirty-five, and lonely too much. There were plenty of males around but very few men. On the worst days, writing The French Horn Player and drinking heavily, she’d stay home with the television on, wrapped in a bathrobe with a towel around her head, no point in dressing since she wasn’t fooling anyone, just trying to decide whether or not to kill herself, she’d fantasize about deliberately finding some rich guy to marry. Some sucker who loved her for her work.

  Dear Miss Froward,

  I am writing to tell you how much I enjoy your writing, especially Washington Street, although I have read and enjoyed all your books. Please keep up the good work! I work here in K.C. for Hallmark, the greeting card company. I write some of those little verses you see in greeting cards, so we are fellow professionals in a way, although of course I do not think of myself as a creative writer. I come to S.F. from time to time and would like to invite you for lunch at some future time. If this is an imposition I apologize, but if not please let me know. Thank you,

  Sincerely,

  Charles Drakeman

  Unfortunately, Charles didn’t include a photograph and a copy of his D & B report. She wrote a nice polite little note thanking him but making no mention of the lunch proposal. There really was no legitimate way to meet men. Her parents had met at a meeting of the Youth Labor Brigade in Berkeley, back when the communists were trying to recruit high school kids by throwing beer busts. A socialist in dirty spectacles and wool pullover? No, not for Jaime. Not after Charlie. Charlie had been a wonderful husband in many ways, even if he’d failed to deliver. Really, he’d never represented himself as more than he was, she’d just seen him that way, a beautiful youthful giant, full of promise. Who’d turned into a clown before her eyes.

  She thought about marrying another writer, or an artist, but they were worse than socialists. At literary parties the single ones kept their distance, while it was the married writers who made passes at her. Or would respond when she made a pass. Strange? Maybe not. Maybe the single writers were single for a reason. Either they were gay or they didn’t know what they were. Honest straightforward single heterosexuals were rare.

  It was at the book parties at Minerva’s Owl Bookstore on Union that society and literature came together. If you were a local author and you weren’t asked to have a signing party there you might as well kill yourself. Jaime was invited no matter who the author was. She liked the informal gatherings in the narrow little shop, and especially liked it when one or another of the local society hostesses would quietly circulate through the crowd whispering of another party elsewhere, for the select. These later parties, usually at somebody’s house in Pacific Heights, were fun because you were mingling with the rich, who were, you had to admit, charming and pleasant people. Parties led to parties and the next thing you knew your name was in the society column of the Chronicle. Yet nobody was fooled. These people knew who was society and who wasn’t. She told herself she went only to meet men. Perhaps some rich developer or scion of the gold-fields would take her out of this misery and put her into a house on the hill. Jaime kept hoping for that rich fool who was also big and handsome. God damn Charlie anyway.

  It was at the tail end of a party at Minerva’s Owl that she met Torry. Actually, she’d missed the party. It was one of those rainswept nights, and Jaime had had the usual hard time finding a parking place. She parked so far away she had to stop at Perry’s up the block to dry off, go to the toilet, and have three drinks. By the time she was coming in the door of Minerva’s Owl Torvald Hetter was coming out. He’d published on novel a few years ago, a brilliant small novel about three fishermen lost in the Sierra. A book without women, and hailed as some kind of macho masterpiece. Jaime had hated it immediately without reading it. Then one day at a friend’s house she saw a paperback copy lying on the floor and picked it up, read a couple of sentences, and was immediately lost in admiration. She borrowed the book and took it home, planning to find its weaknesses and be properly scornful of this one-book author who’d become famous
so fast. But the book was a poem. Every word mattered. Jaime always corrected books as she read them, but there was nothing here to correct, and Jaime found herself profoundly moved by the fate of these three very ordinary men. She still hated the author for being so famous and so good, but when she found herself face-to-face with him, she grinned in his face like an idiot and said, drunkenly, “Hey, you’re Torry Hetter.”

  “I am?” He smiled down at her with both recognition and lust. He wasn’t as tall as Charlie, but his narrow face was classically handsome, big eyes, heavy lids, a long straight nose and lips neither full nor thin, but just right. She watched his beautiful mouth say, “Let’s get out of here,” and turned right around, feeling his hand on her elbow as they walked out into the rain and down Union, side-by-side, not speaking.

  Jaime wasn’t quite drunk, but she wanted to be. She’d already made up her mind to sleep with Torry if he made a pass. At her house, if necessary. Jaime’s bedroom was in the front of the apartment, and Kira’s in the back. They’d whisper, and Kira wouldn’t have to hear a thing.

  “You want to stop in here?” he asked. They stood in front of Perry’s. The place was packed and noisy, the entryway packed, drinkers standing out on the sidewalk, even in the rain.

  “No.” She looked at him inquiringly. If he was a real man he’d know that she was his for the asking, no drink, no chatter, just jump right into bed. His eyebrows raised slightly, his face asking her if it was really true, and without moving a muscle Jaime’s face said yes, it is true, and he touched her hand. Next thing they were in his car fucking. His book had not been a lie. He was a real man. He drove her to her car and let her out.

  “I could follow you home,” he said through the window, as the rain hit his face, and she knew he had somebody else.

  “Not now,” she said, completely sober. She told him her telephone number and he nodded as if he’d memorized it. But he didn’t tell her his.

  “I’ll call you,” he said, and drove off. His car was an old wreck, a Chevy or something. The inside had smelled like old socks and stale lunches. It reminded her of the smell of school lockers. So he had no money. And only one book out. She’d heard he was unable to write, but elsewhere that he’d written a huge second novel all about life somewhere, but had it rejected. She didn’t care. The lovemaking had been intense. She told herself she hadn’t fallen in love, thank God, but knew she wanted more of the sex. She knew she’d call him, but before she did she wanted to know more. Who did he live with? Was he merely afraid to bring Jaime home to a dump, or was he just making sure things were on his terms?

  At home she tried to find a copy of his novel, but couldn’t. It was eleven thirty. She drank a glass of wine to calm her nerves, and was about to go to bed when the telephone rang. She knew it was Torry.

  “What took you so long?” she purred into the telephone. His answering chuckle was thrilling.

  “Can I come over?”

  “Wait a minute,” she said. She went down the hall and opened Kira’s door. Kira sat up in bed carving a piece of wood with a knife. Curled bits of wood were scattered all over the quilt. Kira looked up from her work. “Hello,” she said.

  “I thought you were asleep,” Jaime said.

  “Are we having company?”

  “It’s late, go to sleep.” Jaime closed the door. Over the telephone she said, “Not tonight.”

  84.

  Torry couldn’t get enough of her. But after that first time, only in the afternoon. Jaime knew he lived with somebody, that was obvious, though Torry said nothing about it. She didn’t care. She told herself she was in love with him because of his beautiful body and because he didn’t like to talk much. A perfect combination. She daydreamed about him, about making love to him, about the way the light struck his skin. They couldn’t meet at Jaime’s because of Kira, and they couldn’t meet at his place, and so they got in the habit of checking into the Pacific Manor motel on Broadway, a few steps west of Grant and Columbus, and conveniently close to Yank Sing, where they’d meet to drink tea and eat plate after plate of dim sum.

  Torry loved to eat, yet his body was slim and muscular. She loved it as she’d loved Charlie’s body before he got soft and fat. Well, not that fat, just too fat for Jaime. Torry could drink beer all day, eat three or four big meals, and still look like a racing dog. Would his metabolism some day make a little shift and boom, he’d be two hundred and fifty pounds? Probably not. Sometimes Mother Nature was deliberately unfair. Torry was one of those men who always looked hungry, and women would always want to feed him a bowl of soup or take him to bed.

  After a few weeks of keeping her ears open, Jaime knew Torry was a kept man. The woman who kept him was herself married, to a gay husband who had young men running in and out of their Presidio Heights mansion, while all of high society pretended it wasn’t happening. She gathered that in spite of his macho image, Torry feared his society woman learning about Jaime and throwing him out, forcing him to fend for himself in a cruel world. Torry’s book had done well, was never out of print, and had been translated into a dozen languages. The Japanese edition was used in Japanese schools to teach English, which made Jaime squirm with envy. Brautigan told her, at Enrico’s one night. “Every time I go to Japan people ask me about Torry-san,” he said. Richard himself sold well in Japan, and he’d go out only with Japanese women these days. “I tell them Torry-san is working well.”

  He wasn’t. This fact, among so many others about Torry-san, should have made Jaime draw back, but instead drew her closer. Poor fucking Torry. He got up every morning in his mystery apartment in the Mission, sat down at his desk, and wrote his heart out. Eleanor Plinckerd, his society woman, was his remorseless editor. Torry turned out page after page in his tiny precise handwriting, using a fountain pen, and then Eleanor would read the work quietly, her fingernail tapping the paper, her lips pursed, her brow furrowed. “She’s the best editor I ever met,” he said one afternoon. “She won’t let me get away with anything.” Eleanor had high standards, at least so far as literature was concerned. Her father had inherited a love of literature from his own father, as well as a gigantic wad of money, and Eleanor was keeping up the tradition. Her father had met James Joyce and had a signed copy of Ulysses.

  “Oh, what’s his writing like?” Jaime asked. “Drunken scrawl?”

  “I’ve never seen it,” Torry said with an ironic smile. “I’ve never been in their house.”

  She’d been sexually fascinated, right up to the instant it became obvious he needed her more than she needed him. “What a bitch I am,” she thought often. Now it was his hunger for her that drove the relationship, and now he spoke freely of Eleanor. Who’d gone to Radcliffe, which was practically Harvard, spoke French and Italian, and had at one time been quite good-looking, or so Jaime had heard. Looking at her picture in the Chronicle Jaime would have guessed she was at least fifty, but these women often had facelifts and tucks and touch-ups, so you couldn’t really tell their age. Until one day they quietly collapse into a pile of dust. That she must have been years older than Torry gave Jaime some satisfaction, though not much. Eleanor wasn’t her rival, she reminded herself. Jaime simply had to consider herself the mistress of the kept man of the rich lady whose husband was a queen. At last I am part of society, she told herself.

  Society wasn’t getting her anyplace. She wrote nothing that lasted more than a page and a half, then to be torn up in anger or slipped into the wastebasket with a sigh. Torry’s work, if you could call it that, consisted these days of getting up in the morning, drinking cup after cup of coffee, then falling into a gloom. He brightened only when he saw Jaime, who was beginning to feel like the Salvation Army. Then one day he didn’t show up.

  Jaime wasn’t permitted to call, in case you-know-who was there. She had always to wait for him to call and apologize, beg her to see him. Not this time. Jaime finally learned from the Chronicle that Torvald Hetter was in Cannes for the film festival. In the same day’s society column she read that
Mr. and Mrs. E. Stanton Plinckerd were in Cannes for the film festival. Little surprise there. But she hadn’t expected to feel so bad. She spent about three days in a deep depression until, standing at the refrigerator opening a container of kefir, her story about Mary Bergendaal flooded back into her, and the pain slowly went away. Mary was a lot more interesting than Torry anyway. At least Mary didn’t whine.

  Jaime half-expected to see Torry at Enrico’s this particular Friday. The Cannes festival was over. Torry didn’t hang out at Enrico’s but he knew Jaime made a religion of Fridays, and would calculate this as a good public place to run into her. Jaime dreaded it, but she’d hardly forego her lunch with friends just because that weakling coward sniveling hungry-looking wretch might appear to beg her forgiveness. She was right, intuition had served her well. Torry sat at the bar, over by the cigarette machine, looking through the glass at the people seated outside. The place was crowded, the day sunny, and Jaime almost walked right past Charlie, who sat at an outside table grinning and squinting up at her.

  “Hi, baby,” he said.

  85.

  “Just a sec,” Jaime said, her mind suddenly empty. “I’ll get a drink at the bar and be right back.” Charlie was sitting with people she didn’t even look at. She walked into the bar and faced Torry. She meant to say hello and sit down, but instead said, “Where the hell have you been?” and all but put her hands on her hips like an angry housewife. Torry looked mildly shocked. People sat near, obviously listening. Bob the bartender leaned over the bar, listening. “I’ll have a kir,” she said to Bob.

  “I had a sudden emergency,” Torry said with his crooked smile. He’d try to use irony to get out of it. The truth was, his pretense of being in love with her, being obsessed with her, was in ruins over a free trip to Cannes. “You little whore,” she couldn’t keep from saying. Maybe Charlie gave her the courage, who knew? Torry’s face went out of control for a moment, but only a moment. Then he managed a smile.