Almost Paradise

by Susan Isaacs

  She glanced down at herself. Her dress was limp with sweat. Her milk had leaked and a dark splotch appeared. Even though the baby was peacefully asleep, Jane wanted to get up, go home, and sit in front of the electric fan, but she was too enervated to stand.

  At least Nicholas was no longer driving a taxi. With some of the money Philip Gray had given them, they’d taken a rent controlled apartment on East Ninety-second Street between Madison and Park Avenues. It had been called a two-bedroom, although the baby’s room was little more than an ambitious alcove. The building itself had a depressed, musty air, as though aware it would never be a good New York address. (Less than ten years later, the neighborhood would become more modish, but the building, long resigned to being unfashionable, never lost its gloomy atmosphere.)

  For the last five months, Nicholas actually had been making a living as an actor. He’d been in two Off Broadway plays, one of which closed two nights after it opened. The other, in which he played a young Irish priest, had run two months. He’d appeared in a television commercial for an antacid: he and another actor spent a day cantering over a landfill in Brooklyn wearing chaps and cowboy hats. Again and again they’d reined in their horses. Nicholas had tossed a roll of antacids to the other actor and the actor had drawled, “Soothz? Much obliged.”

  It wasn’t a great living. They still had no bedroom furniture other than their mattress and frame. They had no money for new clothes or for a couch or to go to a restaurant. But the rent was paid and they could afford to go to the movies. Nicholas had bought medical and life insurance. And when she’d come home from the hospital he presented her with a radio and a twenty-dollar gift certificate at a bookstore. “I don’t want you to be bored,” he said.

  “I won’t be,” she’d assured him, smiling, watching him rock Victoria in his arms.

  She wasn’t bored. But just the day before, as she folded the baby’s laundry, the tiny flowered nighties and the miniature pinafores, she’d been thinking about Nicholas’s upcoming audition for a Broadway play. The part was an army captain from Alabama, and he’d gone to the Forty-second Street Library to listen to records of southern writers reading from their work, just to immerse himself in their accents. She imagined him sitting there, eyes closed in concentration, hands holding the earphones close to his head. She’d picked up a shirt, smoothed it—and stood stock still. The shirt fell to the floor. She’d picked it up, folded it swiftly, but the realization was too powerful to put aside.

  She would never be an actress. Not ever. Now, sitting in the park, the knowledge was still as fresh and shattering as the day before. Jane felt dizzy. She leaned forward, rested her elbows on her legs, and lowered her head into her hands. All along she’d put it off. It was she who’d done it. She’d given up her apprenticeship at Westport to be with Nicholas and gladly worked in the Guilderland publicity office. She’d insisted on working at Deb, insisted that Nicholas take acting lessons, that he not burden his first crucial months in New York driving taxis or waiting tables. Once she became pregnant, he’d been determined to stop the acting lessons and go back to driving a taxi and she’d been angry. She’d counseled him: focus on your career; audition for everything; pound the pavement; talk to actors, to stage managers, to ticket takers, anyone with theater connections.

  Well, he drove the taxi, but he’d succeeded anyway. He was earning a living as an actor, as she’d always known he would.

  And she’d lost her chance without knowing it. She’d given up the dream, tossed aside without thinking the goal that had motivated her whole life—to follow in her mother’s footsteps, to act. Nicholas knew what she had done, though. He’d never actually brought it up—what was there to discuss?—but as she thought about it, she knew he’d realized it from the moment the results of the pregnancy test came back. He’d stopped pointing out auditions for actresses in Backstage. When they saw a movie or a play, he no longer whispered that some actress had taken her part. There were no more parts for her. She had only two roles: mother, wife.

  She couldn’t take this weather. Cincinnati could be hot and humid, but it could be borne. Nothing matched the oppressiveness of a Manhattan summer. It was unnatural. Against nature. The buildings were giant fingers grasping and holding the heat instead of letting it rise as it was supposed to. Putrid vapors rose from the sewers.

  Her whole head ached. Not a regular headache: her brain felt as though it were pushing against her entire skull. She pressed her hands tight against her head. It was too hot. She put her hands on the handle of the carriage and lifted herself up. She was dizzier than before. Much. Then her heart began smashing hard against her chest. Not boom, boom, in rhythm, but boom, boom…boom…boomboom…. It was so strong and it wouldn’t stop. It must be an attack. The dizziness was so bad she was afraid she’d fall over and bring the carriage crashing sideways. She swayed and let go of the handle. She was going to fall. She squatted on the pavement to keep from cracking her head on the cement. She put her weight on her palms and stayed down on her haunches, so dizzy she couldn’t distinguish the sky from the ground. Her heartbeat grew more insistent, battering against her neck as well as her chest. She whimpered with fear and humiliation. The nannies must be watching her. Talking about her. She needed help. If she fainted, would a policeman take the baby, would a stranger pass and see a carriage unattended and walk off with it, would it take so long to be found that the baby would die of the heat? Her legs gave out. Her dress billowed and she fell backward, flat on her behind. Something scraped the back of her leg. It was a sickening stab of pain. She felt under her thigh. When she brought her hand up, it had a thick smear of blood.

  One of the nannies was walking over. Jane reached out, clutched the bench, and pulled herself up. What could she say? She grabbed the carriage and, as the dizziness subsided for an instant, she ran, away from the nanny, out to the path, out of the park. Her bleeding thigh stiffened, then slowed her down. When she reached Fifth Avenue, she was gasping for breath. People were turning to look at her. There must be blood on the back of her dress. She made herself breathe slower.

  Her heart still pounded, but not quite so hard. Her head. She put her hand on top of her skull. It was just throbbing now, a dull throb against her sore head.

  Slowly, afraid the attack would begin again, she limped back to the apartment. Inside, she left the baby in her carriage, opened all the windows, switched on the fan, and took off her dress. It was soaked with sweat. A broad red line streaked the back of the skirt. Everyone along Fifth Avenue must have thought she had her period. Her underwear felt horrible, clammy. She took off her bra and eased off her pants. They too were drenched.

  She lay down on her stomach and shut her eyes. Just then, the baby began to whimper. Almost immediately the cry grew to a screeching demand. Jane got up and limped to the carriage. Seconds later, she was sitting naked on the edge of a kitchen chair on a wad of paper towels, shivering, nursing Victoria. Her thigh hurt so much she felt nauseated. She did not hear Nicholas come into the apartment. She looked up and there he was, staring at her nakedness. “Fantastic,” he said.

  There were only two things wrong with being in Goodbye Cousin Willy. One was that he’d had to get a crew cut. The other was that it was a boring play.

  Actually, the crew cut wasn’t that bad, even though he was startled in the morning when he looked in the mirror; it was like shaving a stranger. Jane kept bursting into laughter every time she looked at him, even after he’d told her to cut it out. They’d gone for dinner at his mother’s the night before he was to leave for out-of-town tryouts. Winifred had patted the tiny spikes of hair and declared she thought it made him look very young and sweet. Earlier that evening he’d met his father for a drink and James had said, “Oh, Christ,” and shaken his head.

  Goodbye Cousin Willy was another matter. It was like every third play on Broadway: a family gathers from near and far for some reason—in this case, the funeral of a young alcoholic poet. They dissect the past, fireworks follow, and, in the
end, ugly or ennobling truths emerge.

  His role wasn’t big, but it was crucial. He played Bryce Thompson, a career army officer who was the same age as his cousin Willy and who, it came out, had so taunted Willy about being a sissy that Willy hadn’t had the courage to declare his love to another cousin, Jenny-Sue Rawls, the one girl who might have saved him from his demons. Bryce was a bully who, naturally, had doubts about his own manhood. The part was no challenge. Nicholas modeled it on the lacrosse coach at Trowbridge, a bitter man who resented his students because of their privileged backgrounds, calling them rich sons of bitches; who routinely terrorized any boy who allowed an injury to slow him down. He added a southern accent to the coach’s sneering manner. He copied the way the coach moved in too close to the person he was talking to, forcing the person to keep backing up.

  “You’re a grand Bryce,” the show’s star confided in him after their opening in Philadelphia. They’d run into each other the following morning in the coffee shop of their hotel, and she’d asked him to join her for breakfast. Beatrice Drew, whom Nicholas had admired long before he’d ever thought of being an actor, played Willy’s mother.

  “Thank you.”

  “Really, I could feel your rage under that military bearing.” Beatrice was a big woman and a huge eater. She nearly inhaled all the rolls in the wicker basket on the table and even ate the parsley sprig that garnished her Spanish omelet. “Very, very fine.” She seemed excited about the play, as did everyone else. Her character’s big secret was that she wasn’t the sweet, faithful southern homebody she appeared. Beneath her apron beat a wanton heart. In fact, it emerged that Willy was not her husband’s son; he was the result of an affair with her brother-in-law, Bryce’s father. Big deal, Nicholas had thought. “It’s relatively easy to become enraged,” Beatrice continued. “Seething silently is quite another matter. You’re a splendid seether. Do you normally seethe a great deal?”

  “No,” he said. He wasn’t sure if she was trying to be funny or just making conversation or if she was flirting with him. He was astounded how many women could look straight at his wedding ring and without batting an eyelash start trying to play games. In fact, Beatrice Drew was at that moment eyeing his wedding ring.

  “Will your wife be coming down here?” she asked.

  “No. We have a two-month-old baby.”

  “How marvelous!” He couldn’t tell if she thought it was marvelous or not. Like many theater people he’d met, she had a great deal of charm but no distinct personality. “Boy or girl?”

  “A girl. Her name’s Victoria.”

  “A lovely name. I must say, though, you look very young yourself. May I ask how old you are?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “My goodness! You are a baby. Well, you’re certainly going places fast. Twenty-two and heading for Broadway.”

  “I’ve been lucky.”

  “Yes. And you’ve been good. Are you going to finish that toast? Thank you. Now listen to me. My mother had a saying: cream rises to the top. It’s really true. You’re a good actor and you’ve got marvelous looks and a lovely manner. People like you and that’s ninety-five percent of it. A producer will say, Well, let’s see, clean-cut, can play eighteen and age to forty…I’ve got it! That nice Nicholas Cobleigh. A real pro. No tantrums. Takes direction. Talented, of course.”

  “Thank you. Would you like some more coffee?”

  “Please.” Nicholas signaled the waitress. “Let me tell you something, Nicholas. Many actors who succeed over the long run would have succeeded in any other field: journalism, dentistry, what have you. Why? Because they have good judgment. Good judgment about their roles, good judgment about curbing their own egos when it’s in their best interests, good judgment about who represents them. I’ve been acting for thirty years, and except for the first two years when I sold stockings at Macy’s, I’ve always made a living at it. Do you know why?”

  “You’re a great actress.” The waitress who was refilling their coffee cups stared at Beatrice, then visibly shrugged and walked off.

  “I’m a very good actress and I’m smart as well. I don’t think I’ve ever made an enemy. Well, aroused a little animosity, perhaps, but nothing that’s lasted longer than the run of the play. I have a good agent. And I know a good play when I read one.”

  “Do you think this is a good play?” Nicholas asked.

  “Do you? Oh, please. I’m not trying to trap you. I promise it will be our secret.”

  “I don’t know. It’s…”

  “It’s what?”

  “It’s boring. It’s like a hundred other plays.”

  “Like a hundred other plays you’ve seen, Nicholas. It’s the sort of thing that will play for one and a half nice, pleasant seasons. It has enough histrionics and southern gothic lust that everyone feels they’re getting their money’s worth. I happen to agree with you. It isn’t a very good play. But it isn’t a bad play either. And it’s exposure. And it’s a living. There is Victoria to think about. And your wife. What is her name?”

  “Jane.”

  “Well, tell Jane that I said she’s a lucky girl. When we get to New York—oh, who’s your agent?”

  “I don’t have one yet. A couple of them have introduced themselves and called me a few times, but I’m not exactly sure how to go about it, how to judge whether someone’s right for me.”

  “When we get to New York, I want you to meet Murray King. He’s my agent.”

  “Of course, I’ve heard of him. Thank you. I really don’t know what to say, Beatrice.”

  “You needn’t say anything at all, Nicholas. Save it all for Murray.”

  Murray King told his secretary to hold his calls, but every time the telephone whirred in the anteroom beyond the closed door of his office his torso twitched, as if each unanswered call were a mild electric shock. Still, he seemed to be concentrating. “For a little more than a year, not bad,” he said. As his finger drifted down the page of Nicholas’s résumé, he mumbled the name of each credit: “Mmm. Last Will, uh-huh; Stu—” He peered over the glasses that rested halfway down his nose. “They give a play a name like Stupor, and then they act surprised when the critics use it to beat them over the head with. How long did it run?”

  “Two days,” Nicholas responded. He sat in a matching chair to Murray’s. The office was disconcerting because it had no desk. It looked like the living room of a shut-in who did a lot of reading. Floor-to-ceiling shelves were so crammed with rubber-banded piles of papers, bound plays, and books that if they tipped over—which they looked on the brink of doing—the authorities could sift for days before recovering the bodies. Wooden venetian blinds were drawn to defeat the most determined ray of sunlight. The grapes in the bowl beside the two telephones on the table near Murray’s right hand were either very dusty or waxed.

  Murray himself looked a little waxed. He reminded Nicholas of the tailors in Brooks Brothers, men with chalky fingers who wore tape measures dangling around their necks like unknotted ties, permanently hunched from marking cuffs on boys’ trousers. He looked neither happy nor sad. Nicholas wished he could say something to cheer him. He couldn’t think of anything, but when Murray glanced up from the résumé, Nicholas smiled at him. Murray looked a little surprised and responded with a fast, furtive smile, as if committing a misdemeanor. “Beatrice said you were a very nice person,” he muttered.

  “Thank you.”

  Murray studied the résumé again. His finger moved slowly, as if it had a tiny eye that was reading each word. “Soothz?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Nicholas said. His instinct was to feel sorry for this man, to pat him on the shoulder and tell him things would be better soon. He had to make a conscious effort to remember Murray King was one of the most successful, respected theatrical agents in New York. Nevertheless, Nicholas thought, he wished he could do something nice for him, take him for a long walk in the country. “I didn’t hear you.”

  “I mumble. They all say I sometimes mumble. But
not on the phone. On the phone I have my best moments. Soothz. Which one?”

  “The Western one. We shot it in Brooklyn. We rode up to the camera and I tossed a roll to the other actor.”

  “You ride horses?”

  “Yes.”

  “How good?” Murray had an old man’s complexion; all the color in his skin had exuded. Still, Nicholas thought he couldn’t be much older than his father. “Brilliant? Lousy?”

  “All right. No tricky stuff.”

  “I’m not talking standing on your head. I’m talking English country gentleman. With the boots. Over bushes.”

  “I’m out of practice, but I probably could do it.”

  “Because I got an aftershave commercial at J. Walter Thompson. They’re casting next something—Monday, Tuesday, someplace in Westchester. They want to see everyone on a horse first. You interested?” Nicholas nodded. He didn’t know what to say. “What else do you do?” Murray asked.

  “I don’t sing or dance.”

  “It’s all right. The whole world took tap lessons. You’ll live without it. You fence?”

  “No. But I’m a decent athlete. I can—”

  “You got muscles?”

  “Not like a bodybuilder.”

  “They want Hercules, they’ll call his agent. Listen, you want the horse thing? My girl—her name is Toni—she’ll give you a piece of paper where to go.” Murray put his hands on the arms of his chair and pushed himself up with the slowness of a man arthritic or charley-horsed. “Let me know how it turns out.”

  Nicholas stood. Although he and Jane had rehearsed a series of proper, businesslike questions, he was disconcerted by Murray’s casualness. “Is there any sort of a contract you want me—” He broke off, embarrassed, worried he’d violated one of the theater’s elementary decencies.

  “Oh, right. No, no. It’s a good thing you said something, otherwise I’d have to go chasing after you to the elevator. No contract. Strictly handshake. I get ten percent of what you get. When I hear about something that sounds good, I’ll call you. Relax. Look, I’ve seen Cousin Willy—what, three, four times? I know you’re not just some pretty face. A good play comes up, you don’t think I’ll call you?”