"Nu?" his father said nodding. "Nu, Barelah. It's been a long time. Yes?"
"Yeah, Dad. A long time."
He looked into his father's eyes. Maybe if he kept looking into his father's eyes he wouldn't have to look at his mother. Tubes. Intravenous. Catheter.
"You're a handsome guy," his father said with a smile. Was that pride in his eyes? "Rich, too, no?" he asked smiling and nodding. How do you answer that question?
"I'm doing okay, Dad," Barry said, realizing that he was nodding too. "I can't complain."
What was going on here? Small talk with his father whom he hadn't seen in twelve years, in a room where his mother was lying in a coma. The same room where she'd thrown herself across her bed all those years ago and informed Barry that his father was too ashamed to even be in the same house with him. The impulse to turn and run out the door and down the steps to the waiting car was overwhelming.
"Talk to your mother," his father said.
Oh no. Now he would leave. This was too much.
"Don't be afraid," his father said, giving him a shove in the direction of the bed. "She understands everything."
Barry glanced quickly at Aunt Eleanor, who gave him a shrug that said, No she doesn't understand at all, but as long as your father thinks she does, we humor him.
"Go ahead," his father said, nudging again.
Barry took a few steps toward the bed. He didn't want to get any closer.
"Sweetheart," his father said loudly to his mother's inert body, as if to a deaf person. "It's our Barelah. He looks very handsome. And he came home just to see you.
His father gave him another little nudge. Barry stood looking at his mother for a long time. He remembered how vain she was. If she could speak now, she'd probably say, God, I look like hell, don't I? After a while he realized his father and Eleanor had left the room and he was alone there with her. And those tubes. Maybe she understood.
"Mah," his voice cracked. He swallowed and tried again. "Mah," it was almost a whisper this time. She would never hear that, if she was hearing at all. Louder. "Mah, Dad says you can hear me . . . and understand me, too. Aunt Eleanor says no. So, I figure I'll tell you what I have to tell you, and if you can hear me and understand, that'll be good. And if you can't, it couldn't hurt. Remember that joke, Mah? About giving the guy the enema? And the punchline was 'It couldn't hurt?' Remember? Mah? It was one of your favorite jokes."
He took a step closer to the bed.
"Mah." He couldn't believe that was her—so lifeless. So silent.
"Mah, I'm gonna pretend that you can hear me, because I need you to hear me. I need you to hear what I have to tell you and maybe telling you will make me feel better about myself, and I need to feel better about myself, because every day I still look in the mirror and you know who I see? I see Barry Golden, the boy whose mother threw him out of her house and wouldn't take him back. And that's all I'm ever going to be, Mah, unless you let me know that you wish you hadn't done it. That you're sorry. That sometimes late at night you sat and looked at the articles about me in Newsweek and you kvelled, and thought to yourself proudly, that's my son, that's my joy, that's my little jewel.
"Remember why you started calling me your little jewel? Right after you told me the story about the little jewel in the turban of the sultan that made the sultan smile every day, you called me your little jewel because you said I made you smile every day. And remember, Barelah Schmarelah pudding and pie, Mah? You called me that too. Like Georgie Pordgie. Barelah Schmarelah pudding and pie, kissed the girls and made them cry. It ran through my head, that poem. All my life. Because I didn't want to kiss the girls, Mah. And that made you cry. But you didn't know why you were crying, and why was because you were afraid if I was a homosexual I was doomed to live some sleazy, back-door existence for the rest of my life. Right, Mah? And you didn't want that for me because I was your only child. Your little jewel. Right?
"So, Mah, because I know how you felt, that's why it's important to me that you know that my life has never ever been sleazy or back-door. Not since I left New York.
"I've had two really good relationships. Which is more than most people can say about their whole lives. And one of them with a woman, Mah. Honest to God. Not just a woman, but a star, too. Beau Daniels. From television. Did you see us together in People magazine? We were at a concert when those pictures were taken. Beau Daniels is in love with me, Mah. She was married once, but she got a divorce, and she—You would like her, actually. I mean, she's not Jewish, but she's a very good person and she—Mah, I—"
The tubes, the intravenous and the catheter, made strange slurping sounds which punctuated Barry's speech.
"Mah, you were kidding that day I left when you told me you'd say kaddish for me. Right? You were kidding, weren't you? I thought about that for a long time after I left. I wondered if someone saying kaddish for you made God think you were dead and then he didn't help you anymore. So I was scared. Isn't that funny?"
Barry moved closer to the bed.
"Maybe I was scared because I was very sick too for a while, Mah, and I had to have surgery, and I was in the hospital, and Beau was with me, and I thought about asking her to call you to tell you I needed you. But I was scared to do that. Isn't that stupid? You would have been there in a minute if you knew how bad it was. Wouldn't you?
"Do you still have those little blue boxes where you put away money for charity? The pushkes? When I was a little boy you gave me a spanking one time, and you felt so guilty you said to me, 'Barelah, I put a dollar in the pushke because I felt so bad that I made you cry.' Well I got news for you, Mah. You owe the pushke ten thousand dollars."
Barry laughed a nervous laugh.
"I cried so many times over the last twelve years. You wouldn't believe it. But I know you cried too. Right? Cried because you were"—Barry took a big breath—"because you were sorry, Mah. Very, very sorry that you threw me out. Right?" He was leaning over the bed.
"Mah, I forgive you. I forgive you and you forgive me. Isn't that right?"
"It's right, Barelah." His father had returned and was standing in the doorway. "She forgives you."
Barry looked at the old man who was like a stranger to him, and then back at his mother on the bed, and he walked to his father's side. The two men embraced. The old man felt like a skeleton to Barry and it was strange when he realized that this was the first time he could remember his father holding him in his arms.
Eleanor stood in the doorway looking on. Barry let go of his father and walked toward the bed slowly. Then he reached out and lightly touched his mother's hand. The one with the intravenous.
"I'm leaving, Mah. I have to go now. But I'm glad I came and maybe I'll come back tomorrow," he said. "Okay?" he asked a little louder, as though he hoped she would suddenly turn to him and beg him to stay.
By the time Barry walked out of the room and closed the door behind him, Eleanor and his father and the black nurse were in the kitchen having tea. Barry felt weak. Like sitting down in the kitchen, the old family kitchen and never moving again. Barry walked to the kitchen and looked at his father.
"Who's paying for Mother's care?" he asked the old man.
His father didn't answer.
"I am," Eleanor said.
"From now on, I am," Barry said.
"It's only the nurses, and an occasional visit from the doctor," Eleanor said. "They can't operate. It's just a matter of time."
"From now on I'll send you money every month, Dad." His father began nodding again.
"How 'bout dropping me with your fancy limousine at Eldor?" Eleanor asked.
Eldor. "Sure," Barry said. Another spindly embrace from his father.
The ride to the garment district was long. Aunt Eleanor told Barry about the two men she was dating. One was a widower who was "fabulously wealthy," and another was a man who lived in her building who had never married, a very fine gentleman, retired from the banking business. Probably gay, Barry thought to himself.
&
nbsp; "Want to come up?" Eleanor asked him as the driver pulled up at the curb in front of the building.
"No."
"I use Mashe's office," she said. "I redecorated it. But I'm just a figurehead. You know. I'm the president. But the vice-president runs the whole thing. Andy May is still with us." Barry could tell Eleanor was looking at his face carefully to see how he would react to that. In fact, he was curious about Andy May. But no.
"Come up," she coaxed.
"All right."
The reception area of Eldor looked the same. Except now the girls who answered the phones had frizzy perms and long red fingernails. They waved to Eleanor as she passed, and eyed Barry. Barry and Eleanor walked down the hall and into Eleanor's office, formerly Mashe's office, where Barry had stood all those years ago, telling Mashe he was going to California. Wondering often after that, what made him say it. Eleanor, or the decorator, had totally changed the office. There was an orange paisley sofa and orange velvet chairs. A burlwood table instead of a desk. It looked like Eleanor's living room. Only the portrait of Eugene in his tallis and yarmulke was left from the days of Mashe.
"Andy May is still here," she said to Barry again as she sat on the orange paisley sofa.
"That's the second time you've told me that, Aunt Eleanor," Barry said.
"I just thought you'd want to say hello to him."
Andy May. Andy May would be in his forties now. Forties. Yes, Barry was curious.
"No," he said. "I don't."
"You want some coffee?" Eleanor asked.
"Nothing, thanks. Eleanor. I'd like to reimburse you for the money you've spent on my mother since her illness," he said.
"Oh, no," Eleanor said.
"Yes, Aunt Eleanor."
"Barry. Please."
"I insist."
It was as if they were arguing over a check at Ma Maison.
"How much would it be?" he asked.
"Twelve thousand three hundred and fifty dollars."
She knew exactly.
"I'll have my business people send you a check as soon as I get back to California," he said. "And I'd be grateful if you'd see that my father is comfortable."
"Of course," she said.
He stood.
"I'd better go and leave you to whatever it is you have to do here," he said.
"Barry, Mashe was very fond of you, you know," Eleanor said. "After you moved away, he was sorry. He even cried a few times about what he'd realized he'd done to you. And to your parents."
Barry was tired. He wanted to be home. At the beach. Instead of here in this strange place. Eldor.
"I cried about it, too, Aunt Eleanor," he said. "I'll be in touch."
Eleanor didn't get up from where she was sitting, next to the burlwood table. Barry walked out of her office and closed the door. He stood for a moment trying to decide. If he turned right he would be heading for the receptionists' area and the elevator. If he turned left he could walk down to where the designers' offices were. Andy May. Forty. Barry headed for the elevator.
"I want you to wait for me," he told the driver as he got into the car. "I'm going to check out of the hotel as soon as I get back there and then you can take me to the airport."
"Yes, sir," the limousine driver said. He was glad the little guy was leaving New York. It meant he wouldn't have to spend any more dull days sitting parked on the same street in Brooklyn.
It cost Barry sixty dollars to get the Corniche out of the airport parking lot at the Los Angeles Airport. Even to him that seemed expensive. As he drove down the freeway toward the Coast Highway, he wondered again about what he would say to Beau. There wasn't a cliché for this in old movies. I love you, baby, but a man like me can't be tied down. Or, I'm no good for you, sweetheart, I have to be free. That was all bullshit. The truth was he did love her, and he did want to be tied down, but eventually, if they stayed together, she would hate him.
It had been raining in New York when Barry walked out of the Sherry Netherland with his bags to get into the car. And he looked at the chic New Yorkers scurrying past in their London Fog raincoats trying to hail taxis. And he thought to himself, at that moment, how much he liked it there, and how maybe he would move there, and start a new life. He could run Athena from New York. Why not? But now, on the Coast Highway again, seeing the Pacific Ocean, which was his back yard in the Malibu Colony, he knew he couldn't leave. The guard waved him past and he turned the corner and pulled into the open garage of his house. He'd leave the bags until later.
The front door was unlocked. Beau must be at home. "Beau?" Nothing.
He looked out at the beach. There. She was sitting alone, in a lotus position on a towel, facing the ocean. After about a minute, as though she felt his look on her back, she turned. When she saw him she jumped to her feet and ran. God, she was beautiful. In a tank top and bikini bottoms, running toward him with her arms outstretched, grinning.
Beau threw her arms around him and they held each other very tightly.
"Barry, honey."
"Beau."
"I love you."
"I love you."
She kissed him and then moved away to look at him happily, and then grabbed him and kissed him again, and then stepped back again to look, as if to make sure it was really him.
"Well," she asked finally. "What did you do?"
"I missed you," he answered.
"Besides that."
"Isn't that enough?"
"Yes."
She embraced him again. "Barry," she said. "I made an offer on a house. In Beverly Hills. Escrow closes next week. I'm going to move in there, and Connie will move in with me until I feel comfortable about being alone. Maybe she'll even stay there through the summer. It's got a pool and a jacuzzi and it's cute. You'll visit us." He couldn't see her face. He was afraid to see it.
"I don't want to visit you," he said.
He felt her stiffen.
"Beau." He held her arms and moved her away from him, still holding on so he could look at her. Beau Daniels. The Beau Daniels nobody ever saw. Afraid. Trying to be tough, but afraid.
"Why not?" she asked sadly.
"Because I want to marry you."
Her face relaxed and then she smiled.
"Yeah?" she asked.
"I don't know what will happen, and if it makes either one of us unhappy or crazy, we'll end it. But I love you. So call the real estate broker and call Connie and tell them you've had buyer's remorse, and you don't want any house in Beverly Hills. Okay?"
"I'll do it now," she said, starting for the phone.
"Wait, Beau," Barry said, looking after her. "Not yet. There's one more thing I really want to do now."
"What is it?" Beau asked. But she was already grinning because she saw a familiar look in Barry's eyes.
"I want to fuck your brains out."
Slowly and seductively Beau pulled, the tank top over her head, and Barry unbuttoned his shirt and took it off as he followed her upstairs. He was hard. He wanted her. Wanted that lean perfect body. When they got to the bedroom Barry looked out at the ocean as Beau undid his belt and unzipped his trousers and then he hugged her gently with one hand and tugged at her bikini bottoms with the other. And soon they were naked and rocking and floating in one another's arms, kissing and touching and speechless with the ecstasy of making love to the person each of them loved most of all.
forty-four
STAN ROSE PRESENTS. Even now, when Stan looked at his own ads in the paper, it felt strange to see his name above the name of the rock stars. He and Barton had discussed the idea years ago, before they had the sign painted on the door that said ROSE AND BARTON CONCERTS. Stan suggested they call the company by a company name.
"Like West Coast Concerts, or Far West Concerts," he said. "Or how about a drug reference? Far Out Concerts."
Barton didn't laugh.
"If you don't put your name on the company, Stanley, you're nowhere. Look at Bill Graham and Wolf and Rismiller. Those guys are known. You wanta
be known, Stanley?"
Stan wasn't sure. He knew he wanted success. But he wondered if he wouldn't feel more comfortable as a quiet and anonymous success, rather than a public one. Maybe those things were synonymous. Success and public. So many times he still felt like the shy boy whose favorite pastime was watching television, or sitting alone reading the collection of weekly news magazines that come in the mail.
He sold the Benedict Canyon house one week after Jerri moved out, and moved into a subleased furnished apartment in the Sierra Towers on Sunset. He had loved that house, but the feeling of Jerri was all over it, and after she left and he found out that Barry Golden was going to recover, Stan did nothing but walk from room to room, thinking about life and relationships, and trying to figure out how he could have been so foolish about Jerri.
This room will be for our baby, she'd said about the sunny front bedroom the day they moved in. It's so bright and pretty. And he remembered wondering, when she said that, if she had ever talked about wanting babies when she was with Nick Jonas, or when she was with Bob Frank. Or was it that she realized that wanting a family was Stan's particular weakness? What he sometimes jokingly told her was his "barbecue fantasy." To have a Kennedyesque family where everyone related well to each other. And adored each other. No. It was just an act. Yes, the house was much too much Jerri.
The real estate broker was thrilled to get Stan's call offering her the listing. She wouldn't even have to advertise, she said. She already had a client she was sure would want the place.
Stan sat in the poolhouse and read while the broker showed her clients around his house. Ironically, the broker's clients were a perfect family. Dr. and Mrs. Lawrence Burns. Tan, smiling, slim and affluent. And they had two children. A girl and a boy. While the grown-ups looked at the house, the children chased one another around the tennis court.
Lawrence please-call-me-Larry Burns made an offer on the place immediately, because if he didn't, the broker assured him, by next weekend it would just be gobbled up. Stan was asking a million two for the place. Burns offered him a million. Stan accepted the offer. What was two hundred thousand dollars? Particularly in the face of having to stay longer in this memory-filled place.
The Boys in the Mail Room: A Novel Page 37