by Robyn Sisman
Mystery surrounds the abrupt departure from Schneider Fox of blue-eyed boy Lloyd Rockwell, halfway through his four-week stint in the UK. MD Harry Fox is keeping schtumm, but one internal communication seen by Admag referred to an “unacceptable breach of client confidentiality.” Rockwell, currently in London as part of SF’s transatlantic exchange program, has been unavailable for comment. It is not known whether he will be seeking another post in the industry.
Rockwell had been tipped as a possible successor to SF’s aging New York boss, the legendary Bernie Schneider. Rockwell’s US colleagues confess themselves “shocked” by his unspecified transgression. Rockwell was recognized as one of the top copywriters in the business and had been responsible for many of the agency’s most innovative campaigns, in particular those for Passion Airlines. His unexpected departure follows hard upon that of Passion’s UK minder, Julian Jewel, who quit to join Sturm Drang only three weeks ago. Speculation now inevitably surrounds the future of the Passion account. If Passion dumps SF, Sturm Drang would seem an obvious alternative.
Meanwhile, a persistent rumor links SF with Passion’s chief rival, Stateside Airlines. Yesterday Harry Fox dismissed such speculation as “Total balls. We would never contemplate taking on two such directly competing accounts.”
Perhaps not . . . but if Passion were to quit the agency, the way would be clear for SF to pitch for Stateside. Expect more musical chairs as rivalry for the lucrative transatlantic trade hots up . . .
Lloyd found he was trembling. He slapped the magazine shut. I didn’t do it! he wanted to shout—perhaps had shouted. Certainly the uniformed assistant was eyeing him suspiciously from behind her cash register. He took the magazine over and paid for it. When she gave him his change he fumbled the handover. Coins spilled from his hand and went spinning and bouncing in all directions. Lloyd retrieved them from the floor, crouching like a beggar. His humiliation was now complete.
When he got home he found Betsy engrossed in tourist leaflets: the Wordsworth Experience, Tartan Heritage Trail, Braveheart Country. He showed her the Admag article.
“Oh, no . . .” She paled. “How could they do this? I told them we didn’t want any publicity.”
“Told them?” Lloyd was stunned. “You mean, they called up? Here? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought you’d be upset. I was trying to be tactful.”
Lloyd was too angry to speak. He did not need protecting: he was not a child. He stomped into the kitchen and put away the groceries, banging cupboard doors. In a fever of self-pity he wiped down the kitchen counters, emptied the garbage, replaced the plastic liner and cleaned the stove. If he was to be a domestic drudge, he might as well act like one. Finally, when he’d run out of excuses for further procrastination, he picked up the telephone and dialed.
“Hello?” said a muffled voice.
She sounded as if she were still in bed. Lloyd checked his watch, wondering if he’d got the times mixed up, but no—it was eleven in the morning in New York. She couldn’t be asleep. Of course, there were other things people could do in bed.
“Susannah? I’m sorry to disturb you. Am I calling at a bad time?”
“Oh, it’s you.” Her voice was flat, unwelcoming. So she too believed he was a crook.
“Look, I’m sure this conversation is as awkward for you as it is for me. I guess you heard I lost my job . . .”
“Yeah.” She sounded barely interested. Maybe she had the flu.
“. . . and I thought we should discuss the apartments.”
“OK.”
“OK what?”
“OK, let’s discuss them. You want to come back tomorrow? Fine. You want to stay another ten years? Fine.” Her voice faltered. “I really couldn’t care less.”
Lloyd was taken aback. Had he upset her? While he searched for the right response, he heard an unmistakable sound. She was crying.
“Susannah . . . are you all right?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” She sounded desperately sad.
“Is it anything you want to talk about?”
There was a loud sniff. “I just split up with my boyfriend, that’s all.”
“Do you want me to hang up?”
“No, it’s just normal. My life’s always in a mess.”
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t—” He hesitated. “Not . . . Mr. Hollandaise Sauce?”
“Don’t!” He heard a ragged sob, followed by more sniffing.
“Are you in bed?” he asked.
“Yes. Why?”
“Bedside table. Second drawer. Kleenex.”
He heard a fumble. “Thanks.” Then she said, more robustly, “It wasn’t my cooking, at any rate. He didn’t even turn up for dinner, the rat.”
Lloyd smiled at this flash of bravado. “There you go. Rats aren’t worth crying over.”
“I’m crying for myself. I’m so stupid.” There was a wavery sigh. “I think I’ll give up men.” She blew her nose somewhat fiercely, then added, “Sorry about this. It doesn’t matter.”
“Susannah, of course it matters. I wish I could make you feel better.”
“There is one thing you could do to cheer me up,” she said at last.
“What’s that?”
“Start calling me Suze. The last person to call me Susannah was my headmistress.”
“OK. Listen . . . Suze, if you want to come back right away, I’m sure we can find somewhere else to go.” Lloyd couldn’t believe what he was saying. Betsy had instructed him not to let her come back until next weekend at the earliest.
“I’m not running away,” she answered, with surprising force. “I came here to have fun and I’m bloody well going to.”
“Good for you.” To his surprise, Lloyd found that he was almost enjoying this conversation. For the first time since Tuesday his gloom lifted. “I know what, why don’t I tell you one of my jokes?”
“No, thanks.”
“Let’s see . . . Two guys meet in the hardware store. One says, ‘I gave my mother-in-law a new chair for Christmas.’ ‘Really?’ says the other. ‘How does she like it?’ ‘I don’t know,’ comes the reply. ‘She hasn’t plugged it in yet.’ ” Lloyd heard a watery snort. “See, you laughed.”
“That was sheer pity. It’s a terrible joke.”
“You try, then.”
“I can’t . . . There’s only one joke I can ever remember.”
“That’s the one I want to hear.”
A big sigh. “If you must. Here goes: Where does Caesar keep his armies?”
“You know, I’ve always wondered that. Where does Caesar keep his armies?”
“Up his sleevies!”
Lloyd’s splutter of laughter turned into an unstoppable, childish giggle that brought Betsy into the living room, eyebrows raised in mild inquiry. Seeing that he was still on the telephone, she waggled her fist, miming the gesture of tipping a watering can. Lloyd sobered up. “Betsy’s just come in. She wants to know how her plants are.”
There was a long, guilty silence.
“Excellent!” Lloyd exclaimed, nodding reassuringly at Betsy. “I’ll tell her. Keep up the good work.”
Simultaneously he heard Suze mutter, “It’s not as bad as killing people’s cats.” Touché.
Betsy was hovering, as if she might ask Lloyd to interrogate Suze further on household matters. “I guess I’d better go now,” he said.
“OK.” She sounded surprised. Had he been too brusque?
“And take a tip from me. If you’re feeling down, don’t watch TV and drink, especially at the same time. You’ll want to cut your throat.”
“What do you suggest instead? Rearranging my knickers drawer?”
What a great word “knickers” was, so much more evocative than “underpants” or—Lloyd addressed himself to her question. “Well . . . you like Fred Astaire, don’t you?”
“How do you know that?”
“The picture on your wall—which I love, by the way. Nobody can listen to Astaire and cry at the same t
ime. I’ve got a terrific tape. You’ll find it—”
“Don’t tell me. Popular music, subcategory vocalists, sub-sub category male, under A. It’s taken me three weeks, but I’ve cracked your system.”
“Oh.” She was teasing him. He sort of liked it. “It’s better than piling everything up into a great Leaning Tower of Pisa and waiting for it to fall over,” he retorted.
“The Leaning Tower, may I point out, is still standing. And explain this: why have you got Fats Waller under P?”
“Ah. That’s P for piano.”
She laughed—a real, warm-blooded, spontaneous laugh. Lloyd felt strangely gratified. He could picture exactly where she was, her view of his Stella print above the chest of drawers, how the sun would be beating at the windows in a yellow glare. He caught a distant brash blast of traffic from the street. So far he hadn’t missed New York one iota; now he felt a prickle of nostalgia.
“Sorry I blubbed,” she said.
“ ‘Blubbed’?”
“That’s posh girlspeak for sobbing your heart out. It’s what you do at boarding school when the lacrosse captain snubs you.”
“If you say so.”
“And thanks for the pep talk.”
“Any time. Why don’t you get up now and put on some music, and—?” He stopped. What did women like to do to make themselves feel better? He had an inspiration. “And wash your hair,” he concluded, feeling very clever.
“Ohhhhh . . .” It was a rising howl of anguish.
“What did I say?”
“Nothing. God, I hate men!”
And that was it. She had hung up. Suddenly Lloyd was back in the red living room, alone, with rain rustling out of a gray sky and a dead phone in his hand.
Suze replaced the receiver and collapsed back into her pile of pillows, staring at the white ceiling. She knew it well. She had lain here in the stifling heat like a beached starfish, ever since Bliss Bogardo’s car had dropped her back at the apartment early yesterday morning. Lloyd was right. Now it was time to get up and confront the world. She would begin with herself.
Her legs felt wobbly as she stumbled across the carpet into the bathroom and prepared to stand on tiptoe, as usual, to see into the mirror. Even though she had steeled herself for this moment, Suze was shocked by what she saw. Her eyes were squinty and pink, her skin blotched from hours of crying. But the stomach-churning tragedy was her hair. Instead of tumbling waywardly to her shoulders, it flopped jaggedly to ear level in the worst kind of pudding-basin shape, as if cut by a blind maniac. Her neck was laid pathetically bare, and in the unforgiving light she saw faint lines etched across it. With nothing to distract the eye, her nose looked as big as the Flatiron building. Suze gazed in misery. This was the real her: dull and plain and old.
Abruptly she turned away and sat on the edge of the bath, rocking back and forth, her face in her hands. Nick’s words still screeched through her brain: “bitch,” “fraud,” “Little Miss Siouxie with an X.” Suze ached with humiliation. She had an image of herself tossing her hair like a spoiled child, telling Nick about the Harley-Davidson and Twiggy and smoking joints, and how the things other thirty-year-olds wanted were too boring for her. No wonder he had thought she would go along with all that stuff at the Hamptons. Fresh tears seeped through her fingers. No one had wrecked her life for her. No one had needed to. She had done it herself.
For some reason Lloyd’s voice saying, “Not Mr. Hollandaise Sauce . . .?” in his funny, hesitant way floated into her thoughts, and almost made her smile. She wiped her tears. He had been very nice to her. Mind you, he couldn’t see how ghastly she looked. She wondered what he looked like. Her image of him was confused. There was the boring businessman she had first pictured; but how could Jay have a friend like that? It was obvious he was hopeless at his job, and worse; he had got himself fired, after all. But today he had sounded . . . nice, kind, sympathetic. Suze made a horrible grimace at these saccharine words. Since when had she cared whether a man was “nice”? Next thing she knew she’d be on the flower rota at the village church.
Would Fred Astaire really cheer her up? She could at least give it a try. A little while later she was standing on Webster’s Dictionary in front of the bathroom mirror, a pair of scissors in her hand, while old Fred lilted on about dancing and romancing, which rhymed in American but made you feel silly if you were English and tried to sing along.
Though not as silly as her haircut. Each time she thought she had evened up one bit, she had only to move her head for new strands to appear from nowhere and ruin the effect. At this rate she was going to end up looking like a principal boy. She would have to go out early tomorrow and get it cut properly, before work, pretending it was some divinely divine new style that only she was hip enough to have cottoned on to. As Suze twisted her head to reach one last dangling lock at the back, she lost her balance and fell off the dictionary. Why was that wretched mirror so inconveniently high? Then it occurred to her that this was where Lloyd shaved. He must be very tall.
Suze remembered the box of photographs she had once found at the bottom of one of the cupboards. She had nothing else to do today, and she was curious. It would do no harm to take a peek.
Sitting cross-legged on the bed she removed the lid of the shoe-box with a guilty thrill, promising herself that she would replace it at once if the contents were too personal. Trying not to disturb the order, she started at the bottom, fingering through the photographs, pausing at the ones that looked interesting. The first picture she picked out showed a cool dude in shades, sitting on the outsize hood of a huge American car: not Lloyd, obviously. But the next, a boy of about fifteen, wearing shorts and a singlet with a number on the front, could have been him. He was tall and long-legged, with dark hair curling about his ears and a frank, blue-eyed stare that made him look very American. He was holding a cup and grinning, as if he had just won a race. There were several more of the same boy—some younger, some a little older, one clearly with his parents. The father looked just like the boy, but with a stylish, adult charm. Another showed two much older girls as well—sisters, perhaps. They were an attractive family, all tall, with a glow of American prosperity, photographed on boats, on beaches, at barbecues, often posed in front of the same colonial-style red-brick house. She found one picture of an older Lloyd, looking daft in an academic gown and mortarboard, tassel dangling. Every detail of his pose showed the struggle between pride and self-conscious mortification. Suze smiled, remembering how she had felt when she went to secondary school and her parents insisted on photographing her in her new school uniform.
Suddenly Suze came across a face she recognized. Here was Jay—looking very street-cred in ripped jeans and the sort of skin-tight T-shirts people wore in the early eighties. Behind him was a huge, flat-topped rock rising out of sand and scrub that made her think of Texas or Utah. This must have been taken on the famous trip across the States that Jay had told her about. Jay was thinner and younger and less blond, but the quizzical smile was the same. She felt a surge of affection. There were several more photos of Jay, some with another man who Suze gradually realized must be Lloyd. Suze’s interest perked up. Grown-up, with nicely muscled legs and hair funkily long, Lloyd was distinctly tasty. He was, in fact, Mr. Mean and Moody himself from the car photo she had first picked out.
The car featured prominently in a series of pictures that plotted Lloyd’s and Jay’s course west to east across America, some showing Jay in barman’s kit with bow tie and Lloyd in the kind of white uniform they wore in hamburger joints. So that’s when he had learned to cook. Other shots showed Lloyd playing the piano in dark bars. One had a swirly inscription on the back that read, “Hi, lover boy! Dontcha forget the Blue Coyote and your everlovin’ Darlene,” with a smiley face drawn underneath the signature. Well, well.
More girls appeared in pictures probably taken at college—haunted-looking Sylvia Plath wannabes in black, thoroughbred blondes, good-sport types in NYU sweatshirts. Then there were a couple of bl
ack-and-white shots taken at professional functions—Lloyd wearing a black bow tie in a party of strangers, giving a speech, shaking hands with a nameless dignitary. Right at the top of the box Suze found an envelope of typical holiday snapshots. Many of them featured a slim, serious-looking woman in white linen and a straw peek-a-boo hat, her arm laced through Lloyd’s.
Suze sighed. Of course: the happy ending. Coupledom, domesticity, swagged curtains, dinner parties. How depressingly predictable. Scowling, she packed the photos back into the box and replaced it in the wardrobe. Then she got dressed and went out for a long walk, trudging around Central Park with her hands in her pockets, eyes averted from human contact. She could not stop herself thinking of Nick and the time they had come here together. Then she had felt desirable, pretty, happy, fun. And Nick—had he been pretending all along?
On the way back she stopped at a take-away place and ordered a pizza the size of a dustbin lid. She ate the whole thing straight out of the carton, sitting at the dining room table as the light faded, watching the couple opposite go through their usual routine: fetching dishes, eating, talking, watching television. After the pizza she felt fat, garlicky, unlovely and unlovable. She would change her life, she decided, flicking the ragged ends of her hair with a fingernail. Fresh fruit, exercise, eight pints of mineral water per day, as recommended by women’s magazines: monastic discipline would rule. She could almost feel how it would be, her skin glowing, her body smoothly muscled. A new energy would radiate from every pore. She would be self-reliant and mysterious. “Heavens, Suze, you look marvelous!” people would tell her. “Been on holiday?” The wonder would no longer be why she was not married, but where in the world to find a man good enough for her.
The fantasy sustained her for the time it took to drop her clothes on the Rockwell carpeting, brush her teeth, rub in her night cream and climb into the rumpled bed. She lay on her side in the dark, listening to her heartbeat echoing in her ear—boom-boom, boom-boom—and wondered if she was going to be alone for the rest of her life.