“You’ll need a stockbroker.” I was contemplating this?
“Do you have something like the Yellow Pages here?”
“We invented the Yellow Pages, Colin.”
“Can you tone down the sarcasm a bee’s dick?”
“Look, Colin, this is a ridiculous idea, I was kidding. Let’s nip it in the fucking bud.”
“So snippy! You’re bloody condescending to a man who’s about to make you rich. I’ll ring one at random. I’ll play eccentric stockman.”
“The whole thing stinks. It’s morally wrong, like my Dad forcing me to pretend I was still five on museum lines when I was a short nine.”
“I can’t imagine you were ever short.”
Good, he’d moved on. Only our old style banter after all. “I shot up when I was twelve. Before that I was the class shrimp.” The woman with a Frida Kahlo unibrow won both Price Is Right final showcases; she got the bid right within a hundred dollars. I clicked the mute button off and heard her scream—a scream worthy of the first car on the Cyclone. I was transfixed.
A veteran newspaper editor had once informed my Syracuse Introduction to Mass Communications class that most people clip articles and either pass them on to their friends or look at them at a later date with new perception. “In this way, journalism’s the noblest medium,” he said. “TV will kill itself.”
Not when suburban unibrowed women standing in for the everyman win double showcases. Journalism doesn’t have a chance. “Oh shit, Colin, I’m tempted by the elk scam, okay, you satisfied?”
“Really?”
“We have to look into it more. No promises. I’ll meet you at Forty-second and Fifth in an hour. How about the stone bench next to the left lion?”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“The main New York library. There’s two lions out front. Let’s check a few things before we blow the dough. I can’t believe I’m saying this.”
After I hung up I helped myself to Chunky Monkey ice cream straight out of the container. I figured I’d hop a cab to the library. Mom and Dad had graciously stocked the refrigerator before they left, and guilt, guilt, left me a few hundred dollars. The doorbell rang. I wiped a bit of chocolate off my chin. It was Frank and his darling Janet. I need this now?
“Can we come in?” Janet said.
“Yeah,” I smiled, with great effort.
Janet sat in Dad’s reclining chair, and Frank wandered about the living room, stopping at the glass bookcase to examine my snowglobe celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall (like he hadn’t seen it a gazillion times before).
I settled in a lotus position on the carpet. Janet was visibly unnerved by my leg-bending.
“So how’s the new couple?” I tried out. Yuck.
“Pretty good so far,” Janet said. “I know you called, but, well I just wish we had your blessing.”
“What an unusual couple you make,” I offered.
“How’s that?” Janet said cautiously.
“Well you’re all about espadrilles and sundresses, and here’s my brother in a thrift-shop shirt, so green and shiny. You look amphibious, Frank.”
“Amphibious?” Frank said. He knew what I was doing. Will used to say that I have the subtlety of a minivan.
“Reptilian.” I pulled at a stringy bit in the knee of my jeans.
“Are you calling me a snake?” Frank said.
“Well, yeah.” We both laughed, a wavy Ganelli laugh—you get points in my family for a well-thought-out insult. Janet looked relieved that maybe, just maybe, the dastardly duo were truly off the hook.
I uncrossed my legs and reached for my toes. “So guess what? I’ve been talking to my friend Colin.”
“Your friend Colin?” Janet said. “Colin Colin? From the Tall Poppies?”
“Yeah. We’re working it out. Mom even met him, thinks he’s a nice guy. I’m taking the subway to meet him in a few minutes.”
“Working it out?” Frank said. “He’s a lying creep.”
“He was misguided, that’s all. He’s very cute.”
“Jesus,” Frank said. “Women.”
“Are you free tomorrow?” Janet said, touching my shoulder. “That sounds like a story I’ve got to hear. You name the place. Our treat.”
“Lutèce,” I said. “Or the Four Seasons.”
“Ha, ha,” Frank said. “How about Chinatown? The Nice Restaurant on East Broadway?”
“That would be nice,” I said.
“How’s Stuart?” Janet said.
“He’s doing pretty well. Mom’s got him applying to Juilliard for percussion, if you can believe that.”
Janet snorted.
“I can more than believe that,” Frank smiled.
“You know what I think?” Janet said.
“No, what do you think?” Frank asked in a tender voice I hadn’t heard since his early days with Ingrid.
“This whole experience reminds me of an enchanted journey, a ride in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, where everything could happen, and everything does.”
“That’s a great metaphor,” Frank said. “I really like that.”
“Yeah,” I said. Even though I had come up with that very same metaphor in our freshman year screenwriting class. Oh great, Janet, you’re even usurping my metaphors.
Let it go, Danny Death said in a new bubble over my head. Doesn’t mean shit. Against the gravitational pull of disgust, I forced another grin.
“Oh, God,” Janet said, “I feel so much better. I’ve missed you so much, Rachel.” Her eyes were tearing.
“I love you both, too,” I said. When I stood up, Frank whacked me on the arm in our standard ceremonious sibling apology.
Colin gave me his own love tap after we’d spotted each other by the lion.
“My Aunt Virginia once told me that these lions are called Patience and Fortitude.”
“Which one is which?” He wet his finger and wiped a tiny remaining spot of chocolate off my lip.
“I get them mixed up.”
I led the way through the grand Astor Court, up the opulent marble stairs. In the imposing main research room, the size of a football field, I located the microfiche page for the Colorado Yellow Pages. I turned the knob, scanning for elk. No listings.
“Try game,” Colin suggested.
I rolled until I got to G. “Found it! Spanky’s Wholesale Game.”
I copied down the number. We went back down two flights to the phone booth near the men’s room. I called the New York Stock Exchange public relations officer.
“Hi, my name is Karen Jones, and I’m a senior at Murray Bergtraum Business High School.”
“What can I do for you, Karen?”
“I need to follow a stock for my end-of-year assignment and I got the weirdest one. It’s for game. Spanky’s Game Farm. I can’t find it and I need to turn the paper in on Tuesday! Can you tell me what it’s listed under?”
“We normally don’t give out that kind of information. I can send you general info about the market, if that would help—”
“Oh, please, I’m really stuck! I’m desperate!”
“I have a daughter who’s thirteen. You sound sweet. Hold on, dear, let me see. No, I don’t see it. But let me look it up on the database, it may be on the American Stock Exchange—yes, here it is! You have to look under SPKGM in the American Stock Exchange listings. They’re not affiliated with the New York Stock Exchange. Be nice to your parents.”
“I will! Thank you!”
I flapped my paper in triumph, and Colin gave me a peck on the cheek. “For evil,” he said, like a James Bond villain.
“I walk the line,” I said, in my best Johnny Cash impersonation. “Now it’s your turn.”
He dialed the hotel. “Yeah—can I have the room of Angus Wynne?—Angus, it’s Colin. Look, mate, I’m still upset about before, but I spoke to my lawyer in Australia and he advised me to take your check. I want it in twenty-four hours though, or the deal is off.”
Two days later,
the day Ivan Stanbury was scheduled to release information about his personal elk-meat line, Colin and I took the train to Philadelphia for a field trip. We were too antsy to stay in his hotel room, and he hadn’t done much touristing yet.
Our first stop on the self-guided walking tour was Christ Church. A dour-faced man clasping a clipboard told us about Jacob Duche, a Tory who chose allegiance to the crown in Canada.
“Duche’s sister chose revolution,” the guide said. “Her husband Francis wrote Psalm Sixty-five. I had a Canadian on the tour last week who saw this church as the Mason Dixon line. This is the ugly side of the revolution. Many of our most prominent families lost their shires.”
“I wonder if the city of Philadelphia knows their emissary is knocking the Founding Fathers?” I whispered.
Colin shrugged and reached for my hand, as casually as back in St. Kilda. It felt right. We’d forgotten a major financial scam was on the day’s menu.
Colin and I sat in Benjamin Franklin’s pew while the guide spoke to us from the front of the church. Benjamin Franklin invented the stove, first thought of daylight savings time and bifocals, proved that lightning and electricity are the same thing, was a diplomat, a postmaster, wrote an almanac, published the newspaper, and created the lending library.
Philadelphia’s not a city to visit if you’re in the mood to rest on your laurels.
We continued on to the Hall of Independence, where they signed the Declaration of Independence. Were people so short in the 1700s? The Hall was markedly low to the ground.
“Thomas Jefferson drafted the Constitution at thirty-two,” the park ranger said in the orientation room.
“Four years to match his greatness,” I said quietly. “Fat chance.”
“But did you know that Thomas Jefferson’s manuscript went through eighty drafts by his peers?”
“Now that’s the kind of info I want to hear,” I whispered.
“Who’s complaining?” Colin said. “I’m a year past the use-by date. At thirty-two, I did jackshit.” We continued on to the Hall’s courtroom.
“At thirty-two, you performed in front of thousands of fans. I’ve done jackshit.”
“Shh!” said the man sporting a Coast Guard cap to my left.
“You went to Australia on your own.”
“Anyone could do it with $2000,” I said, as we walked toward the room where the actual signing took place.
“No, Rachel, they couldn’t. You’re hard on yourself.” He paused. “First I’ve heard of Thomas Jefferson. What else did he do besides write a piece of paper? Did he invent the telephone?”
“You’re not serious? That was Alexander Graham Bell—”
“Oh yeah. Stop looking at me like a dumbarse. Didn’t Jefferson invent the egg whisk?”
“Let me continue.”
He stuck his lip out like a kid pretending to be a dimwit. “Duh—the meat tenderizer?”
“Thomas Jefferson was our—”
“I’m taking the mickey out of you, Rachel Ganelli. I’m beginning to think you were the dag no one wanted to pick for tag.”
“—third president. A great man but a hypocrite. He wrote the Declaration of Independence but had plantation slaves.”
The guide looked relieved as we exited the tour to have it out.
“Why would I know about Thomas Jefferson? I’m an Australian. Do you know who Gough Whitlam is?”
“Yeah.”
“Bullshit. You don’t know anything about him do you?”
“Colin, you’re baiting me. Don’t do this. You’re not achieving anything.”
“Got you, ha! The great Rachel is stumped. Stalling.”
“Gough Whitlam was Prime Minister of Australia from 1972 to 1975. He was the first Labor Party leader to win the premiership in twenty years. He pushed an agenda of women’s and Aboriginal rights—and national social security. He was ousted by a little-known rule called by the Queen’s representative, Sir John Kerr, The Governor General.”
“Okay, you know it. I give—”
“Also of note: Christopher Boyce, a cipher clerk, found out that the CIA had Sir John Kerr as their agent. In essence they overturned Whitlam’s socialist policies, like they toppled Allende’s Chile in 1973. The Falcon and the Snowman, book by Robert Lindsay, film directed by John Schlesinger. Timothy Hutton as Boyce. Sean Penn, not yet married to Madonna, as his blackmailing friend. Soundtrack by Pat Metheny. Title song by David Bowie.”
“Oh I see. He’s a movie reference. You only know him ’cause it was a movie story. That’s not real knowledge—”
We walked a few yards and were now standing in front of the Liberty Bell.
A guide addressed a horde of ten-ish kids. “The first time it rang, it cracked and was recast. In 1835, it cracked again. Repairs were made. In 1846, it cracked once more as it rang for Washington’s birthday. No one could fix it this time.”
“How come they didn’t throw it out and get a new bell?” Colin whispered.
“There was love in it,” I said. “It was precious. It means more that it has survived.”
We sampled the native cuisine: cheese-steak sandwiches. They were cheap, and between us we had ten dollars left. I wanted a Philadelphia snowglobe with the Liberty Bell in it; the closest gift shop, at Betsy Ross’s house, only had one with Independence Hall. Colin called his Yellow Pages stockbroker from the pay phone inside of the shop. I had to go outside to pace. Colin could have lost his shirt on whimsy.
He came out with a thumbs-up. “The bloody mother lode!” he screamed from across the street, and my arms went numb. We kept breaking out into sinful laughter, like Bonnie and Clyde. According to our calculations on the New Jersey transit, we had made $200,000 off designer elk. Enough for Colin to buy a small recording studio, and for me to give a go as a screenwriter. We could even give Stuart something to start off his new life. Colin had told his broker to sell, even though if we waited, we could have had truly serious dough.
“There’s something I have to tell you,” Colin said as we rolled past Newark.
“Shoot.”
“I ran into Will the other day.”
“Will?”
“Your Will.”
“Will Reynolds? What are you talking about?”
“He met Hannah out on Long Island. This is rather unreal, but he’s dating her now. She always wanted to move up a notch.” He shielded his head, waiting to be hit.
“You forgot to tell me?”
“I wasn’t going to tell you. I was afraid you’d go back to him.”
“Jesus, Will and Hannah? Jesus. You’re pulling my leg.”
“I suspect she’s always thought Australia was too uncouth for her. Except for the fact that he stole my girlfriend, he seemed like a perfectly nice guy. He had nothing except nice things to say about you.”
He was serious? Will with Colin’s redhead? But then, at this point in my year of mishegoss, the link didn’t seem implausible. Weird things were plaguing me that year; happenstance made perfect sense. I stared out the window. We’ve swapped places, I thought. She’s got my goddamn precious upper-middle-class destiny.
“You’re right, he is a nice guy,” I agreed. Colin gave me a bewildered look, and I gave him an “it’s safe” smile. Convinced, he reached for my wrist.
“So this is how it turns out,” he smiled.
I pulled him to me and planted a big smackeroo on his lips. “Yeah,” I said afterward.
As the train rolled toward the tunnel entrance, the new moon rising over Frank Sinatra’s Atlantic City billboard, I remembered the Christ Church guide batting for the Tories, and I thought, morality is in the retelling. Who’s presenting the history?
Once, while I was still at Bell, a man perched on top of a discount store across the street from my office had started firing bullets at the western-facing windows of our office building. He’d been fired from a textile company on the third floor, two below Bell Press. Our building’s voice, the same one that informed us of fire drills, announce
d, “Ladies and Gentlemen, please go to the center of your offices, away from the windows.”
In the conference room, the vice president continued to dictate a letter to his assistant as forty of us filled the remaining chairs and floor space. The head of publicity asked me if I wanted a stick of cinnamon Trident. Over the loudspeaker we heard “Ladies and Gentlemen, the police have killed the man, there is no more danger,” and we resumed work. There were too many tri-state murders that day; the incident barely warranted a mention, even in the tabloids. Since none of my friends read about my midday mayhem, no one ever believed it happened.
Thanks to:
Abigail Thomas
Shannon Ravenel, a thoughtful editor; and Liz Darhansoff, a happening agent
Lynn Pleshette and Catherine Luttinger
The writing circle, especially the caffeinated after-hours Syndicate: Jill Bauerle, Marcelle Harrison, and Kathy O’Donnell; two dear friends and damn sharp readers, Joan Dalin and Corey Powell; and Mark Jessell, Deb Reading, and Warrick Wynne in Melbourne, quick on the E-mail Australiana
My brother, David Shapiro, for, among other things, yelling at me in Chinatown (circa 1990) that under no circumstances should I accept the job offer from Proctor and Gamble
Paul O’Leary—my pillar, my joy, my partner in crime
Credits
“Shaddup You Face,” written by Joe Dolce. Copyright 1980. Walsing Music/Remix Publishing (Administered by Copyright Management, Inc.). All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission.
“The Rain, the Park, and Other Things,” written by Steven Duboff and Arthur Kornfeld. Copyright 1967, Luflin Music, Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission.
“It’s Raining Again,” written by Roger Hodgson and Richard Davies. Delicate Music. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission.
Credits
“Shaddup You Face,” written by Joe Dolce. Copyright 1980. Walsing Music/Remix Publishing (Administered by Copyright Management, Inc.). All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission.
The Unexpected Salami Page 24