A Ticket to the Circus

by Norris Church Mailer

  Norman’s sister, Barbara, invited us for dinner at her place in Greenwich Village, and I met his mother, Fanny, for the first time. I was astounded at how much the three of them looked alike; Barbara was a petite, pretty version of Norman, with curly salt-and-pepper hair and lively blue eyes, and his mother was an older version of them, still energetic and bustling in the kitchen. Norman had concocted a story of how I was Francis Gwaltney’s niece who had come to New York to see if I might want to move there, but I don’t think they bought it. It was impossible not to see the sparks flying between us, and with his track record, they were no dummies. Barbara’s husband, Al Wasserman, a producer for 60 Minutes, had snow-white sideburns, with darker hair in a comb-over on top, and told funny jokes in a Jewish accent. He had done some great documentaries, one of which had won an Academy Award.

  Norman’s sister, Barbara, and Al.

  The only member of the family I met who wasn’t so great was Bouncer the corgi, who did his best to bite me all night. They had to put him in the bathroom, where he had obviously been put many times before, as the door had a good-size chunk of it chewed out. They told me it wasn’t personal, he had tried to bite every one of Norman’s children, and even snapped at Norman’s sister occasionally. At one point, I forgot he was in there, went into the bathroom, and nearly got my leg taken off. They had to hold him while I used the facility, which was pretty embarrassing.

  The surprising, wonderful thing was how warm and close and normal a family they all were. I immediately liked them, and I think they liked me. Barbara was a good cook. She had made pot roast, and Norman’s mother promised to teach me how to do it. I’m sure they had a lot of questions, but refrained from asking them, and I played my part as Francis’s dutiful niece who also was a schoolteacher. I could tell Norman was happy, though, that we got along so well. They didn’t seem to think it was strange that he was there with me, and no one mentioned his wife. None of Norman’s kids were there that night, but there would be time enough to meet them. I kept telling myself this was just a visit. I would be going home in a couple of days, and might never be back. But we both knew better. We had gotten even closer during the week; it had been nonstop fun, going out to restaurants and getting to know New York, and long hot nights in bed. As the time came for me to go back, neither one of us wanted it to end. By the last couple of days, we stopped pretending.

  “Why don’t you move here and try it for a while?” Norman said. “You can always go back to school later. Stay here in the apartment until you figure out what you want to do. You might decide to try modeling, or if you want to teach or write or paint, you can do that.”

  I hadn’t thought about modeling since I had sent my pictures to Eileen Ford when I was eighteen. After the divorce, I thought I was too old, and obviously with a child it would have been impossible to come to New York and try it, but everywhere I went people kept mistaking me for a model. On the street in Manhattan, a photographer came up to me and asked me who I was with, and I didn’t know what he was talking about. He handed me his card and told me I should think about modeling. He wasn’t the first one, and actually being in New York, the idea began to take root once again.

  Norman and I were walking down Fifth Avenue when I told him I had to stop and buy a pair of flip-flops or something because I had a wicked blister on my foot from my shoe, so we went into Saks Fifth Avenue, where I got a pair of sandals. A pushy saleswoman took one look at him, smelled a live one, and descended on us. He wound up buying me two dresses, a beautiful Diane von Furstenberg black knit dress in a lotus pattern, and a Saks label long evening dress in a dark blue velvet print. The saleswoman was beside herself, bringing things out for me to try on, and he loved the fashion show I did for him. We drew a little crowd. (It was embarrassing when I went into the dressing room, though, because I hadn’t worn any underwear, and the woman insisted on coming in with me. That was the last time I made that mistake—either not wearing underwear to shop in or letting the saleswoman into the dressing room.)

  “You should be a model,” the saleswoman said as I was sashaying around in my new outfits. Norman agreed with her, and he decided then and there to take me down the street to see an old friend of his, Amy Greene, who ran a business out of Henri Bendel’s called Beauty Checkers, which taught a woman how to put on makeup. Amy was in her forties, at the peak of her beauty, and had been a model when she was young. She was married to Milton Greene, one of the most famous photographers in the business. They had befriended Marilyn Monroe when she’d come to New York to study at the Actors Studio, and Marilyn had lived with Milton and Amy for a time in their house in Greenwich, Connecticut. Norman wrote about them in Marilyn. I knew Milton’s photographs from the book, and the idea of my meeting Amy and maybe actually becoming a model was exciting for both Norman and me. We had lunch with Amy, who is nothing if not honest. “Kiddo,” she said, “you’re beautiful. Your skin is to die for, but you’re three years too old, so you’ll have to lie, and you need to lose fifteen pounds. I wouldn’t let you go see Wilhelmina like you are. She would just turn you down.”

  Oh. That was honest. I weighed about 130, but I was five feet ten, so it wasn’t like I was obese. Still, I took her at her word. Models were skinny. Wilhelmina was one of the two biggest model agents in New York, the other one being Eileen Ford, who had turned me down when I’d sent those pictures years ago, so I knew it would have been pointless to try her again. I told Amy I’d go back home and lose the weight. I thought as long as I was there at Beauty Checkers, I might as well get some pointers, so Amy did my makeup while Norman waited. I thought I was pretty good with makeup, but Amy wanted to do something different from the browns I used. She chose odd colors of yellow and purple eye shadow, which were not my colors at all. I didn’t want to say anything, since she was Norman’s friend and all, but it was kind of appalling. My eyes looked like two pansies. Norman wasn’t as nice about it. He took one look at it and growled, “Could you please wash your face and put your regular makeup back on? My reputation is bad enough in this town without people thinking I beat you up and gave you two black eyes!”

  Amy took it with good grace, we redid the makeup, and when the time came, she called Wilhelmina for me and made an appointment, but I’m getting ahead of myself. First, I had to face my parents, my son, and the town of Russellville and tell them I was moving to New York City.

  Seventeen

  It was about what you would expect. “How can you do this to us, after all we have done for you?” my parents said. “How are you going to live? Who is this man? Isn’t he married? How can you take Matthew off so far away from us?” And many variations of those questions. I didn’t know the answers myself, but the thing I did know was that I was either going to move to New York to be with Norman or die. I didn’t care how much of a sinner I was. I had seen my future with him and I wanted to be there, in the middle of all that excitement, no matter what. I planned to sell my car and house and to cash in my teacher’s retirement, which would give me about five thousand dollars—enough, I figured, to last until I got a job. I had no idea what ultimately would happen with Norman. He had made me no promises and I had asked him for none, but he was as anxious as I was for me to come and live there. Of course, I knew he was unhappy in his present marital situation, but he never said straight and plain he was going to leave Carol, who was in Stockbridge, waiting for him to come back and take the family to Maine for the rest of the summer.

  The plan was that I would leave Matt with Mother and Daddy until I got settled and got a job, whatever it turned out to be, and then I’d come back down in a few weeks or months and bring him up to live with me. I was going to get my own apartment. I would stay with Norman for a while, but I wanted to have my own place in case for some reason it didn’t work out. That, and at least it would give Mother and Daddy the illusion that I wasn’t living in sin, although I certainly would be.

  I went back to Arkansas, and the next month was a flurry of quitting my job (which gave both
Chip, the principal of Russellville High School, and me enormous satisfaction), selling my house and car—my beloved yellow Volkswagen Super Beetle, which I still wish I had kept—and saying goodbye to all my friends and boyfriends. None of them could believe I was moving to New York to be with a man older than my father. Norman had talked to Francis about it by that time, and he was quite upset, as we had feared. He and Ecey were worried for me, of course, but I think they were just as worried about him. Here he was breaking up his fifth marriage, leaving another child behind.

  That was something I didn’t like to dwell too closely on. I hadn’t met any of the children yet, but of course I knew about them—all seven of them. He had broken up with every one of their mothers before any of them was older than six, and now the oldest one, Susan, was my same age, twenty-six, and the youngest was Maggie, four. I knew in my heart that if it hadn’t been me, he would have broken up that last marriage in any case. As he had told me, he was being pressured by Annette to make a choice between Carol and her, but Annette seemed to have been forgotten. (Part of their pact was to not speak for six months, either.)

  In fact, for some incredible reason, I didn’t worry about anything, or any other woman. Norman made me feel that secure, that loved. As soon as I got home, all I could think about was getting back to New York and Norman. The one fun thing I did do during that month of July was go to Memphis to a Rolling Stones concert with a boy I had been dating named Bob, who had long wavy blond hair and blue eyes, because we’d had tickets for a long time, but I wouldn’t sleep with him, which was quite upsetting to him. He, too, was in shock that I had plans to move to New York. He gave me a turquoise ring and told me that he would be waiting for me when I came to my senses. But there was nothing anyone could say to stop me. I had never been so single-minded about anything in my life, or so sure of what I was doing.

  So, once again, for the seventh or eighth time in four years, I moved. Without a backward glance, I gave away or sold all my furniture and clothes, keeping only a few suitcases for the trip and a few clay pots and paintings and mementos from my students and friends. The one thing Norman said about my packing was, “Don’t bring any of your Arkansas polyester clothes up here.” As if they had never heard of polyester in New York! But I had no choice because most of what I had was polyester, and frankly I liked it. It fit nicely, was easy to wash, and didn’t wrinkle. I also made a lot of my own clothes, and it was easy to sew. Even the big designers such as Oscar de la Renta used Quiana nylon and polyester in their designs. Still, I left most of the homemade things behind, aside from the pants. I never could get pants long enough. I had no idea if I could really become a model or not, but I went to work starving myself and riding my bike, and by the time I left for New York, I weighed 115. I visited a couple of photographers, including Bill Ward and Lee Rogers, and collected a few pictures to show Wilhelmina when the time came.

  I tried to explain to Matthew that I was going to go away for a while but would come back and get him and we would go to live in a big city. I don’t think he understood at all what I was saying, but he didn’t worry too much about it. He loved my parents and felt safe with them. No matter what, I didn’t intend to be without him for long. I think my mother and father thought I would get it out of my system and move back in a few weeks. At any rate, they didn’t have a choice. I was one determined girl.

  The only one who wasn’t that concerned about me was me. And Norman. He was off on another adventure. He had a new willing Eliza Doolittle he was going to make into the next star, and whatever happened would be all good. He was feeding my moving frenzy with long letters and phone calls from a phone booth in Maine, where he was living for the summer with the family. They were mountain climbing, hiking, and swimming, living in an unusual house situated over a fjord with a deck that cantilevered out over the water. He told me a rite of passage for the kids was to jump off the deck into the water eighteen feet below, and how he was trying to get up the courage to dive off it. I was so jealous, wanting to be there with him. It was torture, knowing Carol was with him, sleeping in the same bed, and worrying that he would change his mind and decide he wanted to stay with her after all. But still, the letters and calls kept coming, reassuring me. I proceeded to make my plans.

  Darling,

  … God, I adore you. Time keeps coming back from our week. Lovely thoughts and lovely little swoonings of all that big and lovely joining meat and then the vaults and the whispers and the bells that do not stop and the hours of talking through sugar-time—you can’t be as naturally smart as I think you are because I’m not smart enough to realize it.

  I’ve been tempted to break all I said and call you anyway, but I’m going to hold out. I think phones are a nasty addiction like nicotine. They use up real love for a quick electric charge and they’re noxious to the heart. So even though I’m dying to hear about Matt’s reaction when you came home and your parents and the world—that world of Russellville—slowly coming to focus on you whether you realize it or not—I’m going to wait for you to write.

  Tell me in detail if you feel like it. And for God’s sakes tell me of any and all fear because there’ll be moments—there will have to be. I have no fear about us over this year and years to come—I think we will not have boils and bends and the harsh kinds of trouble so much as we will be like the weather with one another. And you, stand-up lady, are golden as the sun. All the same, for now, right now, there has to be something of the dream-like about the next two weeks and fear may even come in moments when and if you don’t feel real or selling the house becomes all too real. Like tasting pennies. Just remember it will work out. Things may be in one state or another two weeks from now, but by George, come Friday, Saturday, then Sunday two weeks and two days from now—we’ll be together again for another week, and since we’re natural athletes at love (although rookies in the major leagues) we ought to feel pretty good at the chance to break all those honey records we put up last time. Yes, some of those records were twice honey.

  Darling, I just had a picture of how you look in the morning with that incredible beauty in your face as if you’d been fucking a stag in your dreams and he said something lovely as he left you in my arms. Did I ever tell you that your hair is as red as the last rays of a sunset on a hot summer night and your eyes are the golden umber of the last rare cloud before it gets dark? Well, it’s something like that if just as lovely and never so full of corn. God I look forward to the next days we can spend in loving each other.

  Cheers. Rum and nectar

  Yes, I adore you,

  you guessed.

  XO Norman

  He was waiting for me at the airport when I arrived in mid-August. He was going to spend a week with me until I got settled, then go back to Maine to the family for another few weeks, when I would be all alone in New York.

  Eighteen

  Fanny Mailer was under five feet tall, had maybe been five feet one at her peak, but had shrunk with age and had the dreaded arthritic widow’s hump. Still, she was capable and full of energy, and for some reason took a liking to me. She had grown up Jewish in New Jersey. Her father owned a kosher butcher shop where she and her three sisters worked hard from the time she was a small, indefatigable girl. She’d also had an older brother but didn’t mention him much; she and her sisters were the close-knit heart of the family and they did most of the work. Fanny was the youngest, but we never knew exactly how old she was, as all the sisters shaved a few years off their ages. She might have been five or more years older than we thought. Besides running the butcher shop, her father had also been a sort of unofficial rabbi, with a long flowing beard, who would take over services when the regular rabbi was away, and they’d kept a kosher home.

  Fanny.

  The Christian kids they’d gone to school with had been mean to her and her sisters, calling them kikes and making fun of them, so she had bad feelings about all Christians, but she was curious about the way our lives were lived, the beliefs we held, and the way our
services were conducted. She loved to hear my stories of having to swim in dresses, or the “sin list,” the deeds that would send you to hell. I, in turn, was fascinated about her religion, the dietary regulations, having to use two sets of pots and pans and dishes, not eating meat and dairy together, and what “mikvah,” “shiksa,” and other funny Yiddish words meant. (“Schlong” is another good one, and “meshugana,” like Meshugana Ike, the grade B version of Crazy Eddie.) She told me the stories from her childhood, like the time her mother and a friend fell into the path of an oncoming railroad train; the friend was killed and her mother’s arm was cut off. How could that happen to someone? I never understood why they had been so close to the train, and in fact Fanny never understood that, either.

  In those first weeks and months I spent in New York, she and Barbara were my only friends. Fanny and I used to spend every morning together. I would go over to her apartment on Willow Street, which was two blocks away, for tea. I’d zip up her dress or find her contact lenses, which she was always losing, and then we’d sometimes go to lunch at an old-timey restaurant near the promenade (called the Promenade Restaurant) and have meals of pot roast or stuffed cabbage. Not as good as what Fanny made, but not bad. Other times we would eat and shop at A&S, a department store that was about a mile away on Fulton Street. She wore stockings with elastic garters, and her little calves were so skinny the hose were constantly rolling down her legs, so she would have to stop and pull them up every half block or so. We laughed about it, but she wouldn’t think of wearing pantyhose. She wasn’t used to them, and they were all too long for her anyhow. We were like girlfriends, and had a great time together.