“Well, Andy looking at me with a skewed up face, finally said, 'No. I didn’t see that.' Andy hesitated for the moment, then added, 'Maybe he had other things on his mind. Maybe his own problems.'” Ethan burst out laughing. “Do you believe?”
I kissed my fingers, reached over and swept my hand over Ethan's face and and lips. “I believe, I said. This is an exciting story. But I'll say. I'm not surprised. Andy always lived in his own reality. I know it. I saw it. I was there with him in a way. Maybe I'm living in my own reality too.”
Ethan seemed undeterred. I'm not sure if he was listening or even heard my take on Andy's reaction.
“When we headed back to the parlor,” Ethan went on,
“Andy showed Johns more paintings. Johns still looked bored, shook his head and finally said he had another appointment, and left with a forced smile on his face. I followed Jasper Johns out the front door. Called back to Andy that I'll talk with him later on the telephone. Would you believe?”
“Yes, I believe,” I said wiggling my torso but thinking again how darling Ethan becomes when he's passionately telling about an experience.
“There's more,” Ethan said. Later last night, Andy phoned me, complaining that major galleries in New York, are looking away from him. Leo Castelli gallery, you know, took on Rauschenberg and Johns, and turned him down, Andy complained, and everybody was represented in a famous gallery but him.”
“What can you do?” I asked, taking a slight nibble of my corn muffin. And why should you do anything? Aren’t you stepping outside your bounds of art critic?”
“Well no.”
“Isn't Andy Warhol using you,” I said. “It seems he wanted to meet Bob and Jasper as friends so that he could get into their gallery.”
“Anna, No. I understand you're still angry with Warhol, and rightfully. I would be pissed, too.”
“I think you have to be careful, Ethan. You are a respected art critic and you will be stepping into uncharted territory. Don't you think?”
Ethan shook his head strongly. “No. If I pull this off, it will enhance my standing. I want to put artists and galleries together. That gives me leverage.”
I began rubbing my nose. “You'll get into trouble with your editors, at Esquire.” I said softly. Ethan raised his head, looking starkly at me. I probably had a worried look on my face. I doubt if I know I was never good at hiding my emotions.
“Why? Wait a minute. Have you heard something?”
“Some round-about talk?”
“Like what? he asked.
“Like, Ethan might be playing with fire.”
“Playing with fire? That’s crazy. Who said that?”
“I overheard gossip.”
Ethan turned to stare at his coffee cup, took a drink, and said, ”let's go.”
Once again, he pressed the elevator button for the fifth floor. But this time on the staircase, he took things more slowly; we sat for a moment holding hands, and leaning on each other. Ethan soon began cupping my breasts one at a time and squeezing, ooohhh so deliciously; and when he pushed in he held my head and smothered me with scrumptious kissing, and I could feel how swimmingly he rode this out.
Later that afternoon, Esquire’s editor called Ethan into the wood paneled conference room. They sat opposite each other in the middle of the table, as I later learned. Ethan showed up at my doorway and called me out of my office, right after that meeting. I leaned against the wall in the long corridor, my stomach in somersaults. “You’ve got to keep some objectivity, here,” the editor told me. You are getting too close to your subjects,” the editor went on in a soft southern drawl. “Well, I think I am becoming a better critic by working from the inside,” I argued.
“You can say that, but from my view you’re getting too chummy with Warhol. A couple of young artists complained. And now you're working to get Warhol connected a gallery?”
“Who complained?”
“That’s not the point. I think you might be crossing a line. It would be best to use your better judgment. That’s all.”
“Is this meeting over?”
“I would say so. Use better judgment, Ethan,”were my editor's parting words as we walked out of the conference room into the hallway. Anna, don't say a word of this to anyone.”
“Of course I won't, my darling,” I kissed his lips as we quickly parted. I was feeling so much pain for him. I looked back but he was gone. I was worried for Ethan and I feared he made a mistake with Andy. It seemed more and more obvious to me now, especially from these incidents with Bob and Jasper, and Ethan telling me Andy will be your friend if there is something in it for him. Ethan was right, I'm still very angry with Andy. Not even a tortured hint of a glad smile at seeing me.
As I sat at my desk. Looking at some pasteboards, I hoped with all my heart that everything will turn out peachy cream for Ethan.
Chapter Nine
Taking the day off from work, the next day, I phoned Ethan asking how he's doing. “I'll be on the streets later, I have two leads for a job.”
After oohing and ahhing for him Ethan told me not to get my hopes up to high. “It takes more than what Esquire did to get me down.”
I wished him loads of luck and said, “I'll see you tonight. I have loads of personal stuff to do, but I am keeping my fingers crossed for you, Ethan.”
Later this morning, I undertook the inevitable, for me: I walked over to Mr. Kenneth hair salon, under a fall summer sun, warming, the NYC streets and my heart, and requested a Marilyn Monroe make-over. “Please, ask Mr. Kenneth to design my new look.” I had read in one of the fashion magazine, it might have been Glamour, that Mr. Kenneth was Marilyn's hairdresser of choice, and was considered a close friend. Who better to give me that look?
The young woman at the front desk dressed in a low cut black dress, her blond hair swept up, Betty Grable style, frowned for what seemed a while, and then gracefully, but as if talking to a child told me in no uncertain terms, “Mr. Kenneth is Jackie Kennedy's personal hairdresser, at present. He won't be available. Let me introduce you to Antoine, who will be marvelous for you.” The woman hung on the word marvelous, as if some genie would spring forward. I smiled and nodded and greeted Antoine, who emerged almost immediately.
Mustached, slim, with a waistline to die for, dressed in black, with gorgeous, black hair, he led me to a chair, and asked in a delicious French accent, “Coffee, mademoiselle?
“No thanks,” I told him and showed Antoine the publicity photo of Marilyn, the one Andy Warhol actually used for his painting. “I want those curls, I want those eyebrows. I want that look.”
“Is this for a special event?” Antoine asked. “For a show, or an award? It's okay to call you Anna?”
“Yes, of course. Please call me Anna. And no, it's not for a show. I want this look to be the new me. I would like this look to be mine.”
Antoine nodded. “I understand. Please come with me.” He led me down a hall through a door and into a very modernistic, other salon, with long fluorescent tubing on the ceiling. “Our operational theater, if you will Anna,” Antoine laughed. Other black coated individuals appeared, while a few woman sat under the hair dryer.
“We wish you best of luck. Bon chance, Anna. I present Pierre and Tweetie, which Antoine pronounced Tweet Tee, emphasizing each syllable with equal emphasis. I smiled at Pierre, and gawked at Tweetie. The kind of look that says, Are my eyes fooling me.
“They will begin, your transformation. Just relax, close your eyes if you wish, and enjoy. I will supervise that everything is done to perfection. Our standard is perfection,” Antoine said and then walked behind a curtained off area.
Tweetie greeted immediately. “Yes, Anna, it is me. And this will be a wonderful transformation for you. You will rock many worlds, I predict this.”
“Tweetie, the palm reader from the Ferus Gallery, some months ago in Los Angeles?”
“I was sure we would meet again, Anna.”
I gather you two ladies know one another,�
� Pierre said.
“What are you here for, Dear, one of the woman, a few chairs away asked me. She was so skinny, with sunken cheeks so heavy with rouge. I decided a little humor might spurn any more questions. “Tonsillitis,” I said. ”Hope the ice cream is good. They serve this after the operation, don't they?”
The woman sneered and turned back to flipping the pages of the Vogue magazine, she had been reading.
Pierre was shaking his head. “No we don't serve ice cream, but an espresso is available.”
“Why, thank you. No sugar, please.” I was feeling ebullient. At first I believed only Mr. Kenneth would be the right person, with the right touch. I feared someone else would cast vulgar tones, and garish colors, much like Andy's Marilyn silk-screen paintings. Somehow with Tweetie, styling my make over, I felt confident, that a comely transformation will happen.
“Good,” said Pierre. Tweetie will begin the make-over and I shall return very soon with the espresso.” I smiled in that funny way one smiles to camouflage burning feelings of butterflies in your stomach, in anticipation of walking into an unknown tunnel.
Tweetie prepared her utensils: combs and brushes, and scissors and bowls. “You'll be here for hours, Anna. I'll be here much of the time with you. But would you like a magazine to occupy your thoughts when I'm not with you?”
“No, thank you.”
“Then you'll be alone with your thoughts. Will that be okay?”
Speaking,through the mirror large mirror in front of me, I told Tweetie, “I'll be okay,” I laughed, but was flabbergasted how prescient she was.
“Reincarnation. Karma. Do these words ring a bell?” Tweetie's demeanor was solemn, as if ready to recite an incantation or prayer.
“Yes,” I said, somewhat hesitantly, not sure I knew where this conversation with Tweetie would be going. Getting a bit spooky, I began to feel.
“Souls that are meant to join? Does that ring a bell?”
I had to crack some ice here and now. “Ding a ling,” I said, but saw Tweetie's face turn more pallid, still, her heavily penciled right brow arch to a higher curve than I had ever seen.
“You know I am a solem person, Anna. I had told you that augury is a family tradition.”
“I apologize, Tweetie. Just feeling a bit silly, I suppose. But tell me what does augury involve. I don't carry a dictionary with me.”
“Apology accepted. My definition of augury? Yes. It means I have learned the art of listening to people's souls, to hear, to see, to understand the interconnections with other souls in you Anna, and to forewarn and to foretell.”
“To forewarn,” I told Tweetie. “This scares me.”
“Understanding, can be frightening. I know.”
Silence, pierced our souls now, I began to think, as Tweetie, with frantic moves, felt my scalp, and moved her hands through my hair, and back to a frantic exploration of the top of my head. Suddenly Tweetie relaxed her hands, and moved slowly and carefully, over my scalp like reading a crystal ball?
Strange things happen at times between people; with Tweetie carefully moving her fingertips over every millimeter of my head, as if using the tips of her fingers as receptors, and or transmitters, deep dark images of bad transits, sprung up, wrong turns, deep recesses, snakes, the allure of foreboding, panic. I stopped my self from this torture of searching, and all at once Tweetie, with eyes gleaming said “Yes.”
“And I began to babble at Tweetie, as tears welled up. “By far the greater sense of my unease stemmed from my inability, as a teenager to say no; no, you can't take my baby away from me. He's my flesh and blood. But who thinks that way at sixteen years, to stand up to society, to create a wall between yourself and your parents? And how would I know if that were the right thing to do?”
Tweetie moved a few steps away from my chair, then returned from her accessories cart bringing the bowl with the coloring for my hair, and slowly with a small brush began painting the strands of my hair. I closed my eyes, not comfortable looking as she rocked back and forth, like the slow swing of a stand alone clockpendulum.
“I had found inner peace, Tweetie,“ in a weird way by teasing boys in my classes and then giving myself to them. When any boy with longish hair – I had loved the look of longish hair on boys – glanced my way, I waited out side after class, shaking my tight body and walking near the boy and grabbing his hand and swinging our arms up and down. We had always found an isolated room, generally in the building's basement, where we sat and I lay my head on the long haired boy's lap and we talked about if he ever had sex with girls. There were about seven boys whom I had engaged this way and every one of them, said they were not virgins. I didn't believe them. But it really wasn't about them, it was about me and how I had felt so isolated, always wanting to be loved.”
Covering my eyes, trying to arrest the tears, Tweetie said, “It's okay, hon, you will meet the baby boy. All grown up now. I feel it, I see it. Yes, Anna, yes, hang tough. Your day will arrive.”
Memories don't fade but gnaw at your flesh, I sat thinking. What happened to my baby? I wanted to know. More than ever, since I met Ethan and Nick. As my love for the two guys grew my curiosity for my boy increased. I wanted to hold him. Why hadn't they allow me to touch the infant? I knew the reason why. The doctors, nurses and adoption people were afraid of my feeling any kind of bond with the infant. I knew that intellectually, but never wanted to admit they might have wronged me, and possible scarred my baby for life.
Round and round my thoughts swirled, like a gyroscope. At once I blurted out loud to Tweetie: “As a family we didn't have much in a material sort of way. My pops was hard working. It seemed he either worked, ate or slept. I realized as I got older, it wasn’t easy to keep food on the table, and clothes for me, and to push an American dream. Mamma always found the best in our lives and seemed to make everything work, in terms of food and clothing and niceties. One doesn't think much of those basics these days, but they were real, back then. In a way, that was a reason I had remained friends with Andy. When we were together I had a connection, to movie stars, to glamour, to a life, that was not entirely drab.
“What will the guys say, when they see now? Have you thought this through?”, Tweetie asked.
I remained silent. Marilyn Monroe, the ultimate misfit. I remained silent as Tweetie continued her work.
After being fussed over for almost three hours, spending loads of time with a make-up artist too, choosing the exact shade of red for my lips, and several more sneers from Madame,The Heavily Rouged Woman, and after a final inspection from Antoine, who kissed his fingers at me in delight with his creation, and a final hug with Tweetie, “You are, what you will be,” she said with all the clairvoyance remaining in her after working on me, I left the salon and paraded down the street. A new me.
My homage - I pronounced the word to myself in a distinct French accent, to Marilyn Monroe I told myself. Finally I can be me.
Feeling light-headed and exhausted, probably from Tweetie's looking through me, I headed for school, with a white kerchief hiding my hair, no need for any remarks at this time, to fill out forms. When I finished what seemed to be endless task of name, address, telephone, and so forth, I walked to Barnes and Noble to buy used text books for my required courses. At last, I was a student in college, to learn art history, a subject which endeared me. The more I thought, the more I convinced myself the modern American period of art is a worthy subject for concentration. After all, it was modern art was happening here in New York City, probably starting in the early 1950s and thrusting forward in the early1960s. What a fortunate turn of events for me, that I know Andy and met Rauschenburg and Johns, I thought. Though what irony, when you think this through. A period that had become awful for Ethan, might turn good for me.
I ambled over to the Chelsea, sure Nick wouldn't be there at this hour. The sounds of the street below, and the sounds of silence, mixed, creating queer moments, prompting me to open his chest of drawers to search the sock drawer for the sport sock fi
lled with his magic pills. I never touched that sock and quickly closed the drawer, and flopped on Nick's bed. I had to connect with Nick, even if just for the sight of his balled up sweat sock, pushed to the back of his dresser drawer.
Still at Nick's I primped and dressed for the evening, preparing the right clothes to wear beforehand. Later tonight the boys and I would catch up for a light bite at the White Horse, and then go on to the Bitter End, and other venues, along MacDougal Street. Both Nick and Ethan hadn't known what I had done, so I decided to arrive at the White Horse fashionably, well fifteen minutes late. I knew Ethan would be prompt, and I hoped Nick would be on time too. I dressed in a black sweater and gray slacks, my blonde curled hair and my makeup all in place like Monroe; and I wore big dark shades, black pumps and a light raincoat.
When I walked passed the front desk at the Chelsea, Brad, took a swift turn, ran over, and held my hands . “Taxi, Miss?” he said. “Yes,” I whispered in a long breathy tone. “Anna you look so wonderful. Does Nick know?”
Blissful Interlude: J. G. ROTHBERG Page 8