When I’d played it out in my mind, Laurel had reacted by taking her eyes off Broadway long enough to smile at me and say, “Are you serious, I’d love to!” At which point I’d proceeded straight to the “let’s be exclusive” portion of our happily-ever-after ride to the Brooklyn Bridge, where we’d strolled hand in hand, boyfriend and girlfriend, over the pedestrian walkway of the East River with the tourists.
I had failed, however, to anticipate just how bad Laurel was behind the wheel. She could not even get the car from the parking garage onto 70th. For at least two minutes, she spilled the Cadillac forward out of the driveway and reversed back every time a car came into sight. Up and back we rocked, like she was getting us out of a snow bank. I was carsick before we left the garage.
Only after she finally maneuvered into the street did she address my remark. “A proposition? That sounds serious.” She stared at the road as she spoke. She was making great use of her various mirrors. And her hands. They were wrapped like bandages around the wheel.
“Relax a little,” I told her. “The beauty of this big yellow car is that everyone can see it. She’s like the sun. She’s a fortress.” I gave the dash a few taps of endearment. Then I turned myself toward her and forced myself to fire away with my invitation.
She took her eyes off the road long enough to shoot me a sideways glance of confusion. “You want to take me home to meet your family?”
I nodded yes.
“Why?”
Already we were off script. I’d have to improvise. “What do you mean, why?”
“I thought this was a fling. You said the only thing you wanted to have in common with me was the coffee maker.”
“Yes, I did say that. But”—I paused at the intersection of 61st and Broadway, my moment of truth, until a skinny girl with a green suitcase dashed across the street and I decided to proceed as well—“I’ve been thinking about your banana boat lecture. And I’m thinking you were right. I must love you.”
Laurel clearly didn’t see that coming, because she thrust her foot on the gas with the same force Rachel used to press the pedal during her piano playing days, and we darted into the intersection. A symphony of horns sounded, and she jammed on the brakes. The guy behind us, whose black BMW fender actually might have bumped ours, hollered that people like her had no business on the road. She leaned out the window and agreed with him. “I’d be much better off in a Bug,” she shouted back.
She took a few deep, cleansing breaths, wiped her palms on her flannel shirt, and addressed the issue at hand. “Chuckerman, I haven’t driven in fifteen years, I’m steering a sailboat, and this is when you decide to tell me you love me?”
“I didn’t think you’d be so surprised,” I said. “I mean, you said it yourself. You told the whole class your boyfriend must love you. ‘A banana boat to some, an expression of love to others.’ Those were your exact words.”
“That’s very sweet. I’m touched, I really am. But just so we’re clear, I was trying to make a point to the class about point of view. I wasn’t telling you how you feel. I’m a film writer, not a shrink.”
“No, I know that,” I backpedaled. I considered getting out of the car altogether, which wasn’t an unrealistic option. Broadway was bumper to bumper. I’d suggested taking side streets to pick up the pace, but Laurel insisted on main drags, claiming it was safer. The more traffic, the slower she could go. I couldn’t argue with this. We were rolling through Columbus Circle at two miles per hour. I could have easily opened the door and run, but I’d never abandon the Cadillac. So I kept on talking.
“I didn’t mean that you told me I love you. I realized it myself. I got a sign from God last night. It wasn’t as concrete as Simon & Garfunkel, I’m not sure what it was, maybe it was the pad thai, but let’s just say I put two and two together, just like you did with the bridge. I realized that I was wrong. This wolf would like to try and change his spots.”
Laurel rolled down the window and started to fan herself with her hand. As we rolled onto Central Park South, she shook her head and murmured, “It’s a leopard, first of all. And second of all, I’d like to suggest that now isn’t the best time for us to have this conversation. I was actually saving this talk for later, for after we survived this ride, but since you brought it up and because there is a chance we won’t survive, I’ll say it now. Could it be that your sign from God was a blow to the ego by Share? Maybe you are feeling like you might be losing your mojo after your sure thing blew you off for Bailey?”
I was sorry I hadn’t abandoned ship back at Columbus Circle. It was as if Laurel knew I wasn’t going to read her handout on twists and turns and wanted to make sure her most remedial student grasped the concept by giving him a live, in-real-time demonstration.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
We passed my favorite building, 200 Central Park South, with its unending bands of balconies and floor-to-ceiling windows. If Grandma Estelle—a fan of big balconies if there ever was one—lived in Manhattan, this would be the building she’d call home.
“Don’t play dumb,” Laurel admonished, “You’re terrible at it.” Then she leaned over me and grabbed the New York Post that had rolled onto the floor. She tossed it on my lap. I ordered her to turn onto 5th and she ordered me to turn to Page Six.
“You were the talk of the bakery this morning,” she informed me as I scanned the page. “Everyone, Marcy included, told me not to meet you today. I told Marcy that not only was I meeting you, I wasn’t going to even mention it.” She nodded toward the newspaper. “I told her we were just a short-term thing, no strings attached. But since you are now professing your love, I think we should clear the air.” She took her hand off the wheel long enough to point to a picture of Bailey and Share coming out of Cipriani’s. Share with her arm around Bailey. Bailey waving. If you held the paper to the window as I did, you could see me in the background with the fur around my neck. “Please explain,” she said.
“Bailey Gets Her Fair Share,” the caption read. The paragraph began by stating that after a business dinner celebrating the launch of her new fragrance campaign, Omnipotence, rumored to brand anything and everything Bailey, mega-star Pierce hit the town with semi-star Share. “Some might say Share, who’s best (and most likely only) known for her song ‘I’ve Got You, Dave’ was a step down from the arm of Bailey’s former beau, Jake Jones,” it read. “But the twosome, clad in similar ACE bandage–style dresses, sky-high heels, and attitude, seemed to hit it off like white (trash, some might add) on rice. They dashed from dinner at Cipriani Downtown with David Melman, the mastermind behind Bailey’s Omnipotence scent, as well as the personas of several pop stars, including Share, to Serafina on the Upper East Side. Melman has been linked romantically to Share, although by all accounts, on Saturday night, Share only had eyes for Bailey. Can you blame her?”
I put down the paper, horrified and honored all at the same time. “Well, at least they called me a mastermind,” I said. I knew that my remark wasn’t, as Rachel would say, materially relevant to the issue at hand. But in lieu of having any idea how to address the issue at hand in a dignified way, I decided to attempt a joke.
Sure enough, Laurel jumped all over it. “I’m glad that’s your takeaway, Chuckerman.” She stared at me and nodded. Slow nods, like she was trying to swallow a bad piece of steak. “I took away something else, besides the fact that you look terrible in fur.”
“What’s that?” I said. I was irritated at myself for not anticipating the celebrity coverage. Clearly I was the idiot here, because I’ve been in gossip magazines now and again for taking out up-and-comers, barely-knowns, and the reality that my evening with the world’s biggest pop star would make headlines had never entered my consciousness until this moment. I’d been too mired in my own tiny state of affairs to consider the bigger and actual picture at hand. I could feel Slip looking down on me and laughing, the way he had when I’d made a rookie mistake at gin. I fiddled with the electric window control like
I used to as a kid, jolting the window up and down.
“I think it’s interesting that you took out Share last night, may have even slept with her if she hadn’t dumped you for Bailey Pierce, but want to take me home to your family today.”
Luckily, traffic was bumper-to-bumper down 5th from 35th to 23rd, because Laurel was no longer focused on the road. Her cut-offs had ridden up on her legs during the course of the ride, so she was busy unsticking her thighs from the leather seats. I was busy staring at the thighs, which had gotten nicely tanned in the Hamptons, and wondering what to say next.
“I’m actually glad you brought this up,” I said after a moment’s consideration. The article had called me a mastermind, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to turn to what I obviously do best: spin. “I think this article is the greatest thing that ever happened to us. It’s an opportunity to clear the air, which is just what you said we should do—and,” I added, “was something I wanted to do before you came home to Chicago with me.”
“I never said I would go home with you, but anyway, go ahead. I can’t wait to hear this.”
“If we are going to start off the relationship on the right foot, take it to the next level, we need to start off with a clean slate—air our dirty laundry,” I said. I admitted I took Share to the dinner. I promised that I didn’t sleep with her, and had not intended to. I also apologized for not telling her.
“Apology accepted.”
“Fabulous,” I said, gaining further confidence in my abilities as spin doctor. “Now it’s your turn.”
“For what?”
“To come clean. To admit to, you know, doing Yiddish on the side with the rabbi.”
“What’s wrong with Yiddish?”
“You know what I mean,” I said. “Metaphorical Yiddish. Yiddish as in sleeping with the rabbi.” I also told her something I’d later consider to be a bad idea: that her friend Claire from yoga had told me about the rabbi, Reb Irish Eyes, voted Hottest Rabbi in Lower Manhattan for three years running. In a showing of even poorer judgment, I added, “Marcy told me you were sleeping with him, and Susan said her daughter was sleeping with him too.”
“Oh please,” Laurel said. “Do you believe everything you hear? Consider your sources. There’s no way Eric would sleep with Betsy, and besides, what does it matter?”
I paused the conversation long enough to get us back onto Broadway from 5th and to point out a bright orange sign indicating a hole in the road.
As Laurel jerked the wheel so we swerved around the hole but clipped the sign, I said, “I’d intended to lock things up on this ride, so it matters a lot.” I was shocked that Laurel didn’t understand why the two-timing mattered. Maybe she was right. Maybe a leopard can’t change its spots; only she was the leopard, I thought, not me. She could dabble in Judaism all she wanted but she was a polygamist at heart. “You can take the girl out of Utah, but you can’t take the Utah out of the girl,” I mumbled.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said. Her hat had now sunk over her eyes. I wasn’t sure she could see. But apparently she could, because she pointed out that we were passing Union Square Park, the spot of our first date and now our first fight. “Ironic,” she said. I agreed, and we sat in silence for a few blocks until Broadway and 11th, where the road opened up and so did I.
“My comment means nothing,” I said as I pushed the hat up on her head. “But let’s just say the rabbi matters to me because I’m bringing you home to meet my family and I thought before I did, it would be a good idea to—”
“To what? Clean me up? Package me right? Let’s face it, Chuckerman. My life’s up for grabs. I’m most likely moving to Los Angeles. No one is going to buy this movie no matter which bridge I use. You said it yourself, it’s the feel-lousy movie of the year. So what’s the point of taking me home to meet your family?” She looked at me as she answered her own question. “There is no point. I hate the Cadillac. I’m hardly going to fit in with the Melmans.”
I hadn’t considered how she’d go over with my family. She was already friends with Marcy, and Estie was one of her biggest fans. I assumed she’d fit in fine. I didn’t think Laurel would care about fitting in with my family. I figured she’d feel happy to be brought into my family, happy to be able to stay in New York, and happy to be relieved of the pressure of having to sell her movie. But Laurel, it seemed, didn’t want to be saved. She, unlike my Grandma Estelle, was familiar with Women’s Lib. Because when I said, “I’m sure they’ll love you,” she said, “What they think of me is irrelevant. It’s my life; I need to figure it out myself. Which is why what I do—or what you do, for that matter—shouldn’t matter. That, to me, is the definition of a fling.”
“So you are telling me that if I had slept with Share, you wouldn’t care? What kind of woman doesn’t care?”
“A woman like me, who can’t afford to care. Your Grandma Estelle, too. She couldn’t afford to care, either, that’s why Slip’s sleeping around wasn’t a deal breaker for her.” She said this slowly, as if she knew she was delivering a low blow.
I told her to leave my grandparents out of this. “Besides,” I pointed out, “if this is a fling, there can be no deal breakers.”
Bleaker to Houston to Prince went by before Laurel said, “Well if this wasn’t a fling, this car would be a deal breaker. It takes up an entire city block. I’ve got news for you, Chuckerman, the reason we’re not getting anywhere is not because there are so many other cars on the street, it’s because this one is so big. It’s a death trap, not a shrine.”
She shook her head and the hat slipped over her eyes. She pushed it up. She told me she would drive to the bridge, but not home. She was never driving the Cadillac again. “Truthfully, I’d rather be saddled with a meth addict than this Cadillac.”
“Fine by me,” I told her, resorting to the tit-for-tat tactics I’d relied on growing up with my sisters. I told her that I would drive the Cadillac home and I’d continue to drive it until it would drive no more. “And a woman who won’t drive this car is a deal breaker for me. So I guess it doesn’t matter whether you end up in LA or not, because it doesn’t seem like there’s any way for us to end up together.” I added that my offer to go home with me was off the table.
“Be realistic, Chuckerman, there never was any way we were ending up together,” Laurel said.
I shrugged. Late last night, my plan for our future had seemed so straightforward. I didn’t know where I’d gone wrong with my sign from God, but I sure had misread it. My only option now was to cut my losses. “So, I guess this is the end of the line for us. Just like for the father in your movie.” I told her. “Everything ends at the Brooklyn Bridge. Maybe that’s what Simon & Garfunkel were trying to tell you. Or,” I mumbled, the spring now drained from my proverbial step, “maybe that’s what they are telling me.”
She said she didn’t see why our relationship had to be over. “Nothing is that much different than it was before our drive.”
I told her that depended on one’s point of view.
We drove the last few blocks in silence, and my thoughts went ahead to Laurel’s next lecture, the one she’d give on twists and turns. I wondered if I’d go to it. If not, I thought, I should probably ask her now what a writer does when he loses control of his script. Is there a special kind of bomb one can drop to get the day back on track? Of course, the bigger question was about the bomb that refused to drop. Laurel still hadn’t said whether or not she was sleeping with the rabbi. I reminded her of this and she said, “If it didn’t matter before, it really doesn’t matter now.”
The bridge’s towers now loomed among the buildings. The sun blazed down on the water. Boats tooled around in it. Tourists mobbed the streets. Ironically, the ride itself had gone relatively well. We made it in one piece to the federal courthouse, where we parked and walked to Foley Square. There, I waited for Laurel while she walked the bridge. I listened to a tour guide, a lanky kid in a Fordham Law sweatshirt, lecturing a pack of visitors about Joh
n Roebling, the designer of the Brooklyn Bridge, whose foot got crushed between the pier and his ferry as he was taking final measurements for the project. He refused formal medical treatment, choosing his own “water remedy” instead and, the guide explained to his listeners, in a most unfortunate twist of fate, died before work on the bridge ever started.
CHRISTMAS AT BOBO’S, PART I
CHRISTMAS DAY. POST POOL PARTY. TERRACE OF APARTMENT 1812
The camera will open on my mother squeezing gunk from an aloe plant leaf and rubbing it into my chest. Rachel, still in her suit, will lean against the metal railing and spy with binoculars on the people in the apartments across the way. My grandma will stand next to her, still in her driving clothes, the T-shirt and jeans. She’ll fuss with her mass of white hair, disheveled not only from the wind but also from exasperation.
Word of Slip’s jumping and betting with Lucille had reached Apartment 1812 before we’d returned to it, and his behavior hadn’t gone over well with Estelle. My father, however, was actually happy with Slip’s pool deck performance. When we first stepped into the kitchen, he congratulated Slip for not hitting Big Sid. My grandma rolled her eyes and said, “Forgive me for not feeling more gung-ho about Slip’s restraint.” Then she tsk-tsked her way to the terrace, where she started tsk-tsking to my mother.
“Maybe he should just accept that deal from Gladys Greenberg, whatever it is,” my grandma will say in the movie. “Get him out of trouble.”
At the mention of the deal, Rachel’s ears will open. “So, Grandma, did your friends happen to mention anything about the deal?” she will ask without looking up from the binoculars.
“What about it, honey?”
Rachel will shrug, pretending to be coy. “I don’t know. Like about, you know, what’s involved.”
My mother will kick Rachel in the leg but Estelle will not notice. Instead, she’ll pat Rachel’s back and say, “No, honey. Doesn’t seem like anyone knows.”
Chuckerman Makes a Movie Page 22