Fast Start, Fast Finish

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  “Mother, please leave me alone. I feel so awful.”

  “Where do you hurt?”

  “Everywhere!”

  “Does it feel like—”

  “Like having the curse—naturally!” Maggie said. “Only worse.” She began to cry again.

  “She’s in her bedroom,” Bruno said. “And she’s been waiting for you. She wants to see you.” Bruno’s eyes lolled at Charlie through a falling lock of cornsilk-colored hair. Bruno had a face that could only be described as beautiful. After you noticed that he was beautiful, you realized that he should have been called handsome to begin with. “You’d better go right up,” Bruno continued in his flat, lazy drawl. “And I’ll warn you, La Señora has the mean reds today, Charlie.”

  “Oh, dear,” Charlie said, starting quickly up the stairs to get out of the reach of Bruno’s lazy, beautiful eyes.

  Tessa’s bedroom also served her as an office—an office of sorts, at least. There was a desk and chair at one end, and her bed was at the other, and there were telephones in both places. The desk was cluttered with framed photographs and at the moment was strewn with a wild assortment of papers. Charlie noticed that the surface of the bed was similarly strewn. Tessa, in slacks and a sweater, was pacing the floor, barefoot, a lighted cigarette in one hand and a highball in the other, in a state, it seemed to him, of only just barely controlled hysteria.

  “Oh, thank God you’re here!” she said when he entered the room. “All hell broke loose this morning, and I don’t know what to do.”

  “What happened?”

  “God knows. If I knew, I’d tell you. Juanita’s downstairs, locked in the kitchen, crying, and she won’t come out. Minnie won’t speak to me, and she’s sulking in her tent. Bruno and Richard have had a fight. Richard’s gone off in Bruno’s car, and Bruno says he’s thinking of leaving too. I’m just about to fire the bloody lot of them—throw them all out on their bloody asses! Charlie, will you tell me just one thing? Just what is it I do wrong?”

  “Tell me how the whole thing started, Tessa.”

  “Want a drink?”

  “No thanks.”

  “See?” she said, raising her glass. “This is how I solve things. I get myself a little bombed.” She sat down now on the edge of the bed, leaned forward, pressed her hands on her cotton-trousered knees, and raised her bare feet. She looked seriously at her toes, then spread and wiggled them. “How did it start?” she said. “Well, I guess it started last night, when I caught Minnie going out on a date wearing my new Balmain cocktail dress. She said I gave it to her. I never gave it to her. I haven’t even had a chance to try it on. But she said”—and Tessa imitated Minnie—“‘Oh, yes, you did, Miss M., but maybe you was a little plastered when you gave it to me and it slipped your mind.’ I told her, ‘Oh, the hell with it—keep it.’ And then,” she said, still addressing her toes, “she came to me this morning and told me that Juanita’s been carrying food home to her family from my kitchen. According to Minnie, Juanita’s had a regular Berlin Airlift going with food from my house to her house for the last three months. If Minnie’s right, old Winnetka’s been feeding half of Spanish Harlem with stuff I buy.”

  “Do you think Minnie’s right?”

  She jumped to her feet again and tossed the end of her lighted cigarette across the room, where it landed, neatly, in a wastebasket. “How do I know? If she has, Minnie’s been feeding the other half. What I want to know is, why do I have to put up with this kind of crap?”

  Charlie stooped to fish out the smoking cigarette from among the crumpled papers in the basket.

  “So I asked Minnie for proof, and she brings me these,” she said, gesturing to the confusion of papers on the desk and bed. “All these bills. I dunno. Is this proof? Look at this one, for instance.” She lifted one from the bed. “Six hundred dollars to Gristede’s. Have I ordered six hundred dollars’ worth of groceries from Gristede’s?” She handed it to him and then peered at the bill over his shoulder. “You tell me,” she said.

  “Well,” he said, studying it, “this is a bill that’s been running for two months. Yes, I think it’s conceivable that you could have spent that much at Gristede’s in two months’ time. Who does the ordering?”

  “I think Juanita does. Or maybe Bruno does. Or maybe it’s Minnie. Maybe they all take turns. No, they wouldn’t do that. They probably just fight over who’s going to do it!”

  “Yes, probably,” he said. “Tessa, why do you let them do these things to you?”

  She looked dismayed. “Let them? You think I let them do it, hon?”

  “Don’t you see? You’ve got them all trying to get you to play favorites. They’re constantly jockeying for top position with you—first one, then another. The only one who loses, Tessa, is you.”

  She gazed at him earnestly for a moment and then turned away. “Yes, hon, you’re right,” she said. “I’ve simply got to get myself organized—I’ve got to.”

  “Why don’t you give each one of them a distinct area of responsibility?” he said. “One of them that does the ordering—always. One of them pays the bills—always. Let Juanita do the cooking, and tell Minnie to stay out of the kitchen. And so on. Draw up rules and make them stick to them. Every now and then you can check on things.”

  She moved toward a window and drew aside a curtain. “You make it sound so simple,” she said thoughtfully. “Oh, I knew you would. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. But the trouble is, I don’t trust any of them. So I have to keep shifting their jobs around. I don’t trust any of the bloody bastards.” She stood at the window, looking moodily out, her slim arms hugging her breasts. “I don’t trust any of them. So I have to keep shifting their jobs you, Charlie, maybe.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” he said. “Let’s go play some tennis.”

  She turned toward him, suddenly radiant, and snapped her fingers. “Oh, that’s a wonderful idea!” she said. “See? I knew you’d solve everything.” She considered the drink in her hand. “Am I too bombed to play? No, I feel good. I’m going to beat the bloody hell out of you today, Lord Charles. Here’s to me.” She lifted her glass and took a final swallow. “Wait downstairs while I change,” she said. “We’ll get Bruno to drive us to the club.”

  Tessa was right. She was in good form that day—playing easily the best game she had ever played against him. She was swift and strong, forcing Charlie to play a much speedier game than he ordinarily played with her, and she scored seven aces during the match, which lasted nearly two and a half hours.

  Tessa took the first set by gaining the only service breakthrough in the fourteenth game. Her clincher was a dipping forehand return of service that forced Charlie to volley into the net.

  “Congratulations!” he called to her.

  Then, in the second set, Charlie broke through service for the first time to lead three to two, after Tessa had aced him twice in a row. Then he carried the set from eight to nine with three straight love games. In the next set Charlie broke through again for a seven-to-six lead and then took the decisive game on an overhead smash and a backhand volley that left Tessa bent, laughing, and gasping, with a stitch in her side, saying “Damn your eyes!”

  “Want to quit?”

  “Hell, no!”

  Then in the fourth set he fought his way—and hard, harder than he had played in a long time, even harder than he had played against the Yale boy—to three to two and maintained his advantage. In the final game he scored two aces.

  “Oh, you’re marvelous … marvelous,” she said, coming toward him, laughing, brushing the damp dark hair from her face.

  “You’re damned good yourself,” he said. “You’re tough—tough as nails, Miss M.”

  “We’ve both earned a drink.”

  As usually happened when they played, a small crowd had gathered at the edge of the court to watch them. The members of the Westmount Country Club labored hard to appear blasé about the presence of Tessa Morgan in their midst. But there were always some who, when w
ord reached them that she was on the tennis court, found an excuse to wander over and then found another excuse to stand and watch. Charlie and Tessa started toward this little knot of people now.

  “Have you forgotten?” she whispered, taking in her breath.

  “Hmmm?”

  “Quick,” she said. “Please!” And she seized his hand and gripped it. Tessa’s eyes ran quickly over his face as though searching it for tiny flaws. Then suddenly the dark eyes met his and held them.

  A brooding and taciturn Bruno joined them at the table in the bar as he always did. That had been Tessa’s idea. It was one thing for them to be seen playing tennis together. It was another thing for them to be seen talking and drinking together, alone, in the bar. “Any word from Richard?” she asked him. Bruno shook his head. “Don’t worry, he’ll come back. He always does,” she said. Bruno shrugged as though to say he didn’t care.

  They were about to order when Mike, the bartender, came over to the table to tell Charlie that he was wanted on the telephone. Charlie excused himself and went outside to the booth in the hall and picked up the phone.

  “Mr. Lord? This is Myra Mirisch,” she said. And there was something in her voice that made him hold the receiver tighter.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “How are you?”

  “Mr. Lord,” the cool, clipped voice said, “have you told people that I represent you in some way? In any way?”

  “Of course not,” he said.

  “I should have thought that it would have been quite clear to you, after our last few little talks, that there is no commitment. After your first misunderstanding, there has been no—further misunderstanding, has there? You know exactly where you stand with my gallery, don’t you? That there have been no promises?”

  “Certainly,” he said. “Certainly, I never—”

  “I told you I thought you had some talent. That was all. I told you to do more work. I told you to paint. And by the way, what are you doing at the moment?”

  “At the moment, I’m—”

  “It’s taken me three calls to reach you,” she said. “Your house gave me another number. At the other number they told me to try you at the country club. Here they tell me you are in the bar. Is this the story of your life, Mr. Lord? Not that it’s any of my business.”

  “At the moment I’m doing a commissioned portrait,” he said quickly. “Of Tessa Morgan. I’m with Miss Morgan right now, in fact. I’ve been—”

  “I see,” she said. “Well, knowing your dim views of commercial art, I don’t quite see what the difference is. Between commercial art—and this. But I’m not calling to lecture you. I just wanted to make sure there was no—confusion—in your mind about what our relationship is.”

  “No. And I don’t quite see what makes you think there should be?”

  “When I begin getting long-distance calls—”

  “Calls? Who’s been calling you long distance?”

  “Who is W. R. Aylesbury?” She asked him.

  “Sweet Jesus Christ,” he said into the phone. “Oh, sweet Jesus Christ.…”

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s one thing for me to try to cover for you with your wife, when you’ve obviously told her that you had an appointment with me. But it’s another to have a man telephoning from Chicago, wanting brochures and dates for a show of yours.”

  “Sweet Jesus Christ.”

  “I hope you didn’t expect me to lie to him, Mr. Lord, because I really couldn’t do that, could I? Could I, Mr. Lord—lie to him?”

  Coming into the bar, Genny McCarthy had seen immediately someone that she could tell—with almost absolute safety. She went quickly to the table and sat down in the empty place. “Well, sweetie—it’s been a coon’s age! How are you? How are you and my chum and neighbor getting along?”

  Tessa’s calm face turned slowly to Genny. “Well, hello,” she said.

  “How are you and Mr. Lord getting along?”

  Tessa turned to Bruno now. “Bruno, what time is it?” she asked.

  “Four-fifteen, m’love.”

  “Poor devil, I feel so sorry for him,” Genny went on. “Thank God he’s got something to occupy him. That marriage is—well, let’s say, strictly on the rocks, you know. And have you heard the latest? About his wife? I heard it from a friend, and he doesn’t know about it, but—” And she leaned toward Tessa, putting her hand on Tessa’s arm, and in a hushed, conspiratorial voice began, “Well, it seems—”

  “Bruno?” Tessa said in her sweetest voice. “Will you please tell this dyke to get her hands off me?”

  “Nancy—it’s me.”

  “Who is ‘me’?” she asked.

  “Your mother! Don’t you recognize your own mother’s voice? Lord knows it’s been long enough since I’ve heard from you!”

  “Oh, hello, Mother. I was just trying to get this—”

  “Trying to do what?”

  “Trying to get this zipper up. How are you, Mother?”

  “Nancy,” her mother said, “come home.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Just come home! Where you belong!”

  “Please, Mother—tell me what’s the matter. Is someone sick? Is Daddy …?”

  “He wants to talk to you.”

  “Well, put him on, for heaven’s sake!”

  “Oh, Nancy!” her mother said. “Will you never learn? Here’s your father.”

  “I tried to tell you this weeks ago, but you wouldn’t listen!” he shouted at her. She stood in the center of the room, her brown hair twisted in a red silk scarf.

  “That’s a lie! I asked you if what you said was true, and you said it wasn’t. You stood in my bedroom and lied to me!”

  “You force people to lie to you because you’d rather go on living in your stupid dream. Bel-Air!”

  “I’ve told everybody,” she said. Her hands flew to her face and all at once she was weeping. “What am I going to say how? The children—everybody. Everything—”

  “Tell them the show’s been postponed. Tell them anything.”

  “But that’s just another lie, isn’t it? Because it hasn’t been postponed. There isn’t going to be any show—ever. There never was.”

  “That’s not true either,” he said. “I told you what she said. She’ll give me a show when I have more work. Maybe next year, maybe—”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head back and forth. “No—never. Oh, I knew that Mirisch woman was a fake and a crook. I knew—”

  “For God’s sake, Nancy, this has nothing to do with Myra Mirisch. It has to do with me—and you.”

  “Me? Why me?”

  “Your God-damned father butting in.”

  “Oh!” she cried. “Oh, so that’s it! Now it’s Daddy’s fault! Blame it on poor Daddy, who simply wanted to know when it was going to be so he and Mother could plan a little trip east for the opening, so they could pay a little surprise visit on us, see our new house. Poor Daddy, who just happened to be interested in you, and excited about it, and—now it’s his fault. Oh, typical! Typical!”

  “Shut up!” he said. “Shut up.” And then in a quieter voice, “These histrionics aren’t helping anything.”

  “And what are we going to do for money?” she demanded. “Have you thought of that? Tell me to shut up, but how are we going to live? How are we going to eat? Do you expect—”

  “You know damn well we weren’t going to count on any money from my first show. We discussed all this before we even decided to come east. We agreed I could have the biggest one-man show on earth and still not sell a single damned picture. We agreed—”

  “But what about now? What about now that there isn’t going to be any show?”

  “There is going to be a show—someday. Meanwhile we figured we had enough to live on for at least two years.”

  “Well, we don’t!”

  “What do you mean, we don’t?”

  “It’s going. It’s almost gone—the money.”

  “What the hell are you ta
lking about?” he asked her.

  He turned and marched toward her desk, which stood in the corner of the living room. She saw his intention and ran after him. “Stay out of my desk!” she cried. “Keep out of my things.” But he had pulled open a drawer and seized the thick black checkbook.

  She tried to grab it away from him, and for several seconds they struggled silently over it. Then he had it away from her and bore it around the room, turning pages, while she pursued him, crying now, “Give me that! That’s mine!”

  “If you tell me we’re broke, I have a God-damn right to find out where we stand. Jesus!”

  “What?” she said, suddenly standing still.

  “Up to your old tricks—cash. Cash, cash, cash. Just checks for cash—you never write down what anything’s for.”

  “Cash is to feed us—to buy clothes—to—”

  “Tessa Morgan doesn’t spend as much on food as you do.”

  “Oh! So now I have to be compared to Tessa Morgan! Unfavorably, of course. How do you happen to know what Tessa Morgan spends? Are you her grocery boy as well as her constant companion, playing tennis, playing cards, drinking! I happen to run a house, with children, a home—not a high-class whorehouse!”

  “And what’s this?” he said, turning a page. “Fifteen hundred dollars to Edgar W—” He broke off and faced her.

  She looked briefly frightened, then defiant. “For the road work, of course!”

  “So you went ahead and did it anyway,” he said quietly, “without telling me.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Did you think I was going to let myself be humiliated? When Genny McCarthy—very kindly, very generously, I might say—offered to lend us the money for the road.… When I said I couldn’t let her do that, when she said then that she herself would go ahead and pay our share, just to save us from trouble with the others—did you think I was going to let myself be put in that humiliating position?”

  “I didn’t think, because I didn’t know about any of this till just this minute, sweetheart.”

  “Oh, you say ‘sweetheart’ in such a nasty way! Well I wasn’t going to be in the position of accepting charity—of letting poor Genny, who’s a friend, bail us out—”