Temporary Insanity

by Leslie Carroll

  “Well, you’ll save on postage,” I muttered. She didn’t hear me. By now I should have been used to her treating me like an insignificant appendage. It was only during her infrequent client meetings when she would glowingly introduce me as her “trusted assistant” that I seemed to register on Ms. Hunt’s radar screen as a human being and valued asset. I often wondered whether she had treated or would have treated Rafe the same way. And sometimes I got the impression that there had been a lot that Rafe didn’t tell me about Claire Hunt; he’d let me discover on my own why C. Hunt (“the ‘H’ is silent,” Terry would say) had earned her office nickname. My pal must have known that if he’d given me a heads-up in advance, I most likely wouldn’t have interviewed for his job.

  At least I had a job.

  I met Dorian for drinks after work. “My treat,” I insisted immediately. I knew the film season was slower than usual and Dorian staunchly refused to take survival jobs to tide him over during the lean times. Izzy and I admired and envied him for it, but just couldn’t bring ourselves to do the same, primarily because we lived with others who depended upon our steady income as well.

  Dorian looked dreadful, like he hadn’t slept in days. “Are you growing that for a role?” I asked him, looking at his stubbled face. It was the first time I’d ever seen him unshaven.

  He shook his head. “There’s been no work, so why bother?” he replied, sounding like Eeyore. His normally clear blue eyes now looked dull and hollow.

  “You look like shit,” I said jovially.

  Dorian gave a derisive sniff. “I hate my life.”

  “You sound like something out of Chekhov.”

  “Maybe it’ll help me get cast in Chekhov,” he mused. “I really do hate my life, you know. I’ve got an empty bank account, an empty bed, and an empty refrigerator.”

  “I’m sorry I can’t help you with the first two things, but come over for dinner whenever you want. Gram and I will be happy to feed you,” I offered.

  “Did your grandmother tell you I quit the tap-dancing tutorials?”

  I nodded. “That’s one reason why we’re sitting here. I’m worried about you. I know you end up on these downward spirals. Izzy and I were on to you years ago, and we…we just feel so powerless…we want to know what we can do to help you.”

  Dorian brightened briefly. “Well, the show we’re producing together is a good start. It’s a new direction for me. You have no idea how emasculating it is to go on one audition after another—”

  I held up my hand to interrupt him. “What are you talking about? Of course I know how demoralizing it is.”

  “But not emasculating,” Dorian corrected. “You couldn’t know that. It’s okay when you’re a kid or even when you’re in your twenties. But guys in their thirties—and older? Imagine this as what you do for a living.”

  “It is what I do, Dorian.”

  “But not for a living. You make a living by being a secretary.” My face flushed scarlet. He’d hit my Achilles’ heel. Dorian reached across the table and gently touched my hand. “I’m sorry, Alice. I didn’t mean it that way. Okay?” I nodded. “Think about how men are supposed to be breadwinners, to be self-sustaining. Now imagine that you’re a guy, socialized to be in control all the time; and every day you walk into a situation where there’s a line of other guys all competing for the same role, and you know that only one of you is going to get it, and it’s your job to prove, time after time, to those people behind the table or sitting in the dark, empty theater that you’re the worthy one. It’s like walking into a chain saw with your dick out!” Dorian threw up his hands, exasperated. “It’s not a career for grown-ups!” He downed the rest of his gin and tonic.

  “So why do we do it?” I asked him softly. “Or, more to the point, why do you do it?”

  Dorian ran his hand across his brow. “Because it’s the only thing I know how to do. The only thing I think I’m any good at.” I gave him a little disbelieving smile. “And it’s the only thing I really love to do,” he acknowledged. He ordered another drink. “Don’t worry,” he said reassuringly, “I’ll be all right. Just a little spate of depression!” he added with lunatic cheeriness, plastering a huge grin on his face.

  After four gin and tonics, he was still asserting the same thing. I walked him to his door, agonizing over whether I’d just been a better enabler than a friend.

  Although the arrangements were going full tilt and I was up to my ass in Regina’s wedding preparations, I had long ceased being interested in the lack of an invitation to the Big Event. We had one week to go. Ms. Hunt turned me into a tour guide, requesting that I recommend cultural and nightlife activities for Regina’s seven bridesmaids, who were all in town from various far-flung states in the Union. “You’re an actress,” Ms. Hunt said to me, acknowledging it for perhaps the first time in my nine months of employment for her. “Pick some good plays and musicals for them to see.” It should be noted that all of these “cruise director” duties came under the heading of “Alice, would you do me a favor…?” At least she hadn’t asked me to charge anything to my credit card.

  Saturday night was drawing ever nearer. It was Thursday afternoon. Ms. Hunt approached my desk, smiling sweetly. I’d never seen her smile before; she was scaring me. “Alice, I wonder if you…”

  Could do you a favor.

  “What?” I asked her.

  “Things will be so hectic on Saturday morning and as the mother of the bride, of course I want to spend as much time as I can with my daughter during the big day…so would you come to the Pierre at around ten A.M. and stay in the ballroom to take delivery of the favors and make sure that the floral arrangements are set up correctly and go over what Regina would like the chamber orchestra to play? I know ten is rather early, but I want someone to be on the premises all day in case there’s any last-minute confusion or a vendor shows up early and has nowhere to put things. Regina and I will get to the hotel by four o’clock at the latest. We start at six, as you’re aware from ordering and sending out all the invitations, and—”

  “No.”

  Ms. Hunt’s frozen smile cracked like a cheap windshield. “No?” She appeared completely baffled. “Wh-what do you mean, Alice?”

  “I mean no.”

  “But you’ve known for months that this Saturday was Regina’s wedding.”

  “Yes, I did. And when I wasn’t invited to it several weeks ago, I made other plans.”

  My boss looked extremely peeved. “Alice, you know it would have been completely inappropriate for Regina to have invited you to her wedding. She barely knows you. You’re my employee. I hope you’re not in a snit because you didn’t receive an invitation,” she said testily.

  Yet you want me to give up the entire day to babysit the ballroom.

  “I am not upset over that,” I assured her. “But I am not able to help you this weekend. I have other plans for Saturday.”

  My boss looked appalled. “But you can bill it on your time sheet, of course. What other plans could you possibly have that would—”

  “Family obligations,” I replied, interrupting her. Enough already. “This isn’t about the money,” I said. “It’s my grandmother’s birthday on Saturday. She’s in her nineties and we’re having a celebration.” Gram hated celebrating her birthday, especially in recent years when people would come over to the house simply to marvel at how she had managed to stay alive so long. “You might as well stick me behind glass at the Natural History Museum,” she would carp. But this year I decided it would be just the two of us. I would take her wherever she wanted to go.

  I figured she’d pick a fancy restaurant. She’d opted for Atlantic City. I had never been down there (I’m not the gambling type), and Gram hadn’t seen the Boardwalk since she was the third runner-up in an amateur beauty pageant in 1928. “I would have won it hands-down,” she said proudly, “but when they found out I was a showgirl and not a shopgirl, they wanted to disqualify me, so we hit on a compromise.”

  Ms. Hu
nt narrowed her eyes and looked at me. “Well, can you give me a few hours of your time on Saturday, Alice?”

  “No,” I replied. “I’ll be out of town all weekend.”

  Seething, she stalked into her office.

  “Score one for the Al-ster,” Terry said, when I passed her reception desk on the way to the ladies’ room a little while later. I wasn’t sure what she meant. “Everyone knows everything around here,” she continued, giving me a sly little look, “including about you and…”

  I felt all the blood rush to my face, then drain away. “Are you talking about who I think you’re talking about?”

  Terry lowered her voice to a whisper. “We were wondering when Tony was going to spring it on you that he was married, and none of us wanted to be the one to tell you—since it was none of our business. We figured you were a big girl and could take care of yourself. Besides, we were all also a little jealous that you were getting some nookie from him—I mean, who would turn that down? You’d have to be dead to think the man wasn’t an Adonis. I heard about the way you dealt with him, too. Way to go.”

  “Thanks, but I felt like I was played for a fool.”

  “Well, if it makes you feel any better, for what it’s worth, no one here at”—she turned around and glanced at the sign above her head—“ARMPIT,” she snickered, “thinks of you that way. So, go have a blast with your grandmother this weekend.” Terry opened her purse and handed me a five-dollar bill. “And put this on number twenty-eight for me when you pass a roulette table. If the number hits, I’ll give you twenty percent!”

  Chapter 13

  Our fellow travelers on the bus down to Atlantic City were like something out of a movie; they made great character studies. A pair of sisters—nuns, not siblings—told Gram and me that they made the trip every Saturday. “But what about church tomorrow morning?” Gram asked them.

  Sister Michael Marie laughed at us as though it were the funniest joke she’d ever heard. “You think they don’t conduct mass in New Jersey?” she said. Then she went on to tell Gram a joke about a priest, a swami, and a rabbi in a rowboat.

  About two and a half hours into the ride, we decided to browse through the brochures I had picked up from a local travel agency and downloaded off the Internet. “Oh, look, Gram”—I started to giggle—“this hotel says that all the wall treatments and room furnishings have been ‘hand selected.’ I wonder what that’s supposed to mean. As opposed to what? Or who?”

  “Robots,” Gram hypothesized.

  We hadn’t booked a hotel for Saturday night because Gram couldn’t make up her mind. I didn’t think we’d run into trouble making a spur-of-the-moment reservation, since my Internet research pulled up a lot of vacancies at any number of the “swanky establishments” that had piqued Gram’s curiosity.

  “I want to see where Donald Trump put all his money,” she said with finality, when we arrived at our destination.

  “I think he’s got about three casinos down here,” I said. “Pick one.”

  She smiled with pure childlike guile. “Maybe we could try all three?”

  I gave her a parental look. “Let’s see how you feel after one.”

  So here we were on the real-life Monopoly board. And since Gram was fascinated by The Donald’s hotels, we made the Taj Mahal our first port of call. I suppose it’s a matter of taste, but I wouldn’t exactly characterize this overdecorated monstrosity that bore little resemblance to the real Seventh Wonder of the World as “a teardrop on the cheek of time.” More like a pastie on the tit of gluttony. Clearly, the casino’s credo was, “More is more.”

  “It’s a bit…rococo, don’t you think?” Gram said, gazing in awe at the wall-to-wall glitz.

  I stuck out my tongue.

  “But it fits, somehow,” she added, noting my evident distaste. “Well, come on, sweetheart, you wouldn’t expect asceticism from a pleasure palace, now, would you?”

  I shrugged in agreement. “Shall we hit the slots?”

  “No, let’s go exploring first,” Gram said decisively. She was the birthday girl, so off we went. Gram spied a huge poster advertising the weekend’s entertainment. “Oh, look, Alice, George Carlin is here tonight! I love his potty mouth.” She leaned over and whispered in my ear. “You know he was very subversive a while back. That reminds me…whatever happened to Lenny Bruce?”

  “He died, Gram. Decades ago.”

  She gave me a withering look. “I know that. I meant whatever happened to comedians with teeth—with a little substance?” I’d forgotten how much she enjoyed political satire. So we picked up tickets for the ten o’clock show and then went in search of some food. What better way to spend all the overtime I’d made planning Regina Hunt’s wedding? I looked at my watch. She and her mother would be arriving at the Pierre Hotel soon. I reached into my purse and made sure I had switched off my cell phone.

  We stuffed our faces at one of the establishment’s numerous buffets and then toured the different gaming rooms. I’d never been inside a casino before and hadn’t known what to expect. I guess I thought it would look like something out of a James Bond movie, with bejeweled and glamorous women spilling out of their slinky gowns, their gloved arms slipped through those of elegant, handsome men in white dinner jackets.

  Not in New Jersey. This casino was more Adam Sandler than 007: wall-to-wall tables crammed with people in sportswear more appropriate for a barbecue. No windows. Unless you wore a watch there was no way to tell the time of day. It was permanently time to gamble.

  After casing the joint, Gram chose a room she liked and practically dragged me by the hand over to one of the blackjack tables. “Gram, do you know how to play this game?” I said in her ear, trying not to move my lips. “Maybe we’d better watch them for a while and get the hang of it.”

  She pulled me as far away from the table as she could manage. “Alice,” she began, in the same tone of voice I had just used, “your Grandpa Danny was good at two things. No, three. Of course, he was a brilliant dancer, too. Grandpa Danny knew how to drink and he knew how to gamble. In fact, he tried to teach me how to count cards. Let’s see if I can remember any of it.”

  Oh, God. This was not a good idea. Gram sometimes didn’t remember what she’d eaten for breakfast. I negotiated a compromise. She would agree to sit tight and watch through the end of this shoe, and then we’d play a few hands, with no attempt on her part to count cards, and see how things went.

  Turns out Gram knew what she was doing after all. “Yes!” she exclaimed, as delighted as a nine-year-old given the run of FAO Schwarz. “It’s just like riding a bicycle!” She even taught her math-challenged granddaughter a thing or two. After a couple of hours we were up about a hundred and thirty dollars, and Gram suggested we move on.

  We stopped in front of the roulette tables. “Which one looks lucky to you?” I asked Gram. “ARMPIT’s receptionist gave me five dollars to put on number twenty-eight.”

  She selected one and I placed Terry’s bet. When the croupier spun the wheel, I finally grasped the allure of gambling. I felt a sudden rush of exhilaration and cheered for number twenty-eight like a lunatic—as if it could possibly affect the outcome. I found that I was holding my breath as the spinning wheel slowed, discovering that I loved the sound of the little ball careening all over the polished trough.

  Aaaaaannnnnd…then it finally stopped.

  And the ball settled into…

  “Number twenty-eight!” the croupier called.

  I began to jump up and down. Gram caught the fever and we hugged one another. Ahhh, the thrill of winning, even if we were going to pocket only twenty percent of the take—which was fifty dollars. We were on top of the world. I reached for my cell phone and dialed Terry.

  “We woooooonnnnn!” I yelled into the phone when she answered her line.

  “What? Who is this?”

  “Terry, it’s Alice.” My heart was thumping.

  “Oh, Alice. Sorry, I can’t hear a thing.”

  I saw a b
lack-suited bruiser approaching us.

  “Ter? I just called to tell you that you won! We won,” I said quickly, my eye on the bouncer-type. “I placed your bet and twenty-eight hit for two hundred and fifty bucks. So I’m keeping fifty and buying Gram a great bottle of champagne for her birthday. Uh-oh, gotta run!”

  “Enjoy it in good health!” I heard Terry say excitedly just before I ended the call.

  The big guy came over to us. Gram looked up at him. “Can we help you, young man?” she asked him angelically. The security guy gave her one look, decided it wasn’t worth the trouble to scold us, shook his head, and moved on. “Whew, that was close!” Gram giggled. I hadn’t seen her this happy in years.

  “I guess we should go try something else. Maybe another room” I suggested.

  “Slots,” Gram replied. These two rolls of quarters are boring a hole in my purse.” We went off in search of the slot machines, where we each poured the twenty dollars’ worth of quarters the junket bus had given us on our arrival. After a half hour, I came away with seventeen dollars and Gram had won twenty-three, so we considered ourselves winners.

  Gram didn’t even look tired, but I was concerned that she’d been going full throttle for hours. “I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted,” I said. “What do you say we get a room, so we can lie down for a while? I know I could use a shower before we head back into the fray. I’ll call room service and order that champagne with our share of Terry’s bet.” She concurred, and off we went to the hotel’s front desk, where we received a one-night package that included a bunch of discount coupons, so we ended up getting a partial charge-back on the Carlin tickets. We also got another twenty dollars in quarters apiece, courtesy of the house. Gram was in paradise.

  “You know you get a helicopter tour of Atlantic City with this package,” the desk clerk said, pointing to the brochure she was about to hand us.