Then, out in the hallway, she said: “But you should have done it sooner.”
Then: “You should have never hired me, you know.”
Then: “Do you really think there are such things as casual relationships? You think what’s between us is casual, so casual you can get rid of it by just firing me? Do you really think once I’m out of here I’m gone? Goodbye? So long? Guess again. Haven’t you ever heard of DESTINY?”
Then: “Oh, God! If you only knew what was coming. You poor thing. Goodbye.”
When I walked back into the boiler room I was greeted by applause.
“Good riddance,” said Denise. Marie hadn’t said a word to me for weeks, from the time she’d made that weekly arrangement with Fat Jack and thought that I had set her up, or maybe I just thought so. But now she said: “Finally!” Mona congratulated me. She said I had done a smart thing. I wasn’t so sure.
* * *
I went to visit Dad and we both sat in the living room of his apartment in Avondale listening to the ballgame on the radio. Keeping score as he was (was he in remission?), and depleted from illness as he was, he hardly knew I was there, and of course I wasn’t offended. In fact I was comforted in that at least this much hadn’t changed; there was still baseball, and still Dad listening to it on the radio, keeping score as if his life depended on it (and maybe it did), puffing away at his old briar pipe.
He wasn’t always an old man. You tend to forget that about old people.
I remembered his taking me to my first ballgame, up in the bleachers, when some burly son of a bitch accosted him about his pipe (which wasn’t lit), saying, just as we were sitting down, “Hey stupid, you’re not going to keep puffing that pipe in my face all game long, are you, stupid?”
Dad ignored him.
He still hadn’t lit up and never would, in public.
“You start puffing that pipe and I’ll shove it up your ass, stupid.”
Dad ignored him.
The guy got up to leave after the seventh inning.
Dad nudged me and said, “Time to go.”
Which surprised me. Dad would never leave until the last batter was out. Turned out we were following the guy down the steps, outside, into the parking lot and even into his car, which was where Dad grabbed him by the neck and began choking him until and guy turned red, white, and blue. Dad kept whispering, “Never ridicule a man in front of his son.”
Now Dad said, “Nothing’s as bad as it seems.”
Was he talking about the game? The Reds were winning.
“So long as you’re alive,” he said, “nothing’s final.”
Chapter 24
I was in my apartment when Stephanie called. She said, “You know how you’re always making fun of me for being so rich? You said if the cook ever went on strike Mother couldn’t find her way to the kitchen. Well guess what? The cook took the day off and Mother didn’t know where the pantry was. I swear.”
She was laughing.
“I’m sorry we had such a rotten time the other night.”
“Oh, Eli. You were just being Eli. I forgive you. There’ll be other nights.”
“How about tonight?”
“I can’t. I’ve got to run. Bye.”
She hung up.
I called back.
“You have a date?”
“Not exactly.”
“But you’re seeing somebody.”
“No I’m not seeing anybody. I’m going out. All right, I’m seeing that girl you fired.”
“SONJA?”
“There, I knew it,” she said.
“SONJA?”
“I knew I shouldn’t have told you.”
“SONJA?”
“I don’t want to argue about this, Eli.”
“How did this happen?”
“She called. She wants her job back and she wants me to talk to you.”
“That’s not it at all. She wants to kill you, Stephanie.”
She laughed. “Eli, you’re being dramatic again.”
“Stephanie, this girl is dangerous. There really ARE people like that, and I don’t mean WILD.”
“You can’t stop me. You’re being foolish. We’re only going out for coffee, for gosh sakes. Girl talk.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. I love you. Goodbye.”
* * *
I PEELED RUBBER to catch her before she left. If no cop spotted you, Cincinnati was a fine place to speed because, here, even the pedestrians waited for the light to turn green before crossing, no matter how late the night, how remote the neighborhood – people froze at the corner and waited for the light to change, first because the police gave tickets for jaywalking, and second, the German influence. You did as ordered. You behaved. You were a Cincinnatian.
Stephanie’s car was in the drive.
Her mother answered the door, as always offering absolutely no expression, a remarkable feat of acting. You couldn’t even call her STONEFACED because even stones have expressions. Look closely. I knew it was an act because I knew how lively she could get when the RIGHT people were around. More than lively.
GUSHY! I had even seen her and her husband drunk once, and what a show that had been, so embarrassing that Stephanie felt compelled to apologize every day for a month, me saying it was forgotten, which it was, because if I were to remember it, that scene where her mother came into the den slobbering and teetering like that and asking if I knew any dirty jokes – if I were to remember that I’d have to reconstruct my entire image of the Eaton family, all of Hyde Park and all of High Society included, and I wasn’t in the mood to undertake such a thing.
“Stephanie is out, Eli.”
“Oh.”
“She just left.”
“Do you know where?”
“No I don’t.”
A symptom of rich homes. Nobody knew where anybody was. Rich homes were like corporations.
I was glad she wasn’t asking if there was anything wrong, but she might have asked SOMETHING, to establish some sort of – rapport? Was I really mashed potatoes in her eyes? Stephanie, laughing that high laugh, had once told me her mother thought me CHARMING. She also considered me a PHASE her daughter was going through.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
I lingered by the door. To her it must have been loitering.
“I’d invite you in,” she said, “but I’m cutting roses.”
She was cutting roses.
I walked back to the car, drove off searching for her, her and that fruitcake Sonja. Why was Stephanie wasting her time with such a lowlife? It made sense because Stephanie, despite her highfalutin ways, considered nothing and nobody beneath her. I drove to the address Sonja had given on her application. Price Hill. A man in his early thirties, quite tall and very thin, came to the door. He said he was related to Sonja Frick all right. He was her brother.
“Sometimes I’m her husband,” he said with a smile. Most of his teeth were missing. He spoke Kentucky drawl.
She didn’t live here anymore. “Gone back home…I guess.”
Home was Covington.
Did he know where she was this minute?
“You from that parole board?”
I told him who I was. He told me who he was. Wayne. He laughed. “Yeah, she’s told me all about you.”
“Do you know where she is right now?”
“Nobody knows where she is right now,” he joked. “Know what I mean?”
Did he know if she was out with Stephanie?
“I heard her mention the name. No love lost there, right?”
“Right.”
“She’s really got it in for the girl. You know Sonja. She can get mean. Did she do something to her?”
“That’s what I’m trying to stop.”
“Well you better git on your horse, Mister. Sonja’s all business.”
He gave me the address in Covington, but he wasn’t sure if she was still in the same house.
I as
ked him about Sonja’s clairvoyance.
“Yeah, she sees the future all right, and if it don’t fit, she makes it fit. You know about Dad.”
“Did she…”
“What’s your guess?”
“I don’t know. What’s yours?”
“She hated Dad. Dad had a bad AURA, she said. She said the same thing about that girl…”
“Stephanie.”
“Said she had a bad aura. She sees auras, you know. I don’t think she meant to kill Dad. Just his aura. If it means anything to you, that’s probably what she has in mind for this…”
“Stephanie.”
“She just wants to break her aura.”
I felt like a stand-up comedian. Everything I said cracked him up. He couldn’t stop laughing.
I said, “Do you consider your sister…”
“Sometimes my wife…”
He said it – Maw Wauf.
“…dangerous?”
“Fuckin’ A.”
Chapter 25
Only a few years following her COMING OUT party, first in Cincinnati, then in New York, then in Palm Beach, at which the rich and famous from all over the universe came to pay homage – old money knew no boundaries – only a few years after that Stephanie Eaton came to work for me at Harry’s Carpet City as a PHONE SOLICITOR.
Go figure.
The ad was in the paper and she responded. She’d had a fight with her parents, one of many, and to prove she was INDEPENDENT, to hell with Daddy’s millions, she was going to get a JOB. Not a debutante job. But a job. A job job. She called and from the voice alone I knew I’d hooked a rare one. She asked me where we were located. I wanted to say Fifth Avenue, New York. Or Rodeo Drive, Los Angeles.
“Vine Street,” I said.
I thought I heard her gag.
“Do you have any other locations?” she asked politely.
“You mean like Paris, London, Rome…”
She laughed and it was a good, honest happy laugh. “My only concern is that you’re too far from me.”
“Where do you live?”
I knew she’d say Hyde Park.
“Hyde Park,” she said.
She heard me laugh and said, “Did I say something funny?”
“No, I’m just wondering whether you’ve called the right place. This is HARRY’S CARPET CITY.”
“I know.”
“Are you aware what we pay an hour?”
“It says in your ad.”
“And you still want to apply?”
“I’ll be there tomorrow morning.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ll BE THERE,” she said with uppity resolve.
“This isn’t the Riviera.”
She laughed. “See you at nine. On VINE Street.”
But nine o’clock came and she didn’t. Usually I didn’t bother when they stood me up like this, they were, after all, a dime a dozen, but this was different. I knew because sometimes you just know. So I found Eaton in the phone book, on Rosebush Lane – where else?
“Did you forget?”
“Oh God, yes. I did. That’s POSITIVELY unforgivable. I’ll be right over.”
“You must not need a job very badly.”
“Oh yes I do. Please. I’ll be right over.”
“You remember where we’re located.”
“Yes. Vine Street not the Riviera. Give me an hour.”
I gave her three, before she pulled up in that silver Jaguar.
Fat Jack had taken notice. As she made her way up the steps, he called up to ask. “Are we hiring royalty? That car’s worth more than you’d make in ten years, fifty years, a hundred years – and look what’s walking up into your lousy boiler room! Will you look at this! Eli, this girl’s a DREAM. Marry her.”
“I’d like to meet her first.”
“I give you two weeks.”
She arrived wearing a frilly, billowy top and tight skirt, which didn’t go together, in fact didn’t go at all, and I figured she had dressed for the occasion – for Vine Street. She had too much rouge on. Hardly any lipstick. On the thin side, but great breasts, which were being held in reserve. Beautiful? Oh yes. But I didn’t fall for her the minute I laid eyes on her. Took a good five minutes.
I had expected her to be cool and classy, which she certainly was, but you could tell that she was a socialite in the making, not quite finished yet, something too gangly about her still, a bit unsure of herself, lacking absolute refinement and complete poise, which would come, you knew it would come, any day in fact, any minute.
She sat there appraising me and I wondered which one of me she was seeing – the company man or the artistic rebel. One minute a knowing smile would sweep across her face as though letting me know that the big desk wasn’t fooling her, but the next minute, as I was explaining things, she’d nod reverentially.
I gave her an empty desk to fill out her application but instead of writing she kept shooting me worried glances.
“This isn’t a test,” I said.
I’d never seen anyone tackle a lousy application form with such sincerity and intensity, even fear.
“Ready whenever you are,” I said, but that would never happen, it was plain to tell.
She’d never be ready.
“Whatever you’ve got will be enough,” I coaxed.
Finally she got up and just stood by my desk imploringly. I reached out to take the paper from her hand but she wasn’t letting go of it; as many times as I reached out she pulled back. She finally handed me a sheet that was empty save for her name, address and education. Vassar.
Fat Jack leaped into the room, grabbed the paper, crumpled it up and said, “Forget this. You’re hired.”
Then he vanished.
She laughed.
“That was Fat Jack,” I said.
“I know. I met him downstairs.”
“He thinks I ought to hire you, no questions asked.”
“Oh? He told me we ought to get MARRIED, no questions asked.”
We both laughed.
“I notice that you’ve never held a job before.”
She shrugged and began smoothing the boxing trophy that was on my desk. She blushed when I said she didn’t have experience.
“Are you aware that people down here can be awfully crude?” I said, thinking of Fat Jack in particular.
“Am I hired?” she said impatiently.
She had switched gears on me.
Of course she was hired. But I still had to do the interview!
I said the only skill required in this job was the ability to read a script into a telephone 100 times a day, and perhaps be persuasive, that wouldn’t hurt; come up with one or two leads a day. That was the easy part. The hard part was the atmosphere of a boiler room, not to mention Vine Street, which was really not the sort of boulevard she was used to, if I judged her correctly.
“I’m not THAT sheltered,” she said, seemingly amused by my paternal attitude.
I said muggings were not uncommon on the street.
“I’m a big girl.”
I said she’d be wise to have her chauffeur drive her over.
She laughed. “What makes you think I have a chauffeur?”
“Everything about you.”
She blushed.
“Most people hang up on you,” I explained about the job. “Everyone you talk to is a stranger.”
“I’m sure I can handle it,” she said playfully but decisively.
She wasn’t taking me seriously and continued toying with my boxing trophy. That was the only thing there was of me around the office and she did comment about it, about how I obviously wasn’t much for décor. There were no photos here of me or of my family, no trinkets, no mementos, other than that boxing trophy. She said that people who don’t nest in obviously intend to move on.
“Your job is to get leads,” I said.
“You told me.”
“Do you know what a lead is?”
“I guess it’s an appointment you tr
y to set up for a salesman.”
“Absolutely. You know much more about this business than I thought.”
She thought I was joking.
“What does your father do?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Daddy? I don’t know. Well I do know. But I really don’t know.”
“I just wondered if you knew anything about sales. Because that’s what this is.”
“No I don’t.”
“You’ve had pests calling you on the phone to buy this or that, and you’ve probably hung up on them.”
“Probably.”
“Well that’s what you’d be doing. You’d be one of those pests.”
“Good.”
“As you know, you’re vastly, ridiculously overqualified for this job…for any job.”
“I don’t care.”
“You are a debutante, aren’t you?”
“Oh there was some silly party.”
“So I’m not far off. Why do you need a job anyway?”
“That’s personal. Oh all right. Mother was being IMPOSSIBLE, as usual. Or more than usual.”
She said that as if I knew MOTHER. Doesn’t everybody know MOTHER?
“Since Fat Jack walked away with your application form there are certain questions I must ask for the record.”
She turned very serious for these important questions.
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“Do you have children?”
“NO!”
“Are you engaged?”
“No,” she said, catching on.
“Are you going steady?”
“This is for the record,” she said.
“Official business. It’s for the FBI. Clearance.”
“No I’m NOT going steady.”
“Are you in love with anybody?”
She blushed but quickly recovered. “This is for the FBI.”
“No, the CIA.”
“You can tell the CIA I’m not in love with anybody. Am I CLEARED?” She was still playing with my boxing trophy.
“Can you start tomorrow?” I said. “Or do you have to go shopping first?”
She sighed and gave me an exaggerated brush-off. “No I don’t HAVE TO GO SHOPPING. I’ll be here tomorrow.”
For the first week we kept our distance, playing it formal; the second week we started talking books; the third week she confessed to being an artist; the fourth week I confided that somewhere deep inside I was an actor; the fifth week she started to skip lunch with me; the sixth week she began staying late; the seventh week she asked me to box with her. Then we wrestled. Then we kissed. Then she started coming over to my apartment and sighed a lot.
The Girls of Cincinnati Page 12