Later, he was also to begin filling me in on what he had been thinking about such matters beginning all the way back during his senior year in high school, when what it amounted to was applied civics. But for now he just wanted me to be on the alert to what you could be getting yourself involved with if you showed any sign of inclination to become affiliated with or even curious about a certain kind of political ideology.
As for myself, he said before hanging up, Man one of the very first things that I began to realize when I checked in on that campus down there in central Alabama was that I have to learn how to be a good man on my own, because I was the one and the only one who had to decide what kind of person I wanted to be. Which was exactly the same as choosing what I wanted to do with my life. The profs were there and the books and so were the laboratories and practice facilities, but as soon as I got there and began finding my way around the campus, I began to realize that for all the legitimate pride that the administration faculty and trustees took in the achievements of their alumni, I had not come down there to be turned into another one of any kind of any of the graduates that I knew anything about. That’s when it hit me that you might think that you’re already on your own in senior high school, but for me being away from home made all the difference in the world. Anyway that was when I actually began to realize that the one I had to answer to from then on was myself. Hell, I didn’t even have to be down there in the first place if I didn’t want to be. I had felt that I had to come, but once I got down there I realized that I did not have to stay if I didn’t want to. Hell, I had forgotten all about truant officers after the ninth grade!
But look man, he said as if suddenly realizing again how late the phone call was, I know you’ve got school work to get back to. I just wanted to give you a quick follow-up on what happened today. Not because I’m worried about you but just to let you know that I’m not. Man, I’m pretty sure that you’re already as aware as I am that we’re already one up on anybody that thinks that because we come from down the way and are impressed with New York City we are also impressed with them!
Man, I said just before hanging up, Most of the uptown splibs I’ve met so far couldn’t care less about the New York I came up here to get next to.
XVIII
When I picked up the phone and heard Eric Threadcraft’s voice again, I said, What say, Mice? I said, So you’re in town. I said, So can you look out and see old Sherman heading south even as we speak? And he said, Howya, fella? How’d you know? I mean, not only that I’m here but also where I’m calling from? And I said, Gotcha. But it was a dead giveaway, man. Damn, you sounded like you’re already heading this way, very soon if not sooner, even as you hung up. And where else would a certified Hollywood maestro popping into New York be calling from if not the Plaza or the Sherry Netherland? Because we are talking about romance, aren’t we? And I don’t figure you for a Waldorf man. Anyway, if you hadn’t sounded so much like you had your fingers crossed when you said what you said and didn’t say what you didn’t say I would have guessed that you were popping into the Algonquin on film score business as the saying goes, if I remember correctly.
And he said, Touché, fellow, touché. It’s like our man Joe States clued me in on you at the outset. Bass fiddle time is your thing whatever the gig. Context, fellow. That’s the Joe States thing about you. But listen, I’m calling you because I’ve been looking forward to this trip ever since old Joe gave me your number and told me about what you’re into these days. But just a couple of days before I was to pull out, something came up that changed the whole nature of the trip, something that I’ve got to check into right away.
Then he said, Hey, fella, you said I sounded like I had my fingers crossed just before I hung up that last time. Man, that was humility before an incredible possibility of good fortune. What I’m into now is anxiety.
And when I said, Hey, man, next time around. After all, I plan to be here for at least two years, he said, Hey, but that’s not what I really mean, fellow. This is something confidential that I really want to talk to you about as soon as we can find a corner to whisper in. Man, I’m calling to find out how fast I can get to you. This morning, if possible. I don’t know what you can do about this new situation. But since I was already looking forward to touching base with you, I decided that you’re the very one I should run this by. Even before I let anybody else know that I’m already in town.
So I said, Since I’m going to be up at the Forty-second Street library by midmorning, why not the Algonquin lounge at say ten-thirty? Not later than eleven.
And when I asked for a hint, he said, Hey come on, fellow. Why would I have my fingers crossed if it didn’t have anything to do with a woman? We’re talking heartthrobs here, fellow. Man, I don’t think I ever crossed my fingers in a boardroom full of wheelers and dealers, or even out at the track, win, lose, or place, or else. But when it comes to what I’m into now, it’s wishful thinking from the get-go.
Which was about as much of a hint as you could expect to get on the phone from somebody you already promised to meet as soon as you could get up to Forty-fourth Street from Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue by bus or subway. So I said, See you there, man.
And when I came in and spotted him in the lounge, before looking into the bar, he was at a table for two, being served coffee. He saw me and stood up and we slapped palms and bumped shoulders, and he said, Man, this is not quite the New York junket I had in mind when I said I’d probably already be in town when I called the next time.
So when I said, So what’s up? he began at the beginning. Her name was Celeste Delauny (as in Sonia and Charles Delauny, but of another family), a French fashion designer from New York, and he had met her at a party in Beverly Hills while she was in Hollywood on special assignment as a costume designer and consultant for a production that was in its early planning phase and for which he had also been offered a position as a special music consultant, arranger, composer, and combo leader. What was being planned was a high-budget comedy of manners showcasing clever dialogue, state-of-the-art furnishings, and high fashions that would also include after-hours combo music as well as hotel ballroom production numbers.
And guess what, fellow? A high-fashion expert turns out to be not only a Parisian but she’s also a jazz buff! Man, the very first thing she says when I’m taken over to be introduced was that she hopes that it won’t be too much of a bother for a professional like me to suggest some truly authentic spots for her to check out during the ten days that she was scheduled to be in town during this preliminary stage of the film. Which incidentally also just happens to be the biggest thing ever to come my way. I’ve been doing all right, but man, this is about as big as they come for this kind of slick flick.
But the production as such and the big breakthrough it represented for his career as an arranger/conductor was only incidental to what he had come to the Algonquin to tell me about as soon as possible that morning. Because, as he went on to say, as important as all of that was, the minute the producer who was taking him around the room introduced him to the French fashion designer from New York and he saw how she responded when she was told that his main interest as an arranger/conductor was jazz, he could hardly wait to get through the rest of the introductions and figure out a casual way to get back to her before some big-time glamour boy zeroed in on her.
And what happened was absolutely the biggest surprise he had ever been taken by. He made his way to the bar, and as he turned to sip his margarita and figure out an excuse to go back and say something to her in French, if only aimez-vous le jazz hot? the very first person he saw less than twelve feet away was her, obviously heading directly toward him. And before he could get his tourist guide French together she was apologizing in British English for intruding and was asking him if he could spare a few minutes and give her the list she had mentioned.
Man, what can I tell you? he said taking another sip of his tea. I told her in English that out of my longtime awareness of and respect that I had
for French taste in jazz, I would not only supply her with a list of the best spots in and around town but would also be only too happy to serve as her personal tour guide. And when I saw that she was going for it, I said, Beginning as soon as you think it’s discreet to check out of the present festivities. To which she said, Fifteen minutes. So we separated to take leave of our host and acquaintances and then when we came outside, she said, My limousine or yours? I heard myself saying mine because that way I get to take you home.
Then he said, Now you know damn well that I don’t have to tell you which way I told my driver to head. I’ll just say that Jameson McLemore and all the rest of the cats really came through for me, inviting me to sit in for a couple of numbers that they knew very well would give me the opportunity to not only show off a few of my favorite licks, but also would vouch for my authenticity. As for old Papa Ford Shelby, he treated me like a member of the family, and to my classy-looking French stone fox he said, Hello there, Miss Lady. Come on in this house and make yourself at home. You’ve gotta be somebody special to come out here to this scene from Paris by way of New York and latch on to somebody as with it as my boy here on the first go-round. So just make yourself comfortable and familiar, because if you dig the music, like most folks who come in here from Paris, we’ll be seeing you again and again.
Man, Eric Threadcraft said as the Algonquin waiter brought more tea, I never felt so lucky in all my life, and when I took her to her hotel just before dawn the next morning, all I could think of was that I was going to be with her again that very night, which, by the way, turned out to be no letdown whatsoever from the night before, and I was on cloud nine for the rest of her stay in Hollywood. And when she went back to New York that next week, I had just about decided that we were made for each other, although, by that time, she had mentioned the fact that she had been married some time ago. Man, all that mattered to me was her future availability, which I was hoping, really fantasizing, would be exclusive. And actually I had already followed up with a brief visit here as if on urgent music business just before Joe States gave me your number. Which is why I dropped that crack in there about some anticipated changes chez Mice, just before hanging up. And you picked right up on it, fellow, because I sure as hell did have my fingers, toes, and everything else crossed.
So anyway, he went on, when old Joe States gave me your number, the renewal of our friendship on purely personal, or in any case, nonbusiness or transactional terms, gave me another perfect means of making another pseudo-urgent visit to New York to see her seem somewhat incidental withal, if you get what I mean. Man, I was really looking forward to seeing you again, but I was absolutely dying to see that fantastic and unbelievably receptive woman again, and also as often as possible without seeming overeager.
Then he went on to explain why she was not making any return trips to California. First of all, his trips were not to be taken by her as visits, but pop-ins incidental to other very urgent matters, which, as luck would have it, coincided with his admitted desire to see her as often as possible, circumstances being what they were. Which was the fact that the big Hollywood production was already very much under way, as he very well knew. But she didn’t have to leave her exclusive fashion enterprise in New York to come back out to California until time for the in-person cast fittings for the actual wardrobes.
Hey, man, Old Mice has been in there doing what he can to keep any possibility from fading—as coolly as possible, you understand. Which just about brings us up to why I am here talking to you about why I am here talking to you. Man, there I was with my hotel reservations all set and my airline ticket all laid out along with my all-purpose Manhattan-bound travel gear, and when I go out to the studio two days before I’m booked to leave, there are whispers about a security check on all new foreigners under contract, and on the list to be investigated is French high-fashion designer Celeste Delauny, known in the trade as Celeste. Man, I don’t know what the hell any of this has to do with designing a chic wardrobe for a super-sleek drawing room comedy. But a routine background check seems to have turned up evidence that she’s being blackmailed and they’re going to be digging in to find out if there’s any connection with any questionable political affiliation past or ongoing.
Man, he said, shaking his head, I never felt so much like I was one of those frail-looking kids wearing thick glasses and carrying a violin case. Man, I never felt so unhip and unwith-it since way back in my preteen days when I was a conservatory-bound piano prodigy and a scholarship shoo-in and heard my first jazz records on radio and snuck off to my first chitlin circuit theater to hear some musicians playing it in person in one of those matinee vaudeville variety shows. Man, I don’t remember ever being so unwith-it about anything in my life before.
And when I said what I said about that kind of idiomatic initiation adding up to the maestro that Joe States put me in touch with in Hollywood, he said, Man, that was the music scene. Man, this stuff sounds like some international intrigue involvement that I never thought of as being related to me on any personal level. Man, the only personal concerns I ever really had about international relations have been with keeping my passport up to date and getting my stuff through customs, duty-free or not, it’s all the same to me.
So here he was back in New York to see her again, but now the cover story about being in town to reestablish his special schoolboy-to-schoolboy relationship with me also covered the fact that he was also in town to get some expert advice from some of his old local show business contacts about hiring a reliable private investigator to fill him in on the political past of Celeste Delauny of the very exclusive Celeste haute couture line and boutique.
Look, fellow, I know you know damn well that I know how uncool this sounds, he said. But man, I’m also counting on you to realize that all of this is still very much in vamping phase. Which is why it’s absolutely impossible for me to even hint that I question anything of any sort whatever about her. Man, I’m just trying to vamp this infatuation thing until she comes back out to the coast. What all this has been about all along is me vamping this thing until she comes back when the producers start pulling all the logistics together and now I’ve got to find out if it’s worth it or if it’s all going to go up in smoke.
XIX
When he finally called me from Hollywood to bring me up-to-date on the situation a week and a half later, as soon as I heard his voice I knew that whatever had happened during the rest of his trip to New York or after his return to the coast had changed his mood from shock and anxiety to an enthusiastic anticipation that I remembered always being there whenever we were doing whatever we had been doing in California.
So what can I tell you, my man? he said, before I could even say Hello. You already know that Hollywood is seventy-five percent if not ninety percent pop song romance, Sunset Boulevard and blue horizons indeed. So what can I tell you, fellow? Old Mice got it bad and gotta try to make it good. So I got over that attack of cornballitis.
Man, he went on, I realize what had hit me right after we came outside and you headed across the street to the arcade to Forty-third Street. Suddenly there was this irrepressible need to hear her voice again as soon as possible. So that I could be sure that I hadn’t made the whole goddamn thing up. So I decided to call her up and ask if I could pop by the boutique.
Which he had done from the phone in the lobby of the bank at the corner of Fifth Avenue, and she had said yes and as he hung up he suddenly realized that the relationship he was trying to develop with her was only incidentally and at most only temporarily connected with the film production that neither of them had ever mentioned to each other. After all, her profession was high fashion as such, not costumes for show business, and she had come out to Hollywood only to look around, mainly because the producer had sent for her, hoping that the visit would change the “maybe” she had given them to a “yes.”
Look, man, he said, I think I made it pretty clear that I got to meet her in the first place because she was more exc
ited about the music she might be able to check out while out there than she was about the technical details in the production of what to her was only a sweet drawing room comedy that she was out there to decide whether she wanted to work on.
I grunted to let him know that I thought he was making his point, and that was when he went on to say, Now hey, fellow, you know as well as I do that a job as composer/consultant on a high-budget production like that was a pretty big break for Old Mice’s status as a sound stage studio pop pro in this town, as far as that sort of thing goes around here. But although it was my new status that got me to that Beverly Hills production party where I met her, it was because of the music that I’m most serious about that I got to take her out that very first night.
You’ve got to believe me, fellow, he said, neither one of us mentioned anything at all about that goddamn sleek-ass production. Not even a word about when or if she might have to come back out for final fittings and the shooting. My guess was that she would take the script and do all the designs and sketches in New York and send them out for approval and suggestions and make whatever adjustments and revisions they requested and sew everything up in New York and come back out west to check things out when the actual shooting began.
Anyway, as he had come on along Forty-fourth Street and turned up Madison Avenue, the only thing that mattered was that she was waiting for him and he would be there in less than ten minutes and would see how her head tilted and her hair fell as her eyes sparkled when her Parisian lips moved as she said whatever she would say.
He had not taken a taxi because he needed that much walking distance to get himself back together after what he had put himself through. But every time he had to stop at a traffic light he realized he was struggling to keep himself from springing forward before the yellow light changed to green again.
The Magic Keys Page 14