Esther waved back.
“Surprise,” Sid said.
“She’s here?”
Esther started toward them.
Rudy turned.
Sid grabbed him. “Talk to her. Talk to her. You’ll see how crazy. How she needs peace. You’ll see.”
“Rudy ...” Esther called. “Rudy ... closer.”
“Talk to her. You’ll see.”
“Rudy ...” Esther said. She stopped in front of him.
Rudy just stood there.
Esther wept.
“Eleven o’clock it is, Tootsie,” Sid said. “Did I lie?”
Esther clutched her son. “I must stop crying,” she said. “I will ruin my makeup. Everything runs when you cry.”
“Talk to her, Rudy,” Sid said.
She looked as young and pretty as he could ever remember. He told her so.
“You two talk,” Sid said, smiling, waving as he backed off. “Look—” and he pointed—“there’s horseshoe players. I’ll go watch the horseshoe players. You two just talk as much as you want to.”
Esther watched him go. “What did he want from you?”
“ ... nothing ...”
“Watch out. He has some scheme in mind. I know him. Oh ...” She looked down at the sidewalk where her purse had fallen. “I do that. I drop things.”
Rudy picked up her purse. “You really look wonderful, Mother.”
“I have no more headaches.”
“Oh, what a blessing, what a blessing.”
“I have no more headaches. No more. I drop things. I just somehow forget I have things in my hands and they open and something drops. Are you hot? I’m hot. I love you, Rudy.” She moved to a bench by the carousel and sat down. “I love the carousel, don’t you?” There were two little blond children at the far end of the bench. “Hello,” Esther said. “What are your names?”
They said nothing.
“This is my son,” Esther went on. “Rudy, say hello to the young ladies.”
“Hello.” Rudy smiled.
“I have no more headaches, isn’t that a blessing?” Esther put the tips of her fingers to her eyes. “We said that. Yes. I drop things and I can’t remember much unless it was a long time ago, isn’t that funny?”
Rudy smiled. “It’s so hot today. That’s probably why.”
The carousel stopped. Children streamed off, others waited to get on. The noise was high and very loud. “Do you remember Eli Shapiro? Of course you don’t, why should you? He was the undertaker—he buried your grandfather—oh ...” She looked down at the sidewalk.
Rudy picked up her purse and gave it back to her and smiled.
“He was the last man to take me on a carousel. Eli Shapiro, I loved him so much, Rudy, why did he leave me?”
Rudy made another smile.
“I wonder what Sid wants from you? Where is Sid? Probably off with that Dolly. Did you hear? Everybody talks about it—the spectacle they’re making of themselves—terrible.” She shook her head. “I do my best to save them from criticism: The wife of Eli Shapiro can do no less than to try and save her friends from criticism.” The little blond girls hurried away. Esther stared after them. “Rudy? Why didn’t they tell me their names?”
“They were just nervous.”
“No. I did something, I could tell. You can tell when people like you. They didn’t like me. Oh ...”
Rudy picked up her purse.
“It’s so hot here in Chicago.” Esther laughed. “Do you remember how it was over the deli? We sweltered so, remember? Our whole house is air-conditioned now, Rudy. Every nook. We don’t use it, though. Only maybe twice a year. That’s all it ever gets so hot you need to turn it on. And sometimes when I have a bad headache, we use it then too.”
“Good,” Rudy said.
Esther shook her head. “That’s three,” she said. “Three mistakes I’ve made. Now wait—what tune is that from the carousel? ‘Put On Your Old Gray Bonnet’?”
“I can’t tell. Perhaps.”
Esther closed her eyes and mouthed “One, two, three.” She opened her eyes. “Three mistakes is correct. I said I was the wife of Eli Shapiro. I said this was Chicago. I switched about the headaches. Three.”
“I didn’t notice,” Rudy said.
“The doctor says I must try to catch them. He doesn’t mind if I say them, but I must catch them and think about why I made them. Now Eli, he I daydream about, and Chicago I said because ... because the heat reminded me and I switched about the headaches because ...” She paused. “Why did I make that one? Why did I make that one?” She clapped her hands. “Yes, I said it because I don’t want the headaches. There. A memory, a daydream and a wish.” She smiled. “I got them all.”
“Yes,” Rudy said.
“Oh ...”
Rudy picked up her purse.
“I really do look well, don’t I? Tell me the truth.”
“I have. Yes.”
Esther nodded. “I can tell. My mirror tells me so. I’m just so placid in the face. If only my hands weren’t so forgetful. If only you could kiss them and make them well. Didn’t I do that to you all the time? When you were little?”
Rudy kissed her hands. “There. All well.”
“I always meant to do it, Rudy. I never did though, did I?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“We must ride the carousel. Then later I can say, ‘Remember when we rode the carousel?’ and I won’t have to think I never did but only meant to. Oh ...”
Rudy picked up her purse and took her arm, guiding her to the ticket window. He signaled for two, paid, and they got in line with the children. When the time came, he led her in, helping her onto a white horse, mounting the neighboring black himself. Everyone waited for the music.
All around them were the children.
The carousel at last began to turn.
“They should have told me their names,” Esther said, and she tried not to, but in a moment she was weeping.
“It’s all right,” Rudy shouted over the music. “They did tell. You just didn’t hear. Their names were Janie and Jeannie and they liked you very much. They liked you. They told me so.”
Esther could not stop crying.
Sid appeared outside, watching them, mouthing the word “See? See?” to Rudy and Esther cried and Sid might just as well have shouted “SEE? SEE? SEE?” and the children shrieked with laughter and the music grew louder and the carousel turned faster and the noise hurt Rudy’s ears; his mother’s tears, his father’s shouts, the shrieking and the music that wasn’t “Put On Your Old Gray Bonnet” and he clung to the great black horse but it bucked and threw him to the ground, thundering “HAVE YOU HAD ENOUGH? ARE YOU READY NOW?” and then it tried to crush him with the weight of its mighty hoofs, but he was fast, too fast, and he squirmed out from under and off the machine and over the railing and then he was free, Rudy Miller in the park, sprinting through the heat, running like crazy.
XXV
WALT STOOD SWEATING IN front of the theater, and when Rudy appeared at the end of the block, turning the corner, running toward him, Walt shouted, “Let’s go, let’s go, it’s after twelve, you’re late,” and Rudy, when he reached him, stopped and muttered that he was sorry. Walt shepherded him into the lobby and through it to the rear of the theater. He pushed his glasses up snug against the bridge of his nose with his left thumb and looked at Rudy. “You O.K. and everything?”
“Fine. Yes.”
“Good; go get ready.”
Rudy dashed toward the dressing rooms.
Walt started in the direction of the stage where Katz, the costume designer, was having words with the light man, but before he was halfway there he turned abruptly and slipped out the side exit of the theater. “Rudy’s here,” he said to Tony. “Can’t be long now.”
Tony nodded, continuing to smoke.
“I haven’t mentioned you to Branch yet, but I will. I just couldn’t wait till tonight. Once the lights are out, I’ll sneak you in.”
Tony stepped on her cigarette, lit another. “Pack two for the day,” she said. “When I called in sick this morning I gave as my malady smoker’s hack.”
Walt wiped his forehead. “So you be honest, huh? Tell me what you think no matter what?”
Tony raised her right hand.
“S’long.” He started back inside.
“Boy, are some people in big trouble.”
Walt stopped. “Huh?”
“Here I am, wearing a brand-new titillatingly filmy watermelon-colored cotton chiffon shirt-waist creation bought at the cost of an arm and a leg from Jax Spatzel for the occasion, and you say not one word.”
“You look good,” Walt said.
Tony laughed and hugged him, kissed his cheek. “I promised to be biased in your favor,” she whispered. “I love the play already.”
“May I?” Walt said, looking around, his hands moving up from her waist.
Tony looked around too, whispered “You may.”
Walt touched her breasts. “Very titillatingly filmy,” he allowed. “You’ve spurred me on to victory.” He turned and walked into the door. “Nuts,” he said.
Tony could not stop laughing.
Walt made it through the door the second time, pausing to admire the chaos. Jenny was trying to study her script, but Katz insisted on readjusting the length of her skirt and now the stage manager was yelling at the light man and Aaron was pacing around with the inevitable cigarette jammed in the corner of his mouth and Carmella was dogging him, telling him (again) about what a prince Walter Huston was and Branch was talking with some old fat bag who needed a better girdle and then Katz was crying out that he would not allow his name to appear on the program if people were going to tamper with his creations and the light man was yelling back at the stage manager and Walt started toward Branch, who left the old lady and they met halfway up an aisle and before Branch could talk Walt whispered, “I got Tony stashed outside. I’m gonna sneak her in this aft—I’ll tell you after what she says. O.K.?”
“I think ... I’ll uh ... go on up to ... uh Seventy-second now,” Branch said.
“You mean after the rehearsal, dontcha?”
“No; the party’s got to be set ... up and everything.”
“You’re not gonna watch your own dress rehearsal?” Walt said.
“Someone has ... got to take care ... of getting the party set ... up, you know.”
“Branch, it’s just—I mean, it’s not a formal gathering. We can set it all up when we get there after rehearsal. Don’t work so hard.”
“I’m not.”
“But—”
“Mother will help me,” Branch managed, gesturing toward the fat old lady in green. He hurried back to her. Then they hurried away.
Walt stared after Mrs. Scudder. Her cheeks were fat and her eyes puffy and her stomach bulged and the seams of the green dress strained to contain her and the still slender legs supporting all that flesh were ludicrous, painful to look upon. They belonged to a young girl, those legs; they had no business being beneath a wrinkled body.
“What’s with Scudder?” Aaron asked Walt, coming up behind.
“I don’t know. He and his mother are gonna set the party up, I guess. Beats the hell outta me.”
“That was Scudder’s mother?”
Walt nodded.
Aaron sat down. He jammed a cigarette into a corner of his mouth and looked around. “Where’s Rudy?”
“Getting ready.”
“Ought to be a fun party,” Aaron said.
Walt shrugged, moved up onstage, settled the argument with Katz, settled the argument with the light man, walked over and whispered into Jenny’s ear that he loved her madly and she smiled and went on studying her script, and when Rudy came onstage Walt asked would everyone please shut up, because he had a few words to say. “I am not a believer in last-minute pep talks,” he said. “If the work has been done decently, it’ll show; if not, not. What is it, Rudy?”
“I ... want to say something.”
“Go.”
“I want to say—”
“Louder,” Carmella shouted.
“I’m ... sorry,” Rudy said.
“What’s the matter?” Jenny said, going to him.
“Nothing. Please.” Rudy closed his eyes. “Earlier, I did some running. I’m fine. What I want to say is ... there is a man—he was let in here earlier—this man—” His fingers flew to his earpiece. “He is ... my father and we do not get on as well as we might and ... if he returns—and he will—please, I don’t want to see him—don’t let him in, please—and if he asks where I am, please say you know nothing—I must not see him and he is very ... persuasive and ... if this were not important to me ... I would not embarrass you like this by speaking out in such a manner. I’m sorry.”
Walt waited. When it was clear that Rudy was finished, he said, “Everybody got that? O.K. Now just one word about the party. As you know, you’re all invited, and it’s for after this rehearsal, at Branch’s place on Seventy-second Street. Six A is the apartment number and there’s booze and if I choose to get bombed, that’s O.K., but none of the performers, solid?” He began to pace “The party’s Branch’s notion. It worked once in college and everybody got relaxed and performed well and we could do with some of that too, relaxed performances, and I think we’re gonna get ’em. We’ve had a lot of fun working on this play and tonight some lousy people are going to come and spoil all that fun. Just because they pay money they have the gall to expect to be entertained. Shall we entertain them? I say yes.” He hurried off the stage into the auditorium. “Hit it!”
The minute the lights went out, Walt went to the side exit and cracked the door for Tony, who slipped in and sat in the farthest back corner. Walt moved down closer and sat, watching as he had watched so many times, taking notes, shaking his head when a line was fluffed, laughing when he thought something was funny. From the start it was clear that Rudy was off, but Jenny was very solid, and before the first act ended Rudy was good again, and Carmella was playing well, and the other two boys too, and Walt sat there, mouthing the words now along with the actors, trying to remember what he thought of Tony’s taste, because if she liked it, fine, but if she didn’t, what then, but in the second act Jenny was so good he began to relax, because you couldn’t do much else but like it, and then he remembered that Tony’s taste was excellent, not necessarily commercial, but critically it was sound (God bless all Sarah Lawrence girls) and then at the start of the third act Rudy was nervous again, and Walt gnawed at his fingernails, because if Rudy blew the last scene, the big scene, the whole thing was out the window and he stopped taking notes, stopped mouthing, just watching now as the big scene began, Jenny appearing in the doorway, lonely lost Loretta, a suitcase clutched in her hands, and then here came deaf Clare and they began talking and Walt thought halfway through my God I’m a helluva director and three-quarters of the way he started to smile, because Rudy was as good as he’d ever been and Jenny was as good as she always was and they touched hands and went on out the door together and as he turned to look at Tony, Walt wasn’t sure but what he didn’t catch a tear in her eye. He bounded up onstage, told the actors they were fine and to get ready for the party and that he wouldn’t bother giving notes just then and with that he raced on back to Tony, who sat alone in the rear of the darkened theater, smoking. “Well?” Walt said. He sat down beside her.
Tony said “ ‘Well?’ ‘Well?’ You just can’t say ‘well?’ and expect-me to talk, not coherently anyway.” Visibly excited, she ground out her cigarette with her shoe, immediately lit another, inhaled, exhaled, inhaled-again.
“Maybe you better ask me questions or along those lines, what do you think?”
“Just tell me,” Walt said smiling. “Just talk.”
“You bastard, you’ve got talent.”
“Why does that make me a bastard?”
“I don’t know, it just does. I’m competitive and I don’t like for my boyfriends to be ta
lented. I like for my boyfriends to be goons. I don’t want this cigarette.” She dropped it, ground it out. “I don’t want this cigarette either,” she said, lighting another.
“Go on. Start with the little things. Rudy was nervous at the start, but that’s all I’m gonna tell you.”
“I don’t know much about sets or costumes, Walt. I liked them, but I don’t know beans; it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Go on.”
“Well, the acting ... the two boys with the little parts, they’re really O.K., I thought.”
“So do I. Go on.”
“It’s very hard just trying to be coherent like this when you’re all involved and everything.”
“You’re doing great. Go on.”
“The old lady’s—well, basically I hate that kind of person—in real life, I mean—but I thought she was good. Very solid.”
“I’m with you.”
“And Rudy—well ...”
“Now remember he was nervous at the start. He can do that a lot better than today,” Walt said.
“In the first place, he’s so goddam fantastic-looking and he’s natural and he’s deaf and so’s the part and that helps—he’s really very good, Walt. I mean, he’s marvelous and if it weren’t for Jenny he’d steal the play easy.”
“Isn’t she something?”
“I would love to be her agent,” Tony said. She finished the cigarette, coughed, started to light another.
“Why not smoke?” Walt said.
“Terrific idea,” Tony said, smiling at him, finishing lighting the cigarette, inhaling deeply, coughing again. “They are so marvelous together, the two of them. I don’t know what other parts she’s right for on account of her size, but, Walt, she’s really something. I mean, he’s good, but she’s—”
“I tell you,” Walt said, “It’s a pleasure watching her. Sometimes—”
“You’re really talented,” Tony cut in. “I’m really mad at you, you bastard, I could almost hate you, it’s just one helluva good production.”
“You don’t know—”
“Everything that could be done’s been done.”
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