Angels All Over Town (12 page)

Then I heard Mrs. Finnegan asking Joe to carve the roast and felt ashamed of myself. Joe padded down the hallway; I recognized the sound of his bare feet. The Finnegans were a lovely family; their love and devotion for each other were enormous, if oppressive. But I was making the same mistake with them that I made with all close families: I was holding them up for comparison with the Cavans. Splashing cold water on my face, I opened the bathroom door and went out to dinner.

Chapter 7

I
began avoiding my apartment and spending as little time in the building as possible. I told Georgie Atwood, my agent, to book me for nighttime appearances at malls; I did one game show in Los Angeles and talk shows in Chicago, Phoenix, and Seattle. Chance loved it; whenever stars from
Beyond
made guest appearances in distant cities, our ratings in those cities soared. I tried to see Lily and Susan whenever they were free at night: anything to avoid Joe. Lily was busy with “The Spring Rambles,” a charity ball intended to raise money for cardiac research, and wasn’t available to see me. Performances of
Hester’s Sister
were scheduled to start in two weeks, at the end of April, and Susan was busy with rehearsals. She had quit waitressing in order to see more of Louis, but she said she would meet me at the Bridge Café one evening after work.

The night was balmy. Walking south on Broadway, I noticed all the open windows in the apartments, lofts, and studios. Spring had arrived in New York City. In my travels I had seen daffodils, new leaves, and crabapple blossoms. A steady breeze blew north off the harbor, but I was comfortable in my thin cotton sweater.

Susan waved to me from a table in the corner. The Bridge Café stood across Water Street from her loft; she apologized for not inviting me there, but she had been too busy to keep it neat or stock provisions. She and Louis ate out nearly every night.

“How’ve you been?” she asked. I could tell from her tentative tone and wrinkly brow that she knew something was wrong.

“Not so great,” I said.

She held my hand on the red-checked tablecloth. “What?”

Deep breath. Exhalation. Glancing around to see if anyone was watching. “I’m in big trouble. You know how I told you about that guy in my building?”

“You slept with him and now you can’t stand him and you’re afraid to go home,” she said.

I stared at her for a few seconds, mystified and grateful. Like Margo and Lily she had that ability to zoom straight to the heart of my matter. “Exactly. Well—not exactly. I can
stand
him, but that’s about it. I’m actually afraid to talk to him. He’s left about fifteen messages on my machine. Then I call him back when I’m sure he’s out and leave messages on his. I sneak into the building at off hours, terrified I’ll meet him in the hall.”

“What a horrible way to live.”

“I know,” I said, miserable. “In bed at night I hear him knocking on my door. It goes on and on, and I keep thinking about all the people who
know
—they all hear him knocking, and they know. Then he finally leaves.”

“Who cares who knows?”

“I do.”

“How bourgeois,” Susan said, frowning.

“I know it is,” I said. “I’m disgusting myself. I deserve everything I’m getting.”

“You do not,” Susan said sternly. Then, “What are you getting?”

I looked up at her. “Did I tell you that I had two visions of my father? Every time I sleep with someone, I’m afraid he’s going to show up again and start yelling. Joe’s Irish Catholic. I thought that would make a difference, make it less sinful.”

“You think it’s sinful?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

“Actually, I’m more interested in your visions. You see your father?” Susan looked at me with deep concern in her hazel eyes, and I suddenly felt positive that I was crazy. Can you imagine telling your best friend you have seen your dead father? I felt my hands trembling and held them on my lap.

“Not recently. Last summer I did. But I keep thinking I’ll see him. Every time I—I don’t know. Anything. I’m afraid he can see me even if I can’t see him.”

“Una, that does sound a little crazy, honey.”

“I know it does.” Oddly, I felt calmer. The relief of unburdening. I had killed two birds with this conversation: I had told Susan that I was afraid to see Joe, afraid to see my father. Sitting opposite her at our corner table, the two birds looked disturbingly alike. Just then a young woman with a punk haircut and wearing a black leather skirt walked shyly over. “You’re Delilah Grant, aren’t you?” she asked, holding out a paper napkin for me to sign.

Susan and I both laughed. I signed the napkin. “You are so famous it cracks me up,” Susan said when the girl walked away.

“How’s the play coming?”

“Fantastic. I’m getting nervous.” Then she turned pink and started blinking her eyes. “Did I tell you about our angel?”

In stage language, “angel” means benefactor. When a show runs into financial trouble, such as not having enough money to pay the actors or buy costumes or rent the theater, an angel comes along and makes everything dreamy. Angels are usually rich businessmen who love the romance of the theater.

“No, who is it?” I asked.

“You know him,” Susan said. “It’s Henk Voorhees.”

I sat there without speaking, trying to decide how I felt about that. Henk and Lily did not know Susan or know that I knew Susan. Henk “loved the arts,” as Lily had told me often enough. Naturally he would contribute to arts organizations. But he had never asked me about acting. I had assumed that theater was not one of his passions. Of course I had no illusions about
Beyond the Bridge
being theater, but I had gone to Juilliard and had plenty of friends on the legitimate stage. I remembered thinking that “loving the arts” could mean loving museums, opera, ballet, performance art, literature, whatever; it did not necessarily mean theater.

But here was Susan Russell, my best friend, telling me that my brother-in-law was about to finance her starring role. I sat there feeling jealous. Susan knew it. She understood the insecurities that motivate actors too well not to. I watched her lower her head until her halo of frizzy brown hair caught the red neon light cast by the sign in the window. She stared at the wide plank floor.

“The play probably won’t do anything,” she said, but her tone told me she already knew the play could be a hit.

“I hope it does wonderfully,” I said. I did want Susan to do wonderfully, but I wanted myself to do better. “Have you met Henk?”

“Not yet. I’ve heard he’s met the director, but he likes to keep a low profile. Have you seen him or your sister lately?”

“No. They’re busy with ‘The Spring Rambles.’ Henk is quite the fund-raiser—money for research, money for theater.”

“Your sister snagged a rich one.” Her voice was bitter, and I looked up, shocked.

“What does that matter?”

“Una, if you were thirty and still waiting on tables to pay the rent, you wouldn’t have to ask. You know what Louis is doing right now? Running movies at a theater on Thirty-fourth Street. He does that three nights a week.”

That, in a nutshell, told me why I had left Juilliard. I lacked the dedication to starve for my profession. By my junior year I had heard three or four stories of recent alumni who had done well, had starred in Broadway plays or Hollywood movies. I had, however, heard two hundred stories about alumni who were pioneers in “artists’ colonies” on the Lower East Side and across the rivers in Williamsburg and Hoboken, who waited tables between shows, and who finally gave up acting entirely to become affluent bankers, ad writers, insurance salesmen, car salesmen.

A waiter came to take our order. Neither Susan nor I felt like having anything. The waiter stood by our table for a few seconds, until a group wanting another round of drinks caught his eyes. He glanced over his shoulder at us and walked away.

“I’m jealous, you know,” I said.

“I know.”

“
Really
jealous.”

She looked furious. “Don’t you think I’ve ever been jealous of you?”

“For what?”

“What do you think? For having girls like that”—she nodded her head at the punk rock autograph seeker standing at the bar—“know who you are. For working every blessed day of the week.”

The punk rocker had been watching us; she waved when we looked her way, sending Susan and me into a fit of giggles.

“I see your point,” I said. “That
is
worth something.”

We decided not to order any food. On the street outside we hugged tightly. The Brooklyn Bridge soared overhead and a neon replica glowed in the café’s window. Susan felt thin as a bird, and I didn’t let go for a long time. When we parted, we just said, “See you.” There was no need to apologize further.

That night Joe Finnegan’s knocking would not let me sleep. I lay in bed, curled under the covers, while spring air blew through my open window. I waited for him to leave.

“I know you’re home,” he called. “I saw your goddamn light go out fifteen minutes ago.”

Wearily I walked to the door and opened it. He stepped inside, into my living room where street light cast long shadows shaped like surrealistic furniture on my bare wood floor.

“What is it?” he asked, holding my face between his hands. The magic of human contact. His face looked mournful. Sometimes I felt so lonely, any tenderness was better than none. I pressed my head against his chest, wondering how to explain that I didn’t like him. I would rather avoid him for the rest of our lives than explain anything like that.

But we didn’t bother with words. He didn’t ask me what was wrong, and I volunteered nothing. We walked straight into my bedroom, stripped, and climbed into bed. Our bodies cleaved together and we held tight to each other all night. Several times I wakened in the night feeling empty and nauseous, and I pressed closer to Joe, thinking that closeness could drive the feelings away. His arms were wrapped around me; one hand held one of my breasts. I kept glancing at the alarm clock’s illuminated dial, dreading the approach of morning and the spoken word.

Dawn light streamed through my window, catching me and Joe wrapped in my white sheet like an overexposed photograph. My right arm was asleep; it had no feeling at all. I lay awake, waiting for the alarm to go off, and felt utterly vacant, as lonely as I had ever felt in my life. Turning to watch Joe sleep, I found him watching me.

“Morning,” he said.

“Good morning.”

“You feel like explaining things to me, Una?”

Barely awake, I felt glad that Joe was getting to the point before I had a chance to drink some coffee and begin to dread what I had to say.

“I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told another woman: you’re hurting me,” Joe said, rising on one elbow to see me directly. “I wish you would just tell me what’s going on.”

“I don’t think it’s working between us,” I said, unfamiliar with the language for ending a relationship the man wished to continue. “We’re not making each other happy…enough.”

“That’s fair,” Joe said. “Couldn’t you have gotten around to it sooner? Instead of hiding from me?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling surprisingly good. Giving it to him straight came easier than I had anticipated. Why hadn’t I ever learned that men could take the harsh truth so well? Emboldened, I continued. “I’ve enjoyed spending time with you. You’re wonderful company; we’ve had fun times together. But do you think we have enough in common? We don’t exactly see the world the same way.” I smiled. “And that’s an understatement. Also, our living arrangements leave a lot—”

Joe placed his hand on my arm. “Una, this is very hard. Could you give me a second to digest it?”

“Of course, Joe. Sure,” I said. Turning red. Wishing that I was not always the victim of my own excesses.

Hester’s Sister
was a tremendous smash. I sat in the audience with Lily and Henk, spellbound by the coastal stage set, the eerie lighting, the not-at-all-eerie relationship between Hester and her sister Anne (played by Susan). They were two sisters who lived on Massachusetts’s northern coast, who constructed fishing nets for their living, who had never married. Both were young and beautiful. Hester snubbed a town elder who wished to marry her. The men in town, not understanding why two beautiful women would choose not to marry, found reasons to say that Hester was a witch. The local women, jealous of the sisters’ beauty, believed the stories; Anne’s friend Prudence tried to convince Anne. She had proof: the nets woven by Hester developed holes and let all the fish swim through, then repaired themselves when pulled in. Her father, a fisherman, had sworn it was true. At the play’s end, Hester is burned, not knowing whether Anne believes in her innocence, and the audience is left with the sense that Anne will be burned next.

After the final curtain, after Susan’s eight curtain calls, Lily and I sat still, holding hands, too disturbed to cry.

“Some play, eh?” Henk said, still applauding madly.

Lily and I stared straight ahead. We were reading each other’s mind:
I love you. I love you too.
I thought of Anne and Hester, of how much they had loved each other and of how much they had doubted each other in the end. How confusing were facts! Presented with facts, Anne had mistrusted a truth she had known since birth. I squeezed Lily’s hand.

“Time to go to the party!” Henk said, boisterously throwing on his black coat. “Come on, let’s get going.”

People gathered around us, congratulating Lily and Henk for their involvement in such a wonderful play. Henk grinned magnanimously, but Lily was tight-lipped and pale.

“What is wrong,
Liebchen
?” he asked, bending over her.

“The play! It was so…it reminds me of
me and my sisters
!” She started to sob.

A look of pure alarm crossed Henk’s strong features, and he bundled Lily backstage to some secret place. I stood alone beside our seats, guarding Lily’s and my coats, watching the audience file out. No one there recognized me; I felt glad and resentful all at once.

At the party, hosted by Henk and other angels at a restaurant in SoHo, everyone recognized Susan. Louis preceded her into the room. A hush traveled across the tables, which then erupted with wild applause, hooting, and cries of “Brava!” when Susan entered. Susan, wearing a tuxedo, looked incandescent. An enormous smile wreathed her pale face. She walked from table to table, accepting congratulations. At our table she embraced me and kissed Lily and Henk.

To Lily she said, “Any sister of Una’s is a sister of mine.”

Lily held her hand and said, “That was the best play I’ve ever seen.”