Entr'acte (16 page)

She beckoned to him and Doug walked into her embrace. Mrs.

Waszlewski still held Dragonwyk, the small green, stuffed dragon with red felt fire coming out its nostrils. She stroked it absently and rocked back and forth.

“The status of the investigation is the same as when we talked 144

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last night,” the cop said. “We don’t believe that foul play is involved; there has been nothing to indicate that.

“Right now it appears that Joyce has had an “episode” of some kind and has wandered off,” he said. “What has been her pattern in the past?”

“She hasn’t had one of these “episodes,” as you call them, in years,” Joyce’s father said. “Her problem had been completely controlled by medication, and one of her neurologists even felt she might have outgrown the problem.

“Had she stayed in Maine there were plans to try to wean her off the Depakote. She wouldn’t be able to drive for a couple of months, but if she passed through that time without an incident, that would be the end of it,” he said.

“She was taking her medication. I was with her; I saw her,”

Debbie said.

There was a sharp knock on the closed bedroom door. “We’re all set out here,” someone hollered.

The five people in the room all braced themselves and headed for the living room.

White lights on poles placed in the corners lit the room so brightly there were no shadows at all. Joyce’s family and friends looked like deer trapped in a car’s headlights as they took seats on the sofa.

The heat was intense in the small room, and Doug reached for a pitcher of water and the stack of paper cups that had been set out on the coffee table. A nest of wires like Medusa’s hair grew out of the edge of the coffee table.

Several microphones with brightly colored wind screens and plastic logos affixed to them crowded the middle of the table.

Debbie’s magazines, TV remote control and candy dish had all been removed to the floor.

“Mr. Waszlewski, can you spell your name?” a newspaper reporter called out from the back of the room.

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“W-A-S-Z…” he began, while the television people, not interested in such details, groaned with impatience.

“Has your daughter ever done this before?” someone asked.

“No, never,” came the reply.

“We understand she is an epileptic,” another reporter shouted. “Does she have amnesia, because of a fit?”

Joyce’s father rocked back and forth on his fanny to reach the edge of the sofa cushion. “She does not have epilepsy. She had a seizure disorder, which is a very mild condition that sometimes caused her to become confused, and to exercise poor judgment.

It was completely controlled by medication.”

“We are looking into the possibility that she may be having a problem remembering who she is, because of some type of recurrence, because of the stress of moving to New York and trying to begin a career,” Ryerson said. He shrugged sympathetically at the family.

“Why hasn’t she turned up at any hospital or homeless shelter then?” a woman with a Marge Simpson beehive wanted to know.

“No one fitting her description has been admitted to any facility in the city, and no one using that name has boarded a commercial airline at LaGuardia, Kennedy or Newark,” the detective said.

Joyce’s parents had clearly not contemplated the idea that their daughter, confused or not, would be catching a flight out of the city. They stiffened at Ryerson’s words.

“What kind of girl was Joyce?” a reporter asked.

“Dear, sweet. Kind to everybody. A wonderful friend,” her mother said. “A talented actress, she was always the star in school.”

“The usual,” the reporter muttered, but no one on the sofa heard him.

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“Any possibility she just ran off?” one of the tabloid reporters asked.

“No, she had her heart set on coming here,” Mrs. Waszlewski said. “She had just arrived and had made a wonderful start.”

“You didn’t want her to come, did you?” was the follow-up question.

“I don’t think any mother wants to see her only child leave home. Let alone come to a big city like New York for such a chancy proposition like an acting career.” Joyce’s mother’s answer was poised and reasonable.

“It was her decision to come and we supported her in it.”

“What about the people she came in contact with in the two days she was here? What about the photographer?” a TV reporter shouted at Ryerson.

“We are treating this as a disappearance. We have questioned people who saw Miss Waszlewski, but there are no suspects. We have no reason to suspect foul play.

“She was due at an audition at 2 p.m. the afternoon she disappeared, and she did not keep the appointment,” the cop said.

“All of her clothes are here, her car is parked in a lot in midtown.

There was no indication she had changed her plans.”

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“We heard that this girl is an heiress,” someone asked.

Mr. Waszlewski snickered. “My mother left her a small inheritance that Joyce is using to finance her shot at an acting career. We are not a wealthy family.”

“So this is not a kidnapping, at least not for ransom,” the woman with the cone-head asked.

Joyce’s family cringed and Ryerson asked the assembled press for some sensitivity. “We’re being straight with you and we’d like you to keep in mind what these people are going through, and word your questions appropriately.”

“So you’ve ruled out foul play?” the woman reporter persisted.

“We can’t rule anything out at this juncture,” the cop admitted. “But,” he said, “there has been no activity in Miss Waszlewski’s bank accounts since she opened them two days ago.

“She did not have much money on her, so that indicates to us that she is not functioning rationally. She could just withdraw funds and stay at the best hotels.”

Ryerson sucked in his gut, glanced at the family and continued.

“We are exploring the possibility that she may have been taken in by someone, a Good Samaritan. We also plan to comb the parks, rail trestles and subways where the homeless are known to gather.”

“Are you saying she’s just sort of dropped out?” a man from the
Times
asked. “Have you checked Grand Central Station?”

Joyce’s parents held themselves on the couch while the cop said that had been done.

“Check Covenant House and the Port Authority,” someone yelled. Young runaways who arrive in New York at the bus terminal are often preyed upon by pimps. Covenant House exists as a refuge from the streets.

“Is it possible,” a reporter from one of the neighborhood weeklies asked, “that if Joyce has been taken in by someone, that 148

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person may not be, um, a Good Samaritan?” For that crowd, her phrasing of the question showed remarkable tact.

“That is a concern of ours,” Ryerson admitted. “That is why we are asking you to widely disseminate this young woman’s photo and information. Wherever she is, that would make it easier for us to find her.”

“Isn’t it true she had just broken up with you?” The Associated Press man was pointing at Doug.

“We had agreed to see other people while Joyce was in New York. I thought it was only fair,” Doug said, as resolutely as possible.

“The police report says you followed her here, that you tried to convince her to take you back, that she did not welcome your visit,” the AP guy persisted.

“I asked Doug to come down and look in on Joyce,” Mr.

Wazslewski said. He was so angry he stood up, leaving only his trunk and Adam’s apple in the television picture.

“Any suggestion that he would be a suspect in her disappearance is ridiculous. Our family thinks very highly of Doug,” he said.

“But she wanted to break off with him,” another reporter picked up.

“They are a young couple. They all do that. Sometimes they get back together in a few days, sometimes they remain dear friends,” Joyce’s mother said.

The attention turned to Debbie. She said she didn’t know Joyce well, but in the short time they had roomed together she had come to consider her a friend. “We got along great. It would have been, it is, a lot of fun living together.”

Mrs. Waszlewski said that the family had originally planned for Joyce to stay in a residential hotel for a few weeks, until she got her bearings.

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They were delighted when an old family friend said he knew of another young woman, an acquaintance’s daughter, who was looking for a roommate, and matched Joyce and Debbie up.

She also admitted, under persistent questioning from the New York
Post
reporter, that Joyce had not called home or contacted her family at all since she arrived in New York.

“The whole point was to be independent. For my daughter, who has had a very sheltered life and a strict upbringing, not calling home for three days constitutes rebellion,” Mr.

Waszlewski said.

“We pretty much expected that and we admired her for just plunging right in. She had already gone out on two calls when she disappeared, and that was her first full day in the city,” he said.

“What about the mugger she was supposedly chasing?” the Channel 9 reporter asked. “Has he been apprehended?”

“No,” Ryerson said a bit sadly. “At this time we are not even sure there was a mugger. Accounts of what happened differ.”

“Is it possible that Joyce was running away from Doug when she went down the alley?” the reporter followed up. “He has said that she saw him standing there.”

“We had plans to meet for lunch…” Doug offered lamely.

“Isn’t it true that this has happened to your family before?” the New York
Times
man asked Mr. Waszlewski.

Ryerson shook his head, almost imperceptibly, but Joyce’s father ignored him. “My aunt was murdered in New York in 1939,” he said simply. “She had come to the city to be an actress, too.”

A flurry of questions followed, some accompanied by waving hands, but most just shouted above the din. Camera shutters clicked and whirred.

“There’s our hook,” one of the reporters said happily.

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“Is there any relationship between the two cases?” a too-blonde TV reporter asked breathlessly.

“What do you think?” Ryerson shot back.

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Joyce arrived a few minutes early the next morning at the soda fountain in Gray’s Drugstore. She found Bart occupying a stool at the far end of the shiny steel counter, a small group of young men standing in front of him or at the nearby magazine rack.

“You haven’t asked her to dinner yet?” one of them demanded to know. “What’s taking you so long?”

“I invited her to see the show, but I want to take her to one of those snooty places uptown, and that suggests something entirely different,” Bart said.

Joyce’s heart fell. She hadn’t really examined her feelings before, but she discovered now that she really liked Bart, and had hoped he was interested in her.

“I talked to Remy about her—she’s an actress and a dancer…”

“Aren’t they all?” someone chimed in.

“Anyway, he says he might be able to use her in a small part in his new show. It would be kind of a favor to me. She’s sort of new in town and having trouble finding work,” Bart said.

Joyce leaned against a shelf of candies and mints, eavesdropping without being obvious. Bart swiveled his stool to face whoever was speaking to him. Only one of his friends 152

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gathered at the counter was positioned in a way that would put Joyce in Bart’s line of sight.

“So what’s the problem?” the first guy asked. “You let this girl know you’re working to get her a part and she’ll cook you dinner.”

He guffawed loudly and made a gesture to indicate what he expected would follow dinner.

“That’s the problem,” Bart answered quickly. “I haven’t told her yet about Remy. The whole thing looks so tawdry. I want to wait until she gets the part and then ask her to El Morocco or someplace to celebrate.”

“You’re missing a golden opportunity,” a tall, horsy-looking fellow on Bart’s right said.

“But I want her to feel comfortable enough to say no,” Bart answered him.

“God—WHY?” the first guy snorted.

“Because then I’d know she really wanted to have dinner with me, and that she didn’t accept just because she felt she had to, to get the part.”

A tall, gum-snapping redheaded waitress swabbed the countertop in front of them. “It’s called being a gentleman. A whole new concept to you palookas,” she said. The waitress winked at Bart.

Joyce waited until his friends dispersed and then walked over to Bart’s stool. He stood up when he saw her. She was wearing one of Connie’s sundresses, with small flowers fighting for space on a pale yellow background.

“You’re the height of fashion,” her musician friend said admiringly. He led her to the back of the store, to where the matinee tickets were being dispensed along with the headache powders and Sen-Sen.

“One for “Stars in Your Eyes’ please,” Joyce said at the counter. She pushed a $20 bill toward him.

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“I’ve got single seats in the balcony and mezzanine,” the man said, rummaging through a metal lock box. He pulled out a pale blue ticket and slid it toward Joyce.

“That’ll be $2.50, plus 50 cents fee,” he said. Eyeing the $20, he asked, “Got anything smaller?”

Bart quickly flipped open his wallet and handed over three crumpled dollar bills over Joyce’s protestations. “I got it. Your money’s no good here,” he said with studied casualness, and Joyce caught his meaning.

“I’m afraid to ask,” he said when they’d reached the front of the store again. “But what do musicals cost 68 years from now?”

“On Saturday nights, in the orchestra, about $150,” she told him. “But sometimes you can get in for half that, if you get your ticket at that booth I told you about.”

Bart suggested the Hunt Room of the Astor Hotel for lunch, because it was a show business hangout. The hotel was right at the edge of the theater district and Joyce had to orient herself to remember what stood there in 2007—a cold cement office building with a too-large theater sandwiched in the middle of it.