Prizes (8 page)

“What is it Dad?”

“It’s called ‘Frankie’—a song and dance version of
Frankenstein.
”

“That sounds great. But hasn’t that picture been done a lot of times?”

“Kiddo,” his father pronounced, “in Hollywood there’s a saying, ‘If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing again.’ I’ve got five writers working on it already.”

“Five? How do they all fit in the same room?”

Sidney laughed. “That sounds like the stateroom scene in
A Night at the Opera.
No, that’s not how it’s done out here. They’re each working on separate versions. Then I get another writer to help me pick the best parts of each draft and stitch ’em together.

“Do you know why it’s a guaranteed hit, sonny boy? Because it’s one of the sure-fire stories of all time. For centuries men have dreamed of actually growing life in the laboratory. So all we need is a new twist—which is why I’ve got these five overpriced eggheads typing away on treatments.”

He then inquired of his son, “Any ideas for a gimmick?”

“Well,” Sandy said, proud of the opportunity to parade his learning, “as a matter of fact, I might. You could have Dr. Frankenstein be a genetic researcher building his monster with DNA.”

“What’s DNA?” his father asked.

“It’s really the latest thing,” Sandy said, waxing enthusiastic.
“Back in ’fifty-three two guys in England named Watson and Crick deciphered the code of life—the genetic material we’re all made of. DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. It carries the instructions for making all living things in a simple code based on four chemicals. I mean, Dad, what makes your idea so brilliant is that it’s right where science is at. I bet every guy in my school will see this movie twenty times.”

“But kiddo, you gotta remember that in the great land called America, not everybody goes to Bronx High School of Science. I’m afraid your concept won’t fly with Mr. Z.”

Sandy felt embarrassed, thinking he had gone down in his father’s estimation for having made so foolish a suggestion. He vowed to keep his big ideas to himself from now on.

The visit provided many an opportunity for heart-to-heart conversations, during which Sandy had revealed his unflagging passion for Rochelle. His father tried to be sympathetic, though platonic love was an emotion beyond his ken.

Sandy was relieved when the subject turned to one they could both comprehend: their aspirations for the future. On several occasions they had taken long walks by the ocean in Santa Monica, sharing the same cloud of fantasy.

The older man dreamed on a wide screen—of making big pictures with big stars for big money. And most of all, to have his work designated as “A Sidney Raven Production.”

Biochemistry was the realm in which Sandy wanted to dominate—especially the genetic side. When he explained what this entailed, the elder Raven remarked warmly, “Well, in a way, we’re both gonna be in the same business.” He put his arm around the boy’s shoulder. “You’ll re-create life in a test tube, and I’ll do it on the big screen.” They understood each other.

And then, ever prone to rhapsodize, Sidney conceived of a time not too distant when—in a single year—he would win an Oscar and his son a Nobel Prize.

“You’ve got a vivid imagination, Dad,” Sandy said affectionately.

“That’s why I’m in the movie business, sonny boy.”

Father and son had grown closer that summer than they ever had when they were living together 365 days a year.

Sandy returned from his first visit to the Coast tanned and confident. At least self-assured enough to put a dime in the slot and phone the lovely Miss Taubman “just to say hello.”

She seemed less than overjoyed to hear from him until he reminded her with casual deliberation where he had spent his vacation. Her tone warmed and she suggested they meet for coffee.

At first he looked around for her in vain. Then, with a jolt, he realized that she had been waiting for him all the time at a booth near the jukebox.

She waved and he hurried to her table.

“Sorry, Rochelle, sorry,” he apologized abjectly. “But I really didn’t recognize you. I mean, you didn’t tell me that you were a blond now. And that you …” He glanced at her face and was embarrassed to say it.

But she finished his thought. “I had it done last spring during Easter vacation. Didn’t the doctor do a great job?” She showed him both sides of her new profile. “You’d never believe it wasn’t my real nose.”

Sandy felt genuinely saddened, for in truth he thought she had been far prettier with her original physiognomy.

And now he realized, to his growing chagrin, that he would never see that lovely face again. The operation had changed her from soulful madonna to Barbie Doll.

“Yeah, yeah, it looks great,” he responded dutifully.

“Of course, I was against it at first,” she explained. “But my agent insisted that I wouldn’t have a chance in the movies without a more classic profile. Now, tell me all about Hollywood.”

As he signaled to the waiter, she launched into a narrative that would have made Narcissus blush.

“Summer stock was unbelievable. I mean, not only did I get to do
Streetcar
and
Our Town,
but our final production was
Romeo and Juliet.
Joe Papp actually came backstage and spoke to me.”

“Gosh, that’s marvelous,” Sandy remarked, but with a sense of unworthiness and loss. For he realized he was no longer in the same league as Rochelle Taubman. All summer he had merely watched, while she had
been
watched.

“Come on,” she coaxed, “I’m waiting for your news. What’s your father got on tap?”

He told her all about the studio, the apes. About “Frankie.”

“And,” he concluded, “it looks like ‘Frankie’ is a ‘go’ project.”

“That sounds brilliant,” she enthused. “Have they cast the female lead?”

“Actually, there isn’t one in the story, that I know of.”

“Really?” she responded. “But
Variety
says it’s gonna be a musical. There’s got to be a female lead. But what am I getting so excited about? It’s bound to be Julie Andrews.”

“I could always ask my father,” Sandy offered generously.

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to impose on you.” She pounced like an amorous leopard. “All I’d ever accept is a screen test—the rest would be up to him.”

Then she lowered her head and murmured apologetically, “I’m sorry, I really shouldn’t be exploiting our friendship.”

“No, no, no,” he tried to dissuade her. “What else are friends for? I’ll call him tonight.”

“Oh, you really are a beautiful person,” she added joyously. “Call me any time after you speak to him. I’ll be sitting by the phone.”

For the first time since they had met in kindergarten, Sandy Raven walked down the street with the unswerving certitude that of all possible telephone calls, Rochelle would be waiting most anxiously for
his.

The news Sidney conveyed was bittersweet. Bitter for himself, but sweet for her.

It seemed the studio was retrenching and Mr. Z. had qualms about putting money into yet another big musical, even though he had loved the concept of “Frankie.”

And yet, developing three other projects for Mr. Z., Sid was confident that he could arrange for Rochelle to audition for the Fox Players’ School. This was less an academy than a collection of exquisitely beautiful, potential matinee idols and heartthrobs being groomed for stardom by the studio.

The next time they interviewed in New York, he would see to it that his son’s inamorata would be auditioned.

She was unrestrained in her gratitude. “Oh Sandy,” she gushed on the telephone, “I wish you were here—I’d throw my arms around you and give you a big kiss.”

I can always come over, he thought. But he didn’t say it.

Sid Raven was true to his word. That winter, when the scouts from Fox were next on the East Coast, they not only interviewed Rochelle, but gave her a screen test. They decided that “though she’s a little skimpy in the boob department”—this was a confidential memo—she came across as an appealing personality, if not a convincing actress. But for her looks alone, she was certainly worth accepting for the studio’s drama school on a three-year trial.

In her haste to depart for California, Rochelle somehow could not find time to contact Sandy. But when her jet had taken off and she had five hours to while away before she reached the land of the mirage merchants, she dashed off a note on TWA stationery, concluding, “For all the wonderful things you’ve done for me, I’ll never forget you.”

And yet, after alighting at Los Angeles Airport, she somehow neglected to mail the letter.

8
 

They had called Toni’s flight.

“Adam,” she kept repeating like a litany, “if you want me to, I’ll gladly stay.”

“That’s okay, Toni,” he said, as if trying to prove his emotional independence. “I’ll be all right on my own.”

He missed her the moment he got back into his car. For he suddenly realized he couldn’t go home. Not only was his apartment too full of Max, it was now bereft of Toni.

Instead, he went to the single place where he knew there would be fellow feeling and—what he needed most—talk of Max Rudolph.

His instinct proved correct. Not only had many of the staff chosen to go to the lab under the professional pretext of communing about Max, but by the time he arrived, they were all in a kind of forced good humor, remembering “the good old days,” their boss’s idiosyncrasies and gruffness.

Some had had a bit too much to drink, and Rob Weiner, a biochemist, spluttered, “If I know Max, wherever he is, he’ll still make those surprise Sunday visits.”

Adam then overheard a conversation he wished he hadn’t.

“They’ve got to give it to Coopersmith,” Cindy Po was saying. “I mean, that’s what the old man would’ve wanted.”

“I’m afraid you’re still wet behind the ears,” Clarissa Pryce, a veteran “mouse mother,” retorted. “A person’s ability to influence Harvard is limited to his lifetime. They’ll choose whoever they want to run the lab. And, to be frank, Adam hasn’t got the age or the publications to get the top job.”

“Well I still say he deserves it,” the younger woman insisted.

“Listen, honey, you may know your microbiology, but you have a lot to learn about academic politics. I’d say the biggest thing going against Adam—outside of sheer envy because a lot of the older men resent him—is that he was too close to Max.”

At precisely midnight, his lab phone rang.

“Am I starting to haunt you?” Toni said, trying to sound casual.

“No, in fact I owe you an apology. Even during this ‘wake’—and that’s what it is, booze and all—while I’m missing Max, I’m missing you too.”

“Thank you. I know that wasn’t easy for you to say. If it means anything, I almost left the plane again before it took off.”

“By the way, Lisl thought you were very nice.”

“Oh,” Toni said, unable to hide the satisfaction in her voice. “Give her my love.”

It was in the evenings that Adam missed his teacher most. Especially since, after a decent period of mourning,
only the night shift, the most introverted of all researchers, were at the benches.

The coldness of the Boston winters was intolerable without the warmth of Max Rudolph’s intellect and friendship. Work was the only palliative, and Adam threw himself heart and soul into his mentor’s last and most important project.

For Adam was now afire with an all-consuming dream—he wanted to complete this work so that he could mount the podium in Stockholm and tell the world, “This award belongs to Max Rudolph.”

And yet the ache in his heart would still not go away.

When Harvard lured Ian Cavanagh from Oxford to take over Max Rudolph’s chair and the directorship of the lab, the staff naturally transferred its wholehearted allegiance, closed ranks, and proceeded with research as usual.

Though Lisl urged him to be conciliatory—“even slightly sycophantic wouldn’t be out of place,” she said—Adam kept a cool distance. He had great difficulty bringing himself into the glass-walled office where the Englishman lorded it over the domain that had once been Max Rudolph’s.

This was less deference than Cavanagh had expected from someone he still regarded as a junior man. It was immediately clear to everyone in the lab that he had set Adam in a special category. Whereas he called other members of staff by their first names, he always referred to his predecessor’s favorite merely as Coopersmith.

Ignoring Lisl’s protestations that he had better things to do, Adam insisted on taking her to dinner at least once a week. She was touched and flattered, and made every effort to succeed her husband as the young doctor’s counselor.

“Have lunch with the man. Play the game. Cavanagh’s
first-rate and it won’t take him long to recognize your abilities. But help him get to know you.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” Adam replied dejectedly. “He dropped a little bombshell in my cubbyhole this morning. Apparently—because of ‘financial restraints’—he’s had to slash my next year’s budget—and my salary—in half.”

Lisl reacted angrily. “Excuse me while I revise my opinion of him. By cutting Max’s most cherished project, he’s just proved how petty he is. That money business isn’t even a good lie. One of the reasons he got the job was his talent for grantsmanship, not to mention his ties with the biotech industry.