The Confessions of Edward Day (7 page)

“Right,” I said. “Tell Teddy I’ll call him.” I watched as Madeleine and Mindy hugged and cooed. Guy accepted the same cheek busses I’d received. As Mindy flounced out the door, Madeleine and Guy went back to their conversation. For what seemed like a long time I sat drinking my beer and admiring Madeleine’s back. What were they talking about? I found Guy’s conversational mode peculiarly deadening, but Madeleine seemed both engaged and amused; her soft laughter rustled her shoulders and she nodded her head now and then in agreement or approval. I could see Guy’s lips moving, his dark eyes fixed on her face with a sinister, distant interest. Now and then his sudden grin flashed; something unnerving about it, I thought, something menacing. Christopher Walken had a similar death’s-head grin. I’d seen him in
Caligula
at Yale. It was amusement provoked by the apprehension of weakness, and I didn’t like to see it leveled at the unsuspecting Madeleine. I shifted to Mindy’s stool and leaned into the bar. “That’s hysterical,” Madeleine was saying.

“What is?” I asked.

She turned her bright eyes upon me. “Have you heard this? They’re rehearsing a musical of
Gone With the Wind
in Los Angeles. Guess who’s playing Scarlett?”

“Julie Andrews,” I suggested.

“Lesley Ann Warren!” she exclaimed.

“Not far off,” I said.

“And guess who’s playing Rhett?”

Because I had been thinking of him, I said, “Christopher Walken.”

“No, he would be good, actually. It’s Pernell Roberts.”

“Who’s he?”

“Bonanza,”
Guy said. “Adam.”

“The strong, silent one,” Madeleine added.

“Good God,” I said.

“Tell him about the songs,” Madeleine insisted.

Guy nodded. “There’s one called ‘Tomorrow’s Another Day,’ and ‘Why Did They Die,’ and ‘Atlanta Burning.’” This really did make me laugh.

“It’s a huge cast,” Madeleine said. “More than fifty parts.”

“How do you know about this?” I asked Guy.

“I have a cousin who’s in it. He plays one of the Tarleton twins.”

“Is that where you’re from?” I asked, though I knew he wasn’t.

“No,” Guy said. “I’ve never been to L.A. Have you?”

“No,” I said.

“Do you want to go?”

“No,” I said. And then we talked about L.A. and how different film acting was from stage acting and how little work there was in New York, unless you happened to be British or Italian. It was banal conversation and Guy held up his end well enough, though, as we were both entirely focused on Madeleine, there was a competitive edge to it. Then, abruptly, Guy stretched his wrist out to check his watch and pretended
surprise. “Gotta run,” he said, kissing Madeleine on the cheek. “Friday, six thirty.”

“See you there,” she replied.

He turned to me extending his hand for a gentleman’s parting. “Ed,” he said. “Good seeing you. Get my beer for me, would you?”

“Sure,” I said. “Why not?” Madeleine smiled upon us, pleased to see this amiable exchange between friends. When he was gone I pulled my stool closer to Madeleine and said, “Friday? Six thirty?”

“He’s got tickets to
Jacques Brel
.”

I snorted. “That old rag?”

She regarded me coldly. “Don’t be ridiculous. Jacques Brel is great. I’ve been wanting to see it.” She finished her wine while I pictured the inside of my wallet. What a jerk Guy was to take my hard-earned money and then stick me for the price of a beer, especially since he was flush enough to buy tickets to a popular musical revue. My chance with Madeleine was at hand and I determined to take it. I signaled the bartender to refill her glass and when she demurred I insisted. “On me, please. I haven’t had a minute alone with you since—”

“We went night swimming,” she finished.

“Yes,” I said. “You were right. That night was definitely magic.”

“It was,” she agreed. The bartender set a full glass before her.

Two hours later we were hand in hand, climbing the narrow stairs to my apartment, pausing on each landing for
long embraces. The next morning when I opened my eyes to find her arm draped around my waist, her soft breath oscillating against the nape of my neck, I sighed with satisfaction. Guy could have the money. I’d beat him to Madeleine a second time.

L
ike most actors I worked for tips in restaurants that I couldn’t afford to eat in. Three days a week I did the lunch shift at Bloomingdale’s, where stylish ladies who had just maxed out their husbands’ credit cards picked at cold chicken salad and vowed to economize, beginning with the tip. On Thursday and Friday nights I served dinners to artists and gallery owners at a trendy bar and restaurant in SoHo, which was a good gig because artists have often worked as waiters themselves, so they’re sympathetic; also, not being good at math, they tend to round up the percentage. This gave me Monday and Wednesday nights free for my classes with Sandy, Thursday and Friday all day to pursue auditions. Doubling up meant losing audition time as well as Saturday night. So I spent the week resenting Guy Margate, though I was perfectly conscious that if not for him I wouldn’t be working at all, I would be a waterlogged corpse tossed up after a thorough pounding on some rocky beach in New Jersey. Friday night I had the additional pleasure of imagining Guy and Madeleine out on the town on the money I was working my ass off to replace. It was midnight on Saturday when I hung up my apron and counted my take, which was unusually good. I decided a nightcap at Phebe’s was
in order and set out across the cultural divide of Houston Street with a firm resolution: no beer, straight whiskey.

The traffic was light, only the occasional yellow flurry of cabs and a few delivery trucks. The streetlamps hissed and buzzed overhead, shedding a blue metallic light. Phebe’s glowed like a golden spaceship dropped down in a grim future world; the sound of voices and music ebbing and flowing as the doors opened to exiting aliens. As I crossed Third Avenue, a panhandler appeared from the shadows and planted himself on the sidewalk so that I couldn’t pass without getting his pitch. He was a gray, wizened fellow, with hair like a mudpack, wrapped in a combination of blanket and plastic sheeting that served as both his attire and his lodging. “Jesus,” I said, as he stuck out his grimy hand. “Aren’t you hot?”

“Any spare change?” he said. His voice was lifeless, but his eyes were black and keen. I dug into my pants pocket; I actually had a lot of change, and extracted a couple of quarters and a dime. “You need to work on your patter,” I advised him.

“Fuck you,” he said. I dropped the coins into his palm and pressed past him. Actors are superstitious about beggars, perhaps because we’re largely in the same line. They know this and make a point of hanging around stage doors, particularly on Broadway. Long-running shows have regulars, who call the stars by their first names. “Dick, the reviewers are in tonight.” “Shirley, look at you, you’re drop-dead gorgeous as always.” So I didn’t relish being cursed by a panhandler. He stepped back into the darkness from whence he came and I pushed on to Phebe’s, feeling tentative and anxious. The bar was packed,
with some overflow to the tables, and the two bartenders were constantly moving with the speed and agility of jugglers. I spotted Teddy at the far end, looking glum, his chin resting in his hand, his eyes fixed on the glass in front of him as if he saw something alive inside it. I squeezed in beside him and said, “What’s wrong with that drink?”

He looked up, smiling wistfully. “I fear it is empty.”

“We’ll take care of that,” I said. “Let’s go sit at a table.” I signaled the bartender, pointing at Teddy’s glass, raised two fingers, and received a terse nod; he was on the case.

“Are you drunk, Teddy?” I asked.

“I have no way of knowing.”

“Well, how many drinks have you had?”

He glanced at the wall clock. “About two hours’ worth.”

Two full glasses appeared and I lifted them carefully. Teddy got down from the stool and followed me to the table. “Well done,” he said. “I’m glad to see you. Where have you been all week?”

“Working,” I said. “I’ve been killing myself working.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I need the money.”

“Oh yes, they pay you.” Teddy sipped his drink, opening his eyes wide. He had an actor’s face, full of expression, long, pale, freckled, a weary drooping mouth, an aristocratic nose, pinched at the nostrils, hazel eyes rather round and flat, and a nimbus of curly red hair. He was slender, lithe, and quick on his feet, not handsome but appealing and wry. I knew a bit about his family—his banker father who wasn’t pleased about the acting ambition; his dramatic alcoholic mother (at the
beach house there was a painting of her, an English beauty with skin like a blushing rose); his ne’er-do-well older brother, Robert, who befriended thugs and gambled on anything that moved; and his talented younger sister, Moira, who was studying painting in London. He’d been to prep schools and then Yale Drama, his path strewn with privilege at every turning, but he was no dilettante. Money got him to the stage door, but only talent and dedication could get him onstage and he knew it. I sipped my whiskey, which was both smooth and potent, some brand known to the Ivy League and doubtless twice the price of the bar brand, but I didn’t care. I was in a funk about the whole business with Guy and I weighed the option of consulting with Teddy. As if he read my mind he announced, “Guy Margate got a job.”

This news hit me like a blow and I dropped back in my chair, struggling to accommodate it and to take account of my emotions. There was a strong element of surprise—I hadn’t thought he would get the part—and a fair component of jealousy, mixed with deep resentment. Teddy watched me attentively, his chin resting in his hand, his eyebrows lifted. “How do you know this?” I said.

“Mindy had it from Madeleine. Big celebration last night.”

“Mindy was there?”

“No, Madeleine called her and she called me. The celebration was just Madeleine and Guy; they had a date.”

“Right,” I said.

“It’s Playwrights Horizons.”

“Right,” I said again. “Equity. What’s the play?”

“Sunburn
I think it’s called. Or maybe
Sunstroke. Sunburst
.
It takes place on a beach. It’s written by an Italian I never heard of.”

“Guy plays an Italian.”

“Presumably.”

I reached for the whiskey and swallowed a big gulp.

“It will keep him busy,” Teddy observed.

“That’s true. And I won’t have to give him more money.”

“You gave him money?”

“Fifty bucks. He pretty much demanded it. That’s why I had to work so much this week, but I’ve made it up and first thing tomorrow I’m calling Madeleine.”

“That’s the spirit,” Teddy said. We drank in silence for a few moments. The bar was emptying out. “It’ll probably flop,” Teddy added.

“That’s true. And it will keep him off the streets for a couple of weeks at least.”

“Also true.” We snickered companionably, but the likelihood that the play would fail was cold comfort against the dismal fact that stood before us: Guy Margate had a part and we did not.

W
hen an actor has a part, he has a life, and a full one. When he doesn’t have a part, his life is looking for one. Parts are few, the competition is stiff, and even if one succeeds in being hired there are still a variety of avenues that lead directly to failure. The backers can go broke before a play goes into rehearsal; the play can close after a tryout; the director may be incompetent, lack nerve, or just lose control (as evidently happened in
the profitable but unnerving production of
Hamlet
in which Richard Burton, directed by John Gielgud, delivered a mind-numbing impersonation of Burton saying Shakespeare’s lines very fast); the play can be difficult, unwieldy, or just banal; the actors may be miscast; illness, divorce, or lawsuits may hamstring the production; critics may hate the play and say so; audiences may fail to show up.

Or the leading lady may go mad onstage.

But without a part, an actor can’t even fail, so when a play is cast the thespian community recoils and regroups, simultaneously discouraged and reinvigorated, for if that miserable actor Joe Blow can land a juicy part, anything is possible.

I’d been in the city a year and had appeared in two productions, one an Equity-waiver workshop at the Wooster Open Space and one a two-week run of one acts at a tiny theater in the West Village. The plays were new and forgettable and my parts were negligible, though I did have a nice bit of comic business in the one act, in which I got tangled up in my trousers while trying to seduce my female employer. I went to my classes, gossiped at the right bars, circled the roles I thought might be suitable in the casting-call pages of
Back Stage
and
Show Business
, and lined up at the doors with the rest of the cattle, but I wasn’t getting anywhere and I knew it. The news that Guy, an obscure bookstore clerk, new to the scene and not connected to any school that I knew of, had a part in an Equity production was like an injection of iron into my resolve.

On Monday, I went to class with an edge of self-loathing that felt new and dangerous to me. Madeleine was eager to tell me about Guy’s success, but I shut her down with a grimace.
“Teddy told me,” I said. She studied me a moment, her head cocked to one side, thoughtful, interested, the way adults look at a child who has revealed in some completely transparent and inappropriate fashion that he is in pain.

“Look,” I said, “I’m wondering if I’m just lazy, if I’m not hungry enough, if I’m just kidding myself.”

“This amazes me,” she said.

“I don’t lack confidence; I know I’m good, but maybe I’m too comfortable hanging out at Phebe’s pretending to be an actor.”

She nodded. “I’ve been having the same thoughts all day. It’s eerie.” Our eyes met and held. I think some elemental bond was struck in that look, a passion to further each other’s interests.

“What should we do?” I asked.

“After class, we’ll talk,” she said, for the inimitable Sandy Meisner had arrived, his ogling eyes behind the thick spectacles that allowed him to see, to which was attached the microphone that allowed him to speak, sweeping the room for the girl with the most revealing top.