The History of Great Things (4 page)

W
hen I'm not traveling, I take you to as many Broadway musicals as I can scrape together the cash for, which isn't many, so instead I bring home records:
Carousel
,
Oklahoma!
,
Godspell
,
The Sound of Music
,
Mary Poppins
,
My Fair Lady
,
Fiddler on the Roof
. In 1969, in heaviest rotation, by a lot, is
Funny Girl
.

Of course, you listen to these records mostly when I am not home, when no one besides you is home, which, yes, is often. There is usually a stretch of time—say, if I am out for a voice lesson—that is long enough for you to play an album at least twice or to play your favorite songs: “People,” “My Man,” “Don't Rain on My Parade,” “I'm the Greatest Star” (“
I'm the greatest star by far but no one knows it
”). You save your allowance money for a set of fake nails from Woolworth's, finding that a sailor shirt alone won't quite complete the experience. You have seen
A Happening in Central Park
on TV, studied it. You borrow one of my falls, which is not even a little bit close to your own hair color. You spend a good amount of time setting up the fan to blow your dress around dramatically. And by “your dress” I mean one of my dresses, a peach chiffon mini with bell sleeves,
chosen because it will blow the best and because it has a bow in the back like Barbra's.

Always, you sing facing into the big mirror over the living room sofa. Before the song begins you hum the overture because you
feel
the overture. There is no fake microphone; you don't need one. You
are
the greatest star by far that no one knows of. It has been raining on your parade for years now. Oh your man, you love him so, he'll never know. You have no man (or boy) right now, there isn't even an object of your affection at the moment, but this resonates no less on that front. You are utterly certain in the deepest part of your eight-year-old soul that he is in the universe somewhere, that you are tragically separated by forces you don't fully understand but are no less real and true: he goes to another school, he lives in another city, he's one of those boys from
Tiger Beat
, he lives in another country, his mother is mean and keeps him locked in his room (and he knows he should be with you too, which makes it all the more tragic). You don't know which, but it's for sure one of these.

The fake nails never stay on, so often in the middle of your Barbra-style gesturing, one or two fall to the floor and you have to stop and stick them back on, move the needle back on the record. Always, you end by falling dramatically backward onto the sofa with wide-open arms, like you've seen in the movies, with a loud and overdramatic sigh, exhausted from all the singing and feeling and singing-feeling.

When you grow up you will for sure be either a Broadway star, or a veterinarian, or a police, or probably all of those things. Until the following year when you read
Harriet the Spy
. Then you will for sure be a writer. Or a spy.

You hear the click of the lock on the door, jump to your feet. You don't know that I've just heard you sing the entirety of “Don't Rain on My Parade” from outside the apartment.
You have a good voice, Betsy. Moooom
. You turn red; a compliment from your mom means a lot to you, especially given your plans for a Broadway career, but you don't dare admit what you were doing, not to me, not to anyone. You don't really dare anything at this point, you only dream. When you grow up, you won't be scared to sing outside of the apartment, you're sure.
I wasn't singing. I didn't say you were. I was playing dress-up. Okay, Betsy, if you say so. Just know that it's not all about talent. If you want to be in the arts, be prepared for a life of disappointment and poverty.

—Just FYI, Betsy, this is not me acknowledging that I ever said such a thing. Because I didn't.

—Okay.

I
n sixth grade, you and your class collaborate on a play. It is set “in the year 2000” at the opening of the tallest residential building in the world: three hundred stories, with balconies that “see across the country.” You play the mayor of New York, presiding over the ribbon cutting; you're wearing a corduroy blazer and one of Victor's new wide ties (which looks even wider on you). In attendance at the ribbon cutting are Shamed Former President Nixon, Not Shamed Former President Shirley Chisolm, Don Corleone, Bobby Fischer, Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, Shelley Winters, Burt Reynolds, Secretariat, a veterinarian, and the ghost of Bruce Lee. It is meant to be Pinter meets Pirandello.
We've been reading them in school
, you report, leading us to second-guess our choice of private school after all, but your enthusiasm is nothing if not sincere. The experience of writing this play has been an inspiration, the laughter of your classmates at your contributions has sunk into you on a cellular level; you feel like your true voice is reaching the people! It's all you've ever really wanted, you know this now. Each character has at least one line about what it's like in the year 2000.
Nowadays we have the ability to shrink our animals so we can carry them in our pockets!
the veterinarian says.
Don't even think about it
, Secretariat says. Throughout
the play, there are numerous long pauses and a play within the play in which Shelley Winters swims up from the Hudson River (
We can breathe underwater now!
) to moderate a debate between Nixon and Chisolm about whether or not Nixon should be allowed to breathe anywhere (this little political bit, you feel personally, is your strongest contribution), which leads to more long pauses and various characters jumping in and pointing out that most of these people probably aren't still alive in the year 2000, that we're practically near death ourselves at thirty-nine.

After the play, I shake the hand of Nina, the adorable little girl who played the veterinarian.
You were so great!
We follow this immediately with
You were great too, honey!
though as far as you're concerned that's too little too late. (That you become friends with Nina the following year is almost remarkable.)

The three of us take a taxi home. You are silent for the duration. Victor and I chat about work; your brain feels like it could melt from the heat of your anger; you go straight to your room, close the door.
What's with her?
you hear Victor say behind the door. You fling the door open.
This was the most important day of my life!
Victor laughs.
Don't laugh! What are you talking about? It's a school play. You had two lines. I wrote them! I'm going to be a writer when I grow up!
Victor laughs again.
Weren't you going to be a singer last week? A year ago you were going to be an impressionist. I'm going to be a writer. Nobody knows what they want when they're twelve, Betsy. I thought I was going to be Vic Damone when I was twelve.
Victor's laugh, right this moment, is the worst sound of all sounds ever made. They should use Victor's laugh to get people to reveal state secrets, you think.
Shut up! I can be a singer and a writer! I'm going to be a singer and a writer and I'm going to write about
you
!
Victor doesn't take this as the threat you mean it to be, laughs again.
Stop laughing! Stop always laughing at me! I'm going to be a writer!

T
he final custody agreement is reached, so you will now make two annual trips to Iowa to visit your father, including one month each summer. Iowa is, to you at this time, basically earth's greatest place. You have three new brothers right there to play with, you can ride bikes in the street, and there are always several gallon-size tubs of ice cream in the freezer, chocolate and butterscotch toppings and sprinkles in the cupboard, a running stream of grape Kool-Aid coming out of the dispenser in the refrigerator door. Fred and Jeannie pile you all into a Winnebago for camping trips, take you to your brothers' Little League games, you all go bowling, play pinball, play board games after nightly dinners of pizza and hot dogs; you make Super 8 movies, watch
All in the Family
together, stay up as late as you want. Fred teaches most summers, but still has plenty of free time. One of the things you do together as father and daughter is go to flea markets. He's forever hunting for Jew's harps, old Iowa sheet music, and antique Iowa postcards; you're currently hunting for any memorabilia having to do with Fred Astaire.
Oskaloosa 1929, Betsy! Technically not antique, but a nice clear postmark
.
That's great, Dad! Can I get this top hat from
Top Hat
? How much is it? Ten thousand dollars. Sure thing!

—Okay, I see you trying to make a point here, but way to hit it a little hard, Mom. Can we maybe try again, this time with a smidge of realism?

—Fine.

S
ummer of 1973. You're twelve years old. You're in Iowa for the month of August with your father as per our custody agreement. Like me, he has remarried: a young widow named Jeannie who has three boys, your age and older. Next time you visit you'll have a new half sister as well. Iowa City is only slightly less exotic to you now than it was a couple of years earlier, when you first visited. But you're just on the other side of the age where drive-ins with the family and lemonade stands and riding bikes around the neighborhood are endlessly entertaining. The topics in rotation on your daily, hour-long phone conversations with Nina are boys, boys, boys, clothes, books, boys, and boys. Your brothers are close to your own age, about twelve, fourteen, and seventeen, something like that. Possible options for Nina someday. You get along well with all the brothers, though the seventeen-year-old is generally not very interested in you or your brothers, given your youth. He's interested in girls and getting stoned and if there's beer he's interested in that too. Tonight, the fourteen-year-old knows where there's beer. Your father and Jeannie are at the Bix Fest in Davenport, back in the morning. The fourteen-year-old wasn't planning to invite the rest of you along, he was just planning
to go to a keg party at his bud's house, but failed to make sure the twelve-year-old hung up the other extension of phone before discussing party details with his friend.
Oooh, I'm telling!
the twelve-year-old says; the fourteen-year-old hangs up, says
Shut it
; the seventeen-year-old enters, says
What's happenin', little brothers
; he's probably already stoned. You enter the room mid-discussion.
He's going to a kegger!
the twelve-year-old says. You don't even know what a kegger is, mostly because you mishear this as “kigger,” though it's clear that whatever this is, he's not supposed to be going to one.
Righteous
, the seventeen-year-old says.
We'll all go. I'll drive.
The fourteen-year-old says
You guys suck
to his brothers.
Come on, Bets, you too
, the seventeen-year-old says. You don't want to ask what a kigger is for fear of looking like an idiot, so instead you say you were thinking of just watching
Toma
.
It's summer, Betsy, it's a rerun, come on, this will be way more fun.

The four of you spill out of the station wagon at the kegger, which right now is six eighth-grade boys and somebody's little sister standing around a small back yard listening to rock music on a transistor radio and passing around a dinky bowl of stale Bugles and a bag of Hy-Vee-brand wavy potato chips. Your brothers all know immediately that this party is pretty beat, though the fourteen-year-old might have had a good time with his buds if you guys weren't there totally ruining that vibe. You, however, feel a little bit like you're in a movie, or at least an after-school special. In New York, you're a good girl; your crowd isn't nerdy, exactly, but you and Nina aren't exactly hitting the discos at this point either, and so this to you seems as exciting as the TV-movie moments before the cops or the parents bust in and ship everyone off to juvie. A boy with shiny blond hair down to his shoulders hands you a Dixie cup with beer
and you accept it happily; you haven't tasted alcohol yet, but if this is what everyone is making so much fuss about, you're not sure you've been missing anything. There are bits of wax from the lip of the cup floating in the beer, indicating that this paper cup may have been someone else's first. But you take a hearty sip, try not to make the face that says this is your first time, and it turns out that the sensation that follows is actually A-okay. You're thirsty, so you gulp half the cup down, not realizing how quickly the booze will act on the popcorn and ice cream you had for dinner; the result turns out to be both enjoyable and instructive in the event of future keggers. You thank the blond boy, notice that he's wearing a striped T-shirt and bell bottoms,
very cool
, and that he looks a little bit like that kid from that TV show with the family that you like, that heartthrobby one who's always on the cover of your
Tiger Beat
magazines.
Do you go to Northwest?
blond boy asks.
I don't think I've seen you before. No, I'm from New York. No shit! New York City? Uh-huh. That must be so rad
, he says.
Is this like the most boring thing that's ever happened to you? No, I'm having a good time.
Three waxy cups of beer later, blond boy and you are inside in whoever's family room this is, on the sofa, watching
Toma
, and his hand is on your knee and your knee is on fire. In your mind you go from knee on fire to blond boy writing you love letters for the next four years until you graduate from high school and can move to Iowa, to do this forever as Mr. and Mrs. Blond Boy. His name is either Andy or Randy or Brandon; too late to ask again now. Andy or Randy or Brandon leans in to kiss you and now you're five beers in, which has allowed you to forget that you're about to have your first kiss just six feet away from your three new brothers. You have no idea right now if this is a good kiss or a bad kiss, it's just his lips on your lips, but it's a cute blond boy and he's kissing
you and it's the greatest thing that ever happened. For a moment you think of stopping him, just so you can go call Nina long-distance, but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Unfortunately, tomorrow is maybe not the worst thing that ever happened, but it's not in any way good.

Technically, it's already tomorrow when the four of you arrive back at the house to discover Dad and Jeannie's car in the driveway.
Oh, shit
, the fourteen-year-old brother says. You file into the house to find Jeannie on the phone with someone's mother. She takes a big sigh, folds herself in half in relief. Your father looks vaguely dismayed
.
He doesn't want to have to tell you that if I got wind of any part of this, I'd hustle him back to court in a second, but he knows it's true. It's plain to see that the four of you have been drinking.
Everyone to the table
, Jeannie says, starts by saying how worried they were, none of you home, how many phone calls they made.
The most important thing is that you're all safe
, Fred says.
But there are consequences
, Jeannie says. The seventeen-year-old is grounded for the rest of the summer; he was in charge, and he should have known better. The fourteen-year-old and the twelve-year-old get no baseball for two weeks; you're grounded for a week, and no TV and no phone privileges until you get home.

Unable to use the phone, you spend the day writing an epic letter to Nina. The previous night's romance is still stirring in your center; this could be part beer-hangover, but you don't recognize it as such, in spite of being grounded. What you mostly feel is deep and true love. You peek into your father's office to ask for an envelope and a stamp. He's smiley as always; last night's events will not be mentioned again until 1996, at which time he will claim he hardly remembers, whether he does or not. Hard to know with Fred, sometimes. Anyway, when you
hand him the letter and he sees how thick it is, he says
Oh my, this may need extra postage!
Not unthrilling to your dad—the postage, that this is something he can give you. He reaches into his desk drawer, where he keeps his mail supplies: envelopes, all denominations of stamps, and his little hand scale. He folds the six-page letter in thirds and stuffs it into the envelope, clips on the scale, gives the pointer a second to find rest.
Hmm, looks like it's just on the line here, so we'll definitely need to add four cents. Which ones do you want?
He opens his folder of stamps. You point to the Robert Indiana
LOVE
stamps.
Nina will like those. She has a poster of that in her room. Excellent choice.
You really want to tell him you're sorry about last night, but you have no idea what to say. So you hug your dad for the stamps like he's just given you a new puppy, and he knows.

The blond boy calls after dinner. Seventeen-year-old brother answers and is about to hand the phone to you, sees the sad look on your face, remembers your punishment, tries to mitigate the situation on your behalf.
Uh, she can't come to the phone right now, can I give her a message? Okay. Okay. Sure thing.
Seventeen-year-old hands you the scrap of paper with a number and says
Randy wants to know if you've seen
American Graffiti
.
Randy! You knew it. You've seen it and loved loved loved it and would see it again. Your dad hears this, sees your disappointment, and says
You can call back and tell him why you can't go, if you want
. Jeannie looks mildly irritated with Fred for bending the agreement like this, but you're not her kid, so she keeps quiet. You want to call Randy back, but having to tell him you're grounded and can't even talk on the phone is the definitely worst thing ever. Fred's still working on burying the shock that his little girl came home drunk last night, but he doesn't want to cave all the way on your punishment, which wouldn't be fair to the boys.

Randy's not home when you call back; just as well. The sound of his blond voice on the phone would be too much. You leave a message.

The following afternoon, Randy shows up at the door in his best butterfly-collar shirt, holding out a blue Ring Pop, says
I already got you this
, he looks sad, and you're sad too, because this is the next greatest thing that's ever happened: by giving you a ring he is obviously saying that he was indeed hoping to be with you forever. Your father comes to the door to see who it is.
Hi, Dr. Crane
,
Oh, hi, Randy
, you're stunned that they know each other, turns out Randy is the son of a respected colleague.
I was just going
, Randy says
. Okay, well, it was really, well, you know. Maybe I'll see you next summer.
You nod. Next summer is twenty years from now. You wave apologetically as he leaves.
Well, you know what, you're only here for another week, Betsy. Randy's a nice boy. Maybe we can add on another day of being grounded at the end. I'll talk to Lois.
You love your dad the best.

—Do you really think that?

—I don't know. I've thought it.