The Last Chance (22 page)

September 1975

Ever since that night on the beach at East Hampton Margot had been living a triple life. The first part was her work life, where she was an efficient robot. No one on the news show, no one in the studio, no one in the office knew what she did with her private life. She was more unassailable than ever, almost cold. She had an unhappy look in her eyes that was at the same time too threatening for anyone to come close. The second was her secret sex life, which took her prowling to every decent place a man with similar intentions might be found. It was the lunch restaurants where a hamburger on a roll cost $3.50 and the customers were all slim and young and dressed in outfits that burlesqued poverty. It was Bloomingdale’s on Saturday mornings. It was to a few carefully selected bars in the Village, or midtown where newspapermen and advertising men hung out. She accepted every invitation to a party that crossed anyone’s desk at the office. The others didn’t bother to go, but if they did, she operated at the party so swiftly they had no idea what she was up to. She wanted to sleep with as many young men as possible. They had to be attractive, employed, and not maniacs. None of these qualifications was actually provable except for the first, which was subjective. She never saw them more than once, even though several called. They all left her with a deep sense of guilt and dissatisfaction that sent her out to find another to wipe away the presence of the one before. She had never seen the East Hampton bartender again.

The third part was her secret depression. Sometimes it took the form of a journey into the past. She suddenly seemed to have total recall. Every unkind, unthinking word that had ever been spoken to her by her mother, an aunt, a teacher came back with the pain it had inflicted the first time. She seethed with anger. She thought of all the insults she had been intimidated by or had believed. She remembered the many times she had been accused of not being feminine by men who wanted something of her or women who felt threatened by her success, and how she had backed down and tried to please them. She regretted lost chances to fight back, words she had left unspoken, old, long-gone bonds she should have cut before she had. She felt the waste of her life. None of the good things she had now—her job, her friends, her health, her money, her looks—made any difference. The best years had been stolen from her by enemies.

On nights when she didn’t go out to find a man Margot stayed at home drinking vodka and diet tonic and listening to old records that brought memories back even more vividly. She could not concentrate on new music. It irritated her. With the eagerness of a masochist she crawled to the past that had battered her. She should never have trusted anyone. She should have handled all of it differently. In her mind she had angry conversations with these shadow enemies of the past and told them how much she despised them. She brought these scenes up to the present and imagined police coming to her door to tell her that Kerry had been killed violently and that they had to question everyone in his address book even though she herself was not a suspect. “What did you expect?” she would say to these cops. “He had such weird friends I’m just surprised he wasn’t killed ages ago.”

With characteristic self-absorption, Ellen never noticed that Margot was different. She telephoned with her endless seismographic records of her orgasms with Reuben, her mental turmoil because the affair was getting so serious, her gloating because it was. Now Margot could retaliate. She told Ellen about the best of her pickups, glamorizing the occasion as much as she could; she told Nikki, she told Rachel. They all seemed pleased that she had gotten over Kerry so well and was so popular. The only one who had a discouraging comment was, of course, Ellen. “Why do you want them so young?” Ellen asked. “There’s no future in that.”

“You’re a fine one to talk about future.”

“All right. Next time I’ll know better.”

“Are you planning on a next time?”

“Maybe …”

More of Ellen’s bragging that Margot couldn’t take seriously. She would never leave Hank, she was a coward.

Margot’s fortieth birthday was approaching. Ellen decided that this year instead of taking her to lunch she would give her a surprise evening birthday party at Maxwell’s Plum, inviting just their closest women friends, Nikki and Rachel. It couldn’t really be a surprise though, because if she didn’t tell Margot in advance, Margot might break their date, having met some young man somewhere. Margot was rather pleased about the party. She imagined herself on the deck of the
Titanic
, drinking gaily as the rest of the world went off in lifeboats. The image quickly turned to herself doomed and hysterical on the
Titanic
, while her parents, every man she had loved, all her friends, were being saved. Then she saw herself in a lifeboat crowded with strangers, being rowed to safety, and those she loved doomed on the ship above her, pressed to the railing, acting brave. The image made her cry. She didn’t want to have to make the choice of which fantasy she preferred—they were all horrible. Why did she torture herself this way? She seemed to have so little control over her thoughts lately.

She asked her doctor to give her another prescription for sleeping pills. They were barbiturates and had been reclassified, so you could only have a month’s supply and couldn’t renew them. She took them infrequently, never when a man was there, and saved them. You never knew. Drinking lulled the images, and if it didn’t, at least it gave her the courage to go out and look for male company. Margot doubted if she could pick up a man without first having a few drinks. It was so contrary to everything she had been brought up to believe about aggressiveness. She never drank during the day when she was preparing her spot, and never before the show. She was very careful now. Previously she’d had a glass or two of wine at lunch with a friend; now she was only a night drinker. Alcohol had suddenly begun to bring out the worst in her. She never knew which she would become: the adventure seeker or the recluse.

On her birthday Margot, Ellen, Nikki, and Rachel met at Maxwell’s Plum at half past eight. It was already crowded. In the center of the restaurant was a huge, raised bar filled with young people who had come to pick up strangers and find love of one kind or another. All had dressed and groomed themselves carefully for the night’s adventures. Around the edges of the room was a sidewalk café, where blue-jeaned couples could linger over a hamburger and watch the action. The whole place was done in extravagant Art Deco, with ceramic and stuffed animals hanging from the ceiling. But the best part was the open back room, raised for a good view of the bar, with a glittering Tiffany glass ceiling of many colors, Art Deco light fixtures, bouquets of flowers on the tables, and a lengthy menu. Ellen had reserved a table in this expensive back room and all of them had dressed up. They were going to show Margot how nice it was to be a sophisticated, financially secure grown-up, so her birthday wouldn’t bother her.

They had two bottles of wine. It went fast with four people. They ordered a third bottle halfway through the meal. Margot idly thought of putting the whole bill on her credit card so Ellen wouldn’t have to dig up her share, and realized she was high. They were all in good spirits. Nikki and Rachel had chipped in to buy her a Rykiel sweater she had coveted, and Ellen had bought her an Elsa Peretti necklace.

“It’s worth being forty to get all this loot,” Margot said gratefully, not really meaning it.

They were jolly, they laughed and shrieked like schoolgirls. “Let me tell you about the graffiti I just saw in the ladies’ room,” Nikki said. “It said, ‘Sex without love is even worse.’” They all shrieked with laughter. “Worse than what?” Nikki said. They laughed harder.

“I have to go pee anyway, so I’ll write an addition,” Margot said, rising. She had to pass the length of the back room to get to the stairs, and looked down at the crowded bar. There were a few rather passable men standing there hoping to pick up girls. When she came down the stairs she had a better look and saw one who appealed to her. He was tall and tanned, with dark hair and light-looking eyes, a nice body in the inevitable body shirt, with a suede jacket slung over one shoulder. He held what looked like a spritzer. Definitely cruising. She walked over to him and gave him a fey half smile.

“I know you,” he said.

“Oh?”

“You’re on television. Margot King! Right?”

“Right.”

“Buy you a drink?”

She nodded in the direction of the table of women. “I’m doing an interview right now. Later?”

He looked at the table and his glance stopped at Rachel. He almost licked his lips. “Coincidence, I’m in market research myself.”

“Lesbians,” Margot said. “Very dull. I’ll be through at-” She looked at her watch. “Why don’t you come over to my apartment at eleven.”

“Will you be there?”

“Of course.” She wrote her address on his napkin and went back to her table.

“Who was that?” Ellen asked.

“A guy I know.”

“What’s his name?”

“I haven’t got the faintest idea,” Margot said, and smiled down at the handsome young man who was looking at her now instead of at anyone else in the room. He held up two fingers to her in a sign that was meant to mean eleven. Margot nodded.

“What did that mean?” Nikki asked.

“V for victory,” Margot said.

“Did you pick up that strange man?” Rachel, horrified.

“Sure,” Margot said. “Didn’t you ever in the dim, evil past?”

“Lots,” Rachel said.

“Well, I’m still living my dim, evil past,” Margot said.

“It’s incredible,” Nikki said. “You walk through the room and they fall at your feet.”

They all nodded and smiled admiringly, but Margot couldn’t be sure if they meant it or if they thought she was crazy and were just being nice because it was her birthday.

She was home at a quarter to eleven, put her birthday presents away, brushed her teeth, combed her hair, had a drink, and waited. He appeared at ten past. Too insecure to wait in the street in case I wasn’t home yet, she thought. He saw me leave, but he still wasn’t sure. That means he’ll try harder. Insecure ones always do. It never does them any good; I like the idea more than the act, but I’ll send him away happy.

Early in the morning he had to leave for his office. He took a carefully folded tie out of his jacket pocket. “Stopped off home to get this last night,” he said, as if he were enormously clever. Margot gave him a new, wrapped toothbrush so he wouldn’t use hers. (She’d bought a dozen of them at the five-and-ten after the first young man she’d picked up had.) She pretended to be too sleepy to offer him breakfast. When he left she was relieved. She threw the razor blade he’d used into the garbage and changed the sheets.

Rachel had started as a freshman at NYU. She was taking American History, Government, Economics (as a prelude to learning banking), and Psychology. She always got to lectures early so she could get a good seat, fourth row center; she thought of them as house seats. In her shirt and jeans, her books on her lap, she would sit and watch all the other students come into the lecture hall. There were so many of them! She’d never seen that many young people all together at one time in her life. There weren’t so many kids when she was young, even in her high school, which everyone in town considered big. The lines here to register for courses had been endless. The mobs at the local bookstores, the lines at the library, the lines to eat, the lines for everything. The professor used a microphone. These waves of young people, how did they feel? Anonymous, competitive, scared? She was glad she knew what the future held for her and didn’t have to worry about competing with all those other people for a job after graduation. Rachel was so fascinated by the ideas her professors bombarded her with, and so busy with the homework and papers they demanded of her, that she hadn’t bothered to make any friends yet. But she didn’t feel odd or left out because she was older than the other students. They didn’t seem to feel any generation gap. No one seemed to wonder why she was here, and girls and boys smiled at her as they passed in the hall as if she were another one of them.

One boy always seemed to seek the seat next to hers in Psych I, and he had introduced himself to her as Andy. He was her height and skinny, with long red hair to his shoulders, a moustache and a little beard. His moustache and beard were brown. He had fresh, clear skin like a child’s and guileless brown eyes. She thought that without all that hair he’d grown on his face he would look about sixteen years old. It was funny how young these kids looked to her. Andy was really the only person here who made an appreciable effort to be friends with her, and Rachel was grateful for his efforts. He always talked to her before and after the class, but never bothered her by whispering during the lecture. He took notes seriously, and so did she.

She realized after a while that he had a crush on her, and the thought was delightful. She told Lawrence about him. Lawrence only said he was surprised more boys didn’t have crushes on her. He had been so supportive of her schoolwork, cutting down their social life, arranging things so she would have time to study. He even discussed his work with her at home, explaining what he did and how the things she learned in her economics course did and didn’t have relevance to what he did every day. Lawrence seemed proud of her, and Rachel was proud of herself. The other students were all just as frightened of failing as she was, and therefore it wasn’t so frightening any more. They were all new together.

One beautiful fall day after class Andy asked Rachel if she wanted to sit in Washington Square Park in the sun for a while. She had a free hour between classes, and she felt so young today that she decided a few minutes in the dreaded sunshine wouldn’t turn her into an instant prune, so she said sure. On the way he bought a hot dog with sauerkraut from a man with a cart and offered to buy her one, but she declined.

“My breakfast,” he said. He also bought a Coke.

She wondered if he had any money or not; you couldn’t tell with these kids, they all looked poor.