Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! (59 page)

“He was?”

“I remember one day he said, ‘Aunt Elner, how do you know there is a God, how can you be sure?’ ”

“What did you tell him?”

“I said, ‘Well, Gene, the answer is right on the end of your fingertips.’ He said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘Well, think about it. Every single human being that was ever born from the beginning of time has a completely different set of fingerprints. Not two alike. Not a single one out of all the billions is ever repeated.’ I said, ‘Who else but God could think up all those different patterns and keep coming up with new ones year after year, not to mention all the color combinations of all the fish and birds.’ ”

Dena smiled. “What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Yes, but, Aunt Elner, how do you know that God’s not repeating old fingerprints from way back and reusing them on us?’ ” She laughed. “See what I mean? Yes, God is great, all right. He only made one mistake but it was a big one.”

“What was that?”

“Free will. That was his one big blunder. He gave us a choice whether or not to be good or bad. He made us too independent … and you can’t tell people what to do; they won’t listen. You can tell them to be good until you’re blue in the face but people don’t want to be preached at except at church, where they know what they are getting and are prepared for it.”

“What’s life all about, Aunt Elner? Don’t you ever wonder what the point of the whole thing is?”

“No, not really; it seems to me we only have one big decision in this life, whether to be good or bad. That’s what I came up with a long time ago. Of course, I may be wrong, but I’m not going to spend any time worrying over it, I’m just going to have a good time while I’m here. Live and let live.” Sonny started slowly inching his way back toward the fat robin and Aunt Elner pulled her gun out and aimed. “Sonny, one more move and you’re dead.”

Dena had to laugh in spite of herself.

The network lawyers had informed Sandy that unless Dena came back within a week they would cancel her contract and replace her. Today was the day she had to make the decision and it had not been as hard as she thought. The decision had been made for her, really. In the end she had no choice.

Her agent, Sandy, was in his office waiting for the call.

“Sandy, I can’t.”

“Are you sure? You know what this means. Think about it.”

“I know that, and I have thought about it. It’s just that I couldn’t come back even if I wanted to. I wouldn’t be any good at it anymore.”

“What do you mean? You’re the best in the business. You could be back on top in a few weeks. You haven’t lost all that time.”

“No, but I’ve lost something else. I don’t have the drive I had. I know too much, Sandy. Once you’ve been on the other side of this thing and know how it feels, you can’t ever go back.” Dena drew a deep breath. “Before, I was able to do my job and just keep moving and never think about the results. But not now, I’d be too slow, I’d hesitate, I’d think too much. No matter what the person had done, I’d be too soft on them. I couldn’t ask the questions I need to ask anymore without thinking about the damage I might be doing.”

“What will you do?”

“I don’t know. Get out of the way, I guess, and sit down for a while.”

“What about your apartment?”

“I’m going to give it up.”

“Where will you live?”

“Here.”

“In Dagwood Springs?”

“Elmwood Springs, yes.”

Sandy hung up and sighed. It was sad, he would miss her. The network would miss her. For a while, maybe a week, until one of the hundreds of new, bright-eyed, blond Dena look-alikes moved into her spot, and then it would be as if she had never been there at all.

A month later, on the morning of her thirty-fifth birthday, Norma called her on the phone. “Dena, have you been outside today?”

“No, why?”

“You need to go outside—and look up.”

“Why?”

“Just go out, that’s all I can tell you.”

Dena put on her sweater and walked into the yard. She looked up in time to see a huge gray blimp, its sign spelling out in gold lights the same phrase, over and over:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
 … 
YOU’RE ALL THE WORLD TO ME
.
LOVE
,
GERRY.

She had to grin. She suddenly remembered the look on Gerry’s face when he had sung to her at Carnegie and a warm feeling came over her. She went inside and called him.

“Gerry, I got your message. Now here’s mine: You are insane. Do you know that?”

“That’s not exactly the clinical term I would use, but close enough. How are you?”

“Fine. Listen, Gerry, why don’t you come down here, maybe stay the weekend. Can you do that?”

“When?”

“Come this weekend.”

“Oh. Is there a hotel in town?”

“You can stay here. I have four bedrooms.”

There was a slight pause. Then he said, “I’ll be there.”

Gerry had been a good friend. They had talked on the phone often since she had found out about her mother and he had been there for her, as he’d promised. It would be good to see him. As a matter of fact, as the few days went by, she couldn’t wait to see him. By late Friday afternoon, when he was on her front porch with his garment bag and just as he was about to ring the bell, the door opened and an arm grabbed him by the tie and pulled him inside the house and Dena put her arms around him and kissed him. And she was surprised at how well they seemed to fit together. It was as if they had been kissing for years. She didn’t know if it was because she had been alone for so long, but he looked good to her. Better-looking than she had remembered.

It wasn’t until sometime after he had arrived that she realized if you have a guest, you have to feed him, so for supper she made the only dish she knew, Franco-American ravioli straight out of a can, heated, and Gerry said it was delicious. After dinner they went out and sat on the porch and talked until one-thirty in the morning. When they got ready to go to bed, he said, “I just want you to know I am fully prepared to sleep in the back room like a gentleman. All right?”

She was relieved in a way because she had suddenly become a little nervous around him. They said good night.

After twenty minutes, she called out, “Gerry?”

“Yes?”

“I think it will be all right if you come in here and sleep with me. We won’t do anything, we’ll just sleep together, all right?”

Gerry came down the hall carrying his pillow, wearing a pair of blue bunny pajamas with the feet in them, and the minute she saw him she burst out laughing. “You fool … where did you get those?”

“Elizabeth Diggers sent them over to my office on Thursday.”

He modeled for her. “Like them? Are you sure you can trust yourself around me?”

“You are the silliest man I ever met. Get in the bed.”

He took his glasses off and put them on the nightstand and got into his side of the bed and lay down and felt her body next to his. And he was so relieved to finally be where he had wanted to be for so
long that he relaxed completely for the first time since she had telephoned and fell sound asleep. The next morning at 7:00
A
.
M
., Dena woke and looked over at him sleeping beside her like a child in his blue pajamas and the next thing she knew they were making love and for two people making love for the first time, it was surprising. She had not expected him to be so unbelievably passionate or that she could be so completely uninhibited. This was the first time in years she had gone to bed with someone when she was stone-cold sober. It was a new experience and she liked it. Gerry, who had been thinking and imagining such moments for a long time, was completely amazed. Making love with Dena was even better than he had imagined, and that was going some. Dena had gone back to sleep but he was too excited to sleep. He went down the hall and showered and shaved, got dressed, and came back. But she was still sleeping so he quietly tiptoed past her room and went out on the porch and decided he would take a walk before she woke up.

It was nine-thirty and he went into the Rexall and had a cup of coffee at the counter, then walked along the main drag. When he came back she was still asleep so he sat in the living room and waited. About five minutes later he couldn’t stand it any longer. He went into the bedroom and sat in a chair and stared at her, still astonished that it was really her, and that he was really here. She opened her eyes and looked over and saw him sitting there, all dressed.

“Hey … how long have you been up?”

He came over and sat on the bed. “For about an hour. I took a walk downtown.”

“You did?”

“This is a great little town, you know that?” And while he went on and on about how great the town was, she kept looking at him and she said, “Do you know who you remind me of?”

“No, who?”

“I’ve been trying to figure it out ever since last night when you came in wearing those silly pajamas. Little Donald. You remind me of this doll I had, this great big boy doll.”

“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not.”

“Oh, it’s a compliment. I slept with him for years.”

“Is there something about you and that doll I should know?”

“No, you goof. That was in the 1940s—besides, he was not anatomically correct.”

“Whew, thank God for that. At least I don’t have to compete with Little Donald.”

“No,” she said. “You’ve already won, hands down.”

He leaned down and gave her a long, sweet, tender kiss and Dena, who never liked to be kissed in the morning, liked it.

Gerry came back the next weekend and although Dena didn’t know how she felt about that, she was glad to see him. This time he stopped and brought groceries and cooked dinner for her. She was told to go in the living room and wait, and when called she came to the table. He had set the table, something she had not mastered—she could never remember what side what went on—but the thing that impressed her most was his salad. He had actually made a salad from scratch. The main course was baked chicken in a cream sauce, green beans, and new potatoes, and a cheesecake he had brought on the plane from New York. Between bites she said, “This is delicious; where did you learn to cook like this?”

“I hadn’t wanted to tell you but I had an affair with Julia Child.”

“Be serious.”

“I don’t know, I just picked it up here and there. It’s not that hard. Just follow the recipe.”

“I don’t know how to cook. We always ate out.”

“I don’t know how you could cook in that kitchen, you don’t have any utensils. We need to go out and get you a few things.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, minor stuff—pots, pans, silverware, a can opener, mixing bowls, things like that.”

“Oh.”

“I worry about you not eating right. You need fresh food, not all that frozen stuff you have in the refrigerator.”

“It says ‘fresh frozen.’ ”

“Dena …”

“I eat at Norma’s two or three times a week, so I figure—”

“No, you need to take the time to fix yourself something healthy every day. Do you eat fresh fruit?”

Dena made a face.

“Well, you need to eat some fruit and vegetables every day. You need to start building yourself back up.”

“The next thing I know you’ll pull down a chart of the basic food groups and give me a lecture with a pointer.”

The next morning Gerry went down to the hardware store and walked in. Macky spotted him right away but waited for him to come over. Gerry walked over. “Mr. Warren?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mr. Warren, I’m Gerry O’Malley. I don’t know if you remember me.”

“Oh, yes. How are you?” As if he could forget a man wearing pink tights and a hat with a plume standing in his front yard.

Gerry adjusted his glasses. “I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t remember, to tell you the truth.”

Macky smiled. “Hey, don’t worry about it, fella. All bets are off when it comes to love and war, right? What can I do for you?”

Then it dawned on Gerry. He had come in to buy pots and pans and mixing bowls and kitchen utensils and a meat thermometer. This man was going to think he was a fruitcake. But Macky made no comment and helped him pick out everything he needed and got a big kick out of watching Gerry trying so hard to be macho while choosing hot pads and just the right spatula and select a Mixmaster. They even had quite a long discussion about the pros and cons of Teflon versus an iron skillet. He bought both.

After Gerry had everything he needed and Macky rang it up, Gerry looked at the total. He was concerned. “Is this all I owe you? I’ve got a lot of stuff here.”

“Yes, that’s right, with your discount. And I’m throwing in a few things from Norma and me. We need to get her all outfitted.”

“Well, thanks.” While Macky was packing the bags, Gerry wandered around a little more. He came back to the counter. “I see you’ve got quite a collection of fishing lures and flies. Is there some good fly-fishing around here?”

You could see Macky’s ears perk up. “You bet, some of the best
in the country, no more than an hour from here. Last month I got a ten-pound walleye.”