White Collar Girl (31 page)

Almost in unison my mother and I asked if we could read it.

He rested his hand on the stack of paper and drummed his fingers tinged from carbon paper, the typewriter ribbon and tobacco. He wasn't saying anything.

“Well?” I looked at my father and then at my mother and then back at my father. “Aren't you going to let us read it?”

“
Oy
, forget it.” My mother shook her head. “I've been asking forever. He won't even tell me the title.”

My father had a curious look on his face, as if amused by my mother's frustration.

“Well, if you're not going to let anyone read it,” I asked, “what are you going to do with it now?”

“What do you think?” My father thumped his fist on the title page. “I'm going to get it published.”

•   •   •

“H
ey, you guys,” Benny called to us. “Here it is. It's on. Come listen to this.” Benny turned up the volume on his portable radio. We grabbed Randy and crowded in around Benny's desk as WCFL's Dan Sorkin announced, “And we're back with Chicago's own Randy and the Rockets and that chart-climbing hit
Little Dab'll Do Ya
.”

Randy stuffed his hands in his front pockets and rocked back on his heels, feigning modesty as Benny turned up the radio even louder and thumped his hand on his desk, keeping time with the music. Walter fired up his pipe and bobbed his head to the beat. Henry and Mr. Ellsworth snapped their fingers. Even Mrs. Angelo tapped her toes and Peter discarded his green eyeshade. M, still sporting her Jacqueline Kennedy look, did a sexy little shuffle in the aisle. For a few minutes we ceased being a city room, and it was all about the music.
Little dab'll do ya / Little dab of my love / Little dab'll do ya / Straight from heaven above . . .

At the end of the song we all broke into a round of applause, and Randy beamed, soaking up all the accolades, the slaps on the back, the handshakes. He'd done it. About a month ago, right around the time my father sent off his novel, Randy had worked
up the nerve to audition for Pendulum Records and ended up signing a recording deal with them.

“That song is
ehhhx
-cellent,” said Peter.

“Looks like you've got a real hit on your hands,” said Henry.

Randy nodded. “And they're telling me the flip side is going to be even bigger. Pendulum is already talking about signing me to another recording deal, and as soon as that happens, I'm outta here.” He looked over at Mr. Ellsworth and reeled himself back in. “Sorry.”

“Don't apologize to me.” Mr. Ellsworth raised his hands. “I'm happy for you, Randy. Just don't count your chickens before they've hatched.”

“I hear ya. I hear ya. But trust me on this. Between
Little Dab
and the next one,
Snap
, Randy and the Rockets are going all the way to the top.”

“Well, until you get there,” said Mr. Copeland, “might I suggest you finish up today's cartoon?”

Everyone had a good laugh over that before returning to our desks. I was on deadline but could hardly concentrate with Randy fluttering all around, gloating, singing and humming. Twice already M had told him to knock it off and she wasn't the only one getting annoyed with him. I could tell that Randy's good fortune had struck a nerve with certain coworkers. Jealousy traveled through the city room like a low-grade fever. Their jokes and snickers did little to veil their disappointment in themselves. You couldn't tell me that when Gabby was a little girl she dreamed about sitting at a desk all day, being scared of her editor, afraid to even make a phone call while writing about other people's glamorous lives. And what about M? No husband, no child, no house with a white picket fence. And did Higgs really want to be the rewrite man on the night shift at age fifty-three? Never seeing his wife and children unless he passed them
in the hallway when he got home at six in the morning? Surely he'd wanted more than that.

I looked over at Randy, spinning 'round and 'round in his chair like a little kid, his smile growing wider with each turn.

•   •   •

L
ater that morning, I was tossing my nickel into the collection kitty after taking a cup of coffee when I saw a very pregnant woman enter the city room. She had a green Marshall Field's bag looped on one arm and a small child in tow, holding tight to her free hand. The woman's auburn hair was pinned up, revealing a high forehead and a long, slender neck. Even as pregnant as she was, she looked spectacular. The only other woman I'd seen in such stylish maternity clothes was Lucille Ball when she carried Little Ricky on
I Love Lucy
. I'd never seen this woman before, but it was clear the others knew her. Marty rushed over and gave her a friendly hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“Is he around?” she said. “I need him to watch Tommy for a few hours.”

“He's in the conference room, Marjorie.”

She thanked Marty and proceeded to where Mr. Ellsworth was sitting by himself at a big round table. The kiss she gave him on the mouth confirmed that she could have only been Mrs. Ellsworth. I looked over at M. She'd lost all the color in her cheeks. She wasn't even blinking as she watched Mr. and Mrs. Ellsworth through the glass walls of the conference room.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

M shook her head. “She's pregnant?” She posed this as a question, as if I might tell her she was mistaken. “He said his marriage was over. He told me he didn't love her anymore. And now look at her. She's pregnant. Oh my God. This is a nightmare. I can't breathe. I have to get out of here.” She reached inside her drawer
for her handbag. “If anyone's looking for me,” she said, staring back at Mr. Ellsworth, “I'll be at Riccardo's.”

I asked if she wanted me to come with her, but she shook her head and scurried out of the city room. But even so, an hour and a half later, when M still hadn't returned, I went over to Riccardo's to check on her. It was going on two in the afternoon and the lunch crowd had thinned out. I found M at the end of the bar, slumped over on her stool, elbows on the bar, her head pressed to her hands with a cigarette burning dangerously close to the tips of her hair.

“M?” I slid onto the barstool next to her. “Are you all right?”

She looked at me in a haze, barely able to hold her head up. “He told me his marriage was over. He told me he loved me. He was going to leave her. I've been waiting all this time—eight years—and now I realize he's been lying to me all along.”

“How many martinis have you had?” When she didn't answer, I looked at the bartender. “How many did you give her?”

“That's her second,” he said, wiping down the bar. “I swear. That's all I served her. She was fine one minute and then this.”

“I can't believe he lied to me,” M muttered. “I tried so hard. I didn't pressure him. I didn't give him any ultimatums. I was a good girl. I was patient—just like he told me to be. I waited and waited and waited and now this. . . .”

“M, c'mon,” I said, hugging her around the midsection, trying to help her to her feet. She didn't fight me, but she was deadweight in my arms. “Let's get in a cab and get you home.”

As I hefted her up, her handbag slid off the bar and opened, scattering its contents across the floor. M slumped back over the bar while I retrieved her wallet, her keys, her compact, her lipstick and an empty bottle of phenobarbital. I held it up and looked back at M. Her eyes were closed, her lips lax and hanging open as if it were too much work to close her mouth.

“M—what did you do?” I held up the empty bottle. She opened her eyes, rolling her head from side to side. “How many did you take? M? How many?”

She couldn't formulate the words. Couldn't hold her head up or keep her eyes open.

I motioned to the bartender. “Help me get her into a cab. Hurry. I need to take her to the hospital.”

•   •   •

I
got M to the hospital in time. While they pumped her stomach, I stayed out in the waiting room and drank bad coffee and leafed through outdated magazines. The one good thing about how many times I'd been to Henrotin Hospital in the past few years was that I no longer associated it just with Eliot's death. Now it had taken on other memories, other ghosts. Like Harley Jackson and the other casualties from the el derailment. There was also the night Scott was brought in. And now this.

It was about forty minutes later when the doctors let me back to see M. She was pale and weak. Her lips were dry and cracked, and the whites of her eyes were veined red. Now she was asking for Stanley, and it took a moment before I realized she meant Mr. Ellsworth.

“I need him. Please, Jordan. Tell him I need to see him.”

It was going on six thirty. I made it back to the city room just as Mr. Ellsworth was about to leave. I caught him in the hallway by the elevators, fedora in one hand, briefcase in the other.

“Can I have a word with you?” I said. “In private.” When he stalled, I added on, “It's about M.”

We went into one of the conference rooms and he closed the door behind him.

“So what is it?” He was impatient as usual, and I could tell by his nonchalance that he hadn't a clue that I knew about his affair. “Well”—he planted his hands on his hips—“what is it?”

I thought about M lying in that hospital room because of him. It was the second time this man had nearly cost M her life. I became infuriated. “She's in the hospital.”

“What? What happened?” He almost sounded more curious than concerned, and this further irritated me.

There was no delicate way to say it, and I was no longer interested in making this easy for him. “She tried to kill herself this afternoon.”

“What?” His eyes opened wide, and his cheeks went pale. This was more the reaction I'd been expecting. “Good God, what happened?”

“She took half a bottle of sleeping pills and chased them down with a couple of martinis.”

“Oh, Jesus. Is she going to be okay?”

“They pumped her stomach in time. She's been asking for you.”

“For me?” He put on a confused face.

“Oh, please. Don't be coy at a time like this.”

“Now, wait a minute, Walsh—”

“I've known about the two of you for a long time now. Who do you think she turned to when she was pregnant? Who do you think helped her after the abortion? You sure as hell weren't around.”

He stammered and dropped back in his chair. His face went even whiter. “When was M pregnant?” He looked like I'd knocked the wind out of him.

“You didn't know?” Now I clutched a chair myself. “Oh no. You mean she didn't tell you?”

“She had an abortion?” He was still piecing it all together, his fingers pressed to his temples.

I nodded, afraid to speak for fear I'd say something else. He shouldn't have heard this from me. I just assumed that she'd told him about the baby. This wasn't any of my business, and yet I'd
gotten myself in the middle of it. Even though I was still angry with him because of what he'd done to M, I hadn't meant to level him like this.

“It was mine? I was the father?” He dragged his fingers through his hair, then planted his elbows on the table and leaned his face into his hands. “What hospital is she at?”

“Henrotin.”

He nodded into his hands. “Give me a minute alone, will you, Walsh? I'll go see her. I just need a moment to gather my thoughts.”

•   •   •

W
ith M in the hospital, I was covering her assignments in addition to my own, working on “Ways to Set a Stylish Dinner Table” with one hand while reporting on a firefighter who'd been injured in an eleven-alarm blaze with the other.

A week later I was still doing double duty, my fingers moving over the typewriter keys as if by their own command. When I got to the end of one typed line, a tinny chime sounded. I swatted the carriage return and went on to the next. Around four o'clock that day, I stuffed my attaché case with fashion and movie magazines and boxes of M's favorite candies—Good & Plenty and Milk Duds. They rattled around in my case as I headed to the hospital.

All week long I'd been making daily visits to see her. Especially since Ellsworth—as I'd taken to calling him, no longer feeling him worthy of the honorific
Mister
—hadn't been back since that first day. His wife, Marjorie, had just given birth to a little girl, Sheila.

I pulled up a chair close to M's bedside and handed her the magazines and candies. She didn't look through them and set the candy next to the water pitcher by the side of the bed. We talked about
things
, innocent things with no sharp edges to get caught
on. She never once asked about Ellsworth, never said his name. Never mentioned the baby or asked if she'd been born yet.

“Randy is still insufferable,” I said, shaking out a handful of Milk Duds, trying to add some levity to the mood. “If I hear him sing
Little Dab'll Do Ya
one more time I think I'm going to scream.” I popped a candy into my mouth and offered her the box. “And if he's not singing, then he's going on and on about how he's going to become a millionaire.”

M struggled with the box of Milk Duds and I resisted the urge to help. “Well, good for him. Good for him.” She managed to pour a few candies into her hand. “It's about time someone's dream came true.”

It was only as I was getting ready to leave that M finally mentioned Ellsworth. In a flat deadpan voice, she said, “I thought he loved me. I mean really loved me.”

“I know. I'm sorry, M.”

“I wasted so much time on him. Eight years. I sacrificed my child for that man. And what have I got to show for it? Not a goddamn thing.” Her eyes went glassy, and she stared off into nothingness. “I don't know who I am or what I'm supposed to do without him.”

“You'll be fine. I promise you, you will. You don't need him, M. And you don't need Marilyn or Jackie, either. You're enough, just as you are.”

“You're saying that because you're my friend.”

“M, it's the truth. You've put too much stock in Ellsworth. All that energy you poured into him, you need to start putting into yourself.” I thought back to the conversation my mother had had all those years ago with Simone de Beauvoir. “If there's one thing I've learned, it's to never ever put a man first.”

As those words left my mouth, I realized I hadn't really learned that lesson myself. I fiddled with the buckles on my attaché case,
thinking about how I'd groveled for my father's love, how I'd kept myself small for Jack's comfort and had put Scott and Marty on pedestals. Even my dream of being a journalist had belonged to my brother first. At times like this I had to question what I truly wanted for myself.

When I left M that day, I felt depleted. The smell of disinfectant penetrated my nostrils and followed me outside of the hospital. I felt for her, I did, but I had to get back to my life. After caring for M all week, I realized that what I needed now was for someone to take care of me. So I went to the only place I could think of, to the one person who had once felt my head for fevers, bandaged my knees from scrapes and cuts, removed my every splinter. I went home to my mother.

She was in the kitchen, sifting through a drawer of S&H Green Stamps. This was the most bourgeois pursuit I'd ever seen my mother partake in. But, like most things, she did it with gusto. She'd been collecting Green Stamps for as long as I could remember, always coming in from the store and tossing the loose stamps into the kitchen drawer below the knives. Every few months or so, like now, she'd pull out the entire drawer, set it on the table and adhere the individual stamps into the saver booklets. When we were little, Eliot and I had taken turns licking the stamps and affixing them to the pages. I used to love the sweet residue the stickum left on my tongue. Through the years my mother had already redeemed previous booklets for a steam iron, a blender and a speed slicer, which was still in its box in the basement. This time she was saving for an electric frying pan. She had visions of making fried chicken from her grandmother's recipe.

“Want to help me here?” she asked, dabbing a stamp on her tongue, then making a face as she swallowed. Clearly she didn't enjoy the taste that I remembered.

I pulled out a chair and dropped into it like I weighed three hundred pounds. That was how I felt. I'd hoped she would notice how depressed I was, but she was too focused on her stamps.

“I just came from the hospital.”

“You were there again? How's your friend M doing?” She had a cigarette dangling from her lips.

“Not good. I feel so helpless. I don't know what to do or what to say.”

“She'll get through it. We all do.” She filled a sheet with stamps and turned to a fresh page. “I think we only need one hundred and twenty-five more,” she said.

“That's a lot of stamps for the electric frying pan.”

“No. Not the pan. The power drill.”

“Power drill?”

“Your father wants it.” She shrugged. “I'm hoping it'll cheer him up. He's been such a beast lately. Just a real beast.”

“Why? What's going on with him?”

“Oh, the editors at Scribner rejected his novel, and he's been impossible ever since.”

“That was fast. He only sent it off about a month ago. And, besides, that's only one publisher. There're others.”

“Of course there are. And that's what I told him, but he doesn't want to hear it. He's pouting. You know Scribner is Ernest's publisher. Your father was sure they'd take his novel, too.”

“Did they explain why they rejected it?”

She shook her head. “He won't say. He won't even let me see the letter. I keep asking him to let me read the manuscript, but he won't let me do that, either.” She reached for another stamp. “You know he used to always let me read his work—even if it was a magazine piece or a column for the paper. I was the first person he'd show something to.” She paused to adhere a stamp in place. “I tell you, he's been a beast ever since he finished that novel of
his. Now that he's sent it out to the publishers, the waiting is eating him up. I don't know what to do with him. He checks the mailbox every hour. ‘Has the mailman been here yet?' He'll ask me that ten minutes after he's already gone outside and checked it himself.”

“So where's the beast now?”

“Who knows? Probably down at Mister Kelly's. That's where he spends his time now that he's not writing. The drinking”—she shook her head—“it's not good.”

“Well, that's nothing new,” I reminded her.

“But it's gotten worse.” My mother licked the last of her stamps. “There we go.” She closed the booklet and ran her fingers over the cover. “Want to come with me to get the power drill? We have an hour before the store closes.”

I went with her down to the S&H redemption store, not because I was particularly interested in shopping for power drills, but because I wanted to be near her. We moved up and down the aisle, and I saw the way my mother paused before the electric frying pans, running her fingertips along the black handle. It was only then that I realized how much she'd wanted that frying pan but how much more she wanted my father to be happy.

She saw me watching and smiled. “Really what I should do is hit him over the head with this.”

“As if that would do any good,” I said, and that got her laughing.

We both knew it wasn't that funny, but for some reason her laughter was contagious and I couldn't stop from joining in. It was like we needed an excuse—a reason to laugh, or maybe more correctly, we needed something to mask the sadness misting up our eyes. She was hurting for my father. I was hurting for them both. And for M, too. We couldn't cry outright. We didn't do that sort of thing. So instead, we stood in the middle of the aisle holding our sides while the tears trickled down our faces.

An hour and a half later my mother dropped me off at my apartment building and by then my troubles were off in the distance. It seemed like days since I'd been to the hospital to see M. It wasn't until I watched my mother drive away that I realized how she, in her own way, had ended up giving me exactly the kind of comfort I needed after all.