A Life of Her Own, page 27
He walked to the door. She followed him. He bent to kiss her. “I’ll call you later.”
“After that indictment.”
“A guy can hope.”
She waited until almost eight to call Rose and ask if she could come over.
“There’s no need,” Rose said. “Chloe’s about to leave for school. She can manage not seeing her mother one morning.”
“To see you.”
“I take it from the urgency in your voice that the meeting didn’t go well.”
“The meeting went extremely well. They’re drawing up the contract for Florence Fabricant as we speak. Fanny Fabricant gets billing.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you. Can I come over?”
“I’m putting the coffee on now.”
They sat at the white enamel table in Rose’s kitchen with two cups of coffee. Rose asked if she wanted toast or coffee cake or anything.
“I had cold chicken somewhere around two or three this morning.”
Rose’s eyebrows made twin arches in her forehead.
“We were hungry.”
“We? Ezra finally overcame his Victorian scruples?”
“I spent the night with Charlie.”
“Lucky girl.” Rose hadn’t missed a beat. Fanny was surprised.
“That’s all you have to say?”
“In your place it wouldn’t have taken me so long.”
“I thought there wasn’t anyone after Hugo.”
“There wasn’t anyone after Hugo because there wasn’t anybody worth it after Hugo. No Charlie Berlins walked into my life.”
“You and Ava.” She shook her head. “What is so wonderful about Charlie?”
“You tell me. You’re the one who spent the night with him.”
“All right, I’m attracted. But I can’t afford him.”
“Why not? Because he’s not reliable? Steady? Husband material, as Mimi would say?”
“Exactly.”
“And Ezra is?”
“Yes. He’s all those words you make sound like character flaws.”
“I never said they were character flaws. They’re admirable traits. If you happen to love him.”
“I do.”
Rose sat staring at her in the hard winter light that beat off the snow on the roofs across the street and slanted into the kitchen.
“It occurs to me there’s another choice going on here, and it’s not between two men. It’s between two versions of yourself. One Fanny goes as someone’s appendage to the funeral of a complete stranger and comes away feeling like an interloper and hating herself. That Fanny bakes soufflés and ends up listening to the soaps she used to write. The other Fanny heeds her own instincts rather than bowing to society’s or her husband’s dictates and does work that gives her satisfaction, or from what I remember about writers from my time with Hugo, delivers frustration and heartbreak, but at least she’s doing something she cares about.”
“You make it sound so black-and-white.”
“That’s because it is. Maybe it wouldn’t be if you were marrying someone else, but you’re marrying a man who doesn’t want you to work because it would embarrass him. I’m not against marriage. Far from it. I would have married Hugo in a minute if he’d been free. I’m just against marriage to someone who wants to clip your wings.”
“Ezra doesn’t want to clip my wings.”
“Right, only take away your typewriter.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
SHE DIDN’T GO TO THE LIBRARY THAT DAY. SHE WAS afraid Charlie would be there. She was afraid he wouldn’t. Instead she walked. Up West End Avenue, down Broadway, through the park to Fifth. The streets were slushy, but the sidewalks had been shoveled, and the park was still a pristine Currier & Ives print. She stood, her mittened hands in her pockets and her hat pulled down over her ears, staring at the Great Lawn dozing under a blanket of white. Here and there paw prints frolicked, accompanied only occasionally by human treads. And as she stood there, she realized the only chill she felt was from the weather. The snow held no menace.
But the lighthearted mood didn’t last. Last night dogged her steps. Tonight, Friday night, when Ezra would reappear, loomed ahead of her. She went into a Chock full o’Nuts and ordered a cup of coffee and a nutted cheese sandwich. She couldn’t eat the sandwich. She drank the coffee, left, and decided she’d go to Fairway to get some vegetables and greens for a salad. Did the fact that she was buying things for dinner mean Charlie was right, she wasn’t going to tell Ezra?
As soon as she stepped into the store, she was sorry. Mimi was standing in front of a mountain of apples. She started back to the door, but Mimi had already seen her.
They embraced, then began making their way through the fruits and on to the vegetables, squeezing, examining, selecting. Fanny asked about the baby. Mimi said he’d rolled over.
“Can baseball be far behind?”
“According to your soon-to-be husband, we can start trying solid foods next month.”
“Congratulations.” Fanny reached for a head of iceberg lettuce.
“Where’s your ring?” Mimi asked.
Fanny looked down at her hand. Charlie had handed it to her, and she’d taken it from him, but she hadn’t put it on.
“Home on the kitchen counter, bathing in a saucer of ammonia,” she lied. “I want it to sparkle.”
Outside the market, free of Mimi, she started to walk again. When she found herself a block from Chloe’s school at a little before three, she decided she’d pick up her daughter.
As she stood outside the door waiting, she remembered the day in Penn Station when Max had shipped out. Chloe’s weight in her arms had kept her from floating off. That was what she needed. Rose had mixed her up. Chloe, the responsibility of Chloe, would ground her.
The doors burst open and kids came rushing out, an explosion of pent-up energy and earsplitting anticipation. It wasn’t just the end of the day; it was the end of the week.
Chloe didn’t see her. She was too busy chattering and laughing with a gaggle of girls. Fanny recognized most of them and started toward the group. Chloe caught sight of her. Fanny was sure she would never forget the expression on her daughter’s face. She looked suddenly trapped.
“Mom,” she said. The word underlined the expression. Somehow Fanny hadn’t noticed when she’d gone from being Mommy to being Mom. Or maybe the change in name wasn’t a function of time but of place. At home, in the primal setting, she was still Mommy. Out in the world, in front of Chloe’s peers, she was Mom.
“I thought we could walk home together,” Fanny said.
“Mom!” Now the syllable held exasperation rather than surprise. “I told you we were going to Judy’s after school.”
Fanny said she couldn’t imagine how she’d forgotten, told her daughter to have a good time, and escaped from the crush of noisy, jostling kids. She walked home quickly. There was no need to slow her steps for a child to keep pace. Chloe had let go of her some time ago.
She pulled open the outer door to her building, unlocked the inner one, and stepped into the small hall. Charlie was sitting on the bottom stair.
“How did you get in?”
He stood. “Now there’s a welcome. I’d like to tell you I picked the lock. It would reinforce your view of me. But one of your neighbors let me in. She seemed to think I had an honest face. Where have you been? You weren’t at the library.”
“Were you?”
“Only to look for you. You weren’t home either. I’ve been calling all day.”
“I was walking.”
“I thought you hated snow.”
“I seem to have been cured of that particular phobia.”
“You must be freezing.” He pulled off her gloves and began rubbing her hands.
“Are you checking for the ring?”
“In addition to not wanting you to get chilblains.”
“It’s not there.”
“So I see. Are you going to invite me up?”
She looked at her watch.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll get out in time. I won’t even ask if you’re going to tell him. There’s something I have to tell you before you do—if you do.”
“That sounds ominous.”
He didn’t say anything to that. She started up the stairs. He followed her.
“Can I at least take off my coat?” he asked when they were in her apartment. “You make me feel like a door-to-door salesman with a foot wedging it open.”
“Go ahead,” she said, but didn’t take it from him to hang up or take off her own. Now that she’d stopped moving, she suddenly felt the cold.
“You’re shivering.” He dropped his coat on the window seat, took a step toward her, and began rubbing her arms and shoulders.
“I thought you had something to tell me.”
He stopped trying to warm her, but didn’t let go of her. “I love you, Fanny. I’ve never said that to anyone.”
“At least not when you were sober and both fully dressed.”
Now he took a step back. “Jesus, I’m trying to tell you something. I can’t marry you.”
“In other words, you have a less binding arrangement in mind.”
“I, we, don’t have a choice. How long do you think it would take ACE to add your name to the blacklist if we were married? Then neither of us could sell anything or get a job. I may not be the most reliable Joe in the world, but I do understand the need for food and shelter. So until this thing is over—”
“In perhaps a decade or three or four.”
“There was a red scare after the First War too. That passed. But until then we’ll have to be living in what Rose calls delicious sin.” He tried a smile.
She didn’t meet it. “I never heard her use the term,” she lied.
“You never knew about Hugo Hayes either, until I came along.”
Now he was the one who looked at his watch. He picked up his coat.
“I find it interesting,” she said as she watched him put it on, “that you didn’t mention any of this last night.”
He’d reached the door and now he turned back to her. “For one thing, it would have been presumptuous. Why would I mention marriage or lack of it to a girl who could barely bring herself to carry on a civil conversation with me? For another, you’re a smart cookie. I assumed you’d already figured it out. Why else would you agree to front for me?”
She followed him to the door. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
He stopped with his hand on the doorknob and turned to her again. “That’s the first time you’ve ever apologized to me.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t make a habit of it.”
He smiled. “That’s the Fanny Fabricant I know and love.” He pulled open the door, did a quickstep into the hall, and started down the stairs fast. No one was going to pity Charlie Berlin.
After he left, she went into the bathroom, stood under a pounding hot shower, and rehearsed conversations. None of them sounded right. When she was dressed, she went back to the living room. The ring was still on the coffee table where she’d put it when Charlie had handed it back to her that morning. She slipped it on.
She didn’t bring up the subject during dinner. She couldn’t very well with Chloe there. Besides, no sensible woman would determine her life on the basis of a single night, no matter what Rose said.
After she and Chloe had cleared the table and Chloe had drifted off to her room, Ezra wandered into the kitchen while she was doing the dishes. She wished he hadn’t. The first conversation, the only conversation, they’d had about Charlie had taken place in the kitchen. He’d also asked her to marry him in the kitchen. Perhaps this was a cosmic message. He was a domesticated man.
He leaned against the counter with his hands in his pockets as he had that night, but now the ring was on her finger.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Lots of wives teach school for a year or two after they get married. Until the babies start coming. I wouldn’t like us to wait too long. We’re not exactly kids. But I suppose there wouldn’t be much harm in your writing for the soaps for a while.”
She went on scouring a pan. “Are you sure you wouldn’t find it too embarrassing?”
He laughed. “Come on, Fanny. You know what I mean. I’m trying to be reasonable. You said you wanted to go on working for a while. I’m saying that’s okay with me. For a while.”
She put the pan in the drying rack, shut off the water, and turned to face him. They were only inches apart. Why did they always have these conversations in such close quarters? Hand-to-hand combat.
“I’m not writing soap scripts anymore. Or rather I won’t be in a few weeks.”
“I always knew you’d see the light.” He leaned forward to kiss her.
She cantilevered her upper body back over the counter. “I sold a play to television. A real play.”
He took his hands out of his pockets. “Without telling me?”
“You’ve never asked what I was writing.”
“That’s because I trusted you. You said you were writing soap scripts.”
“It had nothing to do with trust. It had to do with lack of interest.”
She could see him counting to three or ten or whatever the magic number was. “Okay, I’m interested. What’s this play about?”
“A disaffected vet and his wife. A postwar marriage.”
“It’s not autobiographical, I hope.”
“Not in the least.”
“But it’s going to be broadcast?”
“That’s the general idea.”
“And your name will be in the credits?”
She remembered the night he’d come back from walking Chloe to her sleepover and sat having a drink for almost an hour before he brought up Charlie and the television he’d given them. It hadn’t occurred to her until now that he’d known all along what she was up to, what she and Charlie were up to, and that was why he didn’t want her to work.
“Who else’s name would be in the credits?” she asked.
“So I’ll be known as Mr. Florence Fabricant.”
She didn’t know whether she was relieved or disappointed. “Actually, it’ll be Fanny in the credits. But I doubt it’s going to attract that much attention.”
“But this is only the first, right? There’ll be others.”
“I certainly hope so.”
“I thought you wanted children. Who’s going to take care of them while you’re writing these scripts?”
“Television pays better than radio. I’ll be able to hire help. Part time at least.”
“Wonderful. Now you’re the one supporting us.”
“I didn’t say I’d be supporting us. I said I’d be able to hire someone to take care of the children. Who don’t even exist at the moment.”
“I don’t understand you, Fanny. What’s the point of having children, if you don’t want to raise them?”
“I’m going to raise them. I’m just not going to spend every waking minute with them. You certainly won’t.”
“That’s different.”
“Why? You’re always telling me Chloe needs a father.”
“It just is, Fanny, and you know it. Read the books. Look at the studies.”
“The books. The studies. A few weeks ago I caught Dr. Spock on television with a bunch of fathers. They were all chuckling about how rough it was on them to come home from a hard day’s work and be expected to discipline the children who’d been misbehaving all day.”
“That’s beside the point. No hired help is going to bring up any child of mine.”
They were too close physically for this conversation. She turned, went into the living room, and sat on the sofa. He followed and sat across from her in the club chair.
“I don’t know how we got here,” he said. “I came in to tell you I understood about your wanting to work. I thought you’d be happy.”
“I am,” she lied.
“Then everything’s fine.” He stood. “But I’ve had a long week. And you probably have too.” He hesitated. “It isn’t every day a girl sells a play to television. In fact, I think we ought to go out and celebrate tomorrow night. Not the usual neighborhood bistros. A nightclub or better yet a hotel rooftop with dancing. We’ve never done that, and I think it’s about time.”
She walked him to the door. “I almost forgot,” he said. “My mother’s going to call you tomorrow.”
“About what?” She heard the churlishness in her voice. Why shouldn’t her future mother-in-law call her? “I’m sorry. I mean, about anything in particular?”
“She has a lace veil that she wore and her mother wore before her. I told her it wasn’t going to be that kind of wedding, but she said it doesn’t have to be a big fancy wedding to wear a piece of lace her mother brought from Hungary. She seems to think it’s a good-luck keepsake. But don’t let her browbeat you. If you don’t want it, tell her so. I’ll back you up, I promise.” He leaned down, kissed her goodnight, and started for the stairs. He wasn’t as fast going down them as Charlie had been, but then, as he’d pointed out, he’d had a hard week.
After he left, she stood in the living room staring at the picture of Max on the mantel. The night before, she’d been sure he was giving her permission, but that had been a fantasy, or maybe only an excuse. She’d been the one giving herself permission. Standing there now, fresh off another disagreement with Ezra, she couldn’t help wondering how Max would have reacted to her working. But that was ridiculous. He’d been proud of his mother.
She turned away from the photograph. Suddenly there was nothing she could count on. Not her memory of Max. Not even herself. Especially not herself.
