Drunk with Love, page 12
She woke up as they were pulling into the midtown tunnel. A woman psychiatrist was on the radio talking about screen memories. Kenny turned down the volume when he saw she was awake. “My first memory,” he began, “is of my Aunt Mystina always letting me fool around when we hung up the wash. She was so loose, she didn’t care what anybody did. We used to make parachutes out of the sheets. I have always wanted to go skydiving because of that. I have this friend out in New Jersey that runs a skydiving school. I am planning on going back to school to study engineering so I can design planes and special parachutes for diving. There should be other uses for flight except dropping bombs on people and carrying lawyers around from one town to another. When man said, I wish I could fly, he didn’t mean to go dropping bombs on anybody. No, what he wanted was to fly like a bird. Well, that’s my secret dream. Now I’ve told it to you.”
“My first memory,” she said, shaking herself awake, “is falling off a sofa with a bottle in my mouth. Kenny, do you think of me as an old maid? I mean, be honest. Do you?”
“No, but I think you have gone crazy if you go on Phil Donahue with that queer.”
“I don’t want you to say queer anymore in front of me.”
“Well, here we are. You want me to come and get you in the morning?”
“Let’s don’t argue. I value this friendship deeply, Kenny. I was thinking this morning about that day we went to the Van Gogh exhibition and ate that cornbread. Yes, I do want you to come get me in the morning. See you then.” She got out, having managed to get in the last word, which was not easy with Kenny. She pushed through the revolving doors of her building and marched across the foyer.
“You okay?” The elevator boy said. He was a big fan of Annalisa’s and bragged to everyone that he knew her.
“I’m fine.”
“You look depressed.”
“Well, I’m not. I’m perfectly okay.”
Then two weeks went by while Annalisa prepared for the Phil Donahue show. She and Marvin were expected to argue their different approaches to church criticism, Marvin taking the position that all one had to do was be a good reporter. “I’ll show you horse thieves, you tell me if horse thieves are evil,” was Marvin’s motto. Annalisa was supposed to defend a more subjective view.
“You can do this if you want to,” her editor said. “But for God’s sake don’t implicate the paper or state positions for the Times. Make it clear that you are speaking as an individual. And be careful about getting excited. They can zoom in and make you look crazy.”
“I don’t believe you’re going through with it,” Kenny said. “That Phil Donahue is the most stuck-up guy on TV. He’s so full of himself. He don’t care what he says to anybody. Hasn’t got any manners. What you doing this for?”
“Then don’t drive me. Send somebody else.”
“I’ll drive you. What time we got to go?”
“We need to leave at six. We go on at nine.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Thank you.”
All night the night before the program she lay in bed thinking of things to say and not say. She imagined the camera zooming in on her eyes. Madness would be written there. She woke in a sweat several times and went into the bathroom and examined her face in the mirror. Yes, the camera would seek her out and know her. She would be laid bare before the whole United States. It would be all over, the small fame of which she had been so proud would be shattered by the cold light of the TV.
Not only that, but her faith, which lately had been wavering like a candle in the wind, would be shown up for the tattered thing it was. Do you believe in what you’re doing? The accusers would rise up around her like Valkyries. Do you believe in anything?
No, Annalisa would answer and they would ring down the curtain on her career.
Kenny got her to the studio an hour before the show began. It was a building near the river. A stone bully, Annalisa thought. Which will swallow me and spit me out. Oh, well.
“You want me to go up with you?” Kenny said.
“Sure. You can watch it on the monitor.”
“If I can stand to.”
“Well, that’s all I need right now, as nervous as I am, for you to talk like that. Come on, let’s go.” They pushed through the glass doors to the reception room. No one seemed to know who she was, or to care. It was many minutes before a boy appeared to lead her to a dressing room. There was another long wait. Then a makeup lady appeared and began to work on her face. Finally, Phil came in, talking over his shoulder to a woman holding a clipboard. “Well, I guess you’re all ready to go,” he said.
“Is Mr. Fannin here yet? He said he’d meet me here at seven.”
“He’ll be along. You can look over this list of questions we might ask, if you’d like.”
“Sure. Hand them here.” Phil handed her the clipboard and smiled. “We’ve had a lot of requests for you,” he said. “You have quite a following out there.”
“I might not have after this morning.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t think like that,” he said. Then Marvin appeared at the door. “Well, I’m just nervousness’s old auntie Maud. Aren’t you dying, angel? I haven’t slept a minute.”
“Neither have I. I don’t know why we thought this up. Why are we doing this, Marvin?”
“Publicity, precious. You can’t buy this kind of exposure.”
“I don’t want to buy it. I have a job working for the world’s best newspaper. Why am I going on this TV show?”
“Well, you don’t have a thing to worry about, angel. We’re going to make you look so good. When we get through there’ll be agents all over the place begging to sign you up.”
“I don’t want to sign up for anything. Kenny, this man that drives me. He said he thought . . .” A bell went off. The makeup lady added two strokes of rouge. The clipboard lady led them to the sound stage.
Kenny was watching it in the lounge, sitting on the edge of his chair, holding a Styrofoam cup of lukewarm coffee in his hand. The logo came on. Phil walked out into the audience and began charming the ladies. He walked among a carpet of permanent waves, smiling and laughing. Credits rolled. An advertisement for furniture polish, being sold by a sweet-looking old man. He tapped a nail into an antique chair, rubbed it with polish. A canoe shot down a river and came to rest on a beach. A man and a woman in hiking clothes ran into the woods and lifted a coffeepot from a fire. They drank and pronounced it good. The logo again. Then Phil was on the stage talking about Annalisa. “One critic said she is a virus visited upon the spiritual life of the city. Buckley loves her. The archbishop refuses to comment, and here to talk about the new field of church criticism is Miss Annalisa Livingston herself, Our Lady in Your Pew.” There was desultory applause. Kenny sighed and finished off the coffee.
“Well, Annalisa,” Phil was saying. “We’re hoping you’ll tell us about how you got started writing church criticism. What motivated you? You were at Woman’s World for a while, weren’t you? As an editor?”
“Well, yes, I was there for six years. I liked it there. I just thought this other idea up, this column, and then the Times thought it was good so we just took off.” She giggled. “We never thought all this would happen.”
“You’re being given quite a bit of freedom, aren’t you? I can’t believe the things they’re letting you get away with over there.”
“Get away with? What are you talking about?”
“I mean, criticizing ministers’ private lives and making jokes about sermons. It’s not something you see in the New York Times too often.”
“I am doing my work. It’s just like covering the theater or reviewing books. It’s not reporting.” She was getting edgy. From the place where he was watching the monitor Kenny sighed and rubbed his hands together. Don’t get mad, he was thinking. Stay cool.
“So you decided that you’d stop being an editor and take up writing. Is that it? I mean, did you have any formal training in religion or religious studies? Anything like that?”
“I didn’t need any. I know how to write. Any intelligent person who can read can write. Churches are the repository of a culture’s spiritual ideals. They must be kept strong. That’s what all the reformations have been about.”
“Oh, so you think of yourself as a sort of one-woman reformation?”
“I didn’t say that. You said that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Ask him some questions. It’s his turn.” She was getting mad now. She didn’t like anything about this show. She didn’t like Phil and she didn’t like his suit and she hated the ladies with their hairdos and she was beginning to hate Marvin for looking so pleased and smug. “It’s your turn, Marvin. You thought this up. You talk.”
“Her father was a minister,” Marvin said. “Tell them about your childhood, Annalisa. Tell them about being the preacher’s child.”
“What is this?” she said. “What’s going on here?” The camera took that moment to move in. The lights were in her eyes. The ladies were leaning toward the stage.
“Her father was an Episcopal priest. Isn’t that true, Annalisa?”
“Well, yes, he was.”
“Is he still living?”
“Yes, thank God.”
“But he’s no longer in the church?”
“Where did you find that out? Who have you been talking to?” She was leaning forward. Don’t break, Kenny was thinking. He was standing up. Marvin was putting a briefcase on his lap. Looking for something as he talked. “Your father got into some kind of trouble with the church, didn’t he? Some problem in Kentucky?”
“What are you talking about?” She was on her feet. “How dare you?”
“We all know how those things go,” Marvin said. “People are only human, after all. A little scandal never—”
“Oh, I say, that’s too much. Let’s settle down around here,” Phil had his hand on Marvin’s arm but it was too late. “Allegations,” she was screaming. “Allegations and lies. Lies and false witness . . . dirty lies. . . .” Marvin pulled a yellowed newspaper out of a briefcase and spread it on his lap.
“It says here,” he began. “The Reverend William Livingston of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church . . .” Annalisa was on him now. She had the paper in her hands. “My sainted father,” she was screaming. “A pure saint if one ever lived. You little queer, how dare you say his name, his precious name. . . .” Phil was beside her. He had his arms around her waist. The audience was going wild. A river appeared on the screen.
“I’ll sue everybody on this stage,” Annalisa was saying. “I’ll sue this goddamn studio for a million dollars. Get me out of here.” She turned to the audience. “There are people starving in the world. Haven’t any of you got anything better than this to do?” She stalked past the cameras and the technicians and found her pocketbook in the dressing room and headed down the hall. A man in a sport shirt tried to stop her. She hit at him with her bag. “Get out of my goddamn way, you goddamn television wart, who would work for anything this inane. Get out of my way.” Then she was in the waiting room. Kenny was standing by the door. “Let’s go,” she said. “And don’t you dare say I told you so.”
They went down the elevator and across the marble floor and out the glass doors into the light. The sun was shining on the river. The sun was shining on Kenny’s cab.
“I want to sit up front with you,” she said.
“It’s fine with me. Push that cigar box on the floor. I don’t know about you, Annalisa, but I’m starving. I know this place where we can get some oysters. This guy from New Orleans runs it. Fried oysters and French bread. You did good, Annalisa. Time somebody told him off. Everyone in town will be glad you did it, so stop thinking about the Phil Donahue show and let’s get something to eat.”
“Afterwards,” she said, “I would like to have you come over to my apartment.”
“Well, I knew this was going to happen.” He turned around to her on the seat. “Don’t start something with me unless you mean it. I am a man and I have been having feelings about you for some time now.”
“I mean it.” Annalisa reached over and put her small blue-veined hand on his leg at the place where the long muscle joins the knee. On the sidewalk behind them an Irishman left the war that was raging in his head against the British and started one against a tribe in Africa. A girl on her way home from an all-night job in a bakery had a thrill of envy at the sight of a good-looking black man leaning over a white woman. The Milky Way moved above them in the spring sky. A comet that was not scheduled to appear for six months sailed in their direction. Annalisa lifted her face and waited for a kiss. Kenny decided to let her wait. “This is going to make our business relationship a lot of trouble. I am a man. Be sure you want this before you start it with me.”
“You have already told me that. Now, where’s this place that has oysters for breakfast?”
“Out in Brooklyn. They got a jukebox with James Booker and Doctor John and Trane and Little Stevie. Moise puts the records in himself. It’s not some jukebox owned by the Mafia like most of them around here.” Kenny pulled out into the traffic and started driving to Brooklyn. Annalisa moved closer to him, but not too close. She was taking it slow. “This is how love affairs often start, Kenny. Two people run into each other in the normal course of their lives. It is not true that we fall in love on some enchanted evening at some cocktail party when we are all dressed up. It is better and more normal and healthier for it to happen this way.”
“There’s a lot going on everywhere lately. That book you gave me, about the chains of illusion. I’ve been reading that. It says all we are is this big pile of stuff that keeps on making new things out of itself. This same stuff that has always been here just keeps making something new, each thing crazier than the last. Do you believe that?”
“Today I believe anything. I’m quitting this job, Kenny. I’m not writing down what I think anymore for anyone to see or talk about or criticize. To hell with them. Love you one day, hate you the next. I’m going to work for a bank or a shoe store.”
“You’ll change your mind. You just burned out and mad. Need something to eat. You’re thin as a rail.”
“Can we dance at this oyster place? I think I feel like dancing.”
“I already told you it’s the best jukebox in town.”
“Good. Imagine that little bastard digging up that paper on my father. It was just a nasty story in a paper. It wasn’t even true.” She moved closer, thinking how long the bones were in his legs, thinking maybe she would get a loft in SoHo and decorate it Japanese and have Kenny move in. Change the course of her life. Move in with Kenny and quit the Times. That would show them. Let them talk about that on their nasty Yankee television shows.
“We are going to be the talk of the town,” she said, and slid even closer still.
Next thing I know she’ll be wanting to get married, Kenny thought. These white women go crazy if you make them come.
Annalisa moved her hand farther up his leg. The taxi lurched out onto the Brooklyn Bridge. The comet burned and held its course. In a band of stars a billion light-years long this was not the only important thing going on. But it was one of them.
The Cast Diet
On the twenty-fourth day of August, nineteen hundred and eighty-five, JeanAnne Lori Mayfield, third child and only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Johnny Wayne Mayfield of Fayetteville, Arkansas, ended her last and final diet by running her navy blue Toyota sedan into a doughnut shop. She could have swerved the other way and hit the emergency entrance of the Washington County General Hospital, but, no, she plowed into the front window of Daytime Doughnuts, Number Three, killing a waitress, an overweight professor of English at the university and herself. Goodbye, JeanAnne Lori, we will miss you. Goodbye, Aurora Gilbreath. We’ll miss you too. Goodbye, Professor Bright. Wasn’t it you who always used to say, “When you’re hungry, eat; when you’re sleepy, sleep. Pass the cornbread.”
Once, when he was younger, Professor Bright had been married to a redhaired graduate student who had borne him a son. A thin, redheaded boy named Teddy who loved books and who had spent his life, up to the time of the crash at Daytime Doughnuts, reading anything he could get his hands on. He was reading a book when the phone rang to tell him of the tragedy. He closed the book, laid it on a table and hurried to the hospital to identify the body.
The worst thing of all for Teddy Bright was that he knew everyone involved. He knew his father and lived down the street from him. He knew Aurora Gilbreath and had purchased doughnuts from her many a morning on his way to work. He knew JeanAnne Lori and had been in the room with her many times, at restaurants around town, or at the Kinko’s Copy Place where she worked. Teddy even knew where JeanAnne Lori lived.
She lived across the street from the park, in a small white house facing a castle built by a local sculptor with a National Endowment Grant. It was a castle made of concrete and stone, of rocks and mussel shells, of old earrings and clay tiles with strange runes engraved on them. The castle was used as an example of how grant money is wasted on useless projects, but no one tore it down, and never a day went by that there wasn’t a meeting between lovers or a picnic or a birthday party taking place on its turrets and battlements and towers. JeanAnne Lori’s house faced the castle and Teddy had delivered many a pizza to her door during the years when he was working his way through college. It would be a Combination Deep-Dish or an International or a Madrid.
Now, here was Teddy, standing in JeanAnne Lori’s yard, trying to believe his father was dead. He hung his head. It could not be true. His father stretched out on an undertaker’s table. JeanAnne Lori, dead and to blame. There was her house, being sat in by her friends. He went inside, and was comforted and given a glass of tea.
“Would you like to see her room?” her friend Stella said. “She left everything in perfect order.” Teddy was led back through a narrow hall to JeanAnne Lori’s room. A spotless white rug was on the floor. A white coverlet with puffs of pink cotton was on the bed. Pillows with pink and white shams. Five Care Bears lined up on the pillows. Share Bear, Cheer Bear, Friend Bear, Good Luck Bear, Brave Heart Bear. A white enamel table held JeanAnne Lori’s Bible and her diary and a vase of artificial flowers. Teddy picked up the Bible. “I’ll leave you here to meditate,” Stella said. As soon as she was gone Teddy put the Bible down and picked up the diary and put it in his pocket. Then he walked back down the hall and told Stella goodbye and went across the street to the castle and up a path to a turret room that looked out on the baseball diamond. He opened the book and began to read.
