1 Breakfast at Madeline's (7 page)

11

As the minister and I drove down Route 50 back to Saratoga, he described in picturesque detail exactly what happened on his car ride home with the widow. Even in my distracted state, I had to admit the man knew how to tell a good story. Though personally, I felt the part about w
hat the widow was wearing under
neath her black mourning dress was a tad tasteless. I mean, there's a time and a place for crotchless Minnie Mouse underwear.

He went on to reg
ale me with tales about the mar
riage counseling he'd
done during his long and illus
trious career. Apparently, some of the couples he'd counseled had asked h
im to assist them in rather sur
prising ways.

Listening to his tales made me nostalgic for the old days when I used to
write every morning, and every
thing that happened
in the great wide world was fod
der for my creative juices. In this hyper-aware state, which was sometimes so intense it was like being high, I would have carefully recorded every detail of the minister's wild yarns in my mind, then jotted them down verbatim as soon as I got home so I could use them later in a screenplay.

Maybe I should try writing again. Go home and do up the minister's stories, turn them into a movie. A warm-hearted comedy
about a sexy old preacher, star
ring Walter Matthau. That face behind the McDonald's sign could belong to a
romantic rival, part of a humor
ous subplot.

Sure, dream on, I told myself harshly. By the time Hollywood got done with your script, they'd scratch Matthau for Keanu. Your sexy old preacher would be turned into a coldblooded young action hero battling renegade Uzbeks or some shit like that. Or more likely, if the script was
any good it would never get pro
duced. Instead it would sit on a shelf somewhere for twenty years, then get tossed out.

I hated myself when I got all bitter like this. Every screenwriter I've ever met, even ones who make seven figures per year, have that streak of bitterness inside them. There's so much dumb
luck involved, to say noth
ing of dumb
people
.
That was the main reason I'd de
cided to take a hiatus from writing—I didn't like what it was turning me into. I could feel the bitterness growing inside me like a tumor, and I wanted to cut it out.

Though to be honest, I reflected, as we turned off Route 50 onto Broadway, it wasn't so much a question of
deciding
to take a hiatus; my writing urge just plain up and left me. Half a year ago already. When would it return... and what if it never did? If I wasn't a writer anymore, then what was I?

One day, forty-some years from now, a lonely group of people would be s
tanding in the rain at some sub
urban cemetery. A tired old rabbi would mouth a few final words, and then I'd be lowered into the ground. And what would those people be saying about me? What would I say about myself, in the final moment of my life? What would God say, if there was a God?

Lately Andrea had been after me to try volunteer work, maybe some t
utoring with the Literacy Volun
teers like she did, but I seemed to be just too darn lazy these days. I was sta
ying away from the Nestle choco
late bits now, but I wa
s still five or ten pounds over
weight; I should exercise more. Hey, I should exercise, period.

I gazed moodily out the window. We were stuck
be
hind a cement truck that was laboriously positioning itself in front of the new Arts Center. Even in the rain, the work never stopped; they just rigged up tarps overhead and ke
pt on going. Gretchen was deter
mined to get the place up and running in time for the summer tourists, and what Gretchen Lang wanted, Gretchen Lang generally got.

Speak of the devil, there she was. On the sidewalk, sharing the mayor's umbrella. A quick jolt went through me; by jiminy, I had some questions for the woman. This time I found the door lock on my first try, and jumped out of the car.

"Hey!" the minister called out.

"Thanks for the lift! You should write a book!" I called back as I walked up to Gretchen, interrupting her
tête-à-tête
with Mayor Kane. He looked perfect as always, totally dry and not an eyebrow out of place, as though mere rain couldn't affect a great man like him. Gretchen was her usual
self too, her arms flying excit
edly all over the place as she talked. She was fifty-five if she was a day, maybe sixty, but the woman hadn't lost a step.

"Hi, Gretchen," I said.

Her arms stopped in mid-air. A shadow passed across her features, q
uickly replaced by a big welcom
ing smile. "Jacob, how are you? Want to watch them pour the wheelchair ramp?"

"No. I want to talk to you about Donald Penn."

The Mayor gave a quick start, but Gretchen just smiled at me even more warmly. It was like she'd been expecting me.

"Sure, I'd love to talk about Donny. Such a sweet,
wonderful little man. Let's just watch this first." Her arms started flying again. "See, this ramp is a symbol of what our whole project is all about: making the arts accessible to
everyone,
not just the Mary Lou Whitneys and the rich summer tourists but the women who work the checkout counter at Wal-Mart, the men who work at International Paper their whole lives, and the kids, especially the kids, that's my passion, I want to start a children's theater here
...
"

She went on and on. I tried to stop her, but it was like trying to stop some radio talk show host. I got the feeling she realized she was under an umbrella and I wasn't, and she hoped if she kept on yakking, I'd eventually get tired of being rained on and go away.

My attention wa
ndered from her monologue. I no
ticed the words
H
udson falls building and renova
tion
on the side of the cement truck, and was reminded that the mayor owned a similar company, Kane Construction.
"So how's the construction busi
ness, Mayor?" I asked him.

I was only making conversation, trying to shut off Gretchen's flow of words. But for some reason the mayor didn't seem to take it that way. He tensed his jaw and narrowed his
photogenic blue eyes at me sus
piciously.

Gretchen quickly stepped in. "You know, I'm getting tired of standing in the rain," she said. "Why don't we go to Madeline's? That'll be the perfect place to talk about Donny."

Meanwhile the mayor had recovered his cheerful equanimity. "I wish I could join you guys, but business calls," he said, waving a friendly good-bye and then striding off purposefully down Broadway.

Gretchen and I headed off in the other direction. But when we came to the stoplight, I turned around and took a look back at the mayor.

As it happened, the mayor had turned around too.

And he was standing there, watching me.

As soon as Gretchen and I stepped into Madeline's, she began working the room. First she glad-handed a city councilman named Walsh. After that she collared Linda Olive, who ow
ns Saratoga's
premier
video pro
duction company—in
fact, Saratoga's only video pro
duction company—and sweet-talked her into saying she would produce,
g
ratis
of course, a video promot
ing the new Arts Center. Then Gretchen stopped to speak with someone else, a big man with a big tie whose name I didn't know. Gretchen, however, knew absolutely
everybody
. The woman was a wonder.

She was also driven as hell. Why? I realized I knew almost nothing about
her personal life. She was mar
ried, but I'd never met her husband. Or her kids, if she had any.

I wiped the rain off my face with a jacket sleeve and went up to the counter, where Madeline and Marcie were doing the honors. There was a long line, since Madeline's tends to get busy on rainy afternoons, so I had plenty of time to study the two women. It was like watching a ballet, the
way they were able to move flu
idly and quickly in the narrow space behind the counter without ever bumping into each other. One woman would ring up the other woman's sales if it happened to be more convenient. Seeing them work so well together reminded me that they were cousins; Madeline had once mentioned they were just like sisters growing up.

They were both very attractive, but in different ways: Marcie was totally out there with her sexuality, while Madeline was more demure. Most men, if given the opportunity, would probably choose Marcie for a one-night stand, but
they'd feel safer marrying Made
line. Rob was a lucky guy.

Marcie broke into my thoughts. "May I help you?" she asked. She must have been out in the rain, because her T-shirt was clinging to her. Tearing my eyes away from her curves, I looked up at Marcie's face. Her eyes twinkled. I wondered, for the thousandth time, if she knew what kind of effect she had on me.

Gretchen came up behind me and broke the spell. "What'll you have, Jacob? My treat."

Madeline turned away from the espresso machine and gave me a bittersweet smile. "I made a pot of Ethiopian."

I gave the smile back to her. "Then that's what I'll have. By the way," I added, "did you used to give The Penn free coffee?"

Madeline shook her h
ead. "No. Matter of fact, he al
ways paid with exact change. I used to wonder how he managed to get ninety-seven cents' worth of change every single day."

Since I didn't have an answer to that, I took the coffee and headed for the b
ack room, while Gretchen got in
volved in yet another shmoozing exercise. There was an empty table way at the rear, near the back stairs to the basement. As I sat down, I remembered this was where The Penn always used to sit. My brain swam a little, the events of the last forty-eight hours catching up to me. To say nothing of that blow to my head.

I greedily guzzled my java, trying to get rid of the dizziness so I could interrogate Gretchen properly about
Penn’s
NYFA application. But when she finally arrived at the table, before I could even open my mouth she immediately began filibustering.
"Stunning work,"
she exclaimed, gesturing at the pointillist obese people defacing the walls. "By Joanne Clemson—do you know her? Such a
fabulous artist.
I'm featuring her in our very first exhibit at the new Arts Center. I just
know the tourists who come up for the ballet in July will
love
Joanne. It could really put her on the map!"

Joanne Clemson wasn't the only starving artist Gretchen hoped to put "on the map" this summer, as she went on to explain. She had thought things out very carefully. Offbeat types like Clemson would be exhibited in July, when the New York City Ballet did its thing at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, a huge but elegant amphitheater in the state park right outside of town. Gretchen would exhibi
t more main
stream artists in August, when the middlebrows came to Saratoga for the horse races. I watched Gretchen, no longer listening to her words exactly, just mesmerized by the constant exuberant gesticulations of her arms. This woman was so totally
d
edicated
to helping starv
ing artists. I personally knew two painters and one sculptor who had been catapulted to nationwide prominence, and economic solvency, by Gretchen's Herculean efforts. And soon, with the help of her new Arts Center, Gretchen would be leading even more starving artists to that promised land.

And this was t
he woman that I suspected of...
of what? Some kind o
f chicanery with Penn's NYFA ap
plication? Something
that might help explain my bur
glary? And what about that crazy business about threats to Penn's life? I tried to remember what Molly had said about Gret
chen, but my thoughts were some
how echoing strangely all over my head. I poured some more Ethiopian down my throat, but it didn't help. What exactly did I...

"So what exactly did you want to talk to me about?" asked Gretchen.

Damned if I knew
. The coffee cup was getting aw
fully heavy. It fell from my hands.

"Jacob?
Jake?"

And everything went black.

12

I truly hate hospitals. I can't even watch
ER,
have to leave the room when Andrea turns it on. So I'll spare you the details. Let's just say that when I woke up later that day, I was in some crummy bed with flimsy sheets, there were plastic tubes attached to various parts of me, and some doctor type in a white jacket was blabbing at some other doctor type in a white jacket about "dela
yed concussion syndrome." Appar
ently my nerves, coffee, Jack Daniel's, aspirin, and adrenaline all wore down at the same time, and my body finally decided to close up shop for a while
. For
tunately the prognosis was good, as long as I steered clear of any pressure cookers in the near future, and stayed in the hospital long enough for them to rack up some exorbitant fees.

Andrea bopped in around dinnertime with Gretzky, Babe Ruth, and a bunch of daisies, and I smiled bravely and we did that scene as best we could. But the Sultan of Swat started to cry and the Great One peed in his pants. So let's just do a quick Cut To, as they say in the biz.

Speaking of the biz, when Andrea came to visit by herself later that nig
ht, she brought me a FedEx pack
age from L.A. I opened it. Inside was a contract full of fancy legal language which boiled down to this: By
June 15—one month from today, I noted—I would complete a rewrite of
The Night of the Mutant Beetles.

For which I would be paid $750,000.

I looked at Andrea. Andrea looked at me.

It's one thing to turn down huge amounts of money when it's just talk on t
he phone. After all, most Holly
wood deals fall through anyway. But it's another thing to turn down huge amounts of money when they've been typed into an
honest-to-God binding legal con
tract complete with "
henceforth"s
and "whereas"s, and all of those beautiful zeroes are staring up at you. Four of them, in fact. With that cute little "75" in front.

"So what do you think?" Andrea asked me.

"I think it's a hell of a lot of bucks."

"It sure is." She grinned.

"Yeah, but mutant beetles. I mean, Jesus, what a dumb-ass idea," I grumbled petulantly. We both knew full well I was going t
o sign that deal with the Holly
wood devil, but I didn't want to admit it right away.

"You don't have to do it if you don't want," Andrea said, but that was just words. Of course I had to. Of course I
wanted
to. Didn't I? I knew I should be happy, but my head hurt. I rubbed it, and Andrea eyed me, worried. "Jacob, how are you feeling?"

I couldn't tell her the truth—in fact I could barely tell
myself
the truth—which was that after six months of being unable to write, I was afraid I'd fail miserably and pathetically at this mutant beetles script. Maybe that
Gas
screenplay was a one-shot deal, a freak, and if I tried to write this mutant beetles thing, everyone would find out I was a total fraud.

"I'm fine," I told Andrea. "I'm just sick of this stupid hospital." I flicked my fingers at the contract. "Can you believe this? For fifteen years, I practically have to pay people to read my stuff
. Now all of a sudden peo
ple I've never even met throw money at me like it's
some kind of carnival game. To rewrite some script I haven't even read yet, for God's sake."

"You deserve it. You're a good writer," Andrea said soothingly, as usual understanding my deepest fears. She's the perfect wife. Irritates me sometimes.

I leaned back against the bed, tired, wishing I could forget my self-doubts, and wishing I could forget about all the noble as
pirations I'd had during my fif
teen years of writing serious movies. Come on, I told myself, just enjoy all those zeroes. I pulled Gretzky and Babe Ruth's daisies over to me, hoping to revive myself by sniffing them. But I couldn't smell a thing, maybe some weird side effect of delayed concussion syndrome. Of course, my nostrils had never been my best feature.

Andrea got her worried look again. "Are you sure you're well enough to start working? Maybe we should talk to the doctor before you sign anything."

"I'm well enough," I said, putting the daisy vase down, "and even if I'm not, so what? Let's say I do a lousy half-ass job, no one ever hires me again, and my career is ruined." I
gave a cheerful shrug. "No prob
lem. Because after taxes and shit, we'll have ourselves another two-fifty grand. It'll be our 'fuck you' money."

"Our what?"

"We'll have so much money we can say 'fuck you' to anyone we want."

Andrea laughed. "Sounds good. And it'll totally pay for the kids' college."

"Only problem is, what if I
don't
do a lousy job?" She looked at me blankly. "Then I'll be back in the game. And I'll never be able to get out. The zeroes will have me by the balls. I'll spend my next ten years writing about mutant beetles and their equivalents, forgetting all my youthful ideals, and end up a terminally cynical middle-aged man drinking Scotch around the clock
and wondering where the hell my soul went." I rubbed my eyes. "Of course, on the other hand, I'll be incredibly fucking rich. Where do I sign?"

"You don't have to." Andrea took my hand. "We have enough money already. It's okay with me if you say no. It really is."

I looked into her eyes. The amazing thing is, she truly meant it.

"I love you, sweetheart. Hand me a pen."

As I signed the contract, all four copies, a siren began blaring outside. I looked out the window at the ambulance, and i
t took my mind back to the ambu
lance that carted away Donald Penn's body. It sure was odd how the man and his magnum opus seemed to make an awful lot of people awfully nervous. In fact, I reflected as I signed the final copy, someone had been nervous enough to break into our house and—

I stopped. "Andrea, where are the kids?"

"Spending the night at Judy's. I got them the new
Mighty Ducks
video, so they should be fine—"

"Honey, call Dave. The cop. Tell him to get over to our house
now."

Andrea understood immediately what I was getting at and grabbed the phone book. "What's his last name?"

Damn. "Bass? Trout?"

"Pickerel?"

It was some kin
d of fish, but which? Tuna? Had
dock? "The hell with it. Call nine-one-one."

She started to dial, then stopped. "And tell them what?"

“
Tell them there's a burglary in progress at one-oh
-
nine Elm Street!"

"But we don't know that."

I grabbed her sh
oulders. "No, we don't. But who
ever broke in last night didn't get what he wanted. This is his first good chance to try again."

"Come on, Jacob, you're being—"

I swung my feet out
of the bed and stood up. Fortu
nately all of my tubes had been removed. "Let's go."

"But—"

"Hurry, before they try to feed me any more Jell-O."

"Are you sure you're well enough to—"

"Sweetheart, let's blow this joint."

I threw on my cloth
es and we snuck out to the hall
way, where two nurses were deep in discussion about how unfair it is that Sean Connery is still considered sexy at sixty-eight, whereas a beautiful woman like Angela Lansbury is considered over the hill. Knowing how passionate women get when talking about this subject, I was confident they'd never notice Andrea and me even if we walked out right in front of them. And I was right. Easiest getaway since Ni
xon got par
doned.

Andrea took the wh
eel in deference to my question
able medical status,
but we didn't lose any speed be
cause of it. She grew up in Brooklyn and can
run
red lights with the best of
them. And despite her protesta
tions she must have been feeling as anxious as I was, because we made it home from the hospital in five minutes flat, and jumped out of the car.

But there were no signs of weirdness. No suspicious vehicles out front, and no house lights turned on. False alarm.

"That's too bad," Andrea said as we walked up the driveway. "I was kind of looking forward to doing my Geena Davis female action hero imitation."

I laughed. "As long as you don't expect me to do a Bruce Willis—"

She stopped suddenly and I bumped into her. "Whoa," I said.

And then I saw it: a dark shadowy figure. Our house seemed to be full of th
em these days. This one was out
side our side door and slinking away. "Hey!" I shouted.

The shadow immediately stopped slinking and started running. It dashed into our backyard, with A
n
drea and me in hot pursuit.

Her pursuit was hotter than mine, I must confess. I slipped in the wet
grass—the rain had continued in
termittently all day—and fell down. When I got up, the shadow had already vaulted over our back fence. But Andrea was vaulting right behind it.
Go, Geena.

I was about to do
some vaulting myself when I no
ticed a glittery object sticking out of the mud in our back garden. I reached down and grabbed it, then went over the fence, yelling, "Andrea!"

"Over here!" I saw her in the distance, racing up Western Alley. I darted after her, looking all around for that shadowy figure.

Andrea stopped at the top of the alley and I stopped beside her, breathless, my head pounding. She put her finger to her lips and we stood there listening. It was a quiet small-town n
ight, with crickets, a dog bark
ing
...
and a car start
ing up nearby. Oak Street proba
bly. We dashed toward the sound.

We turned the corner
just in time to see a dark mid-
size car speeding away into the night.

"Oh, God," Andrea groaned. "I was so close."

I put my arm around her. "Hey, even Geena has her bad hair days. Look at
Cutthroat Island.
Besides, we have a clue."

She eyed me doubtfully. "A clue?"

"You betcha." I held up the glittery object I had found in our back garden.

It was a shoe.

A spiked, silver-colored, high-heel shoe.