Broadway Baby (10 page)

One afternoon, after everybody had left the studio, they were “debriefing” in his office about the progress of the kids—whose dancing needed work, whose voice was strongest. He was reaching across his desk for some sheet music to show her when he knocked over a coffee cup.

“Fuck me,” he shouted. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Miriam looked on, too startled to say anything.

“Oh honey,” he said, “forgive the potty mouth, but my psychiatrist says if I don’t say fuck at least four times a day, I’ll get colitis.”

He laughed, and once she started laughing, neither of them could stop.
Th
eir arms around each other, they laughed till tears were streaming down their faces.

Th
en he took her by the hand over to the piano; he handed her the words to what he said was his favorite song, and he had her sing it, as if she really meant it, while he played the tune. It was about a chair and how, if you wanted it, you would have to buy it, she wasn’t going to give it away, since after all it had only been used once or twice and it was still nice and tight and, you see, if she couldn’t sell it, she’d keep sitting on it, she wasn’t gonna give it away.
Th
ere was no better pair of legs in town, and no better back anywhere around, no no no—if she couldn’t sell it, she was gonna sit down on it, she wasn’t gonna give it away . . .

By the third refrain, they were singing together. As she repeated, “If I can’t sell it, I gonna keep sittin’ on it,” she wasn’t anybody’s wife, or anybody’s mother. She was his Mae West or Marilyn Monroe; and who was he, if not her own Rock Hudson?

T
HEY WERE TALKING
to the new student, Paul Minatelli. Blond hair, willowy frame, angelic smile, he sat between Stuart and Miriam on the piano bench, their back to the keys. His parents were divorced. He was twenty-one but looked younger. Stuart was especially taken with him; Miriam liked him, too, or tried to—one of his eyebrows seemed permanently raised above the other, which gave him an ironic, somewhat mocking air that made Miriam uncomfortable, though she did her best to hide it. He had just moved to Boston with his mother, from Asheville, North Carolina.

Stuart said, “Paul, where’d you get such adorable looks?”

Paul said, “From my father. If you think I’m cute, you should see him.”

Stuart and Miriam leaned closer, smiling, as Stuart said, “Really!”

And Miriam said, “Oh do tell us more!”

Paul said, looking from Stuart to Miriam, “Not to dis­appoint you both, but he’s married now!”

Miriam and Stuart asked, at the same time, “Happily?”

M
IRIAM BREEZED IN
late one evening full of ex­citement. She’d convinced Stuart to use one of her favorites, “Ole Buttermilk Sky,” in a new review he was working up. He had also decided to let Miriam do all the choreography for the show.

At dinner, she shared the good news (she just couldn’t help herself even though everyone was tired and sulky, having to wait so long for dinner). She was going on with such enthusiasm she didn’t notice that Curly wasn’t listening. She looked up and saw the muscles twitching in his face.

She said, “I guess I ought to quit while I’m ahead.”

“And when would that be?” Curly scoffed. “What are you two, partners now? It’s always “we this” and “we that”; you’d think you were running the place.”

“I’m just telling you how my day was,” she said. “Excuse me for thinking you’d be interested.”

Curly stared at her, one finger tapping the table. “
Th
is isn’t right,” he said after a moment.

“What isn’t right?”

“
Th
is, this job, this guy you work for, if you can call him a guy; all the time Ethan’s spending practicing and performing when he ought to be doing kid things, like playing ball and hanging out. It isn’t right; it isn’t natural.” He banged his fist down on the table. And as he stalked out, he said, “Do you even know where Julie is? When was the last time we all ate together?”

Sam started to cry. Ethan laughed at Sam.

“Now what’s wrong?” she asked. “And Ethan, you can be excused. Go practice, will you?”

“My shoelaces came untied,” Sam sobbed.

No, he couldn’t walk in the dark down to Sigrid’s house; no, she wouldn’t take him. And if he wouldn’t let her tie the laces, he should just shut up and do it himself. It surprised her how annoyed she was, when just a moment before she had felt elated.

Now there were two Miriams. One was back at the studio, thumbing through the
Show
Boat
score, recalling all her favorite scenes and songs from that long-ago musical, already working out the dance moves for the kids.
Th
at Miriam watched her son, her youngest, the baby, from a faraway stage, and it broke her heart to see how sad and all alone he was, and if she hadn’t been so far away, she would have held him in her arms.
Th
e other Miriam moved like a robotic mother, sweeping the dishes off the table and into the sink, holding them under the hard, hot jet of water while she scrubbed and scrubbed until her hands were burning, before she placed each cup and plate and bowl carefully in the rack to dry.
Th
at Miriam moved around Sam who sat at the table whimpering; that Miriam swept the floor around his feet, wiped down the Formica tabletop around his arms; she wiped and buffed and polished until the kitchen light reflected on every surface of the kitchen, glaring up at what was shining down upon it.

Scene XI

Ethan sang and danced throughout New England. He was thirteen years old when he auditioned for the road company of
Th
e Sound of Music
and landed the part of one of the von Trapp kids. He was a little old for the part, but the casting director was so taken with him, his stage presence, his powerful voice, that he wanted to hire him anyway. Not only that, the company was willing to pay a chaperone $250 a week to look after him for the nine-month run. “
Th
at was quite a lot of money in those days,” Miriam would say years later when she’d tell the story. Even Ethan was excited. He’d be away from home, he wouldn’t have to go to school, and he wouldn’t have his mother breathing down his neck. What was not to like? Miriam in the first dizzying moments of the spectacular news could hardly keep herself from singing “Climb Every Mountain.” She called her cousins, Irene and Charlie. Everyone said, remember us when you’re rich and famous.

Curly balked. Not so fast, he said. Ethan had no business being out of school and away from home for so long. He was just a kid. It was too soon. He wasn’t ready. Maybe if she went on the road with him, but in that case what about Sam and Julie? Okay, Julie would soon be off to college, but Sam, Sam needed his mother, too. Besides, with the hours he was working, he couldn’t do around the house what she did.
Th
ey all depended on her. Maybe in a few years, but not now.

She knew he was right. She couldn’t deny it. When it came to Ethan and show business, Curly was always right.
Th
ere’d be other opportunities.
Th
is offer was just a sign of bigger things to come. As Stuart liked to say, the sky’s the limit. Curly was right, and as he went on about what would be best for all of them, they were family, after all, a voice inside her head was singing: it had to be you, it fucking had to be you.

E
THAN WANTED TO
go to his friend Finny’s house for a sleepover birthday party. Because of the bed-wetting, he’d never slept over at anyone’s house before and none of his friends had ever slept over at his house. He had gotten good at coming up with excuses—he had a voice lesson, he was performing out of town that night, he wasn’t feeling well—but he was almost fourteen now, and he knew his friends were beginning to wonder. He wanted to give it a try. He wanted to spend the night at Finny’s.

“But Ethan,” Miriam said at dinner a week before the party. “Don’t you think it’s a little risky?”

Curly added, “Jeez, kid, imagine what happens if you have an accident.”

“I won’t have an accident,” Ethan insisted. “I just won’t sleep.”

“Famous last words,” Curly said. “You’d be taking a big chance.”

“Darling,” Miriam said, stroking his cheek, “we just don’t want you to embarrass yourself.”

“It’ll embarrass me if I don’t go. I just want to be normal for a change.”

“You normal, that’s a good one,” Sam said.

“Quiet, Sam,” Miriam said. “
Th
is is none of your business.”

“What do you mean none of my business,” he said. “I have a reputation, too, you know. How would it look if everybody knew my big brother wet the bed? My friends will wonder about me, if they don’t already.”

“Sam,” Miriam barked, “not one more word.”

Curly made a fist and waved it, saying, “Bang. Zoom. Straight to the moon.”

“I don’t care who knows,” Ethan said, throwing his napkin down. “I’m sick of this whole thing. I’m sick of singing. I’m sick of Stuart. I’m sick of all of you. I want to go to this party like everybody else.” He pushed away from the table and ran from the room.

Curly thought they ought to let him go. Maybe something like a sleepover with all his friends would be just the thing he needed to get over this problem. Maybe protecting him had only made it worse. Miriam was not so sure. Nothing scared her more than shame and embarrassment. She still hadn’t gotten over last year’s fiasco with Dr. Abdul, the tall turban-headed Brockton hypnotist who, in his ads on television, claimed to be able to cure anyone of any bad habit, or your money back. Satisfaction guaranteed. Ethan hadn’t been in his office more than ten minutes when Abdul came running out to the waiting room in a rage.

“You will pay!” he said. “You will pay me now!”

“Pay you for what?” Miriam asked, standing up. “Is Ethan cured?”

“Cured?” he scoffed. “Look at him!”

Ethan stood in the doorway, yawning, a dark stain in the crotch of his chinos.

“What happened?” Miriam asked.

“I hypnotize your son, he fall asleep and wet my couch, my new couch. And now you will pay for cleaning.”

“Hell I will,” Miriam said. “You knew what the risk was when you put him to sleep.”

“You pay for cleaning or I sue.”

“So sue me!” she said. “I’m not paying one penny for the couch or the cure. Some cure. Ethan, come!”

Th
e laughter of the other patients in the waiting room still burned in her ears.

“I don’t know, Curly,” she said. “I’m so afraid he’ll have an accident, and you know how cruel kids can be.”

“He’s got to face the music sometime. Better now than later.”

So they let him go. And bravely Ethan went.

And it was sometime close to four a.m. when the doorbell rang. Ethan, out of breath, sweaty, in sneakers and damp pajamas, was holding a bundle of wet sheets.

“Oh, Jesus, Ethan,” Miriam said. “Did you run here? Finny lives at least a mile away.”

“I tried to stay awake,” he said.

“Did anybody see you leave?” Miriam asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Okay,” she said, “let’s wash the sheets and get you cleaned up.”

Th
e sun was just coming up by the time everything was done. Miriam wanted to drive him back to Finny’s but Ethan wouldn’t let her. He was afraid the sound of the engine would wake the kids.

“But I can stop a block away,” she said.

“No,” he said. “Too risky. Better if I just run there.”

“So now it’s too risky?” she said.

He started to cry. “Please, Ma . . .”

“Okay,” she said. “Okay. Run if you want.”

Curly said. “Stop crying, kid. Some day you’ll laugh about this.”

As Ethan ran off carrying the sheets, Miriam said, “He should only live so long.”

He came home later that morning, tired and demoralized. He said he’d gotten back without anyone waking up. He made the bed and got into it, and lay there terrified he’d fall asleep. But he’d run so fast he was drenched in sweat, and the sweat dampened the sheets through his pajamas. When the others woke and saw how wet he was, he said he must have had a fever in the night, but they of course refused to believe him, he must have wet the bed, and so they teased him after all, as if he had. He didn’t want to talk about it anymore. He was too embarrassed.

Miriam hated to see him sad like this; she hated when anything bad happened to her kids.
Th
ere was nothing she wouldn’t do to spare them pain. And because of that, it really ticked her off that the whole sorry business could have been avoided if he’d only let her drive him back. “So maybe now you’ll listen to us,” she couldn’t keep from saying.

“Lay off, Miriam,” Curly said. “
Th
e kid feels bad enough.”

Th
at he did.
Th
at he did. If he had only listened to her.

Scene XII

Miriam and Curly were lying in bed, watching a news special on the missile crisis.
Th
e State Department spokesman was saying that under no circumstances would America permit offensive weapons to be delivered to Cuba. America demanded that the Soviets cease construction immediately and remove all warheads from Cuban soil.
Th
ere was talk of a blockade and a quarantine.
Th
ere were old clips of Khrushchev banging his shoe on his desk at the United Nations.
Th
ere were clips of the young president in consultation with his aides at the White House.
Th
ere were clips of mushroom clouds out at sea or over deserts, and experts of all kinds describing in graphic detail which cities would be targeted and what the short- and long-term effects of such a holocaust would be.
Th
e doomsday clock would soon be moved closer to midnight, if it wasn’t there already.

Miriam couldn’t bear to watch. She looked at her night table to the right of the television. She looked at the photograph of Miss Julie from
Show Boat
above the night table mirror, and in the mirror she could see the
South Pacific
poster on the wall above her bed. And there beside the mirror was her red jewelry box inside of which were some of Bubbie’s old bracelets, a diamond engagement ring that belonged to Bubbie’s mother, which Bubbie had given Miriam when she and Curly had gotten engaged, which Miriam would give to Julie when the right man came along. And there were rings inside the box and pendants that signified some special place or person from her past.
Th
ere was even a brooch among them that Frankie Kaufman had given her on the occasion of their one-month anniversary of going steady. She looked at her neatly arranged cosmetics—the eyeliner case, the jar of vanishing cream, the little tubes of lipstick—the pictures of her children on the chest of drawers beside the table. She looked at her open, walk-in closet to the left of the bedroom door—the boxes of shoes stacked on the floor beneath the two rows of hanging blouses, sweaters, dresses for any season, some in the far back from her mother’s old shop, some dating back to high school. Oh, she could tell you which store each dress, each outfit came from, and which ones were gifts, from whom, and on what occasions, so many of them gifts from Curly for her birthday or anniversary, many of them gifts he bought her after some fight or argument as a way of saying sorry, making up. Each one was a reminder, so it seemed just then, of how much he loved her, of how much she meant to him. What was the bedroom, or the house itself, but the story of her life, their life, their day-to-day existence, rooted in a history, for good or ill, unique to her and to her family, defining them all, keeping them all safely who they were—until tonight. Tonight, that history offered no more safety than a piece of tissue, a scrap of gossamer, a dustball to be vaporized to nothing in the first flash of the horrible bomb.

She could hear footsteps overhead and a door close, she could hear water running, the children upstairs getting ready for bed, in the middle of their nightly rituals.
Th
ere was great comfort in the sound. And there always had been. Some nights, when all the lights were out, she’d sneak upstairs to check on the children, to listen to the slow and steady rhythm of their breathing as they slept. Sometimes she’d hear the boys whispering to each other, giggling over who knew what. Sometimes she’d hear Ethan singing a lullaby softly to himself or to Sam in the darkness. He’d be singing one of the lullabies she used to sing to them when they were little. Why didn’t she still do that? Why the hurry to grow up? Wasn’t it her job to keep them all safe, to help them think, as long as possible, that their lives would just go on like this forever, that nothing could imperil the world they made together?

She realized that she had taken Curly’s hand, or had he taken hers, as aerial photographs of Cuba flashed across the screen. She squeezed it tighter as if to keep herself, the house, and every­one she loved from vanishing before her very eyes.

O
NE NIGHT AT
bedtime a few weeks later, she found Sam sitting on the porch. It was a chilly clear November night. In only pajamas and slippers, Sam was sitting on the edge of a lounge chair, looking up at the sky.

“Sam,” she said, “what in the world are you doing out here? You want to make yourself sick?”

“Ma,” he said, “do you feel the earth move?”

“Earth move?” she asked, “like when you fall in love?”

“What, are you nuts?” he said. “No, like just move, like around
the sun.”

“
No, of course not,” she said, laughing. “You can’t feel that.”

“Yeah,” he said, and shivered. “Gravity, right?
Th
at’s what Mr. Pincus told us today in Hebrew school. We’re spinning at something like forty thousand miles per hour, but we don’t feel a thing because of gravity.”

She sat down and put her arm around him.

“But what the heck is gravity?” he continued.

“It’s what holds us to the ground,” she said. “But we need to go inside now, honey. You’re shivering.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay, in a second, but, Ma, listen, how could we be moving that fast and not know it. I mean that’s faster than the fastest roller coaster. Why aren’t we screaming?”

“Why is Mr. Pincus talking about gravity in Hebrew school?”

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “We were talking about Adam and Eve and the apple, and he just started talking about outer space.”

“But what does outer space have to do with anything?”

“He just looked really sad,” Sam said. “Well, not sad exactly, or just sad, but also angry too.”

“Angry?” Miriam asked. “At who?”

“God,” Sam said. “He said he didn’t understand what God had in mind with all the suffering he brings us, all the wars and nuclear bombs and death camps. Or why he’d put us in an empty universe surrounded by a vacuum.”

“He shouldn’t be talking to you kids about stuff like that.”

“And you know what?” Sam asked.

“What?”

“He said you were angry, too.”

“Me? What you do mean, me? I’ve never said two words to Mr. Pincus.”

“He said everyone your age is angry and if you weren’t angry, you were stupid.”

“Well,” Miriam said, “I’m not stupid, am I?”

“No,” Sam said, yawning, “but you get angry a lot. At Ethan when he doesn’t practice. At Julie when she doesn’t listen. At me when I wet the bed or cry or ask too many questions.”

“Well, um, sometimes, maybe,” she stammered. “Not a lot. And anyway it’s different.”

“Why?” Sam asked.

“I’m just busy, Sam, I’m not really angry.” And as she said this, she did get angry. She wanted to justify herself, to explain herself. She wanted Sam and everyone, even Curly, even her mother, to understand her, to know how much she loved them, how much she wanted only what was best for them, but it was really hard sometimes, more often than she cared to think, not to get frustrated, especially given how short life was. And, yes, how much suffering there was everywhere. She wasn’t stupid. She knew how bad things could be.

She hugged Sam, who by then was leaning against her. She said, “Darling, don’t forget how much I love you. If I lose my temper, it’s only cause I want you—I want everyone—to be happy. It’s so important to be happy.”

“Like in the song?” he asked.

“What song?”

“ ‘Put on a Happy Face.’ ”

“Yeah, darling, just like in the song.”

“Okay, Ma,” he said as he yawned again. “But who the heck is Mrs. Murphy?”

“Mrs. Murphy?” she asked. She really had to get this child to bed.

“
Th
e lady in the psalm,” he said. “You know, Mrs Murphy. Mr. Pincus was talking about her today, too. How in such a crazy world she’s all we really have.”

“What psalm?”

“
Th
e twenty-third one,” he said, yawning and stretching.

“
Th
ere’s no Mrs. Murphy in the twenty-third psalm, or any other psalm. What in the world is Mr. Pincus teaching you kids?”

“Yeah, sure there is, Ma,” he said, half asleep. “You know where it says, ‘Good Mrs. Murphy shall follow me all the days of my life.’ ”

“Oh Sam, sweetheart,” she laughed, “it isn’t ‘Good Mrs. Murphy,’ it’s ‘goodness and mercy’: ‘goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.’ ”

But Sam was gone by then. She gathered him up in her arms and carried him to bed. She tucked him in as snugly as she could, and lay down next to him and prayed, “Please, God, keep away from my children. You hear me? Keep away.”