Living Room (13 page)

Tony Tantillo was smiling. Shirley welcomed his approval, but dismissed its importance. Tony liked anything that was different. The others were looking at each other, and particularly at Arthur and Marvin. Finally, Dick Stewardson said, “Well, it certainly is a radical approach.”

Shirley felt she had to speak. “In recent years, the most successful ad campaigns have all been radical.”

Carter Ellison said, “How do we know these innovations are wanted by people? To my knowledge, there’s been no research study on—”

“It’s all common sense,” impatient Shirley interrupted. It was the worst thing you could say to Carter.

“The copy is long,” said Stewardson carefully.

“Mercedes made it on a lot of copy,” said Shirley. “Volkswagen first made it on a lot of copy. Every mail-order ad in history has made it on a lot of copy. We can follow up with short copy when the campaign gets established, but right now we want to tell them a few things, okay? We’re not reminding Ford-lovers to go out and buy a car, we’re trying to get others to switch makes.”

Marvin Goodkin put
his reading glasses aside. “Shirley, I’d have
been happier if we could have discussed this concept before the meeting. It might have reached the Plans Board with some of the obvious kinks worked out.”

“And the originality.”

“Shirley,” said Marvin, “would you be more comfortable if we discussed the pros and cons of this in your absence?”

Arthur’s voice gently separated the contestants. “I think we should discuss everything openly.”

“I was only hoping to spare Shirley some of the things that need to be said.”

“Like what, Marvin?” snapped Shirley.

“Like the fact that you haven’t even mentioned Ford’s name in the ad.”

“Don’t be dense, Marvin,” said Shirley, “that’s intentional. If people see the name Ford, the ones who don’t want a Ford or tried one once and it turned out a lemon or who want a higher-priced car so the neighbors can sweat, they’ll all skip the ad if they see Ford. This ad asks them to buy Shirley’s car. Every Ford dealer in the country will have his windows plastered with signs saying ‘SHIRLEY’S CAR READY FOR DELIVERY.’ They can run their local ads saying ‘Shirley’s car now at Jackson Ford or whatever.’ I want people to read this car ad as if it were a new thing.” She wanted Arthur to say something. He said nothing.

Marvin, toying with his eyeglasses, said, “What makes you think Dearborn would ever buy a campaign that’s linked to a real person employed by somebody else? And this!”—he slapped the sketch—“using your own picture instead of a model, whatever the hell for?”

“Those models don’t look like people who drive cars. I do. I don’t care whose picture you use, I just want it to be a real person.”

“Gentlemen,” said Marvin, “before we can sell a single car, we’ve got to sell the fellows in Dearborn. They, not the public, are our customers. You ask Cass Rodgers, the boys in Dearborn don’t give women important jobs, take them seriously the way we do in
New York.”

“Thank you,” said Shirley.

“Come off it,” Marvin continued, “all their wives are housewives, however the hell rich they are. Every car in America is sold as a speeding dingus, an extension of a man’s ego, a weapon to barrel down the road with. We’ll be the laughing stock of Dearborn if we turn this in.”

Arthur said, “I think we ought to go about this constructively, point by point.”

“My point is, Arthur,” said Marvin, “your prodigy has produced a turkey that could lose us the account. Shirley’s car! The whole idea of addressing women in the ad is crazy. In Dearborn, they’ve never had a woman inside the executive dining room. Arthur, we can’t afford to be naive.”

“I’m not being naive.” Arthur’s glare froze Marvin. “I know a bit about the engineering side. The scooped-out wheel is a good idea. It could be put on next year’s car. Jane always complains about not being able to see well enough over the top of the wheel. I think we should discuss these items point by point.”

“I agree,” said Stewardson. “Maybe this proposal isn’t as radical as it first seems. It’ll certainly take something new to move Ford off the dime. They want a campaign that’ll give them a bigger share of the market and the same old stuff won’t do it.”

“Let’s start at the top,” said Arthur. “We’ve touched on the airplane-type wheel. I disagree with Shirley’s idea for hat and headroom as an appeal for women. They’re shorter than men and their hats fit a lot closer to their heads. The old cars used to have the room. Today’s designs are sleek and sporty. Shirley’s hatroom idea, even if valid, would require a radical body redesign. You do understand that, Shirley?”

“I can see the problem. But the edge guards don’t require any engineering changes.”

“No.”

“Any time you open the door, the edge guard will hit the next car before your door does. Most cars that are parked every
day in shopping centers get to look like their doors have measles
. I’ll bet those edge guards would cost less than a dollar a car.”

“It’s a small item,” said Marvin.

“It’s part of the large concept,” said Shirley. “All these things add up to convenience and safety factors that aren’t standard now. Steel-belted radials are inevitable, why not now? Disc brakes are going to be standard, why not now? And what about the mirror idea? All you fellows, Tony excepted, have short hair. But most women have hair long enough to get blown about when they keep the window open. Did you ever try to tidy yourself up in the rear-view mirror? You strain your neck. You can’t see. You forget to reset it, and that’s dangerous if you don’t realize it until you’re driving again.”

Benson Chabrow said, “My wife fixes her hair with her handbag mirror.”

“You ought to try combing your hair while holding a hand mirror,” said Shirley. “Most of us have only two hands. All I’m suggesting is a five-by-seven mirror in the glove compartment that’s got a suction cup on the back so you can put it any place convenient and have both hands free to tidy your hair. A magnifying mirror, like you fellows get in good hotels to shave by. Plus you plug the cord into the cigarette-lighter receptacle and you’ve got a lit mirror so you can see what you’re doing.”

“I don’t know what you need the light for,” said Marvin. “You can always switch on the interior light.”

“And get up the following day to a dead battery because you forgot to turn it off?”

“It’s a gimmick,” said Marvin. “An accessory. Anybody can make it.”

“Well, nobody
is
right now and we ought to advertise the fact that Shirley’s car will have it as a standard.”

Arthur took over, discussing the built-in Kleenex dispenser, which he liked, and he thought the idea of a glove-compartment door that wouldn’t flip open in an accident ought to be checked out.
“Shirley’s
idea
for
reserve instrumentation may be too costly,
but we could try it out on them as something for the future. I like the lipless luggage compartment, it could be a strong selling point for some people.”

The discussion gyrated for nearly an hour. Finally, Arthur said, “I think that taking a few modifications into consideration, this ought to be redrafted by Shirley, and to play it safe, tried out on Cass Rodgers first, just for testing purposes, see how he feels the fellows in Dearborn will react.”

Shirley opened her purse and removed the tiny, light blue leather notebook she always carried. “Gentlemen,” she said, “when Cass was in town last week, I had a drink with him. In fact, I had four drinks with him, two for me and two for him.”

“What the hell are you doing having drinks with Rodgers for?” said Marvin.

“He asked me.”

“I don’t understand why.”

“Maybe because his wife is in Dearborn. In any event, I tried the idea out on him, gingerly of course, and it’s quite possible he liked it. I’m quoting.” She read from the little notebook. “His exact words were, ‘They might just buy it. It’s got a helluva good potential.’” She closed the notebook.

Marvin Goodkin, one eye ticking, said, “You can’t treat the Plans Board as if it didn’t exist.”

Shirley looked at each of their faces. Of course she should not have done it her way. If she were they, she’d fire her.

Rising, she said, “Gentlemen, you do exist.” The quiet in the room persisted even after she softly closed the door behind her.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SHIRLEY’S FIRST APPEARANCE before a large audience had been at the age of seventeen, as valedictorian of her high school class.

Almost everyone she knew was in that auditorium, her father, Mrs. Bialek, friends at school, the few teachers she had liked, a few she hadn’t. She was addressing her world.

Unfortunate timing, she had her period, which distressed her, for she had not been able to shake the childhood trepidation that private things were somehow known to others, or could become so by some uncontrollable accident. While turning before her bedroom mirror to make sure that no stain had shown through the blue dress-up dress Mrs. Bialek had made for her, she discovered that the dress was at least an inch longer in back than in front. Mrs. Bialek, hand on hip, defended her mistake until Philip Hartman, always the fair judge, was called to determine fact, and though he concluded the back was indeed longer than the front,” he said, “Who sees the front and back at the same time?” In the minutes left before the three had to depart the house, Mrs. Bialek, defeated,
restitched the hem, ironed it
quickly as best she could, and started to help Shirley on with it backward, all of which only underscored the girl’s conviction that the day was loaded with doom.

Though all the while she and one other girl and three boys were the final candidates for valedictorian she had hoped to be chosen, now that the day was here she longed for the safety of anonymity. At the moment she envied those of her classmates, able and intelligent, who had managed for four years not to be called on in class except when absolutely necessary to achieve a grade; they never volunteered and avoided the hazard of being even momentarily in the limelight.

Yet when Shirley had daydreamed, she had thought of herself as the valedictorian of smaller occasions, addressing her classmates on whatever subject they had been studying or were about to involve themselves in, as if she achieved her understanding before any of the others. From time to time, however, she had to face the fact that what she was telling the others was based only partly on knowledge and much depended on her developing ability to make things up on the spur of the moment, to pluck an insight and elaborate it into a paradigm of seeming wisdom. She had charisma, but she recognized also that she was a facile bullshit artist. Which is why she prepared her valedictory address with care. She was determined to be short and to say something. If she failed, she was prepared to retire to the comfort of obscurity.

At the lectern, which was a bit too high, she began on tiptoe, “Parents, teachers, friends,” in the traditional way.

She was able to see where her father and Mrs. Bialek were sitting. Concentrating on these two familiars, forcing herself to think that she was addressing them and that these several hundred others in the auditorium were figures on a painted backdrop, did not make her palms sweat less as she gripped the wooden ridge of the lectern and looked down at the single page on which she had typed out her speech.

“On this important occasion, I want to express the gratitude of all of us who will be going on to college or work for what we have gotten from this institution.

“It has been a good baby sitter. Our parents are grateful for that.”
The audience stirred. The students perked in their seats.

“This school has kept us out of mischief…some of the time.”

One boy guffawed until the stares of his neighbors embarrassed him to silence.

“Now that we have served the term to which we were sentenced…
”
She had to stop. Parents as well as students were laughing.
“…
I want to thank especially those few teachers, two or three, who inspired us to reach beyond the facts in our books, who made us feel not that we were learning how to live in the outside world, but that learning itself was living. We will always be grateful to those two or three teachers who made our hearts and heads beat faster, whatever their subjects. And to the parents I say that one of the more important lessons we learned is that in any institution of this size, there are only two or three inspired teachers. It prepared us for the world outside, where inspiration is probably also rare. We have been given our freedom, and like most people, we haven’t the slightest idea what to do with it.”

At first, there was no reaction. Most people didn’t realize the speech was over. It had been short. A few people understood: Philip Hartman, whose life had been a disappointment, but not Mrs. Bialek, whose life had not disappointed her because she had not expected much; one or two teachers who thought themselves the ones praised for their inspiration applauded; then others clapped, though some clutched their hands in their lap in discomfort, none more than Mr. Rivaldi, the principal, who had cast the deciding vote for Shirley as valedictorian. His faculty had been characterized as warders, and he was therefore himself the warden; with few exceptions, the staff was uninspiring; the students were not graduating, they were escaping. All five finalists were “A” students; the others would surely have spoken only of their gratitude and hope for the future. Shirley had opened the door of freedom, and pointed to the desert before them. He felt betrayed.