Living Room (14 page)

*

More than a decade later, when Shirley was asked to address a meeting of the American Management Association at the Biltmore Hotel on “The Role of Women in Industry,” she began with a little joke about how the executives assembled in the cocktail room before luncheon was served became giants in their industries with each successive drink. Then her speech to the sea of male faces consisted only of a single sentence. “I have been asked to speak for twenty minutes, but as I look out at this audience and try from the podium to count the women in the room—surely there are less than a dozen—I decided to point out this fact to you and to characterize it as ‘The Role of Women in Industry.’”

When she sat down and turned to acknowledge her host on her left, his expression reminded her of Mr. Rivaldi’s more than ten years earlier.

During the intervening decade, Shirley had read much of Mencken and Shaw, and came to the conclusion that neither probably made friends easily. She came to understand the delicacy of human relationships, how dangerous it was to thwart the expected. She yearned unsuccessfully to be diplomatic, kind, tactful, self-effacing. Somewhere along the line she realized that history was not littered with characters who were diplomatic, kind, tactful, and self-effacing.

*

At four o’clock one afternoon Shirley was preparing to escape the offices of Armon, Caiden, Crouch to prepare for taping the Dick Cavett show.

“If Arthur drops by,” she told Twitchy, “tell him it’ll be okay. He’s more nervous about my public appearances than I am. I’m rushing home to spruce up.”

“I’ll be watching.”

Shirley had grown very fond of her secretary. Twitchy, a brunette who wanted to be a blonde and yet refused to color her hair, an overly tall girl who refused to wear flats and therefore appeared taller than she was, a smart girl who specialized in deprecating her mind and body and vitality, lived, in part, through Shirley’s adventures. How to give Twitchy a life of her own? If only she could be put in Mary Wood’s matchmaking hands for an hour.

“Would you like to meet me at the studio and watch the taping from the Green Room?”

“Thanks, but I’ve got a date.”

When you freed the slaves, they found new masters. Shirley thought the odds were that Twitchy didn’t have a date.

*

Thirty minutes later Shirley was home, naked except for panties, examining in the mirrored wall of her bedroom the discrepancy in size between her two breasts. When she was fifteen, Mrs. Bialek had assured her that nature would even things up. Mrs. Bialek didn’t know that right-handed girls, like Shirley, generally have a noticeably larger right breast. By seventeen, Shirley knew she was symmetrical in all ways but one: her right breast was larger and hung a bit differently than her left. Each was attractive, just visibly different to the eye that cared to look. Once Shirley imagined a lover actually commenting on the difference (no one ever did), and she would say, “It’s for variety, and so you’ll know which one you’re at.” Shirley’s treasury of unspoken remarks, wisecracks, comebacks, and sayings never found their way into a diary. People who recorded their lives in diaries, Shirley thought, were like people who collected photographs instead of memories. My photograph album, she would say, pointing to her head, is up here.

It’s a good thing, Shirley thought, with one last glance in the mirror, that she came of age when wearing brassieres was still usual.

How was it she wanted to look for the Cavett show—chic, attractive, smart, pretty, elegant? Smart, she decided, but not conspicuous. She didn’t want viewers distracted by her clothes—was that unfeminine? Her hair looked natural, not as if it had just been set. She had almost finished dressing, shoes last, when the phone rang. One shoe on, she hobbled to the night table.

“Sorry to bother you at home, love,” said Arthur Crouch, “but you left the office before I could have a word with you.”

“The taping’s at six-thirty, Arthur.”

“We’ve got a lot of clients who watch that show.”

“Arthur, I am always careful what I say.”

“Now Shirley, all I meant is, well, you know, you’re going to be introduced as working at—”

“I’m sure Cavett would agree to introduce me as the bright light of B.B.D. & O., okay?”

“Don’t be silly, Shirley, I think if it’s handled right, it’s good publicity for the firm.”

Shirley was silent.

“I’m just trying to be helpful,” said Arthur.

“Arthur, I have to finish dressing and get the hell over to the studio. If I louse things up, you can always fire me. I don’t belong to a union.”

“You’re part of the campaign. What would Shirley’s car be without Shirley?”

“I guess you’re stuck with me.”

“Please be careful what you say tonight.”

“Thanks for the ‘please,’ Arthur. Have a drink on me. It’s past the yard-arm.”

She hung up, slipped her foot into the second shoe, checked her makeup, slid a bracelet over her left wrist, checked her purse for Kleenex, decided she’d better pee once more just to be on the safe side. Three minutes later she left the apartment feeling that she had forgotten something but couldn’t think what.

As the elevator descended, she watched the lighted numbers move, wondered how many people besides Arthur and clients watched the Cavett show. She tried to imagine one million faces, sitting in curlers and undershirts, beer in hand,
decided
those were
not Cavett’s viewers. Maybe nobody watched. Maybe it was all an illusion.

*

“You’re on next, Miss Hartman,” the girl with the clipboard said. She was glad. The tan makeup they had insisted on putting on her (“Those are union people, dear, they have got to do their work even if you have a suntan”) was uncomfortable. She felt as if her face were trying unsuccessfully to sweat. As she was being escorted from the dressing room by the clipboard girl, the light-fingered makeup man came around the corner, powder puff in hand, stopped her for a two-second pat on each cheek. “There now, you look beautiful, Miss Hartman.”

Though tempted, she did not say, “You look beautiful too, dear
.
” Her mother’s voice was saying,
Be careful. Be nice. Try to be liked. Friendly to people. Respect their feelings. Make them feel good. Pay compliments.
And her father’s echo,
Shirley, remember, nobody wants to know the truth.

The truth will not make you free,
thought Shirley,
it will make you unpopular. The world communicates in courtesies, do unto others, smile.

“Were you saying something?” asked the clipboard girl. Shirley shook her head. The girl steered her to the corner of the set, gave a slight shove, and Shirley stumbled into the flood of hot light to be welcomed.

He strode toward her, hand outstretched, shorter than she had imagined, nice looking, young looking, her eyes flashed down, fly closed, thank God.

“…
One of the most successful young career women in America, winner of the Fiorello La Guardia Medallion, female maverick of the advertising world, Shirley Hartman.”

She shook his outstretched hand, took the designated seat, crossed her legs, and before Cavett could pose his first question said,
“Do you know where that word ‘maverick’ comes from?”

Cavett swallowed his question.

“Frankly,” said Cavett, “no.”

“Well,” Shirley began, feeling that if she talked, she was safe. “The rule of the West used to be whoever puts a brand on an animal owns it. There was a rancher back in the last century, a Texan named Sam Maverick, who did not brand his cattle. I like that man. I’d like to be one of the unbranded.”

It drew a laugh from the studio audience.

“Aren’t there a lot of brand names that use your agency?”

“Oh, I’m for brands, but not on people.”

“What I wanted to ask was, I see your picture in the paper with the mayor, with Senator Javits, with all kinds of politicos. Are you working up to, do you have any plans to run for public office? It’s a coming time for women.”

“I thought this was a family show,” said Shirley.

Cavett had to hold up both hands to shush the studio audience.

“I would make a terrible politician,” said Shirley. “What a politician wants, above all, is to be elected, but he can’t say that. So, to begin with he’s got to be a hypocrite and say he’s for this and that for the electorate. But which of them, right, left, or center, doesn’t shift his ground when a line isn’t working with the voters? My great disability is saying what I think. I’d be a dead duck in any campaign.”

“Shirley,” said Cavett.

“Call me Ms. Hartman.”

“Shirley, you’re incorrigible.”

“I’m glad you’re not a judge.”

“Question: Do you Ms. Shirley Hartman—did I get it right?—do you think we have
any
honest politicians?”

Dead air for three seconds.

“I didn’t hear you answer.”

“I think everybody in this country who’s listening heard my answer.”

The floor director, trailing wires from his headset, was moving his thumb up in the air; the studio audience, at least, was having a hell of a time.

“Shirley,” said Cavett, glancing at his notes, “this citation you got from the mayor says, quote, that you’ve become the most creative female force in your profession, end quote, and I’d like—”

“That’s hogwash, Dick.”

Her mother’s face loomed, a warning finger to her lips.

“What’s the matter?” asked Cavett.

“I’m hearing voices.”

“Oh, you go in for ESP?”

“No, my mother does.”

“Well, a lot of viewers are interested in ESP, we must have your mother on the program.”

“That’d be hard. She’s been dead twenty-one years.”

Cavett decided not to pick up on that one.

“We were talking about the mayor’s citation and you said—”

“I cut in because undeserved compliments make me uncomfortable. The only reason I’m, quote, a famous woman in advertising, end quote, is that there are so damn few women in advertising, in the important jobs. Sure, women are allowed to type, file, say hello, and make love after office parties. If I were a bank executive, I’d be famous, if I were up the line in railroad or steel I’d be famous. Advertising is just as male chauvinist a business as the rest of them, and I’m conspicuous because there are so few women in it. If we had the same economic chances as men, I’d be lost in the crowd.”

“Don’t you think there’s been an attempt to redress the balance, to recruit—”

“Sure, sure, Harvard is recruiting blacks like mad. If blacks take chemistry or physics or engineering, it’s a sign of uplift. If a woman elects to study technology, she’s a freak. It’s in our vocabulary, he’s a Harvard
man,
she’s a Vassar
girl.
Well, both places are coed these days, but do you refer to someone as a Vassar
boy
?
Not on your
life. A man is grown up, a girl is not a woman. You hire her for different jobs and you pay her half as much. Let me prove a point.” She addressed herself to the studio audience. “How many men in the audience have professional or executive positions?”

There was a show of several dozen hands.

“And how many women in the audience have professional or executive positions?” Shirley was standing now, peering through the lights at the banks of spectators. One woman raised her hand. “How many more? Don’t be shy. We’re taking a poll.”

No other hands.

“What do you do, may I ask?” Shirley asked the lone raised hand.

The sound boom reached out over the heads of the audience to receive the answer.

“I own a beauty parlor.”

A ripple of nervous laughter washed through the auditorium.

“Your witness,” said Shirley.

Cavett signaled for a commercial break. “You’re doing well,” he said to her off camera.

“You’re doing okay, too,” said Shirley. “But do you want to do what you’re doing now for the rest of your life?”

“In this business, fat chance.”

“But would you if you could?”

“I’ll have to think about that. What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you want to stay in advertising the rest of your life? Hey, here we go.” The floor director was holding fingers up, signaling five, four, three, two, one, and they were on again.

“The second part of your citation,” said Cavett, “says, quote, for the vivacity she exudes which has transformed the city of New York. For those of us who love New York, like me—”

“It’s too late to love New York,” Shirley interrupted, “unless you’re a necrophiliac. New York can’t collect its garbage. It can’t clean up the snow.
For every two-point-six citizens of New York
earning a living, one is on relief. More than half the acreage is off limits after dark. If you are mugged—and chances are you sure will be—the police shrug it off. If you want to live in New York, you’ve got to look the other way, like in Calcutta. My advice is, if you’ve got a corpse, bury it.”