Living Room (15 page)

“How is your pal the mayor going to react to that?”

“I think he’d want to get his medal back if it hadn’t been lifted by a junkie. The mayor’s probably sorry he ever befriended me.”

During the next commercial break, Cavett said to her, “Shirley, you’re a terrific guest. What’s the next step for Shirley Hartman, your own agency?”

“My own company?”

“Why not?”

“It’d be a terrible way to live. I’ve got a hard enough job holding on to one secretary. I don’t like being an employer. I don’t like having employees.”

“Don’t you want a piece of the action?”

“We still off the air? I get enough action.”

“What’s the next step for an ambitious girl like you? What are you going to do?”

“Rewrite the Ten Commandments, I guess.”

“You think they can be improved?”

“You don’t?”

“Ten seconds,” signaled the floor manager.

On the monitor, Shirley was watching a commercial showing a woman feeding a man a piece of bread smeared with something called Angel Margarine. The man was rolling his eyes.

“The blessed thing,” said Cavett, “is that they’re still around. Sales are off six percent this year.” The floor manager pointed his finger and they were on camera again.

“Shirley Hartman,” said Cavett, “was watching the commercial. I hope you were, too. That’s not one of your products, is it, Shirley?”

“No, but if it was, I ought to be fired. That fellow looked like
he was having a sexual experience from eating a piece of bread.”

“Network says we’re not supposed to comment on the commercials.”

“I don’t work for the network,” said Shirley. “My views would never make me an honorary citizen of the state of Wisconsin, but if you’ve got a guest you don’t like, slip some butter on his butter plate. I think butter is as bad for your health as cigarettes. I think butter packages ought to carry a warning label, the Surgeon General says that this product may be dangerous to your health. Butter chokes up the arteries with cholesterol. It takes years to get you, but so do cigarettes.”

“But that product is margarine,” said Cavett.

“Then why is it being advertised like an aphrodisiac? Who believes that?”

“There goes that sponsor,” Cavett said.

“What I’d do,” said Shirley, “if I had a margarine to get off the ground is to start with a picture of someone about to put some butter on his bread, yell ‘stop!’, freeze the picture, with the voiceover saying, ‘That man is living dangerously. Butter is loaded with saturated fat that clogs the arteries and sets you up for a heart attack. Margarine made of corn oil does the opposite, it decreases the cholesterol in the blood and works to unclog the inside of arteries, to undo the damage done by years of eating the Wisconsin spread.’ I’d unfreeze the picture, and have the sound say, ‘Be an angel, save this man’s life,’ show him pushing aside the butter, cut to a close-up of the margarine, then show him putting that on instead, with the voice-over saying, ‘That’s why we call it Angel Margarine.’”

She stopped herself. Why was she doing this?

Shirley and Cavett both saw the producer, who had left the control room, at the same time. He was out on the floor, in sight of the studio audience but out of camera range, signaling Cavett with a finger across his throat.

“Look, Dick, it would need some polishing, checking with the legals, but if the sponsor wants to sell his margarine, he ought to sell
it for its real virtues not that stupid subliminal sex. I just don’t believe consumers are that dumb.”

The burst of applause from the studio audience, immediate, loud, and sustained, caught the producer, floor manager, and Cavett by surprise. Cavett, who admired candor, was torn between continuing with Shirley, who was obviously giving the audience a good time, and going to the safe next act waiting backstage.

“Shirley, our time, alas, is running short.”

“I saw the performing dogs backstage.”

“It’s been lovely having you on the show.”

The studio audience was laughing again as the technician removed Shirley’s lavalier mike, Cavett took his own off, and with his hands wide went backstage to find out what the new commotion was about.

Shirley dashed back to the dressing room to wash the makeup off her face, but as she reached it, the producer, breathless, took her elbow. “He wants to talk to you.”

“I’ve been talking to him.”

“I don’t mean Cavett. There’s a phone in here.” He opened the door to a small office.

Shirley was sure it was Arthur. The voice, however, was unfamiliar. It had a rasp, which she didn’t like, and authority, which held her.

“The name,” he said, “is Max Caiden, Miss Hartman.”

“Sounds familiar.”

“Used to be part of Armon, Caiden, Crouch.”

“Oh.”

“Angel Margarine is our account. I’ve had it for many years.”

“Christ, I hope the sponsor isn’t mad about what I said. I was just talking off the top of my head.”

“As a matter of fact, Mr. Bittelman and I have been watching the show together. He says to tell you—”

“To take a flying leap.”

“No, no. Miss Hartman. He wants me to tell you that he thinks your approach is great. He wants to know why I didn’t come up with something like that.”

“Well thank you.”

“He wants me to say that the advertising-manager slot will soon be open at Angel, which would make you my boss.”

Max Caiden’s little laugh was obviously for the benefit of the man at his side.

“Think about it, Miss Hartman.”

“Tell him I appreciate the offer, especially since I’m a margarine freak, but I don’t want to be the advertising manager of a margarine company. I don’t have margarine ideas, just ideas. I might never have another margarine idea again.”

She heard them talking in the background.

“He says,” Caiden continued, “that in that case you should come to work for our agency at twenty percent over what Crouch is paying you.”

“Hmm.”

“Are you completely happy where you are now?”

“Mr. Caiden, that’s a question I can only answer briefly now, which would mean dishonestly by saying yes or no, or at great length, and I’ve got to get this makeup off and dash. Thank you for the compliment, and thank Mr.—”

“Bittelman.” As he said it, he heard her hanging up too late to make the appointment Bittelman was suggesting he make to see her immediately.

*

Shirley fixed herself a dish of cottage cheese and vegetables and a cup of coffee to keep her awake so she could see the taped show aired later that evening. At eleven-thirty she turned the set on, watched the singer who opened the Cavett show, then the author touting some book about the wild west. When she came on, Shirley switched the set off. She really didn’t want to see how it came out.

Shirley put the record player on. Mozart, crystal. The phone was ringing.

“You’re marvelous,” said Mary.

“Is it over?”

“Aren’t you watching? Okay, okay, Jack says the commercial is over. Talk to you later.”

“Listen,” said Shirley, “can you give me that fellow Al’s phone number?”

A moment’s silence. “It’s unlisted.”

“That’s why I’m asking.”

“Oh, Shirley, I’m so happy.”

“Just give me the number. Please.”

She copied it down.

“Talk to you tomorrow,” said Mary.

Steel, steel, Shirley told herself, dialing the Westchester number. After three rings, the voice answered.

“This is Shirley Hartman,” she said, the husk in her words audible. “If it’s too late to call, say so.”

“Not at all. I was reading.”

How could she say what she wanted to say?

“Is your television…?” she asked.

“No.”

She felt a stupid child. He was going to ask her how she got his number. No, he was polite, he wouldn’t ask.

“Is there something I should be watching?”

“No, no, just wanted some advice.”

“Sorry.”

“I enjoyed meeting you the other night.”

“I enjoyed meeting you.”

Idiot talk.

“Thanks, anyway. Good night,” she said.

“Good night.”

He didn’t sound puzzled. Just indifferent.

When the phone woke her, she instantly thought, he’s calling back, her heart bounded, but it was her father. “Four friends have to call to tell me my daughter’s on television? Why didn’t you call?”

*

Arriving in the office, walking down death row next to the typing pool, several girls nodded and smiled approvingly at Shirley. God, thought Shirley, did they all watch?

Twitchy motioned to her desk. The note was from Arthur.
Can I
see you?

In his office, she said, “You’re seeing me.”

“Sit down.”

She obeyed.

“Shirley, I never would have believed that you could be disloyal.”

“Dis-what?”

“Didn’t you know that Angel Margarine had been our account right up until the second Max Caiden took it away with him? That account is worth three-quarters of a million, maybe more today, and you give them one of your best ideas. Shirley, can’t you learn to keep your mouth shut
some
of the time!”

She had never seen the veins in Arthur’s neck bulge as they did now. She might as well tell him the rest before he found out. “Caiden called me.”

“That son of a bitch!”

“Bittelman was with him.”

“Bittelman used to tell me, ‘Arthur, our account will be with you until the day you die.’ Well, it was Henry Armon who died not me, and he went off with Max like zap.”

And so she told Arthur of the two offers. “I didn’t accept.”

“Max won’t stop until he has you.”

“I’m not for sale either to him or you.”

Twitchy, standing in the door of Arthur’s office, said, “Sorry to
interrupt. Shirley, there’s a man in your office acting like he owns the place. He came barging in with some large package he put on your desk.”

“That son of a bitch,” said Arthur, out the door, “is trespassing.”

Everyone looked up to see Arthur Crouch actually running down the hallway toward Shirley’s office, Shirley calling uselessly after him.

When they reached Shirley’s office, only Marvin Goodkin was there, his face livid. “Would you believe what monkey had the gall to come up here? He went when he saw me coming.”

Shirley was peeling the fancy wrapping paper away from the large, flat object marked fragile. A note fell out, and before she could bend to it, Marvin picked it up.

“Hey, that’s mine!” Shirley said without effect.

“Arthur,” Marvin said, “listen to this.
Dear Miss Hartman—
he’s written it in hand
—
a token of our appreciation. If you don’t collect autographs, the dealer whose sticker is on the reverse side, will take it back for 90% of the selling price.

The frame, which measured nearly two feet square, had an old portrait of Lincoln, looking sad, and near it, an entire page of holograph letter signed “A. Lincoln” in that familiar script.

“That’s one of the bastard’s old dodges,” said Arthur to Marvin. “You take the payola back to the dealer, get your cash minus ten percent, and don’t report a thing on your income tax.”

“Thank you,” said Shirley, “I was wondering what I’d do with it.”

“You’re not going to keep it?” asked Arthur.

“No. Considering what happened to the slaves after Lincoln freed them, I think I’ll cash it in.”

Marvin’s mouth was within two feet of her face when he said, “You’re supposed to be working for us!”

“I guess last night I was working for him.”

“You cunt,” said Marvin.

There was a moment of silence, then Shirley turned away.

“You shouldn’t have said that,” said Arthur, watching Shirley gathering her papers into her attaché case and hurrying out of her office toward the elevators.

“I’d like to smash that,” said Marvin at the Lincoln.

“It’s her private property,” said Twitchy, standing guard.

Marvin, about to say something to Twitchy, felt Arthur’s hand on his arm.

Arthur had a strange expression on his face. He had just had a fleeting vision of Bittelman in a great big bed with the other eight accounts Caiden had taken with him, now joined by Shirley Hartman, and all of them laughing at him.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

NOW THAT HIS PROJECT had its own momentum, Al liked to work on it undisturbed in the mornings. If the weather was glorious and the season spring, the sight outside his study window was distraction enough. The worst intruder was the telephone.

He tried an answering service. He would call in after he had finished a morning’s work. The women at the answering service took pity on him because he usually had no messages.