Living Room (21 page)

“Shacking up in Bermuda with a guy I met.”

“Don’t be smart-ass with me, Shirley, where were you?”

“It’s none of your business. You’re leaning on my desk.”

“It’s my desk. It belongs to the company. You’re just using it. Shirley, this is a business, not a social club, you can’t just do what you want to do like an undisciplined child. You missed the most important presentation of our fiscal year.
We
had to make your presentation on Ford.”

“How’d it go?”

Arthur, his wind gone, scrunched down into a chair and glared at the fingernails of his left hand.

“Rodgers agreed to present it in Dearborn.”

Shirley was jubilant. “Why didn’t you say so right away?!” She came around her desk and squatted down near the chair Arthur sat in. “Arthur, what’s the matter with you, when things go bad, you’re unhappy, when things go great you’re unhappy, when are you happy?”

“Rodgers had a lot of stipulations.”

“Like what, for heaven’s sake?”

“Rodgers and Billings want to use you as the model.”

“Wasn’t that the idea of Shirley’s car? What’s so
bad
,
Arthur?”

He looked at her. Their faces were a foot apart.

Quietly, he said, “You, Shirley. I had to level with them. I explained your absence, I apologized for you, I said you had some kind of female complaint that immobilized you once a month.”

“Shit, Arthur.”

“I had to say something. I told them you were very creative but very undependable.”

“Blacks, females, who else?”

“Well, are you? I couldn’t rely on you if my life depended on it.”

“If it was your life, Arthur, I’d be there. I like you. Sometimes I don’t like you as a business person.”

“I told Billings and Rodgers they’d have to shoot the whole campaign up front.”

“Because I’m unreliable and might not show?”

“I said because we didn’t want to take a chance on you getting hit by a truck in the middle of a model year.”

“Are you hiring the truck?”

Twitchy buzzed. Shirley sprang to her feet, poked the intercom button. “It’s Mary Wood.”

“Not now,” said Shirley, “I’ll call her back.”

“Marvin’s very unhappy about their reaction to your package. He still thinks it’s too eccentric to work.”

“Marvin is a clod.”

“Marvin is creative director of this agency, and if you weren’t you he’d be your boss, not me.”

“The idea of a boss repels me.”

“Then why didn’t you stay home and knit instead of getting involved in a profession?”

“A what?”

“Profession,” he said loudly.

“Shhh. I just wanted to hear you say it again.”

Arthur used Shirley’s phone to get Marvin on the intercom. “You’d better come in here.”

Twitchy brought in two cups of coffee. “Make it three,” said Arthur, just as Marvin came in.

“Hello, Shirley. What’ve you told her, Arthur?”

“Start from scratch.”

Marvin was a pacer, a wolf on hind legs with a faint resemblance to Groucho Marx without Groucho’s humor or wit. He strode across Shirley’s carpet, then stopped and pronounced: “You’re getting a five-grand raise, effective immediately.”

“Thanks,” said Shirley.

“That didn’t sound like ‘thanks,’” said Marvin.

“I
didn’t know you wanted me to bound up and kiss your ass.”

Marvin blushed.

“Several millions of billings,” said Shirley. “Five grand sounds like a tip, not a raise.”

Marvin looked to Arthur for help.

“You handle it,” said Arthur.

“Okay. Shirley, they want you to be part of meetings all through the campaign. They want you to come to Dearborn once a month for three days, they’ll pay first-class air and go for a suite at the Pontchartrain.”

“I hate Detroit.”

“They’re not going to move their headquarters to accommodate you.”

“It’s part of the deal,” said Arthur.

“Yes,” continued Marvin, pacing. “Also they want you to play down the Jewish angle.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Don’t get tight,” said Marvin. “Ford is said to have had a bad rep on Jews in the early days. They think using you is good for the image, but they also don’t want to overdo it.”

“Most people don’t know what I am. I don’t know that I know what I am.”

“Shirley,” Arthur interjected, “don’t you realize what a step this is for them? Ford is the place that invented standard interchangeable parts. For them to go with such an individualized campaign and become dependent in any way on any one person is revolutionary.”

“It’s business suicide in my opinion,” added Marvin.

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll have a back-up campaign,” said Shirley, “just in case.”

“You bet your sweet bird of paradise I will.”

“Now wait a minute,” said Arthur. “Let’s not get off the trolley again. Rodgers says they are going to have to make changes in order to accommodate the car to the campaign. They’re all for your innovations, Shirley, but it locks their manufacturing into this campaign, don’t you see? They want you to sign a contract.”

“With you?”

“With them.”

“Compensation?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“They’re still working on it.”

“What are the hitches?”

“Well, there’ll have to be some changes from what you’ve got now….”

Shirley turned her back on them, gazed out the window at St. Patrick’s, hanging on to the view. After a minute she said, “I don’t intend to become an indentured servant to a motor-car company.”

“Arthur,” said Marvin, “I told you this whole thing stank with problems from the start.”

“Let everyone calm down,” said Arthur. His hand on Marvin’s shoulder dug in.

“Shit,” said Marvin.

“The room you want,” said Shirley, “is outside and down the hall.”

“Come on, kids,” said Arthur. “There are six million things that need doing fast and we’re getting nowhere. Marv, tell her the stipulations.”

“Oh, there’s more?”

“Because of the nature of the campaign,” said Marvin, “they want you to sign a personal-services contract.”

“What the hell kind of personal services?”

“Clean your mind, Shirley. They want you to agree to make personal appearances in the top thirty markets in connection with the campaign, and—”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, Marvin, that sounds like Hollywood!”

“Now Shirley,” said Arthur, “look at it as a free trip around the United States—”

“I’m a copywriter, not an actress!”

“Shirley,” Arthur tried to calm her, “it’s just to satisfy them.”

“It’s unreasonable.”

“Not with the investment they’re making,” said Marvin.

“You can’t buy my private life. You get my
work,
not me.”

“It wasn’t my idea to personalize this campaign, it was yours,” said Marvin.

“The campaign yes, me no. Look Arthur, it’s not too late. Sell them Marvin’s straight campaign and fire me.”

“Cass is very enthusiastic about this. He and Billings think it might be a breakthrough, push them ahead of Chevy, make them number one. We can’t go back now.”

“In other words,” said Shirley, “you need me.”

“Yes,” said Arthur.

“As an indentured starlet.”

“No use bullshitting you Shirley, it’s part of the mix.”

“I’ll have to think about it.”

“It’s too late to think.”

“May I quote you?”

“Shirley,” said Arthur in his mildest voice. “Please?”

“Thank you for the please. I haven’t heard a word like that today.”

“You’ll do this for me?” asked Arthur.

“If I do it, it’s for the company, Arthur. We don’t count.”

For a split second, Marvin believed her. Then Shirley laughed, thinking of the changing room on the boat in Bermuda.

“Look, I need to sleep on this. I’ve got to return a call or two, check my mail and think. Let’s get together on this tomorrow at ten.”

“Can we do it at dinner tonight, the three of us?” asked Arthur.

“I’ve got a dinner date.”

“Change it. It can’t be as important as getting this off the ground.”

“Make it ten tomorrow.”

“Nine?”

“Okay, nine. Won’t that screw up your commuting schedule, Marvin?”

“I can take an early train.”

“Don’t strain yourself.”

Marvin would have loved to smash Shirley over the head with something. He would have bought a contract on her life. He looked at the vase of flowers. Then, as his eye scanned the area, it caught the framed letter hanging behind her chair.

His voice almost inaudible, he said, “Take that down.”

“I’ll decorate my office any damn way I please.”

“That was a private apology. It wasn’t meant to hang in public view,” Marvin snarled.

Arthur seemed amused.

“What’s so funny?” said Marvin. “I was apologizing for one word, that’s all.”

“If the writer of that apology,” said Shirley, “made it sound like a general apology, I’d be happy to hang the writer in its place, but nothing else. I like the idea of it hanging there. You’ll have to face it every time you’re in here, Marvin. Maybe you won’t come in here so often, which would be an improvement on the situation right now.”

“I think we’d better go,” said Arthur, pulling Marvin’s sleeve.

“Bye,” said Shirley, then into the intercom: “Get me Mary Wood, please,” as Arthur tailgated the furious Marvin out of the room.

“Mary, this is Shirley. You called.”

“Where’ve you been?” An odd note in Mary’s voice. Her question wasn’t a question.

“Have you been talking to Al?”

“I heard about your weekend.”

“Oh,” said Shirley.

“He’s nice, isn’t he?”

“What did he tell you?”

“He doesn’t lie to me.”

“I don’t like the idea of you two discussing me.”

“We weren’t discussing you, Shirley. We were discussing us.”

“What does that mean?”

Mary did not answer immediately.

“Look,” said Shirley, “maybe we’d better discuss this later.”

Furious, Shirley stared at the hung-up phone. What kind of triangle was she involved in? Or was it a quadrangle?

She dialed Al’s number.

“Good morning,” she said.

The line was humming.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Thank you for the trip. I had a call from Mary…”

“I
asked her not to call you.”

“Al, we have to talk this over. Two guys want me at a business meeting and I said I had a date. I don’t want to come out a liar. Can we meet?”

“Sure.” His voice sounded unsure.

“There’s a lot I don’t understand.”

They fixed a time and place, then Shirley buzzed for Twitchy. No response. She looked outside her office. Twitchy wasn’t at her desk. She figured Twitchy was in the art department with Henry Brown as usual.

As soon as Shirley was round the corner of the long hallway, Marvin Goodkin slipped into her office, checked her diary, then saw the phone number on her notepad and copied it. Back in his office, he got a private investigative agency on the phone that he had used once before. He told them what he wanted. “Yes,” he said, “bill the agency, but send the bills to me for approval. Can you use that letterhead, same as the last time? Right. I’m sure you’ll succeed. Thank you.”

If Arthur was fooling around with Shirley, he had quite a surprise coming when he saw the report of her extracurricular activities. For the first time in a week, Marvin Goodkin felt happy. Mischief was the thrust of his life. Especially if it could hurt someone who rubbed him the wrong way.

CHAPTER TWENTY

SINCE AL WOULD BE COMING IN from out of town, Shirley had said they’d meet at the restaurant. His table, when she asked the maitre d’, was in a corner, against a wall of wine bottles; there were four place settings. The bus boy asked how many there would be. “Two,” said Shirley.

She was wrong. Al came in the door almost immediately, leading Mary by the arm. As they joined her, the confused busboy put the plates and silver back.

“Hello, Shirley,” said Mary.

“Good evening,” said Al.

She nodded at each as they took their seats. Al, his face over close to Mary’s, finished telling her some story begun before they arrived. It didn’t make sense to Shirley; nothing made sense.

“Excuse us,” said Mary, “I just had to hear the end of that.”