Howard Norman - Next Life Might Be Kinder

“Oh, yes, sorry,” I said. I went back down the stairs. In the lobby I saw that my copy of the paper was gone, so I purchased a second one. I would not have wanted Lizzy to see the defacements on the obituary page anyway. In our apartment again, I handed the newspaper to Elizabeth. “Coffee, a newspaper, a husband who doesn’t care that his wife woke up looking like a hag — what more could a girl want?” To my eyes, Elizabeth looked sweet, funny, and sexy. The strap of her nightgown had fallen to partially reveal a breast, but she lifted the strap back up. I was aroused, yet, curse of curses, I knew I should relate this new incident with Padgett to her, and sooner rather than later.

Elizabeth wore the same black dress for the third lindy lesson. She had tried her best to bring me up to speed on the first two, despite my utter lack of dance skills. I could trip on thin air. Stumble on a shoelace even if I was wearing buckle shoes. (These insults courtesy of Arnie Moran.) Still, we had a good time.

I put on a dark gray sports coat, a white shirt, a bow tie that Elizabeth bought me to wear for the lessons, dark slacks, black socks with brown triangles, and black shoes, all buffed and shined. I sat at the kitchen table watching Elizabeth tip a small bottle of perfume to her finger, then touch her finger behind each ear and behind her knees.

“Who’d be down there to notice perfume?” I said.

“It’s me knowing it’s there, my love. It’s me knowing. Later, when it’s mixed with sweat from the lindy, you’ll know where to find it. Remember what Myrna Loy once said, it’s got to be my favorite line of hers: ‘He left fingerprints of perfume behind my knees.’ Now that is what I call sexy.”

“Let’s skip the lesson.”

“No, it’s your first. It’s my third. You’re married to a more experienced woman.”

When we entered the ballroom, I immediately looked around for Alfonse Padgett. He was nowhere to be seen. The jukebox was already at work. The Boswell Sisters again. Just from the way the couples were warming up, I could tell they’d attained some confidence over the weeks. Arnie Moran, dressed in his customary getup, saw us and came right over. “Mrs. Lattimore, Mr. Lattimore,” he said, greeting us disingenuously. “Mrs. Lattimore, I’ve taken the liberty — did Mr. Budnick mention? I’ve arranged for a furniture restorer, Mr. Abraham Kaufner. You may have seen his window on Young Street. He does excellent work. His card is waiting for you at the front desk. I want you both to know that I have asked bellman Padgett not to attend my classes. In fact, I reimbursed his entire fee out of pocket.”

“My understanding was,” Elizabeth said, “when Derek Budnick interviewed the creep bellman Padgett, he didn’t mention what had been damaged and in whose room. So how come you knew there was a reason to tell us about this Mr. Kaufner?”

“I’ll own up. I heard the details from Padgett.”

“Mr. Moran,” Elizabeth said, “you’re pathetic. You only disallowed Alfonse Padgett because Derek Budnick told you to disallow Alfonse Padgett. Or Mr. Isherwood did. You let Padgett — how would he say it? — ‘put the fix in.’ You arranged this Mr. Kaufner only because you feel guilty. But I will call Mr. Kaufner. And I thank you for that reference. Okay, I’ve had my say. My husband and I are paid up in full for the lessons, and everybody’s waiting.” Elizabeth then clasped Arnie Moran’s shoulders with her hands, turned him around, and shoved him toward the bandstand.

Stepping up gingerly to the microphone, Arnie Moran said, “Yowza! Yowza! Yowza!”

“A bit rough on our dance instructor, maybe,” I said.

“Sam, let’s agree on everything else.”

Elizabeth moved us a few feet to the left and held me, ready for the lindy. She was all concentration now.

In our apartment after the lesson, Elizabeth said, “I consider Arnie Moran to hold creep-number-ten position in our hotel. Alfonse Padgett is one through nine.” She sat on the chaise longue. “Still, a lot of progress was made tonight, don’t you think?”

“Are you referring to the lindy?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I think you’re the wild swan of the dance floor, Lizzy. It’s like a time warp dancing with you. It’s like I was in 1935 or something.”

“It was your first lesson. I think you only got back to, oh, about 1954.”

“Behind your ears, the back of your knees, that inspired me a lot.”

Elizabeth kicked off her shoes. “Like the cookbooks say, I’m spiced to taste.”

THE SECOND TIME I went to the shoot, Lily Svetgartot spotted me well back in the gathering of onlookers. It was another scene shot at night. I’d arrived at the Essex Hotel in my pickup at eleven-fifteen P.M. The lobby was full of lighting equipment. In this scene, actor-Padgett was getting instructions from actor-Isherwood on how to water a big plant near a corner sofa. “Three glasses of water per day,” actor-Isherwood said. “Can you count that high, bellman Padgett?” Actor-Padgett laughed, but when actor-Isherwood turned back toward the registration counter, a menacing scowl completely occupied actor-Padgett’s face.

“Cut!” Istvakson said. He consulted with the cinematographer, Akutagawa. “Let’s continue on in the script. Start with the scowl.”

The actors took their places. “Action!” Istvakson said. After actor-Padgett scowled, he turned and walked with a glass of water to a tall floor plant with outsize fronds. He noticed a mug of coffee and a plate holding half a croissant that had been left on the table next to the sofa. He lifted the glass of water to his mouth and drank it down. Blocking sight of the coffee cup from actor-Isherwood with his body, actor-Padgett emptied the coffee into the soil of the planter. He then turned and walked to the registration counter, holding the glass and the coffee mug, both now on the plate. He held up the plate and said, “What’s the world coming to, eh, Mr. Isherwood? What’s the world of this lovely hotel lobby coming to? People leave trash right out in public.”

“Cut! That’s a wrap!” Istvakson said, and Lily Svetgartot tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and she said, “Got a minute?”

Well out of sight of Istvakson, she led me to her room and shut the door behind us. “Mr. Istvakson is impossible today,” she said. She poured herself a whiskey and threw it back. She held up the bottle and got a look on her face that said, Want a drink? I shook my head no. “Istvakson can be a real asshole. Excuse my Canadian English.”

“You asked if I had a minute.”

We were leaning against opposite walls in her small room. The bed was made, hospital corners and all. I noticed a second bottle of whiskey on the bedside table.

“Mr. Lattimore — Sam, if I may. I saw you the other night, too, when you came to the shoot. Which you swore you’d never do. And I gave that some thinking. I devoted some thinking to why you’d come to the shoot. And I hypothesized — if that’s the word. I hypothesized that Mr. Istvakson is the devil you made a deal with, and who doesn’t hate the devil? You had your reasons, Sam, to sell the movie rights to your tragedy, and Mr. Istvakson, once he gets obsessed with a story, he won’t let go of it. I hypothesized that this is what actually has happened.

“But now you are tortured by this whole movie thing. Of course you are. But how can you not know this — the movie is not your story. The story of you and your wife Elizabeth is not really what Mr. Istvakson is obsessed with. Big cliché, no? Big, big, big, maybe the biggest cliché. No, Mr. Istvakson is interested only in his version of tragedy, not in your actual tragedy. He’s not making a documentary. He rewrites your life, your marriage, the murder of your beautiful wife. He paid you — I did my research — one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars. You signed on.”