John Irving - Until I Find You

Jack was glad he was alone in the men’s room; there was no one to observe his embarrassing struggle—or so he thought. Suddenly he saw, at the opposite end of the row of urinals, that there was someone else there. The fellow appeared to have finished with his business; no one could help but notice how Jack was failing to do his.

The man was broad-shouldered, with a weightlifter’s crafted body and an unbreakable-looking jaw. Jack didn’t recognize him right away, nor did he remember that the former bodybuilder had been a presenter; from Jack’s perspective, the opposite end of the row of urinals seemed a football field away. But Jack had no trouble identifying the big man’s inimitable Austrian accent.

“Would you like me to give you a hand with that?” Arnold Schwarzenegger asked.

“No, thank you—I can manage,” Jack answered.

“Goodness, I hope he meant he would give you a hand with the Oscar !” Miss Wurtz said later, when Jack told her the story. Well, of course Arnold had meant the Oscar—he was just being nice! (That the future governor of California might have been offering to hold Jack’s penis was unthinkable!)

It was bedlam backstage. At the next television commercial, Jack went back to his seat in the auditorium; he didn’t want to leave Miss Wurtz unattended. She might ask Harvey Weinstein about his greatest fights, Jack was thinking. Or, God forbid, what if there were a power outage and Miss Wurtz suffered an uncontrollable flashback to her experience in the bat-cave exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum? But by then the evening was winding down; The Slush-Pile Reader had won its only Oscar. It was American Beauty ’s night, but it was Jack’s night and Emma’s night, too.

Miss Wurtz was perplexed that she could see no evidence of dancing at the Board of Governors Ball—the dinner party at the Shrine Auditorium after the Academy Awards. No amount of explaining could convince her that ball was an acceptable description of the occasion, but what did Jack care? He was happy.

They ate dinner at a table with Meryl Streep, who’d brought her daughter. Jack could see the wheels of The Wurtz’s mind spinning: here was that woman from Sophie’s Choice with an actual, living child! Jack told Erica that he thought they should leave and go to another party before Caroline committed whatever she was imagining to words.

They went to the Vanity Fair party at Morton’s next; Erica got them there somehow. Jack remembered how long he and Emma had waited to get into that party the night he’d been nominated but didn’t win the Oscar. It makes a difference when you win. Their limo driver waved the gold, bald, naked man out the window and they were swiftly ushered through the traffic. Hugh Hefner (among others) appeared to have arrived before them; probably Hugh had come early because he hadn’t been at the Shrine. The Playboy founding publisher had those twins with him—Sandy and Mandy.

Miss Wurtz was more incensed at Hef than she’d been at the anti-pornography people. “What does that dirty old man think he’s doing with those young girls?” Caroline said to Erica and Jack.

Rob Lowe and Mike Meyers and Dennis Miller were all talking about something, but they stopped the second Jack got near them. When that happened to him around men, Jack couldn’t help but think that they’d been talking about him as a girl. As it happened, Jack was on his way to the men’s room again—although this time he’d left his Academy Award with Erica and Miss Wurtz.

They went next to the Miramax party at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel. Jack knew that Richard and Wild Bill would be there; he just wanted to be with friends. Miss Wurtz once more avoided making any prizefighter references to Harvey Weinstein.

Caroline had a little too much champagne. Jack had a beer—a green bottle of Heineken, which looked especially green alongside the gold of his Oscar. (He couldn’t remember when he’d last had a whole beer—maybe when he was a college student.)

Then there was a breakfast party in another area of the Beverly Hills Hotel. They went to that, too. It must have started at three or four in the morning. Roger Ebert was there; he was eating his breakfast on a bed, which Jack found peculiar. Jack was nice to him, although Roger had savaged The Slush-Pile Reader. Roger’s wife and daughter were very nice; they informed Miss Wurtz that they’d liked the movie. It pleased Jack to think that he and Emma might have caused an argument in the Ebert family.

It was about 5:00 A.M. when Jack told Miss Wurtz that he was tired and wanted to go to bed. “We can go back to our hotel, Jack,” she told him, “but you can’t go to bed. Not until you tell me about the second time in Amsterdam.” She’d had it on her mind the whole night, The Wurtz went on to say. She knew she couldn’t sleep until she heard the story.

Jack told Erica that they had to leave, and she rode with them in the limo back to the Four Seasons. On a side street in Beverly Hills, they got stuck behind a garbage truck—the only traffic they encountered at that time on a Monday morning. The smell of the garbage wafted over them in their limousine, as if to remind Jack—even with his newly won Oscar in hand—that there are some things you can’t escape, and they will find you.

Jack was okay telling Miss Wurtz about the Amsterdam business; only the end of the story was difficult. Dr. García would have been proud of him—no tears, no shouting. When Jack told Caroline how his heart wasn’t in that first meeting with Richard Gladstein and William Vanvleck—that he kept thinking about the other William—the southern California sun was streaming in the open windows of the living room of the two-bedroom suite at the Four Seasons. Miss Wurtz and Jack were seated on the couch in their matching white terry-cloth bathrobes—their bare feet on the glass-topped coffee table, where the Oscar gleamed. Caroline’s toenails were painted a rose-pink color. The sunlight seemed especially bright on her toenails, and on the Oscar—and on the lustrous black piano, which was shining like a pool of oil.

“Don’t look at my feet, Jack,” Miss Wurtz said. “My feet are the oldest part of me. I must have been born feet first.”

But Jack Burns was miles away, in the dark of night—the streetlights reflecting in the Herengracht canal. Richard Gladstein and Wild Bill Vanvleck and Jack had been talking in the restaurant called Zuid Zeeland, and Wild Bill’s much younger girlfriend—Anneke, the anchorwoman—was looking restless and bored. (How much fun is it to be young and green-eyed and beautiful, and have three men talking to one another and ignoring you—especially when they’re talking about how to make a movie from a novel you haven’t read?)

As little as Jack’s heart was in it, he saw that he and Richard and Wild Bill were all on the same page; they seemed to agree about what needed tweaking in the script, and about the tone the film must have. Richard’s eyes kept closing—he was falling asleep because of his jet lag. Wild Bill was teasing him, to the effect that Richard was not allowed to fall asleep before he signed the check. “Producers pay the bills!” Vanvleck was chanting; he was a man who loved his red wine.

Out on the Herengracht, Richard woke up a little in the damp night air. It seemed inevitable to Jack now that Wild Bill would suggest a stroll through the red-light district, but it took him by surprise at the time. When they walked past the first few girls in their windows and doorways, Jack could tell that Richard was wide awake. Anneke was still bored. Jack had the feeling that Wild Bill took all his out-of-town friends on a tour of the red-light district; after all, it was the homicide territory of his TV series and he knew the district well. (Almost as well as Jack knew it, but Jack didn’t let on that he’d ever been there before.)