Alison Lurie - The Nowhere City

“I’m sorry,” Katherine apologized, realizing Mona had spoken. “What did you say?”

“I just asked what’s your birth-date.” Katherine told her. “Uh-huh. You have an adventurous temperament,” (Katherine smiled at this miscalculation) “balanced by strong practical capabilities, same as my mother.”

“Thank you.”

“Hey, about this pool foulup,” Mona continued. “Now you’re working for Glory, you oughta convince her she should get after those bastards that built it. I mean you could write a letter or something, tell them they don’t fix it up right she’ll get a lawyer. I bet they could fix it if they wanted to. And it would really do a lot for her morale.”

“Um,” Katherine said. It was a new idea to her that by agreeing to answer Glory’s fan mail she had somehow become responsible for her welfare in general. But perhaps a good secretary was, in a way, responsible. ... “All right. I’ll try to mention it.”

“Great. You do that; and I tell you what, if you don’t get any results, I’ll ask this friend of mine to go see them. He could give them a real scare if he wants.”

Iz had told her, Katherine recalled, that Mona was the girlfriend of one Piero Pasanetti, a restaurant owner with underworld connections.

“I mean, gee, we gotta do something,” Mona continued, looking at Katherine earnestly out of her great dark eyes. “You see the way she is. Sh.”

Glory dragged her robe (grimy at the hem, Katherine noticed) across the patio and sat down wearily.

“What was that?” Mona asked.

“My date from last night.” She felt her hair again. Katherine became extra attentive. If she had been sent here to spy, Glory was certainly playing into her hands.

“Oh, R—”

“Uh huh.” Glory shook her head at Mona not to mention the name. “The poor guy, that little creep Brian walked out on him again about five A.M. this morning and didn’t come back yet. He’s practically flipping.”

“He oughta be glad. You think maybe the kid’s gone for good?”

“Nah, he’ll be back soon as he runs out of loot.” Glory began to take her curlers off, releasing one by one what looked like coils of pink embroidery floss. “The only thing going to get Brian out of that set-up, is if he ever makes it on his own, which that no-talent little fag isn’t going to in a thousand years, or else he crawls on to somebody he thinks will do his big nowhere career more good.” The door-bell rang. “Ah, for shit’s sake. This is getting to be like a vaudeville routine. ... Mona, honey. Could you go? I’ve about had it for this afternoon.” Mona yawned and rose. “Thanks, hon.”

Glory continued taking down her hair. Her face was now surrounded by silvery-pink serpentine curls. In her matching pink terry-cloth robe, she resembled a Walt Disney Medusa.

“Ah, screw it all,” she murmured, making a Disney grimace.

“What’s the matter?”

“Aw, nothing. ... It just gets me down, that’s all, a decent guy like, like my friend I was just talking to on the phone, has to be hooked on other guys and go through all that crap. If you ever want to see a fucked-up relationship you got to take a look at the queers. I mean when you get two guys living together, then you really have a dumb scene.”

Katherine had come to this house as to the camp of a heartless and soulless enemy. Now, finally, she realized that Glory was not trying to embarrass her or frighten her, but speaking sincerely in her own terms.

“I suppose most homosexuals are pretty unbalanced emotionally,” she suggested, trying to reciprocate. “I mean I really haven’t known many, but—”

“It’s not just them. It’s men. All men.” Glory stared ahead stonily, as if over a landscape of exposed and petrified heroes. But then her face softened, and she murmured: “Well, that’s the way they are, they can’t help it, I guess. ... Men are all children. In the end, you just take the child whose personality you go for most.”

“You might be right.” Katherine thought, nodding. Yes, that’s how it is—and then had to remind herself that the man Glory’s conclusions were based on was not someone like Paul, but Dr. Einsam.

“Hey, there’s a kid wants to see you,” Mona said, coming out of the house. “Some teenager. ... Listen,” (she lowered her voice to a whisper of crisis) “I think it might be that one that made all the trouble. She looks kinda like the picture that was in the Mirror.”

“For Christ’s sake. Did you let her in?”

“No. I didn’t know what to tell her, so I said I didn’t know if you were here.”

“So what does she want?”

“I d’know, she wants to see you. She’s all charged up and talking kind of kooky.”

“Well, I don’t want to see her. She’s got no business coming up here. Tell her I’m not home, and you don’t know when I’ll be back ... Huh?”

“Uh, okay.” With obviously reluctance, Mona re-entered the house. Presently Katherine and Glory, sitting in silence, heard the door slam.

“She said she’ll try later,” Mona reported. “Maybe you oughta call up Maxie, huh?”

“Yeah.” Glory half rose from her chair, then fell back. “You know if I go on bugging Maxie all the time about this business, he’s really going to get sick and tired of it. He was kidding me yesterday, if I wanta keep on this kick I should better find myself another agent with no ulcers.” Glory mimicked Maxie’s voice. “You know, kidding.”

“You better call him,” Mona said. “You don’t know what flippy thing that girl has in mind, coming up here.”

Glory frowned and ran her hands through her pink silk hair. “What do you think I should do?” she asked Katherine.

“I don’t know.” Both flattered and frightened to be consulted, Katherine thought a moment. “I guess I would telephone your agent.”

“Okay.” Again Glory rose, and again subsided. “Ah, hell, I can’t do it now, he’s already left the office. It’s after five. ... Well, I could ring his house and leave him a message.”

After five? Katherine had completely forgotten the time. She should have started home an hour ago. She said so, and stood up; taking Glory’s cardboard box under her arm, she promised to answer the fan letters and return for more next week.

Why, I really quite like her, Katherine thought, as she crossed the yard and let herself out of the gate. She’s not at all what I thought. She has a hard life, really.

Ee! She jumped, and nearly screamed, as a figure burst out from behind an oleander bush, rushed headlong towards her, and then stopped suddenly, breathing hard. It was a girl dressed in the extremest Hollywood manner, with a tangle of teased yellow hair, frantic heavily made-up eyes, and a blurred violent mouth. “You’re not her,” she gasped, staring through Katherine rather than at her. “Listen, is Miss Green in there? I have to see her.”

“She’s not home.” Katherine told her first lie for Glory, to lend it verisimilitude looking straight at the girl—at the child, she realized, for under that heavy paint she was very young. “What’s the trouble?” she added in a more maternal or at least aunt-like tone.

The intruder did not answer, but her wild eyes focused on Katherine, and seemed to register her existence.

“Who’re you?” she asked. “Are you in films?”

“No,” Katherine said. “I’m Miss Green’s secretary. What did you want with her?”

Plunging forward again, the girl clutched Katherine’s arm with a small plump hand that ended in violet-enameled claws. “I want a screen test,” she breathed, staring into her eyes with what seemed intended for hypnotic intensity. “I’m terribly photogenic—look at my profile; no, the other’s better. You can fix it for me. You’re her secretary, you can tell her—Bobi Brentwood, B-O-B-I, not Y. Do you like it? My name—I made it up myself. I know tap soft shoe and ballet and I’m starting voice. All I want is a chance, just a chance; my coach says I have a sexual voice quality—Madame Carmelita Woodruff, you can ask her; ask anybody about Bobi Brentwood. I just know I have star potential.”