Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

Maybe it simply came too late.

She cried alone that night.

She lay naked on the bed in the house at Malibu with the sound of the surf rushing up under the timbers, the sticky feel of salt on everything, the sheets soggy, she cried. She cried into the pillow because she knew intuitively that this was the break, this would do it, this was the opening door. She had never really felt this way before, all the things she’d done, the good things and the bad, had never made her feel this way before, she knew this was the one. And knowing it, felt empty. Knowing it, knowing this was only the beginning for her, the fat supporting role in a picture with three top stars, a picture that would have all the ballyhoo bandwagon behind it, a picture that would probably advertise “And introducing Gillian Burke,” she felt empty.

Introducing Gillian Burke, she thought.

And the machinery would whir into motion, and there would be the concocted stories of the overnight success, the dream to feed the kiddies on, this is the story of the overnight success, last night was seventeen years ago when she left home and took the apartment near the river and started classes in a loft with an old man named Igor Vodorin, that was last night, and tonight is this morning, and she was thirty-five years old. And seventeen years of hope and rejection and solid dedication to a premise never doubted and always doubted in a secret corner of the mind, do I have it, do I really have it? seventeen years of extending the deadline, I’ll give it another year, seventeen years of watching that girl child march from a glittering wide-eyed youthful hopefulness into a professional attitude of competence and restraint, and then into a barely disguised hopelessness, this was the culminating event of those seventeen years, the door was swinging wide, a big supporting role in a three-star picture, this was it, this was the reward.

But too late to be a reward.

Too late to be anything . Too late to provoke anything but tears, this was success, hold it in your hand, clutch it tight, it was meaningless. I knew it all along, she could tell herself, I knew this would happen, I know what will happen next, I have dreamed of it often enough, I have gone to sleep with it in my mind, and awakened with the taste of it in my mouth, I knew this would happen one day, and I know what is coming, I can feel it, but it doesn’t excite me, and I can only lie here with my head buried in the pillow and cry.

She did not feel like telling anyone.

It was odd that Monica wasn’t home. It was odd that on the night it came, Monica was out, and there was no one to tell.

She used to tell people. She used to say, “I’ll be on Dragnet next week, watch for me,” until she learned that all the Dragnets in the world did not add up to very much unless this happened, so she stopped telling them. Her agent knew when she would be on, and he informed the people who counted, and they watched — maybe — but the others didn’t matter, the others followed her progress with only a fleeting interest. She was to them a fringe celebrity, they knew someone who was in a play over in Westport, they knew someone who was going to be on television Thursday night. But they also knew private secretaries and they knew receptionists and editorial assistants, and this girl, this Gillian Burke, was only another person with a job, a slightly more glamorous job, but certainly nothing to go shouting about, a fringe celebrity, yes, someone who could give you the inside story on some of the big stars she’d worked with on the edges of the crowd scene, “Is it true what they say about...?” but not someone to consider very seriously because she had not yet been touched by the magic wand of success. She could be as successful as the most successful secretary they knew, but the standards were different here. And so, until this came along, until she exploded on the scene as an overnight sensation, and she knew it would happen, there was no doubt in her mind now that it would happen, until success came big and gaudy, why, then she was a failure. Even though she worked as steadily as the receptionist or the editorial assistant, even though she probably earned more money each year than they did, why, everyone knew — and so did Gillian — that she was a failure. So she stopped asking them to watch for her here and there. She simply went about her business knowing, believing, trying to maintain belief, that one day she would make it.

And now here it was.

And tears.

Too late. Too much hoping. Too much waiting for that phone to ring, announcing this . And staring at the phone silent. Black and silent. Should I call my agent? A pride in the silence of failure. A hopeless, ridiculous pride, I won’t call him. I’ll wait. And waiting. And waiting. And the phone silent. And the call never coming. I’m Gillian Burke. I want a pock in the play. Well, here it is, she thought. A man on a shining white horse has galloped into your life, a ridiculous man with a big nose and eyeglasses, a man who makes me laugh, a man who is making me cry right now, Herbert Floren, knight on a charger, here he is, and he has told the others, he has spread the word, a supporting role on the wide screen in full color with stereophonic sound, russet hair whipping in the wind, green eyes flashing, here it is, Gillian Burke, here’s your part in the play, take it, a gift from God, take it, spend it, enjoy it. Now the pattern will change, now there will be success tucked behind your ear like a flower, the overnight success that took only seventeen years. But it will be just that to the others, Gillian, never forget that. This is the land of the jackpot, this is the land of the quiz show and the newspaper contest, and in the eyes of others you have struck it rich, your ship has come in, you’ve pulled the little lever and scored three oranges and now those quarters will come spilling out of the little spout and cover your feet in shining silver, you were lucky, you are an overnight success.

Please, please, she thought, why do I feel bitter?

Success does not come with soaring elation.

Success comes with a sudden taste of blood and a feeling of utter loneliness. Tears alone on a salt-sodden pillow. Alone.

How do you wear success?

You wear it the way you wore failure, I suppose.

You wear it in your throat and on your face. You are a failure because you’re daring to go for the biggest prize, and you haven’t yet reached it. So you duck people on the street, you see them coming, old acquaintances, and you duck into a doorway and study the items in a shop window, seemingly absorbed in the display, and you lift the collar of your coat because you’re ashamed of failure. You do not want them to say, “I hear you’re up for such and such a part,” you do not want that look of pity and curiosity, she’s not as young as she used to be, there are age wrinkles around her eyes. Character, you say to yourself, they give my face character. Did you notice the wrinkles, they whisper, why does she keep trying, isn’t she grown up enough now to quit this nonsense? So you lift the collar of your coat, and you find the empty doorway and duck the old friend, it is shameful to dream. How can you dream in the midst of concrete and steel? How can you dream? I wore failure like a cloak. And I’ll wear success the same way, and they’ll say, She ducks her old friends now that she’s been lucky, now that she’s an overnight success.

Yes.

I will avoid the dead.

I will avoid those with the dead dreams, those who stepped on their dreams and squashed them flat, who forgot there were ever such things as dreams or dreamers, who knew dreams only in the eyes of others, and who pitied those, and who told themselves dreams were for idiots, yes, I will avoid the dead men with their dead dreams, yes.