The Princess Bride

'This is a recorded announcement. The number you have dialed is not in working order. Please hang up and...'

'...nope...'

Sandy really upset now. Glaring, gathering debris.

'...who reads Morgenstern today?...'

Sandy going, going, gorgeous, gone.

Bye, Sandy. Sorry, Sandy.

'...sorry, we're closing...'

1:55 now. 4:55 in New York.

Panic in Los Angeles.

Busy.

No answer.

No answer.

'Florinese I got I think. Somewhere in the back.'

I sat up in my lounge chair. His accent was thick. 'I need the English translation.'

'You don't get much call for Morgenstern nowadays. I don't know anymore what I got back there. You come in tomorrow, you look around.'

'I'm in California,' I said.

'Mashuganuh,' he said.

'It would mean just a great deal to me if you'd look.'

'You gonna hold on while I do it? I'm not gonna pay for this call.'

'Take your time,' I said.

He took seventeen minutes. I just hung on, listening. Every so often I'd hear a footstep or a crash of books or a grunt—'uch—uch.'

Finally: 'Well, I got the Florinese like I thought.'

So close. 'But not the English,' I said.

And suddenly he's yelling at me: 'What, are you crazy? I break my back and he says I haven't got it, yes I got it, I got it right here, and, believe me, it's gonna cost a pretty penny.'

'Great—really, no kidding, now listen, here's what you do, get yourself a cab and tell him to take the books straight up to Park and—'

'Mister California Mashuganuh, you listen now—it's coming up a blizzard and I'm going no place and neither are these books without money—six fifty, on the barrel each, you want the English, you got to take the Florinese, and I close at 6:00. These books don't leave my premises without thirteen dollars changing hands.'

'Don't move,' I said, hanging up, and who do you call when it's after hours and Christmas on the horizon? Only your lawyer. 'Charley,' I said when I got him. 'Please do me this. Go to Fourth Avenue, Abromowitz's, give him thirteen dollars for two books, taxi up to my house and tell the doorman to take them to my apartment, and yes, I know it's snowing, what do you say?'

'That is such a bizarre request I have to agree to do it.'

I called Abromowitz yet again. 'My lawyer is hot on the trail.'

'No checks,' Abromowitz said.

'You're all heart.' I hung up, and started figuring. More or less 120 minutes long distance at $1.35 per first three minutes plus thirteen for the books plus probably ten for Charley's taxi plus probably sixty for his time came to...? Two hundred fifty maybe. All for my Jason to have the Morgenstern. I leaned back and closed my eyes. Two hundred fifty not to mention two solid hours of torment and anguish and let's not forget Sandy Sterling.

A steal.

They called me at half past seven. I was in my suite. 'He loves the bike,' Helen said. 'He's practically out of control.'

'Fabbo,' I said.

'And your books came.'

'What books?' I said; Chevalier was never more casual.

'The Princess Bride. In various languages, one of them, fortunately, English.'

'Well, that's nice,' I said, still loose. 'I practically forgot I asked to have 'em sent.'

'How'd they get here?'

'I called my editor's secretary and had her scrounge up a couple copies. Maybe they had them at Harcourt, who knows?' (They did have copies at Harcourt; can you buy that? I'll get to why in the next pages, probably.) 'Gimme the kid.'

'Hi,' he said a second later.

'Listen, Jason,' I told him. 'We thought about giving you a bike for your birthday but we decided against it.'

'Boy, are you wrong, I got one already.'

Jason has inherited his mother's total lack of humor. I don't know; maybe he's funny and I'm not. We just don't laugh much together is all I can say for sure. My son Jason is this incredible-looking kid—paint him yellow, he'd mop up for the school sumo team. A blimp. All the time stuffing his face. I watch my weight and old Helen is only visible full front plus on top of which she is this leading child shrink in Manhattan and our kid can roll faster than he can walk. 'He's expressing himself through food,' Helen always says. 'His anxieties. When he feels ready to cope, he'll slim down.'

'Hey, Jason? Mom tells me this book arrived today. The Princess thing? I'd sure like it if maybe you'd give it a read while I'm gone. I loved it when I was a kid and I'm kind of interested in your reaction.'

'Do I have to love it too?' He was his mother's son all right.

'Jason, no. Just the truth, exactly what you think. I miss you, big shot. And I'll talk to you on your birthday.'

'Boy, are you wrong. Today is my birthday.'

We bantered a bit more, long past when there was much to say. Then I did the same with my spouse, and hung up, promising a return by the end of one week.

It took two.

Conferences dragged, producers got inspirations that had to carefully get shot down, directors needed their egos soothed. Anyway, I was longer than anticipated in sunny Cal. Finally, though, I was allowed to return to the care and safety of the family, so I quick buzzed to L.A. airport before anybody's mind changed. I got there early, which I always do when I come back, because I had to load up my pockets with doodads and such for Jason. Every time I get home from a trip he runs (waddles) to me hollering, 'Lemmesee, lemmesee the pockets,' and then he goes through all my pockets taking out his graft, and once the loot is totaled, he gives me a nice hug. Isn't it awful what we'll do in this world to feel wanted?

'Lemmesee the pockets,' Jason shouted, moving to me across the foyer. It was a suppertime Thursday and, while he went through his ritual, Helen emerged from the library and kissed my cheek, going 'what a dashing- looking fellow I have,' which is also ritual, and, laden with gifts, Jason kind of hugged me and belted off (waddled off) to his room. 'Angelica's just getting dinner on,' Helen said; 'you couldn't have timed it better.'

'Angelica?'

Helen put her finger to her lips and whispered, 'It's her third day on but I think she may be a treasure.'

I whispered back, 'What was wrong with the treasure we had when I left? She'd only been with us a week then.'

'She proved a disappointment,' Helen said. That was all. (Helen is this brilliant lady—junior Phi Bete in college, every academic honor conceivable, really an intellect of startling breadth and accomplishment—only she can't keep a maid. First, I guess she feels guilty having anybody, since most of the anybodys available nowadays are black or Spanish and Helen is ultra-super liberal. Second, she's so efficient, she scares them. She can do everything better than they can and she knows it and she knows they know it. Third, once she's got them panicked, she tries to explain, being an analyst, why they shouldn't be frightened, and after a good solid half-hour ego search with Helen, they're really frightened. Anyway, we have had an average of four 'treasures' a year for the last few years.)