Nick’s pizza parlor was where kids hung out after school in Munsonville. Emma didn’t have any close friends, but sometimes she’d sit around nursing a slice, because anything was better than going home. A lot of the other kids in Munsonville came from screwed-up families, but Emma’s mother was the undisputed town freak. Everybody who’s down needs someone lower, and Emma’s situation evoked condescending pity from her peers. Sue Jenkins- her dad sold plumbing and heating supplies, and her mom ran a store-front dancing school-was one of the few kids who tried to befriend Emma. Sue was sweet, and her family respected creativity. One Christmas they sent over a box of homemade goodies to Emma and her mother. Sue was popular, and one afternoon she invited Emma to tag along with her crowd when they went to Nick’s.
They were all sitting around laughing and flirting-even Emma was starting to feel like part of the gang-when Emma’s mother walked in. It was an early spring day, mild and breezy, but Helen Bowles was pushing the season in her red short-shorts, high-heeled mules, loose Hawaiian shirt, floppy straw hat, and pink plastic heart-shaped shades that looked as if they belonged on a three-year-old; her mouth, thick with ruby lipstick, leaped from her powder-white face. Her wrists were heavy with the usual Bakelite bracelets. Everything got quiet and Emma slid down in her seat. Helen threw back her shoulders and with a lopsided pride sashayed up to the counter.
“I’d like a 7UP, please,” she said in that weird voice she affected in public-Julie Andrews playing a film noir gun moll. Helen was major-league stoned.
She took her soda and walked over to the jukebox. The place stayed quiet as she fed in her quarters. Madonna began to sing “Like a Virgin,” and Helen Bowles started to dance in the middle of the dingy pizza parlor. “Like a virgin / Touched for the very first time.”
Helen’s dancing grew more and more exaggerated and suggestive. Nick was leering from behind the counter. One of the boys let out a whoop and started to snap his fingers. Others joined in, egging her on. Helen was in her glory. Sue gave Emma a look of pained sympathy. Helen slowly unbuttoned her Hawaiian shirt and then whipped it open, flashing her tits. That was when Emma ran out of the place.
Sue studies Emma for a moment before asking, with a peculiar intensity and sincerity, “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” Emma answers, a little too casually.
“You look great,” Sue says.
“So do you.”
“I look like a whale. You remember Cliff.” Cliff, a stolid sort, puts a protective arm around his wife, and exchanges a nod with Emma.
Sue and Cliff stand there waiting to be introduced to Charles. Emma tugs at her coat, bites her lower lip.
“Oh, I’m sorry. This is Charles. Sue and I went to high school together.”
“Hi. I just can’t get over how different you look,” Sue says.
Emma smiles, still biting her lip. “We’re not kids anymore.” She quickly changes the subject. “What are you doing in New York?”
“The tourist thing, while we still have a chance.” She pats her stomach and smiles. “What about you?”
“I live here. I have a job. I’m-”
Charles jumps in. “Emma works for me, she’s my very able assistant.”
“You look familiar,” Sue says.
“Charles Davis? The writer?” Emma says.
“Wow. I saw the miniseries Kings and Clowns. Didn’t you write that?”
“I wrote the book it was based on.”
“Cool,” Cliff says.
“God, Emma,” Sue says. “In Munsonville they’d-”
“I know. Charles has been great. He’s helping me.”
Charles takes Emma’s arm and firmly leads her off. “Enjoy New York,” he says.
“Good-bye, Emma. Take care,” Sue calls after them.
After the ferry docks, Charles and Emma walk along the Battery Park promenade. It’s late afternoon and the park is virtually empty. The clouds have crowded out the sun, turning the sky, the water, the world, gray-that singular Manhattan gray that seems to have tiny shards of reflective light scattered through it. They walk slowly, Emma absently nibbling on popcorn they bought at a little stand outside the ferry terminal.
“Were you close friends with that Sue?”
“No, not really.”
“Family friend?”
“No, we were in the same class, that’s all. She was nice, but we didn’t really have anything in common.”
“Did you have a lot of friends growing up?”
“What is this-Twenty Questions?”
A tugboat chugs by close to shore; its horn blasts.
“Emma?”
“Hmmm?”
“I don’t think we should discuss the book with anyone.”
Emma tosses a handful of popcorn to a squirrel and out of nowhere a blizzard of pigeons descends.
“Look, Charles, we have this whole park to ourselves, just us and the pigeons and squirrels.”
“You see, Emma, there are a lot of pitfalls for a young artist.”
“Are there, Charles?” Suddenly Emma runs ahead of him and jumps up on a bench. “I can’t believe Sue married that lug. Now she’s stuck in that town forever. And I got out! I got out!” Emma upends the rest of the popcorn, and is quickly surrounded by a sea of fluttering wings and bobbing tails.
As Charles approaches, Emma jumps down off the bench and puts her arm through his. “I really am a writer, aren’t I?” she says, trying on the identity like an expensive coat, one she lusts after but thought she could never afford.
“I would say so. Listen, I really think it’s crucial that we keep our work to ourselves for the time being. Talking about it diffuses the energy.”
“Who do I have to talk about it with? I don’t think my Chinese grocer has much of a literary bent, even if he could speak English. I suppose I could call the psychic hot line and ask them how the book is going to end.”
“Emma, I’m serious. Will you promise me you won’t discuss it with anyone?”
Emma smiles up at him. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
29
Charles ducks into the damp dark of the midtown tavern. It’s eleven-thirty in the morning and the place is just gearing up for the lunch rush, waitresses getting their stations set up, the soft clink of glass and silverware, the comforting smell of simple food and decades of drinking. He orders a double Scotch and water. He needs a drink to steel himself for the job ahead. It’s really quite simple: Nina has to go. The paperback sale was a joke. And she hasn’t even sold the film rights. He needs a young agent, somebody hip, with a big L.A. presence. Someone who can make him a lot of money. Fast. And then there’s Nina’s gushing over Emma’s primitive prose. It’s damn good, sure- he’d been the first one to recognize that-but the way she goes on you’d think Emma was the second coming of Faulkner. The book is in much better shape now, thanks to him, but the last person he wants to give it to is some over-the-hill agent who would probably sell it for a fraction of its worth. Poor Nina.
The portly bartender comes out of the kitchen carrying a big plate of french fries, which he secretes under his bar, shoving two or three into his face at a time. Charles remembers a crazy midsummer day about fifteen years ago when he and Nina had cabbed out to Coney Island to satisfy a mutual craving for hots dogs and fries. They’d stuffed themselves like pigs at Nathan’s, giggling, celebratory, madly in love with each other’s success. And then they rode the Cyclone, Charles with his arm protectively around Nina, wanting the world to think they were lovers. They’d walked along the Boardwalk for miles, for hours, as the long day gave way to dusk and dusk to night. They were partners, and it was forever.
Well, forever is for fairy tales. This is a New York story.
As the elevator soars silently to the thirty-ninth floor of Nina’s office building, Charles sucks on his breath
