The Ghost of Greenwich Village Page 14

  “If it’s good for business, I’m all for it,” said Tom absently, wandering off into the din.

  “Tom was at Trinity with us but I don’t think literature was his strong suit,” said Alex, and the other three laughed.

  Paul pulled out a cigarette. “I think the ponies were his strong suit. Remember how much money he lost sophomore year?” Everyone laughed again and Eve did, too, even though she hadn’t been there. It felt good to join in.

  “What do you do?” Bix asked her.

  “Eve works at Smell the Coffee,” said Alex, and the others looked at her with interest.

  “What’s Bliss Jones like?” asked David.

  The inevitable question. “What can I say? She’s a legend,” replied Eve. This was what she’d heard Mark say to Steve’s aunt when she visited, and somehow she felt it unseemly to criticize a member of the Smell family to relative strangers.

  “No dirt?” asked Paul.

  “Maybe when I get to know you better. Either that or after a few drinks,” replied Eve, and Paul jokingly signaled for another round.

  “Hey, maybe you should have your launch party here,” said David to Alex.

  “If we ever launch,” said Alex.

  “Now will you tell me what kind of magazine it is? I’ve been curious since the gala,” said Eve.

  Bix, who was balancing on the armrest of Eve’s chair, chimed in. “Yeah, c’mon. Enough already. No one’s gonna swipe the idea from you.”

  Alex smiled and shook his head. “Okay, okay, you win. I’m sick of being pestered. But only because Eve is so pretty and charming.” He winked at her. “Here’s the concept: The New Yorker—for kids.” He sat back, folding his arms across his chest.

  “Go on,” said Paul.

  “Short stories by great young writers and adults who write well about kids. In-depth articles on the Tao of Saturday morning cartoons and the fairness of curfews. Stuff like that.” Alex leaned forward and began playing with a coaster as he explained more of his ideas. “We’re calling it Our Turn.”

  Eve had no idea if it would work, but she was pretty sure from all the periodicals she read these days that there was nothing like it out there. “Where’d you get this idea?” she asked.

  “A couple of years ago I read this article about how, in previous generations, kids couldn’t wait to grow up; they wanted to be like adults. But now parents want to be like kids. They dress like teenagers and act like them, too. It’s getting ridiculous. So I thought it might be cool to get back to the way things used to be, when aspiring to be an adult was a good thing. Plus there’ve been a couple of literary magazines that have started up in Brooklyn. No one thought they had a chance, but they seem to be doing okay.”

  Whatever Eve had expected, it wasn’t this rather sober, sophisticated idea. “How far along are you?” she asked.

  “We’re cramming to get the layout done so we can get it off to the printers and get it on stands next month. September’s big in the mag world. I’ve got six guys on computers in my apartment as we speak. The art alone is a nightmare. I’m the brains—and most of the cash—but they’re doing the heavy lifting.”

  “How much money you got sunk into this?” asked Paul.

  “Too much,” said Alex.

  “What happens if it doesn’t work? I mean, what’s the failure rate for magazines?”

  “We’ll be fine.” Alex smiled as he said this, but there was metal in his voice. Eve wondered if he had a bit of a temper. Not that it was necessarily a bad thing. In New York, it was probably essential, if only to make it clear you were no pushover.

  David chimed in, “It’s gonna be great.”

  “I think it’s fantastic,” said Bix.

  Tom brought more scotch and there was a toast along with congratulatory noises. “To Alex,” they all said. A few moments later, Paul, David, and Bix waved at some friends who’d just come in and excused themselves.

  “I’m impressed,” said Eve quietly.

  “Thanks,” said Alex. He ran a fingertip over a daisy on his cup. “I’m just so ready.”

  “For what?”

  “To get out. Do my own thing. Stand on my own two feet. You just get to a point, you know?”

  “Yes, I do,” said Eve.

  Past midnight, they arrived at her building. The overhead light above Eve’s front door was out again, and the whites of Alex’s eyes, so close to hers, glowed like moon rocks. Eve faced him and he pressed her against the door. He put his hand gently on the side of her neck, his fingers reaching up into the roots of her hair. “Did I ever tell you about the first time I saw you?” he whispered.

  Eve’s knees went buckly. “No.”

  “It was the moment you walked into the room in that dress. This tiny girl, like a doll in a plastic case.”

  Eve closed her eyes and breathed in through her mouth.

  “And I was thinking …” he said, his lips hovering near her left ear.

  “Yes?”

  “I was thinking that we talked a lot that night.”

  “We did.”

  “So it was kind of like a first date.”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Which would make this our second.”

  “Mmmm.”

  “So what do you think?” he asked, running his thumb around the edge of her lower lip. Before she could speak, he lifted her chin and gave her a soft, melony kiss. Fireworks exploded behind her eyelids. She hadn’t been kissed like this in a long time, maybe ever. For a fleeting moment, she thought about saying yes. Donald was the one who suggested she go on this date; maybe he’d keep quiet.

  “I’m sorry,” said Eve, leaning away and trying to catch her breath. “It’s just … my bathroom. It flooded last night. The rugs are still sopping.”

  “I don’t mind wet feet.” He kissed the corner of her mouth. “Unless the problem is that you have cold feet?”

  “No, really. It’s not that. It’s awful up there. You just don’t know how awful.” She bit her lower lip.

  “That’s okay, doll.” Alex kissed her forehead. “I don’t mind a little anticipation. Next time, then?”

  “Next time,” she breathed. “For sure.”

  When she opened her eyes, he was gone.

  Chapter 9

  Eve stepped out of the bath, toweled off, and donned a kimono. “Okay,” she said, putting a fresh yellow pad on her lap for a new story. She needed distraction to keep from waiting for the phone to ring. Donald said there was no way Alex would call the day after their date, and Eve had to admit he was probably right.

  Of course, Donald might have said anything to get on with his work. He assured her that his next tale would be a towering achievement, unlike any of his previous work. Eve only hoped it turned out better than “The Numbered Story.” (After eighty-eight sentences, man finally reaches top of ladder, discovers a leopard cub with no claws that turns into a beautiful princess whom he steeps in hot water, making a tea that he gives away free to beggars. So much for Donald’s feminist diatribes.) She pulled herself into a cross-legged position on her bed and patted the spot next to her. Highball jumped up and curled herself into a little ball. “Hit it.”

  The whirring began. “ ‘ Rock, Paper, Scissors: A Love Story That Does Not End Well.’ ”

  “Nice title.”

  “Thank you. It all begins with Paper. Paper, that which holds all the ideas in the world. Paper, so precious, so slender and—don’t put any commas in this—so vulnerable. Paper …”

  For heaven’s sake—Eve stopped her thought before it could be detected. “Great. Continue,” she said instead. On went the description of “Paper” for several more cryptic minutes.

  “Ah! But it is not a Paper Paradise. For Scissors comes on the scene. Scissors, young, fresh from the smoke-spouting factory, the natural enemy of Paper, cuts a swath across the land. Scissors so sharp so sparkling so lethal. They will meet at a dinner party.”

  A hundred thoughts fought to express themselves in Eve’s head. About how o
bscure this was, yet again, and how fruitless. But she wouldn’t let them cross her consciousness; she wouldn’t let Donald know because he’d hit the roof, which would only delay finishing the work. She bit her tongue and did nothing but take down his words for the next few minutes. Her hand began to ache.

  “Soon too soon the moment comes. Paper and Scissors meet. Everyone in the room wonders what will happen.”

  “Donald, do you mind if we—”

  She felt what she could only describe as a light slap on her temple. Donald swept on for several minutes, building up steam as he went. “The others stare with wide eyes, spoiling for a fight. Will it come before the salad course? Before the fish?”

  “Donald—I need a break.” The story’s aggressive lack of emotional underpinning and self-conscious cleverness were too much. Maybe humor would help. “Salad, fish. You’re making me hungry.”

  “What?” he asked, missing the joke.

  Loath as she was to open her favorite can of literary worms again, maybe she could save them both hours of time. “Your approach is … I don’t know how to put it without hurting your feelings.” She looked for just the right word. “Kind of unsatisfying.”

  “I’m afraid this is over your head, little one. This technique is a continuation of the ideas, the themes, of my greatest work. There will be eager hands, and eager minds, waiting for it.”

  Eve groaned. “I don’t think so. It might not be good enough.” Highball snorted in her sleep and rolled over.

  “Oh, yes, Miss Smell the Coffee. By all means, do tell me about great writing.”

  Eve was surprised at how defensive she felt about her job. “Maybe what I write isn’t high art or anything, but we do some pretty important stories. It’s a national conversation, and in a splintered country, there aren’t many of those. Plus, unlike in your day, people wake up today and aren’t absolutely, positively sure the world is still there. Understand? We let them know that it is. We get people’s day started with good information and a little fun. And at least I know whom I’m writing for.”

  “The mother of four in Sheboygan? Please.”

  “What’s wrong with the mother of four in Sheboygan?”

  “If she’s so great, why did you move to New York?”

  Eve was hurt that he would bring up something so personal during a spat. “You know why.”

  Donald seemed to realize his error. “Penelope,” he said softly. Eve pulled a large down pillow onto her lap and hugged it. “You feel like she’s still here, don’t you?”

  “Kind of.”

  “You still long for her. All these years later.”

  “It just seemed like she always had a better place to be, inside her mind somewhere. A place we could never go. Then, when she got sick, everything changed. For once, she let me in.” Eve felt the blood begin to pulse in her face. “And that’s why it’s so unfair. Just as I was getting to know her, she left. And I was all alone.” Eve rocked back and forth, a couple of hot tears melting into the pillow. “My father never talked about her. Neither did my brothers. Ever.”

  Highball woke, snuffled for a few minutes around her ear, and then attempted to lick the part of Eve’s cheek that was visible. Eve trembled. Where had all this emotion come from? She sounded angry. And she was not an angry person.

  “Hah,” said Donald.

  “Hah what?”

  “Hah. You have plenty of anger. By the way, you’re not the only one to lose a mother, you know. It’s nothing to take personally.”

  Nothing to take personally? Of course it was personal.

  “Young lady, you need to get over this victim mentality. It’s poison and it will infect your whole life.”

  “I’m no psychiatrist,” said Eve, wiping a hand across her eyes. “But I would say that sounds like projection.”

  “Hmph.”

  “Hmph.”

  Several moments went by during which neither spoke.

  “I am sorry, my dear,” said Donald. “I did not mean to upset you. Try to relax.”

  “It’s okay. I’m okay.” Eve pulled the pillowcase from the pillow, used it to dry her face, and then dropped it into the hamper. She took some deep breaths and went to brew some tea.

  “No one knows better than I that you are a lost lamb beleaguered by emotional trip wires that it behooves us both for me to skirt,” Donald continued soothingly. But this condescension just upset Eve all over again.

  “I’m not a lost lamb, for heaven’s sake. Look, forget what I said, I came here for the same reason as everyone else—including you, my friend. I came here to make it. To do something interesting with my life.”

  “Much as I hate to rub you the wrong way again, your job is not interesting.”

  “Yes, it is.” It was. Wasn’t it?

  Smell the Coffee was encumbered, as was most of television, by its consumer-driven ethos. It was exactly the opposite of the. Beats, who’d so fiercely rebelled against the mindlessness of consumer culture. It was easy for “news you can use” to look shoddy, craven, by comparison. Yet while the world had certainly benefited from the prying open of assumptions the Beats achieved, they weren’t perfect, either. For one thing, where were the women? Where were the plaques for Joan Vollmer Burroughs, or Joan Haverty Kerouac or Carolyn Robinson Cassady? Or Elise Cowen or Hettie Jones?

  Eve had read that someone had asked Gregory Corso why there weren’t more women acknowledged as Beat architects. He’d replied that there had been plenty of girls around, but only men were allowed to be rebels. Girls who tried to be were “locked up” by their families. The Beat men didn’t exactly care, though; they seemed to have eyes only for each other.

  Whereas Smell the Coffee had more women on staff than men. Both Bliss Jones and Orla Knock were formidable. Orla was gone, true, but from what everyone said, she was raising hell out in L.A. Smell the Coffee also had flexible, child-care-friendly hours. And most stories were female-driven, because household budgets were determined by women. Women earned money now and so had consumer clout, which was something, at least. And they weren’t locked up for speaking their minds.

  Now, if somehow the rebellious impulse of the Beats and the power of women could ever come together, wouldn’t that be something? Eve would like to work on that show.

  “At least they pay me enough to live in the Village,” she said. “How many writing jobs do that?” The kettle screamed. “When was the last time you had a writer in here anyway? The eighties?”

  “I don’t remember,” said Donald. “And are you sure they pay you enough to live here? Haven’t you been worried lately?”

  This was true, unfortunately. The salary had seemed more than adequate when she’d started. But that was before Eve had understood exactly how long her hours would be. And before she’d had to hire Denise, a dreadlocked local dog walker, to take.

  Highball out several times a week because she was gone so much. Denise charged extra for keeping Highball at her apartment all day, but Eve couldn’t chance the girl coming into her place to pick the dog up.

  Then there was the bombshell from De Fief. Though Eve’s apartment was expensive by Ohio standards, it was a bargain for the Village. The gang at Smell had whistled when she told them her rent; it was well below market rate. But the other day, a letter had arrived from De Fief informing Eve that as of January the rent would jump a stunning eighteen percent because a recent check of the records revealed that it hadn’t been raised to the maximum amount under the law on the leases of the previous six tenants. They’d come and gone so quickly (no surprise there) that the paperwork simply hadn’t kept pace.

  “And then there’s the fact that they don’t treat you with any respect,” said Donald, firmly onto something now. “ ‘The Right Makeup for Your Astrological Sign’? ‘Is Your Carpet Killing Your Toddler?’ All they give you is crap. When will you get a real story?”

  This stung even more. When she’d first started at Smell, Eve had told Mark she’d be happy with any segment, and she was. She�
��d been so grateful to have the job at all. Now she was beginning to feel itchy. She wanted to graduate from being tolerated to being respected, sought after. And being respected at Smell meant one thing: writing hard news and writing it for Bliss Jones. But every time she brought it up, Mark put her off. “Everything’s covered today, thanks,” he’d say, and hand her another research folder on “Crafts to Do with Your Pets.”

  “Don’t you think you’ve earned the right to do some real news?” asked Donald. Eve didn’t respond. “Are you or are you not ready to write for this Bliss Jones character? She’s not God on the mountain, after all.”

  “No, you’re God on the mountain,” said Eve.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I’m ready to write for her. But it takes a long time before you’re allowed to even try. I was told that at the beginning. It’s the way it is.” Even as she said this, she wondered if Archie or even Quirine had had to wait this long. “I just have to keep doing a good job. They’ll notice.”

  “Your doormat tendencies are exhausting. I realize as a child it was difficult to get your mother’s attention. But you can’t let the resulting neediness define your life. Certainly not in New York. You can’t get by being ‘the good little girl’ in this town. You must demand what you want. In my day, the women …”

  Eve suddenly remembered there were some blouses waiting for her at the dry cleaner. She found the ticket, threw on some clothes, and headed out the door, Donald still nattering on.

  • • •

  A few days later, unable to keep from staring at the phone, Eve took Highball out for an extra walk. She took long strides, energized by a general sense of righteous indignation, mostly about men. Donald was irritating. Mark was patronizing. And then there was Alex. They’d had a good time, so why hadn’t he called yet? Was he that put off that she didn’t let him come upstairs? Did he think her hopelessly old-fashioned?

  After she’d circled past James Baldwin’s and Edmund Wilson’s houses twice, Eve made her way over to Full Circle. She needed the company of women. Gwendolyn saw her through the window and waved her in.