I Loved You Wednesday (9 page)

Thanksgiving with the kids; even though I’m not the girl-next-door type he said they’d love me in Minnesota because there’s no one there quite like me and I don’t mean to be doing all the talking tell me how your day went.”

“What?”

“I asked how your day went.”

“Oh. ... I met a girl at the Sure audition. Wendy.”

“Wendy who?”

“Why do I get the impression we’ve played this scene already?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Wendy Chartoff. She has this really terrific smile that—”

“Talk about smiles I’ve never seen so many teeth on a man.”

“Like a shark, huh?”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“No. It was supposed to be nasty. I just said it funny.”

“Are we going to have another of our jealous tantrums, Steve?”

“Of course not.”

“Then what is the problem?”

“No problem. I’d just like to have a little equal time. I’ve heard all about your friend and I was just selfishly trying to steal a few seconds to tell you about Wendy, that’s all.”

“Wendy who?”

“Chris. . . . Do you have anything else to tell me?”

“I don’t think so.”

“All right, then ... I’m really glad you’ve had a terrific day with this guy. I hope this time it really works out. No one deserves a break with love as much as you. Okay?”

“I’ll buy that.”

“Fine. And Wendy and I hope you and Bradley can come for dinner Thursday evening.”

“What!”

“Check your calendar and let us know.”

“WENDY WHO?” screams Chris.

Click.

I look at my watch.

Seventeen seconds pass before the phone rings again.

“Hello?” I inquire lazily.

“Who’s Wendy?” demands Chris, mid-laughter.

“You must have the wrong number. There’s no Wendy here.”

“You hung up on me, Steve!” She laughs.

“Yes.”

“ You
hung up on me!” Laughing harder.

“Right.”

“You hung up on
me!”
Laughing still harder.

“You noticed.”

“I can’t believe you just hung up on me. If I weren’t so hysterical, I’d be furious. Consider yourself lucky I fell in love today. Otherwise I’d have your ass in a sling. There are no limits to my patience when love is in the air. Now. Are you sorry you hung up on me?”

“I guess.”

“Do you still love me?”

“Now and forever.”

“Promise.”

“Promise.”

“We’re friends again?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Now there’s just one more question I have to ask and then I’ll get off the phone, okay?”

“Okay.”

“You don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind.”

“You’re sure?”

“Shoot.”

“Okay....WHO THE FUCK IS THIS WENDY AND

WHAT DOES SHE WANT WITH YOU?”

Chapter Six
 

“Next!”

The voice is strong, weighted and brash. Just the tone one might expect from this huge blond woman.

“Who’s next?” She demands to know.

“I think I am,” I say timidly, hoping she won’t raise her voice at me.

“Who are
you
?” She raises her voice.

“Steve Butler.”

“Butler, Butler, Butl . . .” she repeats, gliding a stubby finger down a long list of names. “Oh, yes! Steve Butler.”

“That’s me.”

“You’re next!” she says informatively, opening the door to the rehearsal hall.

“Thank you,” I answer, following her inside.

It is the next day and I’m at an audition for a touring company production of
Barefoot in the Park
. This one to travel to three theaters on the Florida circuit, for three weeks.

Like most actors, I hate to leave New York and work on the road. And like most actors, I find that in order to pay the rent and build work credits, I must. Theatergoers are different on the road. Attentive, gracious and responsive, they spoil you for the big time.

Out of town, Mickey Rooney could get a standing ovation reading the Yellow Pages. On the Great White Way, Olivier doing the definitive
Hamlet
would have New Yorkershalfway up the aisles, hurrying to claim their cars from parking lots, before the final duel.

But don’t get me wrong.

I’ll take the rudeness of New Yorkers any day just to be working here because, for all its death notices, Broadway is still the final proving ground, still the Mecca toward which we aspire.

So, like lemmings to the sea, we go on.

I am introduced to the director and producer of this Florida-bound group and then audition with the hefty blond woman I’ve just followed in.

We read the fight scene at the end of the second act. I’m playing a twenty-six-year-old newlywed. This fifty-year-old blond chubba is supposed to be my perky young wife of six days. So it’s a little difficult relating to her.

Fortunately, the role is something of a piece of cake for me at this point anyway. I’ve played it four times over the years in summer stock. So I already fairly well know just where the laughs are and how to pull them.

We finish the reading. The director says he likes it, thanks me for coming in, says they have a lot of people to see, but I just may hear from them.

I thank the director and follow my big blond friend back into the hallway, where she commands of the fifteen or so gathered actors, “All right! Who’s next?”

Riding the subway to the Village, I meet Chris for lunch. Afterward I go with her to the audition she has for a new musical revue about life in New York called
Another Straw!

She sings two songs, reads a monologue from one of the skits, improvises a dance routine for them inspired by a diffident drummer who beats out a monotonous rhythm, is thanked, and the two of us leave.

Traveling in the crowded subway back uptown, Chris and I compare notes on how our various auditions went this day. When we get to my place, we relax for a few hours before going into the kitchen to cook some dinner.

“I’m
so
depressed!” Chris tells me, tossing the pasta into boiling water.

“What about?” I ask, as if I didn’t know.

“Oh, lots of things.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Like that audition this afternoon. I sang, I read, gave them everything outside of standing there naked with my hair on fire, and they were so unresponsive.”

“A quick thank you and ‘Who’s next?,’ huh?”

“Practically.”

“Well, it doesn’t pay to get worked up about it. You just never know what’s going on in their minds.”

“Or what they’re looking for.”

“Right. Chris, I’ve had producers react so enthusiastically to an audition they did everything but burst into applause. And afterward I’d never hear from them. Other times I’ve done really shitty work and got called back the next day.”

“It’s a lousy business.”

“The worst.”

“So why do we do it, Steve?”

“We do it because we’re crazy and because we love to perform and because it’s there.”

“When I make it to the top, I’m never going to forget the little people.”

“You’re too humble; that’s one of your problems.”

“And what about Bradley?”

“I had a hunch we’d get around to that. All right, what about him?”

“He hasn’t called or anything.”

“Chris,” I say somewhat exasperatedly, spooning the tomato paste into the sauce, “you only saw him yesterday.”

“If he’s playing it cool when I’m dying to see him, I’ll be very upset.”

“He may not call for days.”

“I’ll kill myself.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“Pass the salt.”

I hand Chris the salt.

“Stick out your tongue.”

“I beg your pardon.” “I said stick out your tongue.” Chris demonstrates by sticking out her own tongue.

So I stick out my tongue.

“Now open wide and say
Ahhhhhhhh.”

“Chris, this is silly.”

“Do as I say!”

“ Ahhhhhhhhhhhh”

“That’s good!” And, saying so, Chris dumps the entire contents of the salt shaker, of which she has just unscrewed the top, right on my tongue.

I am a thirty-year-old person. A serious student of the drama. And I am now standing in front of a hot stove with a mountain of salt on my tongue.

Hurrying over to the sink, I spit out most of it, then gargle with a glass of water. When I am at last able to speak, I turn to Chris, who looks like a contented cow, and criticize, “A bit too salty, I think. Could hardly taste the spaghetti.”

“Serves you right for even joking about Bradley not calling me,” retorts Chris playfully, placing the spaghetti strainer on her head and saluting.

Not to be outdone, I pick up a head of lettuce, stuff it down the front of my pants and return the idiotic salute.

Giggling, Chris rushes from the kitchen, returning moments later from the bathroom with a container of my shaving cream. “Why hasn’t he called me, Steve?” She pouts. “I can’t stand it!”

“He will. Just relax,” I say, placatingly, barely noticing the slightest impatience in my voice.

Chris stiffens her upper lip, rolls her eyes and launches into her Stan Laurel. “And what’s more, Ollie ... I didn’t like that crack about the mustard seed!” As she speaks, she covers the top of my head in oozing shaving foam. “Take that, you rat!” she continues, dramatically. “The very idea he may not call for days. Steven, you’re awful. Just awful!”

My upper lip is pursed now, as I go into Humphrey Bogart: “Sho ya wanna play rough, huh, shister?”

Chris gulps dramatically, feigning fear. I pick up a huge butcher knife, point it at her, then turn to the counterwhere I cut a thin slice of tomato, which I then casually drop down the front of her blouse. “I don’t want to hear any more about Bradley. Okay? It’s enough.”

Without so much as a beat, Chris turns, opens the refrigerator door, pulls out the plastic pitcher of ice water and tauntingly and vengefully singsongs, “Brad-ley . . . Brad-ley . . . Brad-ley!” before emptying the contents directly upon the shaving cream already embedded on the top of my head, drowning me in a sea of chilled water.

“I’m melting! I’m melting?
’ I cackle sinisterly with pointed, open-clenched fingers like the Wicked Witch of the West as I make an agonizingly slow descent to the floor, where I collapse in a clump.

Wiping her hands of the whole mess, Chris casually steps over my lifeless form, on her way into the living room, gingerly bemoaning, “I wish I weren’t so depressed. I’d really enjoy having all this fun if Bradley were here playing with us.”

Picking up my wet, freezing head, I yell into the other room, “Will you forget about Bradley for five fucking minutes? You’re here with
me!”

“Please, Steve. Don’t get boring,” says Chris flatly.

“BORING?” I roar, storming into the bathroom. “Look who’s talking!”

I shower to cleanse the gook from my body, while Chris mops up the mess in the kitchen and finishes preparing the meal.

We sit down to eat, and as I pour the wine, Chris finds she has little appetite since working herself into a mini-state over not having heard from you-khow-who.

“I’m too exhausted to continue playing the clown, Chris.”

“Quite all right. I prefer feeling icky anyway.”

“Well, don’t wallow in it.”

“I’m not wallowing, Steven.”

“What then?”

“Floating.”

“You’re floating on ickyness?”

“You might say.”

“Isn’t that a little silly for a girl supposedly in love?” “I am not in love. I’m miserable. If that shmuck hasn’t the decency to call, it’s all over. Fuck him.”

“Why so vehement?”

“Because I’m in love,” frets Chris.

“Oh,” I say softly, summoning a comeback. “Well, maybe he called, but you weren’t in.”

Chris’ face lights up in temporary wonder. “Of course!” she shrieks. “Why didn’t I think of that? He’s probably calling me right now. Oh, that’s it. How dumb-dumb-dumb. I’m here, picking at my food when I should be home waiting for his call.”

“But....”

“No buts about it!” insists Chris, pounding the table with her fist. “He’s probably calling right now. Good. Let him wait!” she concludes with conviction.

“Huh?” I ask, mystified.