Little Did I Know: A Novel (19 page)

“Hi,” she said in a whisper.

“Hello. It’s nice to see you.”

“I’ve been thinking about you a lot,” she offered, still barely audible and still not moving.

“Okay then. And what were you thinking?” I asked, more afraid than curious.

“That I will miss you and . . .” Her words hung in the air like poison. Breathing was hard. “That I will miss you, and that I am so sorry and sad, because I think you are so special and I want to know you, to . . . but I can’t.”

“Can’t
what
Veronica?”

“I can’t see you, Sam. I’m not brave enough. I said you’d break my heart, but that’s not what I’m afraid of. It’s that I will disappoint you, and that would stay with me forever.”

She had turned back toward the sea and away from me. I could no longer read her eyes. The ambient happy sounds of the village mocked me. “Veronica, what are you talking about? What happened? Are you fucking Sybil, for Christ’s sake?”

She turned to me, and with contempt overtaking any kindness she said, “While you were gone, I thought about it all again. Us.” Her voice cracked with emotion. “I spoke with some people . . . some friends . . . and they told me to stay away . . . that I should stay away, that I had better stay away.” Her last words were caught in the wind and stolen before I could be sure she had actually spoken them.

Frustration got the best of me. “Okay, Veronica,” I shouted across the distance, “play the part of some freak in a bad melodrama. Bravery and courage go hand and hand and you have neither. Disappoint me? You already have.”

She looked at me as if for the last time, wiping away tears that covered her cheeks.

“You are so stupid, Sam! Pay attention. You think I work at that shithouse motel because it’s the best I can do? Someone like me?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead she shouted, “Goodbye!” and ran down the shore.

The sun disappeared behind the Barrows Building, and the warm, late-spring evening suddenly turned cold. I remained still for a long time. I had nowhere to go and no inclination to seek company or solace.

What had happened, really? A girl I had known for a week had dumped me without explanation or reason. I was momentarily stunned. It would pass. I hadn’t come to Plymouth to meet Veronica Chapman. I had come here to work, to find my way. If I let this girl distract me from that task, I was a fraud. I would have convinced my friends and my investors to participate in a charade. I would have lied to those who believed in me and, worse yet, deceived myself.

Yet I did meet her and that reality held on long after the sun was gone and the midnight blue waters of Plymouth Harbor reflected the glow from shore. Finally, at way past nine, I stood and examined my surroundings. I walked slowly to the large granite mausoleum that housed the famous rock. I walked aboard the
Mayflower
and looked out toward England. I looked up at the sky to find a star to wish upon, but the options were far too many and I could not choose one that promised hope. Then I wondered what I was actually hoping for.

I wasn’t ready to return to PBT. I thought I’d sit and think some more, try to put the thoughts of lost possibilities behind me. I saw that the bench was occupied by an elderly gentleman wearing a Red Sox cap and an oversized Sox sweatshirt. He seemed relaxed, at peace and happy. He was enjoying an ice cream cone, savoring each lick as if it would be his last. On second look, I realized that I knew this man. After a moment’s hesitation, I elected to sit down next to Dr. Anderson Barrows.

“S
o, Young August. A stranger shows up in a small town and things happen. The energy changes as does the gestalt of the community itself. Oh, and I know what the word means. How’s your gestalt today, Auggie?”

He took a slow lick of his ice cream, relishing his clever repartee while revealing that discretion had left the Barrows lexicon long ago.

“I have had better days, sir, but I’m doing fine. Youth comes with many second chances.”

“Sort of like a cat with nine lives?”

“I don’t think a single bad day uses up a life, sir.”

“How many bad days then, before you are down to eight, or seven, or even two”?

“I’ve never thought about it. I don’t fear that I am in jeopardy of running low, of that I can assure you.”

“The arrogance of youth,” he said, spitting the last word.

“I’m an optimist. I believe in good.”

“The
folly
of youth.”

The wharf was at full throttle by this point. Myriad musical genres filled the crisp night air. You could choose one to match your mood or circumstances, but my choice was elusive, so I let them cascade over me, wondering if one might find a home.

“You know, August, when my father built the Barrows Building he chose the site at the top of the hill behind us for a reason.”

“And what was the reason, sir?”

“So that he could look down upon the citizens of his town and decide whether he approved of how they lived their lives.”

“Your family may own the buildings in Plymouth, but not the people. Your minions are not puppets, and you don’t pull the strings or make them dance.”

“Really?” He grinned. “How are things going for you with that beauty Veronica Chapman? From my window up above, it looked as if you were encountering some rough seas.” He stood before I could respond and looked at me with a perverse angry gleam in his old sad eyes. “Oh, and Auggie, would you like to finish this ice cream? Better yet, why don’t I have enough sent over to last the summer. That way you’ll never run out. It’s my favorite: Rocky Road.”

With that, he began a slow walk up the steps to his loony bin at the top of the knoll. In the distance, I heard a cuckoo clock count out ten hours, each call louder and more resonant than the last, and all proffering a bit of dread.

M
onday morning could not have arrived quickly enough. Secunda had decided to sleep in; he was going to take a late-morning flight to meet JB and me in Manhattan. We each had specific tasks, and completion was set for late afternoon with our return to Plymouth that evening regardless of the hour. JB and I had picked up coffee and doughnuts before we hit the road. I drove and JB talked and smoked.

Another day dressed in the glamour of show business.

Between the drive to New York and the journey home that night, JB and I had plenty of time to talk shop. Instead, we spoke about our lives, how we got to this place, and where we hoped the next four months might lead us. Sure, we wanted all good things. Who doesn’t? Love and money and family. To do something meaningful and to make a difference. To dance with pink elephants on lazy afternoons. To have people repeat and vest in the things we had to say and to offer. To live with courage and appetite. To stare down fear. To be better than ordinary. To stretch our limits and to get right back up when disappointment or loss or ill will knocked us down. To avoid repeating the errors of our parents. To be both reckless and wise. To be kind. To find time to breathe and listen. To lose our way because of passion and not from a lack of thought or purpose. To be judged by those who called us friends and by those who loved us. We wondered how long the names on that list of friends would remain or why they would be deleted and who, if anyone, would replace them.

JB and I had known each other for three years now and in the life of a young person that is a fair percentage of one’s time on this planet. Yet, as we drove south on Route 95, I realized we had never really talked about things like this before.

“JB, I really don’t know anything about you.”

She laughed. “You know more about me than I do. I mean when you talk, I listen. When I talk to myself, I don’t hear a thing.”

“I’m not talking about broken hearts or foolish pursuits or the times you got me home or convinced me not to be stupid . . .”

“Which were many.”

I grinned at her. “What are you looking for?”

“To please people,” she said simply.

“Why? To make them happy, or to make you happy?”

“To be liked, I guess.”

“And has that worked for you?”

She answered by not answering.

“Don’t you want people to like you?” she said eventually.

“Not really. I mean, they will or they won’t because of who I am. If I work for their acceptance, I turn out not being me, so then they’re liking an impostor.”

“How about if they have something to offer that makes you better?”

“I am open for business.”

“Well, I like you. Just in case you care.”

“That makes me very happy.”

We parked the Mustang uptown and took the subway to the theater district in Times Square. JB had arranged a brief meeting at the press office of Broadway’s most powerful and honored producer, Hal Prince. She had begged for and won a brief audience with a young intern by the name of Bobby Stevens. We arrived on time for our fifteen minutes at twelve sharp. Bobby had agreed to show us photos of the original Broadway productions of some of the shows we were to present over the coming weeks at PBT.

Bobby was a few years older than me. He must have bought his clothes at Brooks Brothers, because he was crisp and starched in a white, cotton, short-sleeve dork shirt decorated with a plain blue tie. He had a new haircut perfect-pasted with Brylcreem. He wore tortoiseshell glasses and offered a pleasant yet distant smile. Although he was tall and thin, my guess was that the chances of him doing a single pushup were slim and none.

The office was New York hustle-and-bustle, nondescript in decor. The place employed ten people, all of whom talked animatedly and with a distinct range of emotions. Dozens of show posters adorned the walls. There were celebrity photos and copies of interviews and large newspaper ads in abundance. For all the energy that filled the room, I noticed a void of anything personal at anyone’s workstation. No pictures of kids or wives appeared anywhere. Despite my exhilaration at being in a real Broadway office, I found that fact more than a touch disturbing.

Bobby showed us into a small, cluttered room off the side of the main office. He pushed aside several files and offered us a seat. He gave us a stack of some two hundred or so photos and said, “Okay, guys, enjoy. I’ll be back to check on you in a while. Please be careful. Some of the pictures are originals and, you know, actually I shouldn’t being doing this so . . . anyway, I’ll see you in a bit.” He then left us alone.

JB pulled out a satchel from her big Mary Poppins bag and unfolded it on the table. We quickly went through the pictures and selected forty of what we thought were the best. JB put them in the canvas satchel, all the while eyeing the door to make sure we were not disturbed. She zipped up the bag and placed it on the floor. Then, for reasons unknown to both of us, we pretended to look at the remaining photos as if that would distract someone from our heist. We sat for the longest two or three minutes of my life and then got up to leave.

I led the way with JB on my heels. We walked directly to the front door and stepped into the hallway, practically running to press the down button on the elevator. Instantly, we heard a loud rattled call from behind us and footsteps gaining ground. We decided the elevator would not arrive in time and slammed through the exit door and raced down the stairs.

A piercing alarm went off and I screamed, “What the fuck?” JB raced ahead, taking three or four stairs at a time, giggling all the way. We heard Bobby Stevens shouting after us and his tone was far from cordial. We descended all eight flights without caution for our limbs or physical well-being and burst out into the lobby of the building.

Stevens was right on our heels, screaming with increasing urgency. I looked over my shoulder to check his whereabouts and slammed into two young women waiting for the elevator. They fell to the ground, pissed off, and had little receptivity for my sincere but hurried apologies. JB was on the street now, and I dashed to the curb to meet her. Stevens was a step behind me as JB hailed a taxi and we both got in before the cab came to a full stop.

“Drive!” JB screamed. “That guy’s crazy. He must be an out of work actor!”

The taxi fishtailed and moved off the curb at tremendous speed. Stevens chased us and pounded on the rear of the car to stop. We didn’t. We looked back at our pursuer who was shouting raging obscenities and offering us his middle finger.

JB thanked the driver for saving our lives. She lit a cigarette and exhaled. I felt as though I needed to find a restroom. We looked at each other and laughed. I shouted, “What the hell are we doing, JB?” Then we laughed some more until we had to stop or pass out for want for air.

“Now that’s the way to get someone’s attention,” JB shrieked. I had no doubt we’d hear from Mr. Stevens before we had our morning coffee. And when I did I’d make my pitch.

O
ur trip to the Bronx didn’t go as well.

We met Secunda and the music contractor Louis Rosenberg at his studio. It was a surprisingly short and hostile meet-and-greet. Rosenberg asked for more money than we had agreed to on the phone. I rejected this renegotiation, but Secunda undermined me and caved in. I lit into him and stormed out.