Authors: David Marlow
“Don’t worry about me. I was glad to help. Honest!” Guy held up two scout fingers.
Corky looked down at his loyal fan. “You’re okay, you know that?”
“Thanks!”
“A little weird, but a sweet kid.”
Guy jiggled his eyebrows, a junior Groucho Marx.
“Someday I’ll do something for you, return the favor…”
“Oh, you don’t have to—”
Corky snapped his fingers. “Maybe the fraternity. Sure. Why not? How’d you like to go to the Kappa Phi smoker a week from Friday?”
Guy looked up, overwhelmed.
“That’s what I’ll do, kid. Put your name on the invitation list.” And with that Corky tossed his cleats over his shoulder and bounded into the locker room. He felt bad knowing the kid didn’t stand a chance of making it as a pledge, but at least he’d know the honor of having been considered.
Guy stared at the swinging locker room door. Kappa Phi. The jock house. The best frat in Waterfield. In the world. He and Corky were going to be fraternity brothers!
Bursting with excitement, Guy went straight home and read the sports section of News day, word for word.
THEJ.V. WAS SCRIMMAGING
early Saturday morning, so Butch, in training, chose not to attend his fraternity meeting the night before. And since he went to bed early, he had no way of knowing Corky had added Guy’s name to the list of candidates asked to their smoker.
When the invitation arrived in Wednesday’s mail, Guy had a hunch Butch still wasn’t aware of it, else the beast would surely have made known his fearsome displeasure. Afraid of his brother’s probable overreaction, Guy put off mentioning anything about it.
Butch would find out soon enough.
Front page articles in Thursday’s Eagler covered both the football win over Floral Park’s Sewanhaka and the Hawaiian Moon Ball. Accompanying pictures gave due credit—Photos: Guy Fowler.
Gallivanting into the office, Guy went directly to Amy. Atop a desk, knees pressed to her chest, she sipped a Coke.
“Hi!” He waved a spirited greeting. “How’d you like being on the front page?” “Eh.”
“No great shakes?”
“Naw. How bout you?”
“Lovedit. What acharge!”
“Calm down. Your enthusiasm’s bursting my soda bubbles. “
Clapping for attention, Leonard entered the office. “All right! This isn’t the Fourth of July! Someone declare a legal holiday? Let’s not rest on laurels, kiddies. We’ve got a next edition to get out. What goes?”
No one spoke. No one moved. All eyes on Leonard who, his eyes to the ceiling, intoned, “Why, God? Why can’t I have a staff that comprehends the meaning of the Christian work ethic?”
“Protestant…” Amy corrected under her breath.
“What was that, Miss Silverstein?”
“Nothing, lord and master, just Amy the pedant out of line again. Forgive me. …”
Leonard glared, kicked a desk, pulled at his hair and yelled, “I said I want to hear the happy sound of typewriters clicking and I mean nowll”
Groaning, giggling, everyone settled at desks.
Guy turned to Amy. “You got an assignment?”
“Natch. I’m covering rehearsals for the fall play.
Arsenic and Old Lace
. Real avant-garde!”
“Going to work on it now?”
“What? And give Leonard the satisfaction of getting something in on schedule? Never!” Amy rested her elbows on her knees. “I’m weary of this day, anyway.”
“What’ll you do?”
“Don’t know. Go home, I guess. Wanna come?”
Unaccustomed as he was to invitations from older women, Guy was intrigued. “What for?”
“Who knows? I can brew some tea. We’ll sit cross-legged and compose haikus. Very beatnik.”
“Sounds fine. What are hi-cooz?”
“Little Japanese poems. But let’s get out of here before Leonard cracks his whip again.”
The Silversteins lived upstairs in six rooms of a three-story garden apartment complex built just after the war. On permanent display, the place was immaculately clean. Except Amy’s room.
Stacks of books and magazines. Articles ripped from newspapers. A bulletin board crowded with notes and memos. The bed sloppily made. Sheets hanging down beyond the mattress.
“Here we are!” Amy announced, walking in. “Welcome to the city dump.”
Guy studied a pile of books.
The Prophet, Catch-22, Mein Kampf, The Catcher in the Rye …
“Interesting collection.” He tried sounding knowledgeable while tapping a copy of
Tropic of Cancer.
Raising an instructive finger in the air, Amy postulated, “Only if we listen to what the others have to say can we best make up our own minds as to how to run our lives!”
Guy wasn’t sure what she meant, but he was impressed. “You’re a generally interesting person, Amy.”
Amy smiled fondly at her guest. “I have a feeling you are too.”
“Thanks.” Guy clicked his teeth. “And not only that … I’m a Democrat!”
“I won’t tell a soul… . Now then, would you like some tea?”
Guy slanted his eyes with his fingers and bowed, a humble Oriental.
“I’m glad no one’s home yet. My mother’d drive us crazy.”
Guy studied the tall girl, trying to figure her out.
“How bout Lapsang Souchong?” she asked.
Guy was stumped. “He some famous Chinese Communist?”
Amy didn’t answer.
“I know!” Guy hit his head. “It’s a breed of dog!”
“Not quite. It’s the name of a tea.”
“Oh. You mean there are others besides Lipton?”
“Hundreds. And warmed pumpkin bread with kumquat marmalade?”
Guy winced. “Whatever you say.”
“I’ll be right back. Why don’t you read a few books while I’m gone?”
As guy thumbed rapidly through
Das Kapital
, none of it making sense, he heard the front door open. A woman’s voice called out, “Yoo-hoo!”
“In the kitchen!” yelled Amy.
There followed a series of jumbled words. Both parties raised voices until someone said, “I’ll see for myself!”
Insistent footsteps approached and a handsome brunette lady entered the room.
“Oh!” The lady stopped short, releasing a breath of air. “Excuse me. Amy said she was entertaining a
man
in her room.”
Guy looked around for possible candidates. “Who’d you think I was?”
“Well”—she grinned—”you’re obviously a very
young
man.”
“True, “Guy confessed.
“I never know what to expect from Amy.”
“I guess that makes two of us.”
“I’m Evelyn Silverstein. Amy’s mother.”
“Hello, Mrs. Silverstein. Guy Fowler.”
Evelyn slowly surveyed the room. “Can you believe this sty? You could eat off my living room floor, it’s so clean. I’m forever hoping Amy might entertain her friends in there. But no, she drags them into this den of bacteria. Want some sage advice, young man?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t have children. Raise puppies. You won’t be disappointed.”
Feeling increasingly uncomfortable, Guy nodded. “I’ll remember that.”
Balancing a crowded tray, Amy now joined the party. “How was the beauty parlor, Evelyn?”
“News under the dryer practically singed my hair. Jeanne Wright’s pregnant
again
and Martha Ames is having an affair with her dry cleaner. Lucky stiff, she’s had all her curtains cleaned free.” Evelyn fingered her hair. “But just look at this comb-out. Barton’s losing his touch. You know how much that fruit gets to make me think I look like the youngest mother on the block?”
“How do you know he’s a fruit?” Amy said wearily.
“Don’t go liberal on me, dear.
All
hairdressers are. Same as men ballerinas and Jesuit priests. Save the propaganda for your readers.”
“It’s not propaganda!”
“Good thing my friends haven’t seen some of your book collection. We’d all be under investigation.”
“No doubt!” Amy agreed.
Evelyn turned to Guy. “Tell me, young man. You part of that group, too?”
“What group?”
“He’s not, Mother.”
“Well, that’s a relief. I’ll start dinner.” Raising an eyebrow, Evelyn looked at Amy. “
He
eating with us?”
“No, Mother. Why subject him?”
Evelyn looked at Guy appraisingly. “Seems a rather nice young man. Not like the others.”
“Thanks,” Amy said.
Mrs. Silverstein turned to leave. “Can I get you two anything?”
“No.” Amy’s impatience was about to show. “W
ewere
doing fine.”
Evelyn looked to Guy. “Get her to clean up this room, Guy. Tidiness is such a virtue. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes … I mean… well, I’ll do what I can, Mrs. Silverstein.”
“Who wants to marry a sloppy woman? Okay, children. Have fun. And Amy…” Evelyn smiled cheerfully.
“Yes, Mother?”
“Keep the door open!”
With a crooked grin and a further adjustment of her newly coiffed hair, Amy’s mother left the room.
Silence.
Guy looked at Amy. She looked at him, lifted the small ceramic pot into the air and politely asked, “Tea?”
He nodded, then asked, “By the way, how come you call your mother by her first name?”
“I don’t always. Sometimes it just seems more natural than Mother.”
Guy and Amy sat on the floor in a lotus position she’d quickly taught him. With small candles mystically burning about them, and a cloud of incense overwhelming all before it, they sipped the oddly named tea and nibbled on marmalade toast.
Amy twirled a spoonful of honey and let the sweetener plip-plop into her cup. “My mother goes to the beauty parlor. What’s yours do for a living?”
“Bakes.”
“Bakes what?”
“You name it. This week she’s concocting an upside-down pineapple-apricot something-or-other.”
“Sounds dreadful.” Amy licked the sticky residue from her spoon.
“Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. She experiments a lot. Every year she enters the Pillsbury Bake-Offs. Even got honorable mention once or twice. “
“Sounds like something out of
Good Housekeeping,”
said Amy. “My Mother has no interest in baking. Too busy planning my future. Believe me when I say she and my Aunt Bernice have been fighting over the wording of my engagement announcement for twelve years.”
“Well, why not? Isn’t that what mothers do best?”
“I suppose.” Amy sipped her tea. “Can I tell you my favorite Evelyn story?”
“Please.”
“Last year, for my Sweet Sixteen, I told my folks in no way did I want a party. I agreed to let them take me in to New York for a show and a fancy meal at a restaurant of my choosing. It was after
West Side Story
, over crepes suzette at 21, that Evelyn handed me a savings book. My birthday present. She d been putting aside ten dollars a week into a private account, for the past four years.
“Naturally I was thrilled. I mean all that money. My joy was cut short when she explained the accumulated treasure. To finance my overhaul. Bob the nose, unkink the hair, make me a beauty. Well… wasn’t I excited and grateful?”
“And you weren’t ?”
“Certainly not! I handed the savings book back. I said I’d rather use the money for a trip to Europe. Evelyn—she carries in her wallet photos of movie stars who’ve had nose jobs—accused me of deliberately sabotaging my future happiness, and I displayed what I thought was great restraint by not dumping my dessert into her lap.”
“I guess she meant well,” Guy said seriously.
“I guess. Still, who wants to look like everyone else? My dear…” Amy pretended to have a headache. “Wait ‘til Christmas recess. You return from vacation and twenty girls have new faces. Ba-ba-ba. More tea?”
Guy held out his cup. As Amy filled it with the smoky-flavored brew, he asked, “You know Debbie Wiener?”
“We have gym together.”
“Well, she’s my sister’s friend. Jewish. She had her nose fixed last year and I think she looks pretty good.”
“Do you?” Amy placed the white china pot on the floor.
“A lot better than before, anyway.”
Amy was casual. “I think they sliced off her face.”
“Oh?… you really preferred her old nose?”
“I’d
pre fer
something natural to one of those piglet jobs. Why do you think they call it
plastic
surgery?”
“I never—”
“Don’t misunderstand. I’m not particularly thrilled with the piccolo in the middle of my face. But it is mine and I’ll live with it. I only consented to have my mouth barb-wired like this because my father’s an orthodontist. It’s bad public relations having me walk around like the Wicked Witch of the East.”
Guy tilted his head to look at Amy’s braces.
“Sometimes when Evelyn’s serving one of our more scintillating dinners around the television, a commercial will come on. She’ll look at me and then say something like, It was always such a
small
nose when you were young.’ Does wonders for my confidence.” Amy stared at the floor.
Guy snapped his fingers, bringing her back from a momentary drift. “Hey, what’d your mother mean when she asked if I was part of ‘that group’?”
“She means the Gadflys.”
“Who?”
“Friends of mine. You know some of them from the paper. Maybe you should come to our next get-together.”
“Love to!” Guy accepted eagerly, glad to be included in any social gathering, anywhere.
“The school refuses us the editorial freedom we’ve been demanding, so we’re putting out our own newspaper.”
“How can they tell you what to print?”
“Because they think they’re Big Brother!” Amy said staunchly.
“Who’s he?”
Amy sipped her tea. “It’s a literary allusion. Don’t you ever read anything?”
“Not much … no time. Anyway, they can’t do that! It’s a free country!”
“You are naive. We’re going to shake up a few institutions, I can tell you that. Show these obnoxious fraternity-sorority types there’s another world outside the womb of Waterfield.”
“Wait a minute!” Guy interjected. “What’s wrong with fraternities? I just got brought up for one myself. Going to their smoker tomorrow night.”
Amy placed her cup on the floor. “You’re not serious.”
“But I am!” Guy bragged. “And guess who brought my name up? Corky Henderson himself!”