Til the Real Thing Comes Along (12 page)

“Now, Mrs. Misner, can you think of any reason why anyone would have wanted to kill your husband?”

“Yes, I can.”

Police Detective Finucan had brightened. “And what reason would that be?”

“He cheated at Scrabble.”

The policeman had pockmarked skin and dandruff. His fingernails were bitten down to the quick. He was five foot six, and not
one of the items of clothing he was wearing fit him properly. The shirt was too wide in the collar, the pants were too tight
in the waist and too short, the socks sagged down toward his ankles, and the sleeves on the sport coat were so long they came
almost to his knuckles.

“He always took nine letters instead of seven out of the bag. God, it was annoying. I first caught on when I noticed the letters
falling off the rack and onto the bed—”

“Izzat supposed to be funny, Mrs. Misner?” the irritated officer interrupted. “I’m tryin’ to solve a murder here. The murder
of your husband, and the father of your little boy, and you’re makin’ jokes? Am I supposed to think you think this is a humorous
situation, Mrs. Misner? Because the L.A.P.D. isn’t laughing. Now let’s proceed with my questions and dispense with your jokes,
if ya don’t mind.”

R.J. bit her bottom lip.

“I’m sorry,” she said hoarsely. “It just came out. Sometimes I say silly things by force of habit. I think it’s because I’m
a…”

“Pisces?” Detective Finucan guessed. “My ex-wife was a Pisces. They’re very emotional.”

“No,” R.J. said. She had felt one of those uncontrollable sobs rising again, and she held her breath in order to stop it.
When she could finally speak again, she finished the sentence: “Because I’m a”—and then, after a huge intake of air, she was
finally able to say—“I’m a comedy writer.”

“A what?”

“Comedy writer,” she managed, and then the sobs came.

Finucan the detective unwrinkled his brow, and his eyes got wide with what looked oddly like awe.

“No kiddin’?” he said. “No kiddin’.” R.J.’s revelation had made a new man out of him, and with an almost courtly gesture he
produced a handkerchief from the pocket of the ill-fitting jacket and held it out to her, thrusting it practically under her
dripping nose. The handkerchief was a color R.J.’s mother would have called tattletale-gray, and it had Finucan’s scent on
it, which R.J. thought she remembered,
from boys in high school, was English Leather. Nevertheless, she took it, emitted a word that sounded enough like “thanks”
to get by, wiped her eyes on the handkerchief, and looked back at Finucan, who was now gazing at her in a way that seemed
almost flirtatious.

“You know, a lot of people think I remind them of that there Columbo,” he said, striking a pose that R.J. knew he thought
made him look like Peter Falk. “And I got stories I could tell the people who do that show that they wouldn’t believe. Do
you know any of those producers or writers on that show? How ‘bout Columbo? Do ya know
him?
See, I was thinkin’ maybe I could just be sort of like a technical adviser. Start small.”

R.J. was speechless. The policeman who had come to question her about her husband’s murder wanted to be in show business,
and to use
her
as his connection. Years from now he would probably run up onto the stage of the Music Center to announce to a cheering crowd:
“Thank God for small blessings. If Arthur Misner hadn’ta been shot to death, I never woulda won this Emmy.”

“Of course I wouldn’t just
tell
them my stories,” Finucan had added hastily. “I’d sell ’em for a couple of grand each. Let’s see. I’ve got ten or twelve
of them, at let’s say two—no, let’s call it three grand apiece, so that comes out to…”

That was when R.J. lost it. “No,” she had shrieked at him suddenly, with a rage that was not only in her voice but smeared
all over her face. “No, no, no, no, no.”

“Okay,” said Finucan, “so I’ll ask for fifteen hundred and work my way up to three grand, after I whet their appetites.”

R.J. had put her face in her hands. She dug her fingernails into her scalp, hoping to create an external pain so she wouldn’t
feel the one that was gnawing away at her insides.

“I mean,” she said softly, finally, “no, I don’t know anyone who would want to murder my husband.”

Enough cops. No cop shows. When the lady-cop show hired two men who had written
Charlie’s Angels,
R.J. told herself that she didn’t want to be on the staff of another television show anyway. Didn’t want to go into an office
every day, and then not be home after school for Jeffie. Especially now. If only she could work at home, that would be better.
That was why she’d written and sent out her
short story, “Chicken in a Pot.” Six magazines. Not even a nibble.

Her little at-home office. She’d better use it well. Her mother would have asked did she think Blue Chip stamps grew on trees?
What ever happened to Blue Chip stamps? she wondered. She was still a writer even if she didn’t have a job. Pick up a piece
of typing paper. Or maybe she wasn’t. Maybe the real reason she’d been fired was that she was awful. Roll it into the typewriter.
Maybe Harry Elfand was just trying to be nice, telling her it was because of Patsy’s craziness, and the real reason was that
she was just not funny. Type something at the top of the page. Anything. Something to keep it from looking so empty. At least
when she’d been working on the show, she could always start the day by typing the words
OPENING MONOLOGUE
at the top of the page, or
PATSY AT HOME.

“What are you doing?” Jeffie asked. He had probably been standing in the doorway of her room for a long time.

“I’m writing. What does it look like I’m doing?” R.J. asked.

“Sitting there staring,” Jeffie answered.

“Well, that’s part of writing,” she said.

“It is? Boy, that’s weird. Somebody gives you money to sit there and stare? If that’s true, then I should have that job. I’d
be president of the company in no time.”

“The staring part comes when you’re trying to decide what to write about.”

“I think you should write about us.”

“What about us?”

“Our life. Like those other dumb shows about families that are on TV, only good instead of dorky.”

“You mean a situation comedy?”

“I don’t know. Just a show. Only it’s real instead of dumb. A mother who goes into her room to cry, and a maid who talks Spanish
only nobody understands her, and a kid. And real stuff happens. Like the father dies and the mother dates these stupid guys
who keep dumping her, and then she gets fired from her job, and the kid’s failing math.”

“How could you be failing math? Don’t tell me you’re failing math. I’ll call a tutor. I’ll get a tutor to come once a week
to catch you up. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“See how real it is? You already believe it and it hasn’t even been on yet.”

“Jeffie, go back to bed. And don’t worry about my work, okay? I’ll come up with something, and if I don’t I’ll get another
staff job. I love you, honey, but I need to sit here for a while and—”

“Stare?”

“Yeah. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Love you, Mom. ’Night.”

A pilot. Maybe she could sell a pilot. Maybe if she came up with something, she could get a meeting at the network and…

“Mom?”

“Mmm?”

“If you write about us, don’t make me one of those TV kids who knows all the answers. Okay? ’Cause that’s what they’re always
like and it’s so jerky. If you don’t mind, make me a real good athlete, and thirteen instead of twelve.” And he was off to
bed.

He was right. They were funny. Laughable maybe. Even at their saddest moments. Like right after she was fired from Patsy’s
show, when she’d tried to fire Manuela. Using her nonexistent Spanish, she’d sat the housekeeper down and tried to explain
to her that she could no longer afford her services.
“Yo no tengo dinero,”
she tried. Manuela didn’t blink. “And I don’t know when I will again. We love you, but we can’t… I can’t afford you.”

Manuela took a deep breath and then spoke to her rapid-fire, and R.J. just sat there shaking her head because she didn’t understand
one word. But Manuela was vehement. She stood and paced back and forth as she talked, angrily, gesturing the way Ricky Ricardo
used to when he was mad at Lucy, and finally R.J. put up a hand to stop her.

“Wait,” she said. “One minute.” And she picked up the phone and dialed Dinah. Dinah’s phone rang and rang, and R.J. was about
to hang up when Dinah answered.

“Di?”

“Hi, hon. Just ran in. What’s up?”

“I have to fire Manuela. I can’t afford her. I’ll help her find another job, and I want her to know all that, but I don’t
have the language for it. Please help me,” she said to Dinah, who was fluent in Spanish, and handed Manuela the phone. Manuela
listened, nodded, listened, nodded, and then, arms waving with the same gestures she’d used as
she’d paced in front of R.J., she assailed Dinah with her answer, then handed R.J. the phone.

“Hi,” R.J. said to Dinah. “What’d she say?”

“She said she knows you’ll have good things happen to you, and when you do, you’ll pay her. And meanwhile she’ll stay on for
just the room and food, because she believes in you, and she can’t stand seeing you having this downbeat attitude because
you’re no fun the way you used to be, and she asked me to ask you if you’ve ever seen
Imitation of Life?”
Dinah was laughing, R.J. started to laugh too. Manuela laughed. R.J. put down the phone and hugged her.

“Gracias,
Manuela,
gracias,”
she said.

“You welcome,” Manuela said, hugging her back.

Good things would happen. Not if she didn’t get something down on this page. Type something.

ABCDEFGHUKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ. Once upon a time there was a… shit. Michael Rappaport. Mrs. Arthur Misner.

Mercifully, the phone rang.

“You surviving?” It was Dinah. She didn’t wait for an answer. “Come to a party with us next Monday night. We have to be there
at six o’clock.”

“No chance.” Dinah’s parties. No chance.

“My girls will stay with Jeffie.”

“Absolutely not. I don’t want to go to parties. Dinah, I know you mean well, but there is absolutely no point in my going
to some party where everyone is drinking too much and pretending to have fun, when all they’re doing is checking one another
out to see who they can get into bed. I know I’ve said this before and then gone back on it, but this time I mean it. I’m
not on the market anymore. My life is about my son, who’s the greatest kid in the world and needs my attention, and it’s about
my work, such as it is. I no longer believe in fairy tales or fantasies. You told me to date—I dated. An agoraphobic, a pathological
liar, an adulterer, a narcissist, a paranoid, and a serious doper. You’re right I probably should be more open. I haven’t
been out yet with a manic depressive or an ax murderer. Why close the door to those possibilities? Dinah, I’ve had my share.
One nice sweet man who loved me, which is probably more than many women ever have, so I’m not going to be greedy. After all,
we come into this world alone and eventually we
go out the same way… so why the big panic to couple up? You know what I mean? Noah’s ark isn’t leaving yet. So, my friend,
party or not, I’m going to stay in my house and sit at my Blue-Chip-stamp table and write, Dinah. Write something I can sell
in the commercial marketplace so I can make a few dollars and stay afloat. And if I do sell it, after that I’m going to use
my time to write something I care about. Something some dyspeptic head writer won’t sneer at, and to which some illiterate
star won’t forget the punch line, and some holier-than-thou program practices dimwit won’t decide is too sexy. No, Dinah,
I will not go to a party with you, because I’m going to sit home and write. Every night, including Monday.”

There was a long pause on the line before Dinah said, “So what time should I pick you up?”

R.J. hated herself for answering. “Five forty-five,” she said.

But when Monday night came she didn’t feel any more like going to the party than when she’d first heard about it. She stayed
in the shower until there was no more hot water, then got out and stood looking in the mirror at her wet naked self. A drowned
rat. Once she’d been pretty. All right, maybe just cute. But now she was a drowned rat. A small dark damp creature. She used
to joke when people would ask her if writing for television was difficult, by saying: “It’s so hard that before I did it I
was tall and blond.” But it wasn’t a joke. Those endless days with Patsy’s show had taught her how to write funny, how to
think funny, how to take ideas and turn them into comedy material, how to be unafraid to say anything in a meeting, even if
it sounded stupid, and how not to care when twelve men said, “That idea’s a piece of crap.” How not to wince or get tearful,
but to forge ahead until the right words came into focus. Because sometimes good ideas came out of bad ones. Once she overheard
Marty Nussbaum talking about her and he said, “She can pitch jokes in a room like a man.” He’d meant it as a compliment. Earning
that compliment had unequivocally toughened her up.

So had being single. In Hollywood. A place where people pretended to be other people and got paid big money for doing it.
Escaped into fantasy. All of them caring more about the illusion than the reality. About how things appeared. My God, maybe
she was one of those people, and
meeting the kind of men she’d been meeting since she’d decided to go back into the world was a reflection of who
she
was. Not a statement on the condition of men at all. No. She hoped that wasn’t right. Anyway, it didn’t matter. What mattered
was Jeffie, and making a decent living to support him, and making certain his life was comfortable. And as for romantic love?
It looked as if she just wasn’t meant to have it anymore.

When she was dried, made up, and dressed in an emerald-green silk blouse and black silk pants, she looked in her jewelry box
for her pearl earrings. She thought she had put them away in the concealed compartment underneath the shelf. Yes. They were
there, just next to her high school ring, and a strip of four pictures from one of those photo machines. Those pictures. She
hadn’t looked at them in a long time. There she was, squeezed onto the little adjustable stool in the booth next to Arthur.
In the top picture the two of them were grinning at the camera; then, in the next one, both of them, unplanned, were somehow
making the same goony face at the camera. Then the next, where with the spontaneity of two toddlers they were sticking their
tongues out at each other, and at the bottom, the two of them kissing. Kissing. Oblivious to the final flash. R.J. remembered
that the kiss had lasted a long time. Lasted until the clunk of the photo machine signaled them that the pictures were ready.
Arthur.