A New York Romance (20 page)

When Charlie returned to his room, he stared out into Mr. Costea’s office as the sun set somewhere behind the concrete skyline. The buildings were nearly silent, except for a few lit windows on the upper floors. Above that was the cloudless night sky. Charlie could see the most stars he had ever seen over the New York lights.

Less than ten blocks away, Julie lay in bed, staring at the same starlit sky. The half lit, waxing moon hovered brightly in the thin, chilly air, as if it was hung only for New Yorkers to see. Unable to sleep, she reached over and put in her “Air Supply’s Greatest Hits” CD. She listened as memories of roaming the streets and parks with Charlie bubbled into her awareness.

“Julie. It’s time to get up. I’m going into work now. You have to be there at noon. And Bob called this morning. He got you an audition for something in a small playhouse this evening. It will be a great start for you. You have to meet him after work, so bring a change of clothes. I’ll see ya later,” her mother said as she hurried out the door.

As Julie crawled out of bed, Charlie was already walking the streets, contemplating what to do with Mr. Costea.

Julie’s day passed as slowly as Charlie’s. When work was finished, she visited Bob, who was waiting soberly for her arrival.

“I knew you’d make it. This guy called me and he needed someone to fill in right away.” He handed her a script and pointed to a character. “The lead actress got a better offer and her protégé is sick. They’re desperate for someone to play this part. The play is in a week and a half.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready.” She leafed through the pages in the script. “I don’t know if I can learn all these lines in a week and a half.”

“If it’s something you really want, you can do it. We can have anything we want in this world,” his words reminding her of Charlie’s. “I want you to at least meet this guy. I know him well. I’ve been working with him a while; helped him out many a times. He owes me,” he thumbed his chest again.

“Okay, I’ll meet him.”

“His name is Cattman, Kirby Cattman. But don’t mention the Kirby part. Just Cattman. He hates his first name.”

“Kirby is an odd name,” Julie agreed.

“Oh, it’s not that,” Bob corrected her. “He just doesn’t like the sound of vacuum cleaners and his name reminds him of…well you know.”

Julie gave him a strange look and nod of agreement. She didn’t know if he was being serious or not. She simply held the script close and followed him.

“Come on, we’ll go to the playhouse now.”

When Bob and Julie arrived at the playhouse, all of the actors and actresses were on the stage. Cattman was on the other side, rambling on about the lighting. As he complained, a clumsy stagehand ran out from behind the curtain, carrying a box and shouting, “I got the tickets! I got the tickets!” As he ran, he tripped and dropped the box, spilling the tickets around Cattman’s feet.

“Shut that door!” Cattman yelled at the maintenance man, standing in the doorway with a broom and dustpan in his hand and letting a gust of wind chill the room. “Now pick these up,” he said to the stagehand.

Julie could only hear his infuriated voice from across the stage, which sent a brush of nervous fear through her veins.

As she followed Bob onto the stage, one of the actors yelled out, “Bob Arand!”

“Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob Bob Arand. Bob….” Everyone started singing as many of them knew him and thought fondly of him. Bob began dancing around them with his arms in the air, his right foot facing in, and his big toe planted on the ground, shaking his leg like a bad Elvis impersonation.

As Bob danced, Julie noticed a strange looking middle-aged man wearing a polka-dotted shirt with striped pants and slicked back hair, appearing from out of the crowd of actors and actresses. His outfit stood out among the costumes they wore. “Bobby,” he shouted.

“Cat Man!” Bob replied with the shake of a hand. He quickly slid to Julie’s side. “Here’s the young lady I wanted you to meet. Miss Juliet Lavine.”

Cattman looked her over without a word then pulled Bob off to the side.

“She doesn’t look anything like the part,” he whispered loudly.

“She just needs a little makeup and a wig, and she’ll fit the part. When have I ever let you down before?”

“When you brought in a chubby Irish girl to play Pocahontas. When you had the Chinese guy who couldn’t speak English play Tarzan. When…”

“He could yell like Tarzan, and I figured he would learn English like Tarzan had to learn English. Tarzan didn’t know English. I figured it would bring some authenticity to the part, make it more realistic, man.”

“He was Chinese! No one’s heard of a Chinese Tarzan!” Cattman argued.

“How do you know Tarzan wasn’t Chinese? A China boy has a better chance of getting lost in a forest, and being raised by gorillas, than an American boy. We don’t even have gorillas in our forests.”

Cattman just rolled his eyes and began to walk away from the absurdity of the direction of the conversation.

“Have you ever seen gorillas in the woods of upper state New York?” Bob questioned, but Cattman didn’t answer. He didn’t even turn around.

“Okay, I’ve made a few errors,” Bob admitted as he spun him around and appeared at Cattman’s side. “So what? That was the past, man,” he said, like a stoned hippie from the seventies. “Get over it. That joint is smoked. But I got a new one for ya.”

“Alright, alright. I’ll look at this girl’s resume, but only because I’m desperate.”

“Here it is,” Bob said as he pulled the folded piece of paper out of the inside of his plaid coat pocket.

“Mmmm Hmm. This is impressive. Where is
The Living Room
?” He asked as he walked toward Julie.

“It’s…ah…really close to where I slept…”

“It’s a playhouse back in her hometown,” Bob interrupted so she didn’t fumble through the lying, or have to do it at all.

“Do you have references?”

Bob flipped the resume over, and across the creased page were her references.

“I see you have Hinkman as a reference. You must know your stuff. He only references the best up and coming students,” Cattman said, crumbling up the resume as he placed his hands on his hips. He turned the conversation to Bob, “but the play is in a week and a half. It’s too short of a time for her to take on such an important role.”

“She’s good and she’s got a memory like a cat man, Cattman,” Bob replied. Cattman just stared at him as if to say,
What the hell does that mean?

“How is Hinkman anyway? I haven’t seen him in a long time.”

“He’s good,” Bob answered. Julie couldn’t believe he actually claimed to know the man, a fictional character of Bob’s delusional mind. “He’s got a place in the Poconos now.”

“Oh yes, he invited me there not too long ago.”

“Did he tell you about his new baby?” Bob asked.

Julie gave him a ‘don’t push your luck’ look.

“I did get a card in the mail with the baby’s picture, yes. I haven’t been able to write him back. I’m very busy.”

Bob winked at Julie as if to gloat about how easy it was then continued, “Knocked up a young actress from Boston.”

“Sounds like Hinkman,” Cattman replied.

“He’s a son-of-a-bitch,” Bob added with laughter, and Julie saw the first smile on Cattman’s face.

“Alright Bob, get her in here,” Cattman agreed, handing Bob back the resume. Then he looked at Julie and said, “Just don’t screw it up! Practice is every day from 11 AM to 3 PM.”

“Yeeessss!” Bob said clenching his fist, elbowing himself in the stomach as if he just won a bet or threw the game winning touchdown pass.

Julie looked down and felt the heaviness of the script in her hands and whispered out loud, “How am I supposed to memorize this in a week and a half?”

“I can help you with that,” the handsome young man playing the lead role said. His lips were full, teeth were white, and his smile warm and friendly. “We have many scenes together. I’m Jason.”

Julie noticed a girl behind him, the girl playing his wife, nudging him on the arm as if upset he would make such an offer.

“See there, Jason will help you. I gotta run now,” Bob said as he hurried off the stage.

“Thanks for doing this with such short time,” the handsome young Jason said. “I didn’t think the play would go on otherwise.” He smelled of expensive cologne, despite being dressed in an outfit found in the earliest days of New York. The girl behind him snarled with jealousy.

“I’m Juliet,” she said with a shy smile, as he held out his hand to lightly hold hers as if he might kiss it, but didn’t.

“Nice to meet you,” his dashing smile added. His eyes even twinkled in the beams of the stage lights.

“Mom, I got the part!” Julie shouted when she burst through the door. The excitement in her voice was contagious but her mother was more thrilled that her daughter called her ‘Mom.’

“That’s wonderful, honey.”

“But I have to practice every day at the playhouse. The play is next Friday. Do you think Mel will mind if I miss some shifts I’m already scheduled for?”

“I’ll cover your shifts. You don’t have to worry about working at all. I’ll work double if I have too. It’s the least I can do for you,” her mother said. She took this opportunity to embrace her daughter in congratulations.

Along with the excitement of her first part, Julie felt a sense of forgiveness growing in her heart, as if a long time burden was being burned by the flames of love and forgiveness and the ashes were being blown away, scattered and forgotten. She felt like she had a mother now. The steady stream of abandonment in the back of her mind was shifting and being replaced with the feeling of being cared for again.

Jill stepped back and held her daughter’s shoulder and looked her over. “I’m so proud of the young lady you’ve turned out to be. Your father did a good job.”

“You’re making it hard for me to be angry with you anymore,” Julie admitted softly.

Jill dropped her arms to her side.

“I’ve suffered enough for my mistakes. Being without you and your father all these years was punishment enough. I can’t go back and change the past. I can’t make up to you all the years you were without a mother, but if you give me a chance I can start now.”

“You already have,” Julie smiled and embraced her mother again with complete affection. A rush of blissful exhilaration flooded through Jill’s body. She held onto her and did not want to let go, as if some part of them was now forever intertwined.

As the evening quieted, Julie read the script under her nightlight. At the same time, Charlie stared out the window at the moonlight, reflecting off the glass building in front of him. He thought of every soul in the world warmly and wished them love, but mostly, he thought of Julie.

Julie practiced everyday as her mother covered her shifts. Charlie spent his lunch hours at Joe’s Place, but Mr. Costea and his friends never came. The waitress recognized him from the first time he was there long ago and remembered the kindness he showed her.

“Hi, what can I get you? You’re not meeting your friends today?”

“Ah, they’re not exactly my friends,” Charlie responded.

“I didn’t think so. You don’t fit in with them, and that’s a good thing.”

After a few visits she wrote her phone number on the receipt

“You can call me. I’d like to go out sometime.”

Charlie smiled. He did not know what to say. Then he blurted out, “I’m kind of seeing someone.” In that moment he became aware of the human predicament of having to lie to someone to save their feelings. He felt more human in that moment than he ever had.

“Well if things don’t work out, give me a call,” she said. He noticed how beautiful she was, but the very thought of finding her attractive made him feel as if he was somehow betraying Julie.

He returned his mind to the state of true love, where such human emotions could not disturb him.

Julie had her own complications with Jason, whose lead role was supposed to leave his wife for her character in the play. Each practice Julie refused to kiss him on the lips in the final act where they ran off together. Mary, the actress playing his wife, and who gave Julie the snarled look her first day there, was infatuated with Jason. Julie recognized the concern in Mary’s eyes when Jason first offered to help her with her lines and each time he neared her after. The moment became obvious when Mary approached Julie as if strung out on caffeine. “Fine, you can have him! I know you’re going to steal him from me, just like in the play!”

“Mary,” Julie replied in a calm voice. “I don’t want him and why would you want him? If you can be dedicated to someone in a relationship then you deserve somebody who can be dedicated to you. He’s a jerk. I know I deserve better and I won’t settle for someone like him. You should think about the kind of man you really want. And when you figure it out, I bet he’ll be nothing like Jason.”

Her words were a surprise to Mary. It seemed that Julie actually had her best interest in heart, but a second later Mary stormed out of the room certain it was just a ploy to steal her man away.

The tension built between Mary, Jason, and Julie throughout the week, until the morning the final rehearsal arrived. It was a dress rehearsal but there were no costumes, nor was there a makeup artist in the building, which sent Cattman’s tension into uncharted human territory.

“Where the hell are my costumes?!” Cattman yelled.

Rehearsal started early and went on without the costumes. Cattman was a nervous wreck as he watched his actors and actresses fumble through their lines.

When the final scene arrived, Jason’s character said to Julie’s character: “I can’t live without you. Let us run off together and be free of this place. I’ll give everything up for you.”

“Cut! Cut! Cuuut!” Cattman screamed as Julie let Jason kiss her on the cheek. “This is the final rehearsal. You actually have to kiss him. You have to
act
like you’re in love with him. That’s the whole thing about acting, you have to become someone else. You have to become the girl who wants to run off with him. A kiss on the cheek will not do! Again!”

Jason repeated the line, “I can’t live without you, let us run off together and be free of this place. I’ll give everything up for you,” then he pulled her close with a gloating grin.

Mary stood off stage watching the scene in horror as Julie stepped into his arms and kissed him like she loved him. Then she took his hand and ran off stage.

“Excellent!” Cattman yelled. “Get some rest this evening, then tomorrow we’ll begin the show.”

Back stage, Jason approached Julie in the makeup room. The door was cracked and Mary listened from the other side.

“Julie,” Jason said. “I think we should get together tonight and practice that final scene again.”

Julie knew he was talking particularly about the kissing part.

“Why don’t you spend the evening with Mary? She might want you to practice with her,” Julie suggested.

Mary was surprised. She peeked through the crack of the open door and continued listening.

“I don’t want Mary. I want you. That was the best kiss I ever had.”

Mary began crying, covering her mouth as the tears poured out.

“It was meant for someone else,” Julie replied. “I don’t think about anyone but him.”

“Come on. Your boyfriend doesn’t have to know, and neither does Mary,” he replied and put his hand on her shoulder.

Julie smacked it away with a stern look.

Jason stormed off in anger. Mary quickly hid behind the door as he passed. When he was gone she took one last look at Julie through the doorway. She recognized the truth of her words. She wanted to tell her thank you but she couldn’t muster up the courage.

Julie could hear the girl’s soft crying. She stood up and walked toward the door.

“Is that you Mary?”

Mary quickly ran off and snuck out the back door for home, before Jason or anyone else could see her crying. Julie felt a feeling of love rising within her. It wasn’t just for Charlie or her mother. It was for Mary, then it shifted to the other cast member, and Cattman, and without any reservations for Jason as well. The vision of them all caught in some emotional, entangled web they did not understand they were the creators of rose in her mind. They were trapped, unaware of their connectedness, trying to please their egos in a world built on togetherness. She thought of Charlie and was beginning to understand the love he was talking about.

There is a deeper love that does not require the ego to be pleased. This is the love I wish for people. It is a love that is beyond suffering and happiness, friends and enemies, self and other,
she recalled his words.

As Mary stormed out of the theater, Charlie happened to be passing by. The girl caught his eye as she was crying and quickly held a cab. He stopped to send her a wish of love. As her cab pulled away, he turned and looked at the marquee in front of the playhouse. Advertised was a play about an Irish family struggling in early New York and the man’s love for his Native American servant. He’s forced to choose between his status among the Irish immigrants and what felt right in his heart.

Now that sounds like a good love story,
Charlie thought to himself. He looked at the program containing the names of the actors and actresses and knew none of them. The stagehand had never got around to making the changes since the lead actress quit.

Charlie proceeded to the building where Mr. Costea worked several blocks away. On the way he passed by a rather strange clothing store. Vintage clothes hung in the window and on the racks. He felt compelled to enter.

“May I help you?” the woman asked.

Charlie remembered he costume shop in the mall. There were no disco of cave girl outfits. It looked like the Partridge family was having a garage sale.

“Are these costumes?”

“No,” the owner replied. Charlie noticed the 70’s style of clothes she was wearing. “Everything here is vintage clothing. You look like a man who could use some help with a new style,” she stated, noticing the brown corduroy jacket among the worn out shoes.

“What do you suggest?”

“Do you like the 70’s look?” which was obviously her favorite, and what she had most of in the store, as if the store was her own personal wardrobe.

“I prefer something much older,” he said as he remembered Julie’s words, j
ust be who you want to be, even if that means wearing clothes that have been outdated for over two-hundred years.
He pointed to such an outfit on the wall and asked if it would fit.

“I think I might have a few outfits for you,” she said with a smile.

Charlie tried on a few outfits and purchased them all, choosing to wear one out the door. He noticed the way the clothes affected him. He felt as if he was finally becoming the human he wanted to be, despite the stares of strangers he passed on the street.

After dropping the other clothes off at his room he proceeded to Mr. Costea’s building. There he confronted the doorman who turned him away so many months ago. Charlie hoped he would not recognize him, as he had been banned from the building again. He walked toward him slowly, aware of each step, looking deeply into the doorman’s eyes as he stood like a statue, greeting the workers and visitors with a smile and an occasional tip of the hat. Charlie looked away as he neared, trying to act like he belonged in the building, wearing his vintage clothes, and hoping the doorman would never really notice his face. The doorman felt his glare between the smiles he flashed at other visitors. Charlie kept walking, his head down, hands in his hip pockets. He approached the door as the doorman said good morning to the sharply dressed woman in front of him, who undoubtedly was a lawyer at one of the firms in the building. Her high heels stood out among the men’s polished loafers. Charlie reached for the door when suddenly the doorman stepped in front of him.

Charlie looked him in the eye.

“I know who you are and what you are up to,” the doorman said with a stern look of confidence. His hair was freshly trimmed; Charlie could smell his aftershave as he stood in front of him in his pressed uniform. “My wife showed me your picture in the paper of when you were in the hospital. But I need my job so I can’t let you in.”

“I understand.” Charlie wished him and his wife a long, healthy, happy life together and turned away.

“So you should enter through the docking area in the back of the building.” Charlie turned back around as the doorman continued. “You’ll be on camera, but they never check it that closely and that way I won’t get fired for letting you in. The workers are too busy during business hours to worry about you. I trust you’ll know where to go from there,” he instructed.

Charlie reached into his pocket to give the doorman a tip, but the man waved it off. “Nice threads by the way,” he said. Charlie smiled, wished him well again, and took his leave.

Charlie snuck into the building through the delivery entrance. Most people just looked at him strangely because of the clothes he was wearing, but he didn’t appear to be a threat. He took the back stairs to the fourth floor. He spotted Mr. Costea heading toward him in the hall. He waited in a deep doorway acting as if he belonged in the office then followed Mr. Costea into the bathroom where the adversary couldn’t call security so quickly.

Mr. Costea was staring at his lines and judging the work of his razor when he saw a familiar stare in the mirror behind him.

“What are you doing here?” He turned around overlooked Charlie’s attire. “And why are you wearing those clothes?” Back to his face. “This has gone far enough. Do you know how much trouble you’re…”

“It’s almost over,” Charlie said with a strong, determined, and almost sinister look. There’s one more thing I’m going to do.”

“What’s that?”