Dorothy Parker Drank Here (3 page)

N
orah Wolfe never dreamed her obsession with Ted Shriver would pay off in any discernible way, yet here she was at twenty-nine, outside her boss's office, with information that might save their television show,
Simon Janey Live
, from getting canceled.

She was only thirteen when she first discovered the reclusive author. Her mother had handed her a worn paperback edition of
Dobson's Night,
and the novel's voice seized her from the start. It was the yearning she related to. Shriver seemed to understand the specific human pain of wanting and pushing away at the same time. It left her with a gorgeous ache, and when she turned the last page of the book and closed the cover, Norah's connection to the writer felt absolute. It was a breathless, consuming rapture—the kind of feeling you experience only when you're on the cusp of adulthood, old enough for something intangible to touch you that deeply, young enough to believe no one had ever felt it in quite the same way.

A year later, her mother was dead. And that was it. The only parent she had ever known was felled by a simple case of bronchial pneumonia, because her multiple sclerosis had left her too weak to cough up the blockage. And though Norah had been just down the
hall when it happened, she hadn't heard a thing. Sometimes she still dreamed she could hear her mother's voice calling out weakly in the night. It was always the same—the slow realization that the faint sound was a call for help, followed by a confused jumble of fear as she struggled to reach her mother's room in time to save her. But something always got in her way, and she would wake up mired in guilt she couldn't shake.

Norah's mother had always told her she was strong—very strong—and at the funeral she realized it really meant
Strong enough to carry on without me
.

And she believed it, though she considered it a choice. As she sat in the chapel, staring down at her bare knees, Norah knew that she could decide to be strong . . . or to crumble. She was considering the second option—thinking about how it would feel to collapse with melodramatic flourish—when her uncle handed her a letter.
For Norah on my death
, the envelope said, in her mother's shaky cursive. She stared at it for several seconds, confused. Then she understood what it was and tore into it, her heart beating with excitement that she held a living piece of her mother in her hands.

Norah read it through three times, but the message she had hoped to receive wasn't there. Her uncle asked if she was okay, and Norah nodded. Then she folded the letter, put it in her pocket, and stared at the casket. She made her decision. She would be strong, not weak. But the intersection of repressed grief, her mother's secret, and her laser focus on the one person who understood her heart locked in the obsession with Ted Shriver. Even as she grew and matured, Norah never gave up the dream of connecting with him.

And now she might get her wish and be a hero in the process. She knocked again on her boss's door.

“Don't just stand there, sugar,” said Didi Dickson, a pen between her teeth. Rail thin with deep-set eyes, Didi almost always looked overworked, but today she appeared even more stressed than usual.
Clearly in the middle of something, she had three open file folders spread out before her. Her office smelled like apple and spice, thanks to a basket of potpourri she kept on the corner table.

“You look frazzled,” Norah said.

“You don't know the half of it, bubbeleh.” Didi was a forty-two-year-old black woman from Louisiana, but had been a hard-driving New Yorker since her early twenties, and loved mixing Big Apple patois with her Southern slang.

She was the segment producer of
Simon Janey Live
, a nightly TV interview program with more prestige than viewers. Of course, when there was a major guest, like Steve Jobs, J. K. Rowling, or Bill Clinton—all of whom had been on last year—ratings soared. But the network didn't give a damn about last year or last month. All that mattered was that viewership had been in steady decline and that a solid lineup wasn't going to do it. They needed a guest who would make headlines—someone no one else could get.

“I got calls into publicists for Will Smith, Dick Cheney, Angelina Jolie, Al Gore, and Barry Bonds,” she continued. “But even if one of them comes through, it might not be enough.”

Norah cleared her throat. “What if I told you I might be able to get Ted Shriver?”

“I'd ask for some of whatever it is you're smoking, 'cause I sure could use it.”

“I'm serious.”

Didi leaned back and folded her arms. “You jerking my tail?”

“I know where he is,” Norah said. “I know how to get to him.”

Didi, of course, had no idea her associate producer had been tracking him for years, learning his past three addresses and even the name of his personal physician. Norah's real coup came when she befriended the doctor's receptionist, a chatty F.I.T. student who told her about his medical condition. “Refused treatment” was the
term the girl had used, and Norah understood why he had moved into the Algonquin Hotel. Ted Shriver had gone there to die.

Didi straightened her glasses. “Where is he?”

Norah pulled out a chair and sat. “I'll tell you,” she said, “but I want you to let me approach him.”

Her boss laughed. “Sugar, you got to be kidding.”

Norah had expected this. A month before, she had screwed up when she tried to take advantage of a chance meeting with an A-list celebrity. It was Kip Elliott, a leading man and notorious bad boy whose longtime girlfriend was in the studio being interviewed by Simon. When Norah found herself alone on the elevator with him she thought she had nothing to lose, as she had no way of knowing that delicate negotiations to sign him for the show were already under way. “Who the fuck are you?” he had said when she asked if he might be interested in a Simon Janey interview. She tried to charm him with her fetching smile, which infuriated him even more.

Later, his publicist told Didi that Kip thought the lanky brunette on the elevator had been sent to ambush him, and could not be convinced otherwise.

Norah could have been fired immediately, but Didi had a soft spot for her and decided to give her another chance. The ensuing lecture, however, included a lot of talk about boundaries, and Norah promised she knew where hers were and would never cross them again.

She meant it, too. The problem was that when faced with opportunity, Norah couldn't always control her brazen impulses. It wasn't exactly ambition that drove her—though God knows she loved this job and would do anything to make it work—but an instinct that told her if she didn't fend for herself she'd be devoured. Losing her mother at a young age left her with a feral survival reflex.

“Let me redeem myself,” Norah said.

“Not with Ted Shriver.”

“I can do this. I'm sure of it.”

“First off, he hasn't done an interview in thirty years. Just because some pretty little thing knocks on his door—”

“Hear me out,” Norah said.

Didi shook her head and leaned forward for a life lesson. “I know people like this, Norah. It's a million to one. Our only chance is if someone
important
approaches him. No offense, sugar, but he'll regard you as a cockroach. It'll make the Kip Elliott incident look like tea with your granny.”

Norah nodded. The thing she most admired about Didi was her honesty. People in TV could be so full of shit, but this woman said what she meant.

“Shriver is different,” Norah said. “I can charm him.”

“And what are you going to do if he says, ‘Charm
this
'?” She made a hand gesture to illustrate her point.

“He won't come on to me. He's too sick.”

Didi's eyes widened, and Norah saw it—a flicker of interest.

“Sick?”

“Dying.”

Didi touched her keyboard's space bar to wake up the monitor. “How do you know?”

“It's not online. It's not anywhere. I have a source.”

“Reliable?”

“Very.”

Didi squinted, thinking, and Norah had a pretty good idea what was going through her mind. In 1981, just weeks after Ted Shriver's fourth novel was published, charges of plagiarism surfaced and were instantly confirmed. On a single page of the book, there were three paragraphs that had been lifted, almost verbatim, from a nonfiction book by a Vietnam vet. The scandal had been huge, and Ted never commented on it, never published another word. His fans assumed
there was a good explanation—especially since no one could find another instance of plagiarism in any of his other work—and theories circulated for years. Meanwhile, his detractors continued to vilify him, and he was particularly loathed among veterans. If Ted Shriver was dying, this would be his last chance to set the record straight.

Didi bit her lip. “Still,” she said.

“Let me show you something,” Norah said, walking around to her boss's side of the desk. She arched her fingers over the keyboard. “May I?”

Didi backed up her chair. “Please.”

This was the big moment. The showstopper. Norah quickly navigated to a website that had a side-by-side comparison of three women who looked very much alike, with curly dark hair, pretty round faces, and intense pale eyes. She maximized it and stood back. Didi looked from the screen to Norah, who could have been a perfect fourth in the lineup.

“What is this?” Didi asked. “The Norah Wolfe doppelgängers club?”

Norah pointed to the faces from left to right. “Ted Shriver's first wife, Ted Shriver's second wife, Ted Shriver's last girlfriend.”

There was a long silence as Didi stared at the computer, thinking. Norah knew it was still fifty-fifty. She sat down so her boss could look from her face to the screen.

“Where is he staying?” Didi asked.

Norah took a deep breath. “The Algonquin,” she said. “I don't know what name he's registered under.”

“Or the room number?”

Norah shook her head.

“I'll have to send a bushwhacker to do reconnaissance,” Didi said. “Might take a few days, so I'll have to book them a room.”

Again, Norah understood her boss's reasoning. She needed more
information—either a room number or Ted Shriver's registration name—in order to call him. She wanted to make the booking herself. It was a defeat, but Norah wasn't ready to give up.

“Me,” she said. “Send
me.
”

Didi squinted at her. “And what if you find yourself alone on the elevator with him?”

“I won't ask him to do the show, I promise. I won't even tell him where I work. I'll just get to know him a little bit, get some inside info, and let you take it from there.” She leaned forward, hoping Didi understood her sincerity. Sure, she wanted the booking herself, but she wouldn't risk going rogue again.

At least that's what she hoped.

“I don't know,” Didi said.

Norah pointed to the computer screen. “I'm your best shot—you can see that. He'll warm to me. Let me have a few days in the Algonquin. I know I can do this.”

Didi looked at the screen and then stared up at the ceiling. “Ted Shriver,” she said, and Norah knew she was picturing the media splash of landing him for the show. It would be historic.

The room was quiet for several moments as Norah stared at her boss. Finally, Didi looked at her and sighed, and Norah could swear she felt the molecules in the air rearrange.

Didi gave one small nod to indicate her assent, and Norah leaped from her seat. “I promise I won't screw this up.”

“You'd better not, bubbeleh,” Didi said, getting back to work. “We need this.”

T
ed finished his martini, set down the glass, and stared at his hallucination. “I wish you weren't a product of my brain damage,” he said. “I could enjoy this more if it weren't so pathetic.”

“Most people touch me.”

“Touch you?”

“To see if I'm real.”

He reached over and grabbed her breast. She looked down at his hand.

“Well?” she said.

“It feels like a real tit.”

“How charming.”

He released her. “Proves nothing.”

“Perhaps this will. On the bottom shelf of that room service cart, hidden by the skirt, there is an old book of signatures, lying open.”

“I doubt that,” he said without looking up.

There was a gentle rapping on the door—quick and determined—but Ted didn't move. The knock came again.

“Are you going to answer that?” his visitor asked.

“No.” His curiosity about who might be coming by at this late
hour was nonexistent. There was simply no one—friend or foe—he wanted to see.

“Good. Now be a dear and fetch the book.”

“Get it yourself.”

“Please, Teddy.”

The knock came yet again, this time a little harder, followed by an unfamiliar female voice. “Mr. Shriver?”

“Go away,” he shouted. What was the point of living in a hotel if he had to face every idiot who wanted to talk to him?

“I have a bottle of gin.”

That changed everything. Ted approached the closed door. “What brand?”

“Bombay Sapphire, I heard it was the—”

Ted pulled open the door and saw a young woman with a cascade of dark curls. She looked startled, staring at his face as if it were something miraculous. He'd seen that look before and he knew what it meant. She was one of them—the acolytes.

“How did you find out I was here?” he demanded.

The girl recovered her composure and smiled. She had pretty teeth and round, doll-like eyes, but he was unmoved by her efforts to charm him. “Sorry to bother you,” she said. “I wouldn't have knocked so late but I heard voices. I thought maybe you were watching TV, but I see you have company.”

Ted glanced over his shoulder at his hallucination and then back at the young woman. “You can see her?”

“How do you do?” Dorothy Parker said.

“Hope I'm not intruding,” the stranger replied.

“And
hear
her?” Ted asked.

“She's right there. Can I come in?”

“No.” He grabbed the bottle of gin from her hand, slammed the door, and whirled around to face the woman in the chair. He squinted
again, to recapture the shimmer he had seen before. “If you're not a hallucination,” he said, “what are you?” He uncapped the bottle and took a swig.

“I suppose you would call me a ghost, though that wouldn't be quite accurate.”

“But I
touched
you.”

“Yes, yes.” She waved away the comment. “I can take on corporeal form as long as the book is open. It's all very dull. Retrieve it from beneath the cart and I'll clarify.”

Ted stared at her. Was she just another nut, or worse, a fan? Had she sneaked into his room somehow? Maybe she had balled herself up on the bottom of the cart. Carefully, he lifted the skirt that covered the shelf and saw the book she had described. He pulled it out and balanced it on one hand as he examined the opened pages.

“What is this?” he said, scanning the signatures.

“It's a party,” she said. “Or it
was
. Now it's just me. Would you be a dear and put it down?”

“Answer my question.”

The woman smoothed her skirt and folded her hands neatly in her lap. “It started with Percy Coates, the manager of the Algonquin back when—”

“I know who he was,” Ted said. He had read enough about the group of wits who met for lunch at the Algonquin throughout the 1920s to know who ran the place.

“Our dear Mr. Coates was obsessed with two things—writers and the afterlife. He loved his Ouija board and was forever trying to ‘make contact.' Then he met Madame Lucescu, a horrid little woman who presented him with this book. He asked everyone in our group to sign it, promising it would give us the chance to hang around after we died, and we humored him. Woollcott said, ‘If we're going to be at a party for the rest of eternity, the drinks had better be free.'”

“Are you saying all these people are haunting the Algonquin?”

“Just me, I'm afraid. The rest have crossed over into the white light.”

He looked dismayed. “Come on. There's actually a
white light
?”

“Awful, isn't it? The thought of spending eternity there?”

He laid the open book upon the dresser and closed his eyes against the dull pressure in his skull. “It's all awful—life, death, and whatever the hell you're in.”

“I manage to amuse myself. You might even—”

“But everyone you know is dead.” He rubbed his forehead, where the pain was starting to blossom and spread.

“I know
you
.”

“Barely. And I'll be dead soon.”

“Yes, that's why I came. You see, Teddy—”

There was a knock on the door again, and at that same moment the blunt ache in his head became a sharp stab. He knew that it would continue to escalate until the pain was blinding.

“I want to talk to you about that book of signatures,” she continued.

“Quiet,” he said.

“Don't be rude, dear.”

“I'll be as fucking rude as I like.”

“Now, Ted,” she said, and the noise of her voice reverberated in his skull.

Then the knocking came again and it was all too much. He grabbed his head in pain.

“Maybe you should lie down,” Dorothy Parker said.

“Mr. Shriver?” came the voice outside the door.

Was this it? Was this the pain that would take him down and end the whole damned thing? The thought enraged him. Where was his peace? Where was his final rest? He threw the bottle of gin against the wall, and the explosion of noise shattered him. With the last bit
of strength he had, Ted Shriver reached for the book and slammed it shut.

Dorothy Parker vanished.

“Are you okay?” asked the young woman outside his room. He grabbed the doorknob and pulled, and there she was, blinking and smiling. He handed her the book and closed the door in her face.

That was the last thing Ted remembered before blacking out. He awoke sometime later to the sound of a vacuum cleaner moving up the hallway. It was daylight, and he was facedown on the carpet, but not dead. Definitely not dead. The pain was mostly gone, but he took two Vicodin anyway. Then he crawled into bed and slept until the sun set again.