Looking for a Love Story (9 page)

There was a huge desk in the front of the lobby, where a young woman was answering phones, sorting mail, and chatting with an elderly lady with a cane. Somewhere in the background someone was pounding heavily on a piano. It sounded to me like the tune
was that ancient standard “Shine On, Harvest Moon.” I explained to the multitasker behind the desk that I was looking for Brandon Bourne.

“He’s in the crafts room with the Swinging Grandmas,” she said. “It’s right through there.” She pointed me in the direction of the music.

I followed the sound and found myself in a good-sized room with shelves full of art supplies lining the walls. There was a message board near the door announcing a list of classes, speeches, exercise sessions, and field trips to museums and theaters that were available to residents. I tried to tell myself it wasn’t sad that adults who had once been contributing members of society were now being entertained like kindergarten children. I also tried to tell myself it wasn’t sad that I’d failed so badly that I was here to ghostwrite a biography I couldn’t remember discussing for one of those aged kindergarteners.

In the far corner of the room was an upright piano; this was where the music was coming from. Half a dozen women, all of them well over sixty, were clustered around it. One of them was in a purple leotard that proved that for some women the legs really are the last thing to go, while the rest had on sweats or jeans, and they were all wearing those shoes with the strap over the arch that you see on dancers. The back of the piano was facing me, and the woman playing it was too short for me to see over the top, but there was a guy turning the pages of the music. His head was shaved, his ears had multiple piercings, and his clingy tank top and stretch pants revealed that he was into serious exercise and body art. He was wearing dancer shoes too.

The guy caught sight of me, smiled, and indicated that I should sit. Meanwhile, the Swinging Grandmas—I assumed that was who they were, although in most cases “Great-Grandma” would have
been more accurate—had positioned themselves in a chorus line across the front of the room. A chord chimed out, and a woman’s voice, husky and loud, began singing behind the upright. The rest of the troupe joined her in a medley of songs I recognized dimly as a Hit Parade of teen favorites circa 1940. The women weren’t exactly on key, but they had presence. And pep, loads of pep. The lead singer at the piano kept the tempo moving along, and, as she swung into a musical bridge, the Grandmas sashayed into a new formation, and the woman in the purple leotard stepped out. She flicked her white Mamie Eisenhower pageboy out of her eyes and began to tap-dance. Purple Leotard had probably been faster a few decades earlier, but from what I could see she wasn’t missing a step. Just when I thought she was starting to look a little winded, from behind the piano came the sound of metal taps clicking on the linoleum. Earring Guy was moving front and center. There was nothing slow about him; his feet flew. He danced around Purple Leotard for a couple of minutes while she posed fetchingly—and caught her breath—and then the music went into a rolling arpeggio. This seemed to signal that something special was about to happen. The chorus line shifted into a semicircle, and Earring Guy held out his arm and gave Purple Leotard an encouraging grin. She grabbed his arm, balanced herself, and then seemed to hesitate.

“Let’s see those eye-highs, Emmy,” called out the voice from behind the piano. “Once a Rockette, always a Rockette!”

Spurred on, Purple Leotard braced herself and executed a series of flawless kicks that actually were eye-high, after which she and her partner blended back into the chorus line, where everyone closed out the performance by singing a song I think Fred Astaire made famous in one of his movies.

I gave them a standing O, and I swear I wasn’t doing it to suck
up to my potential employer—whoever she was. With their energy and their upbeat ’tude, the Swinging Grandmas were awesome.

The guy dancer broke out of the line and came to me with his hand outstretched. “Brandon Bourne,” he said. “You must be Ms. Sewell. Let me introduce you to Ms. Masters.”

A Lilliputian emerged from behind the piano and came toward me. She was under five feet tall and maybe ninety pounds soaking wet. Her hair was short and yellow. Not a pale age-appropriate blond; we’re talking shiny gold curls that formed a frame around her little heart-shaped face. By far her best features were her round, blue eyes. Even behind a pair of large tortoiseshell glasses they still had a sparkle in them, and they must have been truly lovely when she was young. Her nose was on the large side, and her mouth was surprisingly curvy for someone her age. She’d chosen to wear bright coral lipstick and matching nail polish, her long-sleeved dress was yellow and black, and she’d tossed a black cardigan over her shoulders. How she managed to bang out songs on the piano with such arthritic-looking fingers was beyond me. Ms. Masters waved Brandon aside before he could make any introductions and peered up at me. It felt like she stared at me for an awfully long time; Alexandra’s nose was getting special scrutiny. Finally Brandon seemed to think somebody should say something.

“I’m sure you remember that Ms. Sewell is here to—” he began.

“Yes, I remember.” The Lilliputian cut him off in her husky growl without taking her eyes off me.

The nonstop gaze was a little unnerving, but I figured what the hell, she could stare at me forever as long as she paid me. “Ms. Masters—” I began, but she stopped me with a vague wave of her hand.

“Call me Chicky,” she said. “Everyone does.” Then she seemed
to break out of her trance. She smiled at me. “I like that face of yours. It’s got character.” For a moment I thought she was going to reach up and stroke my cheek.

“Uh … thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Doll Face.”

I thought about correcting her, but, once again remembering the paychecks she’d be signing, I decided she could call me whatever she wanted. I gestured toward the Swinging Grandmas. “Your group sounds great.”

“Doll Face, we sound like shit,” she said briskly. “At our age, the wonder is we’re hitting any of the notes at all.” She waved at the troupe. “Break it up for now, everyone,” she said. “Same time tomorrow. Remember we’re going to be performing at St. Agnes’s Hospital in two weeks.”

“You entertain at hospitals?” I said admiringly—and yes, at that point I
was
sucking up—“I think that’s so worthy.”

“We rehearse this act ten hours a week. You work that hard, you want to be appreciated. Even if you know you’ve got a captive audience because they can’t move on their own.” I laughed politely. “That’s not a joke, it’s a statement of fact,” she said. Then she patted my arm gently—almost maternally. “Don’t try so hard to please me, Doll Face,” she said. “You get to be my age, you develop a pretty good radar for horse pucky.”

“Ms. Masters, I didn’t mean to—”

“Like I said, it’s Chicky. Follow me; we’ll talk in my room.” She turned to Brandon, who had retrieved a bag of ice out of a tiny refrigerator and was applying it to his leg. “Come on, Show Biz.” He straightened up immediately, and the two of us followed the little martinet at a trot through a maze of hallways to the elevator and then up to her room on the seventh floor.

•   •   •

CHICKY’S ROOM WAS
organized like a studio apartment. Along one wall, there was a little galley kitchen consisting of a small fridge, a microwave, a hot plate, and a toaster oven. She wasn’t going to be doing any gourmet cooking, but the standard single person’s nuked meal was definitely possible. Against a second wall was a daybed that, with bolsters and cushions, served as a sofa. Two comfortable-looking chairs faced it, forming a conversation pit, with a large wooden trunk in the center serving as a coffee table. The trunk looked old and had been varnished to preserve the remnants of what looked like labels for a bunch of theaters; names like the Bardavon Opera House and the Hughes Playhouse were featured. Across the top of the trunk someone had painted the name
ORDINARY JOE
in large letters.

At one side of the daybed was a low table that I figured served as Chicky’s nightstand. There was a lamp on it, a couple of pill bottles, and an iPod—a nice touch, I thought. Above the nightstand on the wall was a sepia-colored photograph of a man and a woman. They were both young, probably in their early twenties. The man was kind of funny looking—as if someone had decided to make a human being out of spare parts and none of them quite fit together. His face was too big for his short, skinny body, his mouth was too wide for his face, and his nose was too big for his mouth. His eyes were round and dark, as was his hair. Even though he wasn’t handsome, he did seem to be a natty dresser. I mean, men’s fashions at the turn of the last century really weren’t my area of expertise, but the guy was wearing spats.

Unlike the man, the woman in the picture had everything going for her in the looks department. Her thick hair had been piled on top of her head, with wings of luxurious waves on either side. Her features were lovely in that patrician way that was so popular a hundred years ago, and she was wearing a dress that was
molded to her slender body and revealed just enough of her ankles to suggest that there was nothing wrong with her legs either. Although the picture wasn’t in color, I thought her eyes were probably blue, with Chicky’s sparkle. Not only was this picture in the place of pride, above Chicky’s nightstand, it had been put in an elaborate gilded frame.

“That’s Mom and Pop,” said Chicky. “Joe and Ellie Masters. Well, it was really Masconi, but back in those days people in the profession thought you needed a British-sounding name. Before she got married, Mom’s name was Doran.”

In the time since I’d gotten my original phone call from Brandon Bourne, I’d tried to recover the emails we must have exchanged, but when I’d been job hunting I’d usually deleted all cyber correspondence once I thought the gig hadn’t worked out. So Mom and Pop were still a mystery to me—as was their profession. I figured they were going to be the protagonists of the biography I was to write, but I still couldn’t connect the dots. I stared at the picture, hoping for enlightenment, aware that Chicky was once more watching me with a laserlike focus. Weren’t elderly people supposed to be vague and misty?

“Uh … your parents look like very interesting people,” I said.

“Doll Face—”

“It’s Francesca, actually.”

“I know, but I like nicknames. I’ve had several myself, over the years. Chicky was the one that finally stuck.”

There didn’t seem to be much I could add to that moment of sharing, so I said, “Ah,” and hoped it sounded intelligent.

“I give people nicknames all the time,” she went on. “It makes me feel like I’ve got lots of friends—which is a damn good trick at my age. So, Doll Face, you don’t know what you’re doing here, do you?”

I wanted to say,
No, I don’t. Because your ad was like dozens of others I answered, and after a while I stopped trying to keep track. Because the whole thing is humiliating. I don’t like begging for a job. I’m a professional writer. No one would ask a doctor or a lawyer to go through hoops the way I have. I deserve a little respect
.

But I was also a professional who had been laid low by Second Book Syndrome, so I was in no position to say anything to anyone. I made myself smile, but I knew it was a lame effort. “Well, Chicky, the thing is—”

She cut off the song-and-dance I was about to do. “You don’t know what the hell I want you to write, do you, Doll Face?”

I looked into those blue eyes. “Not a clue,” I said.

She seemed delighted. Like I was a not-too-bright toddler who had finally managed to say my first word. “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it? I told you, stop trying to con me. You’ll never do it. I was always one step ahead of—” She stopped herself. “I’m a smart cookie,” she said instead.

She gave me another motherly arm pat.

“Come here,” she said, and led me to the gold-framed picture. “Mom and Pop were in show business—vaudeville. You probably don’t know anything about vaudeville; no one does anymore. But it was as big as television a hundred years ago. Kids from all over the country—big cities and little tiny towns—who could sing or dance or tell a joke would put an act together and try their luck on talent night at the local vaudeville house.” She reached up with an arthritic forefinger and stroked the man’s face in the picture. It was the kind of gesture that makes your eyes sting, no matter how tough you’re trying to be. “That’s how Pop got started. He won a talent contest at an opera house out on Coney Island when he was still in his teens. He had a partner at first, but then he went solo. He was what they called a monologuist back then. It’s like a stand-up
comic. And he could have been one of the greats.” She stroked the picture again. “Pop could have been as big as Jack Benny or Bob Hope.”

When she said that, it clicked! I finally remembered the email Brandon Bourne, aka Show Biz, had sent me. “Ms. Masters wants a professional novelist to write a biography of her parents,” he’d written. “She wants the world to hear their tale of sacrifice, heartbreak, and triumph. This is a theater story. Joe Masters could have been another Jack Benny or Bob Hope, but he and his wife gave up their dreams for something better.”

When I’d read his deathless prose, I’d thought whoever landed the gig was going to need insulin shots—or maybe hard drugs—to write the sticky-sweet tale. But of course I’d pitched for it.

“Chicky felt she could trust you to write her parents’ story because of the fabulous job you did on your own book.” Brandon had suddenly decided to join the conversation. He’d brought his ice pack along and was sitting in a chair ministering to his leg. Chicky didn’t seem to see anything unusual about this, and I figured it wasn’t my place to pry.

“You read
Love, Max?”
I asked Chicky. I couldn’t imagine how anyone could read that book—which everyone agreed was clever but not exactly warm and fuzzy—and decide I was their choice to write a goopy vanity bio.

“Doll Face, do you think I’d hire someone just because they answered that hokey email Show Biz wrote to you?” She turned to Brandon. “No offense, kiddo, but it did make me want to upchuck.” He smiled—obviously nothing she said ever offended him—and Chicky’s attention came back to me. “Of course I read your book.”