The Wally Lamb Fiction Collection: The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, We Are Water, and Wishin' and Hopin' (57 page)

Mrs. Nussbaum said Miss Rheingold used to get more votes than the mayor.

Oh,
millions
more! Course, people used to stuff the ballot boxes. Guys sitting at the bar, kids at the corner market. Everyone was crazy to pick Miss Rheingold, see? In the early days, they hired an accounting firm to count all the votes. But the contest got too big—took too long and cost too much to count nineteen, twenty million paper ballots. So they changed the system. Put out six barrels, one for each candidate. And as the ballots come in, day by day, they’d have their workers—see, what they’d do is hire housewives part-time—and they’d sort ‘em and dump the ballots for each girl into her barrel. Then they’d
weigh
the barrels instead of counting votes one by one, see? So instead of Suzie Q got 62,000 votes that day, she’d get 400
pounds’
worth. But what a formula: democracy plus sex equals beer sales! Now, of course, it was
safe
sex, like they say now. No Jayne Mansfields or what’s-her-name? The blonde from
Baywatch,
married that screwball rock star with the tattoos?

Pamela Anderson?

Bingo! That’s the one! You ever see that home movie those two made? Her and her screwy husband? I went to a bachelor party a while back—my friend Hekkie Fishkin’s grandson—and they shown that tape before the stripper come on. I tell you, my Cookie bought me an eight-millimeter camera for Father’s Day one year, but I never took any home movies like that! But no, Jake: no sexpots running for Miss Rheingold. It was always the girl-next-door types, in their white gloves and summer dresses. Always shiksas, of course, or Jewish girls with shiksa names. No coloreds, no Spanish girls. I’m not saying it was right—hey, my people don’t know from prejudice? Ha! Like hell we don’t. But
business is business. I’m just saying what working-class whites would have put up with back then and what they
wouldn’t
have…. But here’s why Sadie Weismann was a shrewd businesswoman, see? She had a survey done, and what they found out was that the lady of the house buys more of the beer for the Frigidaire than her hubby does. So what Rheingold was selling along with the beer was
class.
Rheingold puts Miss Rheingold in the latest fashions, starts running ads in ladies’ magazines like
Gourmet, Harper’s Bazaar.
Company spent
millions
on promotion—print ads, billboards, car cards in the subway, radio, and then TV—and every year it paid off bigger and better. Saturation coverage, see? You couldn’t walk down the block in New York without Miss Rheingold smiling at you from half a dozen storefronts. That contest was a cash cow like advertising had never seen before! Thanks to Miss Rheingold, we were moving three, four million barrels a year!

Wow.

Wow is right, my friend! Only, with the stakes this high, the contest had to be orchestrated like one of Wagner’s big operas. First they’d have the all-call. Couple thousand girls, or their modeling agencies, would send in pictures. They’d whittle it down to about two hundred of the best lookers and invite ‘em to an all-day cattle call at the Waldorf Hotel. Separate ‘em into three groups—blondes, brunettes, and redheads—and the gals would parade in front of the judges, schmooze a little, show ‘em their portfolios. End of the day, they’d announce the six finalists and two alternates and give the rest of the gals their walking papers. Then the finalists had to be investigated. The ad agency would hire private detectives and they’d do background checks to make sure each Rheingold girl was squeaky clean. I remember one year, they gave a finalist the boot when they found out she was rooming with some bull-dyke poet down in the Village. Beautyful girl, too—probably would’ve won it. Another
gal, they found out she’d been out to the Stork Club with some nephew of the Cosa Nostra. Next things you know, she’s kaput and one of the alternates is in. Hell of a lot riding on Miss Rheingold, see? A scandal would’ve sunk the ship.

And where exactly did you come in? Because what I’d like to get to is—

For the personal appearances. Company bought two brand-new Cadillacs every summer when the girls were on the road. White convertibles, top of the line. We’d get the weekly schedule and drive them wherever they had to go: county fairs, supermarket openings, a ride around the diamond before the game at the Polo Grounds. Rheingold was one of the Giants’ sponsors when they were a New York team. Later on, it was the Mets. But yeah, we used to put some mileage on those two Caddies. Girls always traveled with their chaperone, of course—gal name of Pam Fahey. Good egg, but she could get her Irish up when she needed to.

How often did she need to?

Not too often. They were good girls, most of them. Course, we drivers acted as chaperones, too, if the situation called for a fella to step in. Guy in the crowd starts running his mouth, or getting a little grabby with one of the gals, we’d have to step in and defuse the situation.

We?

Me and the other driver, Georgie Gustavson. You didn’t think I drove two Cadillacs at once, did you?

So, you probably got to know these women pretty well, right?

Oh, sure. Between the promotions department and the ad agency, they ran the Rheingold Girls ragged. We’d do four, five appearances a day, seven days a week, while the contest was running. August and September, this was. On weekends, we were hauling them up to New England or down to the Jersey shore,
Pennsylvania. But like I said, they were sweet girls. Couple of pips here and there. College kids, a lot of them, who did modeling on the side.

Do you remember many of them?

Some. The winners mostly, because I’d work with them year-round. I used to get a birthday card every year from Nancy Woodruff, the winner in ‘55, but we lost touch after they closed the plant.

Do you remember a woman named Jinx Dixon? … Peppy?

Hmm?

Jinx Dixon?

Who?

Jinx Dixon.

Can’t say that I do. She couldn’t have been one of the winners, because I remember them. Was she one of the final six?

Yes.

What year?

Nineteen fifty.

No, not ringing a bell. Maybe if I saw her picture. Blonde? Brunette?

Brunette. Some of my research says she won that year, but most of the old ads from 1950 feature another woman named Estelle Olson.

Yeah, I remember Estelle. Classy blonde from California.

Hey, Peppy? I’m going to be blunt here. I think you’re holding back on me.

What’s that supposed to mean?

You say you don’t remember Jinx, but when I said her name just now, you looked a little panicky. And now you’re not looking at me.

What do you mean, not looking at you? I’m looking at you…. Look, that stuff’s ancient history. Nothing you need to know for a business book. What are you asking about Jinx for?

Like I said, there’s a discrepancy. I did a LexisNexis search, and—

A Lexis whatsis?

It’s a computer search. Very comprehensive. And almost every item says Estelle won that year, but there’s this one item in an old Ed Sullivan column that says Jinx has won and is about to be named—

What’d you say your name was, again?

Caelum Quirk.

Well, Caelum Quirk, I’ll be blunt, too. I’m not quite sure who’s been holding back on who this past hour. Because to tell you the truth, I don’t think you’re even writing a business book. You tell me you’re researching the old breweries, but when I say you can look at my copy of
The History of Rheingold Beer,
you don’t so much as take a nibble…. She wasn’t a bad kid, Jinx. She just got in over her head.

What do you mean? What happened?

Nothing happened. Pass me my coat, will ya? I gotta get home before my daughter sends out the search party.

Hold on, Peppy. I don’t mean for things to go south here, because I really appreciate your agreeing to talk to me and giving me so much of your time. You’re like a walking history lesson. How about another drink?

No thanks. Two’s my limit.

Because I thought maybe I’d join you after all. Have a drink with you.

Yeah? Well …

Tell you what. Let me dial Rochelle’s number on my cell phone here so you can check in, and while you’re doing that, I’ll get us both a drink. You sticking with Chivas? Okay, Chivas it is. I tell you one thing: I hope I’m as sharp as you are when I’m eighty-four.

I’m eighty-three. Eighty-four next April.

Well, you could have fooled me. I would’ve guessed seventy-five, tops.

Now?

Yeah, tape’s going again. Go ahead.

She was a living doll, that one. Big blue eyes, that shy little smile of hers. Hazelton, the photographer, was rooting for Jinx to win the thing, and you couldn’t blame him. The kid ate up the camera. But it was neck and neck that year, between her and Estelle. Estelle was your more glamorous Miss Rheingold type, but there was just something special about Jinx. Something sweet, but at the same time, a little mischievous. Naughty, you know? … Anyway, it went down to the wire between those two, but in November, by the time they got all the ballots sorted and weighed, Jinx had beaten Estelle by a nose. So they bring her in, have her sign her contract, take her measurements for the wardrobe they’re going to design for her. Now, within the company, it circulates that Jinx has won it, but the public won’t find out until later because Hazelton has to shoot the announcement ad, which they always ran in January. New year, new Miss Rheingold, see?”Here’s the lucky girl you, the voting public, have elected!” So Hazelton takes her picture. And they’re expensive, these photo shoots: photographer’s assistants, hairstylist, makeup gal, fashion people. But the pictures come out great, because, like I said, Jinx loves the camera and the camera loves her right back. Only, there’s a problem, see? And man oh man, it’s a doozy. See, Jinx and Gus White had been seeing each other on the sneak since the summertime. And Gus was a married man, so that complicated it. Hardly anybody knew about this, but
I
did because Gus was having
me
drive Jinx to their rendezvous spot—this little roadside motel in North Jersey. Only that wasn’t all. You remember how I told you Rheingold was courting the Negro market? Well,
one of the things they’d do was have the girls pose with Nat Cole or Satchmo or Monte Irvin, first baseman for the Giants. General public never saw these pictures, but they’d run them in the Negro papers, you see? Circulate autographed glossies to the liquor stores in the colored neighborhoods. So somewheres along the line, Jinx meets one of Irvin’s teammates, an outfielder name of Calvin Sparks. His batting average was nothing to write home about, but he’s a handsome son of a gun, light-skinned, and he’s got an eye for the white girls. So one thing leads to another and
those
two start cozying up. Sparks and Jinx. So Gus White’s two-timing his wife with Jinx, and Jinx is two-timing Gus with Sparks. I’m telling you, Jake. That summer, I was chewing Tums nonstop. Because the only two people that know the whole story are me and Jinx. Put me in a tough position, you see?

How did you know about Jinx and Sparks?

How did I know? I’ll tell you how. Because just before the big announcement, Rheingold throws a little cocktail party for the bigwigs so they can meet the new Miss Rheingold—their “super-salesgirl,” they used to call her. Jinx ends up having one or two Manhattans too many at this wing-ding, gets a little tipsy, and when I drive her back to her apartment on Sutton Place, she starts up with the true confessions. Says things started off great with Gus, but now she’s just going through the motions because what she and Sparks have is the real deal, and that neither of them can help themselves. Well, you know what I did? I pulled over to the curb, put ‘er in park, and I turned around so I could look her right in the eye. And I said, “Look, little girl, I’m going to speak to you like a father would speak to a daughter. You’re playing with fire here, and if you’re not careful, you’re gonna get burnt to a crisp. Now when you get out of this car, you go upstairs to that nice all-expenses-paid apartment of yours, pick up the phone, and end it with Sparks.” And you know what she says to me? She says, “Well, Peppy, if you think
that’s
possible, you
must not know what true love is.” Which, I’m thinking, she’s probably defining “true love” as a good
schtupping.
Because, believe me, Jake, married to my Cookie, I think I knew a little more about true love than
that
pretty little pipsqueak.

So what happened?

What happened was, I had a real dilemma on my hands, see? I mean, I liked Jinx—I really did. Lot of the models back then come from money, see? Kinda snooty, some of them. But not Jinx. She’d gotten where she was on moxie and the good looks God give her. But Winchell, Earl Wilson, Hedda Hopper: they had snoops all over the city digging around for
shmutz.
One of those gossip columnists gets wind that Miss Rheingold’s seeing a colored ballplayer and it shows up in the
Daily Mirror
or the
Daily News?
Rheingold’s million-dollar promotion’d go down the toilet and maybe take the brewery with it. And like I told you, the Weismanns had always been good to me. They and I had a history, see?

What did you do?

I go to Gus. And he’s mad as hell. Says he’ll be goddamned if he’ll stick his dick into
anyone’s
sloppy seconds, let alone some
schvartze.
Says there’s no way in hell Jinx is gonna be Miss Rheingold, popular vote or not. It’s partly a business decision and partly a get-even thing—at least that’s how I see it. What he does is, he goes to his aunt Sadie. Drags me into her office with him, as a matter of fact. Gus doesn’t say word one about his
own
little fling with the girl, but he tells Sadie they got a crisis: their new Miss Rheingold’s sleeping with a Negro. Next morning, there’s this top-secret meeting in Sadie’s office. The lawyers are there, Hazelton, the top marketing guys. I’m pulled into it, too, because, for one, they know I can keep my mouth shut and for two, I’ve been driving Jinx around all summer, so I’m the guy who can best predict how she’s going to react when they give her the heave-ho. At least everyone
thinks
I’m the guy who knows
her the best, except I don’t know her the way Gus White does. But I’m not saying anything about that, and neither is Gus!