Three-Martini Lunch (27 page)

J
oey turned out to be a good ally to have as I mustered the energy for a fresh effort to hunt for my father's journal. His charm went a long way to grease the wheels. As promised, he got us onto all the local Army facilities, of which there were many. But as I suspected, getting on base was only the first hurdle. The staff that manned the administrative offices was hardly friendlier than the guards at the gatehouses, and all of them insisted a footlocker like the one my mother had described to me didn't exist.

Finally, when I was on the verge of attempting to convince Joey not to waste any more of his time, a clerk at one of the offices in the Presidio pointed to the key in the palm of my hand and declared, “Why, you ain't looking for no footlocker on a military base. Sure as I'm born, that there's the kind of key they use for the lockers down at the Y.”

“The Y?” I repeated.

“You know: the Y. Young Men's Christian Association. Military boys use the Y for all sorts of things; it's a regular home away from home,” the
clerk said. “I tell ya, that looks like the kinda key they have for locking your things up at night at the big Y on Golden Gate and Leavenworth.”

Joey and I exchanged a surprised look. Here was a development that should have been obvious but that had never occurred to me.

“How did I not think of that?” Joey said. “The Y. Of course!”

•   •   •

W
e found San Francisco's main YMCA at the intersection the clerk scribbled down on a slip of paper. The sun was beginning to go down by then, making long shadows on everything, and the entrance to the Y sported a pair of Roman columns that lent the building a rather tired, somber, banklike air. Inside, it was humid and a bit run-down—but I suppose that's to be expected of any building subject to constant use. We approached the large reception desk that loomed in the entryway, but it was unattended. There was a thick, heavy, boys' dormitory scent that permeated the place; it smelled like a concoction of equal parts fried chicken, gym socks, and cigarette smoke. Men roamed about in every state of dress. From somewhere in a hallway a telephone rang while a television played in a large room nearby. I thought to wait at the reception desk for someone to come, but Joey motioned me on.

“C'mon.”

As he walked nonchalantly through the maze of hallways and staircases I realized there was a certain ease of familiarity in his step. He knew his way around. I shouldn't have been surprised Joey had been here before, but I found myself wondering with whom. But before I could work up the nerve to ask him, we came to a hallway between a gymnasium and some kind of Turkish bath. I looked and saw it was lined with metal lockers. I held up my key and saw that it was likely the right size for one of these.

“Aha.” Joey grinned. “Thought so!”

I couldn't help but grin back at him. My heart gave a heavy pump and I realized I was beginning to feel excited. I searched for the locker that
matched the tiny number embossed on my father's key. I took a breath, lifted the key to insert it, and hesitated, my hand hovering before the locker's blank metal face.

“Go on,” Joey urged after several seconds ticked by. “What are you waiting for?” This was rhetorical. He knew, of course. In matters like this one, there were only two states:
before
and
after
. I was holding on to one more second of
before
.

But I got myself worked up over nothing. The locker door did not swing open to reveal an empty dark space or even a locker full of my father's things, for the locker door did not swing open
at
all
. Once I finally put the key in the lock, it slipped in easily enough, but it did not turn. I tried it again, this time more forcefully. Nothing. I inserted it upside down and tried again, but to no avail. I was baffled. Certainly it was the right type of key, in the right type of lock. I checked the number on the key, and the number on the locker: 273. There were no sixes or nines to confuse things . . . They certainly matched.

“I don't understand,” I murmured.

“Let me try it,” Joey said, taking the key from my hand. He tried to turn it with the same result. Suddenly we became aware of a presence standing behind us.

“Excuse me,” came a gruff voice. We turned around to see a thick-necked young man in gym attire, his hair dripping with what smelled to be sweat. “That's my locker.” We simply stared at him. He took a closer look at the two of us, glanced at his locker, and frowned. “Say, what kind of monkey business are you up to, anyhow?”

“This is
your
locker?” Joey asked. “It can't be.”

“Sure it is,” the man replied. “Why wouldn't it be?”

I held up my key for him to inspect.

“Hmph. Well, that's funny,” the man said, squinting at the number on the key. He produced a key of his own and held it up to mine. “But they're not the same where it counts.” He pointed at the teeth of the two keys,
and it was true: The size of the key and the style of the embossed numbers were identical, but the jagged ridges were cut differently.

“Say, I'm starting to get the feeling you wise-guys are up to no good,” the man warned. Joey didn't answer, lost in his observation of the pair of keys now shining in the palm of his hand. I detected a slight pinkish hue creep into the man's face and tried to surreptitiously elbow Joey, but to no effect. “Look,” said the man, growing impatient, “I don't know what kind of con you're trying to put over on me, but I think I've had enough. I'll take my key back now.”

“Whoa, buddy,” Joey said. “It's no con. We're just trying to figure something out.” It was the first time I saw Joey's charm fall flat.

“I'll give
you
something to figure out,” he said. He lifted a fist, and it was clear what was bound to happen next.

“We've upset you,” I blurted, “and we're very sorry.” The man turned to look at me. “It's all an honest mistake,” I continued. I smiled my most ingratiating smile—the one that was all white teeth and dark skin and usually made me detest myself whenever I used it. “Let's go talk to the manager, shall we?” My hands, during the course of this plea, remained clasped behind my back, as I had learned was the necessary position to defuse a fight among men, especially if you are a young Negro with what people describe as an athletic build. Just then another young man came into the hallway of lockers and so I added, “Please, that's reasonable, isn't it, sir?” for good measure. There was nothing like begging a man in front of an uninitiated bystander to make him less interested in hitting you.

It worked. He gave a glance to the young fellow who had just entered the hallway and dropped his half-formed fist. He grunted. “Fine. Follow me.”

Luckily, this time the manager—who had not been present when Joey and I had entered the Y—was there when the three of us arrived at the front desk. He was puffing anxiously at a cigarette and wore a second, unlit one tucked over his ear, all while trying to jimmy open a drawer
under the reception desk with a ladies' nail file. He looked up, glimpsed the three of us approaching, and instantly frowned, accurately perceiving that along with us came extra work for him.

“Having some kind of beef, boys?” he asked. He gave up on the drawer and put the nail file down.

“I found these two operators trying to break into my locker,” our escort replied.

“They any good at it?” the man joked, holding up the nail file and pointing to the locked drawer, but no one laughed. “Hmm.” The manager made a closer inspection of us; first of me, then of Joey. “Haven't I seen you here before?” he said to Joey.

“There's been a mix-up,” Joey said, not answering the question.

“What kind of mix-up?” the manager asked.

We explained our situation and showed him the key.

“Hmm,” the manager said, taking his cigarette out of his mouth and squinting one eye at the key. “These fellas might be telling the truth, Floyd,” he said to the thick-necked young man. With one mighty push of his feet, the manager scooted his rolling chair to the far end of the reception desk. He opened a drawer and produced a very weathered-looking logbook.

“Two seventy-three, you say?”

I nodded. Everyone watched with intrigue as his finger slid down the page. Finally it stopped and he tapped a single line of entry.

“Yep. Had a whole slew of these after the boys started shipping out to the South Pacific. Everyone comin' and goin' every which way. Problem is, half of 'em never came back! Marked as abandoned. We had to change the locks.” He rubbed out his current cigarette in an ashtray and retrieved the cigarette tucked over his ear. “That explains why they were fooling with your locker, Floyd,” he said. Floyd looked disappointed. I knew he had been hoping to deliver a sound pounding. But he wasn't alone in his disappointment. I was feeling pretty crestfallen myself; we'd finally found the
correct locker, only to discover it had been classed as “abandoned” and turned over to a meathead named Floyd.

“Got some ID on you, fella?” the manager asked me. He did not ask Joey. I hesitated, unsure if he meant to harass me.

“Sure I do,” I said, shrugging.

“Well, if you can prove you're kin, that's all we need.”

“All you need for what?”

“Why, to claim the contents, of course.”

My eyes went wide and I almost fell over. “Excuse me?”

“That's all we need,” the manager repeated. “Unless you're not here to claim the contents?”

“Oh, he's here to claim the contents,” Joey answered for me. “You betcha he is.” Everyone except the manager appeared excited by this turn of events. Even Floyd looked slightly less peeved. Curious about what these mysterious “contents” could be that previously occupied his locker, he lingered a bit before finally losing interest and lumbering away.

A basement storage room was searched and a paper carton labeled TILLMAN—273 was produced. After showing my identification card and signing five typewritten forms (all of which immediately went into another carton in the dusty storage room, where I'm sure they have never been seen again by another living human being since), I was the proud owner of a large, leather-bound journal full of slightly water-damaged, curling, yellowed pages, all loaded to the hilt with my father's barely legible handwriting. It was a rather pathetic-looking prize. If Floyd had stuck around, I'm certain he would have been immensely disappointed. But I was grinning like a fool. Joey grinned, too.

44

A
fter our disastrous party, Cliff and I began spending more and more time apart. In the evenings, he went out drinking with Swish while I comforted myself with stacks of manuscripts. In the mornings, I laid out breakfast while Cliff slept in. I quietly set the table with coffee, toast, tomato juice, a grapefruit sliced in half, a couple of hard-boiled eggs. Then I tiptoed out the door to go to work. During the rare times we ate breakfast together, neither of us brought up the subject of what had happened to Miles. Our guilt was an elephant in the room, a heavy weight on both of us that neither of us was willing to directly acknowledge.

One evening, however, I came home to see Cliff getting dressed in a sports jacket. It was the same jacket he'd worn the day he'd taken Judy and me to the Cedarbrook Club.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Dinner with my folks,” he replied, inspecting the jacket for lint and not making eye contact with me.

“Oh,” I said, bewildered. “That's a surprise. There wasn't anything penciled in on your father's calendar.”

“Well, you don't need to know
everything
that goes on in
my
family,” Cliff snapped. “You're a secretary, for Chrissake.”

I was taken aback. “What . . .” I stammered, “what is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Cliff said. “I'm sorry. Look, I gotta split.”

“Cliff . . .” I said, dismayed.

“What?” He turned around. “I gotta put in some time with the Old Man and the Old Lady. It's not like I can invite you along, now, can I?”

He checked his pocket for his key and shuffled out the door, pecking me on the cheek in a rote manner as he went. I stood there looking at the closed door, still slightly stunned by his reaction. He had emphasized certain words. My
family.
You don't need to know. You're a
secretary
.

I began to wonder if our elopement wasn't all a big mistake. The picture I'd had in my head that day after coming home from Cedarbrook and talking to Judy on the telephone was fading away. It had been a strange journey from being Eden Katz to being Eden Collins—a journey that didn't really feel complete, to be honest—and it dawned on me that I hadn't the faintest idea how to be Eden Nelson.

I was restless after Cliff hurried out. I'd been working so hard lately, there wasn't even very much to read; I was down to the dregs of the slush pile, and I feared the manuscripts there weren't enough to hold my attention that night. I thought of popping out to the bar around the corner and using their phone to call Judy, but I knew she had a date with Chester.

It occurred to me that I knew of a book launch that was happening that evening, and perhaps I ought to go.

For a good while after starting my new job at Bonwright I'd been afraid to go to the publishing parties as I had done when I worked at Torchon & Lyle. At first, I was afraid I might run into Miss Everett. I imagined she
might cause a scene or else cut me in some terrible way in front of a group of people. But then I remembered how unsociable she could be and how she never went to any of the publishing parties. Nonetheless, I'd gone to an awful lot of parties back in my Torchon & Lyle days, and even if I was safe from Miss Everett, there was still reason to be cautious about bumping into an acquaintance who knew me as Eden Katz. If someone who knew me as Eden Collins rubbed elbows with someone who knew me as Eden Katz and my name happened to come up, there would be confusion, and that confusion might spell embarrassing disaster for me.

But it was also true I had a new look now . . . a new haircut and style . . . I might not be immediately recognizable. I mulled it over. The prospect of staying in that night was absolutely dismal. The allure of the publishing parties began to beckon again, and I decided to take a chance and go. I changed into a nice blouse and skirt and took the subway over to a modern-looking ballroom in a five-story building near Columbus Circle.

•   •   •

I
was right about the haircut making a difference. I was relieved—and perhaps, later, a little disappointed—to realize how truly anonymous I was among the guests at the publishing party. Once inside, I strolled the room, recognizing people to whom I had once made a conscientious effort to be introduced, but they floated right on by me, vacant looks in their eyes and placid smiles on their lips. I'm sure if I approached them directly and reminded them of my name, they would've shaken my hand enthusiastically and remembered me—or at least pretended to remember me. But I had a second option at my disposal now: I could also introduce myself all over again, and no one would suspect a thing.

At one point during the evening, I found myself standing near a cluster of men, all of whom were deeply engaged in animated debate. Ayn Rand's new book,
Atlas Shrugged
, had been published the previous year, and it
seemed no two critics could agree on the book's merits; you either loved it or you hated it.

“It's every bit as good as
The Fountainhead
,” one man was in the middle of arguing as I joined their circle.

“Exactly,” replied a thin, older gentleman in a sarcastic voice. “Every bit as
good
.”

“Well, say what you will about
The Fountainhead
,” the first man sniffed, obviously offended. “But
I
certainly wouldn't scoff at those sales figures. And did you hear? The print run for
Atlas Shrugged
was a hundred thousand! The masses have spoken. People want to read her books.”

“I can't see why,” a third man chimed in. “All that dreadful harping! You'd get preached at less in church.”

“She harps because she's a woman; that's what they all do,” grunted a swarthy, snub-nosed man.

“I don't see much about her to prove she truly
is
a woman,” the older gentleman said. “She's all hard edges and brass.”

“But she's part of their sorority nonetheless, I'd wager. You there,” the first man said, turning to me. I froze. “Young lady. You're a woman. Surely you like Ayn Rand?”

I bit my lip, feeling put on the spot. I cleared my throat. “No,” I said coolly. “Actually, I don't.” I hoped I wasn't skating out onto thin ice. “I don't care for her prose style, and I'm not especially in favor of her ideas. She's a woman, sure, but in my opinion she doesn't seem to know how to write women characters. At least, not any I'd ever recognize from real life. They might be tough as nails, but they certainly aren't very modern or liberated when it comes down to it.” I hesitated and reflected a moment. “To tell the truth, I don't love her or hate her; I suppose I simply find her strange,” I said. “Her ideas are so inflexible and so absolute, and yet I can't see how she—Ayn Rand, a woman—could possibly fit into the selfsame philosophical world she herself has set out to create.” I stopped. They were all staring at me by this point, and I felt my cheeks flush.

“That's very astutely put,” a female voice said. I looked to where the voice had emanated and saw a woman; I don't know why I hadn't noticed her before. She was very diminutive—which, in my case, is really the pot calling the kettle black, I must admit—but she was perhaps even a bit shorter and more slender than myself. Yet despite her small stature there was something striking about her, something that suggested she could fill up a room, too, if she wanted to. Part of this impression came from the manner in which she put herself together. She wore an impeccably tailored green suit, and standing among the men at a publishing party she was a dot of rich emerald color in a sea of gray flannel suits.

“And what is your opinion of the book we've come here to celebrate today?” she asked. I thought I detected a note of testing in her voice.

“Oh, no one ever discusses the book at the launch. Isn't that bad form?”

“Good girl,” she said, and gave a hint of a smile. She touched my elbow and steered me a small distance away from the men. The men resumed their debate about Ayn Rand without us. I put out my hand to introduce myself.

“I'm—”

“Eden Katz, I know.”

I blinked, dumbstruck and suddenly frightened.

“No, we haven't been introduced,” she confirmed, reading my mind. “But, you see, I've gone to quite a lot of these, and I make it my business to listen to everything going on around me. I've been told I have a very good memory for faces and names.

“Mavis Singer,” she said. She reached into her pocketbook and politely produced a card. “Farbman and Company.”

“Oh, you're an editor!” I said, encouraged to see the title embossed on her card. “Gosh, I'm awfully surprised you remember seeing me.” I nodded over my shoulder to the rest of the room and shrugged. “I thought I'd gone to a lot of trouble to make an impression, but nobody else seems to think so.”

“I remember your name was Katz. And I remember that you worked for Bob Turner at Torchon and Lyle,” she said, and paused as though considering her next sentence carefully. “Given those two facts, I wondered how you might make out. Are you still there?”

I swallowed, sensing I was cornered. I didn't want to get caught, but there was a wonderful dignity about Ms. Singer, and I felt compelled to tell her the truth—in whatever form I could manage it. “I'm at Bonwright now,” I answered. “With Roger Nelson.”

“Hmm,” she said. “That's a rather interesting place for you to wind up, too.”

I didn't know what she meant by this, but it made me nervous, so I waited for her to continue.

“You know, Eden, I remember how difficult it was when I started in this business. There can be quite a lot of . . .
pitfalls
to navigate, especially for a woman. If you like, I can come over to Bonwright and check in on you sometime, take you to lunch and offer some advice if you want it.”

“Oh—uh, no,” I said hurriedly. “It's a lovely offer, but I wouldn't want to take up your time.”

The last thing I wanted was for her to turn up at Bonwright looking for Eden Katz and find Eden Collins instead. Ms. Singer looked me up and down as if trying to puzzle me out. She raised an eyebrow at me.

“Or you could drop in on me at my office, if you prefer.”

I bit my lip. “Well,” I said, “that might be nice.” Frightened as I was of being exposed, I was tempted.

“You're welcome anytime,” Mavis said, still trying to read my face. I knew I hadn't made it easy. She smiled pleasantly and we shook hands. I slipped her card into the little clutch I was carrying, and we both returned our attention to the rest of the party.

I thought of her again later that evening, back at the apartment, when I emptied the clutch out and sorted through all the cards I'd collected. Usually, I wrote little notes on the backs to remind me of people's
personalities and tastes, and then I put them all in a big manila envelope for safekeeping.

That night, when I got to Ms. Singer's, I simply held the card and gazed at it, pondering. She had certainly seemed smart and kind, and it appeared she was encouraging, willing to be a kind of mentor to a young person like myself. But then, Miss Everett had seemed that way, too, at first. I went back and forth several times over, debating whether or not to call Ms. Singer and accept her kind offer.

Eventually, after staring at it for several minutes, I tucked Ms. Singer's card away with the others in the envelope, with a solitary question mark written on the back. I didn't quite know yet what to make of Ms. Singer and her interest in my career.