“He meant to send some, he told me so—”
“He didn’t.”
“He did, he did, he did! And if I just felt I had to have something to cheer me up—”
“Suppose you go in and go to bed. And shut up. See if that will cheer you up.”
She had begun parading around, and now she snapped on the light. “Leonard, you have a perfectly awful look on your face!”
“Yeah, I’m bored. Just plain bored. And to you, I guess a bored man does look pretty awful.”
She went out and slammed the door with a terrific bang. It was the first time I had ever taken a decision over her. I pulled out Traviata again. It fell open to the place where Alfredo throws the money in Violetta’s face, after she gets him all excited by pretending to be in love with somebody else. It crossed my mind that Alfredo was a bit of a cluck.
5
It was early in October that I got the wire from Rochester. It had been a lousy summer. In August, Doris took the children up to the Adirondacks, and I wanted to go, but I hated the way she would have asked for separate rooms. So I stayed home, and learned two more roles, and played around with Cecil. I got a letter from Doris, after she had been up there a week, saying Lorentz was there too, because of course she couldn’t even write a letter without putting something in it to make you feel rotten. The Lorentz part, it wasn’t so good, but I gritted my teeth and hung on. She came home, and around the end of September Cecil went away. She was booked for a fall tour, and wouldn’t be back until November. I was surprised how I missed her, and how the music wasn’t much fun without her. Then right after that, Doris went away again. She was to sing in Wilkes-Barre. That was a phoney, of course, and all it amounted to was that she had friends there that belonged to some kind of a tony breakfast club, and they had got her invited to sing there.
The day after she left, I got the telegram from Cecil, dated Rochester:
MY TENOR HAS GOT THE PIP STOP IF YOU LOVE ME FOR GOD’S SAKE HOP ON A PLANE QUICK AND COME UP HERE STOP BRING OLD ITALIAN ANTHOLOGIES ALSO OLD ENGLISH ALSO SOME OPERATIC STUFF ESPECIALLY PAGLIACCI TRAVIATA FACTOTUM AND MASKED BALL ALSO CUTAWAY COAT GRAY PANTS FULL EVENING SOUP AND FISH AND PLENTY OF CLEAN SHIRTS STOP LOVE
It caught me at the office about ten in the morning, and the messenger waited, and as soon as I read it my heart began to pump, not from excitement, but from fear. Because up to then it had been just a gag, anyway on my end of it. But this brought me face to face with it: Did I mean it enough to get up before people and sing, or not? I stood there looking at it, and then I thought, well what the hell? I called the Newark airport, found they had a plane leaving around noon, and made a reservation. Then I wrote a wire to Doris telling her I had been called out of town on business, and another one to Cecil, telling her I’d be there. Then I grabbed all the music I might need, went over to the bank and drew some money, hustled up to the house and packed, and grabbed a cab.
She met me at the airport, kissed me, and bundled me into a car she had waiting. “It was sweet of you to come. My but I’m glad to see you.”
“Me too.”
“Terribly glad.”
“But what happened? I didn’t even know you had a tenor.”
“Oh, you have to have an assistant artist, to give a little variety. Sometimes the accompanist fills in with some Liebestraum, but my man won’t play solo. So I let the music bureau sell me a tenor. He was no good. He was awful in Albany, and he got the bird last night in Buffalo, so when he turned up this morning with a cold I got terribly alarmed for his precious throat and sent him home. That’s all.”
“What’s the bird?”
“Something you’ll never forget, if you ever hear it.”
“Suppose they give me the bird?”
We had been riding along on the back seat, her hand in mine, just two people that were even gladder to see each other than they knew they were going to be, and I expected her to laugh and say something about my wonderful voice, and how they would never give me the bird. She didn’t. She took her hand away, and we rode a little way without saying anything, and then she looked me all over, like she was measuring everything I had. “Then I’ll have to get somebody else.”
“Yeah?”
“... They can give you the bird.”
“Hey, let’s talk about something pleasant.”
“It’s a tough racket.”
“Maybe I better go home.”
“They can give you the bird, and they can give it to anybody. I think you’ll win, but you’ve got to win, don’t make any mistake about that. You’ve got to lam it in their teeth and make them like it.”
“So.”
“You can go home if you want to, and if that’s how you feel about it, you’d better. But if you do, you’re licked for good.”
“I’m here. I’ll give it a fall.”
“Look at me now.”
“I’m looking.”
“Don’t let that applause fool you, when you come on. They’re a pack of hyenas, they’re always a pack of hyenas, just waiting to tear in and pull out your vitals, and the only way you can keep them back is to lick them. It’s a battle, and you’ve got to win.
“When is the concert?”
“Tonight.”
“Ouch.”
“Did you hear me?”
“I heard you.”
When we got to the hotel I took a room and sent up my stuff, and then we went up to her suite. A guy was there, reading a newspaper. “Mr. Wilkins, who plays our accompaniments. Mr. Borland, Ray. Our baritone.”
We shook hands, and he fished some papers out of his pocket. “The printer’s proofs of the program. It came while you were out, Cecil. He’s got to have it back, with corrections, by five o’clock. I don’t see anything, but you better take a look at it.”
She passed one over to me. It gave me a funny feeling, just to look at it. I’ve still got that proof, and here it is, in case you’re interested, [see below]:
“It’s all right, pretty nifty. Except that Leonard Borland is gradually on purpose going to turn into Logan Bennett.”
“Oh, yes. I meant to ask you about that. Yes, I think that’s better. Will you change it, Ray? On the proof that goes to the printer. And make sure it’s changed on all his groups.”
“I only sing twice?”
“That’s all. Did you bring the music I said?”
“Right here in the briefcase.”
“Give it to Ray, so he can go over it. He always plays from memory. He never brings music on stage.”
“I see.”
“You’ll attend to the program, Ray?”
“I’m taking it over myself.”
Wilkins left, she had me ha-ha for ten minutes, then said my voice was up and stopped me. Some sandwiches and milk came up. “They fed us on the plane. I’m not hungry.”
“You better eat. You don’t get any dinner.”
“... No dinner?”
“You always sing on an empty stomach. We’ll have some supper later.”
I tried to eat, and couldn’t get much down. Seeing that program made me nervous. When I had eaten what I could, she told me to go in and sleep. “A fat chance I could sleep.”
“Lie down, then. Be quiet. No walking around, no vocalizing. That’s one thing you can learn. Don’t leave your concert in the hotel room.”