The whole idea of the evening was in jeopardy. David had wanted to present himself, his life, as evidence of being adult, serious, responsible. He bore the burden, as well as the glamour, of being the youngest senior editor in Newstime’s history. To make himself a Marx Brother, he thought, required that he seem mature. David stared at them coldly. Faced with the collapse of his plan, he felt fatalistic. He had been a fool, anyway, to arrange the evening, he thought to himself. He deserved this exhibition. To try to make it through socializing — it was disgusting and merited humiliation and failure.
“I don’t know why you’re all laughing,” he said coolly.
They quieted, unsure of him. He wasn’t certain of his own mood, either. He had, for a moment, felt hurt. But the sight of the plate was amusing.
“I think it’ll make a great cover for our Health in America feature. You know — Can We Give This Up?” He pointed to the caffeine and sugar mixing: “I carefully arranged it for maximum effect, don’t you think? I mean, that picture says: heart attack.”
They relaxed and enjoyed his response. Chico winked at him. “You’re right. David. I was against that cover, didn’t think it had enough drama. But that sure persuades me.”
“I told you.” Rounder said to his wife, “he’s our most innovative senior editor.” They all smiled, but Rounder’s voice had an earnest tone.
“He is,” Chico said, now completely serious. “You’ve being doing terrific work. David. You made the Weekly look dull on the Conoco takeover.”
“Would have been even better if,” David said quickly, “you’d let me get that shot of their chief executive officer doing a pratfall into a vat of oil.” David turned to Tony Winters, chic Tony with his glib talk and winning smile, and said. “I have a slapstick view of the world.”
His heart began to thump again in his chest while they laughed and turned to him, warming his chilled soul back to the world and the things of it. The cold abstraction from them, the self-hatred of his own intentions and desires, melted back into the comfortable mush of life: the messy sugared world of acquisition and ambition.
Betty looked at her husband. He was a few feet away, sitting at a large round table next to the passageway that led to the bathrooms, the kitchen, and the unchic back room of Elaine’s Restaurant — New York’s best-known literary and show-business hangout. She had emerged from the small, cold, and rather dirty ladies’ room. A fat, unshaven fellow whose bottom button on his ‘shirt had popped off, exposing his navel, was standing in her way.
“Okay, Paulie. No problem,” Tony’s father, Richard Winters, was saying to the plump man.
Paulie had a small thick hand on Richard’s shoulder, massaging it while he spoke in a nervous voice, its tone alternating between loud joshing and low, secretive intensity, the shifts made abruptly, and not always with apparent cause. It was now intimate, suggestive: “’Cause, ya know, it’s no fuckin’ problem for me. I don’t like the guy. Jesus!” he said explosively into the air. “I’m exhausted. I was up at five to see my shrink!”
“Five in the morning?” Richard said, catching Betty’s eye and winking, as if apologizing for his participation in this conversation. “That’s when you see your psychiatrist?”
“Six. If I didn’t have him first thing in the morning.” Paulie said in an intimate whisper, and then burst out: “I’d never get out of bed!”
“This is my daughter-in-law. Betty,” Richard said, gently moving Paulie’s body aside so she could pass. “Paul Friedman.”
Paul Friedman had his hand out, ready to shake even before he knew where Betty was. As a result, he almost shook hands with the wall, since Betty went around him while Paul turned to where she had been standing.
“This way, this way,” Richard Winters said, turning Paul around. The hand stayed out until it caught up to Betty.
“Who are you?” Paul said when they at last made contact.
“She’s my daughter-in-law,” Richard said.
“My wife!” Tony called from the other side of the table.
“My name is Betty,” she said mildly, not wanting to make a feminist point, simply trying to give him a name to remember, rather than a category. Betty knew that to be identified other than as an attachment to Tony or his father at Elaine’s was hopeless, and she didn’t squirm or struggle against that indignity. At her blackest, she told herself that someday she would publish a wild-eyed and brilliant young novelist, and then she’d be identified as his — or her — editor, presumably a more worthwhile secondhand fame than being a wife. It is, it is, she assured herself.
But the restaurant made her feel inconsequential. Within the ten feet surrounding her were two of the most important writers in the country. One of them was eating with the best-known woman editor; the other was pawing a model. The editor, someone Betty admired enormously, was smiling girlishly and adoringly while her author pontificated; the model was doing the same at the next table. Was there a difference? Betty wounded herself with the question. There must be, she decided.
Paul Friedman, meanwhile, had decided Betty was inconsequential. He had turned back instantly after hearing she was someone’s wife — by now he couldn’t have said whose — and said to Tony. “How’s the script coming?”
“Fine,” Tony said. He sounded self-conscious. He was. He knew he was within the hearing of world-famous writers. He felt fraudulent discussing his own work in the same room, and hoped, by his one-word answer, to discourage Paul from asking more questions.
“Who’s doing it?” Friedman asked. His eyes wandered the moment the question was out, scanning the room for other people whom he needed to say hello to.
“International,” Tony answered, furious that Paul wasn’t paying attention, and humiliated that he couldn’t think of a graceful way to deflect the questions.
Tony’s father slapped Paul on the back. “Okay, Paul. Our food’s getting cold. Get back to your table.”
“Yeah …” Paul said, staring off absently. “I’m with great people,” he added, his voice drained of enthusiasm. He then wandered off, stepping sluggishly, as though he were sleepwalking.
Richard Winters looked at Tony and Betty with a sarcastically raised eyebrow, and they laughed.
“What does he do?” Betty asked, having trouble believing that Paul could be competent at anything.
“PR,” Tony answered quickly. He sounded impatient, as if knowing what Paul Friedman did was an obviously essential bit of information.
“He’s good at it,” Richard said solemnly. “Crazy job. Demands a crazy person.”
“You were saying that you’ve heard there’ll be changes at International Pictures?” Tony said intently.
“Well …” Richard looked down at his plate. He sighed. “You know, rumors of management changes at the studios or the networks are constant. But I have reason to believe these are true. Shouldn’t concern you, Tony.”
Then why did you bring it up? Betty wondered. She had gone to the bathroom when Richard did because she felt Tony tense beside her. It was unpleasant feeling his worry. When they were courting and getting married, one of the qualities she loved in Tony was his easy manner, his sense of accomplishment, so unlike other young men. True, he had a material reason for his self-satisfaction: his first play had been produced successfully, at least by critical standards. With each production failing to accomplish anything more, not winning him money or greater praise, his cheerful attitude had worn thin, and with this movie deal, desperation seemed to have crept in. She had got up from the table to avoid hearing him worry over management changes, something that in the past Tony would have joked about, sure that only his own work and worth mattered, but apparently Paul had stalled the talk until now.