The fake nails never stay on, so often in the middle of your Barbra-style gesturing, one or two fall to the floor and you have to stop and stick them back on, move the needle back on the record. Always, you end by falling dramatically backward onto the sofa with wide-open arms, like you’ve seen in the movies, with a loud and overdramatic sigh, exhausted from all the singing and feeling and singing-feeling.
When you grow up you will for sure be either a Broadway star, or a veterinarian, or a police, or probably all of those things. Until the following year when you read Harriet the Spy. Then you will for sure be a writer. Or a spy.
You hear the click of the lock on the door, jump to your feet. You don’t know that I’ve just heard you sing the entirety of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” from outside the apartment. You have a good voice, Betsy. Moooom. You turn red; a compliment from your mom means a lot to you, especially given your plans for a Broadway career, but you don’t dare admit what you were doing, not to me, not to anyone. You don’t really dare anything at this point, you only dream. When you grow up, you won’t be scared to sing outside of the apartment, you’re sure. I wasn’t singing. I didn’t say you were. I was playing dress-up. Okay, Betsy, if you say so. Just know that it’s not all about talent. If you want to be in the arts, be prepared for a life of disappointment and poverty.
— Just FYI, Betsy, this is not me acknowledging that I ever said such a thing. Because I didn’t.
— Okay.
In the Year 2000
In sixth grade, you and your class collaborate on a play. It is set “in the year 2000” at the opening of the tallest residential building in the world: three hundred stories, with balconies that “see across the country.” You play the mayor of New York, presiding over the ribbon cutting; you’re wearing a corduroy blazer and one of Victor’s new wide ties (which looks even wider on you). In attendance at the ribbon cutting are Shamed Former President Nixon, Not Shamed Former President Shirley Chisolm, Don Corleone, Bobby Fischer, Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, Shelley Winters, Burt Reynolds, Secretariat, a veterinarian, and the ghost of Bruce Lee. It is meant to be Pinter meets Pirandello. We’ve been reading them in school, you report, leading us to second-guess our choice of private school after all, but your enthusiasm is nothing if not sincere. The experience of writing this play has been an inspiration, the laughter of your classmates at your contributions has sunk into you on a cellular level; you feel like your true voice is reaching the people! It’s all you’ve ever really wanted, you know this now. Each character has at least one line about what it’s like in the year 2000. Nowadays we have the ability to shrink our animals so we can carry them in our pockets! the veterinarian says. Don’t even think about it, Secretariat says. Throughout the play, there are numerous long pauses and a play within the play in which Shelley Winters swims up from the Hudson River (We can breathe underwater now!) to moderate a debate between Nixon and Chisolm about whether or not Nixon should be allowed to breathe anywhere (this little political bit, you feel personally, is your strongest contribution), which leads to more long pauses and various characters jumping in and pointing out that most of these people probably aren’t still alive in the year 2000, that we’re practically near death ourselves at thirty-nine.
After the play, I shake the hand of Nina, the adorable little girl who played the veterinarian. You were so great! We follow this immediately with You were great too, honey! though as far as you’re concerned that’s too little too late. (That you become friends with Nina the following year is almost remarkable.)
The three of us take a taxi home. You are silent for the duration. Victor and I chat about work; your brain feels like it could melt from the heat of your anger; you go straight to your room, close the door. What’s with her? you hear Victor say behind the door. You fling the door open. This was the most important day of my life! Victor laughs. Don’t laugh! What are you talking about? It’s a school play. You had two lines. I wrote them! I’m going to be a writer when I grow up! Victor laughs again. Weren’t you going to be a singer last week? A year ago you were going to be an impressionist. I’m going to be a writer. Nobody knows what they want when they’re twelve, Betsy. I thought I was going to be Vic Damone when I was twelve. Victor’s laugh, right this moment, is the worst sound of all sounds ever made. They should use Victor’s laugh to get people to reveal state secrets, you think. Shut up! I can be a singer and a writer! I’m going to be a singer and a writer and I’m going to write about you! Victor doesn’t take this as the threat you mean it to be, laughs again. Stop laughing! Stop always laughing at me! I’m going to be a writer!
Iowa City, Version One
The final custody agreement is reached, so you will now make two annual trips to Iowa to visit your father, including one month each summer. Iowa is, to you at this time, basically earth’s greatest place. You have three new brothers right there to play with, you can ride bikes in the street, and there are always several gallon-size tubs of ice cream in the freezer, chocolate and butterscotch toppings and sprinkles in the cupboard, a running stream of grape Kool-Aid coming out of the dispenser in the refrigerator door. Fred and Jeannie pile you all into a Winnebago for camping trips, take you to your brothers’ Little League games, you all go bowling, play pinball, play board games after nightly dinners of pizza and hot dogs; you make Super 8 movies, watch All in the Family together, stay up as late as you want. Fred teaches most summers, but still has plenty of free time. One of the things you do together as father and daughter is go to flea markets. He’s forever hunting for Jew’s harps, old Iowa sheet music, and antique Iowa postcards; you’re currently hunting for any memorabilia having to do with Fred Astaire. Oskaloosa 1929, Betsy! Technically not antique, but a nice clear postmark. That’s great, Dad! Can I get this top hat from Top Hat? How much is it? Ten thousand dollars. Sure thing!
— Okay, I see you trying to make a point here, but way to hit it a little hard, Mom. Can we maybe try again, this time with a smidge of realism?
— Fine.
Iowa City, Version Two: Kegger
Summer of 1973. You’re twelve years old. You’re in Iowa for the month of August with your father as per our custody agreement. Like me, he has remarried: a young widow named Jeannie who has three boys, your age and older. Next time you visit you’ll have a new half sister as well. Iowa City is only slightly less exotic to you now than it was a couple of years earlier, when you first visited. But you’re just on the other side of the age where drive-ins with the family and lemonade stands and riding bikes around the neighborhood are endlessly entertaining. The topics in rotation on your daily, hour-long phone conversations with Nina are boys, boys, boys, clothes, books, boys, and boys. Your brothers are close to your own age, about twelve, fourteen, and seventeen, something like that. Possible options for Nina someday. You get along well with all the brothers, though the seventeen-year-old is generally not very interested in you or your brothers, given your youth. He’s interested in girls and getting stoned and if there’s beer he’s interested in that too. Tonight, the fourteen-year-old knows where there’s beer. Your father and Jeannie are at the Bix Fest in Davenport, back in the morning. The fourteen-year-old wasn’t planning to invite the rest of you along, he was just planning to go to a keg party at his bud’s house, but failed to make sure the twelve-year-old hung up the other extension of phone before discussing party details with his friend. Oooh, I’m telling! the twelve-year-old says; the fourteen-year-old hangs up, says Shut it; the seventeen-year-old enters, says What’s happenin’, little brothers; he’s probably already stoned. You enter the room mid-discussion. He’s going to a kegger! the twelve-year-old says. You don’t even know what a kegger is, mostly because you mishear this as “kigger,” though it’s clear that whatever this is, he’s not supposed to be going to one. Righteous, the seventeen-year-old says. We’ll all go. I’ll drive. The fourteen-year-old says You guys suck to his brothers. Come on, Bets, you too, the seventeen-year-old says. You don’t want to ask what a kigger is for fear of looking like an idiot, so instead you say you were thinking of just watching Toma. It’s summer, Betsy, it’s a rerun, come on, this will be way more fun.