Q: A Love Story. Evan Mandery

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      “No, we are surprised to hear you speaking at all.”

      “It is a reading after all.”

      “We came to hear Marcel Marceau read from Bip in a Book. You are not he.”

      An official from the Y standing in the back hears the exchange. She explains that the rare video of one of the few readings Marceau gave before his death is being shown in the next room. Slowly, the old ladies file out. One woman remains to whom I ascribe the noblest and most empathic virtues of humanity. No doubt she too has stumbled into the wrong room. But she recognizes how vulnerable a writer makes himself when he puts his work out to the world. Even if this reading was not her first choice, as an act of basic human dignity, she perceives a duty to stay. I, in turn, am grateful for her and read with even more zeal than before.

      I become apprehensive, however, when she fails to perk up at Harrison’s mention of reviving the Bank of the United States, and downright suspicious when she does not so much as chuckle at Martin Van Buren’s snoring during the second hour of the inaugural. I take a close look at her and conclude that she is either asleep or, as appears to be the case upon further reflection, dead.

      Hastily, I finish the chapter and head for the door.

      I want to make a quick exit from the Y and the yet-to-be-discovered corpse, but I also need to pee and I decide to make a stop at the bathroom. Here I meet Steve Martin, who is having a pee of his own at the adjacent urinal. It is a coincidence, but the sort of chance encounter that happens more often when one travels in the circle of celebrities.

      Martin will be performing banjo at the end of the week, as part of a bluegrass festival at the Y, and he is here for a rehearsal. His banjo case is on the ground between his feet.

      I fumble a bit as I get started. It’s the new slacks.

      “Usually I wear pleated pants,” I explain to Martin, “but my girlfriend bought me flat fronts for this occasion.” He does not look up. “She couldn’t be here today,” I explain further. “She is at the Northeast Organic Farming Association annual convention in Hartford.”

      “I see,” says Martin.

      “I have just finished reading from my novel. Perhaps you have heard of it? It is called Time’s Broken Arrow.”

      Martin shakes his head.

      “I was very much influenced by Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” I say. “I think you are right that all great works, whether of art or scientific genius, are of equal merit and share the same mysterious origin. I just love the scene where Picasso’s art dealer asks the waitress whether Pablo has been to the bar and Germaine says, ‘Not yet,’ as if she knows what is going to happen in the future. I bet you get that all the time.”

      “More often people prefer scenes involving the main characters.” Martin does not look up as he says this. He is concentrating.

      “I also love the way you make time fungible and everything arbitrary. When Einstein shows up at the wrong bar and explains there’s just as much chance of his date wandering into the Lapin Agile as at the place they made up to meet because she thinks as he does, it’s just hilarious. It’s a brilliant play. I bet you get that all the time, too.”

      “More often people prefer the movies,” he says.

      “I enjoy your movies, too. My favorite is The Jerk, before you got all serious with The Spanish Prisoner and Shopgirl. I love the scene where Navin Johnson sees himself in the phone book and is so excited to see his name in print. I like Mamet as much as the next guy, but that’s just classic.”

      “That seems a bit incongruous.”

      It’s true. It is. I hadn’t thought about it before. I watch as he fixes himself.

      “I had broccoli for lunch,” he says.

      I tell this story the next day to Charlie Rose on the air and he is delighted. More accurately I perceive that he is delighted. In fact he has fallen asleep and, by coincidence, stirred during my telling of the Steve Martin story. I mistake this for delight.

      Following my successful appearance on Charlie Rose, I am invited to speak at the Gramercy Park Great Books and Carrot Cake Society. The director sends me a historical pamphlet, from which I learn that the club has paid host to many of the great writers and thinkers of the day, including Henry Miller, Gertrude Stein, S. J. Perelman, the Kinseys, and a young Norman Mailer. Reading between the lines, it appears the society was, in its day, a den of iniquity.

      I have high expectations for the evening, and am further buoyed when Q accepts my invitation to come along. At the appointed time, we are greeted at the door to number 7A, 32 Gramercy Park South, by the director of the society, Shmuley Garbus, who ushers us inside the apartment. It smells of matzo brie and Bengay. The average age in the group is eighty-seven. Three of the seven remaining members of the society are on artificial oxygen. None are ambulatory. When I finally perform my piece, it becomes the second time in a week that people fall asleep at my readings. In my defense, four of the seven people here are asleep before I begin. Happily, no one expires.

      The carrot cake is surprisingly disappointing. Garbus, a spry eighty-three, explains that Rose Lipschutz used to bake for the meetings, but she got the gout, and then, sadly, the shingles. So they use frozen cake now.

      Frozen carrot cake can be quite good. Sara Lee’s product, from its distinguished line of premium layer cakes, is particularly delicious, with a moist cream cheese frosting that tastes as fresh and rich as anything produced in a bakery. And it is reasonable too, only $3.99 for the twelve-ounce cake, or $5.99 for the super-sized twenty-four-ounce cake, which serves between eight and twelve guests.

      But this isn’t Sara Lee. It is from the A&P, which is problematic since there has not been an A&P in Manhattan in more than twenty years.

      “Wow,” I say to Garbus. “A&P carrot cake. I haven’t seen the A&P in ages.”

      “This is all Rose’s doing,” Garbus explains. “They had a sale down at the A&P on Lexington Avenue, and Rose, who was so devoted to the society that she wanted it to go on forever, went to the supermarket specifically with us in mind and stocked up.”

      “When was that?” asks Q.

      “Nineteen eighty-seven,” he says.

      The future of the carrot cake is assured, at least for the short term. At the end of the evening, I see Garbus wrap in aluminum foil the uneaten part of the carrot cake, which is the bulk of it, since many of the members are lactose intolerant. He places the remainder back in the freezer.

      On Garbus’s plastic-covered sofa, as Q and I finish our tea, we are approached by Helen Rosenberg, of the publishing Rosenbergs, who once famously put out a collection of Albert Shanker’s pencil sketches. The teachers’ union gave my father a copy for his retirement.

      “I couldn’t help but notice how much in love the two of you are.”

      Q and I smile and squeeze one another’s hands.

      “You must be proud of him.”

      “I am,” says Q.

      Mischievously, Helen asks me, “When are you going to put a ring on that beautiful СКАЧАТЬ