Daddy thinks he’ll treat that one as a rhetorical question. There’s no way in hell I’m going there with the kid I used to bring to Brownie meetings.
“Sounds like you’d already done a fair amount of research.”
“He had practically promised it to me!”
“Ninety percent, right?”
“Right! But then today? At the staff meeting where they were handing out assignments? This new guy, Taz, who’s been on staff for like three months? He gets the Ansonia. And I just sat there like, Seriously? But he’s the fair-haired boy around here. The Brown University graduate who’s only twenty-three but already has a book contract from Knopf. Taz: that’s his poseur name. You know what his real name is? Eugene. He wears a porkpie hat and a string tie and crop pants that he cuffs up. And Keesha the receptionist and I are like, Really, dude? Could you be more of a hipster cliché? Oh, and he has this wispy little mustache that makes you wonder if he’s still going through puberty. I would have killed to write about the Ansonia.”
“So what assignment did you get?”
“Some stupid, sexist New York beauty contest.”
“Let me guess. Miss Subways?”
“What? No. Something that a beer company sponsored every year.”
“Ah. Miss Rheingold.”
“Yeah. How did you know?”
“Oh, it was a big deal back then. We voted for Miss Rheingold here in Connecticut, too. There were always six Rheingold girls in the running and the public picked the winner. They had ballot boxes in all the stores. Even kids could vote.”
“For a beer queen?”
“Uh-huh. For some reason, the beer was incidental. One year, a girl from Three Rivers was in the running. She had been our babysitter when she was in high school. I thought my sisters were going to blow a gasket when she got picked to be a Rheingold girl.”
“Even Aunt Frances?”
“Especially your Aunt Frances. She worked on all cylinders that summer to get Shirley Shishmanian elected.” Aliza asks me what kind of a name Shishmanian is. “Armenian. But she changed it to something less ethnic when she became a model.”
“Why?”
“Well, I guess it was because you could be Armenian or Italian or Jewish back then, as long as you covered it over with an Anglo-Saxon Protestant veneer. So Sadie became Sandy, Elisabetta became Betsy, et cetera, et cetera.”
“God, I had to cover the Victoria’s Secret fashion show last month, and the ‘Angels’ were from places like Namibia, Angola, Egypt, the Czech Republic. And trust me, Daddy, none of them had changed their names. Those accented vowels drove me nuts when I was doing the write-up. So I’m curious. What did Shirley Shishmanian change her name to?”
“Can’t recall off the top of my head. You know who might remember, though? Your Aunt Simone.”
“I thought you said Aunt Frances was the one who was into the Miss Rheingold thing.”
“She was, but Simone was best friends with Shirley’s sister, JoBeth.”
“Are they still friends? Maybe the sister could tell me how to get in contact with Shirley. It would be awesome if I could get a quote from her for my piece.”
“I don’t know if they’re still in touch or not. Why don’t you email your aunt and ask her?”
“Okay, cool. Hey, as long as I have to do this story anyway, you may have just given me an angle. I mean, not even straight-up supermodels like Alessandra Ambrosio and Tyra Banks could have competed for Miss Rheingold. Right?”
“Well, Alessandra could have if she changed her name and lost her accent. But Tyra? Uh-uh. No way she would have passed as a WASP from the wilds of Westchester or Westport, Connecticut. That’s just what it was like back then: blacks at the back of the bus, Lucy and Ricky sleeping in twin beds, Mrs. Cleaver vacuuming in pearls and high heels while her husband was at the office earning a paycheck.”
“It sounds so fucking restrictive.”
“In retrospect, yes. But it wasn’t until the sixties that people started questioning the status quo.”
“Mostly blacks and women, according to Mom. But then again, why would white dudes want to change things when they held all the cards?”
“Well, some of us white dudes wanted to change things, too—on the political front, mostly. You know—anti-war, anti-Nixon, pro–civil rights. When I was in college, I went on strike in protest. A lot of us did. Of course, we were also putting down our placards to ‘party hearty,’ too.”
“Wow, you hippie you,” she says, chuckling. “Wait, who’s Mrs. Cleaver?”
“Hmm? Oh, the Beaver’s mom.”
“What?”
“Never mind. But look, sweetie. I think you’re onto something with this angle you’re considering. You might even have some fun with it, from a sociological viewpoint. Maybe season it with a little of that smart-ass tongue-in-cheek you’re so good at.”
“Yeah, I wonder where I get that from.”
“Look, all I’m saying is, keep an open mind and give it a shot. Okay?”
“It’s not like I have a choice as long as I’m working for Napoleon.”
“Well, if I were you, I’d keep my head down, drop my defensiveness, and let my writing make the noise. And one of these days, you’ll be giving assignments instead of getting them.”
“Not soon enough.”
“Kiddo, you’re writing for a great magazine, you’re getting your name out there on that blog of yours, and you haven’t even hit thirty yet. You know who I saw at Starbucks the other day? That girl Kelly who was on the swim team with you in high school. She’s working as a barista, teaching a couple of classes at a yoga studio, and on the weekends she moonlights as the overnight supervisor at a group home for emotionally disturbed kids. She said she’s living back home with her parents so she can start digging out from under all the student loans that are burying her alive. Where did she go to school?”
“Sarah Lawrence for undergrad and NYU for her master’s, I think. But I get your point. I guess I should stop complaining because I’m pretty lucky.”
“What you are, Aliza, is talented. And determined. Own it.”
“Okay. Thanks, Daddy. Shit, I better get back and—oh, wait. I almost forgot. Jason and I were thinking about coming up this weekend. Depends on whether or not I can get my piece done and put Miss Beer Queen back in her crypt. I have Katie’s bridal shower on Sunday and Jason wants us to check out a slam show in Providence Saturday night because one of his poet buddies is performing. He said he really wants to meet you, too, so that you two can talk movies, maybe watch a few together. But if you’re too busy on Sunday, he could always go down to the casino when I have the shower. Play poker or something.”
“Likes to gamble, does he?”
“Jason does not have a gambling addiction, Daddy, if that’s what you’re asking. Or a drug addiction. Or a wife and a couple of kids. He hardly even drinks. Hits the chocolate milk a little hard sometimes, but that’s about it.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound too worrisome. Seriously, though, if he’s a film buff, maybe I could take him to the Garde. Show him around, put something up on the big screen for him. He’s not afraid of ghosts, is he? Did I tell you that after The Day and The Bulletin both did stories about some of the paranormal stuff that’s happened, Steve and Jeannie have been getting inquiries from that show Ghost Hunters about doing an episode there?”
“Oh, Daddy, that’s such a crock. In all the years that you’ve been running your movie program there, have you ever seen any ghosties or ghoulies?”
“No, but I heard footfalls on the grand staircase once when no one was there.”
“It was probably that ancient furnace making some weird noise in the basement. Didn’t you say that thing makes a racket sometimes during the movie you’re showing?”
“Yeah, but Steve saw a guy in a Civil War uniform up in the balcony once. Said he looked almost translucent. Like a hologram or something. And Maura, who works the box office? She saw a girl dressed like a flapper. An
d when Maura said something to her, she just faded away. Maura thinks it might have been this old-time silent movie actress named Billie Dove.”
“Maybe Maura should lay off the hallucinogens.”
“Ha! Maura’s idea of tripping is taking a bus tour to Vermont during foliage season. There is a connection, though. Billie Dove was one of the stars of the first film they ever showed at the Garde—opening night, 1926. She was considered the world’s most beautiful woman back in her day. Mary Pickford was so jealous of her that she began eating rose petals to enhance her own beauty.”
“Yeah, and I’m sure that worked. Oh, look! Here comes Charlie Chaplin’s ghost up from the subway. And wow, he’s riding on a pink unicorn.”
“Okay, ye of little faith. So how old is this Justin of yours?”
“His name is Jason, Dad. Not Justin. And he’s twenty-five. Don’t start with the ‘cradle-snatching’ jokes, please.” (Fair enough. Aliza grew up on those; her mom is four years older than I am and never once thought my wisecracking about that was funny.) “Why do you want to know his age?”
“Just trying to gauge what his cinematic tastes might be. Tarantino and the Coen brothers, I’ll bet. Fell in love with the movies the first time he saw Donnie Darko or Napoleon Dynamite. Right? Oh god, he’s not one of those Star Wars–Comic Con kind of movie fans, is he?”
“He’s more into Wes Anderson, actually. But I think he wants to pick your brain about films you like. Maybe have you make him a list of must-sees.”
“Yeah? I’m starting to like this guy. Do you think I could call him Grasshopper and get him to refer to me as Master Po?”
“Don’t be weird, Daddy. If you take him down to the Garde, I’m sure he’d love that. By the way, is it okay if we stay with you when we’re in town? Mom says she’s already got company coming.”
“No room at the inn, eh? Sure, you guys are welcome to bunk in with me. Separate bedrooms, though. None of this sleeping-together-before-marriage stuff.” There’s a long pause on the other end. “I’m kidding, Aliza.”
“Oh, okay. For a minute there . . .”
“Hey, I’m your cool parent. Remember?”
“Dad, you wear argyle socks.”
“So?”
“With Crocs.”
“Well, yes, there’s that. Maybe I’m so uncool that that makes me cool. Ever thought of that? Anyway, I assume you’re taking the train up. Just call me when you know what time you’re getting in and I’ll pick you guys up, take you two to dinner.”
“That would be great, Daddy. Thanks.”
“Okay, kid. Tell Justin I’m looking forward to meeting him, too.”
“His name is Jason. Justin was the last guy.”
“Oh right. The stockbroker with the little ponytail.”
“It’s a topknot, Daddy. And they know each other. Jason fucking hates Justin from when he and his Wall Street buddies used to go to the pub where Jason worked part-time. They treated him and the other waiters like crap and left shitty tips. So it would be really uncool if you got mixed up and called him Justin.”
“Yeah, that would be fuckin’ fucked up of me if I fucked up like that, huh?”
“Ha-ha. Very funny. Look, I better get back up there and start researching Miss Brewski.”
“Attagirl. And do me a favor, will you? When you get back up there, get ahold of that little twerp Eugene’s porkpie hat, sit on it, and when you give it back to him good and squashed, tell him it’s a hello from your old man.”
She laughs. “Gladly. Love you, Daddy.”
“Love you more, kiddo. See you soon.”
Aliza: good god, I’m crazy about that kid. Kat and I had wanted more, but we sure lucked out with the one we got. Smart as a whip, sensitive, hardworking. And I like to think I had a little something to do with that sense of humor of hers. My ex is great, but she can be . . . intense. Doesn’t laugh a whole lot. She was a damned good mom, though, and, for all the things we used to fight about, we pretty much balanced each other out as far as child-rearing. We both gave our daughter quite a bit of free rein, let her figure things out for herself, and she never abused that freedom. Even during all that testing most kids do in high school, Aliza pretty much behaved herself. Avoided the mean-girl cliques and the wild parties. Did her own thing and let everyone else do theirs. She’s just always been a good kid. Not that Aliza’s a kid anymore. Her next birthday, she’ll be twenty-nine.
Looks-wise, she’s a blend of Kat and me. She has her mother’s pale complexion and China blue eyes and my dark hair and long lashes. I’m not sure where that turned-up nose came from; not from either of her parents. When she was a baby and the three of us were out someplace, strangers would sometimes tell us Aliza should be on TV—in commercials or whatever. After they left, Kat would grumble about her daughter being objectified, but it kind of tickled me when someone said something like that. Sometimes when I’m feeling sentimental or blue, I’ll pop one of those old tapes into the VCR I still keep hooked up to the TV and watch who she was back then, when she was my little girl. . . .
She’s grown into a lovely young woman, too: tall and athletic—she ran the New York City marathon last year and recently joined a wall-climbing club. She dresses unpretentiously—more Patagonia than Prada. Hates shopping, she says, and hardly ever wears makeup. When we’re doing something in the city together, going to a restaurant or an art gallery, she seems unaware that guys are checking her out. That’s what’s lovely about her, in my opinion.
When Kat and I split up, Aliza was in her freshman year at Connecticut College. She’d seen the divorce coming, I’m sure, but still, when the ax finally fell . . . To her credit, though, she didn’t take sides. Didn’t seem to resent either of us. And as divorces go, Kat’s and mine was pretty amicable. Neither of us had cheated on the other; that wasn’t it. We’d just grown so far apart that the only thing we had in common was our daughter. Still, we held it together until she went off to school.
At Conn, Aliza minored in creative writing, which pleased me, and majored in feminist studies, which her mother was over the moon about. After she graduated, she got a job as a tech writer all the way across the country in Silicon Valley. She lived out there for about four years. Then Yahoo laid her off and she and her California boyfriend called it quits. That was the lowest I’d ever seen her, but she came back home, got her bearings, and moved to the big city. One of her friends pulled some strings and got her a fact-checker’s job at Condé Nast Traveler. After a while, she began writing pieces for them. And then, about a year ago, she jumped ship and landed a job as a staff writer for New York magazine. Much to Aliza’s frustration, she’s usually assigned to cover the fashion and shopping beats for their website. Still, she’s maintained her feminist cred by blogging. Her Tumblr page, Invincible Grrrl, gets over a thousand hits a week and she has twice that many people following her Twitter feed.
Or should I say her post-feminist cred? I’m not even sure what post-feminism is, but Aliza’s mother doesn’t seem to be particularly fond of it. She’s annoyed that twentysomethings like our daughter and those roomies of hers, the three Js, take for granted the rights that Kat and her “sisters” marched for in the streets back in the seventies. “The battle’s far from over,” Kat told Aliza a while back when the three of us met for brunch. “Not with women only earning seventy-eight cents for every dollar that men make. There’s even a gender gap in nursing, for Christ’s sake. Why should male nurses make more than women in a traditionally female occupation?” Kat got herself so lathered up that she kept forgetting to eat her eggs Florentine, which I kept looking at, wishing I had ordered that instead of my buckwheat waffles. She went on to blame pop culture for all the backsliding. “Eighteen-year-olds getting boob jobs and fanny implants, middle school girls posing on social media in their underwear. All the women in TV news squeezed into those tight sleeveless dresses. Spanx! A girdle by any other name is still a goddamned girdle. And that show Girls that you’re so addicted to, Aliza? I watched two
episodes and I was done when Lena Dunham submitted to anal sex, not because she wanted it but because that monkey-faced boyfriend of hers did.” That was when I noticed our waitress standing there, waiting to ask us about coffee refills. I smiled apologetically at her, in case she’d just heard my ex-wife opine about Lena’s up-the-butt sex.
Sounds like Aliza’s new man will be an improvement over the stockbroker. That guy was a little too full of himself for my taste, not to mention way too right-wing. Listening politely to his long-winded explanation about why Obamacare was going to bring us to financial ruin felt like torture, but I held my tongue. When Aliza called to say that she’d ended it with him, I was conciliatory. Then I got off the phone and did a little happy dance. I just better not slip up and call this new one Justin. Because he’s Jason. Jason Robards, Jason Bateman, Jason and the Argonauts. Jason, Jason, Jason.
But yeah, it would be fun to take him down to New London and show him what movie palaces used to be like. Maybe give him the grand tour of the “Whaling City” while I’m at it. Show him where the bus depot and my father’s lunch counter used to sit before they built that parking garage. On second thought, that probably wouldn’t excite him too much. Well, speaking of Ye Olde Garde Theatre, I’d better put some shoes on, drive down there, and set up the projectors for my Monday evening movie mavens.
HEY, NOW, LOOK at this: a parking space right in front of the theater. Must be my lucky day. I fish out the key, unlock the side door, and walk into the lobby. Take a moment to scan the renovated splendor of this exquisite old dame: the palatial lobby with its mosaic floor tiles and grand staircase, the neon-lit refreshment counter, the framed lobby cards. They did some extensive research to find out what it looked like when it opened back in ’26 as a “photoplay” house and vaudeville stage. The murals and wall etchings are done in what’s called the Moroccan Revival style. Always makes me feel like I’m walking onto the set of Casablanca. And they’ve left the doors into the auditorium open, so I can see the giant screen and red velvet curtains. Sixteen hundred seats at this place, and back in the day, for the biggest shows, they’d fill every single one of them.