Til the Real Thing Comes Along
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Synopsis
Iris Rainer Dart, bestselling author of Beaches, brings you a hilarious, semiautobiographical story about a wary thirty-seven-year-old lady and a gorgeous younger man who's stealing her heart.
Release date: October 14, 2009
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Print pages: 401
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Til the Real Thing Comes Along
Iris Rainer Dart
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint lyrics from the following songs: “CANT TAKE MY EYES OFF OF YOU”
By Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio. Copyright © 1967 Saturday Music, Inc. & Seasons Four Music. Used by permission only. All rights
reserved. “I’M GLAD THERE IS YOU (IN THIS WORLD OF ORDINARY PEOPLE)” by Paul Madeira and Jimmy Dorsey. Copyright 1941,1942
MORLEY MUSIC CO. Copyright © renewed 1969, 1970 MORLEY MUSIC CO. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used
by permission “IT’S ALL IN THE GAME” (Dawes-Sigman). Copyright 1912 and 1951 renewed and terminated and assigned to Larry
Spier, Inc. and Major Songs Co. Reprinted with permission of The Copyright Owners. “WHEN YOU WORE A TULIP (AND I WORE A BIG
RED ROSE),” words by Jack Mahoney, Music by Percy Wenrich. Copyright 1914, renewed 1942 LEO FEIST, INC. Rights assigned to
CBS CATALOG PARTNERSHIP. All rights controlled & administerd by CBS FEIST CATALOG INC. All rights reserved. International
copyright secured. Used by permission. “THEY ALL LAUGHED” by George and Ira Gershwin. Copyright 1937 by Gershwin Publishing
Corp. Copyright renewed, assigned to CHAPPELL & CO. INC. International copyright secred. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
“SMALL WORLD, ISN’T IT?” by Stephen Sondheim & Julie Styne. Copyright © 1959 and 1960 by Norbeth Productions & Stephen Sondheim
Williamson Music Co., and Stratford Music, Owner of publication and allied rights throughout the world. CHAPPELL & CO. Sole
selling agent. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission. “GETTING TO KNOW YOU” by Richard
Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein IL. Copyright 1951 by Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein IL Copyright renewed, Williamson Music
Co., owner of publication and allied rights throughout the Western Hemisphere and Japan. International copyright secured.
All rights reserved. Used by permission “RHINESTONE COWBOY” (Larry Weiss). Copyright © 1974 WB MUSIC CORP and HOUSE OF WEISS
MUSIC. All rights reserved. Used by permission. “YOU MAKE ME FEEL SO YOUNG” (Joseph Myrow and Mack Gordon). Copyright 1946
WB MUSIC CORP. (Renewed). All rights reserved. Used by permission. “I’M FOREVER BLOWING BUBBLES” (John William Kellette and
Jean Kenbbrovin) Copyright 1919 WARNER BROS. INC. (Renewed). All rights reserved. Used by permission. “ON THE BOARDWALK IN
ATLANTIC CITY” (Joseph Myrow and Mack Gordon). Copyright 1946 WB MUSIC CORP. (Renewed). All rights reserved. Used by permission.
WARNER BOOKS EDITION
Copyright © 1987 by Iris Rainer Dart
All rights reserved.
This Warner Books Edition is published by arrangement with the author.
Warner Books, Inc.
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at
www.HachetteBookGroup.com
First eBook Edition: October 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-56761-9
It was three o’clock in the morning and a thick gray cloud of cigar smoke hung in the air over the conference table. R.J. took
another sip of coffee from a white mug that had the words THE BROAD printed boldly in red on the side, then held the mug next to her cheek, hoping the heat would soothe her pounding headache.
“Patsy’s gotta say it right out on the air,” Harry Elfand announced. “‘My husband left me for a younger woman.’ America is
gonna love her for tellin’ the truth, so let’s run with it.”
“How young is the other woman?” Eddie Levy asked, knowing the other writers would rise to the bait.
“She’s so young, when he takes her out to dinner he has to cut her meat,” Marty Nussbaum offered.
“He has to strain the food.”
“He comes home with pablum on his breath.”
“The only social disease he worries about is diaper rash.”
The voices of the writers were strained with exhaustion.
“You’re makin’ the girlfriend too young,” Harry Elfand said. Then he absently put a lit match to the cigar he was chewing,
even though the cigar was already lit.
R.J. wriggled her toes inside her boots. She would never get through another hour of this. She was freezing and sleepy. A
younger woman. What’s funny about a younger woman? she thought.
“Everyone reads the Enquirer. We’ve gotta make Patsy
come out smelling like a rose. She caught her old man cheating. The girlfriend’s eighteen. Patsy’s thirty-six.”
“How’d Patsy catch him?” Eddie Levy asked.
R.J. put her cup down on the table and answered in a sleepy voice. “She found Clearasil on his collar.”
“That’s funny,” someone muttered very quietly.
“Good one,” Harry Elfand said to R.J. “Stay with it.”
“Freddy’s so cheap, he’ll marry the girl ’cause he can get her into the movies for half price,” R.J. said. She was so punchy
that she laughed a sharp little laugh out loud at that one. No one else even cracked a smile.
“Okay, two jokes about the girl is enough,” Harry Elfand said, turning to face R.J. “Now gimme one about why he left Patsy.”
Why he left Patsy. Why he left Patsy? Because she was…
“Boss, I got a great idea,” Marty Nussbaum said. “Since R.J. is on a roll, why don’t we all go home and let her stay here
and finish it?”
“Because it’s gotta be done by nine this morning,” Harry Elfand answered, tapping his cigar out—which usually meant he was
considering ending the meeting.
“I’ll come in at seven,” R.J. said, knowing it was the only answer that could get all of them out of there and to their respective
homes to sleep, even for a few hours. She stood, hoping Harry Elfand would take a cue from her. As she did, she could feel
the stiffness in her neck and back and legs.
Someone sang a few bars of “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” and all the men stood too.
“Well, if you ask me, writing for television is a hell of a way to make a living,” Marty Nussbaum said. It was what he always
said when a meeting ended at this hour.
“You call this living?” everyone muttered. It was what they always muttered as they searched for their car keys and made their
way out the door. When they were all in the hallway, moving, shuffling toward the elevator, too tired to talk—which for them
was very tired—R.J. switched off the lights in the conference room, closed the door, and turned to join them.
OPENING MONOLOGUE
(TIM CONWAY, BETTE MIDLER, RAY CHARLES)
MUSIC: PATSY OPENING THEME
FROM BLACK, THE PATSY SUNSHINE HOUR LOGO
MOVES FORWARD AND FREEZES WHEN IT PILLS FRAME.
ANNOUNCER (VOICE OVER)
From Hollywood… it’s the Patsy Dugan
Sunshine Howr!!!!
IMAGES OF PATSY EXPLODE ALL OVER FRAME. DOZENS OF SHOTS PER MINUTE. LAST SHOT GOES TO BLACK.
ANNOUNCER (V.0.)
…And now, ladies and gentlemen, the rhinestone cowgirl herself… Patsy Dugan!!!
PATSY (SINGING V.O.)
LIKE A RHINESTONE COWGIRL
RIDING OUT ON A HORSE
IN A STAR-SPANGLED RODEO.
DISSOLVE TO: PATSY LIVE
PATSY
Howdy, everybody.
AUDIENCE (0.S.)
Howdy, Patsy!!!
PATSY
Well, if y’all have been readin’ the papers I guess y’all know by now that my husband Freddy who used ta be on the show with
me has left me for a woman half my age. Now, ain’t that the pits? Only thing worse was the way I figured out he was cheatin’.
(BEAT) I found Clearasil on his collar. And ya know how cheap Freddy is. He’ll probably many the gal on accounta he can get her into the movies for half price. Ain’t it just
awful? Freddy told The National Enquirer he left me ’cause I was dumb. Now ya see, that’s where me and him are different. I would never use name-callin’ in the press
against that two-timin’, lowlife, redneck piece of trash.
He also told everybody I was a lousy housekeeper. But I proved he was wrong about that. After the divorce I’m keepin’ the
house in Beverly Hills, the house in Malibu, and the house in Hawaii. Hey, who needs him anyway? There are still some men
around who think that I’m a cute young chick. ’Course, most of ’em are in nursing homes and institutions. I’m jokin’ because I want y’all to know that
I am not one bit bitter about this situation. I have me a very positive attitude about my future. As soon as I can, I’m gonna
start goin’ on dates and meetin’ people, because I believe it’s possible to go out there and find a man. After all, that young
gal found mine!!!
I’m real glad y’all are here ta keep me company tonight. We’re gonna have us a real good time. My special guests are Tim Conway…
APPLAUSE
The fabulous Ray Charles…
APPLAUSE
And my good friend, the Divine One, Bette Midler.
APPLAUSE
So stay tuned, hear? We’re comin’ right back, with Patsy’s Sunshine Hour.
MUSIC: RHINESTONE COWGIRL
PATSY (SINGS)
THERE’S BEEN A LOAD OF COMPROMISIN’
ON THE ROAD TO MY HORIZON
BUT I’M GONNA BE WHERE THE LIGHTS
ARE SHININ’ ON ME.
LIKE A RHINESTONE COWGIRL…
MUSIC: OUT
DISSOLVE TO BLACK.
Michael had a whole routine that he did with a cigarette. First he’d light one, take a few long drags, and exhale volumes of
smoke through his mouth and nose, and, R.J. was sure, sometimes a few bursts even came out of his ears. Then he’d make a kind
of nest in the crook of his hand, where he’d cradle the cigarette while he rolled it between his thumb and forefinger and
stare at the glowing end. Then he’d blow on the lit end, which would make the orange part look even brighter, and tiny ashes
would fly all around his face. After that, he’d take another few drags, let out more raging smoke, and look at the cigarette
with distaste, as if he was sorry he’d ever started smoking it in the first place. So he’d smash out what was left of it wherever
he happened to be at the time. He’d smash it into a telephone pole if he was walking down the street. He’d smash it into the
bricks of someone’s pool deck if his host had neglected to provide him with an ashtray. Or—and this was the one that made
R.J. cringe—he’d smash it into his half-full drinking glass at a party. At the moment, R.J. was watching him smash the remains
of the most recently smoked cigarette into the freshly mowed lawn of the Four Oaks School, not six feet from the sign that
said SMOKING FORBIDDEN ANYWHERE ON CAMPUS.
It wasn’t that Michael hadn’t seen the sign. It was that he just didn’t care. He was nervous. Very nervous. R.J. had seen
him nervous before, but never this bad. Maybe the loud music and all the kids running and squealing were
upsetting to him. Probably he’d never been around this many kids at once. Never at a school fair. But that was all part of
what he’d have to get used to, now that he was going to be Jeffie’s stepfather in a few days. Five days.
R.J. felt queasy. Probably she was just worried that the wedding plans could go awry. Nothing serious. Michael was lying on
his stomach on the grass now. He had a new cigarette going, and he was doing the part where he blew on the lit end. R.J. looked
at his carefully combed prematurely silver hair and his perfectly manicured nails, and the queasy bubble in her stomach felt
as if it were growing from Ping-Pong ball to tennis ball size. She glanced across the lawn to see if there was a line waiting
to get into the ladies’ bathroom, actually the girls’ locker room. There was. When she looked back at Michael, and saw his
contorted face, at first she thought it must be a joke he was playing… but no. This wasn’t funny. He was sobbing. Silently.
His cheeks and the backs of his ears were bright red, and his body was shaking with the effort of holding in what, if he hadn’t
contained them, would be mighty cries.
“Michael.”
He couldn’t answer.
“Michael, my God, are you okay?” Maybe she should get him out of there before the children saw him, or before he let go and
the children heard him. Her eyes scanned the fairground trying to spot Jeffie. Fifth-grade boys. There were so many of them,
and almost all of them were wearing the same red school sweat shirt. It was impossible from this distance to pick out her
own son from the rest.
“Michael, let’s get you to the car,” she said, “and I’ll ask one of the other mothers to look after Jeffie. Michael,” she
said again, touching his shoulder. “Please.”
“I can’t,” he said, moving his shoulder away from her touch.
“Of course you can,” she said in a voice she often used to encourage Jeffie. “The parking lot is just across the street”
“I mean”—he narrowed his puffy red tear-filled eyes—“that I can’t marry you.”
The queasiness bubble was now a medicine ball that filled R.J. from her throat to her groin. She looked back toward the ladies’
room, positive that she would have to run over there any second, push all those other people out of the way, scream “emergency,”
and lock herself into a
cubicle and throw up. Instead she took a deep breath and said, “That’s fine. Now let’s go.” She stood and helped Michael,
who was still trembling, to his feet.
She took him back to her house after asking Harriet Wallace, another fifth-grade mother, to promise to locate and look after
Jeffie. Now she sat in her living room across from Michael, who was blowing on the ash of the current cigarette nested in
his hand. In front of him on the coffee table, an ashtray was already filled with the gold filter butts of several recently
completed Dunhills.
“This is going to break my mother’s heart,” he said quietly. “She’s not going to believe it when I tell her I couldn’t do
it. I’m a forty-year-old man, for Christ’s sake. You’d think by now I could settle down. But I still can’t make a commitment
to one woman.” His voice broke in a way that R.J. thought sounded as if it had been rehearsed. “It isn’t you. You’re a hell
of a gal. I mean, you must be if I thought I could marry you. Look how close we came. Christ, we had blood tests. We had wedding
rings,” he whined, as if she didn’t know. “I never came this close with anyone. But I can’t… I…” He burst into tears and threw
himself at R.J., put his arms around her, and buried his wet face in her neck.
“Oh, God. Forgive me. Please, R.J., say you forgive me. I’m a sick horrible person. My God.”
R.J. put her arms around his shoulders to comfort him and patted his back, and as she did, her nose and eyes were overwhelmed
with the acrid smell of cigarette smoke. R.J. hated Michael Rappaport, and she hated herself for ever agreeing to marry him,
for ever allowing herself to fall for the dozens of clever ways he’d used to win her over.
“Napoleon never waged such a campaign,” her friend Dinah would tell everyone, about Michael’s courtship of R.J. That line
always got a big laugh, because everyone knew that Michael was short. Only five feet what? Three, probably, but it was something
he never discussed. After the Napoleon joke, Dinah would be encouraged to go on and regale their mutual friends with tales
about poor Michael, so lovesick over R.J. that on top of all the other insane things he did to court her, he actually went
to one of those billboard companies that rent advertising space on the Sunset Strip, knowing that Sunset was the route R.J.
always took home from work. And “spent a friggin’ fortune,”
Dinah would announce, just so he could tell R.J. he loved her.
But how did Michael know that R.J. would even see it? That was what someone invariably asked Dinah when she told the story.
And Dinah, who had set the story up perfectly in the hope that someone would ask just that, was ready with an answer.
“Because,” she would say, heavily mascaraed eyes aglow, “it wasn’t a billboard. It was three—count them—three billboards. The first one said ‘Michael loves’; the second one said ‘his beautiful
R.J.’; and the third one said—are you sitting down, everyone?—’more than life itself.’”
“No!” People would invariably shriek in amazement, and R.J. would shift uncomfortably in her chair, and they would turn and
look at her as if to ask: This can’t possibly be a true story, can it? And she would nod weakly and admit it was not only
true, but that renting the three billboards was one of the less extravagant things Michael had done in an effort to win her
hand. Making her feel as if her life were an episode of Love American Style. And sometimes someone would say, “I remember that. I had a meeting at the nine-thousand building and I remember seeing those
billboards and wondering what shmuck did that?”
R.J. would always jump to Michael’s defense then, remembering how sweet he looked that day, standing on Sunset knowing just
when she would drive by because he’d paid someone at her office to call him at a number in a phone booth as soon as R.J. left
for the day. He was carrying two dozen roses and had his thumb up as if he were hitchhiking. But R.J. didn’t see him at first.
ROCKY II: THE STORY CONTINUES. A determined Clint Eastwood punching his fist through the prison wall to ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ. R.J. loved the billboards. Later she remembered that she’d once told Michael that the reason she took Sunset home instead
of Beverly was to look at the billboards. MICHAEL LOVES… HIS BEAUTIFUL R.J…. MORE THAN… Oh, God.
“No,” R.J. said aloud when she read the three signs and her brain put together what they said. “No. Oh, please, no,” she said
again when she spotted Michael standing at the curb just beneath the third sign. “No.” And she pulled up and rolled down the
car window.
“Yes, darling,” Michael answered, walking to the car and leaning against the door. “Let me be your husband.” At
least that sounded like what he said, because his words were nearly drowned out by the noise of the -passing cars. “Let me
be Jeffie’s father. You’re my life,” he said louder. It was sweet. There were tears in his eyes.
“Oh, Michael,” R.J. began, but a motorcycle whizzed by, roaring above her words. When it had passed, Michael said, “Don’t
answer now. Give me some time to prove to you how wonderful our life together can be. Tell me every dream, every fantasy you’ve
ever had, about how you want your life to be, and I’ll make it come true.”
His eyes were filled with tears. R.J. took a deep breath to stall for time so she could decide what to say to him. She could
hear an ambulance in the distance and she waited while it got doser and very loud, then passed and disappeared.
“This is wrong,” she said finally. “It’s too soon. We’ve just been seeing each other for such a short time and—”
“I’ll quit smoking,” he said, as if that would change her mind. “I’ll do anything. I’ll even grow taller.”
Then he laughed a little laugh at that, but she knew it was a touchy subject. He’d always been the shortest boy in his class,
in his family too. On his twenty-first birthday his mother had taken him out to dinner to a fancy restaurant, and after the
meal had given him a box containing a pair of elevator shoes. Michael had had a few drinks the night he finally felt close
enough to R.J. to tell her that story, and when he did, she remembered thinking how sensitive and dear he was. And how hurt
he’d been and how much he needed her.
“R.J., I love you. I want to dedicate my life to you and your son. I want to marry you and adopt Jeffie.”
Jeffie. Since Arthur’s death he’d never been the same. The hopeful glow was gone from his sweet little eyes. Two years. Her
friends said two years was long enough and it was time to stop mourning and get on with her life. She would get on with her
life, she told them, but she would never stop mourning. That was when the friends always exchanged a look that meant “she’s
so neurotic” and then told her with a pat on her back or her arm or her hand: “We’ll find you someone.”
Michael Rappaport had been a fix-up by her accountant and his wife. He was a literary agent at a large show-business agency
and a Harvard graduate. “He should have
been a lawyer,” her accountant, Morrie, told her. She guessed he said that to point out how smart Michael was.
“You’re both single, and you’re both Jewish. You’re petite and he’s five something. Three… four… not a giant, but extremely
attractive,” Sylvia, her accountant’s wife, had told her.
Hardly criteria for a relationship, but it was a beginning. Short men. People loved trying to fix her up with short men. Always
she turned them down since the fix-up she’d had once in high school with Phil Stutz, who was even shorter than Michael. Phil
took her to a dance, and while they were dancing to Johnny Mathis singing “Chances Are,” R.J. overheard someone refer to them
as “the puppet couple.” Short men. Her accountant’s wife, Sylvia, must have heard the hesitation in R.J.’s silence.
“Hey, you’ll go,” she urged. “It’s one evening. How bad could it be? You’ll talk. You’ll be sitting down and you won’t notice.”
So she went. On one date with a man to whom Dinah referred for weeks afterward as Michael How-Bad-Could-It-Be Rappaport. And
then she went on another because the truth was, he wasn’t so bad. And then another because he was very persistent, and then
another because she didn’t know how to say no, and now… She should have known it would go wrong when after only four dates
with Michael he told her he loved her. My God. How could he possibly know so soon? It embarrassed and unnerved her.
She had been seeing him for nearly two months when she introduced him to Jeffie and watched the way he had knocked himself
out to charm the kid. Jeffie was crazy about airplanes. Michael knew airplanes. Promised to take him out to the Planes of
Fame Museum at Chino Airport. Jeffie played soccer in the park. Michael promised to come out to watch him play. Jeffie loved
video games. Michael promised to spend an afternoon in a video arcade with him.
When R.J. finally decided to say yes to Michael’s proposal, she told herself it was because she had to make a new life for
herself and Jeffie. A family for herself and her son. Jeffie seemed excited by the idea, and that convinced her that she’d
made the right choice. To be a family. Her son needed that. Some corner of her knew that it was a rationale. A place to hide.
Michael promised her—no, swore to her—that he wanted to be part of a family too. That’s
what he was offering her. In August. Now it was November, and not only had there been no Chino Airport, no showing up at a
soccer game, and no visit to an arcade, but now the little shit was backing out of the marriage too.
When he’d consumed and smashed out what R.J. counted as three more Dunhills and made a phone call to his mother to tell her
he was on his way over to see her with some bad news—“No, Ma, I won’t tell you over the phone. No. No one died, and it has
nothing to do with Aunt Minnie’s surgery”—Michael begged R.J. once more to forgive him, swore he’d never stop loving her,
recited a litany of thank-you’s for her patience, kindness, thoughtfulness, charm, sense of humor, and grace under pressure.
She responded with all she had left. A numb half-smile. Then she watched him walk to his car and get in, find his dark glasses
in the spot where he always kept them, tucked up behind the visor, and put them on. Even from just inside her front door where
she stood, she could see him turn the rearview mirror so he could look at himself, and then push the bridge of the glasses
down to the middle of his nose, which is how he always wore them. Then he started the car. As he backed out down the driveway
he glanced at R.J. over the top of the glasses, puckered his lips, made what she was certain would have been a little smacking
kiss if she had been able to hear it, and was gone.
When Jeffie came home she would tell him the bad news. Oh, God. Poor baby. Or maybe not such a poor baby this time. Bad news was what she’d told him when Arthur was murdered. A terrible thing happened last night. A robber came into the house to steal some money and then he killed your daddy. Is that how she’d said it? She knew she hadn’t said shot him in the stomach. Killed. Murdered. Words coming out of her mouth that sounded as though they were from some horrible movie or television show.
Words that a nice Jewish girl never even imagined she would ever hear someone else say, let alone say herself. Guns, robbery,
murder. Those were things they talked about on Adam 12 or Quincy, or in newspaper articles she’d skimmed, shaking her head while she did, with pity for the poor sad people in the crime-filled
ghettos.
Now she remembered. “It’s okay to cry and scream and fall on the bed and hate everybody,” she had told her son, certain from
the even look he gave her that he wasn’t really
sure what she was saying. “You’re allowed to be furious and tell the whole world how full of anger you are.” Her cousin Mimi’s
husband, Jack, the psychiatrist, had told her to say that. R.J. and Jeffie were sitting on the flowered bedspreads on the
twin beds the morning she told him, in the guest room of Mimi and Jack’s apartment in New York. She held her little boy’s
left hand with her right hand while his right hand played with the fingers of her left, tapping on each of her polished fingernails.
She ached, watching his sweet little face as he slowly absorbed what he had just heard. Eventually he sighed a tiny sigh;
then he stood, walked out of the bedroom, down the hallway and into the living room. R.J. followed him feverishly, and saw
him sit down at Mimi’s upright piano, think for a moment, as if to review his repertoire, and then pound out a violent rendition
of “Chopsticks”… over and over and again. R.J. knew she would never hear “Chopsticks” again without feeling sick to her stomach.
For the rest of her life when she heard it, she would remember every detail of those few days. Like the smell of formaldehyde
in the morgue, where she had gone to identify the body. A drawer. The body of the man she loved in a drawer.
No. Michael Rappaport’s change of heart was not such bad news. This was not like losing Arthur. Nothing. This was nothing.
It was simply the loss of a relationship she hadn’t even been sure she’d wanted. One she’d been involved in for all the wrong
reasons. She would go back to work in two weeks, as planned. She and Jeffie would go back to their lives as usual. It would
help when she had to get up early, get dressed, go into the office, think, be funny, be productive, turn out pages, get the
show on the air. Maybe she’d even try to find an exercise class to go to every now and then. She hadn’t been to one since
she couldn’t remember when, and her legs were turning to Jell-O. No, they weren’t. She still had great legs.
“Are these the legs of a comedy writer?” Harry Elfand would joke on the rare days that R.J. came to work dressed in a skirt
instead of pants. “I ask you, America. Are they?” And all twelve of the guys—R.J. was the only female writer on the staff
of the show—would have something silly to say, like: “Never mind the legs, honey. Show us your skits.”
Her first day back on the show she forced a smile onto
her face and settled into her chair at the morning meeting. She riffled through her appointment book, hoping to look preoccupied
so no one would ask her any questions. It was working. The men were filing in, talking to one another, and no one said a word
to her. If only the meeting would start, there wouldn’t be time for personal chatter.
“Say, R.J.,” Eddie Levy said. “What happened to the wedding?” Oh, shit. “The guy musta caught some of your reruns and decided
to marry Gail Parent instead. Now she’s funny.”
“Thanks, Eddie.”
“Poor kid,” Artie Zaven said. “First a dead one, now a no-show.” Then he t
By Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio. Copyright © 1967 Saturday Music, Inc. & Seasons Four Music. Used by permission only. All rights
reserved. “I’M GLAD THERE IS YOU (IN THIS WORLD OF ORDINARY PEOPLE)” by Paul Madeira and Jimmy Dorsey. Copyright 1941,1942
MORLEY MUSIC CO. Copyright © renewed 1969, 1970 MORLEY MUSIC CO. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used
by permission “IT’S ALL IN THE GAME” (Dawes-Sigman). Copyright 1912 and 1951 renewed and terminated and assigned to Larry
Spier, Inc. and Major Songs Co. Reprinted with permission of The Copyright Owners. “WHEN YOU WORE A TULIP (AND I WORE A BIG
RED ROSE),” words by Jack Mahoney, Music by Percy Wenrich. Copyright 1914, renewed 1942 LEO FEIST, INC. Rights assigned to
CBS CATALOG PARTNERSHIP. All rights controlled & administerd by CBS FEIST CATALOG INC. All rights reserved. International
copyright secured. Used by permission. “THEY ALL LAUGHED” by George and Ira Gershwin. Copyright 1937 by Gershwin Publishing
Corp. Copyright renewed, assigned to CHAPPELL & CO. INC. International copyright secred. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
“SMALL WORLD, ISN’T IT?” by Stephen Sondheim & Julie Styne. Copyright © 1959 and 1960 by Norbeth Productions & Stephen Sondheim
Williamson Music Co., and Stratford Music, Owner of publication and allied rights throughout the world. CHAPPELL & CO. Sole
selling agent. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission. “GETTING TO KNOW YOU” by Richard
Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein IL. Copyright 1951 by Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein IL Copyright renewed, Williamson Music
Co., owner of publication and allied rights throughout the Western Hemisphere and Japan. International copyright secured.
All rights reserved. Used by permission “RHINESTONE COWBOY” (Larry Weiss). Copyright © 1974 WB MUSIC CORP and HOUSE OF WEISS
MUSIC. All rights reserved. Used by permission. “YOU MAKE ME FEEL SO YOUNG” (Joseph Myrow and Mack Gordon). Copyright 1946
WB MUSIC CORP. (Renewed). All rights reserved. Used by permission. “I’M FOREVER BLOWING BUBBLES” (John William Kellette and
Jean Kenbbrovin) Copyright 1919 WARNER BROS. INC. (Renewed). All rights reserved. Used by permission. “ON THE BOARDWALK IN
ATLANTIC CITY” (Joseph Myrow and Mack Gordon). Copyright 1946 WB MUSIC CORP. (Renewed). All rights reserved. Used by permission.
WARNER BOOKS EDITION
Copyright © 1987 by Iris Rainer Dart
All rights reserved.
This Warner Books Edition is published by arrangement with the author.
Warner Books, Inc.
Hachette Book Group
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New York, NY 10017
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www.HachetteBookGroup.com
First eBook Edition: October 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-56761-9
It was three o’clock in the morning and a thick gray cloud of cigar smoke hung in the air over the conference table. R.J. took
another sip of coffee from a white mug that had the words THE BROAD printed boldly in red on the side, then held the mug next to her cheek, hoping the heat would soothe her pounding headache.
“Patsy’s gotta say it right out on the air,” Harry Elfand announced. “‘My husband left me for a younger woman.’ America is
gonna love her for tellin’ the truth, so let’s run with it.”
“How young is the other woman?” Eddie Levy asked, knowing the other writers would rise to the bait.
“She’s so young, when he takes her out to dinner he has to cut her meat,” Marty Nussbaum offered.
“He has to strain the food.”
“He comes home with pablum on his breath.”
“The only social disease he worries about is diaper rash.”
The voices of the writers were strained with exhaustion.
“You’re makin’ the girlfriend too young,” Harry Elfand said. Then he absently put a lit match to the cigar he was chewing,
even though the cigar was already lit.
R.J. wriggled her toes inside her boots. She would never get through another hour of this. She was freezing and sleepy. A
younger woman. What’s funny about a younger woman? she thought.
“Everyone reads the Enquirer. We’ve gotta make Patsy
come out smelling like a rose. She caught her old man cheating. The girlfriend’s eighteen. Patsy’s thirty-six.”
“How’d Patsy catch him?” Eddie Levy asked.
R.J. put her cup down on the table and answered in a sleepy voice. “She found Clearasil on his collar.”
“That’s funny,” someone muttered very quietly.
“Good one,” Harry Elfand said to R.J. “Stay with it.”
“Freddy’s so cheap, he’ll marry the girl ’cause he can get her into the movies for half price,” R.J. said. She was so punchy
that she laughed a sharp little laugh out loud at that one. No one else even cracked a smile.
“Okay, two jokes about the girl is enough,” Harry Elfand said, turning to face R.J. “Now gimme one about why he left Patsy.”
Why he left Patsy. Why he left Patsy? Because she was…
“Boss, I got a great idea,” Marty Nussbaum said. “Since R.J. is on a roll, why don’t we all go home and let her stay here
and finish it?”
“Because it’s gotta be done by nine this morning,” Harry Elfand answered, tapping his cigar out—which usually meant he was
considering ending the meeting.
“I’ll come in at seven,” R.J. said, knowing it was the only answer that could get all of them out of there and to their respective
homes to sleep, even for a few hours. She stood, hoping Harry Elfand would take a cue from her. As she did, she could feel
the stiffness in her neck and back and legs.
Someone sang a few bars of “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” and all the men stood too.
“Well, if you ask me, writing for television is a hell of a way to make a living,” Marty Nussbaum said. It was what he always
said when a meeting ended at this hour.
“You call this living?” everyone muttered. It was what they always muttered as they searched for their car keys and made their
way out the door. When they were all in the hallway, moving, shuffling toward the elevator, too tired to talk—which for them
was very tired—R.J. switched off the lights in the conference room, closed the door, and turned to join them.
OPENING MONOLOGUE
(TIM CONWAY, BETTE MIDLER, RAY CHARLES)
MUSIC: PATSY OPENING THEME
FROM BLACK, THE PATSY SUNSHINE HOUR LOGO
MOVES FORWARD AND FREEZES WHEN IT PILLS FRAME.
ANNOUNCER (VOICE OVER)
From Hollywood… it’s the Patsy Dugan
Sunshine Howr!!!!
IMAGES OF PATSY EXPLODE ALL OVER FRAME. DOZENS OF SHOTS PER MINUTE. LAST SHOT GOES TO BLACK.
ANNOUNCER (V.0.)
…And now, ladies and gentlemen, the rhinestone cowgirl herself… Patsy Dugan!!!
PATSY (SINGING V.O.)
LIKE A RHINESTONE COWGIRL
RIDING OUT ON A HORSE
IN A STAR-SPANGLED RODEO.
DISSOLVE TO: PATSY LIVE
PATSY
Howdy, everybody.
AUDIENCE (0.S.)
Howdy, Patsy!!!
PATSY
Well, if y’all have been readin’ the papers I guess y’all know by now that my husband Freddy who used ta be on the show with
me has left me for a woman half my age. Now, ain’t that the pits? Only thing worse was the way I figured out he was cheatin’.
(BEAT) I found Clearasil on his collar. And ya know how cheap Freddy is. He’ll probably many the gal on accounta he can get her into the movies for half price. Ain’t it just
awful? Freddy told The National Enquirer he left me ’cause I was dumb. Now ya see, that’s where me and him are different. I would never use name-callin’ in the press
against that two-timin’, lowlife, redneck piece of trash.
He also told everybody I was a lousy housekeeper. But I proved he was wrong about that. After the divorce I’m keepin’ the
house in Beverly Hills, the house in Malibu, and the house in Hawaii. Hey, who needs him anyway? There are still some men
around who think that I’m a cute young chick. ’Course, most of ’em are in nursing homes and institutions. I’m jokin’ because I want y’all to know that
I am not one bit bitter about this situation. I have me a very positive attitude about my future. As soon as I can, I’m gonna
start goin’ on dates and meetin’ people, because I believe it’s possible to go out there and find a man. After all, that young
gal found mine!!!
I’m real glad y’all are here ta keep me company tonight. We’re gonna have us a real good time. My special guests are Tim Conway…
APPLAUSE
The fabulous Ray Charles…
APPLAUSE
And my good friend, the Divine One, Bette Midler.
APPLAUSE
So stay tuned, hear? We’re comin’ right back, with Patsy’s Sunshine Hour.
MUSIC: RHINESTONE COWGIRL
PATSY (SINGS)
THERE’S BEEN A LOAD OF COMPROMISIN’
ON THE ROAD TO MY HORIZON
BUT I’M GONNA BE WHERE THE LIGHTS
ARE SHININ’ ON ME.
LIKE A RHINESTONE COWGIRL…
MUSIC: OUT
DISSOLVE TO BLACK.
Michael had a whole routine that he did with a cigarette. First he’d light one, take a few long drags, and exhale volumes of
smoke through his mouth and nose, and, R.J. was sure, sometimes a few bursts even came out of his ears. Then he’d make a kind
of nest in the crook of his hand, where he’d cradle the cigarette while he rolled it between his thumb and forefinger and
stare at the glowing end. Then he’d blow on the lit end, which would make the orange part look even brighter, and tiny ashes
would fly all around his face. After that, he’d take another few drags, let out more raging smoke, and look at the cigarette
with distaste, as if he was sorry he’d ever started smoking it in the first place. So he’d smash out what was left of it wherever
he happened to be at the time. He’d smash it into a telephone pole if he was walking down the street. He’d smash it into the
bricks of someone’s pool deck if his host had neglected to provide him with an ashtray. Or—and this was the one that made
R.J. cringe—he’d smash it into his half-full drinking glass at a party. At the moment, R.J. was watching him smash the remains
of the most recently smoked cigarette into the freshly mowed lawn of the Four Oaks School, not six feet from the sign that
said SMOKING FORBIDDEN ANYWHERE ON CAMPUS.
It wasn’t that Michael hadn’t seen the sign. It was that he just didn’t care. He was nervous. Very nervous. R.J. had seen
him nervous before, but never this bad. Maybe the loud music and all the kids running and squealing were
upsetting to him. Probably he’d never been around this many kids at once. Never at a school fair. But that was all part of
what he’d have to get used to, now that he was going to be Jeffie’s stepfather in a few days. Five days.
R.J. felt queasy. Probably she was just worried that the wedding plans could go awry. Nothing serious. Michael was lying on
his stomach on the grass now. He had a new cigarette going, and he was doing the part where he blew on the lit end. R.J. looked
at his carefully combed prematurely silver hair and his perfectly manicured nails, and the queasy bubble in her stomach felt
as if it were growing from Ping-Pong ball to tennis ball size. She glanced across the lawn to see if there was a line waiting
to get into the ladies’ bathroom, actually the girls’ locker room. There was. When she looked back at Michael, and saw his
contorted face, at first she thought it must be a joke he was playing… but no. This wasn’t funny. He was sobbing. Silently.
His cheeks and the backs of his ears were bright red, and his body was shaking with the effort of holding in what, if he hadn’t
contained them, would be mighty cries.
“Michael.”
He couldn’t answer.
“Michael, my God, are you okay?” Maybe she should get him out of there before the children saw him, or before he let go and
the children heard him. Her eyes scanned the fairground trying to spot Jeffie. Fifth-grade boys. There were so many of them,
and almost all of them were wearing the same red school sweat shirt. It was impossible from this distance to pick out her
own son from the rest.
“Michael, let’s get you to the car,” she said, “and I’ll ask one of the other mothers to look after Jeffie. Michael,” she
said again, touching his shoulder. “Please.”
“I can’t,” he said, moving his shoulder away from her touch.
“Of course you can,” she said in a voice she often used to encourage Jeffie. “The parking lot is just across the street”
“I mean”—he narrowed his puffy red tear-filled eyes—“that I can’t marry you.”
The queasiness bubble was now a medicine ball that filled R.J. from her throat to her groin. She looked back toward the ladies’
room, positive that she would have to run over there any second, push all those other people out of the way, scream “emergency,”
and lock herself into a
cubicle and throw up. Instead she took a deep breath and said, “That’s fine. Now let’s go.” She stood and helped Michael,
who was still trembling, to his feet.
She took him back to her house after asking Harriet Wallace, another fifth-grade mother, to promise to locate and look after
Jeffie. Now she sat in her living room across from Michael, who was blowing on the ash of the current cigarette nested in
his hand. In front of him on the coffee table, an ashtray was already filled with the gold filter butts of several recently
completed Dunhills.
“This is going to break my mother’s heart,” he said quietly. “She’s not going to believe it when I tell her I couldn’t do
it. I’m a forty-year-old man, for Christ’s sake. You’d think by now I could settle down. But I still can’t make a commitment
to one woman.” His voice broke in a way that R.J. thought sounded as if it had been rehearsed. “It isn’t you. You’re a hell
of a gal. I mean, you must be if I thought I could marry you. Look how close we came. Christ, we had blood tests. We had wedding
rings,” he whined, as if she didn’t know. “I never came this close with anyone. But I can’t… I…” He burst into tears and threw
himself at R.J., put his arms around her, and buried his wet face in her neck.
“Oh, God. Forgive me. Please, R.J., say you forgive me. I’m a sick horrible person. My God.”
R.J. put her arms around his shoulders to comfort him and patted his back, and as she did, her nose and eyes were overwhelmed
with the acrid smell of cigarette smoke. R.J. hated Michael Rappaport, and she hated herself for ever agreeing to marry him,
for ever allowing herself to fall for the dozens of clever ways he’d used to win her over.
“Napoleon never waged such a campaign,” her friend Dinah would tell everyone, about Michael’s courtship of R.J. That line
always got a big laugh, because everyone knew that Michael was short. Only five feet what? Three, probably, but it was something
he never discussed. After the Napoleon joke, Dinah would be encouraged to go on and regale their mutual friends with tales
about poor Michael, so lovesick over R.J. that on top of all the other insane things he did to court her, he actually went
to one of those billboard companies that rent advertising space on the Sunset Strip, knowing that Sunset was the route R.J.
always took home from work. And “spent a friggin’ fortune,”
Dinah would announce, just so he could tell R.J. he loved her.
But how did Michael know that R.J. would even see it? That was what someone invariably asked Dinah when she told the story.
And Dinah, who had set the story up perfectly in the hope that someone would ask just that, was ready with an answer.
“Because,” she would say, heavily mascaraed eyes aglow, “it wasn’t a billboard. It was three—count them—three billboards. The first one said ‘Michael loves’; the second one said ‘his beautiful
R.J.’; and the third one said—are you sitting down, everyone?—’more than life itself.’”
“No!” People would invariably shriek in amazement, and R.J. would shift uncomfortably in her chair, and they would turn and
look at her as if to ask: This can’t possibly be a true story, can it? And she would nod weakly and admit it was not only
true, but that renting the three billboards was one of the less extravagant things Michael had done in an effort to win her
hand. Making her feel as if her life were an episode of Love American Style. And sometimes someone would say, “I remember that. I had a meeting at the nine-thousand building and I remember seeing those
billboards and wondering what shmuck did that?”
R.J. would always jump to Michael’s defense then, remembering how sweet he looked that day, standing on Sunset knowing just
when she would drive by because he’d paid someone at her office to call him at a number in a phone booth as soon as R.J. left
for the day. He was carrying two dozen roses and had his thumb up as if he were hitchhiking. But R.J. didn’t see him at first.
ROCKY II: THE STORY CONTINUES. A determined Clint Eastwood punching his fist through the prison wall to ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ. R.J. loved the billboards. Later she remembered that she’d once told Michael that the reason she took Sunset home instead
of Beverly was to look at the billboards. MICHAEL LOVES… HIS BEAUTIFUL R.J…. MORE THAN… Oh, God.
“No,” R.J. said aloud when she read the three signs and her brain put together what they said. “No. Oh, please, no,” she said
again when she spotted Michael standing at the curb just beneath the third sign. “No.” And she pulled up and rolled down the
car window.
“Yes, darling,” Michael answered, walking to the car and leaning against the door. “Let me be your husband.” At
least that sounded like what he said, because his words were nearly drowned out by the noise of the -passing cars. “Let me
be Jeffie’s father. You’re my life,” he said louder. It was sweet. There were tears in his eyes.
“Oh, Michael,” R.J. began, but a motorcycle whizzed by, roaring above her words. When it had passed, Michael said, “Don’t
answer now. Give me some time to prove to you how wonderful our life together can be. Tell me every dream, every fantasy you’ve
ever had, about how you want your life to be, and I’ll make it come true.”
His eyes were filled with tears. R.J. took a deep breath to stall for time so she could decide what to say to him. She could
hear an ambulance in the distance and she waited while it got doser and very loud, then passed and disappeared.
“This is wrong,” she said finally. “It’s too soon. We’ve just been seeing each other for such a short time and—”
“I’ll quit smoking,” he said, as if that would change her mind. “I’ll do anything. I’ll even grow taller.”
Then he laughed a little laugh at that, but she knew it was a touchy subject. He’d always been the shortest boy in his class,
in his family too. On his twenty-first birthday his mother had taken him out to dinner to a fancy restaurant, and after the
meal had given him a box containing a pair of elevator shoes. Michael had had a few drinks the night he finally felt close
enough to R.J. to tell her that story, and when he did, she remembered thinking how sensitive and dear he was. And how hurt
he’d been and how much he needed her.
“R.J., I love you. I want to dedicate my life to you and your son. I want to marry you and adopt Jeffie.”
Jeffie. Since Arthur’s death he’d never been the same. The hopeful glow was gone from his sweet little eyes. Two years. Her
friends said two years was long enough and it was time to stop mourning and get on with her life. She would get on with her
life, she told them, but she would never stop mourning. That was when the friends always exchanged a look that meant “she’s
so neurotic” and then told her with a pat on her back or her arm or her hand: “We’ll find you someone.”
Michael Rappaport had been a fix-up by her accountant and his wife. He was a literary agent at a large show-business agency
and a Harvard graduate. “He should have
been a lawyer,” her accountant, Morrie, told her. She guessed he said that to point out how smart Michael was.
“You’re both single, and you’re both Jewish. You’re petite and he’s five something. Three… four… not a giant, but extremely
attractive,” Sylvia, her accountant’s wife, had told her.
Hardly criteria for a relationship, but it was a beginning. Short men. People loved trying to fix her up with short men. Always
she turned them down since the fix-up she’d had once in high school with Phil Stutz, who was even shorter than Michael. Phil
took her to a dance, and while they were dancing to Johnny Mathis singing “Chances Are,” R.J. overheard someone refer to them
as “the puppet couple.” Short men. Her accountant’s wife, Sylvia, must have heard the hesitation in R.J.’s silence.
“Hey, you’ll go,” she urged. “It’s one evening. How bad could it be? You’ll talk. You’ll be sitting down and you won’t notice.”
So she went. On one date with a man to whom Dinah referred for weeks afterward as Michael How-Bad-Could-It-Be Rappaport. And
then she went on another because the truth was, he wasn’t so bad. And then another because he was very persistent, and then
another because she didn’t know how to say no, and now… She should have known it would go wrong when after only four dates
with Michael he told her he loved her. My God. How could he possibly know so soon? It embarrassed and unnerved her.
She had been seeing him for nearly two months when she introduced him to Jeffie and watched the way he had knocked himself
out to charm the kid. Jeffie was crazy about airplanes. Michael knew airplanes. Promised to take him out to the Planes of
Fame Museum at Chino Airport. Jeffie played soccer in the park. Michael promised to come out to watch him play. Jeffie loved
video games. Michael promised to spend an afternoon in a video arcade with him.
When R.J. finally decided to say yes to Michael’s proposal, she told herself it was because she had to make a new life for
herself and Jeffie. A family for herself and her son. Jeffie seemed excited by the idea, and that convinced her that she’d
made the right choice. To be a family. Her son needed that. Some corner of her knew that it was a rationale. A place to hide.
Michael promised her—no, swore to her—that he wanted to be part of a family too. That’s
what he was offering her. In August. Now it was November, and not only had there been no Chino Airport, no showing up at a
soccer game, and no visit to an arcade, but now the little shit was backing out of the marriage too.
When he’d consumed and smashed out what R.J. counted as three more Dunhills and made a phone call to his mother to tell her
he was on his way over to see her with some bad news—“No, Ma, I won’t tell you over the phone. No. No one died, and it has
nothing to do with Aunt Minnie’s surgery”—Michael begged R.J. once more to forgive him, swore he’d never stop loving her,
recited a litany of thank-you’s for her patience, kindness, thoughtfulness, charm, sense of humor, and grace under pressure.
She responded with all she had left. A numb half-smile. Then she watched him walk to his car and get in, find his dark glasses
in the spot where he always kept them, tucked up behind the visor, and put them on. Even from just inside her front door where
she stood, she could see him turn the rearview mirror so he could look at himself, and then push the bridge of the glasses
down to the middle of his nose, which is how he always wore them. Then he started the car. As he backed out down the driveway
he glanced at R.J. over the top of the glasses, puckered his lips, made what she was certain would have been a little smacking
kiss if she had been able to hear it, and was gone.
When Jeffie came home she would tell him the bad news. Oh, God. Poor baby. Or maybe not such a poor baby this time. Bad news was what she’d told him when Arthur was murdered. A terrible thing happened last night. A robber came into the house to steal some money and then he killed your daddy. Is that how she’d said it? She knew she hadn’t said shot him in the stomach. Killed. Murdered. Words coming out of her mouth that sounded as though they were from some horrible movie or television show.
Words that a nice Jewish girl never even imagined she would ever hear someone else say, let alone say herself. Guns, robbery,
murder. Those were things they talked about on Adam 12 or Quincy, or in newspaper articles she’d skimmed, shaking her head while she did, with pity for the poor sad people in the crime-filled
ghettos.
Now she remembered. “It’s okay to cry and scream and fall on the bed and hate everybody,” she had told her son, certain from
the even look he gave her that he wasn’t really
sure what she was saying. “You’re allowed to be furious and tell the whole world how full of anger you are.” Her cousin Mimi’s
husband, Jack, the psychiatrist, had told her to say that. R.J. and Jeffie were sitting on the flowered bedspreads on the
twin beds the morning she told him, in the guest room of Mimi and Jack’s apartment in New York. She held her little boy’s
left hand with her right hand while his right hand played with the fingers of her left, tapping on each of her polished fingernails.
She ached, watching his sweet little face as he slowly absorbed what he had just heard. Eventually he sighed a tiny sigh;
then he stood, walked out of the bedroom, down the hallway and into the living room. R.J. followed him feverishly, and saw
him sit down at Mimi’s upright piano, think for a moment, as if to review his repertoire, and then pound out a violent rendition
of “Chopsticks”… over and over and again. R.J. knew she would never hear “Chopsticks” again without feeling sick to her stomach.
For the rest of her life when she heard it, she would remember every detail of those few days. Like the smell of formaldehyde
in the morgue, where she had gone to identify the body. A drawer. The body of the man she loved in a drawer.
No. Michael Rappaport’s change of heart was not such bad news. This was not like losing Arthur. Nothing. This was nothing.
It was simply the loss of a relationship she hadn’t even been sure she’d wanted. One she’d been involved in for all the wrong
reasons. She would go back to work in two weeks, as planned. She and Jeffie would go back to their lives as usual. It would
help when she had to get up early, get dressed, go into the office, think, be funny, be productive, turn out pages, get the
show on the air. Maybe she’d even try to find an exercise class to go to every now and then. She hadn’t been to one since
she couldn’t remember when, and her legs were turning to Jell-O. No, they weren’t. She still had great legs.
“Are these the legs of a comedy writer?” Harry Elfand would joke on the rare days that R.J. came to work dressed in a skirt
instead of pants. “I ask you, America. Are they?” And all twelve of the guys—R.J. was the only female writer on the staff
of the show—would have something silly to say, like: “Never mind the legs, honey. Show us your skits.”
Her first day back on the show she forced a smile onto
her face and settled into her chair at the morning meeting. She riffled through her appointment book, hoping to look preoccupied
so no one would ask her any questions. It was working. The men were filing in, talking to one another, and no one said a word
to her. If only the meeting would start, there wouldn’t be time for personal chatter.
“Say, R.J.,” Eddie Levy said. “What happened to the wedding?” Oh, shit. “The guy musta caught some of your reruns and decided
to marry Gail Parent instead. Now she’s funny.”
“Thanks, Eddie.”
“Poor kid,” Artie Zaven said. “First a dead one, now a no-show.” Then he t
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Til the Real Thing Comes Along
Iris Rainer Dart
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