Riggs Park Part 13

The girl was nervous, actually trembling, as if she knew the resume was a mistake. "Really I only wanted to hear you sing," Steve said. He sat down at the piano, beckoned her over to stand beside him. Her hands shook, a pulse beat in her neck. She glanced at the closed door to the bedroom. Maybe she expected a come-on? He never messed with the princesses.

"Let's do 'Bus Ride,'" he said. If she knew anything, she'd know that one. As he began the intro, it struck him how much she reminded him of Penny: the red hair, the shaking hands, all but the voice. Penny had never been able to carry a tune. Suddenly he couldn't draw air. He hadn't seen Penny for twenty years and her double had walked into a Detroit hotel room. He stopped playing.

"I'm sorry," the girl said. "I guess I'm not good enough."

"No, it's my fault. Jet lag. Happens all the time." He put his hands back on the keyboard. The girl sang, but shakily. He didn't want her to break down in front of him. He knew something about breakdowns from Penny: how they could suck you in.

"Good. Now. Once more from the top." He smiled rea.s.suringly and began again. Her voice improved as they went along.

"Mr. Waldman will get back to you," he said afterward.

"Don't call us, we'll call you," Kimberly whispered. Tears in her eyes now. What the h.e.l.l did she expect? "It was nice of you to see me, anyway." Jesus. Penny had had blue eyes and Kimberly O'Connor had hazel, but the tears were identical.

"I'll tell you what," he said. "Let me hear you one time with the others."

She froze, a spotlighted animal.

"We're having a rehearsal at the studio at six, before the taping. I'll hear you then."

Usually he was not a sucker for tears. You didn't get this far if you were. When you could barely read, you learned to play for sympathy early and were suspicious of anyone else who did the same. Only a handful of people knew what a miracle it was he'd gotten through high school. He didn't con people because he wanted to; he lied because he had no choice. He wasn't sure if Kimberly O'Connor was for real or not, and he didn't mean to care.

But you never knew; the most innocuous things could throw you. In high school it had been the SATs. Who would have imagined? He copied all his tests from Bernie because Bernie was going with Marilyn and had to let him. For the SATs, the students sat every other seat in the Coolidge High cafeteria. Bernie positioned his paper carefully so Steve could see. Steve should have thrown off a little. It never occurred to him that Bernie's answers would let him do well enough to get into college in spite of his grades. His parents nagged him to go. He skirted the issue for a couple of years, claiming he was trying to make it with his band. Then his father said, "Son, you're getting nowhere. You want to end up like me, with a store that threatens to put you under every month?" His father worked twelve hours a day in his grocery store on Fourteenth Street. "At least get your education. Even if the band succeeds, an education won't hurt." So Steve spent a year at the University of West Virginia to appease him. He could no more have told his parents he couldn't read than strip in public. He still believed that if word got out, his star status would count for nothing, and the few people who loved him would be ashamed.

Even Essie Berman didn't know about his reading-Essie, who thought he was wonderful. Aware that Steve had heard music in his head since childhood, Essie proclaimed it amazing that he could play any instrument he picked up. Essie listened to any thought Steve wanted to share; she never told him his singing would come to nothing. Years later, she said, "See, all that time you sweated your grades, I always said in the end it wouldn't matter. It's a good thing you turned out a star because otherwise I never would have lived you down." For a long time, she was his sole adult support.

Not that Essie oohed and aahed. In his early days, her grandest compliment was that his music "wasn't bad."

"What do you mean, 'not bad'?"

"Reminds me of soap commercials," Essie said.

"Soap commercials!"

"That's so terrible? They pay people good money to write soap commercials."

"Great. I barely pa.s.s the year, everybody looks at me and thinks, there's Ginsburg, the walking disaster. And you have me writing soap commercials?" This was at a period when his life caused him something close to physical pain.

"Artistically," Essie told him, "it doesn't hurt you later to have spent some time as a walking disaster."

A few years after that she said to him, "Competent, yes. Talent, yes. Staying power, that's another story. We might not know for a decade." So he went to college, even though Penny begged him to remain in D.C. When he decided he'd better drop out before he failed everything, he consulted Essie first. His parents would be disappointed, he told her, but book-learning leaked from his brain like water and left behind only his music. What else could he be but a musician?

"You won't be satisfied with just good, it's genius you want?" Essie tried to stare him down, but Steve knew a few things by then and stared back at her. "Well then, you better be strong for it," she told him. "Genius has a black bottom to it."

Puzzled, Steve scratched a pimple at the end of his nose. He was twenty-two years old and still had pimples. They never covered his whole face, just appeared large and red in strategic places. He thought: red nose, black bottom-the lyrical possibilities. But coming from Essie, a black bottom was a dark, eerie, unfathomable place, and maybe he'd better not take it lightly.

Essie told him she had visited the Black Bottom of Her Soul once as a young woman. "Believe you me, even thinking back on it now still gives me the shivers."

Steve didn't have the faintest idea what she was talking about. Until years later, when he heard the story of the coyote, he didn't know what personal experience might have provoked such terror in Essie, and he certainly didn't know what any of it had to do with genius. Essie didn't offer any details. Yet the discussion armed Steve for everything. Having recovered from her own experience, Essie said, she was in a position to warn him. Imagination could take its flights; did he think the trip was always into the stratosphere? It could with equal ease dip into the depths of blackness, and only the very strong would recover. She was utterly serious. Steve nodded, baffled, and wondered what the h.e.l.l was going on.

Then she'd said, "So sing your songs, Steve. With your grades...you think G.o.d has some other plan in mind for you?"

That day in Detroit in 1983, talk-show hostess Sonya Friedman had come into the dressing room while they'd been doing Steve's makeup. He recognized her from the tapes Waldman had sent. He always had Waldman send a couple of tapes so he could get a feel for the show before his interview. The truth was, he got a lot of his information from television. It was from a TV talk show that he'd first learned he couldn't read because he had a condition called dyslexia. Transfixed, he'd listened to a psychology professor explain exactly what happened every time he looked at a printed page. The professor described the dislocation of letters and words so matter-of-factly that it might have been a common experience, when Steve had always thought he was the only one. "It's very frightening," the professor said, "to look at a puzzle everyone else has figured out and not be able to make heads or tails of it."

Amen, Steve thought. He had been drinking coffee at the time, and he raised his cup to toast the TV. Dyslexia research was just beginning to unravel the tricks that could be played by the human brain, the professor said. "Some dyslexics can actually learn to read pretty easily. For others it's harder, but even then there's a lot of help we didn't have before."

Ah-help. Steve was beyond it. Penny had been too confused to care if he could read, and his sister and Barbara always kept it a secret, but his parents and fans and maybe even Waldman believed he was normal. He wasn't going to spoil a good thing by getting help. He dumped out the rest of his coffee and took a long shower to get himself back together.

As to The Sonya Show he'd seen last week-he'd liked it. Sonya Friedman was a cool, attractive psychologist, with a no-nonsense approach that reminded him of Essie. Walking into the makeup room to say h.e.l.lo to him, Sonya looked brisk and capable and, physically, much the same as she had on tape. That was in her favor. So many of them looked worse. She was wearing a red blouse and dark skirt that accented her thinness. She smiled, all confidence. "I'm Sonya Friedman," she said. The hand she offered him was cold as ice.

So were Kimberly O'Connor's hands, when she showed up ten minutes early for the rehearsal, looking beautiful but terrified. She calmed down a little when Steve sat at the piano, maybe because they'd gone through that part of the routine earlier. Penny, too, had always calmed down when he started playing. What was wrong with these beauties? In high school Penny was so good-looking you'd have thought she'd go through life strutting like a lioness. He knew Kimberly O'Connor must have her own share of admirers. And still she stood by the piano practically trembling, rubbing her hands together for warmth.

Then she started to sing. She sounded stronger than before, and her voice was sweet. But her looks were too flashy for a backup singer; there was a jittery quality about her that drew the eye. She made Carole and Francie look dim; she was like a fire burning between the two of them. Steve saw no possibility of toning her down, just as he'd never seen such a possibility with Penny. Both women had the whitest skin, the longest legs, the roundest b.r.e.a.s.t.s-and hands as cold as ice.

The routine ended. Kimberly O'Connor kept standing by the piano. There was no way Steve could use her, considering.

"You know, we're traveling the next couple of weeks and interviewing some other girls," he said. Kimberly stood still. Steve put a hand on her shoulder to guide her off the soundstage. Best to let her down easy, let Waldman give her the definite no. She walked with Steve to the waiting room, the green room, at the end of the corridor.

No windows here, just intense fluorescent lights and bright modern furniture. TV monitors on both end tables showed the soundstage outside. Francie and Carole stayed outside in the hall drinking c.o.kes, but Steve motioned Kimberly in. She sat on the royal-blue couch he indicated, following the motion of his hand like an obedient animal. It frightened him. He thought of Penny in her pa.s.sive mode, waiting for instruction.

He began talking to her as idiotically as he once had talked to Penny, saying inconsequential things about his tour. Next to him, Kimberly O'Connor's body tensed into a knot. "We won't make an immediate decision on another backup," he said finally. "Not for a couple of weeks."

"A couple of weeks...I see." She stood up, a wooden soldier, ready to go.

"You might as well stay for the taping, now that you're here. You could watch from back here or go up front with the studio audience." He couldn't make himself stop talking. "You ever see this show taped before?"

"No." She sat back down, stiffly.

"We're on last," he said. Sonya's audience would wait for Steven Simple, hang on through a diet expert, a couple of commercials, a Reader's Digest author. He was grateful. A month from now, a year from now, they might not give him the spot reserved for the star.

"Detroit your home?" he asked.

"No. Chicago. I've only been here a year."

She watched him closely, not at all unfocused now. "I saw you a long time ago in Chicago," she said. "It was before you got so famous. You had a whole different kind of style."

"I thought I was America's answer to the Beatles."

She laughed. Loosening up. He felt better.

"You must have been a little kid," he said.

"No, I'm twenty-eight." He was relieved that she was older than he'd thought. At the end, Penny had been-for a second he couldn't remember. Twenty-two? Twenty-three?

"I wrote a lot of my songs pretending to be a Beatle," he said. "Unfortunately, they didn't get an audience until I went solo, with just the piano. Did you know that?"

"Yes." Animated now, a little mischievous. "I do my research."

Francie and Carole came back in, shot him questioning glances, wondered why he'd invited the girl to stay. Good-mannered, they talked to Kimberly and at the same time watched the show on the monitor, which had started a few minutes before. "You married?" Francie asked.

"Was." A wry smile.

Steve kept his eyes on the TV, but listened to Kimberly's every word. She'd gone to Northwestern, majored in drama. Then the marriage. No kids. The divorce.

"I didn't do much with my singing until late." She spoke to Francie, to Carole, but kept her eyes on Steve. The girls were princesses and he was the king, the power source. He knew the look.

An a.s.sistant producer stuck her head into the door. "You're up next."

"Come watch us from out front," Steve told Kimberly. It would be more prudent to leave and come back to find her gone, but he couldn't bear it. "After the show we're all going to get something to eat," he said. "You can come with us."

"Thanks."

The princesses raised their eyebrows. Steve never did this.

Kimberly O'Connor fell into step beside him as they walked down the hall to the soundstage. He wasn't touching her, but he wanted to. He wanted to feel her relax, to tell her all his secrets.

He liked the sensation of standing backstage in a TV studio, on cold concrete, antic.i.p.ating what would come next. The curtain in front of him hung from two stories high, chilly to the touch because of the air-conditioning that kept the cameras cool. In a moment, on cue, he'd step into the light of the stage, into heat, into brightness, and it would be like being born.

"Tell us about Steven Simple the person," Sonya Friedman had said. Usually in his mind it was clear what he'd answer, but Kimberly O'Connor was sitting in the studio audience and he felt reckless. He could give them more than the dumb-kid-who-makes-good story. He could tell them about his dyslexia.

Sonya was talking about the Penny alb.u.m. A singer who'd gotten famous writing about a doomed young love made good patter. But Penny had been gone eighteen years, and Steve had been talking about her for ten, and the talk-show hosts had covered all the angles.

Of the Penny alb.u.m he always said, "Well, she was a nice Jewish girl and I was a nice Jewish boy, but it didn't work out except that I wrote a lot of songs about her." Steve never said Penny slept with almost every male who asked her, or that she had instant, genuine amnesia about the acts they performed. He never hinted that Penny was not just disturbed but literally mad. He also never mentioned that he finally ran away from her with his band because the demands of her illness threatened to suck the music right out of him.

The talk-show hosts believed Steve wrote his songs out of grief. But Sonya Friedman was not going the sympathy route; she was after the shock tactic. "It's not many people who turn a real-life note into a song," she said.

"And not many people who write notes like that." He did not say he could never help the songs he wrote; he wrote what he heard in his head. He was sorry Penny's note had set itself to music, but it had.

I'm falling through the hole At the bottom of my soul And there ain't n.o.body to catch me.

Their friends had thought it a cryptic note, but Essie had understood at once. "You told her what I said to you that day, about the black bottom. I recognized it right away."

"Yeah, I did."

"I knew you might tell her. But who could predict she would find a hole at the bottom of her soul and not a shallow pit?" Essie put her hand on top of his and squeezed it. "Steve, a pit you can climb out of. A hole you can only fall through. It's not your fault."

But it was. If he'd stayed in D.C. and taken care of her, instead of going off to school, she might have been all right. For the next ten years, on the road with his various bands, Penny the person disappeared, and Penny the myth was born. Steve began to think about her coldly, from a distance, the same way he thought about the other bald fact-he still couldn't read. About the time all the heat was drawn out of him, he got his chance to make the Penny alb.u.m, with "Bus Ride" the second cut. "Bus Ride" made him famous. And that was that.

Kimberly O'Connor was looking at him. Staring worshipfully, as if he possessed something transcendent and had the power to impart it. Penny had given him that same look when she asked him to stay in D.C. and make her sane. He was tired of being worshiped. The truth was, all he could actually give Kimberly O'Connor was a job. If he were going to start something more, she would have to know all about him.

"Steven Simple the human being," Sonya was saying, stalling for time. "What makes Steven Simple run?"

He thought again of making a clean breast of it. I can hardly read, even now. Think of the youngsters he could save.

He opened his mouth, because Kimberly O'Connor's eyes were bearing down on him and Sonya Friedman was wishing the h.e.l.l he'd get on with it. He wasn't sure he had the courage.

He cleared his throat, trying to dislodge the words that had been stuck there most of his life. Finally he said to several million people, "What makes Steven Simple run is that he could never learn to read. He can't read now." He cleared his throat once more and told the rest. His voice had been clear as gla.s.s.

CHAPTER 14.

Return Trip I raised a hand to fend off a plate of pastries Bernie was pushing in my direction. Marilyn stood, carried her soup bowl to the sink, then stretched and yawned. "Well, guys, this has been terrific. But now I think I'll go watch the tapes procured for me by a major Hollywood pooh-bah." She kissed Steve on the cheek. "Thanks for coming, Mr. Celebrity."

"I'm not leaving just yet. I expect you to entertain me in the morning."

"Count on it," Marilyn said.

Not wanting to be accused of mothering her too much, Bernie let Marilyn leave the room solo, but a moment later excused himself to see her safely tucked into bed. Steve and I rose to clear the table. If Bernie returned quickly, I wouldn't get to say a private word to Steve, so I spoke less tactfully than I meant to. "Marilyn told me the whole story about Essie Berman saying Penny had a baby. Marilyn's determined to track it down. What's going on, Steve? Why this big confession all of a sudden?"

Bemused, or maybe just surprised, Steve set a stack of plates on the counter and stared at me. "Oh, sweetie, I wish I knew." He stood agape for long seconds. "I wonder about it myself. I could hardly believe Marilyn was sick again. It seemed so impossible. We were both upset. It brought the whole baby thing back to mind-I don't know why. After all this time, maybe I figured there was no harm in telling."

"No harm? Did you know Essie Berman is still alive?"

"She's alive?" He looked bewildered. "I thought she'd been dead for years."

"I went to see her today," I said.

Slowly, Steve opened a cabinet drawer, rummaged until he came up with a roll of plastic wrap. In a low, controlled voice, he said, "And-?"

"She got a little disoriented while I was there. Fell asleep, actually. She has diabetes. But she did tell me one thing. Did you know the baby was a girl?"

"A girl," Steve repeated. With great deliberation, he carried the plastic wrap to the table and began making neat packages of leftover Swiss cheese and roast beef. "I never knew. I always wondered."

"Penny named her Vera. I didn't tell any of this to Marilyn," I said. "Essie wouldn't say who the father was. She says if Marilyn wants to know, she should come with me to find out. I don't think she's up for the trip."

"No, of course not." Steve opened the refrigerator, nestled the wrapped cheese and meat inside, then said abruptly, "Essie told me about the baby on the condition that I didn't ask any questions."

"Marilyn told me."

"I think I could have asked anyway, but I didn't. Maybe it was just a good excuse not to know."

"You were just a kid yourself, Steve."

He pulled a plastic container from the cupboard and filled it with leftover soup. "Penny was always careful about birth control," he said. "Obsessive, even. Remember? I thought the only way she'd ever get pregnant was if she meant to."

"And even if it had been an accident and Penny was in a bad state mentally, her family would have told you, don't you think?"

Setting the soup inside the refrigerator, Steve turned to me with a sad, wistful smile. "Oh, no, sweetie. They thought I was a bad influence. I probably was."

I began loading the dishwasher. "None of it was your fault, Steve."

"The baby might have been," he said. "But at the time, I was traveling with my band. I knew something was wrong when Penny dropped out of sight. But something was always wrong, and it was easier not knowing. Then, later, what struck me was the time frame. The way Penny went incommunicado just when she did. And the time frame between the bus ride and the end." He picked up the plastic wrap, replaced it in the drawer. "So I bugged Essie until she told me about the baby, and then I let her make it easy for me by agreeing not to ask any more questions."

"And you've been stewing over it all this time?"