Living Room by Sol Stein Page A

organization of copywriters and artists who were talented and weak. He demanded obedience, not loyalty. “In this business,” he was fond of saying, “there are six zillion guys who can design an ad and write copy for it. If someone quits, you get someone else. If someone acts smart, you get rid of him.” To Marvin, people were standard interchangeable parts. Shirley Hartman was intolerable to him. He, like Jane Crouch, guessed wrongly that something might be going on between Arthur and Shirley. He considered that a special relationship. If Shirley bypassed him, he’d just bide his time.
    The Ford plan might turn into Marvin’s opportunity. Yet he couldn’t bury it. Shirley wouldn’t let him. And it might just work.
    Arthur sighed. He knew he should make up his mind and then lead the Plans Board. Instead, he would play it by ear, see what happens. Arthur, he told himself, you’re a weak son of a bitch. When are you going to be able to determine what’s best for yourself?
    He put Shirley’s memo in his briefcase so he wouldn’t forget it Monday morning and prepared himself for bed. Jane, thank heaven, was already asleep.
    *
    Shirley slept until late in the morning hours on Saturday, awakened feeling spring in her veins. She opened the drapes and the sun burst in her vision; she turned from the light to face a bedroom that had been transformed into gold by the brightness streaming in from outdoors. Nothing planned, she showered, dressed and ate, thought of the Central Park Zoo, always great on a spring day, always certain to bring childhood flooding back; lunch at an outdoor café in the part of the Village where she once lived; a boatride up the Hudson; she would call a friend.
    But what she did was flip through the pages of the Westchester phone book under the “C’s” to find Chunin, Al.
    She found nothing. Number unlisted?
    She gave the name to the operator. Yes, number unlisted.
    She called Mary Wood to thank her for dinner, to apologize for leaving early, perhaps to get Al’s phone from her, but there was no answer. Mary and Jack and Clarence were out strolling in the sunshine.
    You are behaving like a horse’s ass, she told herself. You don’t even know the man. He may not be interested. There are other people you could call.
    Shirley loved spur-of-the-moment, impromptu arrangements. And so she dialed half a dozen friends before she gave up. They had all deserted their homes. Gone where? The country? Al lived in the country. Alone.
    Which is how she had her lunch, at the outdoor café in the Village, alone.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    PHILIP HARTMAN, now sixty-eight, never slept past six a.m. “Sleeping,” he said, “is for the dead.”
    On Sunday, Shirley telephoned early.
    “Good morning, Pop.”
    “Shirley, neshumah, nice to hear your voice, what gives?”
    “Happy Father’s Day, Pop.”
    “Today?”
    “Today.”
    “Why didn’t you warn me?”
    “The papers have been warning you for three weeks. I’m coming over.”
    “ Oy, give me a few hours, I’ve got—”
    “Pop, if you’ve got Mrs. Bialek over there, I don’t mind.”
    “Shirley, she thinks it’s immoral.” The old man laughed. “Listen, favor. Don’t come in a limousine, okay?”
    “I only did that once.”
    “Once feeds the neighbors for a year. They think a girl your age can earn a limousine only one way. Gossip like that I don’t need.”
    “I’ll take the subway.”
    “Don’t do that. I had to ride subways for forty years. Now only muggers ride the subway.”
    “I’ll take a cab.”
    “Bless you.”
    “It’ll take me an hour. That’ll give Mrs. Bialek a chance to get her girdle on.”
    “Shirley, tell the cabby to drive carefully, you hear?”
    “I hear. See you soon.”
    *
    The doorman had to go around the corner to Park Avenue to hail one of the Sunday-morning cruisers and picked a winner for Shirley, a Puerto Rican driver who had never heard of Mosholu Parkway.
    “Just take the East Side Drive over the Willis