When the song ended there was a smattering of applause from the patrons of the coffee shop. Grinning reflexively, professionally in return he acknowledged their recognition and approval.
“It’s there,” he said, as the song replayed. Savagely, he clenched his fist, struck the plastic table separating him from Mary Anne Dominic. “God damn it, it’s there.”
With some odd twist of deep, intuitive, female desire to help him Mary Anne said, “And I’m here, too.”
“I’m not in a run-down hotel room, lying on a cot dreaming,” he said huskily.
“No, you’re not.” Her tone was tender, anxious. She clearly felt concern for him. For his alarm.
“Again I’m real,” he said. “But if it could happen once, for two days—” To come and go like this, to fade in and out—“Maybe we should leave,” Mary Anne said apprehensively. That cleared his mind. “Sorry,” he said, wanting to reassure her.
“I just mean that people are listening.”
“It won’t hurt them,” he said. “Let them listen; let them see how you carry your worries and troubles with you even when you’re a world-famous star.” He rose to his feet, however. “Where do you want to go?” he asked her. “To your apartment?” It meant doubling back, but he felt optimistic enough to take the risk.
“My apartment?” she faltered.
“Do you think I’d hurt you?” he said.
Fof an interval she sat nervously pondering. “N-no,” she said at last.
“Do you have a phonograph?” he asked. “At your apartment?”
“Yes, but not a very good one; it’s just stereo. But it works.”
“Okay,” he said, herding her up the aisle toward the cash register. “Let’s go.”
23
Mary Anne Dominic had decorated the walls and ceiling of her apartment herself. Beautiful, strong, rich colors; he gazed about, impressed. And the few art objects in the living room had a powerful beauty about them. Ceramic pieces. He picked up one lovely blue-glaze vase, studied it.
“I made that,” Mary Anne said.
“This vase,” he said, “will be featured on my show.”
Mary Anne gazed at him in wonder.
“I’m going to have this vase with me very soon. In fact”—he could visualize it—“a big production number in which I emerge from the vase singing, like the magic spirit of the vase.” He held the blue vase up high, in one hand, revolving it.” ‘Nowhere Nuthin’ Fuck-up,’ “he said. “And your career is launched.”
“Maybe you should hold it with both hands,” Mary Anne said uneasily.
“‘Nowhere Nuthin’ Fuck-up,’ the song that brought us more recognition—” The vase slid from between his fingers and dropped to the floor. Mary Anne leaped forward, but too late. The vase broke into three pieces and lay there beside Jason’s shoe, rough unglazed edges pale and irregular and without artistic merit.
A long silence passed.
“I think I can fix it,” Mary Anne said.
He could think of nothing to say.
“The most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me,” Mary Anne said, “was one time with my mother. You see, my mother had a progressive kidney ailment called Bright’s disease; she was always going to the hospital for it when I was a kid growing up and she was forever working it into the conversation that she was going to die from it and wouldn’t I be sorry then—as if it was my fault—and I really believed her, that she would die one day. But then I grew up and moved away from home and she still didn’t die. And I sort of forgot about her; I had my own life and things to do. So naturally I forgot about her damn kidney condition. And then one day she came to visit, not here but at the apartment I had before this, and she really bugged me, sitting around narrating all her aches and complaints on and on … I finally said, ‘I’ve got to go shopping for dinner,’ and I split for the store. My mother limped along with me and on the way she laid the news on me that now both her kidneys were so far gone that they would have to be removed and she would be going in for that and so forth and they’d try to install an artificial kidney but it probably wouldn’t work. So she was telling me this, how it really had come now; she really was going to die finally, like she’d always said … and all of a sudden I looked up and realized I was in the supermarket, at the meat counter, and this real nice clerk that I liked was coming over to say hello, and he said, ‘What would you like today, miss?’ and I said, ‘I’d like a kidney pie for dinner.’ It was embarrassing. ‘A great big kidney pie,’ I said, ‘all flaky and tender and steaming and full of nice juices.’ ‘To serve how many?’ he asked. My mother sort of kept staring at me with this creepy look. I really didn’t know how to get out of it once I was in it. Finally I did buy a kidney pie, but I had to go to the delicatessen section; it was in a sealed can, from England. I paid I think four dollars for it. It tasted very good.”
“I’ll pay for the vase,” Jason said. “How much do you want for it?”
Hesitating, she said, “Well, there’s the wholesale price I get when I sell to stores. But I’d have to charge you retail prices because you don’t have a wholesale number, so—”
He got out his money. “Retail,” he said.
“Twenty dollars.”
“I can work you in another way,” he said. “All we need is an angle. How about this—we can show the audience a priceless vase from antiquity, say from fifth-century China, and a museum expert will step out, in uniform, and certify its authenticity. And then you’ll have your wheel there—you’ll make a vase before the audience’s very eyes, and we’ll show them that your vase is better.”
“It wouldn’t be. Early Chinese pottery is—”
“We’ll show them; we’ll make them believe. I know my audience. Those thirty million people take their clue from my reaction; there’ll be a pan up on my face, showing my response.”
In a low voice Mary Anne said, “I can’t go up there on stage with those TV cameras looking at me; I’m so—overweight. People would laugh.”
“The exposure you’ll get. The sales. Museums and stores will know your name, your stuff, buyers will be coming out of the woodwork.”
Mary Anne said quietly, “Leave me alone, please. I’m very happy. I know I’m a good potter; I know that the stores, the good ones, like what I do. Does everything have to be on a great scale with a cast of thousands? Can’t I lead my little life the way I want to?” She glared at him, her voice almost inaudible. “I don’t see what all your exposure and fame have done for you—back at the coffee shop you said to me, ‘Is my record really on that jukebox?’ You were afraid it wasn’t; you were a lot more insecure than I’ll ever be.”
“Speaking of that,” Jason said, “I’d like to play these two records on your phonograph. Before I go.”
“You’d better let me put them on,” Mary Anne said. “My set is tricky.” She took the two albums, and the twenty dollars; Jason stood where he was, by the broken pieces of vase.
As he waited there he heard familiar music. His biggest-selling album. The grooves of the record were no longer blank.
“You can keep the records,” he said. “I’ll be going.” Now, he thought, I have no further need for them; I’ll probably be able to buy them in any record shop.
“It’s not the sort of music I like … I don’t think I’d really be playing them all that much.”
“I’ll leave them anyhow,” he said.
Mary Anne said, “For your twenty dollars I’m giving you another vase. Just a moment.” She hurried off; he heard the noises of paper and labored activity. Presently the girl reappeared, holding another blue-glaze vase. This one had more to it; the intuition came to him that she considered it one of her best.