Free Blues for Beginners: Stories and Obsessions by Bacon Press Books Page A

shy,” Ralph said. “Ian doesn’t
think you’re a threat.”
    Ian Fishbach was the Vice President of
Chatsworth Osborn. He had a face like the hatchet fish in the
reception area aquarium, and no one knew what he did for fun.
    “What exactly do you mean by threat?” I
asked.
    “Elliot won’t notice you the way he’d notice
Kenneth,” Ralph said, using Mr. Fishbach’s first name as though
they were actually friends, although there was a little. Like the
word “panties”insinuated
    “I don’t see the connection,” I said.
    “With a little help from Elliot, Kenneth
could be a star,” Ralph said.
    “Aw go on,” said Kenneth in Brooklyn, and
looked down at the floor.
    “You know it’s God’s own truth, sweet pea,”
Ralph said, and turned to me for confirmation. “Doesn’t our boy
have star quality?”
    Apparently anyone could be a star; it was
just a matter of perceiving your opportunities. When I got home I
found Eva had left the latest Cosmo on my bed page opened to a
story about how one woman launched a successful career in
advertising. She was only a part time typist but her Boss took the
requisite interest. First he let her write copy for some of his
smaller accounts. Next came bigger accounts, and finally a
promotion and a secretary of her own.
    .
    A few days later Lenny handed me a miniature
grandfather clock .
    “Write me a headline and some body copy,” he
said. “ I need it by lunch. Be sure to mention the beautiful
lifelike woodgrain vinyl.”
    The follow up assignments included a book
entitled Painless Office Rectal Surgery, and a digital alarm clock
in the shape of a television. “Wake up to a New Face!” I wrote.
Lenny liked that one best.
    In February I had ads running in Popular
Mechanics, The Wall Street Journal and Moose Monthly, which was the
magazine of the Loyal Order of Moose.
    “I always said you had star quality,” said
Ralph when I showed him my first proofs.
    In March there was a rash of mid-town
Manhattan bomb scares, which were attributed to the Weather
Underground. I suspected ours was a hoax, and that Lenny phoned it
in so we could play hooky. It was sunny, almost balmy outside and
the air smelled like spring that day. Lenny and I spent bomb scare
afternoon in the bar across the street, along with Kenneth and
Ralph. We drank martinis and talked about Naked Came the Stranger.
A bunch of Newsday reporters had written the book as a joke under a
pseudonym. Now they were rich and famous.
    “I bet we could do something like that in six
weeks,” Lenny said.
    That day it felt like my brilliant career was
finally under way. Play for pay, the way work was supposed to be,
if you were bright and funny and basically nice.
    .
    In April I was walking through Washington
Square Park when a bearded hippie in Washington called out my
name.
    “Hey there, Lauren Ginsburg! Don’t you
recognize an old friend?”
    . His hair fluffed out in all directions like
a dandelion going to seed. His gauzy blue shirt was covered in
embroidery and mirrors. He looked like no one I knew.
    “Okay, I’ll give you a hint,” he said.
“Kensico Dam.”
    High school. Saturday nights. Little Anthony
and the Imperials on the car radio, while Jake Meltzer tries to
remove my bra.
    “Jake Meltzer!”
    I was so glad to see someone from my old life
that I forgot all the good reasons I’d had for never wanting to see
him again. Spilt milk. Water over the dam. Over lunch, he told me
he was dropping out of Harvard Law School if he didn’t flunk out
first. Anything lower than an A was dirt to Jake, as I remembered,
but he’d also dropped out of Cornell after the first term. It
seemed to be his particular destiny to get accepted by Ivy League
institutions he could turn around and despise. His reasons for
hating Cornell were too much cold weather and too many large,
wholesome looking women. I imagined some equally flimsy pretext for
ditching Harvard. He didn’t appreciate how lucky he was to still be
a student, to