Not only did I forget the earrings, I forgot my sweater, purse, and train ticket, too. The problem was my last class of the day. Glenbard West was this beautiful castlelike structure some sadist built on the top of a very steep hill. It even had a brick turret, the fifth floor, where I took art each day. As soon as the bell sounded, I had seven minutes—just seven—to dash down five flights of stairs, go to my locker, and race down the street to the station in time to catch the 3:25. Usually I made it with a couple of minutes to spare, but not this time. This time I barely had a foot on the train before it started moving. Jimmy was waiting for me in the next-to-the-last car.
“I was watching you,” he said. “You should go out for track.”
I wanted to say something smart back to him, something sarcastic and witty and rude, but I had a terrible stitch in my side, and it was all I could do to collapse onto the seat facing him. He leaned back in his seat and stretched out his long legs and plopped his feet up beside me.
“Hey, the conductor’s coming,” I said. “Move your feet.”
“These feet are going to be famous someday.”
“Well, they’re not now, so move them.” He pulled his feet down and handed the conductor his ticket. That’s when I discovered I’d forgotten mine. I reached for my purse and it wasn’t there.
“Jimmy!” I whispered. “I left my purse at school!”
“Ticket, please,” the conductor said.
“I don’t have one,” I said. “I mean, I forgot it. My friend will buy me another one.” The conductor and I both waited for Jimmy, who was busy staring out the window.
“Jimmy!” I gave him a little kick. “I forgot my ticket! You’ve got to buy me another one!”
He looked at me blankly. “Are you talking to me?”
“Yes, I’m talking to you! Of course I’m talking to you! I told the conductor you’d pay for my ticket—”
“Why should I pay for your ticket? I’ve never even seen you before—”
“Jimmy, this isn’t funny!”
“Look, kids,” the conductor said, “is this some kind of initiation or something? Because if the young lady here doesn’t buy a ticket, off she goes at the next stop—”
“I guess you’ll be walking into the city, then,” Jimmy said.
I gave him one of my dirtiest looks. “Jimmy Woolf . . . do you realize how close to death you are right now?”
“Oh, all right,” he said, reaching for his wallet.
After he paid the conductor, I said, “Why do you do that?!”
“Do what?”
“You know what! Act weird!”
“Well, Morgan . . . you try your best to go through life unnoticed. I try my best not only to be noticed, but to be remembered, too.”
“Well, I’m sure the conductor will never forget you,” I said. “I know I won’t.”
When we got into the station, Jimmy gave me cab fare and walked me out onto Canal Street to the taxi stand.
“I’ll meet you in front of Field’s in about an hour,” I said. “Dance good.”
“Don’t I always?”
Walking into the theater gave me chills—the good kind. I knew I was feeling the ghosts of a lot of acting heavyweights who’d been at Second City before me: Shelley Long, Bill Murray, Robert Klein, John Belushi. At one time or another they’d all started out here, standing on the same stage I was standing on now.
“Okay,” the director said. “Instead of starting with improvisations today, I thought we’d try something a little different. . . . Everybody grab a chair and arrange yourselves in a semicircle, like an orchestra does.” We all got settled onstage. I thought maybe we were going to pantomime musicians. “Instead of musical instruments, you’ll each be playing an emotion.” And he assigned each of us an emotion: fear, happiness, anger, sorrow.
“How about it, Morgan?” he said. “Think you can handle paranoia?”
“I’ll try anything once,” I said.
“Okay, then . . . when I point to you I want you to ‘play’ paranoia. Got it?”
I nodded. I kept my eyes glued to the director. He raised his arms and started waving them like a berserk Leonard Bernstein. When he pointed to me I jumped up. Knocked my chair over. I ran across the stage and crouched in a corner. I tried to dredge up some scary experience I could be paranoid about, and I suddenly remembered my upcoming ear piercing.
“You’re really loosening up, Morgan,” the director said. “That’s about the best acting you’ve done since you’ve been here.”
I pictured one of those surgical needles my aunt had talked about the day before, and I shuddered.
“Who’s acting?” I said.
Jimmy was waiting for me in front of Field’s. I got out of the cab, and before I even had a chance to pay the driver, he grabbed me around the waist and started swinging me in the air.
“Jimmy Woolf, are you crazy?” I hollered. “Put me down!”
“Morgan,” he said, setting me on my feet. “Isn’t this a beautiful day! Isn’t this a wonderful city! Do you know how pretty you are?!”
“Why don’t you cheer up?” I said. I paid the driver, who was giving us a very strange look; then I turned back to Jimmy and took a good long look at him. He was positively beaming. “All right,” I said. “I know you want me to ask. What happened? Did you break some sort of dancing record or something? I know. The greatest number of pirouettes ever turned in a single afternoon, right?”
“Much better,” he said. “My teacher got me an audition for Oklahoma!”
“You’re kidding!”
“It’s not just a dinner-theater show. It’s going to be right here. Downtown. They’re casting the principals out of New York and the dancers out of Chicago. Isn’t that great? After it plays at the Shubert, it’s going on the road—”
“When do you try out?”
“The first audition is this Friday. If they like what I do, I get a callback and audition again. My teacher seems to think I have a shot at it.”
“Of course you do,” I said. “Nobody dances as good as you.”
“Come on. Let’s go to the hospital and tell your aunt.”
“Jimmy, wait—let’s just get something to eat and go home. My earrings are in the purse I left at school, so there’s no point in going all the way over to the hospital—”
“Aha! You know why you forgot your earrings, don’t you?”
“Because I was hurrying—”
“Because your subconscious is afraid of having its ears pierced.”
“Jimmy, do you ever get the feeling we’re living in an old black-and-white rerun of The Burns and Allen Show? Only just once I’d like the chance to be Gracie, and you can be George Burns and play straight man.”
“You hate anything medical. So you conveniently forget about the earrings, and then you don’t have to face any needles.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It isn’t dumb. Ask your aunt.”
“I will. But the fact remains: If I haven’t got any earrings, I can’t have my ears pierced, can I?”
He looked at his watch. “I think we have time to go into Field’s and make a purchase.”
Ever since I was a little kid I’ve loved Marshall Field’s. My grandmother says her grandmother used to shop here, and whenever I walk into the store, I like to think I’m wandering around the same counters my great-great-grandmother once did.
“See anything you like?” Jimmy asked.
“Do you know how expensive some of this stuff is?”
“So?”
“Look, can’t we just forget about this and go home?”
“No, we cannot.”
“But you can’t afford—”
“Shut up, Hackett.” He pointed to some beautiful gold heart-shaped earrings in a showcase. “How about these? Do you like these?”
“How much are they?”
“Do you like them?”
“How much are they?”
“Miss?” Jimmy said to the salesclerk. “We’d like these earrings, please.”
“Cash or charge?”
“Cash.”
“Let’s see . . . that’s thirty-seven fifty plus tax—”
“Jimmy!” I said. “I will not allow you to spend that much money on me!”
“I want to do this. When you’re a famous actress, I’ll be able to say, ‘I bought her her first pair of earrings.’ You can wear them to the Academy Awards.”
“I can’t let you do this.”
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you just to smile and say thank you?”
“I don’t want you to spend all your money on me! I don’t want—”
He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “Just say goodnight, Gracie.”
“Goodnight, Gracie,” I said.
When we got to the hospital it was around dinnertime, so there wasn’t much traffic in the halls. My aunt’s floor was practically deserted, and the only person at the nurses’ station was a student nurse, a girl who looked just a year or two older than us.
“Hey,” Jimmy whispered. “Do you know her?”
“No,” I said. “I’ve never seen her before.”
“Good. Wait here.”
“Why? What are you going to do?”
“You’ll see.”
I grabbed his arm. “Jimmy, you’re going to do something crazy, aren’t you? You’re going to go up to that girl and do something crazy and embarrass me—”
“Oh, come on. I’m just going to have a little fun—”
“Fun? This is the psychiatric floor! If you start acting weird around here, they’ll lock you up!”
“Excuse me,” the girl called from the desk. “Can I help you?”
“Yes,” Jimmy said. He walked over to the counter and talked to her in a low voice: “You see that girl I’m with?”
The student nurse looked at me and nodded.
“She’s a patient here,” Jimmy said. “This morning while no one was looking, she sneaked out. I found her down on State Street talking to herself.”
“I don’t know how that happened,” the girl said. “Who’s her doctor?”
“Dr. Hackett,” Jimmy said.
“She is not my doctor!” I yelled.
Jimmy leaned closer to the girl. “She’s hysterical—”
“I see,” the girl said.
“You don’t see!” I said. “Look, my friend here has a warped sense of humor. Dr. Hackett’s expecting me. She’s going to pierce my ears—”
The student nurse just stared at me. “Your psychiatrist is going to pierce your ears?”
“She’s not my psychiatrist! She’s my aunt!”
“Uh, of course she is,” the girl said. “I’ll go get her. Don’t go anywhere.” She went off down the hall, and Jimmy laughed and leaned back against the counter.
“Don’t forget the straitjacket!” he called after her.
“God, what’s the matter with you?”
“Morgan . . . you take things entirely too seriously. You’ve got to lighten up a little.” He jammed his fingers into my side and started tickling me.
“Stop it!” I started laughing. I tried to tickle him back, but he kept out of reach so effectively that by the time my aunt and the student nurse appeared, Jimmy was the one in control and I was the one doubled over and laughing like a hyena. My aunt stood there quietly, her arms folded over her white coat.
“Dr. Hackett,” Jimmy said, “you look beautiful. Like a Freudian bird in a guilted cage.” (My aunt really is very pretty, but she has this sharp-eyed intelligent look that keeps her from being beautiful. I have this feeling when I look at her that there are about a million things going on in her head all at once.)
“Rosalie,” said my aunt. “This is my niece, Morgan, and Jimmy here is a friend of hers. I wouldn’t want to swear to it, of course, but I’m reasonably sure neither of them is crazy. All right, you two,” she said, “follow me.”
“Catch you later, Rosalie,” Jimmy said.
“Uh-huh,” Rosalie answered.
We followed my aunt down the hall, and she opened the door to her office. “Why don’t you go on inside,” she said. “I’ll get the equipment and be right back, okay?”
I followed Jimmy into the office. “She said ‘equipment,’ “I whispered. “But she meant ‘needles.’”
“What did you think she was going to use to pierce your ears?” Jimmy asked. “Polo mallets?”
My aunt’s office didn’t look like what you’d think a psychiatrist’s office would look like: It was small and sunny and comfortable. There was a lot of original artwork on the walls. Some of it my father had painted. He’s a professional artist and he paints these terrific scenes of things within his everyday grasp: old buildings around Glen Ellyn, people shopping in the village, front porches of our neighbors’ homes.
“When did your dad do this one?” Jimmy asked. He was looking at a painting my father had just finished of the antique horse trough on Main Street.
“It’s from his new collection.”
“Hey, doesn’t your father ever get a little nervous that one of your aunt’s wacko patients might walk off with some of his valuable artwork?”
“They’re not wacko, Jimmy. Just a little disturbed. Like you.”
He walked over to the bookcase, where there was a coffeepot and a stack of Styrofoam cups. “You want some coffee?” he asked.
“Uh, no . . . I’m jumpy enough.”
“Maybe your aunt’ll give you a general anesthetic—”
“Don’t be stupid,” I said. I sat down on the couch. “You don’t have to stick around if you don’t want to.”
“Who says I don’t want to? You don’t think I’d let you go through major surgery alone, do you?”
I tried not to smile. I didn’t want him to think I needed him, but I was glad he was there. He was always there when I needed him.
My aunt came in with her hands crammed full of medical-looking things.
“Don’t do anything too drastic, Dr. Hackett,” Jimmy said. “A frontal lobotomy will do just fine.”
My aunt smiled and set her equipment on the bookcase. “It’s not going to be as bad as you think,” she said, touching my face. “Do you have your earrings?” I took the earrings out of the bag and handed them to her. Jimmy sat down on the edge of my aunt’s desk and took a packet of peanuts out of his jacket pocket and started munching them.
“How can you sit there eating peanuts?” I asked.
He looked at me. “What do you want me to do with them?”
“I can think of a suggestion or two,” I said.
My aunt pulled my hair back with a rubber band. “Do you want to lie down or sit up?” she asked.
“I think I’ll sit up,” Jimmy said.
“Listen,” I said, “you’re not helping any. You’re driving me nuts. Go talk to Rosalie or something.” My aunt was cleaning off one ear with an alcohol-saturated cotton ball. “Aunt Lo, aren’t you going to give me any Novocain or something?”
“I don’t think you’ll need it, honey.” She pinched my earlobe, and it went numb. “This might hurt a little, but you can handle it. You’re allowed to holler if you want to.” Whenever my aunt does anything medical, she works very quickly. I never got a chance to see if the surgical needle was long or not. I never saw it at all. Before I knew what was happening, the first earring was in.
“You okay?” She handed me a wad of cotton. “Here. Hold this against your ear till the bleeding stops.”
Jimmy leaned forward and watched with great curiosity. “What does it feel like?”
“Just peachy,” I said. “You should try it sometime.”
“Thanks. I live dangerously enough by carrying my ballet shoes through a tough neighborhood.”
“Hold still now,” my aunt said. “I’m almost through.” I felt the second earring slip in. “There you go. . . . That wasn’t too bad, was it?”
“I guess not.”
She put her hand under my chin and looked at me. “You know what? I think you better lie down for a few minutes.”
“I’m okay,” I said.
“Just for a few minutes. Come on.” My aunt has the kind of face where her eyes alone can do the smiling. I lay back on the couch and the three of us talked. I told her about being paranoid at Second City and Jimmy told her about his audition on Friday for Oklahoma!
“How long would you be on the road?” my aunt asked.
“Five months.”
“Morgan will be lost without you—?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, I will not. The only difference I’ll notice is I won’t have somebody around razzing me twenty-four hours a day.” I was about to say more, but my aunt very matter-of-factly took a cigarette out of her coat pocket and lit it. I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Aunt Lo . . . when did you start smoking again?”
“Hmm,” she said, taking a drag on her cigarette. “Some days are better than other days. This is one of my weaker days.”
“Don’t you remember what you went through when you quit? You bit your fingernails—”
“I know.”
“You bit mine!” I turned to Jimmy. “Do you believe this? And she’s a doctor!”
“All right, sweetie, all right. Your point is well-taken.” She ground out her cigarette in the ashtray, but not until she’d taken one last puff. “Okay? Let’s see how you’re doing.” She took the cotton away and looked at my ears.
“Dr. Hackett,” Jimmy said, “why don’t we take you out to dinner? I’ve got enough money with me to swing an expensive meal as long as it’s in the cafeteria.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Come on, Aunt Lo, it’ll be fun.”
“Thank you both, but I have a dinner date.”
“Who is he?” I asked. “Anybody I know?”
“No—he’s a doctor here. His name is Dan Petrie. He specializes in emergency medicine—”
“How long have you known him?” I asked. “Is it serious?”
“No,” my aunt said. “It’s fun.”
“Ha ha. . . . No, really—are you just dating . . . or . . . well, you know—”
“That’s right, Morgan,” Jimmy said, “go right ahead and dig into your aunt’s personal life—”
“She doesn’t mind,” I said. “What’s he like?”
“Very nice and he laughs a lot,” my aunt said. “I want you to meet him sometime.”
“Why not now? Jimmy and I’ll stick around and see if we approve of him.”
“No, we won’t,” Jimmy said. “We’re going to dinner, remember?”
“But I want to meet him,” I said. “I’m not hungry.”
My aunt smiled. “Yes, you are,” she said. “You’re starving.”