Chapter one
Tania Wildman clomped through puddles of Minneapolis slush to a brick building painted the colors of peas and carrots. She pulled open the door beneath a sign that read GOOD KARMA CAFE.
Behind the register, Jack Rawson counted out ten singles as Blanche Clark cracked open a roll of quarters.
“Who do I see about a job?” asked Tania.
“Jack, are we hiring?”
He looked up and locked eyes with Tania.
“Got any experience?”
“Here’s my resume; I taught theater at a private school for seven years.”
Jack tossed the bio onto a shelf beneath the register.
“Good for you; maybe you should go back and make it eight.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
“That is why. Can I at least fill out an application?”
“Wasting paper is bad for the environment,” said Jack.
Tania stepped in closer.
“Look, I’ve eaten here. The service is so bad no one’s gonna notice that I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Is that so?”
Jack came out from behind the register and hoisted himself onto a stool at the bar. He picked up the business section from a week-old Star Tribune and pretended to read it.
“Come back tomorrow and tell that to Ellen. She does the hiring.”
Tania left the cafe and trekked up Lyndale. The 4F bus whizzed by.
I never thought I’d think of public transportation as a luxury. If Bilal didn’t let me charge sardines and tomatoes, I’d be living off my body fat and rationing tampons.
She spotted a deli with a WAITRESS WANTED sign in the window, crossed the street, and went inside. A veteran server with a handkerchief corsage pinned onto the bodice of her white polyester uniform shuffled toward her. She had holes cut in the toe boxes of her nurses’ shoes to make room for her bunions; her hair was held behind her ears in a mesh snood. She carried two plates on her left forearm plus one in each hand.
Yikes, thought Tania. Is that gonna be me?
Tania backed out the door. Snot dripped from her nostrils. She unsnapped the flap pockets on the front of her ex-husband’s leather bomber jacket and searched for a tissue. Finding none, she wiped her nose on the ribbed-knit cuff of the jacket sleeve.
I went to Holy Savior, for Christ’s sake. My parents were well off. We ate oysters. Dammit, we had a maid.
Tania’s father, Carlos, was from Argentina; her mother, Angela, grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. They met at the Marigold Ballroom. Carlos made his money exporting washing machines. He doubled the profits by stuffing the drums with Kotex. He liked Johnny Walker Black Label, roulette, rare red meat, white two-door Cadillacs, and other women. Angela fancied mink jackets, alligator purses, monogrammed luggage, and Brandy Alexanders. Tania’s older sister, Maria, modeled for the Debutante Shop at Dayton’s Department Store. She dated the sons of Greek shipping magnates she met on family vacations in Miami. As a child, Tania rode in the back seat of her father’s Coupe de Ville wearing an ermine-trimmed red-velvet coat. She toasted saltines on the car’s cigarette lighter and pretended to be a cowboy.
Now, I’m forty years old and haven’t got a pot to piss in.
The marquee of the Eclectic Theater came into view.
Well at least I’m still in show business. Wait a minute. That’s a punch line from one of Daddy’s old jokes. How did it go? Oh yeah. A guy is shoveling elephant shit at a circus. His brother rushes up to him and says, “Uncle Fred died and left us each a million bucks. You don’t have to do this anymore.” The guy replies, “What, and give up show business?”
Tania frowned.
He told me that joke right after he saw me perform.
She entered the storefront office of the theater company. Down a few doors, the marquee read NOW PLAYING: “YOU CAN’T WIN FOR LOSING” A SURREALISTIC COMEDY—FINAL PERFORMANCE.
Inside the theater’s dressing room, Tania changed into a hula skirt made of artificial leaf garlands and bunches of grapes. Cardboard snowflakes covered each cup of her bikini top. She placed a crown of imitation sunflowers, nandina branches, icicles, dried wheat stalks, and seed pods on her head. Then she painted her lips and eyelids green. Christopher Larkin stuck his head in the dressing room. He wore a long white fake beard and a well-worn terry-cloth bathrobe. A clockface hung from its tie.
“We’re on,” he said.
In the theater, a black cutout of the Minneapolis skyline backdropped the stage. A full moon suspended by fishing line was silhouetted against a pale blue sky. Christopher did a soft-shoe dance up the aisle from the back of the auditorium as he sang.
“Ev’ry morning, ev’ry evening
Ain’t we got fun?
Night or daytime, it’s all playtime
Ain’t we got fun?”
The lights came up when he reached the stage. He checked the clockface that hung from his bathrobe tie and turned the full moon cutout around to reveal a sun. Tania came onstage dancing and vocalizing to Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers.” Her leafy skirt whirled as she swept an arm skyward and then lowered it toward the ground.
“DUUNta, DUUNta, DUUNta, Yaddadadada
DUUNta, DUUNta, DUUNta, Yaddadadada”
“Ah, Mother Nature, I was wondering when you’d arrive. What’ll it be today?” asked Christopher. “Rain, sunshine, DROUGHT?”
Tania touched her index finger to her cheek and gazed into space.
“Today, it’ll be colder than a witch’s tit.”
“You mean colder than hell?”
“I mean colder than a brass toilet seat on the shady side of an iceberg. Spit will freeze before it hits the ground.”
“I better wake the boy,” said Christopher.
Tania exited, waltzing and vocalizing.
“DUUNta, DUUNta, DUUNta, Yaddadadada”
Christopher came forward and addressed an actor asleep in a front-row seat.
“Joe, Joe Grabowski, wake up. The movie’s over.”
Tania picked up some change in the dressing room and snuck into the lobby to use the pay phone.
“Pat, it’s the end of January. I taught the workshops in October; when are you gonna pay me?”
Tania paced back and forth.
“I see. You’re gonna pay me but not right now,” said Tania.
She pulled off her floral crown.
“Pat, are your lips brown? CUZ YOU’RE FULL OF SHIT.”
Tania banged down the receiver. She dashed into the dressing room and changed her costume.
The actor playing Joe Grabowski stood shivering in the center of the stage. He wore a scarf, knit stocking cap, jeans, and a T-shirt. Tania ran onto the space from upstage left. She crossed behind Grabowski and came downstage right. She wore a man’s suit, shirt, and tie. She looked around and called to the audience.
“Where’d he go? The guy they just interviewed; it was on the noonday news.”
Tania crossed to downstage left and addressed the house.
“Do you know where he went?”
A plant in the audience yelled, “He’s behind you.”
Tania whipped around.
“There it is—the face from the TV screen!”
She flicked her index finger at Grabowski.
“I’m gonna make you a star.”
“Me?” said Joe.
Tania waved her hand.
“Sure, I know you don’t have talent. You don’t have looks or personality, but that’s what I like about you. You’re not like those mummies we have in Hollywood. You’ve got the face of an average jamoke, a poor guy working for peanuts and hoping for a better day. People can identify with you, the kind of people who go to see my movies. Yes, my boy, you’ll go far.”
“Really?” said Joe.
“Really,” said Tania.
She put her arm around his shoulder.
“Just remember, stay humble or you’ll wind up selling pencils on the street of broken dreams.”
Tania picked up more change in the dressing room and crept back into the lobby.
She dialed 411 and got the Good Karma Cafe’s number.
“Good Karma, whaddya want?” asked Jack.
He took a sip of tequila from a covered to-go cup next to the register.
“Can you tell me what time Ellen’ll be in tomorrow?” asked Tania.
“Who wants to know?”
“Tania Wildman.”
“Oh, yeah, the overqualified one with no experience. No job yet, eh? Well, don’t get your hopes up.”
Jack downed a gulp of tequila.
“Eight,” he said. “She gets in at eight.”
“A.M. or P.M.?”
“The one that’s in the morning.”
Tania heard a click.
I think he hung up on me.
Jack pulled out Tania’s resume.
He asked himself, What the hell is “surrealistic comedy”?
Onstage, Joe Grabowski hawked pencils next to a sign that read STREET OF BROKEN DREAMS. Tania and Christopher entered the scene. She wore pedal pushers and a T-shirt with BEVERLY HILLS OR BUST printed on the chest. A Polaroid Amigo camera hung from a strap around her neck. Christopher had on a Hawaiian shirt, Bermuda shorts, and white socks with brown sandals. He held open a pamphlet and pointed at Joe.
“This must be Attraction Number Nine: The Hollywood Has-been.”
Christopher read from the brochure.
“ ‘Nothing is more pitiful. Shed a tear and say a prayer for one who played the game and lost. Hollywood, O Hollywood, thou art a mistress cruel.’ ”
Tania and Christopher looked closely at Joe.
“There’s something about that face; I can’t place it. Is it the nose?”
“That’s a Grabowski nose if ever I saw one,” said Tania.
“Aunt Kay, Uncle Mel, is that you?” asked Joe. “It’s Rose’s son.”
“Joey, my boy,” said Christopher.
“Look how tall he’s gotten, Mel,” said Tania. “I bet he’s taller than you.”
She pushed them back-to-back to compare their heights. Christopher turned to Joe.
“So, son, you’ve gone Hollywood. That’s too bad. I sure could use you in the drapery business.”
“That would be great!” said Joe.
“It would?” said Christopher and Tania.
“Why don’t you drive back to Minneapolis with us? There’s plenty of room; we’ve got the Winnebago,” said Christopher.
“I’ve never been in a Winnebago,” said Joe.
“Well, you’re in for a real treat,” said Tania.
The lights went down as they left the stage.
The next morning, Jack zipped up his fly on the way out of the cafe’s bathroom and headed to his office. Ellen sat at his desk eating a vegetable frittata and home fries.
“Is she here?” asked Jack.
Ellen chomped on a mouthful of potatoes.
“Yeah, she’s filling out paperwork.”
“Whad’ she say when you hired her?” asked Jack.
Ellen swallowed.
“She said, ‘Really?’ like she was surprised. Then she wanted to know if she had to wear a hairnet.”
Jack went back into the bathroom; he sprayed himself with air freshener and gargled with vodka.
Ellen trained Tania to take orders, deliver food, and tally up checks. She handed her a cork-lined tray with a mug of coffee on it.
“Take this over to the guy by the window.”
Tania held the tray with both hands like she was delivering tea and toast to an invalid. She focused her eyes on the coffee mug and pivoted toward the dining room. Jack sailed out of the kitchen balancing a platter of the Bandito Burrito on his fingertips. He bumped into Tania’s left elbow. His plate crashed to the floor, splattering him with beans and salsa. Tania rebounded from the jolt and steadied the mug on the tray. Jack shook his foot to loosen the beans from his shoe.
“Hey, Lucy Ricardo. Is this surrealistic comedy?” asked Jack.
Tania’s cheeks burned.
Ellen poured water on a bar mop towel. Jack grabbed it from her and wiped the food from his shoes and pants. He flung the splattered towel in Tania’s direction.
“Hey, Luuu-cy,” said Jack with a Cuban accent. “Catch.”
Coffee sloshed over the rim of the mug as Tania curled the tray into her body with one hand and caught the towel with the other.
“Oh, Ellen, did she tell you the service here’s so bad no one’s gonna notice she doesn’t know what she’s doing?”
Jack sat down at a table. A busman cleaned the mess from the floor. A line cook came out of the kitchen with another Bandito Burrito and set it down in front of Jack. Tania wiped down the partially filled mug and delivered it to the guy by the window.
“I’ll be right back with the other half of your coffee,” she said.
Tania and Ellen met up at the wait station. Ellen pressed one of her nostrils and snorted twice.
“Jack’s got a little problem.”
Yeah, Jack’s little problem is that he’s a big asshole, thought Tania.
