Broadway Baby by Alan Shapiro Page A

confused and scared her. Why? She couldn’t say, and if she could, who would she have said it to? It was just that there was something he expected from her, something she was supposed to know—he wouldn’t tell her what it was, and she wouldn’t ask, even though she hated not knowing it, and hated the advantage she imagined he must have felt knowing and not telling her what it was she was supposed to do and when and how often she was supposed to do it. Th at he never complained only made it worse, because she sensed his disappointment, his resentment, sensed it in the dutiful way he held her for a moment afterward before he turned away, and they would lie there back-to-back, listening to the inexhaustible couple on the other side of the wall. At least Curly got what he wanted, even if it wasn’t perfect. He got some relief, and if truth be told maybe she did, too, since for a night or two afterward he wouldn’t pester her. But then she’d feel the pressure building up again and then, just when all she wanted was to go to sleep herself, he’d touch her in that way, and if she didn’t reciprocate he’d get moody and sullen. She knew what he was thinking: she’s like a little girl, a child; she’s not a woman (like the one next door), not a real woman. Angrily, she’d give him what he wanted. She’d do it. She’d get it over with. Fast and furious.
    He shipped out to the Philippines onboard the USS Dakota. Th e war ended just as he reached the Pacific theater. He saw dead bodies everywhere but no action. Onboard the warship, soldiers and nurses were hopping in the sack day and night, right under the noses of their commanding officers who pretended not to know. In his letters, Curly referred to the nurses as “tomatoes” (“a real tomato”) and to the most beautiful of them as “tomato puree.” He’d describe their faces and their figures, not, he said, to make her jealous, but only so she’d see how much he loved her—that, even as tempted as he was, and lonely, he’d be true to her because he loved her so much, and anyway, next to her, these gals were “just a bunch of old potato pickers.” Th ey couldn’t hold a candle to his wife.
    He also wrote about the suffering everywhere, the devastation. After what he’d witnessed of the war, he said he’d never complain of anything again. Like Lou Gehrig, he wrote, he was the luckiest man on the face of this earth.
    Writing to Curly, and reading his letters, Miriam felt the fog of confused feeling lift again and she grew hopeful about the life ahead, the children they would have—they’d be wonderful parents. Wasn’t that what sex was for? Wasn’t that why they had married in the first place? Yes, she missed him; the world was a dangerous and terrible place, but they would be each other’s safe haven. Th ey would be each other’s shelter from the storm. All she wanted to do was hold him. All she wanted to do was make him happy. She pledged to dedicate her life to that.

ACT II

Scene I
    Just after the war, they’re posing for a photograph at a cousin’s wedding. It’s a photograph of Curly’s family. His brother and sister-in-law and two of his older sisters and their husbands sit at a table while Miriam and Curly and his younger sister and her husband stand behind them. Th e table is round, and there’s a white carnation in the middle of it, surrounded by empty plates, drinks, water glasses, and the crumpled napkins of those who have had to stand for the picture.
    Th e youngest sister’s husband is an inveterate womanizer. Only a week or so before this wedding, he was away on business, and his wife called his hotel room at one a.m. and a woman answered. Not long after this picture’s taken, sometime in the next few months, she’ll file for divorce. Th is is, in fact, the last family occasion he attends, the last picture he appears in.
    Curly’s oldest sister has two daughters, both of them mildly retarded.
    Th e brother-in-law sitting at the