101 Mystery Stories

53 Happy Birthday, Darling Joyce Harrington

It isn’t so much that one really wants to be reminded that another year has gone down the drain or up the spout or however you want to put it. At any rate, kaput. I can live quite nicely, thank you, without singeing my eyebrows on all those candles. And there’s no sane reason for making a public spectacle of the event, only to suffer the well-meant congratulations of friends, compliments that somehow turn into stinging nettles that itch and burn the tender sensibilities of the aging celebrant. I can hear them now.

“Darling, you don’t look a day over twenty-nine.”

“Here’s to the birthday girl! I’d offer you a drink, my child, but first you have to prove you’re of age.”

“... but, of course, you don’t remember that.” This one is obligatory whenever the speaker has been reminiscing and the nostalgia game has churned up the Great Depression, the Lone Ranger on radio, Orphan Annie mugs, the Battle of the Bulge, or the conquest of Mount Everest. You are caught in a cleft stick. If you admit remembering, you instantly date yourself, and if you agree that you are much too young for any personal recollection, everyone knows you are lying.

And, of course, and inevitably, “You’re not getting older, you’re getter better.” Mixed blessings on the advertising whiz kid who invented that line.

Birthdays! Who needs them?

How clever of the Russians, or whoever it was, who celebrated name days. You were named after a saint and thenceforth, throughout your life, you had a day of your own on which to be congratulated with no smarmy nonsense about the years that had slipped away. No embarrassing overlooking of the stray gray hair or the additional “laugh lines,” as we ruefully call them nowadays, for all those Elizavetas and Ekaterinas of the past. I wonder what the Soviets celebrate in place of name days now that the saints have all been banished to some Siberian kind of limbo.

But can you imagine the pantheon of saints we would need, given our current practices in the naming of the young, to provide a name day for everyone, should we decide to eliminate the detestable birthday celebration? For myself, it would be no problem. I am plain Joan. A flashy kind of saint to be sure, given to hearing disembodied voices and dressing up in men’s clothing, but one whose day I would be happy to adopt as my own providing all flaming objects such as candles, stakes, and banana flambées were kept well under control.

But what about all those up-and-coming Samanthas and Fluers and Cleos, not to mention the Jasons and Todds and the inevitable crop of Elvises? Every day of the year would have to be dedicated to a name, possibly to two or three names in the case of those that have achieved less than national popularity. Envision, if you will, celebrations in remote outposts on the day devoted to all the Mortimers, Mabels, and Aramintas under the sun. Of course, the whole thing would have to be subject to Federal regulation, lest the ever-popular Susans and Johns form power blocs and contrive to have their name days designated in the balmy spring or dramatic fall months, leaving the dog-days of summer and the gloom-days of winter to the unfortunate Gertrudes and Homers.

Personally, it doesn’t matter a whit to me when St. Joan’s day falls. Perhaps I’ll look it up sometime and treat myself to a new outfit or a day at Elizabeth Arden’s or a soppy, maudlin solitary binge on that day each year. But name day or birthday, it would be all the same to Alexander. Unremarkable and unremarked.

Aha, you say. Now we come to the crux of it. I’ve just had a birthday, you say, and no one noticed. Not precisely. Actually my birthday was weeks and weeks ago, and there was a gratifying flurry of cards and a few well-chosen gifts from friends and relatives. Much appreciated, although evoking an astonishing array of feeling. Another year gone by and I haven’t paid that visit to my sister and her brood in Denver. Guilt. How kind of Rachel to remember me, and her husband dead not six months. Sadness. A funny card from an old boy friend whose birthday is the same as mine. He never forgets and I always do. Regret? A heavy book from a feminist friend and a light one from my scatty cousin who has laughed her way through four divorces and is about, she announces in the enclosed card, to marry number five. I will read both some day and perhaps be spurred to change my life. But in which direction?

And from Alexander? Well, Alex, you see, is very busy. (And when is Alexander’s day? There must be one, if not for a saint, at least for the Czar of that name, or for the one called the Great. I’ll have to look it up.) Alexander Clark Hemming, who would like to be called the Great, is a very busy man. He has an office at which he spends long hours every day and often much of the night. He has a secretary who types his terse commanding memos and diverts all unnecessary phone calls. In order to be considered necessary, I now have to declare a state of emergency, and lately I have been required to state the nature of the emergency.

“Mr. Hemming is in conference. He cannot be disturbed.”

“Miss Wanderley, this is an emergency.”

“May I tell him the nature of the emergency?”

“No, you may not.”

“Then, I’m sorry, Mrs. Hemming. He left strict orders.”

Bite your tongue, Wanderley. I know you in all your dreams and ambitions. You haven’t been the first and you’re a long shot from being the last. And even if you should, by some strange quirk of fate (accident, suicide, swift or lingering disease), take my place, do you think you would fare any better? Don’t you know that you would be succeeded by a long string of Wanderleys, all pantingly eager to work long hours and provide consoling coffee breaks to the prince of industry? Haven’t you ever noticed, Wanderley, that when the coffee is cold and you rise from the cushiony depths of that oversized sofa I chose for his office, it’s back to the IBM Executive for you? Think about it, Wanderley. I do.

Wanderley, of course, is English. Cool, blonde, and efficient. Armored in the rote pronouncement of protective formulas. Intimidating to the unprepared.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“Mr. Hemming does not accept unsolicited proposals.”

But I am not intimidated, Wanderley. I have been prepared by 15 years of watching Alex Hemming rise to the top. Fifteen years of Christmas presents selected at the last moment by you and your predecessors. Don’t you remember?

“Miss Wanderley, run around to Tiffany’s and pick out something for my wife. And charge a little something for yourself.”

I have quite a nice collection of empty Tiffany boxes on a shelf in one of my closets. How about you? But what happened to my birthdays, Wanderley? In your cool, efficient way how could you let him overlook the birthdays? Or did he simply never include them on your agenda of secretarial services, other things being more important? Shame on you, Wanderley.

On the other hand I will not forget his birthday. You’re going to love it, Wanderley. Well, maybe not love it exactly, but I’m sure you’ll be thrilled to pieces at your little part in commemorating Alex. He’s already told me that he’ll be staying in town all week (how nice for you, Wanderley) — the trade show, the difficult Japanese matter, the labor trouble in the Milan factory, the countless major and minor crises requiring the hand of the master. And I have already told him that I will be busy all week organizing the Art Show for the benefit of St. Hilda’s Home for Unwed Mothers. He does so like for my name (actually his name — Mrs. Alexander Clark Hemming) to appear on programs and in publicity. It’s good for business and it keeps me out of trouble. I’ve never been a mother, unwed or otherwise.

So he won’t be expecting any kind of celebration on his birthday. Which is tomorrow. This afternoon I will telephone Wanderley, and the conversation will go something like this.

“Miss Wanderley, this is not an emergency.”

“How may I help you, Mrs. Hemming?”

“Yes. That’s it, exactly. I need your help. I’m going to enlist your aid as a conspirator, shall we say.”

“How exciting.” With all the enthusiasm of a jellied eel.

“Yes, it is, rather.” I always find myself adopting Englishisms when bandying words with Wanderley. “Tomorrow is Mr. Hemming’s birthday and since we can’t celebrate it together, I would like to arrange for some small remembrance to be delivered to him at the office. Of course, I’ll need your help, indeed, your active participation for it to be successful.”

“Really.” She has an uncanny knack of expanding the word by a couple of supercilious syllables. “What did you have in mind?”

“Nothing much, really. You know how fond he is of Sacher Torte.” She could know nothing of the kind because he isn’t, but sharing a supposed bit of inside information might enlist her more firmly in my plan.

“Of course.” Oh, Wanderley, you are mine.

“Well, I’ve ordered one to be appropriately inscribed, you know, Happy Birthday, Dear Alex, and delivered at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon. It will come complete with candles and a card from me. All you have to do is light the candles and carry it in to him at an opportune moment. Perhaps when he takes his late afternoon coffee.”

“Mrs. Hemming, how sweetly thoughtful of you. I’ll be glad to serve as your emissary.”

I’ll just bet you will, you little twit.

“And I’m sure Mr. Hemming will enjoy his birthday cake.”

Was there a hint of condescension in that so refined voice?

“Thank you, my dear. I hope you both get a big bang out of it.”

Volunteer work has its rewards and they are not all in heaven. The unwed mothers are. by and large, a scruffy lot. Some of them are downright silly; others are earnest and highly principled. Yet others are radical young women with connections of an explosive sort.

It was through one of these that I acquired ten very innocent-looking birthday candles, one for each decade up to 40 and one for the supplier, since the candles would be used to attack a highly visible symbol of Amerikan kapitalism. It cost me three of my Tiffany Christmas presents. Cheap at the price.

Tomorrow evening, after I officiate at the opening of the Art Show, extolling the courage and fortitude of the unwed mothers, I shall hurry to my lovely suburban home, alone as usual, pour myself a solitary glass of champagne, and celebrate all birthdays, past, present, and future. I shall watch the television news. With any luck at all, the FALN will leap in to take credit for my simple celebration.

Happy birthday, darling.